Perfidy

So, let me share an anecdotal experience. I monitor recharge on my rad/SS tank. With Super Strength, there are multiple places to stash the +100% recharge IO. I've never done the math to determine if I'm better off with a simple damage or recharge IO, or whatever set IO I use to get an additional bonus by using something to add to the set in lieu of the Force Feedback IO. But, it is fun to see Foot Stomp recharge very quickly within a few seconds instead of 10-12. The dps I get, I have never measured it, but it's higher. Now, each of the 100% don't fire every time. In a couple of powers, it seems like they do, at least most of the time. I pretty much use them because it seems like foot stomp is up more often, so I have more fun as result. Optimal? That's anyone's call for their own specific character. I do think that some powersets can take better advantage of them than other powersets. Again, there's math involved. Each one grants a 100% boost to recharge, but only for 10 seconds. So, if you can time them properly, and they're slotted in fairly slow base recharge powers (Not like kick, even thought kick would accept it), then there's a fair chance that more often than not, your recharge will be 100% faster than it otherwise would be for a very short time. It can make quite a difference, but not enough where you would forego getting hasten or pursuing recharge in your set bonuses. At least, I wouldn't.

I don't think I've ever wanted or appreciated chaos - unless you consider dodging pink patches in Apex TF or the Thunder-strikes from Tyrant as chaotic. To me, it's like a dance of sorts, with a rhythm to discover and embrace. But those types of situations aside, I don't like it when any of my teammates get defeated. It makes me feel as if I fell short and failed them somehow, even if they did do something silly or insane to cause it. It can also slow progress as sometimes, particularly on pugs, the teammate will hit the hospital and take several minutes to return. And yet, when I'm the guy that uses Judgement a split second after a teammate, it often makes me wonder why I'm teamed up - until we face the AV, then I remember. I like an efficient team, but it's not THAT much fun when there's a player (or two) who is/are SO fast, and SO efficient that they've killed the boss in the end room before I even get there. Not that I need to be there, but I want to feel like I've done my part, if that makes any sense. I think my best teaming experiences are when we kill/defeat the npcs that are in the way, with everyone sticking together.

In these forums, several folks smarter than me have shared various methods they've used to get certain badges. One thing I would add is a couple of ...well...opinions, more than any kind of great tip or trick. Wait until you're 50 to get most of them. You're likely to get a large number of them organically without actually trying for them. Also, aside from some badges which require you to be solo (Presents opened, for example) most badges are best done with a team, like the various defeat badges. I would caution you, however, to consider carefully before trying for ALL of the badges. While it does give a player something to focus on, well..it can be damned tedious and frustrating. Not to mention, every patch, you have something else to focus on, in addition to the new content and whatever character you were playing before the patch arrived. There are some players...at least a few, who have sought to get every badge on every AT, or at a minimum, multiple characters. Imagine that. Every patch, you have a lot of characters to dust off (if that applies) and aim to get the new badges on a host of characters. Trust me, you have to have a particular mindset or personality for this to be interesting/entertaining. If it is for you - that's fantastic! Just think long term. I wish I had thought long term. I had 6 characters with all the badges. Now I just have 1, and 5 with "most". I'll only ever fuss with the 1 now. It's just too much time/trouble to suit my brain at this time.

So, in one of my "slot only what drops" challenges, I learned that aside from accuracy and endurance, it really doesn't matter what you slot. At least, not to simply get through a given mission and proceed to the next. I used to fuss over the numbers and try to squeeze out as much of various attributes as I could. I have some blasters that have more hitpoints than some of my scrappers, which puzzles me completely. Or is it almost as much? I can't recall. Enough to notice. Anyway, would I consider my characters to be completely optimally slotted? For what? We cannot have an optimal build unless we define the purpose. For generic play? For a Positron 1 & 2 AND a Really Hard Way Magisterium badge effort? There are players with several builds on the same character, in an effort to cover as many bases as possible. Good for them. I just slot what it is my characters seem to need as I level them. I do follow general guidelines, tho. All of my characters, unless I'm doing a drop challenge or something like that will get the kismet 6%, the Panacea +hp/recovery, the Shield Wall, the Glad Armor, the Steadfast 3%, the Unbreakable Guard with the 7.5% HP, the miracle +end, the numina +regen/recovery, a perf shifter +end, maybe a few Chance for Heal from the Power Transfer set. Some characters get 3-4 purple sets and the ATOs. Some get the ATOs and winter sets. Almost all of them get as many 7.5% LotGs I can slap in the build. I think in 95% of my characters, I'd have no problems sharing my build. The other 5%, I'd probably be a little embarrassed. But, ultimately, I've learned it just doesn't matter that much. There are players who can make an unslotted tank look like a kitted out brute, and vice-versa. Optimal play has so much more to do with the player than the pixels the players control.

lol, I still have no clue why this should be monitored. Maybe it has something to do with the geysers that boost you back up to the top of the ski slope.

