TwilightPhoenix

While there's a few technical limitations in the way, to vastly understate things I'm sure, I wouldn't say there isn't any groundwork laid out...

I can't remember the precise name, but the second time you're in a fast-time dimension fighting Neuron bots and finding five clickies in an annoyingly large outdoor city map. On this mission, you're supposed to beat a boss and his group. Problem is, the objectives make no mention of the boss and Tina makes no mention of the boss. So, I'm sure I'm not the only one who explored the whole map, clicked five glowies, and was confused as to why the mission wasn't clearing. Luckily the GM was cool and moved me to the spawn in question, otherwise I would have never found it in any reasonable amount of time.

You can probably rely purely on dargeting trone if you're fighting even level mobs only, and maybe +1s. If you're playing a set dhat has native accuracy, like Archery, you're even better off. If you start fighting higher level mobs, I'd recommend getting some accuracy slotted somewhere so you can still hit them reliably. Luckily, you won't need as much as other doons to hit as often.

Yeah, the exclamation mark pop-ups don't bother me. They sit nice and out of the way when they appear to remind me I need to turn pop-help off on that toon. Turning that off, however, does not seem to affect the pop ups for stuff like "ZOMG SALVAGE!", unless I'm simply missing something.

Also, consistency. Shouldn't all the tutorial messages show up in the exact same fashion?

With Going Rogue, we got a nice new feature called Pop Help which sits conveniently out of the way on the side of the screen until you have a moment to read it at your leisure. Or, even better, if you've read it before, you can just turn it off and not deal with it.

However, not all pop-ups work like this. We still get stuff like "OMG YOU GOT YOUR FIRST TIP READ ME NAO" popping up smack dab in the middle of the screen in the middle of combat. The LAST thing I want to do is read about how amazing my first piece of salvage is while a boss is trying to two-shot my squishy. So, every and all pop-up type of help that tells you about some thing that just dropped needs to be converted into pop help. Get it out of our faces in mid-combat and let use read it when we want to. Or just disable it after we've seen the box twenty times.

The pop-help needs to be expanded to new contacts as well. Sorry Montague, but it's rather rude of you to pop up in the middle of my screen screaming "HALP MEH PLZ!" just because I hit level 10. Especially if I'm still fighting. Have these notices appear in a similar fashion to pop-help. In fact, while we're at it, let's delete all those "Hey, go talk to PvP dudes/Jim/Marino/My Cat before I give you real tasks" missions and have those contacts get notices in pop-help like all these others. Using the pop-help for both of these systems and dumping those needless Fed Exes would really streamline a few parts of the game.

Well, to make it more confusing, Portal and HL2 run just fine Mac-side on my computer.

Ok, I thought they were identical. Went and looked at City of Data and saw Corruptor Soul Mastery Soul Drain (which I assume is identical to the Defender version from the same set) had double the recharge of Dark Mastery's (120 base vs. 240). That's a little... silly and solves my dilemma. Now I suppose I'll need to advocate buffs to Defender/Corruptor Soul Mastery.

I have a Rad/Sonic/Dark Offender who rocks. Soul Drain, Oppressive Gloom, and a self-rez if things go bad? Heck yes. However, poking at Paragon Wiki last night, I noticed Soul Mastery. It looks... awesome. Soul Drain at 41? Power Boost, meaning I can have the big advantage of Power Mastery too? Wow... Now I'm torn. I love Oppressive Gloom and having a self-rez when I get over my head, but I'd really love to have Power Boost too. And Soul Storm may be nifty too (not getting the pet for concept reasons).

The big thing hinges on Power Boost. Is it as good as I think it is for a Rad/Sonic? Especially when I get Assault/Tactics/Vengeance when I19 hits?

Random idea. What if we're still required to pick one of the five origins, but on our I.D, we're allowed to write in whatever we please in the origin part? So as far as all gameplay mechanics are concerned, you are whatever origin you chose among the five, but cosmetically to yourself and other players, you're whatever origin you filled in.

