Rodion

I got Chilling Embrace and Ice Patch on my Ice/Ice blaster. You can soft-cap for S/L using a lot of Curtail Speed IOs, which makes it relatively inexpensive (it does use two Kinetic Combat sets).

It's not easy mode, however. You still need to carry a lot of Break Frees and greens. But you can solo at +0/x4 or higher, depending on the enemies you're fighting. And if you're fighting alongside a tanker or brute, you can do a lot of damage while providing decent mitigation.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.707
http://www.cohplanner.com/

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Frost Maven: Level 50 Science Blaster
Primary Power Set: Ice Blast
Secondary Power Set: Ice Manipulation
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leaping
Ancillary Pool: Cold Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Ice Blast -- CtlSpd-Acc/Slow(A), CtlSpd-Dmg/Slow(3), CtlSpd-Acc/EndRdx(3), CtlSpd-EndRdx/Rchg/Slow(9), Dmg-I(9), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(36)
Level 1: Chilblain -- Enf'dOp-Acc/Rchg(A), Enf'dOp-EndRdx/Immob(34), Enf'dOp-Acc/EndRdx(40), Enf'dOp-Immob/Rng(45), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob/Rchg(50), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob(50)
Level 2: Ice Bolt -- CtlSpd-Acc/Slow(A), CtlSpd-Dmg/Slow(5), CtlSpd-Acc/EndRdx(5), CtlSpd-EndRdx/Rchg/Slow(17), Dmg-I(17), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(36)
Level 4: Ice Sword -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(7), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(7), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(11), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(11)
Level 6: Hover -- Krma-ResKB(A), Flight-I(43)
Level 8: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(25), RechRdx-I(25)
Level 10: Freeze Ray -- NrncSD-Acc/Rchg(A), NrncSD-EndRdx/Hold(13), NrncSD-Acc/EndRdx(13), NrncSD-Hold/Rng(15), NrncSD-Acc/Hold/Rchg(15), NrncSD-Dam%(37)
Level 12: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 14: Fly -- Flight-I(A)
Level 16: Health -- Heal-I(A)
Level 18: Bitter Ice Blast -- CtlSpd-Acc/Slow(A), CtlSpd-Dmg/Slow(19), CtlSpd-Acc/EndRdx(19), CtlSpd-EndRdx/Rchg/Slow(23), Dmg-I(23), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(37)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(21), EndMod-I(21)
Level 22: Build Up -- Rec'dRet-ToHit(A), Rec'dRet-Pcptn(37), RechRdx-I(39), RechRdx-I(42)
Level 24: Aim -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(36)
Level 26: Chilling Embrace -- CtlSpd-Acc/EndRdx(A), CtlSpd-EndRdx/Rchg/Slow(27), CtlSpd-Dmg/Slow(27), CtlSpd-Rng/Slow(31), EndRdx-I(31)
Level 28: Frozen Fists -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(29), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(29), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(31), TmpRdns-Acc/EndRdx(34)
Level 30: Ice Patch -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 32: Ice Storm -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(33), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(33), Posi-Dmg/Rng(33), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(34)
Level 35: Combat Jumping -- Winter-ResSlow(A)
Level 38: Blizzard -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(39), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(39), Posi-Dmg/Rng(40), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(40)
Level 41: Flash Freeze -- LgcRps-Acc/Rchg(A), LgcRps-EndRdx/Sleep(42), LgcRps-Acc/Sleep(42), LgcRps-Sleep/Rng(43), LgcRps-Acc/Sleep/Rchg(43)
Level 44: Frozen Armor -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(45), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(45), RedFtn-Def(46), RedFtn-EndRdx(46), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(46)
Level 47: Snow Storm -- CtlSpd-Dmg/Slow(A), CtlSpd-EndRdx/Rchg/Slow(48), CtlSpd-Acc/EndRdx(48), CtlSpd-Rng/Slow(48), EndRdx-I(50)
Level 49: Hibernate -- RechRdx-I(A)
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Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- ULeap-Stlth(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Defiance
Level 0: Ninja Run

I've got a Fire/Ice tanker and Burn works pretty well when put down after Ice Patch. Ice Patch also gives a decent amount of mitigation because mobs can't attack while flopping about.

I imagine that Burn might have some use for scrapper who has Tenebrous Tentacles, though I haven't played that combination.

Also, some mobs aren't affected by the Fear component of Burn (like AVs, most of the time).

I realize that doesn't help you with your Fire/Fire tanker, but someone creating a new character might be able to take advantage of Burn under other circumstances.

If you remove XP from AE, the PLers will just go back to PLing people the old fashioned way: door-sitting the same Unai Kemen mission over and over and over again with a bunch of glowies and easy-to-whack mobs. I remember years ago hearing level 5 characters crying to be PLed in PI.

