ViciousCabaret

The mission you're looking for is the Hero/Vigilante tip mission "Cloud of Odorous Smoke." You can grab it from the mission computer under the "Security Level 40" dropdown. When you do the tip choose the Vigilante option; the Hero one only seems to spawn Council. Once you get into the Vigilante choice there should be at least a few spawns of Void Hunters: Hope that helps, and happy hunting!

Your best bet for more DDR (and other debuff resistance) in high level content will be the Destiny power Ageless, Radial path. It offers a large amount of debuff resistance for a short time, which fades slowly. The T4 persists for the entire recharge of the power (2 minutes) at a reasonable amount, 20% IIRC. Barrier can also be used, since it gives such a massive amount of protection that it will stop or delay most -defense cascade failures. In lower level content Shadow Meld in the Soul Mastery Epic/Ancillary pool can be useful to counter large amounts of -defense. It doesn't offer DDR specifically, but if you hit it during a defense debuff cascade it's often enough to stop it, or at least give you some breathing room to eliminate the source of the debuffs. The T9 for Willpower can be used in this way also. It lets you spike your resistance long enough to regen some health and take out whatever's troubling you most. I usually take one or the other on a Willpower build.

A workaround is to put your character on a Resistance Ouro arc with a contact in Vetrano's base in the Neutropolis Underground. Then teleport to contact through the Ouro crystal, bypassing the door check, then quit the arc and complete the tip as normal. The contacts in question there are Crow, Dr. Helix, and Calvin Scott -- all the Neutropolis Crusaders.

It's possible that was the intent, but I tested and it does in fact reduce the player's damage. Combat Attributes also reflected the negative Power Boost effect, though I didn't test those specifically.

Power: Blaster - Dark Mastery - Possess Bug: Power applies debuffs to self rather than target. Testing: Dual Pistols: Pistols power on Level 1 Blood Brother Brawlers before use of Possess, then after. Expected Results: Pistols power deals same damage to Brawlers. Results: Pistols power damage does not deal same damage. The values reflect a -30% damage debuff, identical to the Combat Attributes display and Possess power details. Note also that the ranged defense value in Combat Attributes is reduced, the normal value is 5.25% from active powers. Example results:

All right, thank you. I'll test it further to make sure it's not just a display error and report once that's complete.

See topic. Because according to the detailed power info (and Combat Attributes), it does. In addition to the confuse and -tohit on the target, the player gets slapped with a -30% Power Boost-type effect, and -30% to all damage. It goes on like that for a while, rendering the power more harmful than helpful.

All good suggestions! Two more good outlets for RP are: (5) The statue of Atlas in Atlas Park can draw a decent amount of open RP also. Just look for people with pink names who are tagged for RP. It's not as busy as Pocket D, but it's a distinct feeling since it's outdoors and not as "club" focused. (6) Look for teams in LFG that are advertised as RP, or RP-Lite. Those are a good way to get a feel for what roleplaying in a real-time environment is like, without too much pressure on you. The PvE aspect keeps things moving and gives you a steady source of things to talk or quip about. Depending on the team, it's usually typical to talk after a few spawns to go a little deeper, though less so on the ones advertised as RP-Lite.

Did you have a foe in range when you were checking power monitor? IIRC Evolving Armor does nothing but drain endurance with no enemies in range. It will only start giving resistance when you have an enemy in its aura. EDIT: Just checked, this is the behavior I'm seeing, at least on the Brute version of the set.

Maybe a Dual Pistol/Mental Manipulation Blaster? Mental Manipulation has a strong knockback (TK Thrust), plus some control you might be able to fluff as gravity or mass manipulation with changing FX colors. You could also put Knockdown procs Psychic Scream (from Ragnarok) and Psychic Shockwave (an Overwhelming Force or the one from Avalanche) to make them look/act more like telekinesis.

For melee characters, the most numbers I've seen ticking has to be the combination of Bio Armor and Savage Melee. Bio Armor has a damage aura and a damage proc when in Offensive Mode. Savage Melee is very DoT-heavy (though avoid Hemorrhage unless you really want it), so you'll see a lot of orange numbers going off with it as well. For a bit of extra chaos you can also put an OF knockdown proc in Savage Leap. For ranged damage characters, I'd suggest anything that creates a lot of damage patches. So Ice Blast, Fire Blast, Water Blast, Archery (with Rain of Arrows), something like that, and then a support set that does the same -- Storm and Cold would both be good choices. I haven't played Cold much, but I've play Storm with Ice, Fire, and Water and it works very well with all of them. Storm is about as chaotic as it gets, Cold is more controlled. Finally, if you want a control character with a lot numbers, Storm or Cold with Illusion would work out quite well, I think. I haven't played those specific combinations, but Storm and Cold have the damage/debuff patches, and Illusion will get you a lot of both numbers and chaos with Phantom Army. You can also toss a set with a damage proc into Spectral Terror if you want that to contribute as well.

