Selina_H

That's your added qualifier, not mine. A semantic stretch almost worthy of a politician!

Do you psychoanalyze all the Mary Sues as well, or just the neo-Nazi rapist ones?

My bad. Your reasons, your friend's reasons - my point still stands. You're putting forth your own personal criteria for "acceptable bad guys" and expecting that everyone else use the same ruler.

Are you looking for Mary Sue markers? How do you determine the difference? All my characters have little bits of me in there somewhere, but they're not extensions of me. If you don't know me personally, you're not going to be able to do anything but guess which pieces are the player and which ones are additives.

I'd say "usually" is stretching it. Sometimes, perhaps even often. I don't think it's so normative, though, that you can automatically assume that protagonist = author in the majority of cases.

You know, I had entirely skipped over this bit earlier. But now that I read it more thoroughly, your entire post is basically a defense of your personal reasons for playing a bad guy, and why it's okay if YOU do so. As opposed to the rest of us, since we couldn't possibly have good enough reasons to play bad guys because they don't match your carefully selected criteria.

Nope, didn't miss the point at all. Let's see...

So your point appears to be that "There are lots of valid reasons to portray a 'jerkwad' *ONLY* if you're an actor." Or if other people have convinced you to be the bit player in their RP drama, which amounts to the same thing.

Because as we all know, there's a HUGE difference in motivation between actors and RPers. Actors try to get inside a character, to find out how the person really ticks, how he or she would behave in certain circumstances and not in others, and what experiences it took to get him/her there. RPers... well, I guess they do the same thing! But since they don't do it on a stage, it doesn't count! Also, since RPers create their *own* unlovable characters, they're more like playwrights than actors, and we all know playwrights are just horrible people who have issues, since they keep writing characters who have moral flaws.

Yes, I'm being snarky as hell, but I thought (hoped, anyway) the community had gotten over this issue back when CoV came out, years ago.

And this is what the "I RP myself" crowd fails to see, every time. There are many RPers for whom the very core of roleplay is the challenge of creating a plausible, complex character with both virtues and flaws (and a backstory that explains them), then bringing them to life, stepping over obstacles and progressing the story while keeping his or her thoughts and actions internally consistent with the character's quirks and motivations.

Not everyone RPs to be a more perfect version of themselves, and not everyone RPs to be the good guy. Yes, someone who plays a "racist *******" just to have the excuse of being an *** to other people does have issues (and those players do exist). But RPers who portray complex and morally ambiguous or even repellent characters shouldn't all be lumped into that category automatically. I get that some people just can't play bad guys that do terrible things they could never dream of doing themselves, and that's totally fine. But some of us can, and it doesn't mean we harbor secret ebil dreams of taking candy from babies. We're just better at separating.

Sorry, this is just lame. If hatefulness is an unacceptable flaw in an RP character, it doesn't matter whether that hatefulness is directed toward any real-world grouping or not. It's just wrong. So you're a bad, bad person and you should be ashamed.

At this point in the game's life, most of the higher-level teams I encounter understand that generally buffs and debuffs > heals. The ones that don't are usually pretty vocal about their ignorance: "TF team forming. Need healer." I tend to stay well away from those teams.

People suck. Don't let the sheer idiocy of a few nitwits pressure you into choosing to ignore some of the tools that help round out your powerset. Emp buffs are amazing and it's good to focus on them first, but having extra layers of mitigation/recovery is never a bad thing.

QFE.

If being *paid* to portray an unlovable character is the only "acceptable" rationale for it, then anybody playing the bad guy in a community theatre performance is a total jerkwad.

You get shard drops rather than threads if you're in the hospital.

This is very, very important information. It will give people an idea of whether you feel weak because

1) You picked the 'wrong powers' (not that there are any, really, but if you go entirely off of flavor and the limited in-game descriptions, you could end up choosing mostly cool-looking but highly inefficient powers while skipping the real gems of the set)
2) You slotted your powers badly, wasting slots on aspects that can't or shouldn't be enhanced while ignoring what would make the power most effective
3) Your playstyle doesn't synergize well with the sets you're using.

Or any combination of the above, of course.