Exploits in AE should be removed, no argument there. The devs have been busy eradicating those since day one.

But AE already gives you less experience: patrol XP doesn't work in AE. You don't get a mission XP bonus. If you fight custom mobs that don't have the right power choices you get less XP. There's currently a bug that causes less XP in missions that have allies/hostages.

AE is not the problem. The problem is players who want to make levels fast and easy. No matter what the devs do, that problem will always exist.

But we've recently seen an uptick in the population of pirates off the coast of Africa. What does that portend?

Look at the sales history. If the last five sales are weeks or months old, you are unlikely to sell that item very quickly, if ever. But check other items around the same level to be sure.

If there are lots of the item for sale and no bids, don't bother to list it unless it's actually useful or has very good bonuses.

If there are lots of bids and few of the item for sale, it will likely go for more than the average of the last five sales.

Certain types of things rarely sell, regardless of the bonuses: most uncommon and rare holds, immobilizes, and stuns in particular. The supply of these is much greater than the demand, even though many of the rare ones have very nice bonuses.

Melee, PBAoE, Targeted AoE and Ranged attacks with specific high-demand bonuses usually sell well. Those bonuses are defense (all types, but especially S/L, which is why Reactive Armor sells well) and recharge. The less popular attack recipes (Ruin, Focused Smite, etc.) may sell to Frankenslotters, but they're going to be picky and not blow large wads of cash on them.

Basically, watch the market and what's selling for good prices and you'll get a feeling for what you should post and what you should vendor.

It varies. I got Tough/Weave with my soft-capped S/L Fire/Fire tanker and most of my other level 50 tankers and scrappers, but still haven't done it on my Fire/Ice tanker. It's definitely squishier, but Ice Patch does a fairly decent job mitigating incoming damage, as well as keeping most mobs in the Burn patch. I also don't have Tough or Weave on my Will/EM tanker, and I don't really miss it, as that character is more for teaming due to a lack of AoEs. I have Tough/Weave on my Will/Pipewrench tanker, however, which better AoE potential.

When I first got Tough on my Fire/Fire tanker (think it was slotted at level 32 after a respec somewhere around level 38), it made a significant difference in survivability (this was with SOs).

It's certainly possible to solo large spawns without Tough, but you'll need to use inspirations a lot more, and manage them to make sure you have the ones you need (usually purples). If you're teaming with someone who can reliably buff you (or debuff the enemies) it's much less important.

But if you're used to having it, you probably won't be happy without it.

Yes, for Transfusion I always target something directly that has lots of hit points, if I have a choice.

Even though I like to team, and do it all the time, I have come to expect nothing from PUG team mates in terms of buffs. I defend myself like I'm solo: as a defender/controller/blaster, I always carry 3-4 break frees and 3-5 greens and recombine insps to make sure I have those at all times. If I'm a fire tank and we're fighting Carnies, I load up on about 12 purples because I know I'm not going to get any help from the team. I don't ever count on team buffs for anything. If I get them, great. If not, I don't really care.

If I die, it's almost always because I didn't manage my inspirations properly, attacked when I shouldn't have, was in the wrong place at the wrong time, didn't run away or duck around a corner when I should have, and so on.

On PUGs I've just come to accept the rest of the team as another potential challenge to deal with. Lots of the time I'm surprised and get on teams with good players, and it's really fun. Other times I get on a team that doesn't have a clue. But instead of hectoring them about how bad they are, I try to lead by example. If it's too irritating I politely leave at the end of the mission.

Arguing about how team mates are playing is a waste of time. It destroys unit cohesion.

There's already enough bad blood in the world. I don't need to add more by whining while I'm playing a game that's supposed to be fun.

I know lots of people make influence this way. But who's buying these crafted IOs and why?

You say it yourself: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. A good defender will prevent attacks on team mates before they happen. Since the Empathy primary has nothing that directly affects enemies, the secondary powers must be used for this. That means a dedicated defender should choose secondary powers that have preventive potential.

For example, Empathy/Psychic Blast/Psionic Mastery is a good combination because of the control-oriented powers (Telekinetic Blast, Will Domination, Scramble Thoughts, Dominate and Mass Hypnosis). Using these powers will disable attackers and prevent them from attacking team mates.

Additionally, powers such as Psychic Scream and Mental Blast have significant -recharge secondary effects. Using them regularly will reduce the number of attacks enemies can launch against team mates.

A good empathy defender will use these powers to mitigate incoming damage after their primary duties (applying buffs as they recharge and healing any damage) are complete. In most instances there's just not enough to do if you're only applying buffs -- the recharge on buffs is such that you'll just be sitting around twiddling your thumbs the vast majority of the time.

The caveat, as always, is to use your attacks in such a way as to avoid drawing aggro on yourself. So you should be careful when using any AoEs. And try to use a mez attack on a target before a damaging attack if you're the only one attacking the target.

