Patteroast

I noticed a zone that isn't listed as either eligible or ineligible... but I can't say I'm surprised that even the devs forgot about the Tunnels of the Trolls.

I don't like Ventrilo specifically, but I do voice chat with friends over Skype while playing, whenever I can. But only with friends. It can be awkward otherwise... and no matter if you know the people or not, eight people talking at once doesn't end up communicating much. But a couple close friends on a small team? I've had a LOT of great times that way.

As for immersion, I can understand if other people find this a problem, but it's not really a concern for me, personally. (When not voice chatting, I play with unrelated out-of-game music playing.) Just a matter of preference though.

It is really important if you're voice chatting to not ignore non-voice teammates. Team chat silence is definitely a bad thing.

For my first SoA, I went with a traditional Operative name... my Night Widow, Operative Greyling. I made him in beta when the VEATs were testing, remade him first thing when the issue went live, and he's currently my most recent level 50.

My other Arachnos characters include my Bane Spider, Fratricidal (he killed his entire family because they overshadowed him in everything he did... he's probably my most evil character...); my future Fortunata, Undersecretary Liv (she's an official in the Rogue Isles Department of Education... she hopes to be an arbiter someday. Think evil librarian.); and my future Crab Spider, Xeryck (he's desert themed, and I always liked the word 'xeric' which describes dry climates).

Then again, Undersecretary Liv and Xeryck's names were quite largely influenced by the fact that right before I made them, someone pointed out to me I had characters whose names started with every letter of the alphabet except J, U, and X. The J ended up being a brute of mine named Juris Malus. (He's an evil lawyer.)

Pretty much since I started playing back in Issue 2, I've almost always played with in-game music and sound effects at zero, and whatever music I feel like listening to playing instead. Most of the sound effects in the game that I am familiar with, I only know because I could hear them in the background when voice chatting with teammates.

I don't have a battle playlist or anything. Just whatever music I feel like playing. Pretty much my whole music library at different points in time.

I know the way I play drives some people nuts, though. Some of my friends can't understand it. But it works for me!

I even got really good at searching visually for glowies, since I can never hear them.

I wouldn't have emptied a side based on markets, even more the merger was announced. I also wouldn't empty a side based on one being 'obviously better'... I like them both.

On a character by character basis, I'll decide whose backstory lines up with switching sides, and switch those characters. The only characters I'm even considering going against their backstories to switch are my main badge hunters, and I doubt they'd do more than just take a quick peek into the grey and then go back. (My main badge hunters just happen to be a very solid hero and a quite solid villain, so I wouldn't be likely to switch them otherwise.)

Also, I know people who much prefer redside and are probably more likely to take everyone to the Rogue Isles than to Paragon.

Am I the only one who just clicks their powers with their mouse to use them?

I just wanted to pop in and say, don't be afraid to check out villains too! It's a whole half of the game. I know a lot of people prefer one side or the other, but I absolutely recommend giving both sides a try to see what you like.

Again, welcome to the game!

I have lots of silly characters, but most of them have some tenuous connection with their name...

Examples:
Captain Kalamari (Warshade)
Rubber Chicken Man (He was irradiated and came to life)
Psychotic Steve (Psy/Mental Blaster)
Pinkbeard the Pirate (Ninjas/Pain MM... yeah. Ninjas. They're secretly robot ninjas.)
Really Angy Man (Fire/SS Tanker)
Fire Banana (Fire/Traps Corruptor)
Atomic Lizard-Donkey (No powerset combination could justify his existence.)
Elfis Lives (He's an undead Elf rock star.)
t3h Ub3rbl4st3r (My guess at the time at the weakest blaster combo I could find...)
His Noodly Appendage (Flying Spaghetti Monster-based Peacebringer)
Banana Slug Woman (Handlebar/Quandry Jalopyfish. Dispenses fragrant vowels!)
Intergalactic Potato (He's a... magical ice... potato.)

... yeah. I also have a lot of characters that are named after nonsense words that I made up. Such as: Explomadoza, Dr. Fejwol, Asoposl, Pungol, Llecarud...)

I don't have any problems finding teams on Infinity, either side... but it's my main server, and I have quite a few friends who play there a lot, plus I'm in a few Infinity-centric global channels.

I agree that Freedom and Virtue should have the highest redside populations... since they have the highest populations overall.

My Mercs MM is /Poison... my first villain to 50. The one especially nice bit of synergy the combo has is when fighting an AV or some seriously nasty enemies, giving my Commando Serum + Noxious Gas and sending him into melee... debuffing the everloving crap out of whatever he's next to, with Serum keeping him alive and preventing him from being knocked back.

No.

I can't really talk about any numerical specifics as I'm not big on minmaxing builds (all my non-50s and some of my less-played 50s still have SO's ), but I can say that I've played an Earth/Sonic Controller to 50 and personally enjoyed the combo. I spent almost all of my time on a set team with a Tanker and a Blaster, so I can't really say much for soloing, other than a couple random times to see how it'd work... it seemed okay, with my buffed up Animated Stone taking point a lot, but it wasn't set to any crazy difficulty.

I felt my character kept my team very well stabilized, helping play up strengths and reduce weaknesses with the Resistance buffs and both Resistance and Defense debuffs.