The theory is simple: Pick good powers, slot them well, and make sure you're in a position to use them effectively. For IO builds, build on what the powerset is already good at while shoring up any weaknesses and adding layers of survivability. In practice, obviously, it's not always so easy, especially if you're not always familiar with the powers and what they do, or what your options are.

The powerset guides offer a good starting point, even though they don't get updated as often as some would like. Guides will usually tell you what powers are considered key, which ones are decent but skippable, and which ones are next to useless. (On my first character ever, a Dark Miasma defender, I skipped Tar Patch - I wasn't aware of how powerful debuffs could be in this game. I took Flurry instead. Ha!)

Guides will also give you good basic (non-IO) slotting advice. The rule here (with numerous and glaring exceptions) tends to be to enhance the biggest and/or most vital aspects of the power while keeping in mind constraints like endurance usage. Most targeted attacks will need at least some accuracy to hit reliably (unless they're autohit) as well as damage enhancement. Core powers on a long timer will need as much recharge as they can get. Damage auras tend to be extremely endurance heavy, so make sure there's enough end reduction in there as well as your standard acc/dam.

What you *don't* want to do (unless you're making a very knowledgeable and deliberate tradeoff of enhancement values for IO set bonuses) is enhance the stuff that really doesn't need it while ignoring other key aspects. A friend of mine slotted one of his brute's most important attacks with a Taunt set that enhances primarily taunt duration and recharge - the bonuses were nice, but he ended up with very little accuracy and ZERO damage enhancement or end reduction on a staple of his attack chain.

Caveat 1: Enhancement Diversification. Due to diminishing returns, slotting an aspect of a power past 3 SOs' worth is virtually pointless. You're getting less effectiveness and wasting slots.

Caveat 2: While it's not always worth it to try to enhance something with a minimal effect (or to select a minimal effect power in the first place), stacking from multiple powers or set bonuses can turn it into something worth looking at. Combat Jumping gives something like 2-3% defense - piddly on its own, but stacked with other defense powers and IO set bonuses, it can help push a character into near-invulnerability. This is where you start getting into those "soft-cap" defense builds that you're so leery of.

Speaking of which: The Defense Soft Cap is 45% in regular, non-Incarnate content. Enemy critters have a floor of 5% chance to hit you - no matter how high your defense is, they'll always have that 1 in 20 shot. 45% defense is the point at which that enemy chance to hit you is at the 5% floor - while technically you *can* add more defense, it doesn't have any effect. So a character with a softcapped defense build is getting hit as little as mechanically possible in this game, which makes it very survivable.

Building well for set bonuses does require good familiarity with your available powers and the limitations of the game mechanics on effectiveness. Forumgoers posting high-end builds know their powerset's strengths and weaknesses, what they should maximize, what holes they can stop up, and what minor sacrifices may need to be made to enhancement values to gain a more valuable set bonus.

But that's probably not something you even need to worry about at this point. Get familiar with the powers and the basic slotting, and go from there. Once you're comfortable with the basics, it's very easy to transition into options for IO builds. Fulmens has a great guide on Frankenslotting (mixing and matching IOs from different sets to maximize enhancement values rather than set bonuses) here. When you're ready to look at set bonuses, each archetype forum usually has a number of very knowledgeable people who can help you determine the best way to build for your AT and powersets.

Your DPS drops to zero when you're dead. Fire is seen as relatively squishier than many other defense sets, meaning that if you're a less-than-stellar player, have a bad build or just try to take on too much, you may be more likely to faceplant.

So if you're looking for the *maximum possible* damage, all other things being equal, then yes, you want Fire. All other things not being equal, if you have trouble leveraging that damage due to issues with survivability, you won't be doing the sustained DPS you'd be doing with another, "safer" set.

If you're looking at it from the point of view of asking yourself, "Does this build do what I want/need it to do?" then yes, they're absolutely equal.

If you're looking at it from a numbers or efficiency standpoint, there are huge differences. "Does this build get me increased performance at the lowest cost, and when it doesn't, is any higher cost justified by a significant increase in performance?" This is where your build fails, and it's the point Claws has been trying to get across to you.

Remember that you're not obligated to cash in reward merits and inf for A-merits. From the second reinforcement of your alignment on, you're granted the A-merit outright.

It's only the first reinforcement where you're granted 50 reward merits, which you can choose to convert. You can also convert extra reward merits and inf to get A-merits faster, but it's by no means required.

