Greycat

... or, since Paragon had this thing of "we want writers to explore their own ideas, not complete old ones," one of the writers thinks how silly it is for a little island to forcefully hold territory in the US and the Isles is taken over by a combined military/meta force, driving Arachnos underground. LR is only seen in propaganda (until later levels,) but since Ghost Widow still exists, you know Arachnos isn't gone... Boomtown's slowly getting rebuilt. But the edges are still a veritable war zone. There's a Rikti enclave in the city - not the war zone, though Vanguard has a presence as well. The Traditionalists are working to redeem the image of the Rikti, providing technical and medical advances while trying to ensure the Restructurists / Lineage of War don't start another assault. The Restructurists realize the mothership and that area are just a bottle waiting to be corked and occasionally pop up elsewhere. DA gets de-Motted (current zone moved to Echo status,) but instead of going back to just-plain-Astoria there's so much negative mystic energy, misery and pain that it becomes the new location of City Hall a new political party's home the focus of a new high end group focused on using that energy to twist the world in ways that would make the BP blush. We'd get to see more of the world, both in terms of new locations (Egypt - Gadzul Oil, Blood of the Black Stream) and being able to *see* it (moon/space environments.) Egypt, at least, becomes a new starting zone option for both heroes and villains. (And no segregation - start off as a hero/egypt, you can hop over for a Synapse, then hop back to finish your story arcs, for instance.)

No! ... just kidding. If/when it's possible, yeah, all for more options.

I ran across a small group in BB... geez, must be two months ago now. First time in a long time. And it was a lot of fun. I miss that being a common thing.

Ignoring commons (which I'll try to get at 30-35 for 50s, where I feel a good balance between what I normally exemp for and values) - and you mentioned sets anyway - If you limit yourself to 25s, you're going to just flat out miss some sets that start at 30 - like Crushing Impact, Thunderstrike (which I love for anything ranged,) Obliteration or Numina's. And, of course, you'll get the lower percentages (as you seem aware of.) As far as the rest? It's pretty much why people say to buy attuned enhancements. They share the same pool as standard enhancements in the auction house, so *generally* advice is to sell the regular and re-buy as attuned. (Alternately, there are times that at 50 I'll just do the attuning myself for anything I havne't done this with - I often have several catalysts sitting around by then, and after turning those enhs like ATOs and winter from standard to Superior with a catalyst there's not much else to do with them.) This will basically let the IO ... "follow" your level up to its maximum level, as far as stats and bonuses go. (Here, link. https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Attuned ) I'll let folks who are more awake currently go into more detail on what's what and what the various effects can be.

*checks name* Get back to being text-based, you! 🙂

If it's showing up as a power selection during a respec, this should probably go into bug reports.

Ehh. Better to just announce it. I think it'd be like the LFT flags. I almost never see anyone using them. On the flip side, though, if speed run times were recorded (say, on the terminals, "best run of the month" or something,) it'd be reason to use it. Not sure if that'd be good overall or just cause drama, but... it's a thought.

All right, "yes." In their native form, they age. Part of the point of the Nictus going... Nictus-y was to live longer, after all (and as I'm recalling lore, before they started merging with other life forms.) Otherwise, 10 years and poof. However, does the host of a bonded Kheldian - or Nictus - age? We know, in game tech, they have people with grey hair and wrinkles, so it's simply a choice to have X NPC (or player character) show age. (I want to say the Center does show it, too, but I'm going from memory there. Several contacts do as well.) Neither Arakhn or Requiem show age, though, and they've been around since (or since before) WWII. Even at the time of the game's release, they've been around quite a while. We also know joining does increase both the lifespan of the Kheldian (I'm just going to say Kheldian, but this includes Nictus) and the host. (While Shadowstar has been around 5000+ years, that's *just* the Warshade half of her - she has been through many, many hosts.) In addition, we know they make a copy of what they've joined with before - the Mefnanim /Hulmanim and Ruktur/Kurukt. So, all of that has my brain just wondering if a host ages physically or not. I don't think there's a definitive Lore answer. If a Kheld merges with you at 27 - and makes a copy of anything it merges with - does it "reset" its host every time a host switches forms? Turn 40, still bonded - reset to a 27 year old body. Live to 100 - 27 year old body, just have to swap forms. Or is this just slowed? Also, why are there not more Kheldian spies? I'd see this more as a Nictus thing to do, but could one, say, join temporarily in someone's sleep (not really awake so they're not fighting it, and they might pass it off as a strange dream,) then go and do things as "them?" (Or pull other things like that with past - or current - willing hosts, even.) Somewhat idle Kheld questions I figured I'd throw out for those interested in lore to kick around...

The Nictus damage thing went away on live, btw. (sadly.) Just extra Negative damage. And while I'm not necessarily against more mobs to switch things up... ehh. I'm not sure this works, lore-wise. Which is solely an issue of name and background, really. (Plus I'd hate for Kheld players to get any blowback because of it.)

Dark/Dark defenders (and corruptors.) Fire/fire blasters. Ice/ice blasters and sentinels. Electric/electric (blasters and sents, again, with a nod towards brutes.) Plant/thorn doms. Hard to pick a "favourite" out of those.

Yes. They're fast and don't require much of a time investment. No, they don't give merits, but if you're running them because you want to play but only have a few minutes, or are just shy of leveling and don't have a new arc to start or something... *shrug* they work just fine. Unlike task forces, you can invite people after a couple of them (or even one) instead of being locked in. Not everyone's after the same thing - even the same person may not be each time they play.

