RemusShepherd

I often take the ST immob on a controller because it does fair damage, and controllers need damage if you're going to solo with them. It's also useful against bosses -- most of the ST immobs are magnitude 4 (including Elec control's), which means they stop bosses and set containment in a single hit.

On a dominator...meh. A dominator has better ways to deal damage. But if your powerset has poor AE controls, it might better to skip the AE immob to prevent yourself from grabbing too much aggro in teams.

I don't have a good feel for Elec control's AE potential, yet. I think that if you're in a team, Static Field is going to be mostly wasted by your teammate's attacks, and you have very little other AE mitigation. (I don't count, or like, Jolting Chain.) So if you're going to team as a dom then the ST immob might be better. If you're going to solo the AE immob is probably best.

Using *only* powers that already exist as invention recipes, and are thus available to everyone:

Street Weapons pool
1. Baseball bat (melee attack)
2. Envenomed Dagger (single target debuf)
3. Revolver (ranged attack)
4. Hand Grenades (targeted AoE attack)

Gadgets pool
1. Smoke Flash (targeted AoE debuff)
2. Power Analyzer (special; gives info on enemies)
3. Jet Pack (movement power)
4. Backup Radio (short duration pet)

Scientist pool
1. Plasmatic Taser (weak ranged attack)
2. Recovery Serum (recovery buff)
3. Med Pack (self heal)
4. Kinetic Dampener (resistance shield)

It would probably take a day's work for one programmer to code all these together.

And that's without delving into all the temporary powers found in missions, or purchasable from vendors in PvP zones, or granted from expansion packs. There are tons of powers out there. Putting them into power pools and letting players customize their characters with them should be trivial.

I'm not offering suggestions for new power pools. Rather, I'm speculating that either i19 or i20 will contain new power pools, and I'd like to hear from others who may have evidence of it from the test server or from talking with the devs at conventions.

Why do I think there will be new power pools? Because Stamina is becoming an inherent. This frees up three slots in almost every build. Every character has 18 powers from their primary and secondary, and 19 power slots from level 1-38. When Stamina is inherent, a player will easily be able to take every power available in their archetype save one, plus a travel power and a prerequisite -- and for veterans with the City Traveller badge, they won't even need the prerequisite. This means that cookie cutter builds will be rampant, with the only differences being how slots are assigned. (More on that later.)

Now, there are existing power pools to flesh out our characters. But there will still be standardized builds, because there is not enough variety in power pools. if you subtract the Fitness pool (now inherent) and assume a character will only have one travel pool, there are only five power pools available. And one of those is Presence, which I have never seen anyone use in-game. Four power pools, three of which are primarily taken for defensive purposes (Fighting, Medicine, and Concealment) does not give players many options for rounding out their characters.

Want more evidence? Count up the enhancement slots you have available. The Fitness pool took two enhancement slots (assuming Health gets none but Stamina gets +2), but it also occupied three power slots. Powers from your primary or secondary will almost certainly require additional enhancement slots to be useful, and for most powers 'useful' is +3. (Accuracy + 3 damage, or endurace + 3 defense/resist.) You're gaining 2 enh slots but creating the need for 9 more -- a net loss of 7 slots. The only good way to make this up is to take more powers that do not need additional enhancement. Power pools, especially the prerequisites taken on the way to the better powers, are a good way to eat up power slots without losing enhancement slots.

Even more evidence? Look at the proliferation of temporary powers with i18 and i19. There are now guns, hammers, grenades, resuscitation and recovery devices, shields, stealth powers, and jetpacks that can all be assembled from recipes. You could easily put together several new power pools using only the existing recipes: A 'Weapons' pool with baseball bat, revolver, and grenades; a new 'Gadget' travel pool with a grenade, a shield, and a jetpack; and a 'Chemistry' pool with recovery and resuscitation and maybe a defense buff on loan from the Secondary Mutation power. It has never been easier to envision new power pools that contain powers already existing in the game. Even though these temporary powers are available by building recipes, players will choose them as power pools both to get permanent access to the powers and to flesh out their characters.

It seems obvious to me that when Stamina becomes inherent, new power pools must be on the way. But I've heard no rumors nor official announcements about it. Does anyone know anything, or has anyone heard anything, that I might have missed?

Everyone likes a different part of the Discworld. I love anything with Rincewind in it, but I don't like the Guards stories. It's probably best for new readers to sample a few different books in the series before committing themselves to any of the character arcs.

Hated this show for two reasons.

One, every character looked the same. They're all early thirty-somethings with great skin and hair. Even the president and all his advisors. They couldn't cast a single believably middle-aged person? It's like West Wing 90210.

But second and worse, they cut the narrative back and forth in time every two minutes. If I glanced away from the TV and back again, I didn't know if the story was in the past or the present. It's a horrible directing choice and the scriptwriter should be slapped.

I suspect that the narrative bouncing back and forth will become a signature of the series, and for that reason the secret will be all about time travel. I won't be watching it again to find out, though.

For thematic reasons, I wanted to bring an Ice Control/Cold Domination controller through Praetoria. So far he's okay, but I sense a lot of potential.

Any tips for the combination of Ice/Cold?

I worry that it might have *too much* recharge debuff. With Shiver, Arctic Air, Infrigidate and Snow Storm, if I understand it correctly any two of those will floor an even con's recharge to the lower cap...and that's before using Benumb. Maybe I can get away with only two of those powers, and since I'm forced to take Infrigidate the other choice seems to be Arctic Air.

Other than that, it seems like a fairly typical, if low-damage, controller build. I was wondering if anyone had experience with the combination to lend me.

If you want to use your iPod touch to take notes, get the Shapewriter app. It's the best note taking app out there, and the free version is probably all you need.

My favorite weather app is the one from Weather Underground. It has several features, like hourly projections, the other weather apps don't have.

As for book readers, I prefer Stanza, but I haven't done a thorough analysis of all of them. I'm not happy with reading on the Ipod Touch, the screen's too small. The iPad is better for that.

I have an Ice tank that has stalled in the mid 40s. I haven't had a chance to get him to 50 yet.

If you want to know the problem with Ice tanks, take one into the Imperious Task Force. Every single enemy there has a defense debuff. The Cimerorans will hack you to pieces in no time, even if you have capped defenses, unless you have team support to keep you alive.

Defense debuffs have been made very frequent in this game, possibly as a response to IO-ed out defenses. Every enemy with a gun, claw, blade or radioactive blood breaks defenses. This means the defense-only sets are beginning to suffer.

When fighting enemies that have few defense debuffs, Ice is a terrific set. It's combination of extreme slows, taunts, and saps create a tanking experience like nothing else. But it has a vulnerability that's too common right now. Still, it's viable with a good balanced team.

I do have to give the Black Panther respect for being one of the biggest playas in the Marvel U. T'challa not only bagged Storm, he nailed Susan Richards when she decided to cheat on Mr. F. You gotta be a man without fear to do that.

I cut my teeth on 2nd edition (actually on the blue box Basic D&D), and I hate 4ed. I like to roleplay, and 4ed feels more like playing a computer game without the graphics. It doesn't even have a proper alignment system.

I heard at my local game store that there will be an opening game day for Gamma World. I may sit in and see how it runs.