Ironblade

Tell us again how you're not going to quote any sources or provide any evidence. We missed it the first three times. Ever hear the saying, "Assertions made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."? At this point, you should probably just go quietly. None of you are looking good in this argument.

I would point out that a good team is even better with the Leadership toggles. And I disagree on the second point. I think a lot of teams that would benefit suffer from being underpowered or too low level for something. I see no reason to think that a team that could benefit is more likely to be scattered than any other team. Especially with all the complaint threads we've been seeing about high-powered characters joining a team and then soloing content.

The vendor in Pocket D will talk (and sell) to you while you're on a task force or trial. I have someone soloing Synapse currently and just logged in to confirm this.

Your entire argument is invalid in this particular context. If we "assume everyone is a casual", then they aren't going to be summoning the optional monster for a badge. This isn't bad game design at all, because the potential "slog" is ENTIRELY OPTIONAL. And if someone is determined to summon, and defeat, the monster for the badge - why, they must be one of those non-casual players and they should know about the envenomed daggers.

Look on the bright side. If you don't already have all the badges for influence earned, damage taken and damage dealt - you're simultaneously working on those.

Yeah, sometimes you can find an Alpha power that's a no-brainer. Ironblade is broadsword/regen. His Alpha is Spiritual, which gives +healing and +recharge. The recharge helps BS, since it's the slowest recharge set. And both effects boost several of the regen powers. All his self heals are over 125% buff on both heal and recharge and that's NOT counting set bonuses for either (he has a bunch of +HP and over 50% global recharge).

And anyone can buy Envenomed Daggers from the vendor. One person spamming those makes a real difference on low level content when people don't have their 'good powers' yet.

Not really. I did this recently and spread it out over a couple weeks. It gets tedious since the stories are all so similar.

They're dirt cheap. I bought them all on one character so I could see them up close.

Weird. The wiki says it's a villain mission and you said you're a rogue. I soloed it as a rogue, set to team size of six, and got about 45 of them. My only guess would be that there is some specific condition that triggers them and you somehow bypassed it? I haven't run this recently, so hopefully someone who has run it lately will check in with further observations.

Yeah, but he's just a huge bag of hit points that hits like a wet noodle. And there's no time limit on this guy.

1. When did you started playing CoX? Was it before or after the game shut down? Tell me a little about how you met the game. I started playing in May 2005. This was about 11-1/2 months after the game started. My brother discovered the game and he and his wife started playing and told me about it. 2. Have you played the game before the shut down in 2012? If the answer is yes, tell me about how you feel about the game’s “Death”. What was that experience like? At the time the shutdown was announced, this was the only MMO I had ever played. For a good portion of the game, my work hours were 8AM to 4PM and I had a 15 minute commute so I played a lot. News of the shutdown came as quite a shock. I made arrangements to stay in touch with a handful of people (email, Facebook, etc). Also, my brother and I immediately started looking for new games to play together since we had gotten in the habit of playing every weekend. 3. And when the game returned in 2019? What did you felt? Was it like a “Homecoming”? It was nowhere near as emotional as the shutdown. I had been in contact with many people from the game for the entire duration that the game was gone. It's wonderful to have the game back, but I play a lot of other games now also. 4. What was the first thing you did after playing the game for the first time in years? I recreated my main character and rebuilt my SG base. 5. What are your thoughts on the return of the servers? Did you brought something with you from the original server? (Avatars, builds, things like that) I brought a lot. I had full build details for every character I ever had (about 42 characters). I had every costume file saved. I had screenshots and demorecords of all my supergroup bases and all those where I was a member. 6. Do you like to play with a specific character? (can be more than one) If yes, what makes it so special to you? When I first started playing, back in 2005, the game took me about 3 hours to download. During that time, I read the game manual and decided a broadsword/regen scrapper would be a good starting character with high survivability while I learned the game. This character ended up being my favorite and the one I use for collecting badges. He's just fun to play and I think the fact that he was the first one I created is a major factor in becoming my favorite. I play other characters, and have taken every archetype to level 50. Typically, I will play a character to 50 and get them some incarnate powers. I'll only get them 'fully incarnate' if I think I will continue playing them. Then they semi-retire until I feel like playing those specific powers or I need them for specific content. Overall, though, I estimate that I play my main character about as much as all the others combined.

