Greycat

I still like Thunderous Blast, even if we've got the various judgements. Just for the "Zap!" ... entire spawn twitches.... falls down in unison. It was satisfying when I first got it on my first Elec/Elec blaster back in the day, and it still is.

... amusingly, someone ... low to mid level asked for assistance in a mission - I think it was fighting the first Skull founder (blanking on his name, the fight in the warehouse, guy with the club...) I showed up, regular character. Other guy also showed up to help. They spammed out - well, a *lot* of Snow Beasts. It was both amazing and amusing how many.

... am I the only one parsing that as that smash hit wizard party game, Dance Dance Levitation? ... Yes?

No.

So, live we had a sort of roadmap. And it got derailed constantly. I mean, Blood of the Black Stream was mentioned *way* back before COV, when a player won a contest to have their character turned into a trading card, COV came out and we got mention of Gadzul Oil and that eye of horus oil slick, then... nothing. States mentioned a *bunch* of EATs... which we never got. The Universities were originally going to be part of some *other* "improve your character" system that ... suddenly gave us buildings with no purpose, which were then turned into the Invention system. I'd think any roadmap - especially with our volunteer crew - is going to be "We'd like to do this," and/or just ... vague at best. More "vision" than "map." I'm ... rather confused by the first one. TOs don't drop - you have to go out of your way to find them, which leaves them available for those who *want* to use them without them mucking up the rest. DOs, SOs, people use. And the rest... of course people use them. Origins - part of me, as I've mentioned elsewhere, is still annoyed at Epic ATs being uncoupled from their origin. That said, the live team had started making steps to bring origin into the spotlight, at least through dialog - see the "origin of power" arc, which I tend to think of as a test run for it, giving different dialog, or the Trapdoor mission where the dohickey changes depending on your origin. I don't know what hooks are in the game to be used right now, but I look at the nascent nods to origin that were being put in, and I look over at STO where you'll have different options to complete a mission objective depending on your 'class' and can't help but wonder if that's where they were trying to go. Even if they can't do "alternate win conditions" (Next mission you don't get an ambush if your Tech origin notices and does XYZ to the computer, or your Magic origin notes that if they change the arrangement on that altar something will/won't happen,) I still think that having the FBSA departments start off every origin on 1-50 arcs focusing on an enemy group or groups related to it would be nice to do. Lots of work, yes. But it would add to replayability. Incarnates are a whole thing unto themselves. *shrug* The SG thing - do we need to "encourage" active SGs? Why? The last thing we had to encourage SG activity was prestige, and that was just seen as a grind (and a point of abuse in some cases.) I know I hated it, the cost on my characters, and the way building bases was limited by it. And what would count as "active?" I've got characters who are on almost nightly, or weekly... for RP, generally, with others in that group. That's an "active" group, to me, but you can't really put a metric to it. Is a group where someone happens to be farming constantly "active?" How about the group that meets once a week or once a month? Trying to define "active" and how to encourage "activity" just .... opens many cans of worms. I'd say leave SGs where they are right now. They can be private, social, always-hosting-something, transit hubs... whatever, and to me they're doing just fine without artificial stimulation.

Yeah, those have always been around. And where would you have people put their garbage? Get rid of those and Talos will look like redside.

I'm still thinking it's the side door to PDP, personally, and that there was some hiccup that just did something weird. Side of Terra Volta. Since I woke up way too early, I've been poking around pretty much every door and police van (and working on Family boss and Sorc defeat badges) - there area lot of mission doors, a lot of dead doors, but so far nothing matching that description. Even checked the new(ish) doors used in the newer Vahz mission (plenty of police vans, fog at the door, etc) in case that went somewhere else when you don't have a mission... nope. Does your friend remember what *enemies* were in the area? It's generally some mix of Family, COuncil/column (though that's more north, not south,) Tsoo or DE. Only thing I see that really says anything "boardwalk/dock"-ish to me is the south part of TV (more wooden docks for small boats,) which is close to the PDP entrance. The rest of the "docks" I'd call far more industrial than boardwalk-ish. (Other odd thought was that they were maybe being attacked by something, got killed as they entered and the game didn't know what to do - since there's no hospital in PDP I remember - and somehow "Rez circles in pocket D" made sense. I don't know.) OK, so, trying to narrow it down (not that I'll actually have time this weekend, yay work, but might help someone else track it down) - - Were they being attacked by anything (and what,) - Was it an actual *door* they clicked to open or did they happen to hit a wall or something and appear in PD? (Geometry hole... I know you used to be able to get to the odd room under... bah, forget what it was now, think it turned into the arenas - that way, or from PI to Talos flying "through" an area of a war wall, or even get into the trial area in Faultline (echo, now) that way.) Regardless, even if it was a one off glitch (also possible,) kind of a fun little "scavenger hunt" trying to verify this. 🙂 Edit: Of course, if they got killed going to or just after showing up in the PDP, they'd have that rez dialog box, which would be noticable. Soooo.. maybe not that. Eh, it was a thought.

