Seldom

Heh. The basic functionality is made to be very much in line with the game's leveling/slotting. The real trick is that to use mids well, you need to learn at least the basics of a variety of other side systems and information.

• Power functionality, specifically how the chosen powers behave in-game.
• Slotting caps- schedules A,B, C and D.
• archetype caps and modifiers, how that interplays with powers, slotting, and bonuses.
• Inventions, basic ones
• Invention Sets
• Exemplaring, and its effects on enhancement values, sets, and set bonuses.
• Franken-slotting, that is combining all available enhancements to reach various schedule caps irregardless of bonuses.
• Set bonuses
• How the game makes its calculations, especially tohit, accuracy,defense, and level disparity mechanics.
• Means of procuring enhancements- some are easily gained, so builds can be realized. Other will takes FAR more effort to gain, but in mids they're in easy popup menus. Some sets only drop at certain levels. Some drop from certain tasks. There are many different 'drop pools' with various necessary circumstances. Many game currencies can be used to buy them, which also require different tasks. Besides this, market values come into play- some can be bought easily, others take a great deal of game resources.

I'm sure there are many more, but the program does sort of assume the user is familiar with the above.

Yep. The Soul pools in particular still hold up in many cases, and the mu/mace pools are well used too. The leviathan powers are weird thematically, (The sea being an odd fit in this game) but are functionally very good for several archetypes.

When looking for members, it's usually:

"We're doing x, would you care to join?"

When asking if a team has an opening, it's:

"Sorry to intrude, but would your team have use for a spare <x archetype>?"

My search comments are the usual "Please talk to me before inviting me, thanks!"

I used to put my powerset combos first in the search title, (i.e. archery/em blaster) but I found it's best not to do that on the 'power' team power sets. Anything empathy will never advertise as such, same on kinetics. Or Radiation emmision. My Mind/ permadom is quiet about it, as is my softcapped invulnerability/ tank. And so on.
...Basically power sets folks would invite to solve their problems. I just find that if they want me to be the one to come in and be the one to save the team in some way, it will mean less fun. (Often ending up trying to save a team from themselves.) If I'm another random member, and they expect the team to be self-sufficient, it's cool. If someone asks me my powersets on a character, I keep my distance right away. Once they invite me as just another player, I let them know what my specialties are.
Conversely though, I widely advertise my abilities if it's a character that won't do what people think it will- My Em/Dark brute is a mezzing brute, not a tank, so he warns people as such so he won't get roped into tank n' spankin'. My fire brute is crazy, and people will know to expect squish. My sonic/sonic corruptor will not heal or make people invulnerable, and is more about smoothing for a team than saving them. So I put that in there.

If it's a playstyle thing, I go that route: my kin/elec defender aggressively saps, so I let people know by calling him a 'sapper.' A similar warning goes for my 'ranged brute' crab soldier.

The basics of Arachnos is that you start out as a widow or soldier. Easy enough.

The original primary and secondary offer your basic attacks, survival tools, and buffs. You'll notice that your original secondary powers are useful in particular, from 1-50.

Once you his level 24, you can choose a NEW pool of powers. Please note, all of the powers you started with are still available, but new ones are too. Keep both in mind, as many of the starting powers should be kept and used even though you are being asked to choose new powers.

The new powers you choose come in pairs- if you are a soldier, using any powers from the crab pools will lock out the bane powers. Bane powers likewise remove crab powers from your selection.

Widows must choose between night widow and fortunata pools.

Those are the basics of Arachnos, but you may have known all that.
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Not too much has been said of crabs, so I'll go ahead.

Crabs are a personal favorite, being with an incredible variety of AoE potential. The have both high defense and high resistance, and a self heal that also increases their maximum hitpoints. They are fairly unique amongst arachnos with the heal/heavy resistance armor. Note that Crabs have fewer abilities to do a burst of huge damage, but do have a mini-nuke that also bunches foes together. This is on a significant recharge, so it's not very necessary, but it's there. (I'm talking about Omega maneuver, a summoned bomb.)

Though crabs can have melee attacks, you may wish to go for a ranged approach as the many cones they use to deal damage will function more fluidly with you standing back outside of the group, rather than at point blank range. This is based wholly on my own preferences.

