Still dont understand.

If some jerk only wants to play with the "coolest" builds then that's their loss.

Roll a DB/pain corr! FM/ElA brute! Mind/thorn dom! Man I love coming across crazy combos I've never seen before because it sometimes gives me crazy ideas for toons too! It's what makes our online world go 'round!

- You have the right to play this game as you like!
- You should have fun with the powers you like!
- People who kick people from teams because of powersets are idiots!

What I do know is that I pick my powers on concept. Fitting the toon I had in mind. That can result in strange comboes but I don't care about that.

After I picked the powers and look I will go to Mid's though. As I want to be sure I single out the powers fitting to my toon. And on what level I am best to take them. And what pool powers fit my concept the best.

If I am high enough and I like the toon enough I will spend time min-max-ing it. But not before.

I came in here to post:

Quote:

Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect As far as the getting booted from teams goes: If you're as arrogant and egotistical in the game as you tend to be on the forums, then I can't say it surprises me that you get booted from teams. It's unlikely that EVERYONE you team with is a powergamer to the point that your build is unacceptable, which means your personality is probably playing a part in it. Some of the things I've seen you post, had you said them to me in-game I would have booted you too, and probably put you on /gignore.

I think if I ever recognized you in game, Fire_Minded, I'd kick you off the team before you became a problem.

I play a human form PB that's never been kicked from a team. Even will all the "team friendly knockback" and the "gimped concept build."

I play a Dark Armor tank that's never been kicked from a team. It's about as far from perceived as "uber powerful and FotM" as it gets. That hasn't stopped me from getting on teams, and it hasn't gotten me kicked.

I'm pretty sure the problem here is you. Not your builds. Not your characters. Not your choice to avoid using Mids. You.

More on the min/maxing side of things.

I set certain goals with some characters. I use Mid's to figure out how to meet those goals.

For example: I decided that I would like to softcap S/L defense on my fire/kin, and get a reasonable amount of E/NE defense as well. So, I open Mid's and figure out a few things. The first thing I ask myself is: "Can I achieve my goal without making the character unplayable?". I have already determined that for S/L defense the answer is "Yes". My secondary goal is reasonable E/NE defense. Since "reasonable" is not a set number it is up to me to determine a number for it. I came up with a build that achieves both things.

I used Stone Mastery on that build and took the following powers: Fissure (a targeted AoE stun that does decent damage, will do good daage while Fulcrum Shift is active), Rock Armor (a large part of my S/L defense), Seismic Smash (a very high damaging melee attack that is ALSO a mag FOUR hold, this one is a no brainer. It will deal almost 1000 damage with FS and Containment), Earth's Embrace (Since I'm short on slots I needed something here that doen't need a lot of them)

I feel no need to buy purples or PvP sets to consider a build good. I use Mid's before the character is level 50 just so I get an idea of what recipes I need to hang onto as I level.

Is that min/maxing? I'd say it is a moderate level of min/max. I'm not obsessed with having the best build I possibly can, but I DO want to meet the goals I set for myself with it, so I min/max it just enough to reach them.

If someone kicks me from a team because I don't have 5 purple sets in my build, I probably didn't want to team with that person to begin with.

Ultimately, people will play what they find fun. For instance, I'm not a big Defender fan, because there are only a few that have good enough solo-ability that they can fit the hours and time I can play (a lot of the time, I only play in short spurts, and never know when I can play for longer, so teaming is hard), but that doesn't mean I dislike Defenders.

Some people really enjoy farming. I would never do it myself (make enough inf for myself by playing my 50s regularly), but if that's what they want, then as long as they're not doing something outrageous, it's not my problem what they do (though I do understand the Devs wanting to crack down on obvious gaming of the system--it [i]is[i] their problem).

So if people want to use power builds, that's fine. Hopefully, those builds aren't detrimental to a team, or if they are, they aren't teaming. Otherwise, this game makes it very easy to make up for one slacking player or poor build when the others are good, so I don't see much of a problem outside of speed runs or Master runs, both of which should be advertised when doing so, and at that point, if they kick someone for a sub-par build...that's somewhat understandable (though being diplomatic about it should go without saying).

What is that word "Mids"? I tried urban dictionary and online dictionary with no help.

Thank you Postagulous that helped a lot.

Well I don't think it's too bad to use some helping designers. It's not so big difference if someone uses that or do respec. Result is pretty much same. Personally I like to build my characters like old fashion ways without any helpin programs.

I have one shield/axe tanker because shield was new power when I made that and I just like axes. I don't care if some build is littlebit better than other if that fits on my character concept. Oh and never kicked out of team.

Oh come on, zachary!

Surely you visited the EU forums before the merge? Midnights was one of you guys across the big pond! Admittedly, he's left the game and development of his program has been handed to other people, but I'm surprised you've never heard of it

Yeahh... I visited on forum but very randomly. Actually I made significant progress with my english very lately so it's not take whole day to read one post any more. Well I'm still using online dictionary but not all the time anymore.

I have heard something about character designers programs before but like I said I don't care so much to use them.