Most of the high-end rares, such as the LotG +7.5 recharge, the Numina's +regen/+recov or the Miracle +recov are 2 A-merits (iirc, the Performance Shifter +end proc is 1 merit).

These aren't the respecs you're looking for...

Flippers don't make things better for everyone. They make things worse for the impatient and the entitled. I don't think that's such a bad thing.

Or the going rate on the item plus an overall lack of demand means people don't bother to even list their drops.

On the other hand, *you're* the one implying that people aren't smart enough to bid odd numbers, but they're still smart enough to bid creep, when we've already seen that a sizable number of items sell for much higher than listed. Who's contradicting whom?


There have been numerous times when I've stocked up on multiple high-value items to store or distribute to SG members. That probably means I've got a stack or two of bids up at an odd, lowball price point. This is all stuff that's being used (or going to be soon), not stuff that's being put back up for sale. Not everything is the EBIL FLIPPING CONSPIRACY you seem to think it is.

I'd still say Natural. The average person has the ability to notice things; your character is just innately better at it, and trained to sharpen it even more. The average person does *not* have telekinesis, however weak and untrained. Even an untrained, otherwise normal telekinetic human would be some origin other than Natural.

Isn't this exactly the same argument Turbo is using against FF?

This. Pick them off one by one, starting with the lieutenants. Use positioning to separate them where possible - KB and immobs are especially effective.

Watch out if you're using Static Field - make sure that your soon-to-be-dead target is well away from the others, or the heal will wake them all up temporarily (Nem staff works great for this).

Yet you're arguing that flippers make it impossible for Joe Casual to obtain anything. How do you reconcile these two statements? Joe Casual has just as much chance as Ebil Flipper to get the next item up for sale - in fact, he just has to bid 1 inf higher than Ebil Flipper and he'll cut into Flipper's supply. Why isn't he doing that?

What you are looking for is a store. Or a charity. You have the option of buying SOs at a store, or trying to live off the generosity of other players. Costume contests are an option here.

Except it quite obviously isn't. That's why you can have an item with far more bids on it than what's available for sale. Do you understand what would happen if, for example, all items were forced to be for sale at a low price of say, 100, or 10,000, or even 1 million? People would stop listing them! I know I would. Then *nobody* would be able to buy anything, and you'd have to rely on your own drops, or hope that your friends have something you need.

He COULD have had it for 150 million. After all, that's what the flipper paid, so it must have been offered at that price point or lower. Why didn't he bid enough to secure the item?

Or that could have been me, helping a friend IO out his character. Those purps are going straight into a build. Not everything that's bought at a low price point is being flipped.

No. They didn't. That's why I'm consistently able to purchase things for lower, sometimes far lower, than the last 5. It's also why I have shiny things sell for far, far more than I was asking for.

Don't bid what you're not willing to pay. You're not *entitled* to any items - the Market is a convenience. If you don't want to pay what sellers are asking, you have the option of using SOs, or outfitting yourself through your own drops. Or put in your lowball bid and WAIT. It's how I scored some Membranes for around 70mil when the going rate was 150-400mil.

Or people have independently decided that 175M is what the item in question is worth, based on its scarcity and previous history. How do you know that it wasn't 175M a week ago, and competition among sellers gradually drove the price down to 150M? Then the cheaper items sold out, while those 175M items are probably still sitting there - no one wants to eat that listing fee.

I just offered you one.

Me. I random roll my A-merits and put most of the results up for sale. But only if I feel the price is high enough to be worth it. If not, it goes to the vendor.

And you're incorrect. What you're *actually* saying is that people want their shinies not only for less than what the flipper is relisting them for, but for lower than what the flipper is paying for them - otherwise they'd be getting some of the flipper's precious supply. And if *that's* the case, you've valued the item waaay too low, and need to revise your expectations.

This. Flippers make their profits off the people who choose to pay a premium for the convenience of not waiting for an item. Anyone who's willing to wait can get it at the lower price.

Doing a Morality mission to go from Rogue to Hero doesn't count as a reinforcement of alignment for reward purposes. The second Hero mission you did is actually the first reinforcement, so you got the 50 reward merits. If you do the Hero mission again, reinforcing your alignment a second time, you'll receive an A-merit.