Memphis_Bill

The problem with statements like this is they're subjective. For instance, many people love VEATs or Illusion controllers. I can't stand them. Am I right, or are they?

/EA was my first Brute, and first villainside 50. For me, it was fun to play. (Then again, getting mistaken for a Stalker was amusing to me, as well - as was pre-I13 PVP and watching people trying to TP Foe me over and over.) It was also pre-IOs.

I still take the character out and run around with it a bit. Strongest thing out there? Nah. Do I care? Nope. I'm not out to compare spreadsheets with people.

Yes, yes I did. I have no idea why I typed Croatoa there.

I'll agree with "check the wiki." Some of the abbreviations are going to depend on context, though. ("DP," for instance, could be Dual Pistols - Corruptor, Defender, and Blaster sets - or Dull Pain, a power in some melee armor sets.)

I'm sure someone's probably put up a list somewhere. Quick rundown of a few that come to mind:

ENHANCEMENTS:
TO - Training origin. Usable by anyone.
DO - Dual Origin - Twice as strong as Training Origin. Usable by two indicated origins.
SO - Single Origin - Twice as strong as DOs. Usable only by the listed origin.
IO - Invention origin - Usable by anyone, must be crafted, does not expire.
(S)HO - (Synthetic) Hamidon origin. Special reward that enhances two or more aspects of a power at SO levels (IIRC.) Dropped as a reward in the Statesman/Lord Recluse task forces, or from fighting Hamidon.
Proc - A type of enhancement that has an alternate effect (for example, "Chance for Psi damage" - when using the power, you have some percent chance to add psionic damage to the attack. Globals - such as a Stealth IO, which adds a stealth component to a travel power, aren't typically "procs" but get lumped in here as well.)

Basics:
HP - Hit points
END - Endurance. Think "mana" from other games.
DPS - Damage per Second
DPE - Damage per unit of Endurance used
DPA - Damage per Activation (of power)
SF - Strike force. A set of missions from special contacts similar to a story arc, but during which you cannot add people to the team or see other contacts.
TF - Task force. Heroside strike force.
PVP - Player vs Player.
PVE - Player vs Environment (most zones in the game.)
LRSF - Lord Recluse Strike Force. High end strike force, villainside.
STF - Statesmen Task Force.
LGTF - Lady Grey Task Force. Higher end task force, co-op, in the Rikti War Zone (RWZ)
ITF - Imperious Task Force. Located in Croatoa.
(Most others are referred to as their name - Posi/Positron, for instance.)
AE - Architect Entertainment - place to write or play player-written arcs and earn tickets you turn in for various rewards.
COx - City of x - overall reference to the game and expansions
COH - city of heroes
COV - City of villains
GR - Going Rogue.


Market:
CH - Consignment house. Generic name for both sides.
WW - Wentworths. (Hero side.)
BM - Black Market. (Villain side.)

Powersets and powers:

Most are going to be fairly obvious. Go, once more, to the WIki page dealing with Archetypes when you're reading about, say, Scrappers, and just look over the powersets. Note there are some that kind of overlap - EM, for instance, could be Energy Melee or Electrical Melee, but you'll get what they're asking by context many times. (Some will change it to, say, ElM, Elec, or something similar to avoid this.) Primary and secondary will be listed as (for instance) Fire/SS or FA/SS for a fire aura/Superstrength tank.

A few specifics -
AOE - Area of Effect - power that affects the relevant target type in a given area
PBAOE - Player based AOE. Targeted around the player.
AS - Assassin's Strike. The actual power has a different name in most Stalker primaries, but they're generally referred to this way.

Zones:
Again, one you'll have to get used to by context. Most aren't bad, but (for instance) if someone's talking about SC heroside, it could be Steel Canyon, Skyway City, or Siren's Call (a PVP zone.)

Other things:
GM - Giant monster (tougher enemy type)
AV - Archvillain. Tougher enemy type.
INF - Influence/Infamy. Money.
GDN - Global Defense Nerf - an overall power adjustment back in issue... well, way back.
ED - Enhancement Diversification - Change to enhancements where they lose effectiveness after a certain point. (Before ED, you could - for instance - slot one Accuracy/5 Damage SOs in a power for 166.5% damage. Now, at three SOs, you start getting the value reduced. The fourth is reduced further, etc. See the wiki again.)


... trying to think of any others unique to us that might throw you.

Ahh. That - Still not quite so bad, but a bit more of a pain, I agree.

Any damage should - including brawl. It's gotten to the point, for me, where for *some* sort of interesting challenge, I try to keep zero from escaping. (Even did so successfully - without going to -1 "wimp out mode" - a few times.)

"Keep Lady Grey" alive is actually (somewhat) easy - if you're solo or small team. Keep something around her alive. Clear out the rest of the map. Finish with her spawn, wait for her to blab a bit, and walk her to the chest. Large team, things tend to spawn too closely. Just make sure she's not in "rescue aggro" range when her spawn is finished off, so she stays in "captured" mode.

