Sailboat

I used to pine for more slots on my home server. When they expanded to 36 possible, I bought up to 34, leaving two open for the next two years of vet rewards, which I have since received.

But now that I can e-mail things and money across servers and across factions, I've lost many of my reasons to cluster on a home server.

Yes, I know, they could all use the SG base...but I think that if I put 36 of my characters into a SG, and each of my friends does too, it'll fill up pretty fast (isn't the SG limit 150 these days? That's 4.16 players if each has 36 characters). I feel like a pig if most of a supergroup I'm a member of is clogged up by my own alts (of course that wouldn't apply to a solo SG).

All my friends are here...yeah, but they also all have the same problem I do with space filling up. If we all agree to start alts on a new server, all my friends can be there, too.

It was starting from scratch for cash and items that made a new server feel onerous, and that's gone. Sure, I still have a preference for my "home" server, and I spend a lot of my time there. But I don't feel the burning passion for more slots I once did.

Also, Devices can leverage Trip Mines to release a lot of burst damage at once, minimizing your exposure to enemy fire, making you less reliant on high defenses.

Eh. I have an Invulnerability Tanker (Invulnerability: Home of the Infamous Psi Hole!) who does NOT have any specific investment in Psi defense, nor does he have hasten, nor does he have perma-Dull Pain. He does have Weave, Combat Jumping, and the Steadfast 3% IO. and his Dull Pain recharges 25 seconds or so after it expires.

I recently went on a Synapse TF and was exposed to a fair amount of psi, while exemplared with fewer attacks and under-enhanced powers. I completely ignored the psi attackers and let my native regeneration (ONE slot in Health) take care of it, plus some fairly occasional weak heals from a teammate. Later, I blundered into the Clockwork King without realizing it, and he opened with his psi alpha. My health went way down very fast...I hit Dull Pain and then the Elusive Mind accolade power you get from fighting Rikti Invasions, and I was fine.

I'm not saying I'd choose the set to solo psionic AVs, but in a pretty varied career, I haven't found the "psi hole" much of a problem, and a well-timed Dull Pain does indeed fix at least one big nasty alpha surprise. Hoarfrost should actually work even better, from what I understand.

Dark Armour? Is that the European Server version of Dark Armor?

I did an ITF last night. Several of the players leveled up during the Task Force...indicating that they were not (originally) 50s. We defeated a lot of foes; it was something more than a speed run but less than a full clear.

I got four shards. Not particularly shard-rich, IMHO.

I tested it in a big hurry before joining a Task Force, so I wasn't thorough, but crafting one level 35 end mod did not advance my progress from 9 of 19 toward the badge.

While we're at it, can we physically shrink some of those Council soldiers? Holy cow.

I reported a similar-sounding issue once a while back. It occurred intermittently every once in a while, but I don't know why. Haven't noticed it in a long time though.

It's easy to change the badge that shows up under your character's name. Just click on a new badge in the badge pulldown window.

In fact, it's SO easy, I manage to do it by accident every so often, while I am examining badge progress in the badge window. I slip a little too far to the left when trying to grab the slider, and accidentally select a badge.

This often happens when I am checking a long-parked alt for day job progress. The relevance of that is, it's a character I haven't played in a long time...and I may not remember what badge I had been showing.

The chat log helpfully says something to the effect of new badge selected is "Clumsy," to make up an example, but I sometimes have no idea what badge I used to have, just before the slip.

It seems like a simple change to have the chat log include the former badge you've changed from. Something like Active badge changed from "Agile" to "Clumsy," or however the Powers That Be want to word it. Then it wouldn't much matter if the mouse slipped and selected a new badge.

A small thing, I know, but it's been a source of frustration for me.

Agreed, this would be a useful change.

I don't want to follow someone who doesn't want to lead unless he's getting more exp than the other players. Talk about a surefire way to attract the wrong sort of person to the role!

Ran a Synapse recently on level 50 Incarnate Invulnerability Tanker with a lot of set bonuses.

Of course, on a Synapse, he's a level-20-with-2-additional powers non-Incarnate Inv Tanker with almost no set bonuses and some reduced enhancement due to exemplaring.

My defense numbers were somewhat down, and the missions are almost entirely against Clockwork, using tons of energy and psi damage, not a strong point for this Tanker powerset.

Fortunately, I had recently respecced the character into Inherent Fitness, and taken advantage of the opportunity to move to much earlier in the build some powers I had previously put off until the end. So I had Resist Elements and Resist Energies even for Synapse, and Res En gave me ~30% resistance to energy damage....

And we had a Storm Defender on the team! When I saw my energy resistance was sitting at 64%, I thought, how on earth...? But I'd forgotten that Steamy Mist boosts fire, cold and energy resists, as well as adding a nice little bit of defense.

Invulnerability is no slouch -- I've tanked Synapse before. But that required some careful aggro and inspiration management, and I spent a certain amount of time resting. This time, Steamy Mist was enormously helpful in trivializing what would have been serious threats. Not game-winning by itself, but just the right sort of supplement to my passives. (Admittedly, the partial endurance protection now provided by the passive helped too).

Also, the team stealth SM provides helped us limit the amount of surplus aggro we drew from the notoriously long-range clockwork.

And then the Defender ALSO had Freezing Rain. I'd lost access to several key powers, notably the wide-area knockdown of Footstomp; FR is, of course, much better.

Later, I ran a Sister Psyche with another Storm Def; again, a fair amount of energy damage from the Freaks, and the exemplaring wasn't much better.

I've played Storm before, so this wasn't a revelation to me, but I'd kind of forgotten how good Steamy Mist could be, and the synergy with Inv was very nice for these particular TFs. I know Stormies don't always get shout-outs for their contributions to teams...this one's for you guys and gals!

I don't want to attract the notice of the well because I'm afraid it has one of those creepy drowned Japanese girls in it.

It looks like you're using a "dragoon" as term from Final Fantasy. I'm unfamiliar with that, so it looks funny to me.

In normal English, "dragoon" is a soldier who rides a horse --often (but not always) one who fights on foot like infantry, not cavalry. I think it comes from the same root term as "dragon" in Middle French, but dragoon is otherwise not connected to dragon in English usage.

Obviously game-universe-specific terms are what they are. I'm not saying it's wrong, just that it looks weird to me, like someone making a typo when trying to type dragon.

The Vanguard Storage Sack is pretty useful. Is there any way to see if one of my alts already has the sack, other than to look at his allowable salvage space and decide it's higher than it would normally be? Does the sack appear somewhere, or is there a badge associated with it?

Because farming is about minimizing risk and maximizing kills over time, you can get away with the less sturdy builds that emphasize offense. I'm personally a fan of Fire/Fire/Pyre, but Shield/ or even Elec/ would put out more damage than Willpower (and if you're choosing your farm, you won't need Willpower's durability advantage). For secondaries, /Fire or /Elec or /SS are probably the best bets. If you plan to face bosses, /Elec might be less desirable, as it has somewhat less single-target focus than the other two. If you fight bosses, remember to slot and use your Tier 1 attack for Bruising.