PuceNonagon

Rarely do I find the need for more than one autoed power. The Practiced Brawler/Hasten example is probably the most common one.

How about a Unique IO that sets the power to auto without it taking your yellow ring? Put a fourth slot in Hasten and never worry about it again.

I pretty much agree with everything said. I rarely slot IOs before level 47, only because I prefer the post-50 game and I usually rush to get guys leveled so I can get to the end game that I enjoy. Plus, SOs are very cheap. It's cheaper to get buy SOs at the market and stores and use drops than it is to make and create IOs.

The one exception is that I have a ton of low level Super-IOs and Uniques (Miracles, Numinas, LotGs, Celeritys etc.) that I slot as soon as I can in lowbies. When they get to 47, I respec out of them to give them to my next lowbie. When a level 30 with stale SOs has a Numina and a Miracle in Health, it keeps him from panting his way to 32 for new SOs.

IOs are great.

Justice is pretty diverse and very accepting of off-brand powersets and unusual playstyles.

I don't have any completely and totally min/maxed toons, but I have a main with two builds that together cost well over 500 million. That's not TOO extravagant, but he can hang in there on just about any team. My other 50s are IOsetted out and have tons of bonuses, but I wouldn't call them min/maxed.

Justice is the best.

I'm within a few days of 60 months...

I've done almost everything. But what I haven't done...

-I haven't finished the Kheldian arcs. These may be the only hero-side thing I haven't done.
-I haven't completed a ski run for a badge.
-I haven't done many of the villain arcs.
-I haven't done any villain SFs.
-I haven't defeated many of the villain GMs.

I have two 50 blasters and I use the snipe on both, a AR/Dev and a Nrg/Nrg. When I work on my 32 Ice/Ice, I keep getting disappointed that there isn't a snipe on the horizon.

When my toons were young, sniping low-level bosses in hazard zones and staying out of their range was SO much fun and a great way to level up. I think I got both my Outcast and Troll badges in the Hollows doing it one at a time, sniping purples. Great fun, back in the day.

The Nrg/Nrg uses his all the time. He's my ITF toon. I leave him in Cimerora and use him when the opportunity strikes. He can solo the first mission by using Aim>BuildUp>Snipe and just staying out of melee range.

I love snipe as it is.

I agree with Novella. In my experience, PBs are most effective when used as Human-Form only. They are like uber-blasters, with slightly less overall damage, but with many many more options. Warshades handle the tri-form thing a lot better. I had my PB go the tri-form route and was really hating it, and so I switched to just human and dwarf and that was a lot better, and then I dropped dwarf and now he really hums.

Photon Seekers rock.

I can't eat the waffle part of the bacon-waffle concoction but the menu looks diverse enough that I should be -tentatively- able to join you, assuming I can make it out on Friday to register.

That said, I asked a pal of mine who lives near there and she confirms that it is a great place for breakfast. However, on Saturday morning, it's easily an hour wait. Our large group may have to make a very early arrival in order for it to work out.

After playing since just a bit after launch, I just started doing a little PvP. I have had a lot of fun in Recluse's Victory. And the people there were not bad at all, and pretty helpful. I still enjoy PvE more, but PvP is a fun diversion. I'm still learning the ropes, like when it's okay to get a heavy and when it's not and how to tell when two people are dueling and I shouldn't get involved and how to get on teams.

I sure would like to get a group to take out the AVs there, just to do it. Looks like fun. Come to think of it... maybe I should set something up.

If you see Nakoa jumping around in RV, send me an invite.

I got a 48 MA/WP scrapper to 50.
I got a 47 Rad/Elec defender to 50.
I got a 24 Fire/Kin troller to 37 and his level pacted...
24 Fire/Shield scrapper to 37.

I also wasted an incredible amount of time on three ITFs with people who didn't have a clue. I'm one of those players that does an ITF almost every day, and while I don't necessarily only go on speed runs, three hours is too long to spend on it, unless we are doing a clear-all for the xp. Only one of the ITF attempts actually got completed, and in that one we had a ranged attacker that couldn't pull without dying immediately. If it wasn't a MoSTF (laughable because we had about 30 deaths) run I could have turned on my Jetpack and Blackwand and done it myself, but it took her (and I'm not exaggerating here) about 15 minutes each just to pull Rommy and Requiem. She died several times. At least this team got going and things worked out, but the other two didn't even get that far.

I like 2xp, but the amount of time wasting is extreme if you decide to venture out of your farm.

I've recently been on a blaster kick myself, even though I usually play tanks. I have two 50 blasters, a AR.Dev that I rarely play anymore and a Nrg.Nrg that I just got souped up with IO sets and customized blasts and he is SO MUCH FUN to play. I also have a 32 Ice.Ice blaster, but I only play him with his partner, another Ice.Ice to stack the slows. I have a few lower ones, a 23 Fire.Ice among them.

I also have a Mental.Mind blaster at 42, but I haven't played him once. I've been PLing him forever, because I don't really enjoy playing low-level blasters, but at high levels, they can be a lot of fun.