The lower single target damage can easily be overcome with the crab unique pets, the spiderlings. They usually have trouble focusing, but if you wipe out all the weak foes, their seemingly small bursts of damage add up to a very helpful chunk of damage versus the remaining tough foe.

Crab 'core' powers, in my opinion:
[That is, powers you simply will suffer more by skipping]
(from training&gadgets)
training: defensive
training: manuevers
(from crab spider: training)
crab spider armor upgrade
fortification
Serum
(from both Arachnos soldier or crab Soldier)
Venom Grenade

Crab extremely helpful powers:
[that is, powers that will significantly improve your performance]
(from Arachnos Soldier)
Heavy Burst
(from Crab Soldier)
Aim
Suppression
(from Arachnos soldier or crab Soldier)
Frag grenade
(from training&gadgets)
Call reinforcements
Training: assault
(from crab spider: training)
Summon Spiderlings

Ideally?

I'm going to be VERY alone on this one, but I'd like this:

Heroes at level 50 are given a emergency transponder, so when they log in they are asked to assist in new zone events and missions. They do not go to a contact, contacts come to them. While some of these involve combat, many are rescue and threat prevention missions. examples:

• Sewer workers are inside doing repairs when "x" villains let off an explosion that flooded the water ways. get in with some breathing gear, and get them out!
• Hellions have lit a building on fire, but 10 people couldn't get inside! the flames are too thick for the firefighters, you need to get inside, find the civilians, and carry them out alive! (carrying being a limited interaction, like walk, where you can't use powers but can only move.)
• Villains are threatening to blow up a building, unless their demands are met! get inside, take them out before they can alert the bombers. Defuse the bombs!
• Assist cops taking down a drug lord!
• X villain commander is in the area! (spawns a hidden boss in a zone that the hero must find via a temp power) Find and detain them!

These come up naturally, and time out if you don't respond. doing X number of them awards a hero merit.

Villains, at level 50, can recruit a right-hand lieutenant who they give orders to, and who keeps track of their schemes. this right-hand man/woman/thing can be contacted or called in at any point. In zones, they come to you when summoned, in missions they merely communicate. They do not engage in combat. Through them, villains can launch plots/schemes.

plots/ schemes end in a grand display of power, (usually a zone event, but can be other things) but often require many steps to get there. The villain will have to steal components, threaten foes, kidnap specialists, and recruit expendable footsoldiers in various ways to complete these schemes. These are separate missions that must be completed to get to the final goal. Choosing the goal will allow the villain to decide what kidnappings/heists/recruitments to do.

Examples of schemes goals:

• launch bombing run against hero zone
• Set buildings ablaze in Paragon
• kidnap Paragon's Mayor
• Invade a Paragon zone in a giant Mech (A giant monster mechanic [level-less] with a temporary for form shift with a limited range of attacks that comes with it, no debt for heroes killed)
• Frame an arch-nemesis (more on this later) for a crime. They receive police ambushes from time to time in open zones.
• Break into a Lab in Paragon to steal important tech

Aside from schemes, villains can also find criminal opportunities- notice security around a building for a visiting tycoon, notice guard at a bank for a money transfer in progress. Notice technicians visiting a lab to oversee tech development. These spawn unannounced in zones near doors, and yield rewards when the villains takes hold of them.

Once these schemes are completed, the villain gains villain alignment merits. Rogues/vigilantes can do many of these things, though they are a bit more limited. Vigilantes do far more assaulting/detaining than rescuing, rogues do more robbing than raiding. Vigilantes and Rogues gain a random rare recipes rather than alignment merits.

All sides can access other sides, but heroes must use a cloaking device in the isles, (permanent invisibility) villains must use a disguise. (PPD hardsuit hologram) These are in permanent function in zones that they cannot access, and will not allow them to access teams/SF's or combat powers while sneaking into an enemy zone.

