Apparition

I would really, really, really truly appreciate it if this would eventually be fixed. Since February, it has been much more difficult for me to find glowies as I can not hear them unless it is right smack in my character's face. And even then I can still barely hear it.

Plus the City of Heroes community in and of itself is fractured. Homecoming is now the big one, but you also have servers like Cake Evolution, Sanctuary, Resurgence, Rebirth, and Thunderspy. There are quite a few people that played on live that still play CoH but not on Homecoming.

That, and video gaming culture in general has changed, and a lot of newer and/or younger players have brought it with them to City of Heroes. It's a lot more frenetic and competitive in general than back in the mid-2000s. You can thank things like Call of Duty, Fortnite, Valorant, etc.

Nah. The community has definitely changed. Not saying necessarily for the better nor for the worse, but it's definitely a different community now than on live.

Yep. As I've said in another thread, I read comments made by one of the Paragon Studios developers a few years ago. Paragon Studios developers apparently considered the Mastermind AT the biggest mistake made in CoH and wish that it was never made. When it came time to develop Praetoria and Incarnate content, they completely ignored the AT, and it shows. The Ambush AI is one of the big offenders as it completely ignores the Mastermind's pets and zeroes in directly on the Mastermind.

Yep. I'm fine with the difficulty (well, except for when trying to solo it on a Mastermind), but the spawn camping is why I just auto-complete the mission every time I get it now and move on. Been there, got the debt badges.

It appears that it's not just "Skeletons in Your Closet." "Longbow Goes Boom" has three Arachnos Wolf Spiders in the last room with the terminal that are just chilling out, as well. All three were level 10, none did a thing, and I was unable to interact with them. Scirocco, of course, is supposed to be there.

I flashed back via Ouroboros to run Dr. Graves' first mission arc. In the "Skeletons in Your Closet" mission, I encountered a bug. I've run this mission many, many times regularly (i.e. without flashing back), and I've never seen this before. At the end of the mission, where you enter a room with the terminal, there were two Wyvern agents just chilling out. They were both level 9, and neither of them did a thing. I was unable to interact with them, they just stood there.

I had to force myself to start calling it the MLTF because “STF” kept confusing newbies.

There is a difference between difficulty and not standing a chance. My first character on Homecoming was a Thugs/Sonic Mastermind. I tried soloing the mission at +1x3. I couldn’t do it, because all fourteen ambush waves completely ignored my pets like they weren’t even there, and zeroed in on my character. After several tries, I gave up for the day. A couple of days later, I recruited some friends to help. There were four of us. I think the difficulty was set at +1x5. We were all repeatedly killed... and then eventually spawn camped by the NPCs. Going “to the hospital” took us to a spawn of a large group of mobs who killed us as soon as we rezzed. All four of us got two debt badges from that mission alone.

From what I understand, pictures were never banned, just videos.

This is one of the few missions that I now auto-complete every time.

Yeah. One of the Paragon Studios developers said a few years ago that they considered Masterminds to be their biggest mistake. They wished that the AT was never added to the game, and completely ignored the AT when they designed Praetoria and Incarnate content. It shows.

A couple of technology vloggers that I follow and monetarily support have been slowly phasing themselves off of Patreon over the past few months and moving to Locals.

Yep. That is one, as well as the Excelsior section of the Homecoming Discord itself. And I'm pretty sure that there's another one floating around out there on Discord.

There's already about three other Discord servers for the same purpose, just FYI.

You may have to do Keith Nance first. Not sure.

Here's hoping Talk Like a Pirate Day is next!

Okie, now that I am off from work, @Lex Talion, @BrandX : On the August 8th, 2012 Issue 24 beta patch notes: That substantially increased the DPA of Dual Pistols. As for the test, you can see the results by Kezeal here. Take it with a couple of large grains of salt (Assault Rifle is only #1 on AoE DPS if mobs don't flee, for one), but it's fairly on target.

It is correct that Dual Pistols had low damage prior to sunset, but that does not apply on Homecoming as Dual Pistols was substantially buffed in the Issue 24 beta. From the Issue 24 wiki page: That came to pass. Many of the Dual Pistols' animation times were significantly shortened, leading to substantially better DPA than prior to sunset. As for the test, I'll look for it when I'm off from work. But to be frank, a lot of the "Dual Pistols is bad!" posts are either based on very old information from Issue 23 and prior, or cognitive bias because it doesn't have a snipe. When frankly, it doesn't need a snipe as it is very competitive without it, and one of the reasons why it is my favorite ranged damage set is because it doesn't have a snipe.

Welcome back to Paragon City and the Rogue Isles! 1. Some Incarnate trials are eight to sixteen players, others are twelve to 24. You'll see a lot of Defenders, Blasters, Tankers, and Stalkers, but all ATs are welcome. Although, just a forewarning... they're pretty rough on Masterminds. You can read up about Incarnate Trials here. 2. Yep. I can't speak to every server, but Excelsior and Indomitable both do nightly Hamidon raids. 3. There are still SGs that recruit. Check the Homecoming Discord's server channels. 4. There are also Rikti mothership raids. Zone MSRs are open to any level, instanced MSRs are level 35+ and require the Member of Vanguard badge. I prefer the instanced, but YMMV. There's also the Cathedral of Pain Trial, which is level 10+.

Like a Brute. ;)

Special Agent Jenni Adair, level 20 to 29 in Talos Island. Although I do highly recommend running Field Agent Keith Nance's mission arc first.

You're just making my argument for me. And no, the Defender damage boost was in Issue 17, more than two years before Issue 24 went into beta.

Damage procs were around before sunset, yes. But they work nearly completely differently now than they did before Issue 24. And my point is that they are not balanced now. They *were* balanced when Homecoming first started, but around late last summer/early autumn, as word of the changes to damage procs started spreading, it became entirely lopsided.