Seldom

Per tactical training maneuvers:
In my experience it's for either of these reasons:
They usually skip it because of the leadership pool: maneuvers, with a similar name, is an incredibly low +def power. As such they don't realize the Arachnos one is so far superior in its numbers.
They skip it because it's a 'team buff,' not realizing the values are high enough to be worthwhile even solo.

Tactics?
Arachnos builds are tight, and while hitting stuff is good, basic accuracy slotting is usually enough to hit things. As such, picking/slotting/running an extra toggle is not always advantageous.

The lesson to learn? Kindly inform all your spider buddies (specifically soldiers) that their maneuvers are more akin to the forcefield big bubble than the pool power. Heck, slotted up it's almost akin to giving their soldier all the super reflexes toggles at once. What super spider soldier doesn't want to have super reflexes?

Unfortunately, there's not much to be done outside of debuffs/high team buffs to deal with states' unstoppable. He'll trigger it even if held, as it's tied to health #'s. Still, after it drops there is a period where it's not up: at that point chew on all the red candy you can, use all your big -regen powers, do anything you can, and you can get him far enough down before his next unstoppable to fell him.

But yeah, the guy cheats. Fast recharge unstoppable, with his lightning storm nuke that he spams when he feels pinched. Hooray for a fun fight.

Hehehehee.

The blessing of alt-aholics though: respecs are way easier for lowbies.

...of which I have too many.
But yes, redoing the highbies can be a pain. Gol-durnit! I just did some ancillary pool revisions too!

I've had one use for it: masterminds. As I can control where they go and when, it's nice to give them a more reliable way to deal with multiple-level areas (negating their stupid 'jump about pathfinding') and restraining them from creating an 'aggro trail.' Plus flying pets, especially robots, are cool.

Sadly, as mastermind minions often spawn with a level penalty, the -tohit butchers their effectiveness even with tactics running.

A declinable 'grant flight' click would be awesome. Oh, and have max-flight built in. Otherwise the raptor packs are far better.

*edit*
That brings up another idea: what if the power granted an incredibly high flight mag and high resistance to -fly effects? As such the highest tier flight power would ensure those effected could resist grounding powers almost completely, where normal flight and raptor packs would be normally invalidated.

Illusion would work well for dominators, in my opinion, not because they have domination but because they have attacks. An illusion controller can put out a great deal of damage, but if they lack an offense-friendly secondary much of that damage goes away. A dominator? high damage makes this less of a problem. With their damage, spectral wounds would be obscenely damaging.

That said, developers seem to lean toward the easy ports first. The finicky sets would be things like ninjitsu for anything non-stalker, illusion because the damage/AT fit might need tweaks, Super strength for scrappers because of the rage+high damage mod might work out, and so on.

The easy proliferations:
Cold domination for masterminds
Sonic resonance for masterminds
Energy melee for scrappers
Psy blast for corruptors
Energy aura for tanks

More finicky:
ice/ice for stalkers
/poison for corruptors
/ninjitsu for scrappers
Illusion/ for dominators
/Dark for controllers
Dark/ for blasters
/kinetics for masterminds (you think controlling your ninjas is tricky NOW? Try giving them crack!)
/radiation for masterminds (!!!!)
/regen for brutes/tanks

*edit: forgot /sonic for mm's, and /regen.

Hm. I agree with the OP.

The anniversary badges have two possible uses, in practice: checking how 'old' a character is, and checking how 'old' the account is. If someone only has the 51 month vet badge but is on a character sporting the '1st anniversary' badge, you know (a) their character is old, and (b) their account, though perhaps not active the whole time, has been around for awhile.

I'm more than okay with losing the character age marker, just because it's a weak one at best. I have villain alts that date back to issue 6 but lack the badges just because I forgot to log them in. Thus the badge isn't even good at showing how long a character's existed.

As to the 'badge creep' argument, no, just because you make some character-specific badges global does NOT mean all can or will be. Many badges relate directly to a character accomplishment. Defeating an army's worth of longbow, sorcerers, etc. It tells you what kind of things the character has been used for. An obvious example are the SF/TF badges. If somebody has a lot of them, you can tell that character specifically has been used for a lot of them. It's actually handy when checking out team members on said tasks. ("Oh, so-and-so has the badge for this on their tank, so they kind of know what to expect when tanking.")