Heroes and villains can indirectly effect each other, sometimes even more directly. They can determine who is their arch-nemesis. A Nemesis is contacted when the other is engaging in criminal/heroic activities, and can intervene. A hero can enter the mission where the villain intend to kidnap a Mayor, and can stop the other villain. A villain can sneak into a blazing building with their hero nemesis inside and stop them from rescuing citizens, (yes, PvP *gasp*) or set firebombs to make rescuing even more difficult.

Not only can nemesis intervene against each other, they can set traps against each other. Heroes can spawn fake 'opportunities' that show up near their online nemesis, which ends up being a trap to catch the villain. The villain can set up fake 'emergencies' that the villain can use to catch the villain. some of these can incorporate battles between the two (yes, PvP *gasp!*) some can put the players against NPC objectives. The players decide what route they take. Losing villains are sent to a jail, where they escape to find their lieutenant waiting with an escape vehicle, villains sell the heroes over to a villain group for influence and loot. (Arachnos, Crey, Freakshow, Council, COT.) The hero must escape the entrapment and fight their way to freedom.

Yes, it does involve PvP and sneaking into other zones, even effecting other zones. (The villain in a mech could attack players, for instance) But I think between the dynamic content, Player driven interactions, zone happenings, extra rewards, and red vs. blue rivalries, it could bring a lot of gameplay differentiation and a lot of freshness to the game.

...Log in, see your nemesis is online. Is that next opportunity/emergency a trap?
...Oh no, a villain has unleashed a curse against citizens! You must go to the zone and destroy the runes that are causing them to go mad!
...Log in, only to find that 10 emergencies are happening right now! Which to do?
...Your nemesis is on a mission map! He'll never suspect that the police will ambush him outside because you robbed a bank and left fake evidence that it was him!

Fun and madness would ensue. You'd stop being the lackey, and become the villain calling the shots! You stop having to see where trouble was happening, as the city would come to YOU to be rescued! ...And I'd love it.

There are only so many supergroups, and base building is limited in most cases to one individual within that group- so we're talking a subset of a subset.

The only ways I could see base building significantly upgraded:

1. Personal hideouts/headquarters: everyone can build a base!
2. Expanded gameplay functionality for VG/SG members' bases: reason for all members of a group to focus on their base, not just the builder

The first solves the limiting factor, bringing base building to every single player, irregardless of VG/SG status. This gets tricky, as it can't have too good of functionality, or else the reason for VG/SG bases dwindles. Also, It would have to have severely limited storage capacity, as more storage+more player hoarding, which reduces market supply/

The second is tricky, as it assumes VG/SG membership- something that devs won't do, so it can't be SO good that those without a VG/SG will feel cheated or left out. Also, what kind of VG/SG functionality? While some groups have the membership to fill many teams, others couldn't even fill one. This could be solved via the original silver mantis SF approach, allowing non-members to join in, but hits the faction hiccup where rogues/vigilantes are limited in access.

If the devs did BOTH, they don't devalue VG/SG bases, and they expand the game-time play options of all players, letting them tinker in the builder. The increased VG/SG base functionality helps those groups, and makes bases more important, while the personal bases satiates those without big groups they can access. Heck, personal bases could easily be an inf sink, something the game needs, and as an influence sink the reduced inf flow could counter the increase in supply should personal bases allow storage.

The problem here is that doing both would take more time, a lot of resources, and would be another 'big' release that they would not be assured would/could succeed in being a game-wide improvement embraced by their costumers as a whole.

I always scratch my head when I'm on a team why the team members stand back, or even stop moving when I mass confuse a mob. Were they used to people telling them "wait, confusing" or something similar? To me, purple bubbles=green lights. You can jump into a mob without fear of damage, debuffs, or anything else. Heck, you have incentive to go faster.

Not surprisingly, the few people I've seen that complain about confusion were also the kind to slow down, pull back and watch rather than jump in when the purple bubbles let loose. No wonder it reduces their xp, it's like complaining that a fleeing mob isn't granting rewards. You have to do something folks, xp won't deliver itself!

...But back to the thread at hand. I've been spoiled with my Mind/Psi dom's lockdown, so I had a bit of trouble playing my fire/fire. (What? only one reliable group lockdown? Absurd!!) Well, sticking with it the fire/fire/fire has come into his own. Good slots all around, all the attacks, and now even more AoE- the guy's a crazed blaster with pets and two group lockdowns. Plus a means of keeping stuff clumped! ...All this is before I could get some of his nice IO's socketed. If I get ahead of myself, the death nuke that is rise of the phoenix saves the day- what's not to love?

