Sir Hextor

I'm very thankful for all the service members, current and former, in the US. I am especially appreciative of my friends and family who have served or currently serving, some of them I've met here. So thank you all.

1) Favorite AT was definitely Controllers. As some have mentioned here, a bit of everything in one AT and a variety of power combos could make for a jack of all trades character really easily.

2) This was the toughest for me by far because I have a favorite in each AT and they are all pretty near and dear, but if I had to choose just one it'd be my Electric Melee/Invulnerability/Soul Brute, coincidentally my first character and first 50. The AoE, unstoppable Manchine. At first I went with Mu Mastery for concept and moar AoE, then after reading through the forums a good bit and playing the game more, I realized how poor the ST was and so switched to Soul and nevr looked back. I never finished IOing him out, but was pretty close and I was totally losing my mind over how beastly he would've been post-i24. He was the one toon I knew I could jump on and just rush through whatever....except Psi, but that's what my Dark Armor/Kinetic Melee/Energy Mastery Tank was for

3) At first it was Blasters, who I only forced my way to 50 on because of DP being pretty (and that was with a good bit of PL help from SGmates). A better understanding of IOs, aggro and a total disregard for debt gathering (aka faceplanting) made me appreciate the falling star AT. You may go down, but you are going to put a world of hurt on everything that met you. I was never someone who played the market or farmed for hours on end, so really getting a ton of IOs was out of my playstyle, but I learned to make do with the smattering of IOs I did have and grabbing what uniques would help my woes the most. Using those tactics made the 2nd run to 50 on a blaster (Water/Dark/Ice) much more fun and i24 had me looking at getting a Psi/Fire to 50 (he sits at 33ish). I wish I had more time to really get into Stalkers, Dominators, Masterminds and SoAs who I was only just getting into the real crunch of those ATs when the announcement kind of took the wind out of my playing sails. Cest le vie

Dangit! I won't be in the Raleigh area until next month (Dec 6-12). Congrats on the new position though.

I'd love a piece of artwork to remember the great times I've had here with

My first character and namesake, Sir Hextor. A Electric Melee/Invulnerability 50+3 Brute. Not even fully tiered out, he just is a non stop machine of AoE destruction. Once I respecced out of Mu Mastery and picked up Soul for Gloom and Darkest Night, he became disgustingly capable. Finished IOing him for soft capped defenses and he's a beast. On November 30th, I'll be on him somewhere in the Isles. Of my dozen 50s, he's my main and I couldn't have had a more satisfying way of learning the game.

If I wasn't locking myself out of repeating sets (yet), I would've made my /Fire Blaster a Water Blaster. If you're not purchasing water blast...WHY THE HECK NOT...or rather, Rad or Elec would be my suggestion.

I really enjoy Mortimer and Penny since they are quick and the travel is rather limited. They along with Admiral Sutter and Imperious are S/TFs done right. I also concur that I find SFs more enjoyable generally than TFs, but I have more friends who play Blueside than Red.

While I feel like you get a lot as a free or premium player, I can't imagine not being a VIP player because I enjoy so many of the perks I get for my $15 a month. I've not been here for 6+ years, only 2, so I'm only in my tier 8 (I impulse buy....DON'T JUDGE ME!! ). I am so extremely happy with just the pace of developement because of Freedom that I would cheerfully give them my $15 a month for half the content I get...but instead I get all of it and if I decide to spend a little more on my main hobby, I can get it NOW!!! But hey, to anyone who's not happy with everything, just become premium. Then turn around and spend the hundreds of dollars to repurchase all the perks you just lost from becoming freemium. Seems like a solid plan to me.

I'm really enjoying playing with my normal group and the duo or trio (depending on what alts people are playing) of NA players that are in our group. In fact, I think the set is so great during leveling play that I am probably going to purchase the set when it goes on sale or if there's a lull in powersets being released (currently saving my points to purchase Bio Armor day one). This is from deciding from reports on test that the set wasn't for me. I think the set, like most 'healing' sets has a bigger inpact lvling than on endgame content.

Your enhancement choices in your Plant powers have me scratching my head. Search for some other Plant builds and go back to the drawing board on those. Also, I would build for recharge first, then defense second (prolly ranged as my focus). I'm not familiar with NA at all, but one thing that does stand out is the proced out Entangling Aura. IIRC, that is a choking cloud clone and without accuracy you are almost wasting all those procs and your end usage is terribad. I would 3-4 slot Lockdown with the proc and whatever Accuracy/End you can squeeze out, then take some of those extra slots and put it in vines or use 2 damage procs if you were really in love with them there.

Also, sometimes it is best to be a little less confrontational when requesting help. I'm not saying either side was completely right, but you were the one who was requesting advice. Being brutish does not incline many to want to help you.

You could not be noticing because by lvl 50 with an Alpha slotted most characters are self reliant. Even more so if those characters have the other ipowers unlocked as well.

If you keep both of the staff stuns, then I would say definitely find a pick for OG. If you keep one, I would still advise you to pick up OG. It is a great one slot power that as long as you aren't skipping something critical, every Dark Armor player might as well have it. This advice is assuming you are already planning on getting Cloak of Fear. If you weren't going to pick up Cloak of Fear then imo Oppressive Gloom is a must have. The survivability boost from having at least one of the Mez toggles is huge.

I am hesistant to advise you where to put the proc because I am still not 100% in my understanding of the PPM change coming from i24. Current for i24, the proc will go off everytime in any single target attack power who's base recharge (the unenhanced recharge) of a power is 15 secs or more. Not sure how that compares to slotting it in a damage aura, but I tend to keep it in a ST attack.

Have you played with combustion? It looks like a solid power on paper, but for 2xp weekend I made my first /Fire toon and my ghod was that power disappointing. Maybe it gets worthwhile later on, but I skipped and and happily took it out of my build.

I enjoyed taking /Dark to 50 and prolly would again, though not with the primary I used (Kinetics). Tangental thought since everyone else answered the actual question

I alt too much for my own good, but even though my personal character is only in his 20s, I want to sing the praises of Fire/Dark/Ice.

We all know Fire control offers decent control with a good bit of damage and plays best when you are safe enough to support being in closish range. Dark provides a number of tools for survivability (Darkest Night, Fade, Fluffy, am I right?), sustainibility (Soul Absorption is an amazing power) and moar damage(Tar Patch anyone? Or even better 2 of them!).

While I'm not fully there yet with mine, I've played with a number of more complete builds to witness what someday will be an awesome toon.

For Dark Armor, there are also many more melee sets that allow you to stack stuns than fear on bosses. With the improvements to the Presence pool, there may be less of an argument for that reasoning, but CoF is still a notorious end hog and the accuracy is terribad without proper slotting.

See, I was disappoint cause I saw the title and thought...

Once there was this kid who
Got into an accident and couldn't come to school
But when he finally came back
His hair had turned from black into bright white
He said that it was from when
The car had smashed so hard

I team with a guy who plays one and he does indeed put out AoE damage insanely. Fortunately, Water provides a metric ton of mitigation and therefore the extra damage in /Fire is leveraged quite nicely.