Master-Blade

ParagonWiki: Exemplar

This means:
You will lose whatever powers you picked 5 levels above the combat level.
You will lose whatever set bonuses are granted by enhancements higher than 3 levels.
Your enhancements themselves will still work, but possibly slightly less effective: ParagonWiki: Exemplar Effects on Enhancements (but performing a respec wont change that)

If that still doesn't answer your question, I hope the two links I provided will.
I'd say you don't need to respec unless you fouled up a previous respec (or during leveling) by picking a handful of "junk" powers before you chose "useful" ones. The easiest thing to do is just EX down and see what powers you still have available to you and make a decision from there

To add more about the 3rd build:
The reason that losing the Incarnate slot while EX'ing prompted the need for some people to have an extra build is basically for people who use the Incarnate enhancements to Compliment their build, rather than Supplement it. For example, some players will use Cardiac as their only End Reduction and use the actual enhancement slot on the power for another aspect of the power instead (or free up the slot to be used on another power entirely). This can give you the most out of the slot (rather than selecting an aspect that is already slotted at ED-cap), but it would also cause the Endurance consumption to be really horrible while EX'd, so it'd be useful to have the extra build that still have End Reduction in those powers.

In short, if you didn't build the character while taking your Incarnate bonus into account, then you probably don't need to respec or use a separate build for EX'ing either.

Then again, there has been no proof that it doesn't either. One way or the other, there is no reason to be so insistent about the way people run their teams.

To offer more to the theory:
Even if the Pylon being up or down doesn't do anything specific mechanically or number-wise to sway an advantage, it doesn't mean the act of taken them down or leaving them up doesn't have an impact. As strategy changes, the behavior of players does too, and then the AI of foes can react differently.

Nobody was saying that Hami would never attack anybody while a pylon is still up. I think what they were saying was there seems to be less of a chance of it. For all we know, Hami's untouchable status alone could make the AI decide that some players are not a threat and decide not to attack them. With the pylons down, Hami's not untouchable anymore, meaning that any powers we do use can affect it, and thus possibly affect the AI... which might be the difference of being attacked or not that some players are reporting.

Like we've all said, if somebody gets too close or uses a power in range, Hami might still strike, Pylons or no Pylons. The question is.. where does somebody draw the line to make a comparison? Is it threat rating? Is it an agro distance? Is it the number of players within a certain range? Is it based on if a player in range killed any of the Rikti or Mitos recently? Nobody can say for sure. There are too many factors involved.

Either way, if you got attacked by Hami, you probably did something to cause it, even if it was accidental. That type of behavior can be avoided regardless if the Pylons are up or down. It's not much to stand on to say something like "Leaving a Pylon up doesn't help because we left one standing and Hami still killed me". Like you said, correlation does not equal causation. The Pylons being up or down wont have anything to do with it in certain circumstances anyway.

Even if a Dev came in here and said "it's not designed to make any difference" still doesn't mean it has no effect. We all know the AI does funny things that even the Devs can't explain sometimes. This might be one of them... and even if it isn't, it's still no reason for people to get bent out of shape about. lol

It'd very possible you just kept trying to Upgrade your account, which would have required a code each time you tried. It's an honest mistake. As I mentioned before, there were other links that would have allowed you to add subscription time without even giving you an option to add any code.

Either way, there is nothing wrong with having a little extra time for the effort. Welcome back again, and I hope you don't run into the same issue if/when you have to reinstate an account in the future.

Or, an educated player would just admit that any possible subtle differences may be negligible based on several other factors. The uneducated players simply follow what they hear without knowing or caring why, and then somehow think it's mandatory, which causes problems on teams later on.

The bottom line is that we all know that there are several methods that work just fine, so there is no point arguing with a team leader about which way they feel comfortable running their own TF. It just causes unnecessary drama and wastes time.

If somebody has had better luck using a specific method over another, just let them use that method. It's not big deal. lol

I know what the referral program is. I even explained it above, and corrected your original post about how many days of time it gives. All we're saying is that it isn't mandatory to be referred. You can add your new subscription at any time. If you just wanted to get some extra free time for coming back, don't be ashamed to say so. We understand, and we would have helped anyway.

lol man. You are crazy!

For what it's worth, I've never heard of that either. Do you have a link to this policy anywhere or at least a screenshot or copy/paste of the message it gave you when you attempted reactivation?

I just logged into one of my secondary accounts that has been inactive for 90 days. Clicking on either "Subscribe to Game" or "Purchase Additional Time" both allow me to enter subscription and payment information without needing any referral codes.

I'm sorry you somehow ran into an issue, but welcome back!

Actually, the Invite-a-friend-back program is now 60 days of free time (30 days each), but I want to point out that it's not actually free for the recipient. You'll still have to pay for at least one month subscription before either of you will get any free time.