The anniversary badges? It just means the player entered their code, selected a server, and logged in to the character. The character doesn't really have to go out and do anything. Heck, at least the day jobs require you to move. When the events hit, I do this with my alts. Why? it is, as mentioned about, a time marker. But I'd be more than fine with adjusting it to be account wide, as the activity is far more account-centric than character centric. (The badge is awarded for the act of logging in, not anything else.)

As to weapon unlocks: that's a bit trickier. Most unlocks relate to something 'found' or earned by a task. I can understand those who might use a nemesis backstory wanting the rifle, but for 'Super Gunner Man' sporting a nemesis rifle just because they can? From the lore side it doesn't make a load of sense.I don't know, that one's tricky.
That said, some things like the tommy gun and epaulets are general enough that forcing them into a badge seems unnecessary. Leave the badge as a sign of the character's accomplishment, but you don't need to kill mafia types to get your hands on a tommy gun, or save the world to find shoulder do-dads without spikes.

Want to remember? Just do those ouro challenges that turn off bonuses. Goodness, it smarts. I do have to catch myself, at times, when giving dominator advice. (As that's the one I slotted like mad.)

Thankfully, most of my other characters are kept simple, or frankenslotted at best, so I'm less biased on them.

I'm sorry, but what has changed that makes new guides necessary? Certainly there've been a few new additions, but I can't think of much that would invalidate the aforementioned "old" guides.

...or were you hoping for a demon/thermal/recent IO take? I'm sorry, but your request seems pretty broad.

SATURDAY OCTOBER 2nd
Dr. Quaterfield Task Force - Firebase Zulu
Start time: 11 AM Eastern (10 AM Central, 9 AM Mountain, 8 AM Pacific)
The time can change if enough players ask for a later (or earlier) start time. But make sure everyone knows about it!

All Eight Spots need to be filled to ensure the Task Force can start!
Name Level Archetype Powers @Global


1) Force of Oblivion -50- Corr - Fire/Cold - @Force
2) @Beetle King - either a brute or blaster
3) @Starfire - Fortunata or DEF/COR
4) Dreameater -50- Dom - Mind/Psi - @chicagodoodler
5)
6)
7)
8)

I've had a Mind/ dom as my main since dominators came out, and have tried elec/ in praetoria, but haven't had a ton of time on the character.

Mind/ is pretty much all direct control/lockdown. It all works even better in domination. Electric control seems the opposite in many ways: lots of soft control, but not much to stop all attacks immediately. Also note that a lot of electric control doesn't benefit from domination. Mind control is excellent with investment, while electric actually doesn't need that much extra, as far as I can tell.

My electric/electric dom is also a mu, and it's actually pretty nice: Even on DO's he saps enemies dry and keeps them harmless. It's funny because while Mind/ is about as safe as the player is alert, Electric just lets you fire off a few main powers consistently then go to town. Basically, Mind control with experience and investment is far more powerful, but electric is good right off and seems to stay there.

Let's be honest: Only a small subset of a subset of users post builds around here, and the reason they do often goes back to three reasons: to show a well min/maxed build for survival/offense, ("it solos pylons!") to show a lawnmower farmer build, or for PvP performance. In many of these cases, the ability to fly is considered extraneous. Heck, In PvP it's looked at often as almost a liability.

Also, people focusing on builds in such ways hang in groups that exchange their ideas. If you're looking to find out about the game, and your group tells you SS/SJ are best, in time you will think that.

Personally? I take fly all the time. more than two third of my characters use it,as it's often the best for my characters. Magic users hovering/flying? Makes a bit more sense than superjumps, by theme. Natural character? Rocket boots, and I'm good to go. Classic superhero? Few things are as iconic as flight.

After flight I have teleport, ninja run, and superjump as travel in equal measures. I have one character that I made with superspeed last year, and I've been here since launch. It really did take me that long. It just really didn't interest me that much...I did use it for a fire character where it looked right, and only after buying the jump pack when jetpacks became easy to obtain. The hard to quantify side of flight is that it really is safer/easier for getting around, but that comes from gameplay experience rather than numbers. I also don't dig the yellow glow, but some do.

