Apparition

Yeah. This started about a month ago. It's quite annoying. I have to turn both my machine's volume and the game's volume all the way up to hear them.

They were moved to the Echo: Faultline zone, along with several exploration badges in RWZ were moved to Echo: Rikti Crash Site. Paragon Wiki is frozen in time, so has not been updated to reflect the new badge locations. You want to use Vidiot Maps.

I don't think it's all "flippers." As I've posted a few times, the February 18th patch seems to have lowered drop rates for salvage and IO recipes. I think that's a big part of it at least.

That stinks and I'm sorry to hear that. That is one of the reasons why I prefer the instanced Rikti mothership raid trials. One of the zone MSRs I lead back around July of last year was griefed by two people continuously using Dimensional Shift while we were in the bowl. Can't do much about things like that in a zone raid. Instanced, /kick. End of issue.

IMO, if the absorb mechanic were in the game at Issue 0, Force Field would be a complete +absorb power set with no or very little +def as absorption much better fits the concept of force fields than extra defense. But since people are so accustomed to Force Field providing +def, that's why I think it's a good idea to leave Deflection Shield and Insulation Shield unchanged so that it still provides some +defense. I'm fine with -damage or -regen or some other sort of debuff, but IMO Force Field needs a minor debuff somewhere. Even Electrical Affinity eventually gained minor -regen.

IOs, other power sets, and Incarnate powers happened. With IOs, at high levels and especially at endgame nearly everyone is soft-capped to either S/L or melee or ranged. Add Cold Domination, Time Manipulation, and the Barrier Destiny, and all of the +def that Force Field brings to the table is wasted. The only other things that Force Field brings are knockback and making NPCs intangible. Uh... yeah. 'Nuff said there I think.

From Issues 3 through 23, a Force Field character was my main character. I started off with a Gravity Control/Force Field Controller, then later on added a Robotics/Force Field Mastermind, a Force Field/Dark Blast Defender, a Thugs/Force Field Mastermind, and finally a Force Field/Fire Blast Defender. All of them made it to level 50, and all but the Controller were Incarnated out. I think I have a fairly good grasp on Force Field. That said, I haven't been able to make one on Homecoming. Why? Force Field is absolutely terrible past the mid-level range. It brings very little to nothing of value to high level to endgame teams. IMO, to fix Force Field to be of decent value at high levels and endgame, the cottage rule needs to be discarded. 1. Personal Force Field - Lower the amount of +def by a little less than half, add some refreshing ticks of +absorb. 2. Deflection Shield - Leave unchanged 3. Force Bolt - Change knockback to knockdown, up the damage a little, add -res to give Force Field some minor debuff. 4. Insulation Shield - Leave unchanged 5. Detention Field - For the love of $deity, change it to a hold or even an immobilize. 6. Dispersion Bubble - Replace the +def with refreshing ticks of +absorb, and add Sleep protection. 7. Repulsion Field - I'm at a loss for this one. IMO, it should be entirely removed for something better as I never, ever used it in the six years I played bubblers on live. 8. Repulsion Bomb - Lower the animation time by half, up the damage by about a third. 9. Force Bubble - Honestly, I like it as is. It's not great, but it has its uses, and the popular suggestion of lowering its radius by half would remove those uses IMO. Those are my suggestions. What are yours? Remember, in this thread, the cottage rule needs not apply.

Because the longer you wait to nerf something, the more entitled the people playing them become. "It's already been X number of years! Why nerf it now?!" You also need to nerf the overperforming outliers first so you can get a proper reading of just how underperforming some sets and ATs are in comparison to the other non-overperforming outliers.

It depends on how well that things work. If things are working so well that they overshadow everything else (Titan Weapons), or overshadow an entire AT (procs), then there are valid reasons to nerf them. Buffing the things they overshadow to compensate just opens a Pandora's Box in that either the game becomes even easier, or that the game's difficulty needs to increase elsewhere which just makes the developers' job more difficult.

Never, ever, ever attune purple and PvP IOs. They are automatically attuned. You want to boost them instead. As for the other IOs... personally I have most of mine attuned, unless I need something from them, like extra defense or resistance or something like Tough and Weave.

You can't boost attuned IOs. It's either one, or the other. Buy enhancement unslotters, unslot the attuned IOs, put them up on the AH, and then use the money to buy unattuned versions.

IMO, the overperforming outliers (Titan Weapons, procs), need to be nerfed first. That way you can have a proper look at ATs and power sets to see exactly what is underperforming and needs to be buffed. In comparison to Titan Weapons as it is now, everything else is underperforming. Then you can start buffing the underperforming ATs and power sets. You can't just keep buffing everything. People already keep complaining that City of Heroes is too easy. Now you want to buff everything to catch up to Titan Weapons?

That would be my suggestion. Change damage procs back to the old system, and keep other procs PPM.

Not really. The biggest problem with damage procs IMO is that they completely invalidate the Corruptor AT. Before sunset, even in Issue 23, you saw a fair share of Corruptors around. Now? You see one in a blue moon. Why? Because most Defenders can now out buff, out debuff, and out damage most Corruptors. IMO, fixing that extreme disparity is a bigger priority than a respec system.

Just a heads up: Thanks to some generous donations from the Excelsior community and myself, every instanced Rikti mothership raid that I run from this point forward will have at least an 100 million INF drop ship kill shot prize. This Thursday's drop ship kill shot prize will be 200 million INF. I hope to see y'all in Pocket D this Thursday evening at 8:30 P.M. ET/5:30 P.M. PT.

I may or may not have made a Martial Arts/Energy Aura Scrapper named "Kirk Fu Apparition" last week.

I'd also ask what extensions are being used, if any. 'Cause some of them will block certain stuff from loading.

I can't speak for others, but every build I've posted has been tested, not theorycrafted. Not one was power-leveled. I solo from level 1 through level 45. Yes, they have Superior ATO and purple sets with all of the Incarnate slots maxed out... but that's because I actually do and use those things. You also don't have to have farm to achieve those builds. I had four Superior ATO, purpled, and Incarnated out level 50 characters before I even made a character for farming. How? Reward merits. My first level 50 character on Homecoming had over 1,300 reward merits before dinging level 50. I played the game. It's funny how that works. As for what's skippable while leveling... What you see in one of my endgame builds is what I played while I leveled. I have a complete level 50 character build before I begin leveling, and take powers and slot it accordingly while leveling. I dislike respeccing, and avoid doing so if I don't have to.

Just FYI, that's an old version of Mids, 2.6.0.3. The most recent is 2.6.0.7, and the power format changed a bit in 2.6.0.5 so not everything imports between the two. You can download 2.6.0.7 here.

Wind Control was an unfinished Controller and Dominator primary in the Issue 24 beta. IIRC, the powers themselves are mostly finished, but not the animations.

If the absorb mechanic was in game at Issue 0, that's what Force Field would have been. IMO, strip out the +def from Dispersion Bubble, and replace it with replenishing ticks of +Absorb. That way the other two shields still give +def, but doesn't overdo it since all that +def is no longer needed nor wanted.

Red side for life.

Nailed it in one. Some power sets are so broken, that the only way to repair them for this Issue 26 world is to break the cottage rule. Force Field is one of the prime examples.

What's City of Heroes without drama? That's like City of Heroes without in-game fisticuffs. "City of Heroes: Come to fight super-heroes and look cool doing it. Stay for the drama!"

So is this a formal warning to Excelsior server players then? 😛 Welcome to Excelsior, Snarky.