Sailboat

Concur -- more slots into Parry (6), Reconstruction (5-6), Dull Pain (5 is probably enough), and perhaps Tough (4), taking them from Tactics, Maneuvers, and maybe even Physical Perfection if you need to.

DB doesn't directly have -resists in the attacks outside of the normal Bruising effect in Tier 1 all tankers get; Ablating Strike does however have -defense, into which you can stick an Achilles' Heel proc for occasional -resist.

My general sense is that the damage is somewhat better than average, simply because of the bonus damage from Attack Vitals.

There are two issues I can foresee with using it on a Tanker. Firstly, since Tankers have to take (and would be advised to slot) their Tier 1, which isn't used in either of the two mightier combos, it'll tend to require a lot of power picks to really use to your advantage (you shouldn't skip Blinding Feint either, you'll need six more powers to use both the AV and Sweep combos). Secondly, you may or may not find that the time pressure to chain the combos without letting them expire increases your workload when trying to simultaneously keep an eye on the battlefield when you're tanking for a team (obviously much less of a distraction solo).

See? Sometimes I'm a nub.

It's not that it's a "bad" word, it's that it's an ethnic slur. It's probably not the most offensive ethnic slur either, but they don't want to be in the business of permitting some ethnic slurs and banning others (can you imagine what the forum lobbying would be like? Ew.)

I agree that it seems like that would be a useful word and it's not as offensive as some slurs, but I can see the company's viewpoint about not wanting to be in the business of legislating who can and who can not be insulted.

Uh...yeah...carry on!

Have you followed the suggestion to send a PM to Avatea? The rednames can sometimes fix this kind of thing for you. Worth a try. Good luck!

The heck with account-wide rewards. I'm holding out until all the rewards are species-wide. That way if you, or any other member of your species, has gotten a given badge or reward, every other character on every other server on every other account in every other country played by every other human also gets the reward.

Why should I have to grind for something somebody else has already done? It's pointless.

I had made a temporary character on a friend's account to try the game when I was over at his house -- an MA/SR Scrapper. By the time I actually bought the game it was Issue 2; I remade the character on my own account. As Arcanaville says, early MA/SR was pretty iffy; the infamous "smell my foot" Storm Kick, the pre-buffed Scrapper damage, and /SR when it was not only low numerical values, but also hampered by level differences. Standardizing defense against anything up to +5 was a huge improvement to the game, but that would be years away; until then, +1 enemies did more damage to both a defense-based and a resistance-based character, but also were likelier to hit, a relatively greater penalty to the defense-based character, who in effect suffered reduction of his mitigation twice.

I really didn't have my heart in the character anyway, and knew at the time he was just sort of a test bed.

Seeking something that would be sturdy to solo, I picked, of course, a Force Field/Energy Defender (based on my hazy understanding that Dispersion Bubble would give him status protection). My level of understanding of the game's mezz system was thus inhibited by learning on a squishy who was unaffected by most mezz; for example, for a long time I thought there were two types of holds, one of which let you still attack (of course it was "immobilize" that had me confused). The game screens' inconsistent use of terminology (immobilize/snare, stun/disorient) further confused me.

So on the first or second day of having my own account, I made my first real character, Airacobra, ominously named after a promising early-WWII fighter design that ultimately turned out to be disappointingly underpowered. I liked the "air stories" pulp genre; his first costume inspired by his 1930s Army Air Corps theme, and my very first attempt at a description/bio, are visible here.

I played him for years as a "main." At first, people would put him on high-level teams for the bubbles even when he could hardly contribute anything else, but I felt like I was leeching when I didn't attack. So I perversely tried to keep him from leveling too fast.

Eventually I got seduced by Controllers, then later Scrappers and Tankers, but I still have Airacobra with his original costume in slot #1. He's still only 43 or 44. He's lain largely dormant for years. At one point, when free server transfers were offered, I moved him to free up a slot; later I moved him back when another free transfer and the ability to buy character slots made room for him at home again.

When I finally got into IOs, I formed grandiose plans to rebuild him into a soft-capped defense build with high recharge attacks; but the inability to have all the power pools I wanted thwarted me -- he had to have Fitness, Speed (Hasten), Fighting (Weave), Leadership (Maneuvers) and, uh, taht didn't leave room for Flight -- and if he's named after a fighter plane, he HAS to fly. I could imagine people saying "For crying out loud, your name STARTS with AIR!"

It's only recently occurred to me that Inherent Fitness suddenly makes this build possible. AND the new high-end content seems to be making defense buffs a bit more appreciated once more. Hrm...hrm indeed.