Non-conventional soloist? Defenders. Rad/Sonic, for example, solos quite nicely and can crank up difficulty to +2 rather early as it works wonders dealing with hard targets and its toggles and heal keeps it rather safe. At the other end of the spectrum, a Dark/Rad Defender can crank difficulty in terms of more opponents easily as it throws out lots of AoEs and is rather hard to kill between its to-hit debuffs and strong heals.

Didn't ElA just get a major improvement when it got proliferated?

Also, there's precedent to a degree: Luminous Aura for Peacebringers. As a literal Unstoppable clone and a self-rez.

Natural basically means powers you're born with (Peacebringer) or you just have special training (Arachnos Soldier). Just because the source isn't native to your home planet or you're not native to ours doesn't mean you cannot be a natural/science/mutant/magic/tech origin. The Rikti themselves could all possibly fit under any of the origins we have in game, different from soldier to soldier. Mutant and Natural are the least likely to fit, since I'm not sure if they're born with psychic powers or not or if the Lost eventually turn into full Rikti. And yes, Magic does apply to a few Rikti. See the Rikti Magus.

Peacebringers are Natural because they're all born with those powers. Warshades are Science because they're scientifically converted Peacebringers. Rularuu is unclear since there's a ton we don't (or at least I don't) know about them. But, however they come about, one or more of the origins no doubt covers them.

What we do need to add are "Psionics". Sister Psyche, after all, claims to be one, so there's some canon grounding for it.

Regardless if Aliens, Psionics, or Cheescakes were added as origins, the Dual Origin enhancements would all need to be reworked simply because just adding x/Science and y/Natural would skewer things in favor of whatever the new origins were mixed with, causing DOs for those origins to drop more while DOs for every other origin drops less. Unless we added three origins and mixed the new ones with each other only (each origin is combined with two others in DOs), though you'd still see drop rates for all specific origins fall, even if DOs drop at the same rate. The same issue would also exist with SOs.

And then the devs would need to go and edit every existing enemy group so they drop proper DO/SOs to include the new origins.

And then they'd have to add stores for all the new origins. And one-shot mission arcs for the new origins for the 30-40 and 40-50 range blueside.

And then they'd need to go through every contact and make sure a "proper" amount sold the new origins instead of what they currently do. And they'd need to update some dialogue to make sure contacts properly mention which origin enhancements are sold.

They'd also need to come up with a new origin temp power for each new origin.


When you really think about it, it's actually quite a lot of work just to add a new origin. While I'd love to see new ones, the amount of work involved will probably keep the devs from ever doing it.

It'd also be nice if it didn't fire the shot before I was done drawing it. While minor, it's a little annoying to fire an ice blast from my chest and then wave a pistol around.

If you think Invoke Panic is great for melee mitigation, try getting to level 41 and using Oppressive Gloom. You'll perma-stun all the minions and lts around you (with some exceptions).

Rarely crash. Only thing I have on my end (MacBook with latest 10.5) is that my framerate isn't too impressive much of the time with little regard to my graphics settings. Dropping from just under ultra to minimum nets me an improvement of maybe 2FPS over my 15ish (in an outdoor zone). Considering I can run Aion (in bootcamp) on the same hardware at 40+ FPS in most cases and that I have similar issues with Spore, I find myself blaming the emulation.

For my long, detailed thoughts and opinions on Rad/Sonic, see my guide in my sig. Needs a little updating for new additions such as PPPs, but it's otherwise accurate. And I'm waiting for Incarnate content to hit before making any major updates anyway.

Personally, I'd suggest making a Rad/Sonic Offender. The combo works very well for personal damage and, because Rad is so debuff heavy, the things you do with your primary to benefit yourself benefits the team equally; only Mutation doesn't directly benefit yourself. There's also plenty of leeway to toss in more support on top of an Offendery build, such as Leadership or ally rezzing.

Also, Vengeance + Soul Drain + Aim + Fallout and/or Dreadful Wail will cause you to cackle maniacally.

My only high level Scrapper currently runs Body for Conserve Power, but will be swapping to either Fire or Mu when I19 hits. It mainly hinges on the difference in damage between Fire Ball and Ball Lightning. Unfortunately, Red Tomax doesn't have Scrapper Mu Mastery yet for comparison.