Yeah, that's the (what I think of as) original location for the SC entrance. It's the one there I've always known of.

Sorry, way too overpowered. 😉 (But yeah, having people aware of it would be good.)

Honestly, those aren't the same as the Zero G pack. The 0G pack gives a longer period of shorter "bursts" of vertical movement - well, just like Superjump. The two you list are just one big boost for an amount of time, then are off while they recharge. They're *really* not like travel powers. (For instance, you can use SJ to get to the top of the tall tower in ... forgetting the name of it, the first Praetorian zone, and back down again. I *believe* last time I tried that with one of those packs, I had to make one long jump and wait for it to recharge. (It does match the height, having just checked, of starting with the double jump from superjump... which is just barely not enough to get there. But with regular SJ or the Zero G pack, you can just hop up the side of the building easily. With those packs, you'd have to either have SJ or some secondary power - like the jetpack they give now at startup - to make that final leap and have time to move as needed, or sit and wait for the rather long recharge.)

Not sure if there are any technical limitations to it that might prevent it. There are (or were) limits to how much "stuff" can go into a base to begin with, and I believe there's some behind the scenes shenanigans with storage tracking, but honestly I don't recall the details at the moment. I would say "if you're storing white salvage, probably don't, it's cheap enough to pick up at need." But other than that...

Well... not really. Let's look at the upgrade powers. Picking some to look at: Beast mastery: Train Beasts. (Adds powers.) Takes End/Range/Recharge. Tame beasts - same thing. The minions *already* get their individual tier upgrades to the END cost of their powers, damage, acc and so forth. Demon summoning - same thing. Enchant Demon gives fire blast, ice blasts, healing, melee damage, a hold, -rech and -speed to different pets. Abyssal Empowerment - same thing, mix of what gets enhanced/added. The other set upgrades are like that as well. Now, the pet (not recharge intensive) sets, other than Soulbound,are the exact same for the first four pieces: Acc/Dam (but you don't need Acc to upgrade the pets, it's autohit, and it's not a damaging power) Dam/End (the END can come in handy, sure, but it doesn't take that much.) Acc/End (same thing) Acc/Dam/End (same thing) Those with a fifth piece doe: - Resist Taunt/Placate - Acc (3 sets) - Dam (1 set) And the ones with a sixth piece? Damage Def aura Resist aura Soulbound's the weird one, of course, but it's still damage, damage/recharge, dam/rech/acc, rech/acc, dam/end, and a chance to build up proc... so again, the only pieces that would *do* anything would be recharge and acc. Basically the pet enhancement powers wouldn't get much of anything from being able to slot pet sets. Now, if you wanted to suggest making upgrade sets? That's a different kettle of fish. I don't know how the devs would feel about making something only one AT can use (pet sets, after all, can be used by controllers, doms, some defenders/corruptors, and if for whatever reason melee took the patron pets, they can be used there, too.) 3-4 piece sets, maybe, I don't know how many MMs would suddenly want to respect and start slotting their pet enhancement powers. I don't know that I could see a six piece set or that there'd be that *many* sets - but several categories do just have 2-3. The next question would be could you make any that a MM would see as *worth* slotting - the upgrades have an END cost, sure - but they're PBAOE, so you're not hitting them very often. Range, well, I don't know about you, but for me, I'm usually upgradeing them with them RIGHT THERE after resummoning. And recharge... they just don't need that much. Soooo... What do you think, say, two sets (a low - 10-30 - and high - 25-50, say) would look like that'd make a MM want to slot them? Because off the top of my head I can't really come up with an appealing-but-not-overpowered set that'd have masterminds *wanting* to use them. Maybe a global KB resist aura as a piece? I could see MMs wanting that, maybe. Edit: There's one other thing to keep in mind... slot cost. I don't know about other MMs, but I kind of like having to maybe dump-and-forget an END reduction in those powers and know I can focus on throwing slots the upgrade powers don't need immediately into the minions or the support secondary. So it has to be worth (to some degree) that bit of balancing.