Yes, discovered that one by accident - one of her spawn ran off, IIRC, and we finished it off with another spawn - then decided to just clear a path and come back.

Edit:
... the fir Bolg mission isn't that tough. And it's 30. It's far from a guaranteed failure. Again, though, easier when solo or small team - a team of 8 can be problematic. (Though I'm sure it'll be a cakewalk when we have a team of MMs after GR.)

The mission in the OP, however, *is* flawed - aggro-happy low-HP mobs I'd much rather take out. I've saved them without a heal, but it's probably 50/50 for me between "Success" and "Fast failure."

This. And getting your buffs/debuffs earlier (primary vs secondary.)

For instance, my Sonic/Sonic Defender gets Clarity late enough at 26. My /Sonic Controller? 35. Or, Empathy. Recovery aura? 18 vs 28, Fort at 12 vs 20. Clear Mind at 8 (before Scrappers and most if not all Tank sets get their mez protection - 10 to 16) as opposed to 16. It's part of what is meant by a Controller being "slower to mature" at times.

Then there's the times you're running into mez resistant enemies - but a Defender's secondary is still going to be debuffing them.

But, for me at least, it's because "That's what I wanted this character to be."

(Edit: Disclaimer, the characters I have most of at 50? Both Defenders and Controllers. I like them both.)

Jerk.

Need to rename them Advanced Origin... "A-O. Aaa-o, daylight come and I wan' go home..."

Eh.

When I made up my pseudo-warshade, I ran with a Grav/Kin controller.

Grav for the slows, direct damage (Propel, though it's so slow I tend to use vet attacks for direct attacks,) the obvious hold and immob, and built in TP (wormhole - I said it wasn't exact,) Kinetics for the drains, more slows, built in travel (IR = NebForm, kind of, but without stealth) and the like. Plus, of course, in singy you have a pet.

It's far from exact. But it worked for what I wanted. (And that character's... hmm. 44 now.) I do, however, have a "concept" and a "non-concept" build for them. Concept = solo, non-concept includes things like ID, SB and the like.

Basically, if you want a non-warshade Warshade, decide what about Warshades "defines" it to you and find a way to fit it to that.

You mentioned being at the Paragon Wiki. The enhancements will tell you what type of enhancement they are, but if you look at this page, you can see what type of enhancement set it is. (Also, hovering over the power in the enhancement screen, it'll tell you what it can take - for instance, an elec blaster's blasts will show ranged damage and endmod. (edit: among others, but most of the blasts will have at least those two categories.))

Edit2: Look below. This is the info from hovering over the recipe (the regular IO should do the same - this is from a Kismet 6% acc global recipe - which I forgot I had. >.> ) The circled section is the type of power it goes in. Your Essence will say "Holds" there.

They must be slotted in the correct type of power. Essence of Curare is a Hold set, IIRC. Unless you're slotting it in a hold, it won't work. You can't just go by what it enhances (acc/rech.)

Necessary watching before traveling to the exotic land of Canada.

OK. Thematically, the stalker's an invisible assassin. Sneaks up, gets a good, solid kill, breaks away and does it again. (Note, my stalkers can scrap as well, but still.)

We add a decoy. For this invisible, generally undetectable AT.

So, we're dropping another... invisible, undetectable something? You could always just pretend you did. >.>

OK, joking aside, stalkers *have* gotten several buffs. The chance for an AOE Fear on a successful AS. Not dropping out of Hide if an AS misses. Increased chances for crits while teamed. (And out of the box, IIRC, they get increased crit chances on a held target - team up with a dom!)

What issues are you having? What set are you playing? And against what? Some enemies ignore stealth all together - pop some purples and hit them first (I liked drive-by Eagles Claws on Rikti Drones, for instance.)

Have you visited the Stalker forums for assistance with whatever issues you're having?

Yep. First 50 redside was an Energy/Energy brute. Which was actually fun to run around PVP zones as, before all the changes - getting cussed out as that "damn Stalker" and watching people try to teleport me (when that protection was in) over and over and over again.
One Soldier, one Widow. Though I can see myself getting that Crab up to 50 (high 20s right now.) I just didn't have fun with them - but again, that may be a holdover from being as disappointed in their storyline as I was. I'm ignoring the VEAT arcs on the Crab, and it also has zero need for stealth (which IMHO isn't strong enough in VEATs, given the stalker-ish crits there.)

These.

If you have to deal with a hostage, turn it off. Other than that, go nuts. (And as for #3, I found that just funny the last time someone whined about that. "Shadow fall prevents heavies!" "No, it doesn't," (provided dev info.) "They're wrong. We won't get any heavies because of him!"

And when the heavies came up?

"Hey, guess what I'm still running."