Apparition

Known bug. Will be fixed in the next update, whenever that may be. In the meantime, you can download an old version of Mids, unselect Afterburner in all of your old builds, and save 'em. Or just wait for the new version. :P

Right now, I'm in fourteen global channels IIRC. I have no idea what the cap is. Unfortunately, closing CoH and logging back in didn't help as I tried that. I'm pretty sure that I hit "Remove" instead of "Leave Channel." I know that "Leave Channel" is specifically that. I'll try playing with it some to see if I can replicate it. Thanks. :)

The Mortimer Kal SF is my favorite SF in the game, and I usually lead it a couple of times per week on Excelsior. I've run it a couple of times on Torchbearer over the past couple of months as well.

If it makes you feel any better, they are not the only ones. Some other Excelsior mothership raid leaders do as well, and I have to occasionally politely deprogram people on my MSRs and tell them to knock it off when they start complaining about stealth auras in league chat. :P Like I said, I do recall this myth prior to sunset, but it has really picked up on Homecoming and I have no idea why. In any case, as a raid leader, it's annoying.

I recently moved a couple of characters from one shard to another. Not all of my characters, just a couple. On one of the chat tabs on one of the characters, I removed the global channels associated with the shard that the character was transferred from, and replaced them with a couple of global channels associated with the shard that the character was transferred to. However, instead of just removing the global channels from the chat tab of that character, I apparently accidentally left the global channels entirely. I no longer had the global channels on any character. It would be nice if there was a way to remove a global channel from a chat tab without actually leaving the global channel. :P

Standard. 100 reward merits with the WST boost. Considering that you can finish Dr. Kahn TF in about twenty minutes (ten minutes with a great team), and it takes about 45 to 50 minutes to finish Barracuda SF on average (in my experience anyhoo), not to mention takes exponentially longer to get a team together for if you can get one together at all, it should easily be worth at least double the reward merits of the Dr. Kahn TF.

I know the chances of this aren't likely, but... I would strongly recommend increasing the reward merits for the Barracuda SF. Not only does it take about twice as long as the Dr. Kahn TF to complete, it also is much more difficult to form a PUG group for. Even with the Page Two tweaks, it is still the least popular SF by far. Last night, at around 8:55 P.M. ET/5:55 P.M. PT, I tried to put together a Barracuda SF. I advertised in two global channels and the LFG channel every three minutes for over fifteen minutes. Not one single reply, even though it is the red side WST. When I can get a group together, it usually takes us about 45 to 50 minutes, so perhaps increase the rewards to something like 50 reward merits.

Yep. You definitely don't need the trinity when fighting Reichsman. You don't need a Brute nor a Tanker. You don't need healing. All you need is some debuffs. I'm assuming that the OP had none. Again, like I said above psionic damage really helps as well in this particular case, but it is far from needed.

The required team size back on live was a minimum of four people. In addition, it was available in Issue 15, four issues before any Incarnate abilities or content. It was achievable with four people before Incarnates, it can definitely be achieved with four people with Incarnates. Heck, it can even be soloed now. Some teams will do better than others. The same goes for all other content in City of Heroes. Some teams will take twenty minutes to wittle Reichsman down, others five minutes. You should have decent debuffs. Cold, Dark Miasma, Rad, Trick Arrow. Psionic damage is a big help, (Psionic Blast or Psionic Melee). City of Heroes is a game where you can do nearly anything with nearly any group composition. You can do the Dr. Kahn TF with any group composition. You've done it. And, just like anything else in CoH, you can do content much more efficiently and more quickly with a group composition more tailored for the task at hand. That doesn't mean that it's broken nor that it needs to be changed.

One of the worst PUG experiences on Homecoming I have had was on a Synapse TF almost two years ago. I led on a Blaster. I had two Tankers and two Brutes join. I don’t like to do anything with more than two melee characters on a team as melee heavy teams tend to be slogs in my experience, but it’s a PUG group so what are you going to do? Once we had eight people, we rolled out. When we got to the first mission, the two Tankers and the two Brutes almost immediately started arguing with each other over who would be “main tank” on the TF. This went on through the first two missions. I am thinking to myself, “It’s a Synapse TF, not a raid or Incarnate trial. Come on.” By the time we got to the third mission, personal insults over tanking started flying. By the time we got to the fifth mission, one of the Brutes mysteriously disconnected. Sixth mission, one of the Tankers had had it with the tanking insults and quit the TF. By the time we got to the Clockwork Lord mission, there were only five of us left as the last Brute also mysteriously disconnected, leaving only the one Tanker remaining. Thankfully, we did manage to complete the TF after about two and a half hours.

