Peacemoon

I don't completely disagree with your entire argument, as Time is a great set helped by how modern it is, but some counterpoints I would add: Radiation Infection does have a [too] long cast time of 3.1 seconds, BUT, - you can cast it before you engage the mobs so if you're solo the in-combat doesn't start until its finished cast. - Since its mainly a defensive toggle you only need to cast it on the most dangerous mob and rarely have to recast it in combat - you don't always need to cast it, especially as you gain more defence and are not in a particularly worrying situation. - you're only rooted for the first second of the cast, so while its 'activating' you can move around quite freely, which does make a big difference. Meanwhile Envervating Field which you DO cast a lot, and move it around a lot to increase your damage, has a quick 1.5s cast time. So in practice, unless you particularly need the Radiation Infection, Rad doesn't always have a long setup time. Especially in teams sometimes Enervating Field is enough and Radiation Infection is not required except for particularly dangerous situations. The other benefit of Radiation is you get all these powers really early on. By level 6 you have your heal, AM (which also gives +30% damage, as well as recharge, recovery and status resists that effect the user), RI and Enervating Field, and because they're toggles, the only have 10 second base cooldown which is massively reduced by high level. So its very effective, very early on and straight out of the box, even more so if you're not a Defender and these are secondaries. For sure you have to deal with anchors running out of groups and so your debuff can be less effective, so you have to mitigate against this by controlling the anchor/mob (granted this is trickier as a Defender) or making the anchor an unmoving corpse, but ultimately its a trade off. Add in Lingering Radiation, which is another quick cast of great -regen and a powerful AoE slow (which for Defenders is really handy for grouping mobs up and controlling them), Choking Cloud for holding mobs in melee range, and EMP Pulse which is the strongest AoE hold in game (at the price of an end crash, for sure), an additional -1000% regen, and you've got a lot of great lategame tools to work with too. Of course I am biased because I play Rad and not Time, I freely admit, but thats the other side of the argument I guess. 😊 Both sets are amazing though and you'd do well with either. As for Blasts debate, as a general rule of thumb I usually prefer damage procs over -res procs because the extra damage is more immediate, and you have to deal quite a bit of damage for the bonus damage to equal the extra damage provided by a damage proc, and subsequent -res procs can be less helpful in a way that damage procs are always useful and additional. Of course this is less scientific and more a gut feeling. -Res procs might pull ahead in team environments and where you have longer fights, but generally I find damage procs more useful, and AVs are so resistant to debuffs you have to be mindful of the reduced effectiveness of them in those longer fights too.

Oh I really like the idea of that! Imagine if Echo: Faultline had restricted travel powers (or some other devious game mechanic) and you had to traverse the zone, on foot, to the Dam area. Wow what an epic journey that could have been. Especially if the multiple groups had to divide themselves up in order to do some pylon-type activity within a set time limit to unlock the gate. Ah my imagination could run wild with that!! What a shame it never happened. Still as mentioned above the Dark Astoria revamp is amazing. I never did it on live and was really impressed when I ran the missions and did the zone on HC. Impressed but also a little sad, because it left me thinking “imagine what they could have done next” ...!

I've never heard of this before. If someone uses /afk it clears your target of them? Are you sure?! Yeah the AH is a great place to temporarily store stuff. You can use it in all sorts of ways. I sometimes deposit the recipes I want to craft onto the AH, so I know the recipes left in my inventory is stuff I don't want. Also if you find your salvage (or recipes) gets full while on a mission, you can step outside and store a load on the AH until you have the time to sort it out. Most recipes which don't contain rare salvage are worth crafting to sell at low level. If they contain rare salvage it depends a bit more, because rare salvage is worth 500k in itself, and the enhancement might not always be worth that much. Small tip with salvage - the common and uncommon salvage is readily available and cheap on the AH, so once I've crafted everything I tend to sell all of that for cheap on the AH and just keep the rare salvage in my base for crafting needs. Also helps with getting the AH badges 😉

