Umbral

The TLR or "oh noes, I'm allergic to numbers" version is that you need 2 rech SOs and Hasten up to run the chain. Quite nice considering the damage it deals.

What? No! I don't do any of that. I just hate people, constantly berate them, and have an inordinately high opinion of myself. Besides, kicking kittens isn't any fun because they crumple after the first kick and babies aren't nearly worth the effort of stealing from their parents.

I'll agree that you're not going to be running +4/x8 on a tight budget DM/Regen, though I don't recall the OP saying anything about budget. It's entirely possible (and actually quite fun) to run DM/Regen solo against huge groups like that. I'd never dream of using the Whirlwind strategy though because I'm a friggin' scrapper. I don't spin around unless I'm using some attack that makes me spin. Besides, */Regen gives you all of the tools you need to survive groups like that.

Shadow Maul is going to be a godsend for you, however, because you're going to want to have some AoE and Shadow Maul is the best you've got. Alternate saturated Shadow Mauls with MG and Siphon Life while you're taking out the LTs and minions. Save the bosses for last because your primary concern should be limiting incoming damage rather than killing the group off in the quickest manner possible. The important thing to remember is that you're going to need to learn to use your click powers as efficiently as possible. Don't waste any of them because, in a situation like that where you're taking out 5 targets at most and likely 1 target at a time, there isn't much room for error. I'd probably lead off with MoG as I jumped in and switch to a DP>Recon>MoG>IH priority string (though that's not set in stone because there are some times when you want to use Recon before DP or MoG before either of those).

Kat/Regen and BS/Regen are still going to be a better builds for the job of soloing large, high level groups simply because the added benefits of Siphon Life are substantially less compared to the added benefits of Divine Avalanche for a set that already has inordinate amounts of damage recovery (the opposite of which is true for defense based builds like */SD and */SR because you don't need more defense when you're already softcapped but more damage recovery is great).

DM/Regen is much more of an AV soloer than a farmer, though it will do the job of farming quite adequately. Most of it is based around learning to use your click powers correctly, which is, honestly, the trick of playing any */Regen well. Don't try to do anything in the top tier of content with a */Regen unless you're extremely confident in your ability to use your click powers exactly when they're needed.

I can see needing all three of those powers on a WP because WP has substantially higher toggle costs. For a */Regen, however, you only really need 2 end assistance powers (generally QR and Phys Perf in my builds) because the end costs are substantially lower.

I'm good people? I take affront to that!

If you're referring to the merits they receive for completing story arcs (which they have the unique capability to direct people towards doing thanks to assigning active missions), team leaders already get bonus xp. Story arc completion grants a hefty amount of experience and influence that isn't spread out to everyone else on the team.

To the OP, congratz. What you're asking for already exists.

Yes. And I tell you this from first hand experience.

Safe estimates gauge it at .2 end/sec because there hasn't been reliable analysis to conclusively determine that it grants 10% of total endurance rather than 10% of base endurance. My current closest estimate is that it grants 10% of total endurance excluding the passive accolades (i.e. only set bonuses).

And we all know how intelligent and observant you've shown yourself to be in the past.

That's completely untrue actually. Farmers increase supply on both ends (currency and recipes) and, what you might not realize, is that farmers generate a lot more influence than they do recipes which is why prices have climbed so high so quickly.

I highly doubt that -end would be a reliable control mechanism. At most, it would probably be a minor secondary mechanism. -End and -recov just aren't reliable enough to be turned into a central control mechanism, especially at the low level.

That's pretty debatable, honestly. Storm has 2 powers that have anything to do with electricity (Lightning Storm, Thunder Clap), 2 powers that have to do with the cold (Snow Storm, Freezing Rain), and 5 that have no real connection to any control set theme (Gale, O2 Boost, Steamy mist, Hurricane, Tornado) because they have more to do with the wind (though you could make a case for Steamy Mist being cold based because it's pretty much Fog).