Would you rather have a team mate who sits around most of the time waiting for Fortitude and AB to recharge, or someone who's contributing to the battle while they're waiting for their buffs to recharge?

The other thing to acknowledge is that the rest of the team is not helpless, and they should be responsible for their own actions. If some blaster is constantly jumping the gun or a scrapper hares off to attack another spawn, you're not responsible for saving their skin every time they screw up. If you can save their bacon, great. If they get themselves killed, so be it.

Much of the time it is not necessary to use Clear Mind on team mates because you'll be fighting enemies that have no mez powers. Good defenders will know what enemies have mez powers and will protect allies against them. Good defenders will also watch the battle and see when an ally is mezzed, and can tell when enemies use powers that mez (such as the Freaks who use the PBAoE stun, or the Rikti Mesmerists). You should also be familiar with the various animations that play when characters are mezzed so that you can tell when someone needs CM.

One thing I try to do is make sure mezzers are locked down as soon as possible. That means using a hold or stun on Carnie Illusionists, Rikti Mentalists, and so on. If the mezzers are all mezzed, you don't need to worry about spamming Clear Mind. Fast-recharge single target stuns and holds are good for doing this. Remember that two quick applications of a stun or hold will mez most bosses. If you and a controller double-team bosses with your mezzes you can lock down most of them immediately.

It is a good idea to keep Clear Mind at all times on another character that has Clear Mind or a similar power, and that character should do the same for you. Also note that blasters can use up to three of their attack powers even if mezzed, so they don't need CM as much as controllers and defenders do.

Let other players know what you want them to say when they get mezzed. Most people say something like "zzz" when they need Clear Mind.

If you keep an eye on everyone's hit points and watch the general flow of the combat you can mix preventive secondary attacks with buffs and heals.

The worst thing a defender can be is inattentive. Boredom causes inattention. Sitting around just applying buffs and waiting for them to recharge is boring. Ergo, you should not neglect your other powers. Use them to defend your team mates.

My guess is the reason the devs said a market merge was infeasible was that directly merging databases is not really possible -- all the entries in one database have IDs that will conflict with different entries in the other database.

The devs will apparently finesse this by cancelling everyone's bids, refunding the influence paid for posted items and creating a transaction log of all items posted or stored for all characters in both databases. When they merge the databases they will probably make a clean copy of the database, then import those transaction logs into the new database.

Changing the requirements for the merger by not having to preserve outstanding bids and posts may well be what made the infeasible suddenly feasible.

In one sense this rewards certain players who made the mistake of posting items at to high a price. So if you've got something posted that has never sold, count yourself lucky!

I, for one, plan on taking everything I have off the market for the conversion. This is for two reasons: first, if there are fewer items on the market the conversion will go faster and smoother. Second, after having worked with databases for years, I know that conversions such as this are fraught with problems. The best way to avoid losing something on the market is to avoid having anything on market.

Prices go up because of lack of supply. If no one is offering the things you want to buy, you will not be able to buy them no matter how much inf you have.

So, the question really is "what will merging the markets do to supply?" That will be very hard to answer in any straightforward manner, because many things will change all at once when GR comes out.

There will likely be a huge influx of new and returning players, so supply of certain items may well increase or decrease, depending on what they do: new activities will include switching sides, getting incarnate powers, starting new characters in Praetoria, the new Kinetic Melee and Electric Control sets.

But the supply of items does not increase uniformly for all types of play. Purples may decrease in supply for a time while players who normally farm them run lower level characters in Praetoria or create new characters with the new sets.

Similarly, those who currently farm merits may now do other things, which may reduce the number of rare recipes on the market. Or those rare midlevel recipes may increase if players creating those new characters make random rolls and sell them on the market.

Other technical changes may alter player behavior as well. The Incarnate system may affect the usefulness of certain types of recipes, increasing or decreasing demand for certain items.

If the changes to fix the ally XP nerf in AE work well, more players may use AE to get tickets for bronze rolls, which would increase the supply of uncommon and certain rare recipes.

It seems like the supply of salvage should increase because the vast majority of the new activities will still generate salvage. That should be across the board because so many new characters will be created.

Ultimately, there will be far too many changes in the game and player behavior to ascribe any meaningful causal relationship between the market merge and supply/demand/pricing.

In general I think it's a false choice to make players decide between getting decent rewards and arcs that are interesting to play. Good arcs should do both.

There's nothing wrong with what you're doing, but you shouldn't have had to write a story arc to do this. If AE were working correctly, someone else would have already written one that does what you need and it would have been easy for you to find it.

A well-crafted arc should hold the interest of someone who wants a good story, and it should also reward players who want loot. One does not preclude the other, and authors should endeavor to maximize both.