Radiation is an excellent primary for defenders. I hope to write a lengthy guide soon. My advice between Rad and Sonic would be definitely go with Rad! It has good powers for solo, for teams, and for challenging AVs. It brings a useful heal, a very good buff, lots of debuffs, and reasonable control. There is not a lot to complain about with Rad, and a few power can be skipped (Mutation, Fallout, Choking Cloud) Some things to consider with rad: -Endurance will always be a premium when you have both debuff toggles running, so bare that in mind if you want to load up on a lot of defensive toggles, it can get pretty taxing. -Even though both toggles have defensive and offensive properties, generally consider Radiation Infection your defensive toggle (it reduces their accuracy a lot), and Enervating Field your offensive toggle (it increases your damage on the target). -DO give your toggles different colours unless you really really don’t want to. Even just different variations of the same colour will help monitor them, because you don’t always want them in the same target. -Choking Cloud is very good but you need to be in melee range a lot and it costs endurance to run (see above). So if your blast set is mainly cones that you want to keep at range, then it can be skipped. Otherwise an excellent power. For blast sets you have a lot of options, and mainly I would consider what theme you want to pair Radiation effects with. Me personally I wanted the assault rifle and I was very pleased, although I know the forums are disapproving of it but I’ve had a good experience with it myself! Other than what debuffs the blasts bring, consider the following: Is the blast set cone heavy? If so you’ll be wanting to stay at maximum cone range for great spread. If the set means more towards AOE and PBAOE (like rad blast) then you could be in amongst the enemy more. Snipes are very good now but are an endurance hog. I use AR’s snipe as one of my main single target attacks, and it takes some tooling up to reduce the endurance cost enough to make it something you can use regularly. -Rad already brings a lot of support and debuffs. So even though we’re Defenders absolutely look to play aggressively and bring damage to the team. We have a blast set for a reason! 😊 Especially when your build opens up 20+. We can contribute a healthy amount of damage to a team. Hope that is a helpful initial splurge of info. Defenders really benefit from taking the leadership buffs and I always do, but becareful with Rad because of the endurance costs.

Hmm whats the difference between a trial zone and a hazard zone? Honest question as my memory is a bit sketchy and I can't think of any trial zone examples! Yeah the verticality on Echo: Faultline is an awesome sight to behold! As I travelled around there it did feel pretty epic, and really portrayed a city zone hit by a cataclysmic earthquake. I can't imagine how you get out of some of the pits without jump packs or something if you're just a speedster! I noticed the area behind the Dam was empty and figured maybe you couldn't originally get there. Even that area is different because the water is shallow and you can see the metal grates underneath. I was surprised by how much vahzilok and circle of thorn there are, compared to the new!

Yeah MM pets are ‘henchman’ and treated differently to regular pets. Inspirations can be dropped on them one at a time, but imo it’s just another fiddle on an already fiddly AT. I just meant it MM’s could use insps and have it effect all pets, it would be so much better from a gameplay point of view. Oh you have to unlock them for them to drop? I will investigate tonight! I like being a team player, so team inspirations really appeals to me.

Short answer is 95% is the cap so if you can reach that on +4’s with your key powers you’re pretty safe. Long answer is mobs can do a lot of things to reduce your accuracy or improve their defence, and when that happens having extra accuracy over 95% becomes a useful buffer to those situations. Even longer answer is teams will often provide buffs/debuffs that improve your accuracy. My Defender’s usually come with 6 slotted tactics, which is +20% to-hit to everyone within range. But people don’t tend to notice any of these accuracy adjustments unless their accuracy falls to below say 80% 😉

Yeah I really like the Hazard zones for this. There is a lot of detail down at a ground level, and always find them more interesting locations to level in than the standard city zones. Particularly zones like Terra Volta and Crey’s Folly. It’s such a shame the old hazard zones are just groups of mobs and no story content, as there is so much potential as a location. Dark Astoria is a great example of how these locations can be made into amazing places. I bet had CoH not shutdown there would have been more of that.

Best way there is via Ouroboros. Behind the main building a portal to all the Echo zones!

Echo: Faultline - what an awesome, eerie zone! I never went there on Live. It was remade before I took interest in visiting it. So I'd never seen the original zone before. Its incredibly vertical, the combination of deep canyons and skycrapers that touch the ceiling of the zone really create an awesome sight. The fact that you know its an old uninhabited space which no longer really exists, and some of the music (particularly the resevoir), makes it feel quite eerie. Also as my character has super speed and is using the jump pack (which has a timer and can turn itself off at inconvenient times if you're not careful), this zone was actually triggering my fear of heights a bit! If you've never been, I would recommend the trip. Its more difficult to navigate than New Faultline, but Echo: Faultline has an impressive size and scale that is quite unmatched. Also, use https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/File:Echo_Faultline_MoreMaps4U.png while you're there to grab the badges and 5 merits 😉

You know you, not to go off topic, but wouldn't it be amazing if inspirations as a MM effected all your pets by default. There would definitely be a reasonable case to be argued! On topic, where do you get team inspirations from, I have never seen any, ever!