A proper thematic mate for the theoretical Electrical Control would be a theoretical Electrical Domination (i.e. support) set be made to go along with it (probably something akin to Kinetics' +end/rech combined with Therm's +res) so that you're actually controlling electricity with both sets.

Agreed, as long as by "market" you're referring to the goods transfer system rather than the actual economic term, which would apply to the entire economy as a whole. The entire issue of economic terminology compared to colloquial terminology might be one of the reasons why this debate always get so convoluted.

Honestly, I think it's a perfect idea for an influence sink. It does nothing but people will want it. If you only count the badgers, I'm pretty sure that just creating the badge would immediately have a positive impact on the market by pulling money out of the economy.

As to your idea for a Black Scorpion AV summon... I don't see that happening. Inf sinks are best restricted to non-combat benefits, such as transport, carrying capacity, and shiny collectibles.

Energy Aura needs to get fixed before it get proliferated. EA is painfully weak for Brutes, and it wouldn't be much better for Tankers.

I would debate some of those. Grav/Rad, Ice/Storm, Grav/FF, and a number of others can easily be seen as thematic combinations. Of course, most of this comes from the fact that support sets and control sets aren't designed for thematic completeness, rather, they're designed for internal cohesion and theme.

Which is a terrible idea because it completely removes the impetus the devs have put in for specific actions to be taken place. Merits don't exist just to put recipes onto the market. They exist to give players a reward for completing certain tasks (i.e. content).

A better suggestion than simply removing the secondary currencies, as I have been saying for the longest time, is to, instead, create tangible influence sinks that will actual start to pull money out of the economy. Allow players to buy additional salvage slots for 100 million inf each. Offer additional auction slots for 500 million inf each. Offer a badge that requires you to pay 1 billion inf. Mission and omni-zone teleporters that cost 100k per use. Tangible rewards that cost an inordinate amount of money yet are unneeded but nice to have.

Except that you're constructing a problem rather than attempting to address a problem that already exists. There don't need to be merit rewards for random missions or partial rewards for partial completion.

When you head into a TF or SF, you should know that you're in for the long haul (and, oftentimes, if you ask someone on the team, they'll tell you want the expected time is). If you're a parent, an emergency hits, and you don't get to finish the TF, I'm reasonably sure that the merits you lost out on are going to be the least of your worries. If you're only going to be gone a short time (10-15 mins), most teams won't care if you go afk as long as you warn them beforehand.

When running other people's story arcs, they're fully capable of running that arc right alongside you: this is why there is duplicate mission completion. The reward for a bank mission is access to a new contact and the one-time temp with the possibility of the additional benefits of the side mishes. If you're expecting that people should be rewarded with reward merits no matter what they do, I'm going to have to ask you why you believe they should be rewarded as such. Reward merits are a mechanism the devs encourage use to encourage certain actions that otherwise wouldn't likely be taken. If you can get merits no matter what you do, what's the point?

Actually, if you want to get technical, the power itself checks for the domination tag on you and then applies a separate mez effect of a longer duration with the same mag (at least, that's what City of Data says, it might be out of date). It's still the single power (which is why the additional duration and damage can be enhanced) doing all of the work, just like Overpower is an ingrained part of Controller powers.

The OP specifically stated:

Which, along with other things he has intimated, suggests that the merits are rewarded on a per mission basis rather than at the end.

It's still a specific reward that last a long time. The point of radio and newspaper missions isn't to be farmed: it's to provide you with real contacts. They're not supposed to be even roughly on par with story arcs.

Except that you know that it's actually possible to run some ouro arcs back to back and earn in excess of 30 merits per hour, right? Ouro arcs don't suffer from diminishing returns on merits awards and some of the arcs can be run through incredibly quickly solo.

Personally, I don't think that there should be any kind of partial reward. That's simply encouraging people to drop out because they're not really losing all that much. If you want the reward, you should complete the TF/SF/arc rather than simply dropping out because the investment loss is relatively minor. It's the same reason why long term financial investment products have early termination costs: it's high reward, but if you leave early, you're losing out.