This approach may mean that you make minimal use of certain AE techniques that are really just time sinks (I dislike most chained objectives for this reason, because they frequently mean backtracking), but since one of the major characteristics of video game play is quick action, it's basically a matter of course that you design missions that play quickly and don't waste your time.

For that reason I think one of the best improvements AE could make would be to make the front-to-back ordering actually work. It seems broken or meaningless on about 90% of the maps.

For most ATs one -KB IO is fine. For scrappers, two are generally fine (I have that on my Dark/Dark scrapper). For tankers, two are good 99% of the time, but there will be things that knock you around. So I go for three on my Fire tankers. However, if you can't fit the third one in you'll rarely miss it.

I think the author should say in the description of the arc what the XP percentage is and let the players decide how to approach it. Players that don't want to deal with full strength mobs can run them at -1/x1/no bosses/no AVs difficulty. That gives 80% XP, and reduces power effectiveness by 10% (due to the Purple Patch). Most players should be able to handle Full XP mobs at that difficulty.

Admittedly that may not be enough to avoid being one-shot by certain attacks, but if the arc indicates that full XP is given the presumption should be that there may be very tough opponents in the mission.

However, having said that, I do try to design mobs that yield max XP without giving them powers that one- or two-shot defenders and controllers. I tend to avoid giving Rage to bosses, for example. So most critters in my arcs give 100% XP, but a select few will give slightly less to avoid unpleasantness.

But to be completely honest, some of the most popular mobs (a Freakshow boss and minion, for example) are capable of stunning and killing solo defenders and controllers nearly instantly.

Players who run legit AE arcs will need to learn how to identify the attack types that are dangerous to them, just as they learn which standard villains they have to watch out for. Whenever I'm playing a squishie and I see a critter use Build Up I know to stay far away...

I would actually prefer that the AE would include the average XP percentage of critters in the arc in the summary info, or some other indicator of difficulty, along with the AV and custom power warnings.

Actually, I use them to (selfishly) softcap my defenses or to bump up my damage on certain defenders. Depending on your build, Maneuvers may give your character more bang for the buck than taking three powers from the Fighting pool (which I often wind up doing on my melee characters). It depends on the AT and your power selections.

Lightning Clap is a PBAoE stun, requiring you to get into melee range to affect the maximum number of targets. Melee range powers usually have some advantage over corresponding ranged powers to compensate for the additional risk involved in using them.

It might be a bug, but probably not.

If these are truly independent events, then every time you make a roll, you have exactly the same chance to get a particular result. That means it's not necessarily wrong that I got two LotG: +Recharges in a row, and it's not wrong that you have a number of them spread out over many other rolls over several days.

Look at it this way: let's say that in one day players make 200,000 rare recipe rolls. And let's say that the chance of rolling a LotG: +Recharge is 1 out of 500. That means that the expected number each day is 400.

If you happened to get four of them and I got three of them, that doesn't necessarily mean that there's a bug. It just means you and I happened to get 7 out of the 400 that got rolled.

If you got one every day for four days in a row, that also doesn't mean anything, as long as 400 plus or minus a couple dozen are rolled by the system each day.

Now let's say that 1,000 LotG: +recharges get rolled every day, day after day, and the expected number is only 400 (1 in 500 chance). Or you rolled one every day for three weeks in a row, even through you only rolled two or three times a day. Or everyone who rolled randomly got similar repetitions of identical rolls. Those would likely be bugs because the probabilities of those events is extremely low.

Well, you got me beat.

On Sunday I rolled one LotG: +Recharge redside (out of 8 rolls) and about an hour later I rolled two more back-to-back Blueside out of 3 rolls.

Considering that people are probably making hundreds of thousands of rolls, it's not unexpected when things are truly random.

Since the buffs are random, characters who would abuse them (min-maxers eking that last 3% to softcap all defense, for example) won't use them because they cannot be depended on. Game play for the rest of the player base won't be unbalanced by these relatively minor buffs, so I don't think it's really necessary for there to be negative consequences. I, for example, won't get the Mutation Pack if the power has any negative buffs because I'm one of those notorious min-maxers who'd rather be in control of my fate. I'll accept a random positive buff, but would never put up with a random debuff (yeah, I never blow up those machines in the Crey labs).

This did cause me to think of another way of dealing with the prompt for Mystic Fortune, however. If you target yourself with Mystic Fortune you should get a "no buff" invocation of Mystic Fortune (it marks you as having the power cast on you for the full duration, but does nothing). Then the power should be changed to avoid prompting the player if the character already has a Mystic Fortune buff on them (including the self-invoked null buff).

This would allow you to prevent yourself from getting hit by unwanted invocations of the power, and stop all those annoying prompts completely, without having to make a hash of the options screen.

No, it would fine to skip them on your main build. But I'd recommend a second (inexpensive) build that includes them so that if you're on a TF or something that needs them you can switch builds and be a team player.