Apparition

Yep. That’s how they’re formed on both Torchbearer and Indomitable. The raid leader queues for the MSR solo with a locked team. Once inside the instance, the raid leader then begins inviting others inside. It’s a much better way to form instanced mothership raids instead of forming a league and then queuing. FWIW though, your own difficulty setting doesn’t matter. You could be set at -1 and all of the mobs will be level 54.

Instanced Rikti mothership raids were added on October 1st, 2019 when Issue 26, Page Four went live. It’s mostly used on the Torchbearer and Indomitable shards. Everyone has to be level 35+ and have the Member of Vanguard badge to join. All of the mobs, including the pylons, are level 54 so it’s a little more difficult than the zone MSR. The hospital is much closer to the mothership, so you can get back in the action much more quickly. Unlike the zone MSR, everyone on the team shares Vanguard merits no matter where they are on the map, so Tankers and Brutes tend to get a lot more Vanguard merits than they do on a zone MSR. There’s also less lag in the instance due to the significantly smaller map size. Between the less lag, everyone in the league being level 35+, and teams sharing Vanguard merits (including Tankers and Brutes), you tend to get more Vanguard merits on an instanced MSR compared to a zone MSR, and it’s an overall better experience IMO.

Good news then. You don’t need to participate in them. Personally, I think that Valentine’s Day is a crock. So I just don’t participate in the Valentine’s Day event. When the event is over, I dismiss all of the event tips, and go on with my day. FWIW, I am unaware of any server that does not activate the holiday events.

I can only hope. I cannot possibly think of anything more boring than +0 in general, let alone +0 Council.

Yeah, I regularly see this. Characters that I know for a fact that I have not touched in over a year, even two, will state that they were last on a couple of days ago. It’s obviously some sort of bug.

The biggest, most villainous group of them all. Longbow. They have the saps in Paragon City fooled, but not the good citizens of the Rogue Isles. They use flamethrowers. Flamethrowers!

Yep. Every single one of my characters is a Rogue, and I do many TFs and trials.

Nope. You need to make an account on the wiki itself.

To be fair, there is a legitimate complaint. They could be doing it in Kallisti Wharf instead and let villains join in on the fun; not to mention that it is a much better looking zone. There are two spots in northern Kallisti Wharf that are just as good as the motel in Peregrine Island for farming ToT mobs. Blue side privilege rears its ugly head once again. 😉

Unfortunately not. The CPU fan on my HP notebook computer gave up the ghost. Thankfully, it is only 22 months old and still under the extended warranty. However, the HP service center had to order a new fan and I was told that there is a shortage due to COVID-19, so it will take up to two weeks to come in.

I fully intended to spend the next month getting all of the Halloween event badges on three new characters. Then my computer crapped the bed last night. Estimated time for repair is two weeks. So if you could extend the duration of the Halloween event by two weeks, that would be swell. I am kidding. I am just going to spend the latter half of the month doing the Halloween event like a madman. :D Thank y’all for bringing Halloween back to Paragon City and the Rogue Isles once again!

We did. It’s just called Willpower now.

Yeah, the only changes the MLTF had was in name and starting contact. Everything else is the same. LRSF on the other hand had numerous nerfs.

Wee! Statesman! Massacring the big lug was the one thing I really missed from live.

I suggest proliferating the Darkness Affinity power set to Corruptors, Defenders, and Masterminds. I would rather just see Dark Miasma replaced with Darkness Affinity, but I realize that some people would not. Fade and Soul Absorption make the power set play differently, and IMO for the better. It would be nice to be able to play it on the other support ATs as well.

I lead instanced Rikti mothership raids. One of the reasons I started forming them from inside the instance is because otherwise, I had to check each and every individual in the entire league for the Member of Vanguard badge. If one person in the league doesn't have the badge, you can't queue. That's up to 47 people that needed to be individually checked for the badge. Almost every single danged time, there would be at least one person in the league without the badge, despite my clearly advertising on the forums, on Discord, and in game that it was needed. I'd quietly send the person a tell, telling him or her that he or she needed the badge, and how to get it. Then I'd get a response, "Oh, I don't need it." or "I've done plenty of mothership raids without it." Then I'd have to argue with the person, holding everyone else up, explaining that yes, in fact, he or she actually does need it. Either the person would get the badge, or I'd kick him or her from the league. Now, with my forming instanced Rikti mothership raids from inside the instance, people who have the badge can get right in and fight Rikti around the Point du Hoc Vanguard compound to keep themselves occupied while the league forms, and those who don't have the badge can't get in but also don't hold everything up for everyone else. My point is... if you try to make some sort of artificial barrier, "Oh, we're going to do an ITF, but you need to unslot all of your Incarnate abilities first," some people will join, but won't unslot their Incarnates. They'll either forget to unslot something, or they'll see an ITF advertised, and won't care one whit about your requirements and join anyway. "Pfft, I'm not unslotting my Incarnates. They'll let me join anyway." All they want is the XP and don't care about anything else.