I have taken it purposefully on one character, and begrudgingly on three others. (Who pretend they don't have it) This mostly from a purely aesthetic approach, but that's neither here nor there.

I find it's functionally helpful especially on characters that rely on powerful long-recharge click powers. The more reliant they are on those powers, the better it is. Case in point, phantom army on an illusionist.

When this isn't the case, it's merely a convenience.

On characters with stringent slotting potential and/or high endurance usage, I find it less useful.

Of course, this from the perspective of a player that has taken superspeed exactly twice, and respeced out of one of those, on 60+ characters over 7 years.

It's funny that many overlook it, but kinetics is a top tier AV debuffer- siphon speed is unresistable, so the 87% resistance to -speed/-recharge that AV's usually sport goes out the window. The only debuff AV's don't resist is -damage, so kinetics' siphon power (with fulcrum shift of course) really shines. Remember, kids, triple/quadruple slot your siphon power and spam that sucker like crazy! Add in the constant -regen that comes with transfusion spamming, you can really turn any AV battle around really quick-like.

It's too bad most kinetics I come across seem to think they are buffers, and overlook the debuff stuff.

mastermind secondaries- poison

The single-target debuffs have similar values to aoe debuffs in other sets, despite being far more limited in application.

The poison trap requires an enemy to be in close range, despite the rest of the set being ranged.

The poison trap gas' sleep does not re-apply, making the natural pet aoe attacks render this mitigation far less helpful.

The poison trap has a confusing name, making it confusing with the /traps version, which is very different.

The poison trap's endurance drain does not supply mitigation, as foes can easily attack through it due to mobs' endurance use/recovery.

Noxious gas has a very long recharge and short duration, despite being a close-range pet-dependent aura at level 38.

I'd love to jump in on an illusionist team as well- my illusion controller has been begging for some play time. Giving her phantoms some kindred to fight alongside would make it all the better. I can't make it Sunday, but I'll be eager to find a chance.

I enjoy this game as it's the most enjoyable multiplayer gaming experience I've found in any place. In that way, it's about the gameplay....but that being said, it's most fun when the group is going for a specific goal. It gives a shared purpose, a focus to our goofy horsing around and blowing stuff up.

Having a goal in the game is important, especially for people who've been around here the better part of a decade. I run with a group that's been here since beta, and I've been here since month 1. That's about seven-odd years of the same 'journey'- if there was no new destination to choose to head for, it's reeaaly darned easy to look out the window and realize you've gone nowhere new, and you're still circling the same road.

Let's be honest, the game offers many side roads for the experience (Through different archetypes, powers, builds, etc.) but it's still the same place, so if you never arrive anywhere, the journey gets wearing. Reaching a destination is a "We're here!" moment, before you get back in the car and head somewhere else.

A journey is not a journey without a destination, but going somewhere is not worth it if you hate the drive. As such, the game has to make the ride fun, and give somewhere to go. These aren't mutually exclusive, the game should be, I'd argue has to be, about both. The strength in the game is that it gives many different goals, and many ways to reach them. Getting to 50? Unlocking a badge? Finding a recipe? beating a mission? Unlocking a new power? Gaining a new incarnate power up? It has lots of carrots to chase. It sets out these goals in ways that are almost all fun to get to. Want that badge? Go help your buddies blow up stuff! Want that shard? Play a fun task force! Want that recipe? Do some fun tip missions! You will find many people on these chases, and having fun as they go along. Some are more focused on the goal, others the ride- but if there's no point or the chase becomes a slog, it all falls apart.

In short, the game should be a fun journey to many destinations.

I always thought the titles were funny. "Ohh, he's a legend? How did he do it?"

Monty python: "Spam, spam and spam!"



...oh, and +1 spam.