The goal number for TFs/SFs is actually 20 merits/hour and for story arcs it's about 8/hour.

About a year ago, when the devs readjusted merit rewards, Synapse told us:


On easily repeatably content that is completely random. Bank missions already grant a completion reward (the temp power) and the entire point of making it so that story arcs would grant merits was to discourage people from not running story arcs. What you're asking for here runs completely perpendicular to the intended purpose.

And what's the point of pushing through that really annoying mission if you can just leave halfway through and screw your team so that they're short one person that they were counting on for the remainder of the TF? TFs use a fully delayed reward system so that there is actually an impetus to stay and finish it. If you have to leave early, that's something you should have to live with, which doesn't really mean much if you are having to weigh leaving just before the last mish and you've already received 2/3rds of the merits.

Except that the devs don't want additional members to be required for anything. That runs counter to design. Bring more if you want to, but, honestly, you should only need/want to bring more people if you think that you'll need more help. Larger teams already have a bonus insofar as they get more total inf/kill and theoretically have greater synergy so that they'll kill faster too. You don't need to artificially generate additional reasons to run with more people and, I can assure you, that if the number of people affects a group's merit reward, it will mean that people will go out of their way to get that last spot filled rather than simply running with 7.

Except that it doesn't require nearly the same level of organization, commitment, or difficulty to run basic street missions. If you're allowing virtually every mission in the game to start granting merit rewards and a majority of merit awards to be awarded before you even complete said event, the value of those rewards drops exponentially. Merits are already in common enough supply. There doesn't need to be some mechanism to make dropping out of a TF or running bank missions rather than other missions an easier decision.

Not entirely true. Dark Armor has always had psionic resistance available in Obsidian Shield.

I doubt that you're hitting more than 660 solo. I can easily understand hitting 1000 with FS on your because the scrapper +dam cap is 400%, and 200 * (1+4) = 1000. That number actually makes sense. You other numbers don't grok with the math, however.

So the Blaster gets to include Aim + BU as well as a full attack string of Defiance? The reason that you shouldn't include AAO in a one-for-one comparison is specifically that, unless you include absolutely everything that both builds get, you're not being entirely fair.

Unless you're getting +dam from sources that I didn't mention, it doesn't really. What you're probably seeing the partial overlap that entire family of self buff toggles (Invinc, AAO, RttC) experiences. It doesn't actually give you any benefit. It's just looks like you're getting twice as many targets feeding into AAO as you should be (which is more than the actual cap for the power).

Except that if you were actually hitting them all with the smallest area of LR, you'd actually see them all take exactly as much damage as SC. That's how LR was designed. LR is weaker only by stint of SC applying all of its damage over the entire area of effect. You're saying it's weaker without actually knowing the reason and simply assuming that it just deals less damage.

Not really... If you don't want to take Dull Pain because you don't like clicking it, then you're not going to like having to click to activate IH or MoG either and, if you don't take those two, what's the point? */Regen doesn't actually have all that impressive passive */Regen because damage recovery without damage mitigation to support it is actually pretty useless. Most of your survivability actually comes from your long recharge click powers (i.e. oh-**** powers). If you don't want to use/take the click/oh-**** powers in */Regen, what's the point?

Of course, this completely ignores the fact that, even if you didn't want to be that clicky, you would still want Dull Pain because it's a rather simple power to put on a high uptime cycle so that it simply acts as a buff to your functional passive regen rather than a heal (Werner's "don't use DP until you've already used Recon" is actually very bad advice imo; DP has the long term buff that increases your survivability after it, so I would actually recommend using DP first, especially considereing your playstyle). Dull Pain isn't just a power for "high impact play" especially when you realize that it is actually your primary source of functional damage mitigation (+hp is a functional equivalent of resistance).