SOONTM

It looks like threads (120) are awarded at vet levels 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11. Empyrean Merits are awarded along with the badges every 3rd level as follows: 3 - 24 : 20 merits 27 - 48 : 15 merits 51 - 69 : 10 merits 72 - 99 : 5 merits The badges and rewards end at level 99.

"We still don't have Mastermind Customization after all this time" - What makes you think this is even under consideration? We don't have the Guardian class, either. Just because some other server did something has zero bearing on what Homecoming is doing and/or planning. "rewards so you can avoid the auction house reliance solo" - Not actually clear what you mean there. Anyone who wants to can ignore the auction house. "An option to save and use progress with badges on another character" - Never going to happen. Completely counter to the entire concept.

No Windows 11 for me until my next build. I have NEVER upgrade the OS on an existing system. It's just too much of a mess.

So do I. If anyone who actually knows how the annoying arena badges work wants to set up a run for the badges, I'd be in (and I have 3 accounts).

Eh. I actually clicked on it and saw that it allowed multiple selections, but I figured it confuses the results and a detailed post would be more useful.

Agreed. Most players have at least a passing familiarity with most of the content. I first created detailed instruction binds for the Abandoned Sewers Trial. Once upon a time (back on live), I announced that I would be running it and filled the team quickly. Much to my astonishment, more than half the team commented that they had been on multiple failed attempts and really wanted the badge. I don't recall ever being on a failed attempt. I mean, it gives you 90 minutes. I assured everyone that I had never failed it and that, if everyone followed my instructions, we should complete it in about half the available time. We did it in under 40 minutes and people were overjoyed (again, much to my astonishment). So it seems that some of the less-run content really does need instructions. And even some of the popular content - if, for example, you want to avoid a team wipe in Positron part 1.

I didn't vote because I've used both methods 2 and 3. For the part 2 reply - "or were they badge-focused agreements to beat each other up enough times to get the badge?" Yes. Basically a round robin beatdown back when the badge requirement was 400 points of PvP rep.

Are you aware that you can avoid triggering the ambush? It has to do with moving into a specific area at the top of the mountain. Keybinds are also good. I have a keybind that loads over a dozen additional keybinds onto my numpad for the Abandoned Sewer trial. And a keybind to erase them. Then one that loads a set for Mothership Raids. Etc. Popmenus are probably better, but they seem considerably more complex to set up.

Indeed. With the original quote being, "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb."

You should probably make it clear that, even though the buff is called 'Grant Invisibility', it does NOT give actual invisibility - only stealth. If you stack it with Super Speed or a stealth IO, THEN you will have 'full' invisibility. It won't work against snipers, Rikti drones, etc. But it's complete invisibility against everything you encounter in the Cavern trial. Also note that clicking an obelisk suppresses the stealth. I normally use the combat stats on my characters to monitor my PvE stealth radius to see exactly when it unsuppresses. The Grant Invisibility buff gives you 25' stealth. You need more to be 'invisible' to most enemies. I forget whether it's 50' or 55'.

Basically, yes. IO stands for Invention Origin. Technically, you can get a respec recipe and temporary powers and craft them, which are not IOs. Here's a summary of the system. https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Invention_Origin_Enhancements

On a side note, I'd like to point out how this particular quote is taken out of context and most people think it means the OPPOSITE of what it originally meant. Everyone says, "Jack of all trades, and master of none." as if to suggest that mastering one thing is the best course. But that's not the wisdom that the saying conveys. The ORIGINAL quote is "Jack of all trades, and master of none, BUT BETTER THAN A MASTER OF ONE." So the original guidance is that being a jack of all trades is SUPERIOR to being a master of one.