SpacePope

Just to add yet another anecdote to the many: Overnight I got sick of seeing nothing good on the MM. So I pulled out my ancient fire/kin controller, with half-slotted enhancements and starting with no incarnate stuff except for a common alpha.

Even before she got enough to make the first level shift, she was consistently pulling better rewards than the MM. In probably 10 BAFs overnight and this morning, she never got worse than Uncommon, and got more Rares than anything else. She didn't fare as well on the two Lambdas I did, only scoring commons there. Still that would make sense with a contribution metric as the sabotage and final fight with Marauder are not terribly friendly to squishy control/aoe.

As always, I admit it's all personal experience and I still have no hard data, but it certainly does -seem- too weird to be random.

Yeah, from anecdotes across the forums and other people's experiences with varying ATs, it sure seems like something is up with the reward system somewhere, and it's rather frustrating. Might end up transferringa fifty that can get more rewards to a higher-pop server or something, I don't know.

Though of course, anecdotes are still just that, anecdotal evidence at best. I wish we could prod the devs into revealing more, but that seems unlikely.

As frustrating as the glowie smashing is for me on squishy characters, I have to say that the acid thing in Lambda is really the only part of the two trials that I out and out don't like. Almost every time, somebody doesn't use them even though we cleared out all ten tubes with time to spare. So we end up farming more as adds pile up and the league gets upset. It's not usually a gamebreaker to have to farm up two or three acids, but it is annoying. I really wish there was some way to dictate who got the temp power or at least see who has them so directions can be delivered.

I also had someone this morning insist on standing where they could be in the cutscene with Marauder and then promptly despawn him when their pets ran away. I wish instead of instant failure he would just port the target back to him, or instakill them, or something. It's a frustrating way for the trial to end, but much less common than acid issues thankfully.

Edit: I always have to manually add leage chat to my tabs, it doesn't show up in any of them by default. But I'm not going to deny that may be something with my settings.

If the system is supposed to be completely random, and I'm skeptical, then it seem very streaky at best. If it's not, then the metrics need to be bugchecked/reevaluated, in my personal opinion. In 35+ trials my Bots/Traps MM has not seen anything better than Uncommon. Ever. While my rad/sonic defender with a third as many trials done has scored a few rares. While obviously I can't rule out the possibility of crap luck, it is very frustrating to feel (and I do say feel, because I have no proof) that it's not counting pets and spawned traps in any way.

My current guess, MisterD, is that it's based on a few factors, largely damage, healing, and perhaps damage taken. But I don't think it's counting damage from pets or summons, is the issue. I can't confirm this, of course. It could be random and we just have the worst luck. It seems quite the coincidence, though. That's why I'm looking for other people's experience.

Also, I'm going to track the rarity level of each trial reward I get on my MM, I've decided. Just to see what the numbers for that character start shaping up as.

So I'm curious if the other incarnate trial running MMs out there are seeing any of this, or if I'm just having supreme bad luck. My Bots/Traps has run a few dozen trials now, and not once have I seen a better reward table than Uncommon. While my defender who has probably run half as many gets the occasional Rare. Now, I know my sample size is fairly small, so I'm certainly not ruling out crappy luck. However, I remember a couple of months ago there was an issue with masterminds not getting proper contribution from their pets for Praetorian zone events. (I don't know if this was ever fixed, I took a break.)

So I can't help but wonder if since almost all my contribution is from pets and summoned things, I'm getting shorted on however the reward tables are figured. If any of you have noticed anything correlating this, or for that matter refuting it, I'd be glad to hear it. I'd also be interested to know what secondaries seem to be getting more rewards. I know a bots/FF friend of mine is having a similar issue.

Yeah, can't blame you there. My mastermind gets nothing but commons and occasionally just the ten thread trial reward. It's a little frustrating, though I suppose that's the nature of an MMO endgame.

Avoiding the rest of the debate entirely, yes they can.

I have to say that there's only one support set that I really don't care for in some way or another. Everything from Force Fields to Empathy/Pain I like to some degree. I have a TA/A at 50 that I enjoy, even.

Except for Storm.

Now, I wouldn't say it's a bad set. It certainly has uses and good powers. In my personal experience, however, it is the most infuriating. I can respect a good knockback, that kind of thing can protect soft allies or even just make things easier overall. It seems, however, that most Storm players have no idea how to use it appropriately. They just knock everything all the heck over, even when there's no need for it. One of the very few TFs I've ever quit out of anger or frustration was a Synapse where a Storm character wouldn't stop knocking all the clockwork away from melee. Which just made them open up with more of their end-draining lighting. It drove me batty, I couldn't stand it. So storm gets my vote for least favorite.

Just to throw my two cents in, I have a mercs/pain that I made before I knew any better. Over the course of time, they somehow got to 50 because I liked it even though it always felt underperforming. I'd get interested, get a couple of levels, and get sick of the issues of Mercs again

Just now, a few hours ago, I decided to try something else. I needed to respec for inherent fitness, so I went the tankermind route. S/L softcapped and such. It has in the space of a few hours and a few hundred million inf (About 700, for what it's worth, and some of that was unnecessary/buy it now spending) become much more fun. Now, it's still not as good as the same character would be as Bots or Thugs, I'm sure. I'm by no means excusing the shortfalls of Mercenaries, or saying that it's acceptable for a character to only be fun with sets. Just sharing my opinion of what has turned my Mercs character around.

I wasn't there last night. But my friends who were were all talking about how well it went and how fun and profitable it was. I guess opinions are different for everyone.

Small thing, but I wouldn't bother with the recharge reductions in the upgrade powers. They already recharge far faster than you should ever need to use them, though I know this is different than they used to be. If you're going to double-slot them, I'd just do two EndRedux, since they do take a hefty chunk of blue.

Edit: Also, I personally swear by Aid Other on my Bots/FF. It's not amazing, but it will certainly help keep your bots alive when they take one hit through your bubble and are near death.

The world's due to end soon, Taser's infamous Plot Device finally hit 50, crashing me off the server as he did so. I'd recommend taking the tarps off your old Y2k shelters about now.