Saw Psi Melee/Willpower on your list and I wanted to warn you, they have a bad interaction: Mass Levitate can fling things out of Rise to the Challenge. It's a small but sometimes noticeable reduction in how much regeneration you receive from the power, especially against groups where Willpower struggles (Malta, Arachnos, etc.). I think the issue can be remedied with a -Knock IO put into Mass Levitate (not certain if -KB works on KU though), but half the fun of the power is tossing enemies around. Also, the control aspect of it can be helpful in tight situations, which are exactly the ones where the flinging can become a problem.

For a bind, type this into the text box and it should do it: /bind [KEY] "say Your powers are weak, $target." Where [KEY] is the key or button you want to trigger the statement. The 'say' part makes it go to whatever channel you have active. If you want it to always go to local or another channel, use that one's name instead like so: /bind [KEY] "local Your powers are weak, $target." The '$target' is the wildcard expression that will be replaced by whatever you have targeted. If you have nothing targeted it defaults to just saying '$target' which can look silly. As far as Divine Avalanche, it depends on your build and secondary. Super Reflexes likely won't have a use for it at all, since your defense will ideally be capped already and just about impossible to debuff below that. Energy Aura, Invuln, or another defense/layered secondary with less debuff resist can make use of it to cap Lethal/Melee defense without making a set bonus investment, or to pad against debuffs. It's a trade-off against the lower damage of the attack, though. Secondaries with no defense at all can make use of it to get SOME defense or pad against debuffs, and might see the most return.

There's that version of Scramble Thoughts, and there is also Mental Scramble. In my experience Mental Scramble is the source of a lot of rapid defeats (or near-defeats) since, like their Scramble Thoughts, it is auto-hit, and is a severe single target -tohit, -defense, and -perception debuff. It lasts for as long as it takes to recharge, so if you're solo it can be effectively permanent on you. Also, it stacks, so you can be seriously messed over if more than one Tarantula Mistress is in a group. Here are the in-game stats for it, from a standard radio mission at even level: Here's the CoD page for it: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=v_arachnos.tarantula_mistress_high.mental_scramble

Contact: Wardog, Imperial City, Resistance Crusader Location of error: First mission, acceptance text: 'they forget the tenants of freedom, of justice.' Error: 'tenants' - refers to people who live in a rented property Correction: 'tenets' - refers to principles or beliefs

The repeatable missions from Sir Lionel and Atherton Cromwell (both near the rail station) are also good fun if you haven't tried them, and about as difficult. They feature Night Ward enemies and some First Ward enemies scaled up to the 30-39 range. The Apparitions felt particularly nasty when elevated to those levels in my last run through the area. The repeatables are also a good place to find Spirit Stalkers en masse for getting their defeat badge, if that's of interest to you.

I've had that problem on that mission before. Maelstrom stays where you defeated him at step 2, but he'll stealth so you're unable to see or interact with him unless you have some sort of perception boost. He doesn't seem to toggle it on/off/on/off/... like NPCs do often with other toggle powers, just stays in stealth. The easiest fix is to use accuracy inspirations until you can find him. There's also the empowerment station base buff which will increase your perception for a good while, an IO that can go in +tohit powers (Rectified Reticle: Increase Perception) and pool or ancillary powers that can help (Tactics, Focused Accuracy).

On an intuition I made a Dual Pistols/Ninja Training Blaster on the Test Server, set their character level to 29, and granted the Ouroboros Portal power to see if Shinobi Criticals would work after retoggling the power while exemplared to 24. I used the same mission (Retrieve Crash's Shipment) for as much consistency as possible. After zoning into Sharkhead, Criticals worked as before. Upon retoggling the power, there was no message about Shinobi skills and Criticals continued to occur. However, when I used Ouroboros to exemplar down to level 19 using another mission (High Tech Gold), the same issue with Criticals came up. They would function if Shinobi was toggled on before zoning into a map/mission, but if the power was toggled off then on again the message regarding using Shinobi skills would appear in the combat log and Criticals would cease to function. After that, I set my character level to 30 and trained, then again started the Retrieve Crash's Shipment arc. Upon toggling off and on Shinobi I received the message regarding not using Shinobi skills. My observation is that when Shinobi is toggled off and then on again, the Critical portion of the power is being treated as if it were a power granted at a characters ACTUAL level, rather than their current exemplared level/combat level, and obeying the +5 character level exemplar restriction . This would explain why the power can be toggled off and on and have Criticals function at level 29, but not at level 30. I don't know the code at all, so I can't make a supposition as to why the power works normally after zoning but ceases to do so after retoggling it.