In my slim experience, people like to make DP/NRG blasters (especially the "hit men" and "mercenaries") because NRG is the closest you can get to a melee/martial arts secondary for blasters. So all those hit men and gangsters and cowboys and detectives who want a 'natural' build but don't want a targeting drone circling their head or to be planting land mines go with NRG so they can at least roleplay punching Hellions in the face when they're not shooting them.

I'm curious. How do you know people who use Mid's are the root of your problem?

You manage to consistently rub people the wrong way on the forums. If you manage this so effectively in game, people might be kicking you primarily for that reason. If you are even half as good at irritating people in game and you have funky builds, they might be using your build as an excuse to be rid of you.

People like to do well. The core function we all try to do in this game is kick things butts. A good build kicks more butt. Trying to figure out how to kick more butt leads to thinking, thinking leads to analysis, realization that analysis can be complicated leads to creation of tools to reduce complication. Thus we have mids, which people who want to kick more butt sometimes use.

I think people who use mids are not your problem. I think you're deciding they're your problem, and refusing to let it go.

I'm getting the feeling the thing that's getting Fireminded booted isn't his build.

As for why I use Mids? I have certain expectations of my characters. Mainly, I want them to be able to solo -1/x8 missions without faceplanting. I find fighting off endless waves of foes to be one of the things that draws me to this game. It's not exactly a massive goal, but one that's hard to accomplish on particularly squishy characters with just SOs. So, I use Mids to figure out affordable builds that boost their survivability and effectiveness to that goal become easier. And I wouldn't say I'm particularly prone to making FOTM builds. My current active characters are a Fortunata, a Claws/Elec Brute, an Ice/Ice Tank, a Rad/Psi Blaster, and an AR/Ice Corrupter.

Not sure what your issue is. I don't use character planners, and rarely use builds described on the boards. I don't much care that others may do so (unless they give me grief for not folllowing some criteria they think are important for a build).

Just as it is none of their business how I choose to build my characters, I am afraid I don't see where it is any of yours how others choose to do so.

I use Mids' (and encouraged the use of Mids') quite simply because I like having effective toons. This doesn't mean that I'm going to allow their performance to dictate my power choices. I choose my power sets and then set about trying to see how I can use those power sets best.

I play exclusively on Freedom blueside. I team all the time. I don't have a single character that could be described as FotM (with the possible exception of my Fire/SD Scrap, but I chose that because it seemed like the least chosen Shield Scrapper when I did an informal poll). I have loads of builds that are decidedly off the reservation (I thoroughly enjoyed leveling my DA/NRG tanker), and I've never gotten kicked from a team thanks to my build. I actually get friend requests because I have incredibly effective characters that are using power set combinations that aren't FotM.

I do not believe that there are any sets that are so bad as to warrant immediate kicking from a team. I see many people that cry foul about Force Field, but I've got an incredibly potent FF defender. I see others cry foul about DA's ability to tank, but I've got a DA tank that, even in SOs, has tanked everything I've thrown him against (including several Shard TFs and everything needed to get all 4 of the passive accolades). None of them have been kicked from teams.

Now, what may perturb you, is that I do, in fact, lead a large number of teams on Freedom. I grab pugs, and I have no problem doing so. However, unlike some other people, I will not tolerate an idiot with a build and/or playstyle that is detrimental to the group or, at the very least, incapable of pulling his own friggin' weight. I create teams because they're more fun and more effective. I have no obligations to allow anyone to remain on my team. If anything, I have an obligation to the rest of my team (the other 5-7 people that I am running with) to make sure that anyone else I bring along isn't detracting from the team as a whole (such as soaking up xp without doing any work for it). I've kicked Tankers because they couldn't get aggro or needed loads of outside help in order to survive (generally because they didn't take their Taunt aura). I've kicked Defenders and Controllers that only took their attack powers or that refuse to use their support powers (on similar lines, I've kicked Empaths that only took their heals). I've kicked Scrappers, Blasters, and Khelds that couldn't deal damage.

When I invite someone to a team, I expect them to perform at a minimum level of effectiveness. If they don't, then I give them a couple warnings, often asking about specific power choices or power usages in tells. If they **** up catastrophically ("lol, my KB agg'd those 3 other groups and I wiped the entire team!") or they don't shape up, I'll kick them. It's not like I can't find replacements rather easily. I've kicked FotM fire/kins and stone tanks from teams because they weren't performing up to snuff. I've similarly kept storm defenders on team because they were excellent players. In fact, a number of my friends have Storm defenders (and other "bad" builds) that I would jump at the opportunity to invite to a team of mine because they're good players.

Remember, when you join a team, the leader is not obligated, nor should s/he be obligated, to let you be on his/her team. If you're useless or less useful than you should be, it is perfectly within the leader's right to kick you. This doesn't mean, at all, that you should be kicked just because you have an off kilter build. It does mean that, if you have an off-kilter build, you better be a better player to make up for it or you're simply giving giving the leader more reason to kick you, especially if you're a complete idiot that believes that everyone else is a sheep just because they attempt to be effective.