High_Beam

I hate, absolutely hate the freaking Vahzilok! And that hate is for the same reason everyone else hates them. I love to hear carnies scream and hate Malta Sappers. I love punching Nazi's and related Fascists in their faces. But for me the ones I hate the most are the ones that I love the most because I respect them and their game. The Clockwork (Primal not Praetorian). It is so enjoyable smashing those little scavenging creeps, especially when they make that wind down and clank crash noise when dead. And because they are so prolific in King's Row and more notably in all of Positron and Synapses Task Forces, you are fighting them non stop. I especially am fond of this one mission where those clattering creeps actually say "I hate <character name>". You really feel that for a second you have truly put a dent in their world and you are like their life nemesis. But the kings of jerks I hate so much but love so much because of the satisfaction of beating them is the Circle of Thorns. You say Rollister and people cringe. Some have PTSD flashbacks of the original Positron Task force. Ruin Mages are so horrible early on because even tanks don't have their status effect shields yet so everyone is getting knocked on their buttocks. You see Ruin Mage and you forget strategy and attack him. Its Pavlovian. Madness Mages. Nuff said. An old friend in the Babes of War named Doctor Finetush once told me the three most scary powers in game are psionics, negative energy and Circle of Thorns. You fight them from low level, then in all of the Positron TFs, and Twilight's Son, and Sara Moore and Justin Augustine, and Ice Mistral. They have missions into the fifties and are a group with a deep and varied power set including some real painful types. The Envoy of Shadows is no joke. I hate them and their Oranbegan tunnels but when you beat them down you really feel like you have done good, that you are good.

This is an important thing to take into consideration. But what if you could prevent it from becoming that empty blue side hazard zone. Content generates short-term interest, like it or not. Story Arcs, Missions and badges all generate temporary interest. What generates long-term interest is reward or function. Atlas is crowded because it is where all newbies start now and has always functioned as the social hub of the game. That said if you go on several of the other HC servers you will find Atlas a relative ghost town as well. The same goes for other non-HC servers (but that a separate thing). There are a lot of people on Ouroboros because Incarnate stuff forms there. PI has crowds over by portal Corp because of end game mission running. But if you break the "phases" of the game up you have beginners who are running DFB and low level content in and from AP, then from there its straggler work in Hollows or Faultline and TF missions rolling out of SC and Skyway but its in and out. Similarly from the 20 to 30 range its running around doing TFs in Talos or IP. Then its FF and Bricks until finally Peregrine. Now what if you did as many have said and brought back GC as a cooperative hazard-like zone, in the late twenties to mid to late thirties range where there was something that allowed for a continual maintenance of interest. At level 25/26 is when IO enhancements at that level meet and start to exceed the benefits from SO's maybe its the perfect place to create some sort of improved drop rate window for IO recipes and salvage (like finding components in the wreckage) to help characters jump start changing out DOs and SOs with IOs as well as stimulate crafting. Or maybe create scenarios for greater drop chances for Set IOs at that level range. You couple that with a a Mid level trial akin to DFB that lets you work in components of the Shivans to establish soft content faster leveling rather than just farming to grind up. Maybe a better iteration of the buff enhancement rewards of the DFB. I mean after all, a lot of people simply run a DFB 4 times so they have the buffs before doing harder content. This is just spitballing here. My fondness for GC is ground in what it was on live before it was destroyed, I always started in GC not AP. But it would make for viable and cogent content to come back as a danger zone thats not as stupid as Boomtown (big, flat and boring except for Goliaths) but not as annoying (from a travel standpoint) as Faultline.

It is running on two other servers structures (like Unity and Thunderspy I think), though one I think is broke because the Tier 9 Pet is actually obtainable at level 1. Its interesting to play but I didn't do it long enough to really get into building up pressure. Animations were fairly cool and in many cases appearend to be similar to say Lift or Tornado or Gust. The Pet was a orb like thing similar to singularity if I remember right. It had a lot of Knockup and down in it. I mean thematically it would be seksi with Storm Summoning.

This. PvP in specific zones was was more than enough for me and the player base as a whole when you look at the numbers (or lack thereof). PvPers can do their thing, I am not saying its evil or anything. How has incentivizing things worked out so far when the incentive is either a one-time thing (like a badge) or a powerful temp power (like a Warburg rocket). Incarnate powers made the powerful warburg rockets relative junk in comparison. Back on live we used to run SG events in Sirens to collect the badges or in Warburg to collect the rockets and would sometimes even shout out in Broadcast that we were there so the PvPers could attack and what happened was one or two would show, see a group of 8 and decide not to engage becuase most were built as or played as gankers. Again, they can do what they want and if I roll into a PvP zone for badges and get killed, fair play, I tip my hat to you because I knew the risks going in. This is why the concept of temp spawn PvP wont work. Eve Online has Security levels that in effect break it up into three different PvP zones. One is the "safe" zone (Hi-Sec) where there is almost no PvP. Gankers do exist but are immediately themselves killed by the security aparatuses in the region. Low-Sec is PvP zone but people are often more cautious and you can operate with some degree of ease, but don't fly what you cant afford to lose is the motto over there. Finally there is Nul-Sec which is the freaking wild west, you can get shot for snoring over there. But ultimately it was about accepting risks. I don't care for PvP and even though Eve is a PvP-centric game, I could generally experience the bulk of the content and therefore enjoy the game with little worry about getting blown up. BUt I wasnt complaining about it becuase that was the deal. In CoH PvP was bolted on after-the fact. Does it belong in the game? Sure. No online game shouldn't have the option to at least try it but the venue is important. Personally I despised the arenas becuase they enforced a concept of heroes dueling to bragging rights and that just isn't how heroes work, it broke concept. Now specific heroes fighting specific villains in duels (aka mano y mano) is very comic book and thematic which is why the PvP zones were more palatable to me. But with Going Rogue and the extreme ease by which characters can flip-flop between alignments (and I am not even talking about Null the Gull) it rendered the hero-versus villain duel irrelevant. It erased the line and therefore an incentive to go to the PvP zones. Ask yourself why Drowning in Blood is an instanced version of Bloody Bay and not the real thing? Because if someone said "Forming DiB team LF5M" this would be followed by "DiB Kill Team LF7M"