I solo with my blasters routinely. Almost all of them take combat jumping and super speed. Building your blaster requires you to identify how you like to play. While I can joust, I only do so when I think I need to, in higher difficulty situations. It's not my go to strat for clearing mobs. Some folks play only at range; some folks play only in melee. And, it seems you do both, which is perfectly okay. I don't know that I'd use 3 recharge enhancements in Build-up. There's a bit of diminishing returns at play on that 3rd enhancement of the same type. Not a lot, but enough where if you're needing/wanting a slot somewhere else, you could respec and lose that third recharge enhancement and not miss it too much. It may be worth your time to consider an enhancement that does both - boosts toHit and recharge. But this would be an invention origin enhancement, and I'm not sure if you're ready to delve into all of the investigation required for inventions just yet. Medicine pool for me was always ...well, not very good. If I needed to heal up, the time to mash the button and have it execute without interruption was usually too slow. Far easier to hit an inspiration. And the fight pool, while meta, if you can handle the endurance usage, is rarely a bad idea. A blaster doesn't do much damage when they're dirt-napping. Finding the balance between dps and survivability is what each blaster needs to discover on their own. I'm older, with slower reflexes than most folks, so I tend to rely on a more sturdy build. I'm sure many blasters and even corruptors will out-dps my blasters, but mine will likely live longer in the more challenging scenarios. So, I guess what I'm saying is - I'm jealous. You're at a point in the game where you get to learn all kinds of things about how you play, what you like, and what you're good at. Enjoy the discovery!

I appreciate your posting this. It's always interesting to see how others build their characters.

I do have certain things I do with each character. One mainstay is Maria Jenkins' arc. You just can't get Portal Jockey without defeating all those super villains, so doing her arc is essentially required if you want PJ, or you have to tag along to who knows how many PI teams and hope you get lucky. The other is an AND/OR type deal. In the high 20's, I'll want to either do a Moonfire TF (vamps/wolves for Atlas Medallion) or the Hansen contact..the third contact in the zone. Lars or Tobias, can't recall which - they have a couple of missions filled with nothing but vamps. You can hunt the wolves any time, but waiting for night on the vamps is tedious to me. Sometimes, I'll do a combo of these things. Schweinzer's list of Mayhem missions. I don't actually complete these missions, I just grab the explores for the Invader accolade. All of my characters do this. I try to fit in Aaron Thiery's arc because of the spider ops in it. Means less hunting if I can knock those out. I usually get the family in Stephanie Peeble's arc. These defeats go towards the villain equivalent of the Freedom Phalanx accolade. The one contact I do try to fit in with each character is younger Yin's story arc. The spacing of the enemies in those missions, well, it just seems perfect for my playstyle. And I do like the ambiance of Daddy Yin's shop, even if the enhancements sold are not very special at all. Occasionally, I try to finish Talshek's arc out of the Hollow's simply because of the Atta map. So damned many trolls in there. You can go in with it at +1 and gain a few levels in there fairly quickly. One of my fonder memories from the game is doing that mission back on live with certain teammates.

By and large, unless it's the weekly, I don't think most people assess the number of merits a TF/SF/Trial offers before they consider running it. They think about the time commitment, if it will be fun - those kinds of things. It's my opinion certain TFs should be relegated to Ouro and newer revamped versions be available, such as Sister Psyche/Yin. We can still do Sister Psyche's TF through Ouro if we like, or we can do Yin's TF. But, that kind of change takes time and energy. In the meantime, nobody is forcing me to do longer, more tedious TF/SFs for the reward I'm looking for. I personally would love to earn an Empyrean Merit for various things about the city, rather than only get them through vet levels and incarnate content. They're really the hardest thing to get in my experience. Now, if I could exchange reward merits for emp merits...then I'd be running a lot more TF's, I think, depending on the conversion rate. But, I digress.

