Greycat

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.

"Pool boy" builds have been a thing since live. Never did it myself, but they are around.

This is an aside, but ... "once in a while?" Since when does Fighting or Leadership (the power pool, not the actual ability) determine if you're a "good player" or not? Neither are required. Play without them. I can guarantee people will get to 1-50 just fine. ... and of course if you don't need them, it does kind of mitigate the desire for yet another power pool, so it circles on back to the thread in any case. ;)

Have to look. Are you entering one of the phasing areas? You can lose NPCs there.

The badges don't need to be equalized. One's for a GM, two are basically participation awards. So "equalizing" them would, in fact, make them unequal. Welcome to Earth is for the dropship defeat, which also awards reward merits - like other GMs. One defeat = badge. Just like other GMs. Master at arms = get a hit in during the raid. Be at 10 raids. Not difficult. You pretty much just have to be there on jumping into the bowl and do.. *something.* Everyone has brawl and one attack, by default. Two, actually, since you have the origin power, which has range. You can hop in at level 1, target U'kon and spam that, eventually you'll get a hit in. Even easier for demolitionist. Team plants bombs, you get the badge. You don't have to plant them yourself (or my dark/pain wouldn't have it,) *and* the number of bombs needed has gone down (used to be 25.)

I've seen this done, too. Between magic, dimensions, etc it was basically "growl at each other like strange dogs for a bit, then get it sorted out."

... with the caveat that that *can* be wrong (showing more hours.) Personally, I miss being able to look at it and see that I'm a Nemesis nemesis sometimes. ;)

They also have an infamous slot crunch if they take both forms. Or, really, even one.

... and another group, apparitions vs drudges, -1, didn't attack the apparitions. Trying to pick out what the heck's going on here... Edit: Except for one drudge. Who came back. Now PA's not attacking any of them. Edit2: Also seems to have nothing to do with level. Brought a 32 Ill/Sonic in. Similar group and level - 29 Apparitions and Talons together. PA completely ignored them. As well as a group of just-apparitions. Phantasm doesn't attack them, either. Or a Shivan. Power analyzer shows nothing stealthy. Doesn't seem to affect MM pets - they'll attack happily, though they tend to be attacked first. At least they respond.