No, pet powers are powers that summon pets. The upgrade powers are buffs, basically. That's why they don't take them.

*However* - they don't expire 🙂 Given other threads about "I can't make enough INF to enhance my character," that's still a fairly important point. You don't *have* to keep spending INF to update them every few levels. An enhancement in a power that's only doing 11.7% ACC is still doing more than one that's getting no bonus because you can't afford to update it. Plus they're cheap enough that if you don't want to remove them and stick them in storage for another new alt, it's not a big deal to just overwrite/replace them when you *can* use 25/30/35s. At level 12, I spend from 4.5-7k, depending on IO, to craft and slot a level 15 (DO-strength, roughly) IO. I've then spent... 7k at most per IO. How much do you spend re-upping that every few levels on an SO? The IO is more expensive, slightly, than a DO you might get, but much cheaper than the SO. Then, either I can ignore it (which I do for some powers on occasion that just don't need much,) or at - say, 30 - it's roughly 40k to craft. And *that* sticks for the rest of the game if I choose not to enhance past SO values farther. And, of course, that's ignoring the up-and-down of those SO values, from +3 to -3 if you do your updates once they expire, versus the steady "My power is always going to be enhanced this much" of the common IO.

Oof. If you're looking through the storylines, honesstly you're either going to solo/duo it or spend half your time turning your XP gain off and on again. It's *really* easy to outlevel bits and pieces. Maybe if everyone does the exact same arc and makes the exact same choices - but you're still going to pull in more XP from having more mobs through playing with a team.

Do you still have your old computer available? Run the launcher, click "Screenshots" at the top. It'll take you to the screenshots. On Windows (and Mac too, as I recall,) the explorer window has a breadcrumb feature - you can click each level of the directory (if you were typing it out, it'd be everything separated by a backslash, like c:\windows\temp, but in the "address bar" of the window, they're separated by a > ) to move there: (Yeah, I've got slightly different names for where it's installed. Since I throw everything into a "games" folder that's game related, my directories won't match your location.) By default, clicking on "screenshots" would take me to This PC > E: > Games > Homecoming > Screenshots. CLick on "Homecoming" and it takes you here. Then double click that (here, top) folder, "Accounts." You'll see a folder (or folders) with your account names. These match the login account names for the game.

The other question here is, how high are your characters? You mention having two of them. If they're 50, they're safe from the name getting freed up. And as mentioned, *IF* the policy were implemented (which it has not been, and frankly I hope never is,) it would only *free up the name* - so if you had SuperSgtSnorkler at level (say) 30 and were gone a year, if nobody else wanted that name at that point... you'd still have it. Even if someone else DID take the name, it would just tell you you needed to rename the character. Everything else about it - SG, level, money/slotting, missions done, badges, etc - would be fine.

I've got a Legion 5 15" ... two years old by now? It's been solid - only issue I had was a little odd with a driver that refused to update for a while. Didn't see anyone else with the same issue, so I wouldn't call it a concern in general, and quite honestly I'd happily buy another one. I'd just get a bigger screen. (More a "My eyes" thing than any issue with the screen itself.) Runs COH just fine. The laptop I had before it - an Acer Aspire 15" - was all right, the main issue with it being if I tried to use the video out, it would *not* use the nVidia card but the integrated graphics (and that's .. .ugh.)