A lot of people either don't seem to know Dark Astoria's purpose, or lost sight of it. It was designed to be baby's solo-friendly first exposure to Incarnate content and way to slowly unlock and build Incarnate powers for those who didn't have the time or were unwilling to join Incarnate trials. It was not designed for full teams. It was not designed for level 50+3 Incarnates. It was intentionally designed to get easier as you progress and shuffle you off to Incarnate trials when done to use your new Incarnate power.

Which do you suppose would be easier for a small all-volunteer development team working on their free time?

I actually hope that if there ever is another Incarnate zone added to the game, all Incarnate level shifts are allowed so there'd be another zone as an option to form Incarnate trials in. I strongly dislike using Ouroboros for Incarnate trials, (it's a small zone and gets crowded too easily, and too many people just stay at the entrance, making it a pain in the rear to use the portal). Some people don't like Pocket D, and I hear that it isn't really an option on the Everlasting shard. Others find Dark Astoria "too gloomy." Right now, Dark Astoria is the best of the three, IMO. It gives people who get quickly bored while iTrials are forming an outlet to beat mobs up.

The original reasoning was to show that you were on your path to godhood now, so all this level 50 stuff before Incarnate content is a bit beneath you now. On top of that, from what I hear NCSoft executives pressured Paragon Studios to allowing Incarnate abilities beyond the Alpha to work outside of Incarnate content in order to sell Going Rogue expansion boxes and subscriptions. "Look how cool Johnny is, using that Ion Judgment to destroy all those Fifth Column in the Dr. Kahn TF! I must have that. I'll go buy the Going Rogue expansion right now!" Paragon Studios' intention was to keep ever adding Incarnate content, and ever adding Incarnate abilities and level shifts. They believed that once they reached a certain point of Incarnate content, that people would just stop running the pre-Incarnate content. Unfortunately, NCSoft pulled the rug out from underneath them and here we are.

I am okie with the first suggestion. Not so much the second. Dark Astoria *is* Incarnate content. Therefore, Incarnate level shifts should apply there, and was indeed designed for Incarnate level shifts to be applied there. People keep mentioning that it being boring with teams, but uh... newsflash. Dark Astoria wasn't designed for teams. It was designed to be a solo Incarnate experience. If you want to team for Incarnate content, Tinpex and Incarnate Trials are ----> that way. Also, removing Incarnate level shifts from Dark Astoria would mean one less zone to form Incarnate trials in, as you would no longer be able to easily see what Incarnate level shifts people have. Removing it would leave Pocket D and Ouroboros... both of which are less than ideal, IMO.

This is City of Heroes. An endless supply of nerds (myself included), won't be a problem.

Yep. I know that the legion of old school Tanker fans will say that everything about Brutes and Tankers right now is just fine, but it isn't. The Issue 26, Page Four patch overbuffed Tankers to the point that there's now very little objective reason to make a Brute other than for farming, and even then there's an argument to be made in favor of the Tanker. IMO, the Tanker melee damage modifier needs to be nerfed back to 0.85, or if the developers are dead set against that, then Brute's melee damage modifier needs to be increased. Otherwise there will continue to be very little reason to make a Brute.

Why a Brute? I've asked myself this question many times since the Issue 26, Page Four update. Objectively: 1. You want to tank using the Energy Aura power set. 2. You don't want to play a Stalker nor tank, you hate runners, and you want to play an armor set that isn't Bio Armor, Invulnerability, or Shield Defense. Other armor sets either have a stronger taunt aura on Brutes compared to Scrappers, or have a taunt aura at all on Brutes compared to no taunt aura on Scrappers. Other than that, in all other cases you are better off playing a Scrapper or Tanker, objectively. Now just for funsies or for feel, those are different things.