It should be noted that sonic resonance is somewhat limited solo, but it can certainly be done. I might even do a solo build, and a team build kept separately. Solo, sonic resonance completely loses access to 2 shields, one mez clearing power, and two ally toggles. That's 5 out of 9 powers- gives you a lot of flexibility in a solo build, but also limits you.

It was brought up earlier that defenders get better sonic numbers- the resistant improvement is additive, so it's not that huge. The -res can be multiplicative, one a team.

The difference between the few will not be glaring- the biggest way it will show is when solo. You get all the attacks early as a corrupter, sonic/ gets all of its powers early. The biggest solo tools in sonic resonance are sonic siphon (right off the bat) and your big sonic bubble. Because Sonic/ brings you so few solo tools, I'd personally go for the /sonic, so that I get the more solo-friendly arrows early. That said, the defender does fare better late game, when it picks up its full arsenal. This because the corr can't improve its debuffs numbers, ever, and the defender can get pretty good damage once it accesses all its attacks and throws down all of its debuffs. (You'll need a team/pet anchor for that.)

I love my /sonic corruptor, the -res helps magnify scourge. Also, /archery doesn't do much to take advantage of defender's higher debuff values, so I'd be inclined to go the corruptor route. The corr damage mods should give it that little extra "Oomph." The AoE in archery makes widespread scourging on teams possible.

For supprt, Sonic resonance won't carry a marginal team on its own, but with good players and/or other buffs, the rare +res combined with the highly effective -res will take any team from "okay" to "Smooth as gravy." Squishies will love the anti-mez, and playing any support set with mez protection is wonderful. (Solo especially.) Defenders will get better numbers on both buffs and debuffs, neither of which effects can be enhanced. Still, I find the difference between mods to be none too game changing, so my personal leaning is Corr still.

...Also, Rain of Arrows @32+Scourge.

*edit* As to the endgame, depending on who you play with, it's common for other players to get a lot of extra +defense, so bringing +res to this is awesome, and takes the teeth out of bad luck rolls. Being tougher after getting hit makes a lot of difference in tough encounters. That said, sonic resonance doesn't develop that much later on. Liquefy is the last big power of the set, and though it's awesome, you will not be able to use it that often, so you'll usually be using the same tools you had from it mid-game.

Favorite powers:

Rain of arrows, especially with boost range+Bu+aim+3 dam/range HO's. That's like having your cake with cookies, fresh pie, ice cream and strawberries.
Tanker: "I'll go round up the next group"
*I gobble reds, do above combo*
*Tanker runs down the hall, tries to hit taunt as they all die.*
*Tanker looks back at my blaster, all the way back at the entry*
"What?"


Crab spider-suppression: I love all the crab AoE's, but this one just cuts the cake. With all the armors, debuffs down and popping aim I love letting this power loose as lasers blast over a huge swath of foes. It's just one of those "RAAAAWR!spiderlasers!powpowpo...okay, you're all gone" things.

Brute Energy transfer: Yes, it's slow. Yes, it requires careful timing. Yes, if you hit buildup, have red candy, and are at high fury, you can take a huge, nasty JAWS-style bite out of an enemy's HP in one dramatic blow.

Adrenalin Boost: If you have enough recharge to make this permanent, it will absolutely spoil a teammate and they probably won't notice it until you are gone. It's probably one of the most quietly awesome powers in the game. No huge aura, looks almost like you healed them. But all of a sudden their powers come back fast, their blue stays topped, and they get 'healed' without you ever touching them.

Drain Psyche for dominators: mez a group, jump in, almost a self adrenalin-boost when you use this power. Also so very sweet when an AV shows up.

Robots' napalm missiles, especially with an immobilize: BUURN.

In the same vein, a dominators' rain of fire, especially combined with embrace of fire and fire cages: BUUUUUUUURN.

Footstomp: It just has so much "Oomph!"

Short circuit, on a defender: So, you thought you had endurance?

Frenzy, for brutes/doms: set your fury/dom bars to awesome.

...And though it's inherent, it just has to be said: Domination. Endurance, mez strength, mez protection, it's just the little button that says "Make me awesome."

...Oohkay, i can think of more but I should stop.

Nitpick- America≠USA.

Brazilians, Mexicans, Guatemalans, etc are all Americans.