Thank you!

Hi Blondeshell, is there any place we can view the maps online without installing the map pack? I run 2 monitors and often have supporting info like this on my second screen while playing. I was thinking the unofficial HC wiki might be a good place? Thanks for all your hard work very appreciated.

I think there are some good threads on the melee forums about what to do with regards to regen. If not there will be a lot of helpful people there who could give you some pointers. I don’t play regen, but my instinct would be to compliment the self healing with defence. Every attack you avoid means less pressure on your self regen/healing. Regen gets a recovery buff early on, so you’ve got more scope for running more toggles early on. Sorry I can’t be of anymore specific help.

William Square in Founders’ Fall, and also Red River in the same zone. Theres 1 in Steel Canyon near Positron that really takes my back to the old days of City of Heroes. Blyde Square...? I like some of the mission entrance music for sheer atmosphere. Just a shame you can only hear them at the front door 😉

My level 28 has done no TFs and has 593 Reward Merits. If I wanted to I could save them till 50 and buy an entire set of epics. I have no idea why people find this so difficult, or rush to 50 and then complain they can’t instantly afford everything they want.

As a casual player, do you need to afford 100+ million purple sets? You claim you cannot make the money to afford the purple sets because you’re not a farmer. I have purple sets and I’m not a farmer. Just play the game and you get lots of influence. You also don’t need to be a farmer to get epic drops - and any epic drops you get you can convert to ones you want. You can easily enjoy the game, missions and task forces without having epic sets. What makes you think others being able to farm at double influence will make epic enhancements cheaper for you? You get more influence, but you’ll need more to buy the epics. If you want to make a farmer character then you don’t need double influence to make it possible. You don’t have the time or desire to fully IO out a character everytime they hit 50? There is an easy answer for you then... don’t! (And it doesn’t take months and months). If you need help getting influence, seek help, rather than trying to reverse this change. It ain’t gonna happen.

When you say reset do you mean the mobs respawn back to default? If none of the usual techniques are working I’d recommend leaving the map, and a mission map will usually reset after about 30 minutes of inactivity

You can buy unslotters from the AH, and then you can just drag them from your slots and into your tray, consuming an unslotter each time. No stupid questions, ask away 😀 For more immediate response try the help channel in game, there’s usually a few of us on there answering queries like this 😊

What about something like electric control/radiation? I’m not familiar with electric control, but the electric gremlin pets would be pretty cool. /Dark is great for Controllers too. Or you could make a Dom if you wanted a more aggressive play style. There is also Gravity Control - Propel summons lots of city items to whack the enemies with, and you can teleport things around.

Oh that was it.. yes I definitely went Resistance on that. Which is strange in a way, because Kang himself remains a loyalist cop, so really we should have been able to side with him without ‘joining the resistance’. Surely that is what being a Responsibility loyalist was all about. Resistance should have been kill Kang and blow up the reactors or something! I think I was already resistance by this point, I’m not 100% sure. I think it was with Vanessa DeVore and Mother that I switched, because the character Peacemoon is a psychic himself and no way was he siding with Mother. Although all Seers are female, so no idea what would have happened to him if his psychic ability had been caught...

Is that the one with Cleo? I think siding with Kang is actually a Loyalist move if I remember correctly..!

Yeah it does become difficult to stay a Loyalist once you get into Neutropolis. You start dealing with Praetors who are just in it for themselves and politiking, and it is less about being a law abiding law enforcer. But having done the Crusader arcs for the first time they are equally bad. I probably should have stuck to Warden and Responsibility and left the extremes...

That would be great. Specifically a lot of titles from the trainer are restricted based on whether you're Primal (Hero or Villain) or Praetorian (Resistance or Loyalist). Even Praetorians lose access to their unique titles once they join Hero or Villain allignment. They're also restricted by what Origin you are, but unfortunately most of the Mutant ones seem to think I'm a monster from Resident Evil...

Oh it sounds like what I would suspect. I just find on some global channels there is too much noise that I'm not interested in, which I don't enjoy. I quite like the Help channel for general play because it is more focused on answering questions and discussing game mechanics, and sometimes you can have a nice chat as part of that. LFG is a good one to keep seperate because you tend to know if feel like you're open to teaming or not...