It's not difficult to do this. If you're loaded with inf, like some of us, this type of play is often the only thing to make you excited about what drops. Imagine, thinking a common end mod recipe or standard enhancement is more rare than a purple/very rare recipe drop. While it's not difficult to rely solely on what drops, you do play differently. You'd need to. And if soloing, you'll go a lot more slowly than otherwise. I think our OP is just feeling a little frustrated about the initial hoops we all jumped through in one fashion or another.

I believe there are flaws in your logic. You're under the impression that fire farmers are buying stuff at 3 to 10 times the actual value. Based on what? If you ask them, most farmers farm for specific reasons. For some, it's fun. Relaxing. Others farm specifically for influence to outfit their other characters. You think those players are spending 3-10x what they should? Why? And...let's not lose sight of a couple things. Price and value. Price is what you have to pay, regardless of value. But the value for an item is different for many of us. A player who enjoys pvp is more likely to spend influence on a microfilament (the one that boosts end reduction and travel speed), whereas myself, I'll just use a quickfoot run/end and boost it 5x. It's only a little less of a boost, and certainly cheaper than a micro. But just because you or I might think a luck of the gambler 7.5% should come in free sets of 5 when you come out of the character creation screen, there are more than a few folks who think the price is fair, given the salvage, the converters and the time and trouble to create the items in the first place. As for newer players unwittingly paying more than they should - that is probably true. And sad. Which is why I've been randomly giving away 50M to 200M to random folks who can type something in the chat channel fast enough. But be clear on one thought: Fire farmers might have a fair amount of influence. But they are below average when you take into account the marketers, who can make millions of inf in a few minutes, consistently, throughout the day. The "ebil marketers" (don't ask me why those folks can't type out Evil properly) are the ones who place most of the things you're going to buy on the market. Not the farmers. The better marketers don't have merely billions. They have hundreds of billions. I suspect Yomo may even be close to 1 trillion by now, depending on how active he's been.

So, Here's my take: I remember clearly playing on live and also not having enough influence for DOs in the teens. I remember clearly, finally getting to level 22 so I could slot SOs, and well...surprise, I could only afford 4 of them. Homecoming's "flavor" of CoH has made it so there are several different ways to get influence. If you just want to do missions and use those proceeds to fund your character, you can do that! But, you have to be clever. Instead of doing something like one-off missions that you might get from the radio or the paper, consider doing story arcs, which give you reward merits. You can use those reward merits inefficiently and buy a specific recipe or enhancement from a merit vendor, or you can exchange the reward merits for boosters or converters, (do the math and see what the AH will pay you the most for) or you can USE the converters on the recipes that dropped on you (they start dropping randomly at level 10, maybe a bit earlier if you tackle harder foes) There's plenty of different ways to do it. That's not to say each method is for everyone. Some folks think marketing is just grindy and boring. They just want to slot and go. I don't blame them too much, but realize part of the game is the struggle to outfit your character! Just enjoy the journey.

Against the skulls in a mission, it seems the 90 feet of stealth from Cloaking Device does not suppress when attacking as the description suggests it should. It remains at 90 ft. There were two skulls in very close proximity; I shot at one, defeating it. The other continued to read/write on a clipboard - which is not normally how they behave. Typically, the 2nd will take note the first one is taking fire and respond with their own attack. At least, that's always been my experience with NPCs.

Very minor issue, just happened to grab this badge en route to a contact. The badge was awarded at the correct spot. (King's Row [-1089.0 -42.0 900.7]

So...um..Gravity? Is there some reason we should monitor this? I was unaware it was an attribute to monitor. Probably not worth your time to reply, but I am curious.

There is one. The character called himself "The Black Hole", as somehow, when "a grain of dwarf star matter" fell to the Earth into his chest, he was somehow able to open his chest and suck objects or people into it, transporting them/it into a pocket dimension. Can you just imagine the indigestion? Opening your chest wide and absorbing an Avatar of Hamidon into your chest? For those curious, I stumbled across this character reading my brother's Howard the Duck comics. Very strange character, that duck. Probably couldn't reproduce Howard, either, but he couldn't really be considered a superhero, I don't think.

I would be remiss if I didn't share that I have contacted several people, and also been contacted about getting a specific name. I have never turned anyone down, and I have only been turned down once. It's not a lost cause. It also helps sometimes if you explain briefly why the name is important to you, maybe the back story and other details. One of my characters on Torchbearer I hadn't played in months, if not a year or so. I'd even taken a spot on a free farm and imagined leveling that way until I could get my Phantom Army power. I did that - but never played the character, despite a pretty cool name. So, I gave up the name when asked. A lot of folks, I suspect, would be willing to do that for free. If you find someone who wants you to pay a zillion inf or something - come to the forums and explain why you need the inf, you may find yourself being donated the necessary sum.