Soooooo.... Things build on things. 🙂 The absolute basics of IOs are taught in an invention tutorial - which used to be handed to you, along with other contacts. Blueside, it's in the university in Steel Canyon. I ... honestly don't remember the contact right offhand. Very first use of IOs would just be basics, not sets - at least how they were introduced. Unlike the DOs and SOs you're used to, they don't expire, which is just generically nice. 15s (which you can slot at 12) are typically cheap and nice 'til the mid-ish 20s, people may wait 'til 27-32 so they can slot 30-35s (roughly SO strength.) For some powers, that's all you want/need. They do, obviously, get stronger as you get higher levels (unlike SOs, which always give the same percentage... which is why you kept having to buy them, thanks to them getting weaker and expiring.) Getting stuff: It drops. *shrugs* Salvage tab, "invention." Standard (non set) IOs generally just use basic, white salvage and some INF. You can also buy it on the market. Recipes also drop, and you'll see which salvage (and how much INF per IO) you need. Et voila. To make a level 20 Accuracy IO, you need one Luck Charm, one Boresight, and 32k INF. You craft these at crafting tables (in Universities/abandoned labs, the RWZ, and bases, for starters.) You will then have one level 20 Accuracy that improves Acc by 25.6%. TIP - especially if you like badges. Or saving INF. So, you need components, INF and a recipe to craft badges. HOWEVER, if you look here, you'll see... you get badges for "memorizing" recipes. Which you may want to do if you're going to craft a bunch of them (I tended at one point to have a character crafting commons for other leveling characters in SGs to use, for instance.) Even if you don't like doing this, it has a side benefit. One, you don't need a recipe for a memorized recipe. Two, the crafting cost is cheaper. For level 15 and 20 (the two levels are combined, it's level 10, then 15/20, 25/30, 35/40 and 45/50,) you'll have to craft six of level 15, six of level 20, and then one extra of either. You'll then get a badge (for 15/20 ACC, it's the Lt. Colonel badge) and then, if you go to a crafting table, you'll have a new item that says "memorized" ... and the ability to just use the correct salvage and a bit less inf to just craft level 15 and 20 Acc IOs on the fly. If you do enough of these (all but the highest levels of each...) you'll get a portable crafting workbench. However, it's generally cheaper to just buy it at START. Tip 2 - Doing what to them? So, you'll hear people talking about doing two things to IOs. 1. Catalyzing. This means (at 50, or just buying from the market) using an enhancement catalyst and an IO in the enhancement screen - just like you were combining SOs - to make the IO either "levelless" (it'll scale up and down with you through its level range) or, in the case of Winter and AT enhancements (which haven't been mentioned yet,) "Superior." (Which increases the potency of set bonuses.) You can't catalyze basic IOs. There's no levelless basic IO. Won't let you do it. Got to be an INF sink somewhere, after all. 2. Boosting - This is something you *can* do to basic IOs, and if you're sticking to high level content, it's probably worth it. These take an enhancement booster (cleverly named, hm?) and an IO and combine them, up to 5x. So your level 30 Acc, for instance, will turn into a level 30 +5, giving you the same boost as a level 35 IO of the same sort. The big plus for this - again, if you're doing high level content - is *slot savings.* Once you hit 35+, the basic IO values exceed even-level SOs, from a little to a lot. (Level 50 recharge, for instance, gives a 42.4% boost - where a level 50 SO still gives 33.3%, and 53 - highest you can go with them - is only 38%.) Whiich means... two boosted IOs gets you bumping against the practical ED cap. All right, so get comfortable with basic IOs. They're pretty straightforward, and even when you start playing with sets... you'll probably find use for them (for instance, Recharge in powers like Hasten.) Once you're comfortable there - it's *really* just a step up from SOs to use basics, after all - that's when you start looking at sets. Sets: At its most basic, an IO set is a set (duh) of 3-6 IOs that provide some sort of global bonus for slotting multiple pieces of the same set in the same power. For instance, making one up: "Basic attack set" (BAS) : 3 piece which has one BAS (Accuracy,) BAS (Damage,) BAS (EndReduction.) When you look at the description, you'll see something like: 2: 2% Melee def 3: 5% End Reduction So if you slot one BAS (Accuracy,) you'll just get... accuracy of whatever level it is, just like a normal ACC IO of the same level. Slot a BAS Accuraccy and BAS Damage, and you'll get a bonus 2% melee defense. Slot the full set and you'll also get a global 5% END reduction. Most set pieces - but not all - enhance more than one thing, for instance, instead of just ACC, it'll be ACC/DMG, enhancing both Accuracy and Damage, but (generally) at a bit over half for each aspect of what a single-aspect IO would be. (For instance, just making up numbers, if a level 30 ACC IO enhanced Acc by 30%, and a level 30 DMG IO enhanced