Yes.

So... Going with Lum's advice, we have "I can't believe the game is back!" to "How do I delete all my characters" a few days later, and "how do I change my global," to this. Honestly, it halfway sounds like you went and annoyed the heck out of whatever server you're on. Which ... will impact getting teams. (Hard to recruit if everyone has you on ignore.) Either that or you have some set of expectations that nobody's meeting (and nobody has any requirement to,) such as sticking around for more than 1-2 paper missions - or needing a full team for them. So, start there. What *are* your expectations? Full team on call staying with you for hours? Not going to happen. If you're running papers and only have 2-3 people, so what? Run with them. Get to know them. Recruit between missions instead of standing around waiting for a "full" team. Build up a friends list that way. Look for whatever events are going on on your server - or find a server with events that fit your time. And remember it's just a game.

This idea might be more useful on the way *up,* when no, you're not all that powerful, offense is really sluggish and you're squishy with your couple of pets. Once you're IO'd and incarnated, honestly, I'd say it wouldn't matter. Everyone's overpowered then. Granted, you also don't *have* your second buff 'til 32. But those lower levels are the times MMs are most annoying. (Especially 18-early/mid 20s when they're all -levels to you and you don't have your top tier hench-thing.) I don't know if the buff affecting you is the place to do anything, really - I'd almost put any sort of buff on a scale for how many henchthings you have. Basically a scale between personal offense (you don't have as much to give you bodyguard and the "extra HP" there, but your attacks and possibly de/buffs hit harder) and defense (full set, you have full bodyguard, de/buffs are at normal strength, attacks are the way they are now.) Sort of the reverse of the mechanic of the Kheld inherent, but focused solely on you and how many of your crew you have. It'd also add a bit more of an element of adapting gameplay - sacrifice/kill your henchies to get a bigger buff when you need it, try to stay alive while resummoning to do your full damage. Or, well, wait for something to kill them off after using them as an alpha strike, hit whatever did it with a debuff, then resummon. Or try for a balance with just what you're resummoning. Just T2 and T3, upgraded, so you have a bit of a boost to your secondary and attacks? Does a situation come up where the best choice is just you and your top tier? It'd have the potential to make things more dynamic, possibly. *shrug* Just an idea or two.

Daz studio, actually.

( ... yes, I know... and I know there, too... and...)

... yes, she does have fairly straightforward ideas of problem solving sometimes...

... before anyone mentions it, yes, there are technical issues and oddities in posing and whatnot, but I did this purely for fun with one of my characters. Primarily because of mentioning what "I ran" is about.. had to give one of my staff characters a little diversion. (Extendible. Comes out in the last panel of the first strip... might be hard to see the effect.) Anyway. Like I said, done for fun. And thrown into strips so as to not just put in a ton of individual images!

Admins do not go on character hunts and decide what they like or don't, then delete things. If you were reported because the character was a blatant ripoff of some IP - name, look, etc, or at least "close enough to cause problems" (my phrasing,) - then at most you'd find yourself playing generic98374232 and maybe a bland basic costume.

Why do you play? Who do you play? Where do you play? When do you play? Pineapple on pizza when you play? What in the heck would a woodpecker peck if a woodpecker were created in COH?

How do I play the game... well, first I bring up the launcher, then hit live (or beta) and play... Tend to use a keyboard and mouse... Eh. Honestly for me it's mostly RP these days. Even if I'm solo, the characters are developing - whether they're getting levels or new IOs or not. And RP doesn't have to be *in* the game, either - especially since there's so much that doesn't quite reflect properly in the game engine. But the character's developing, so for me it's "playing the game," still. Even if I'm not on an "RP" team, I'm considering how (or if) the character is reacting. Granted, sometimes it's just "no, this is just levels" and I go on my merry button-mashing way. It used to involve leading or co-leading SGs - that ended up turning into a second job, no matter how much I loved the group and the people in it. And AE - which went along, for quite a while, with leading said group (and some burnout.) It even involved a bit of base building - I would actually build a base as a set for a specific RP arc, tying it in with AE and the other RP. That way led to serious burnout eventually. So... yeah. While I'll play for basic smashy fun at times, for the most part, it's the creation, development and expression of characters and their stories (shared or otherwise) that I'm in the game for.

... you know, I've had it lumped in with Salt Crystals from Earth Control in my head, which is a PBAOE (which is also the reason I don't take it there.) I've had those two lumped together as PBAOE since *live* for some reason. And I've run both to 50 multiple times, skipping it because I remembered it as PBAOE. Heh.

Salt crystals - that was the other one I'd been trying to think of, yeah. For me, those two aren't low-priority/non picks because they're sleeps, but because of the PBAOE not really "working" with the rest of (or most of the rest of) the set. Everything else is at range (Ice Slick, Volcanic Gasses, Quicksand, etc) and I want to stay at range, not hop in the middle of things for a sleep.

Completely depends on the character. And with widely varied reasons, everything from "that's just the way they see things" to ties into backstory, journeys and the like...

It depends on the sleep. Mind? (Targeted AOE) Yes. Being able to put a group (or, yes, a single, even with an AOE) to sleep is handy. Yes, even if it breaks right away. And yes, there are ... not infrequent times shutting down a group with multiple bosses with defenses a Sleep can shut down (but other effects would not) is useful, even if the sleep is broken right away. Ice? (PBAOE) No. I constantly skip that, since *I* don't want to be in range of anything the sleep would hit - I'd rather use a hard control (or ice patch) on them.