Per your request, I started an Ouro arc (in this case 20-24 - Retrieve Crash's Shipment) which exemplared my character to level 24, then toggled off Shinobi, logged out, logged back into the character, and toggled it back on. I received the message in the log about not being able to use Shinobi skills at level 24. However, when I zoned into Sharkhead, and after that the mission map, I noticed that I received no message about not being able to use Shinobi skills along with the messages regarding Incarnate abilities. Criticals happened as expected during combat, as can be seen in the log. When I toggled off then toggled back on Shinobi, I again received the message about not being able to use Shinobi skills, and during more combat encounters I observed no Criticals, and could not find any in the logs after the retoggling. I exited the mission before completing it to see if Shinobi would again generate Criticals. After loading into Sharkhead, I again received the messages about Incarnate abilities not functioning at L24, but not the message about Shinobi. I engaged in combat to verify that Criticals would happen, and they did. I again toggled off the power while on Sharkhead, then toggled it back on, again receiving the expected message about not being able to use Shinobi skills and again not generating any Criticals after a fair amount of combat. Thus, it appears my initial report was incorrect, and the issue appears to be retoggling Shinobi which prevents the power from generating Critical damage while exemplared. The Ouro mission where I observed no Criticals was one in which an escort is required, one of the sort that cannot see through stealth and thus needed me to detoggle the power, the significance of which did not occur to me to report before. I do not recall seeing any Criticals in prior missions on the arc I was on in my first report (20-24: A Web of Intrigue), but I can test further. EDIT: After running the first mission of the original Ouro arc I was on in the first report I saw several Criticals, so it was probably my memory at play with my thinking that no Criticals had occurred prior the escort mission in that arc.

Short version: As a level 50 character, the Critical proc portion of the Blaster secondary Ninja Training power Shinobi appears to be broken when exemplaring to levels below 45. At or above 45 they function as normal. Elaboration: I noticed while doing some arcs in Ouroboros on my level 50 Dual Pistols/Ninja Training blaster that no critical attacks from Shinobi were being generated. The arc I was on was level 24, so the power was available, and I verified that it was on by retoggling it several times and continuing to play, but this did not fix the issue. After the session ended I checked the combat logs and noticed that not a single critical had been generated over the course of the Ouroboros arc. However, I did see the following message in the log when retoggling the power: Curious, I tried retoggling the power after using Ouroboros and Strike Forces to exemplar at various levels where Shinobi would be available: When I exemplared at level 45+ I no longer received the message about not being able to use Shinobi Skills. The message that appears is similar to the one generated while zoning when exemplared regarding Incarnate abilities when fighting while exemplared:

The crutches make some sort of sense, it's on an Immobilize set... ...unlike this, on Discouraging Words, a ToHit Debuff set: What's so discouraging about a buffalo or bison?

Adding my voice to the chorus to say this is a truly awful change. I can see having Shinobi-Iri and Gymnastics not stack with a true travel power that's able to take slots, etc. like Super Jump, but allowing those travel bonuses to stack with Combat Jumping and Ninja/Beast Run is a significant perk of those abilities, especially in Scrapper and Sentinel Ninjitsu. The Ninjitsu sets trade off Defense Debuff Resistance (which is a TREMENDOUS loss considering how common Defense Debuffs are) for survivability from other factors. The heal, resist, and endurance abilities have the most apparent effect, but the capacity to move better than even the most directly equivalent set (Super Reflexes, which gets the best DDR in the game if I'm not mistaken) is also very significant. As it stands, on the main servers a Ninjitsu character is exceedingly mobile and can exploit those abilities by using terrain and controlling distance from opponents very easily. On the Test server this isn't really the case any longer; a character with Shinobi-Iri fully slotted for travel isn't much more mobile than a character with Quickness (or an equivalent skill) + Combat Jumping. In short, it neuters one of the quite unique protective capacities of the set, and moves Ninjitsu a lot closer to feeling like a bad cover version of Super Reflexes rather than having its own set identity despite the other utilities it provides, one of which (Blinding Powder) is very limited in its applications.

Yes. Once you've gotten one of the accolades you can pick any of them on a respec. The APPs stay available, the PPPs open up. The only restriction is that only one pool can be in a build at a time.

To get the Patron Power Pools you have to do the first Story Arc for one of the Patrons in Arachnos, which you can get just by being 35+ and a redsider. Your history of being red/blueside doesn't matter. Arbiter Rein will introduce you to the patron of your choice after a short mission where you read some plaques describing each. He's right in front of the big tower in Grandville. Note that no matter which Patron you choose, you'll get access to all of the pools, all the time. That means you can go to villainside, do the Patron missions, and go back to being a hero right after. You'll still have access to them, even if you respec while you're a hero. The thing that unlocks the Patron Pools is the accolade for having done the final mission in each arc, so you don't even need to be a redsider to get them. You can also be a vigilante and do the arc (or just the final mission) with a person who has them and get access to the PPPs. You can even run the arc in Ouro with a redsider to start them for you, although I'm told that can get buggy, so it's probably preferable to just find a villain/rogue with them active. People will frequently mention they have a patron arc they're running in LFG, at least on Everlasting. If you just want to do the first Patron Arc, Black Scorpion's is probably the easiest and fastest. There's a later arc in Scorp's series that's a real chore (Mole Machines with massive amounts of HP) if you ever decide to play more of redside; if you do you may want to consider another Patron. My favorite arc overall is Scirocco's, but the first arc has some EBs (Silver Mantis and Barracuda) and is probably the hardest of the four. His later two are loaded with Mu enemies, which may be a turnoff if your character has problems with endurance drain attacks.

Given the bracket lists and the ban on Stalkers, I'm guessing Bane Spiders are out also?