A little follow up. At 35, have the Alphas now and still remains fun. Now understand that I am just running SOs (other than an LotG in CJ) but have not face planted (except that one time I got a heel caught in a Council base floor grate). No real defense or Resist mitigation yet except Tough with two slots and CJ. Now I am not saying I saw through red and purple enemies but on a team I am still melting the enemy, flashing in, spinning and flashing out. It's a really fun set.

Big shout out of thanks to StrikerFox who met me last night in AP to transfer custody of "The Babes of War" This was on of those personal quest things that had really been bothering me (the other is getting High Beam back as a name). It shouldn't be such a big deal to me as those days are indeed gone but it was. For now I will build the base and then maybe actually try to build the actual supergroup back up vice just being a place for my alts (which there are many)

This. Totally agree. The Shard, the first time I went there seemed so daunting and alien and creepy at the same time. Of course it became tedious and painful but that was the point I suppose. Praetoria was nice the first time because of the clean nature but it sucks. But yeah, coming back, zoning into Atlas for the first time after the shutdown was the best, my heart was literally racing (maybe that was the coffee and amphetamines but whatever).

What would be super fun would be to make it a melee set, like a long armed melee set instead of lashing out 40 feet or more its like ten feet or so. It would be a weird Seksi melee set that I would build a dozen alts using. Think about it, the taunt would be like your whip wrapping around the target dudes neck all get over here like. PBAoE Whirling Whip. I am literally losing my mind right now imagining how fun that would be.

Yeah I was on two separate Silver Mantis TF's where I was doing aerial heal strafing runs on separated melee types working the turrets in a disorganized fashion. Fun and frantic one was Empathy and one was Pain Dom.

DM Sent. You may well have made me the happiest Beam in all the world.

I think a lot of this also has to do with availability of people who want to take the GM out and Leagues. I mean a few days ago I was on a four person team hitting the Kraken and nobody else and it felt more like it did back in live times. Then again, I don't remember the GMs spawning as often as they do now.

I couldn't agree more. There is a social aspect to the game and most people when they want to be social tend to gravitate towards the mechanism that offers the most access to the most voices. Discord has a lot of voices, no doubt but all of my memories both from back in the day live and even now come from the aspect of smashing a bad guy then seeing a friend chat up or someone make a funny comment in one of the many in-game chats and me being able to easily pause, comment or respond then get right back to smashing. Discord is an additional tool in the tool bag. You can use the 1/2 inch box wrench or the 1/2 inch socket of adjust the Crescent Wrench to 1/2 inch or just use pliers.

Straight up there. I have rolled a DP/MC about two weeks ago based on some conversations I had with Blapperella during a TF. On live I was a Blaster snob, totally looked down at Blappers. But with HC I promised myself that I would try to get as much variety of enjoyment from it while I could. So I made this Blapper did the reading and executed it and I have to say, I am having a blast playing it. I was a on a team doing TFs and I was murdering the mobs that were being herded. Dropped the Empty Clips cone then BoS, Scorpion's Tail, bunce out and unleash the Bullet Rain. Don't even have my Alpha yet but the mobs melted. Stray dogs dot the cone as it had recharged. There is fine tuning with the teleportation, because learning and macro writing but yeah, its fun as all get out and I don't even care about the gun fu stuff. Also this is with no teleportation beyond BoS and using only SO enhancements, no IO or Sets. Now I am also not freaking out about getting hit because I am a Blaster, debt is a warm blanket to me 🙂

Yep. Chantress of Sekhmet here.

Our Moonfire Task Force team was so awesome we broke the server!

Le sigh. I hope not, but I imagine you are right and that makes me a sad player. Then again I am able to play so happy.

Hello all. Does anyone know who is running "The Babes of War" here on Excelsior. I saw the group was created at City Hall but can get no information. I was a leader in that group on Freedom and was looking to start it back up or at least rejoin whoever started them back up.

This!

I love this guide and totally plan on integrating it into my character when I am actually up to that level and able to do the whole special enhancements. The question I have and I cannot seem to find anything in the forums is weather there is an example of a leveling build that doesn't leverage all of this. Or at least general slotting advice for those two powers (I know its often subjective but a framework is nice to have).

Keep in mind, for me I am leveling so there isn't a single invention enhancement in there and I am having a blast.

LOLZ are fun if they don't ruin the game. I was fully looking at KB --> KD on that when I reached it. I have friends who Tank so I am aware of their pain.

I totally forgot those things did that.

Years of Hover-Blasting on Freedom taught me that lesson. Thank you for the information though it has helped.

Wind Wench was the Stormy in the Babes of War.

I am enjoying it even with the little quibbles about certain animations because its fun to hit people with rocks. Its the most fun I've had with a Blaster since the old days on Freedom with my namesake Energy Blaster.