Sailboat

I thought I haven't been that active in the Guardian global channel community; I just got into a few and stopped there...however, it looks like I happened to blunder into all of those (except the new Incarnate channel). That's some quality blundering!

Really? Hrm. I wonder...can you turn Walk on while mezzed?

Wow, really? I've been having this too and it frustrates me no end -- my travel power and primary toggle defenses are usually to the right side of my power trays, and those are just about the first things I try to turn on when I launch.

Why doesn't the pophelp window cease to exist, instead of sitting around invisibly? That's mildly annoying.

Everybody knows burst damage is great...especially for Blasters, because they lack the defenses to stand up to sustained pounding. They prefer to lay the hurt down and win.

Trip mines appear slow and useless to some players because they involve delay, but they are a way of shifting damage (and all-important animation time) forward in time and releasing it all in one burst. In effect, trip mines trade setup time to gain bigger burst damage when they do go off.

Rather than animating a long attack chain while being pounded on (and while the enemies are regenerating hit points!) one can animate placing a bunch of trip mines in advance, and while they are going off you are ALSO animating your normal attack chain for the ultimate in stacked-up damage all at once.

That's why trip mines can sometimes let a Blaster do things that would otherwise be completely out of reach.

I'm guessing you haven't looked closely at Frankenslotting yet.

See, the thing is, the multi-aspect set items enhance more than regular IOs or SOs; it's just split 2, 3, or 4 ways. I love Frankenslotting. It's efficient enough that even lower-than-50 IOs can hit the ED caps on various attributes.

For example, I recently mixed some level 35 ranged set IOs. Normal SO slotting for six slots would be something like:

33% end red
33% acc
95% damage
33% recharge

With these level 35s, I got:

36% end red
36% acc
95% damage
95% recharge

and if you want to use 50s you can do better on the end red and acc.

One of my melee characters gets partial set bonuses and uses level 45 set IOs (why 45? uh...early attempt, I was a newb) to get:

82% end red
69% acc
95% damage
95% recharge

That kind of thing blows away classic SO slotting. And again, if you like 50s, you will get better values than I did.

Another gets this on a stun power:

90% stun
90% acc
90% recharge
30-something % end red

using some level 30 IOs mixed in.

If I were you, I'd totally ignore whether something is a TF drop. Everything is going to cost you some money now though, or merits, and you might want to reconsider earning a little bit. Frankenslotting is really very, very nice.

Sure. But Katie V pointed out that you can't buy enough defense from IOs to mitigate that.

I did exactly this (different level and IO though) last night, and got exactly the level I'd set on the slider. You're golden.

Well, to clarify, I have several characters running tips for Alignment Merits. One of them is level-locked at a specific level I like to use for sets (for some exemplaring but still high enough for good enhancement). While I will pick the recipes I want with the hero merits the others earn, it seems like the level-locked one should roll random, as I will use many set IOs at that level, the ones I don't use will be salable to others looking for midrange IOs, and I'll generally get ten times as many set pieces out of it (since most of the really desirable IOs directly purchased will be ones that cost 2 A-merits, and I'll roll 5 randoms for 1 A-merit).

So while random rolling may not be the path to wealth, it will let one of my characters generate a pretty good batch of the hard-to-find midrange stuff I want, while the rest of my crew uses more conventional strategies.

Incidentally, I may be a hopeless marketeer, but I bought a SNIPE recipe with 2 A-merits recently. Yeah, I can hear the collective gasp from here.

I know the thing to do is buy a big-seller like LOTG +recharge, sell it, and buy lots of IOs with the cash...but I wanted a mid-range one, and after TWO WEEKS of neither crafted IO nor recipe being offered for sale at my desired level, I forced the issue with merits. A trillion influence won't buy something if it's not for sale.

Nitpick: you get FIVE random recipes for one Hero/Villain merit. Or else I've been getting ripped off big time! And yes, they are the level of the character rolling.

Ya know, your suggestions are getting worse and worse. Invulnerability is one of the premier powersets in the game for Tankers, and definitely a top choice if I want to take on Lord Recluse. 10% extra res and def is HUGE, it's three times what the best sets in the game give. And getting rid of the cheaper IO sets to add a purple set in the same category might make the jaded super-rich smile, but nobody else will be smiling.

It's worth noting that a critical aspect of the Invention system is that the IOs are intended to be pretty much permanent -- slotting them is supposed to "use them up" and take them out of the economy. The Devs have said in the past that even the current system allowing us to save out ten is pretty much a bonus and not a principle of design. Since they've said that, I'd say it's unlikely they'd grant your wish and build a partial respec option specifically to get around that and re-use IOs.

What if it's the long-awaited Pack Animal?

I'm sure Castle likes Elude as much as anyone, but in this case he alluded to problems with Spines.

And now I've made an allusion to Castle's possible use of elusion in case you're under the illusion that was the right word to use.