I don’t take Taunt on any of my Brutes as I play them more as damage than a tank and I just don’t have the room in my builds for it. Every single character of mine has Fly, Hover, Evasive Maneuvers, and either Super Speed or Speed of Sound.

Now that I'm thinking about it some more... this is total conjecture and probably 100% incorrect, but... Whenever an instanced mothership raid is run, you always have a couple of people (anywhere from one to a half dozen), who try to get an invite without having the Member of Vanguard badge. Most will go get the badge after being told how to do so, and join the raid in media res. Others... will get cranky and try to argue with me because they don't think that they should need the badge even though it only takes about five minutes to obtain, and never actually join the raid. I'm wondering if the turnstile is counting those few that get invited without having the badge and never join, blocking others from joining.

Pretty sure. It was consistent throughout the mission, and then I tried walking with no powers on when I exited the mission and it was fine.

A repelling field is useful for the first few seconds in the bowl. When I am on my Force Field Corruptor, I will immediately turn on Force Bubble, summon my Lore and temporary pets, and then turn Force Bubble off. Give everyone a little bit of safety when we arrive at the bowl. But other than that, yeah, repel should definitely be off.

I just ran Heather Townshend's Personal Story Arc, and I noticed some severe jankiness while walking that I never noticed before. Every couple of seconds while walking, it looks like the walking animation would quickly stop and then speed up for a second to catch up. It's pretty noticeable to me and I'm not exactly the most observant fellow.

The lead powers developer Captain Powerhouse stated a year or two ago that he doesn’t think that Scrappers should have taunt auras and any new Scrapper armor set will not have one.

Sadly, Dual Pistols/Dual Pistols isn’t possible.

Yes. Stealth auras (Steamy Mist, Shadow Fall, and Artic Fog), have no effect on pulling Rikti to the bowl nor Rikti spawning in the bowl. It's been a rumor for many, many years but an inaccurate one. I remember hearing it off and on back prior to sunset, but I've heard it *a lot* on Homecoming, including unfortunately from other Rikti mothership raid leaders. There's no factual basis for it. None. What's really going on: 1. There's a lack of Brutes and/or Tankers on the league. or 2. Most Brutes and/or Tankers on the league aren't pulling Rikti to the bowl. or 3. Most Brutes and/or Tankers on the league are trying to pull too many Rikti to the bowl, and shed some aggro as a result. or 4. People fight Rikti on the ramps and/or on the rim of the ship, preventing the Rikti from reaching the bowl. or (and this is usually the case), 5. Some combination of the above. Easier to blame stealth auras than the lack of pulling/pulling too many/people insisting on fighting Rikti on the ramps no matter how many times you tell them not to I suppose.

Also keep in mind that not everyone likes radio/newspaper missions. Personally, I find them extremely dull. That most of the player base chooses to make the dullest content in the game even more dull by only doing Council does not help.

Nice! Yeah, I strongly suspect that there is also one in Port Oakes. I don't see any reason to not make it more easily accessible like the one in PI, except for developer time.

Yep. Click on any door *inside* the Peregrine Island Arena. Like I said in the original post, it was originally intended to be the arena waiting room. However, it was scrapped, and the arena was built literally overtop of it. Galaxy City, Talos Island, and Peregrine Island all had one, but only the Peregrine Island one was accessible due to map holes. You would have to fall through a map hole in PI, fly to what looked like a big box underneath the arena, and then type /stuck which would put you inside. :D I was one of the first (perhaps the first) to find it on the Champion server. Eventually, I parked a character there, and frequently teleported others inside. The last couple of years prior to sunset, It became a bit of a social hang out where a couple of DJs from an Internet radio station would host their radio shows. At least on Champion, I don't know about the other servers. During the "secret server" days, SCoRE plugged the map holes in Peregrine Island, but made "the Matrix room" much more accessible. I just have fond memories of the place from prior to sunset, and think it would make a nice social area red side since red side is especially lacking in such things.

The only ATs that really struggle gold side are Masterminds and Stalkers. Masterminds because ambushes completely ignore your pets like they aren’t even there and focus all of their Fire directly on your Mastermind. Stalkers because many ambushes ignore your stealth, negating one of the Stalkers’ biggest tools. All four of the ATs you mentioned will do just fine.

Ironically, I have been finding it easier to play a Rogue on Torchbearer compared to Excelsior. Excelsior, like you said, PUG teams can fill in seconds. On Torchbearer, they can take a few minutes to fill since it has about a third of the population. Just enough time to teleport to the zone and then send a tell.

Would anyone happen to have a high quality image or art of the Member of Vanguard badge? I would appreciate it. The best that I could find was something like 128x128.

It feeds into it, because you don't need as much knockback protection with knockback resistance. Unfortunately with Grounded, you often have neither.