...Not to mention the fact that those who like those powers are not bothered by the slight inconveniences that come with them. I'm used to flight, and don't find the speed that bad, but those who only want to get from here to there pronto are bugged by it.

For what it's worth, my 'team tank' took provoke as well. Why? When I fired taunt on one group and more still bother a squishy, but I don't want to go near them with aoe's hitting me to punchvoke.

All in all, if you're a tank playing bodyguard and have a spare power pick, provoke is nice. You can throw an accuracy in it and use it perfectly well as-is.

*edit to the above* for the record, confuse adds more xp for time than it subtracts. Why? Even damaged by a confused foe, a player will get a disproportionately larger amount of xp per damage inflicted. As such, you mow through more mobs faster- (due to confusion damage) confusion helps you level faster.

Just a note on this: this is a great way do down play what some players cal 'confuse xp stealing.' In that they assume because baddies are smacking each other, they're losing rewards. Well, freaking out the confused mobs makes them smack each other less, so your misguided team members stop freaking out as you explain that confusion xp loss can be mitigated by killing confused things.

I don't know why, but the folks I've met that complain about confusion are the same that wait for it to wear off to engage.

I'm going to have to go with the 'three tier 1' powers. Why? Though the moving up of provoke is logical, it's usually an 'extra' or replacement taunt. Putting challenge in the way means you have to take an extra or to get an extra. Or taking a fake-fake taunt to get a fake taunt. That's one too many. I have a few tanks/crabs/masterminds who took provoke because it's an extra but useful crowd control power. Operative word being 'crowd.' If you make challenge/provoke/intimidate all tier 1's, you don't shut out current provoke users. It also opens the field for those who want soft control rather than attention.

Looking only at what direct protecion they give, here's how the two compare:

Cold using artic air, ice shield, frostwork and glacial shield max-slotted for protection:

defense:
Smashing:23.4+7.8=31.2
Lethal: 23.4+7.8=31.2
Fire:7.8
cold:7.8
Energy:23.4+7.8=31.2
Neg. Energy:23.4+7.8=31.2
Psy:7.8
Toxic:7.8

ranged: 23.4+7.8=31.2
melee: 23.4+7.8=31.2
AoE: 23.4+7.8=31.2

resistance:

Smashing:
Lethal:0
Fire:15.6+31.2=46.8
cold:19.5+19.5+31.2=70.2
Energy:31.2
Neg. Energy:0
Psy:0
Toxic: 20

Note that the 20% toxic res is kinda limited and unslottable in frostwork.

Forcefield, using Deflection Shield, Insulation shield, and dispersion Bubble

defense:
Smashing:23.4+15.6=39
Lethal: 23.4+15.6=39
Fire:23.4+15.6=39
cold:23.4+15.6=39
Energy:23.4+15.6=39
Neg. Energy:23.4+15.6=39
Psy:15.6
Toxic:0

ranged: 23.4+15.6=39
melee: 23.4+15.6=39
AoE: 23.4+15.6=39

resistance:

Smashing:0
Lethal:0
Fire:0
cold:0
Energy:0
Neg. Energy:0
Psy:0
Toxic: 40

Note: forcefield also has resistance to end drain in insulation shield, and of course the 8.65 mez protection from immobilize, hold, and stun.

In the end, forcefield wins on pure defense. Cold wins on its mix of resists and defense. (It does seem odd that it has so little to help allies avoid fire and ice, but since those resists are good, it seems fair.) So if you just don't want to get hit? Forcefields are better at that. Barely, but it is. Then there's the anti-mez thing...is that a fair trade when all the extra debuffs are involved? That's debateable. Especially when cold can cap HP on allies, basicaly making them tougher.

This doesn't seem to include the knockaround mitigation of forcefield; force bubble is excellent mitigation for ranged team members. Repulsion bomb helps turn off anenemy's clump's damage for a moment.

Personally? I see few enough of both that it's not an either/or...if one is available, I'll take it in a heartbeat. If both? C'mon, capped defenses, debuffs, mez protection, it's all good.