I was blissfully unaware the genre needed saving.

I resisted joining an SG and forming an SG for quite some time. I had an SG in live, but I learned that dealing with different personalities - primarily my own - I just don't have it in me to be polite at all times to everyone. It's just not in me. So, I knew forming an SG would be a big mistake for me, and for anyone foolish enough to join my group. As for joining an SG, with the way HC is set up, I never really saw the appeal. We have global chat channels. For example, there's one called TaskForceJunkies, or something like that. These are mainly players with their own sg who team up for TFs and iTrials and any other content. So, if you have this type of option, an SG seems like an extra obligation. But, you get out of things what you put into them. Sometimes, you join an SG, and the SG becomes large, like over 100 players. Invariably, they use discord, and in chat, things are said, and perhaps someone doesn't like profanity or someone was insane enough to talk about politics and we all know how horribly bad those conversations can go. Then you have internal strife, and it can be a mess. And sometimes, you can join an SG, and there are various rules in place, and people conduct themselves well, and the leadership of the SG is fairly selfless and has group events routinely, and often. In these cases, you really can find a home-like kind of place that you look forward to playing with. As for Global Friends...it's odd. I don't think I've ever asked someone to be my global friend. Yet my list is pretty long. And I have no idea who most of them are. There are maybe 20 people in game who's name I would recognize as someone I'd like to team with. Probably another 5 that I prefer to never team with again. The rest I can take or leave.

And you should feel no shame, but a lot of pride. These tools you and others have come up with have saved me SO much time and effort, I can't help but think you should get a parade and a statue.

Well, I'm not sure this person is even playing the game anymore, a full 3+ years later. But, I'm sure this person is not the only one with the question. There are a lot of solutions, but none so simple as having your own personal stash place while belonging to another SG. But, we don't have that. So, a number of suggestions in this thread are quite adequate to solve the problem. But, the easiest solution is to play your level 50 character, or keep playing until you do. Then you'll eventually be swimming in influence and won't need to give your alts hand-me-downs. You just buy the shiny new stuff as you need it.

In my early days (mid-issue 3), I almost never solo'd. Now, I solo more often than not. That's probably the biggest difference. Back then, there were no invention sets, so just the ability to withstand the attacks of a few npcs allows for a different way of solving certain in-game problems. Not sure if that should be counted to answer the question, though. I do know that back then, I was much more methodical. Looking for a safe place to run to if I need to; planning out which npc to pull, and planning out what I'd do if I got the whole crowd. Now, I just plow in; with inventions sets and mids, I'm able to make my characters sturdy enough to withstand most situations. So, while the playstyle has changed, I think it has more to do with the sets then any maturation process as a player.

I suspect the statistics kept are inaccurate, and I'll explain why. On a typical cave map farm run (The Atta map, if that rings a bell) I tend to get a fair number of common recipes, which I do not craft, but vendor. I would craft them, but the number of badgers who craft for that workbench badge can drop the prices quite low, and there's only so many AH slots to fill; so, I vendor them. Because I've amassed well over 3000 vet levels doing nothing but farming, and the kiosk says I've only sold 10 recipes...well, there's definitely something off. Maybe it refers to only uncommon, rare and very rare? I've never sold any of those, So, in my mind, something is amiss.

I'm amused at what boredom (I assume) produces in the market. Rare salvage which used to generally get you 500k, now seems to sell far more frequently at 400k. Uncommon salvage which was selling for varying prices that were generally higher than the vendor sell price now seem to be all over the place, but now more often than not, less than the 10k to 20k range they had been selling at. Some of the higher demand invention enhancements continue to be consistently priced at 3M, give or take 10%. (such as perf shifter +end, Power Transfer +heal, Preventative Medicine Absorb proc) Lotg 7.5% is interestingly selling within a broader range - 5-7m, whereas anecdotally, when I'd look, they used to never sell for less than 6M unless you were fortunate to bid on one when someone just dumped them at 1 inf, or some other very low price. The pvp IOs, there's still a market for them, but the profit margin isn't as good as it used to be, as competition seems to have still outpaced demand's upward push on the prices. You can get the recipes for less than 2m if patient, and can still make a gross 6-10M on the crafted, with the average leaning more towards 6M than the 8M which was more common before page 5.

Do MSRs occur on any kind of a routine basis? I could lead one..but I think it would be poor form for a level 36-ish character to do so.