DMG by 30%, an ACC/DMG IO would *not* be 15%Acc/15% DMG but more likely something like 17.5% of each. (Don't take the numbers as gospel there, I'm just creating some for an example.) So even if you don't like all of one set, often "frankenslotting" (taking pieces from multiple sets to slot in one power) can give you some slot savings. Set Shenanigans, or "ok, here's where they complexity starts." Things to remember about sets: - You can only have one of each type of IO from a set in a power. Taking that "Basic IO set" (BAS) I created above, you could NOT slot BAS (Acc) in a power twice. (It'll actually grey out the power and not let you.) You CAN slot it in more than one power, though. If you took Kick and Jab, you could put a BAS (Acc) in each of them... - Unless it's Unique. You will run across some IOs that, in the description, say UNIQUE. This does not mean you have to be vewy vewy quiet when creeping up on them. It means, of course, you can *only slot one* of that... anywhere in your build. (Multi-build note! If you play with multiple builds on one character, "Unique" IOs don't care what's on another build.) - Side note, ATOs, Winter sets and Purples are all Unique. ATOs (Scrapper's Strike, Overpowering Presence, etc.) are *all* considered Unique. Even when you catalyze them (from earlier,) which makes them superior versions of the same set, they're all considered unique to each other. So Overpowering Presence Acc/Dam and Superior Overpowering Presence Acc/Dam are considered the same IO, even if the set bonuses are kind of considered different sets. (Just wait 'til you play with them... it can be handy.) -Buying tip. If you're *buying* set IOs instead of crafting them? *Buy the attuned* (generally.) Set IOs and attuned set IOs share the same pool in the auction house. If there are 330 Nosehair of the Nictus Acc/Dam, you'll see there are also 330 attuned Nosehair of the Nictus Acc/Dam. Buy the attuned. (Back to the ATO/Winter/purples - the superior versions do NOT share a pool with the regular ones. Different enhancement values. Worry about it later.) Last, the big thing with builds which gets asked in help is: REMEMBER the Rule of 5. What this is is a way to control set bonuses. (personal note, I'd have made it 3, but that's long since past.) What this means is you can only have 5 of the *same* percentage of the *same* set bonus active - if you put in a 6th, it won't affect the rest of the set's bonuses, but you won't get it. It doesn't care what the *source* of the bonus is - it can come from 5 of the same set, or 5 of the same value of the same thing from different sets - it only cares there are 5. For instance. Entropic Chaos is a Ranged set. It's possible you slotted 5 range powers with its Acc/Dam and Dam/Recharge. You would then get the two piece bonus - 10% Regen improvement - five times. If you slotted a sixth Acc/Dam and Dam/Rech from Entropic Chaos in another power, you'd still get the IO's boost to accuracy, damage and recharge, but you would *not* get another 10% to regen. Instance 2. You have five totally different sets - say, two ranged damage, a melee damage, a travel power set and a healing set. They all have, somewhere in their set bonuses, 2% ranged defense. You have five (the limit) 2% Ranged defense bonuses. Any other 2% Ranged defense bonuses, from *anywhere,* won't count. HOWEVER, a 2.5% Ranged bonus? it doesn't care. It's a different value. A 2% Melee bonus? Also doesn't count. It's 2%, but it's 2% going towards something else. (Note. This is why Luck of the Gambler (LOTG) Global Recharge is used frequently. This piece is not unique... and it is *its own bonus category.* It's not just a 7.5% recharge, it's a 7.5% Increased Global Recharge Speed bonus... which does NOT interfere with any other 7.5% recharge bonus. Just itself.) OK. After that? That's where you get into builds, and using MIDS, and where I'll let someone else yap about it, because I don't do builds. Really. I slot what looks either useful, interesting or amusing (let me tell you about the group of Elec blasters I ran with that all put in Chance to Stun IOs from an end drain set...) "Basic" builds can do fine. "Basic IO" builds can do fine - as in "Eh, just fit 5 Thunderstrike sets in 5 ranged powers" and such while you see what they do. Or you can start poking around with numbers and mids and such, worrying about caps and things - as mentioned, I'll let someone else get into that. Go experiment.

I've generally considered them the same as the "reflections" you fight in Mender Ramiel's arc - which, as I recall, still aren't really explained. (Whether they're related to the same sort of thing in the Shard, I don't know.) Though the name sort of implies they're not "really" what they look like.

Either a Peacebringer or a Warshade. Depends on my mood.

Only thing I try to make sure I have on a non melee is a breakfree for him, and I don't always need that.

That's typically how I play. Not in a rush.

Nice, maybe. Practical, no. "Hey, in a sort of pre-alpha we're thinking about doing this, but it might not even make it to beta" becomes "KFC bucket blast was PROMISED!" so... Yeah. 'Til it gets to open beta (and even not then, always) it's best to just wait.