Apparition

What would be the best ranged character for soloing Praetoria, Flashback story arcs, and AVs and GMs? I'm guessing a Corruptor of some sort.

No. It's a combination of inertia and one sidedness. "There's a lot more heroes than those stinky villains, so let's force them to come to us." Edit: I don't understand it myself. The Abyss is a much better looking zone than The Hive.

Huh. Just goes to show how much I paid attention to Atlas Park over the years. :P

It actually isn't. The Abyss became co-op in Issue 18. Just most people didn't realize it because inertia is a heck of a thing.

Yep. The Abyss is the co-op Hamidon raid zone. You can access it from both IP and PI. It's largely the blue siders unwilling to change location.

You'd have to be a real Sherlock to get the term Doylist.

I don't think there were ever invasions in Atlas Park nor Mercy Island. It'd be a bit rough for level one or two characters.

The endurance issue for attacks is simply because Masterminds shouldn't be using them after... say... level 20 or so. I only ever take one attack on a MM to help out with damage at really low levels. By level 20, I stop using personal attacks unless I am really and truly bored. There are very, very few ways to play CoH wrong. This is one of them. By all means, have at it, but that's an awfully big boulder, Sisyphus.

They are options for your hero characters, you just need to unlock them. Go to Pocket D, and look for a seagull sitting on top of a box truck on the red side. Talk with him. Ask him to change your alignment to Rogue. Then go to Grandville, and talk with Arbiter... Rein?. He'll let you pick a patron. Pick any, (although most go for Black Scorpion or Ghost Widow). Run his or her five or six missions to unlock the patron power pools. When done, head back to Pocket D, talk with the seagull, and change your alignment back to Hero or Vigilante. Done.

Yep. It's like an even worse Corruptor without a primary.

Faraday Cage would have to have been seriously nerfed to make it a toggle. It provides Sleep and Knockback protection (which Dispersion Bubble and Sonic Dispersion do not), and all of the mez protection it provides are greater numbers than the mez protection that Dispersion Bubble and Sonic Dispersion provide.

IMO, I think the better solution would be to fix the levels for the pets to be the equal of the MM, or at most one level below, including Incarnate level shifts.

Brute and Tanker are just as good now, IMO. I farm on a Fire/Rad Tanker and clear the asteroid map in just under five minutes. It depends on your tastes. I decided on a Tanker just to try it out and it's been really effective.

Any that isn't a Stalker or Mastermind if you want Praetorian badges.

Working and being a good idea are two different things. As someone that remembers the days of tank herding and is glad that that is dead and buried, no thank you.

I have removed the Help and General chat channels from my chat tabs, so I ignore those. I had four people on global ignore for door sitting Strike/Task Forces. Not moving from the entrance in the first mission... Okie, stuff happens. That you left for the second mission and door sat again, now that's very suspicious. Third mission? Nope, gone. /ignore followed by /kick. I had one person on global ignore for griefing a Hamidon raid. I had two people on global ignore for griefing one of my Rikti mothership raids. I mapserved about halfway during one of the Rikti mothership raids I lead a few months ago. I came back a couple of minutes later. I had some SG mates in the raid, and they told me who had the league star. I messaged him for a re-invite. No reply. Messaged again a couple of minutes later. No reply. I messaged again a few minutes later with explicit instructions on how to invite me in case the person was new or never lead a league before. No reply. I must have sent over a half dozen tells during the remainder of the MSR, with no reply nor invite. Meanwhile, this person continued to be active during the mothership raid. I promptly /ignored him after the raid was over so that person will never be on one of my MSRs again.

Task forces were originally meant to take *days* to play through. For most of the game's active history, we had the original Positron Task Force, Synapse, Sister Psyche, the Shadow Shard TFs... They weren't a good idea then, they aren't a good idea now. Just like knockback.

Honestly, the biggest changes i'd like to see done red side are three new Strike Forces: One between levels 8 to 15 like Positron, one levels 30 - 35 like Manticore, and one levels 40 - 45. I think that alone would be a big help.

If you really want an INF sink, pay two billion INF to cause an invasion of Atlas Park. 😛

Nope.

I do both. I run DFB (or try to), with XP turned off just for the badges and the +acc and +recovery boosts.

That's why I suggested double INF and double reward merits, NOT XP. That will give incentives to play the story arcs without outleveling them. At least, not nearly as often as you would with double XP. I doubt all would shift back to blue side. Most, probably. But those who wouldn't would be a net boon. I know this. I've been playing City of Heroes since Issue 3, and City of Villains since Issue 6. I much, much prefer red side. I did not go back to playing heroes. Not strictly, anyway. I find blue side dull and boring. My first couple of toons on Homecoming were blue side because, unfortunately, that's where most of my friends prefer to play and we didn't know that you could have co-op supergroups. Now that I do, all of my other toons since then are red side. I do think that developer action is needed. IMO, the disparity between blue side and red side population is even worse now than it was back before sunset. Why? Mostly because the better ATs (Brutes, Corruptors, Masterminds, and VEATs), are either now available to both sides or have been significantly watered down on Homecoming to the point that most people do not think that they are worth playing. Then there's the easy side switching, where players start characters blue side, and then use Null the Gull for a day pass to red side for access to the patron power pools, instead of actually spending some time there. Half the time when I try to get a DFB started red side, I can't. If I'm lucky, I'll get four or five others interested after a half hour of advertising. Other times, one or zero. This is on Excelsior, the most populated server by a wide margin.

I would like to suggest temporarily doubling the INF and reward merits from red side content (over a three or four month period, say), to give people strong incentive to check out red side and see for themselves how great it is, from the zones themselves, to the story arcs, to the different enemies. A lot of people are new to the game and have only played blue side because "that's where everyone else is." This would give them incentive to check out red side for themselves.

It's been an issue since Homecoming went live. It's one of the main reasons why I now find playing Masterminds frustrating, when they're my favorite AT.

Yes, please.