Northwest corner of Monster Island, if I remember correctly. There's a ball floating nearby.

My villains range from not evil at all to pretty damn evil.

On the 'not evil' side I have a completely neutral observer who was falsely accused of a crime in Paragon and went with Arachnos to the Rogue Isles just to see what might happen there.

Another character is a former hero who felt ignored and unappreciated and was injured by a careless hero who thought they could do the job better than he could. In despair and anger, he used his invisibility powers to steal money from a bank. He got caught and was sent to prison, ended up in the Rogue Isles. He would never kill an innocent person, but he's disillusioned enough at this point that he'll steal and intimidate for his owl survival. When GR comes out he's going to redeem himself and become a hero again.

On the 'pretty damn evil' side... I have an Arachnos Soldier who has absolutely no loyalty to anyone. He was the smallest and weakest of eleven children, never special, and anything he could do his siblings could do better. So he murdered them all so he could be the best. I'm still on the fence about whether he killed his parents or if he's keeping them somewhere so he can occasionally ask them who their best son is...

I have some other villains who would kill anyone for more power, but he's the only one who had such a specific example...

... and on the other hand, I have some characters who make no sense at all. My first level 50 villain is Professor Orange, a chemist who discovered several potent poisons, a way to chemically dull free will, and then something that made him go completely insane and decide everything in the world needed to be colored orange. I imagine the crime he most often commits is vandalism, sending his minions to go paint random cars, buildings, people, dogs, etc.

I've got 101 characters spread over every server, 13 level 50s (mostly on my main server), been playing since I2, all on one account. I've got at least 8 of every non-epic AT. I have to chime in with other who say... embrace altitis! It's fun!

My best advice for not feeling so much pressure is to expand onto new servers. I've got three servers with more character than slots without paying for extra and my main will definitely be filled even with paid slots shortly after GR comes out.

I also pretty much never permanently delete characters, but I'm weird like that. I keep all sorts of charts and lists to remember what level everyone's at and who hasn't gotten leveled up in the longest.

As for getting 50s, I wouldn't worry too much about that. It's getting to the point for me that I feel sad when I get another 50, because the journey's over for that character.

Just thought I'd mention that my Energy Melee Stalker is my absolute favorite villain to play. I got into him before the nerf (and discovering pre-nerf Energy Transfer helped me realize that I didn't hate Stalkers), but even after, I still love to play him. Hell, from the moment I got Energy Transfer, my first thought was, "Oh man, this is so overpowered, it's definitely getting nerfed someday."

Then again, I tend to either solo or play small teams. And I don't mind longer animations. But I just thought I should put my voice in... some people still enjoy EM and find it fun to play. Not saying other people are wrong or anything... just saying I like it. And it's definitely not unplayable.

I seem to care less about longer animations than most people I know, but I find Energy Transfer and Total Focus to be must-haves. The two solid heavy-hitters. Then again, I'm also not known to pare down my attack chains to just what's necessary, so I'm probably not someone to listen to about this...

In my experience (highest Warshade 50, highest Peacebringer currently 22), Peacebringers seem to be easier to manage and more fun at low levels. They seem to be quite blastery.

I've had some trials over time with my 50 Warshade, so that might color my opinion that they're especially difficult to play well... I don't seem to have done as well as others in this thread, at least. Still, it's a unique and very interesting AT... worth trying just to see stacked Mires, Stygian Circle, and the glory of Eclipse.

I just wanted to poke my head in and say that if you don't feel too attached to him, another good opener is to throw Jack in the middle of the group. Should distract them long enough to get in a pretty safe Glacier, or at least Ice Slick.

I've got a level 50 Ice/Ice and a Mind/Psi in the upper 20s... I'd say I probably enjoy my Mind Dom more, nowadays.

With Ice, it takes quite a bit of work to get a lot of effect out of stacked slows in my experience... and I think the confuse power (Arctic Air) is not worth taking, myself. Jack Frost is very helpful, though! Obviously, I don't hate this combo, I did get it to 50, I just didn't find it easy.

Mind opened me up to the awesomeness of sleeps. When solo or on a small team (especially with Stalkers!), sleep is amazing. The variety of mezzes in sleep makes me forget about not having a pet. I'm not sure what kind of synergy you'd get with Mind/Ice, but I can definitely give Mind a hearty recommendation.

All I can say is that my Ice Dom respecced out of Arctic Air after almost never seeing it confuse anything, even with IOs in it, and my Plants Dom fell in love with Seeds of Confusion from the moment they got it, no enhancements or anything.

Well, the most obvious is Empathy.

Dark and Kinetics are also rather adept at healing, and Radiation and Storm both can heal as well.

However, if you ask around I think you'll find that most people agree that a Defender's buffs and debuffs are even more important. Who needs healing when your team is shielded up, or the enemies are severely weakened?

Even if you are looking strongly for heals, you can't reasonably play without getting a good use out of your buffs and debuffs. Even Empathy, the first set people think of when people call out for 'teh healz0r', I'd say its strongest point is its excellent buffs, especially endurance recovery.

As for secondaries... take what you want to do some damage with. On top of that, depending on the secondary effects, you can enhance them to add even more debuffing.

I just wanted to say that I think Energy Melee's still a fun set... even after its big nerf, Energy Transfer's a really good power.