Blasters can be maddening to level up because they die so easily. When you go through a rough patch in their development, it can be murder, slow painful agonizing murder. You wear out a path between your mission and the hospital. When a wakie drops to you, you think "Cool, I'm going to need that." But, once they hit their stride, it's very fun. Things die very quickly. You attack AVs and you can see their health go down markedly after you pop a red or two, and hit Aim>BuildUp>Snipe. When you get on teams with tanks that can effectively hold the agro and you can blast with abandon, that is perhaps the most uber any toon feels at any time in the game. It is, quite literally, a blast. Enjoy.

If you are going to be tough as you need to be to anchor most TFs, here's what you need:

1) Tough. Slot it.
2) Weave. Slot it.
3) Winter's Gift 20% Slow Resistance. Not necessary but very handy.
4) IO sets. Slot for +recharge, defense and resistances.
5) LotG +rech in Combat Jumping and Weave
6) Hasten

Fire tankers are fun, but they aren't good at everything. In order to be able to tank a serious TF, you have to take steps.

I spent most of my time on Justice and it seems like the community is getting LARGER there. We have hami raids a few times a week and the Hive fills up before the start time, oftentimes. I get tons of offers for teams and there is always a TF forming.

I have noticed that Virtue and Freedom are rarely at two dots anymore. I'm not sure what that means, but my gaming experience is as robust as ever.

Priority #1: A buddy of mine and I have a pair of level-pacted ice.ice blasters that we've got to 32. Whenever he's on, we'll be playing them. All that stacked slow is AMAZING and so much full to play. We'll join some TFs and tool around.

Priority #2: I have a lowbie (23ish) fire.kin on Justice that I may PL up so I can use him on high level TFs. His name is Doctor Snakeskin and I'm loving his concept. He's also level-pacted to a shield scrapper that I can't seem to get into playing at the low levels. Maybe he'll be more fun higher up.

Priority #3 I have a 46 rad.elec defender whose xp I froze so I could use her as a bridge. Now, with SSK, I'm going to try and get her to 50. She's great fun and I can't wait to add her to my cadre of active 50s. It'll be easy to find her good teams because of her popular powerset, so I'll likely run TFs with her.

I believe the game STARTS at 50. IO sets and all the good late game content and the fact that the best TFs are all late-game lead me to desire less and less to start from scratch. It's like there are two games:

Game 1: Leveling Up. You play from level to level, getting new powers and slotting standard IOs and SOs as you go along. Once you get to 50 and do the content there, well, you're done. The market is just a handy place to sell off any rare stuff you get.

Game 2: Crafting the Ultimate Hero/Villian. Anything before 50 is incidental. Once you get to 50, you spend all your time earning influence so you can get your perfect sets. You play the market to help with this. You hoard merits. You farm.

They are both a grind, I suppose, but at what level you are grinding is the main difference. I used to play Game 1... now I play Game 2. Sadly, one of my best buddies in real life who I play with is still playing Game 1. He gets characters to 50 and doesn't play them much after, except to remake their costumes, which he is extremely good at. He cares about the grind up to 50 considerably more than I do. It's a perfectly valid way to play, but we are often on different pages, and so it usually means that I have to play some lowbie that I find somewhat boring. I took him on his first ITF the other day and he was impressed. Hopefully, he can appreciate Game 2 and we can kick some butt together more often.

From my experience, four rad defenders with stacked leadership is the best you can get as fast as efficient, quick moving through the game. Nothing can stop them. No GM. No AV. No mob. For a short while I was on a team of 7 rad defenders and a scrapper. We did Lusca so fast it was silly. Impossibly good. And this was before IOs.

Honestly, though, that was just a hijink. If you want different ATs then I would probably go with the tried and true stand-bys:

Tanker: stone/ss or fire, can tank anything, will be standing all day even in an emergency
Defender: rad/sonic, need those rad buffs for AVs, plus the sonic debuff is handy
Controller: fire/kin, this team will need the damage and the kin is necessary with the stoner
Blaster: fire/fire, all damage, good AoE, this team's real killer

I took out the Ouroboros connections because that's always the easiest way. If you play lots of lowbies, you want to reconsider...

-Perez Park
-Crey's Folly
-Croatoa (University)
-Striga
-Dark Astoria
-Faultline
-King's Row
-Eden (only if you do Hamis)

Nakoa, my main tank, has the best farming tank build I've seen. He's fire/stone/fire. It's very end heavy, but once slotted with IO sets to mitigate it, he can keep up with a fire/kin troller on a good run. The reason stone is a better secondary than, say, fire is because of -essentially- Seismic Smash. It's huge single target damage, bigger than anything else a tanker can get.

Jump into the mob with Blazing Aura on. Hit Tremor and knock it all down, hit Burn while they are still getting up, hit Fireball while they are starting to scatter. Find the boss or lt. Use Seismic Smash and take him out. By the time you take the boss, everything else is dead from AoE and splash.

Honestly, the build is useless before IO sets, and good ones. If you are just using standard IOs or SOs, then fire/fire/fire is probably the best. I've IOed for damage, accuracy, and recovery and he can keep it up all day with an occasional hit of Consume.

I'm 41. All day I feel old. (I'm a high school teacher.) I come home and play CoH and I don't, because most of the people I play with are my age or older.