I'll probably run it a couple dozen times between March 15th and March 21st.

If we are not 50 by then, it'd be a nice opportunity to grab the extra XP bonus for those toons at the very least.

And don't forget that since we get XP while EX'd, we could always repeat a lower lvl SF that people like and still gain some progress. In fact, I wouldn't be against running a speed Silver Mantis next week for the Weekly Strike Target's XP bonus as well.

Anyway, it's something to think about. I'm always up for anything regardless.

If you want fact, then we can just point you back to the [Drain] power that is used between the Pylons and Hamidon:
That indicates that there is a Taunt effect, which would make it less likely for Hami to just shoot you out of the blue. With the Pylons up, you'd have to attack or taunt to grab Hami's attention, whereas he's likely to shoot a player if they come into a certain range with the Pylons down.

As mentioned, pulling the Rikti into the goo can cause agro on Hami, which can cause players to be caught in the AoE, but that's not strictly the fault of the Pylons being up or down, and it may or may not be a problem for some teams.

As for my personal experiences with it: I commonly play melee characters, and I usually run straight for the Yellows and take them out solo before the team even decides what their plan is going to be. If I'm on a ranged character, I'll wipe out the blues instead. Hami always leaves me alone. If you want to chalk that up to at least one pylon still being up, or just dumb luck.. you can decide.. but based on the facts and experiences, I'd say the pylons make at least some difference.

That doesn't mean it's necessary to use any single method, and people already have their own methods that they are used to, so it shouldn't matter whichever way a team leader wants to run the team. In either case, it shouldn't give people an excuse to be rude to each other just because they don't understand the way something works. There is too much of that in the game these days.

It also contradicts itself when it says says 12pm GMT, which indicates it would be morning (AM) in the States, not the pm it advertises for each area. That's not very clear.. is it? You can't have it both ways. It's obviously a typo, one way or the other.

THIS.

Clicking on the link:
Tuesday, February 22, 2011 at 4:00 AM San Francisco time

I hope that clears it up for you.

I agree.

From sjj's last post on the forum:
Well.. can't please everybody I guess. lol

Fighting harder/easier mobs is just going to change the base of 50% to sway the advantage in one way or the other. It has no impact on the clamp itself.

It doesn't matter that the clamp is applied twice. It only matters that the clamp is also the last thing that is applied. Sure, the AccMods may make the previously clamped value higher or lower, but that's why the clamp is applied yet again.. meaning the chance to hit is still never going to be higher than 95% or lower than 5%, regardless of who you are fighting.

This can be evidenced simply by adding the HitRolls channel to a chat tab and then taking your lvl 50 down to Atlas Park and attacking some lvl 1 foes. Your chance to hit wont exceed 95%, despite the very extreme level difference.

These two players were on the same team:

That's because they were on the same team.

From the other thread:

And yes.. the 45/50 line of badges does unlock the extra recipe slots. Just remember to craft both lvl 45 AND lvl 50 to earn each of the badges.

You still have not answered whether or not you verified that your e-mail address is correct on file. As mentioned, they sometimes make contact there instead of in-game. Maybe they issued a response e-mail explaining they are not responsible for the issue you are having, and/or they mis-interpreted your issue and escalated it to somebody else, not realizing that you were just sitting there waiting.

I do not recommend sending a second /petition. Instead, check your e-mail for a response, and then update the existing petition asking for more help. If there was no e-mail response either, then verify your e-mail address is correct on file and then consider sending a new /petition.

Not for nothing, but after the initial 2 hours, I would have just restarted the TF. With half the team gone, I certainly wouldn't have waited 12 hours. At this point, coming into the forums and ranting about it isn't really doing anybody a whole lot of good anyway, especially when you are seemingly ignoring everybody's responses.

It's not really a bug... it's just the way custom items are granted to your character.

Starting a respec temporarily removes all custom weapon options. It never assumes you are still going to have those powers until after the set is chosen (even if it's the Primary/Secondary set that doesn't change).
Once a the respec is completed, any weapon options you chose are added and any unlockable items in that category that you already qualify for are re-unlocked as well.

It doesn't mean that you just unlocked them, it just means you are granted access to them again.

The first time I ran into this was when I did a respec my Widow for the first time at lvl 24. It told me I unlocked some Claw options. I didn't really unlock anything, I simply chose some of the claw powers during my respec.

Another example: The Unveiler Badge unlocks a couple Nemesis gun options, but earning the badge on any character will not actually tell you that you unlocked them unless your character actually has a gun powerset. If you later added a set that contains a customizable gun (Munitions Mastery power pool), it will finally unlock those pieces at that point. If you respec out of the set, the options will be removed. If you respec back into it again later, they will be re-added and the text will be displayed saying they are unlocked (again).