Soyuz

This, basically. I like the architecture and general feel of the Redside zones and a good villainous origin story can be a joy to write. The actual missions can be problematic, however. I only ever went over there for Masterminds and Dominators, in truth. Now that those AT's are available to heros, there's little to draw me back there.

target_enemy_near is bound to the ` key, which on a UK keyboard is just above TAB and to the left of 1 (and possibly on others too? I don't know). That gives me an option when the scrum becomes too much to see through. Other than that, I keep targeting pretty standard. F to follow is very useful on melee characters, not so much on ranged ones. I also swap the "turn" and "strafe" keys with each other, just because I prefer them that way, and I disable the default binds on function keys F5 and above, mainly because they prevent me from using said keys to change volume levels on my laptop.

Soloed Hess on my blaster just to see if I could. I was in the level range for the TF at the time and on SO's only (and didn't know how to get Shivans), so it could have been a lot easier. Nevertheless, hover-blasting and a tray full of purples did the trick. Some will be a lot harder, of course. Archon Burkholder is particularly vulnerable to the hover-blasting tactic, I think.

Specifically, Agent Watkins' arc. He can be found in Steel Canyon.

On Reunion this morning. Not a big deal as the team just powered through the arc to the mission "Stop Kronos Titan & entire crew", so anyone who wanted the badge got it that way instead, but I thought it was worth reporting.

This has always puzzled me a little. Why did NCSoft buy the property in the first place? Surely they must have done their market research and known this ahead of time. Were they just trying to break into the western MMO marketplace and the Korean product was a sideshow?

I love these threads. They always take me back to the first time I rediscovered the game. I downloaded and installed it, created my account and then logged in, full of trepidation. Surely it was too good to be true? It wasn't. In fact, it was everything I remembered and more.

A pity there doesn't seem to be a story reason for it, but thanks for the reply.

I saw the oddest thing in Kings Row today. I had a mission there (one of Indigo's) which was pretty close to the Clockwork Paladin's stomping ground, so I popped around the corner to see whether he was in and wanted a chat. He wasn't, but I spotted a couple of people being held hostage by a group of Clockwork and stopped to help. Yes, they were all grey but I can't seem to not rescue people when I see them in trouble. It's why I take Flight so often, it's the only way I can cross a zone without getting into about sixteen pointless fights. We all have our issues. Anyway, this was my Pool Power Challenge character, so AoE is in short supply. While I was bopping the other four on the head, the Tesla Prince decided to bolt. I gave chase, dropped him to a sliver of health with Arcane Bolt and was just catching up to him when an electrical attack from above finished him off. I looked up, expecting to see a low level hero - but he'd been taken out by a Cannon Knight, lurking on an AC unit a couple of floors up. It then jumped down to finish off the Gears that sprang from the wreckage of the Tesla Prince, which seemed quite happy to fight back. Has anybody else seen something like this before? Is this normal? Have I just been playing this game for years and somehow not noticed? It's entirely possible, I'm very absent minded,

I'd like to see hazard zones given the Zig Jailbreak treatment, where the mobs always con the same way to you regardless of your level. The code to do that already exists, so hopefully the work involved wouldn't be too ridiculous. Stretch goal! Have everything in the zone con according to your difficulty settings. Like missions, it would presumably be set on entry to the zone. You couldn't affect spawn sizes this way, but you could affect the apparent level of the enemies. This unfortunately doesn't happen with the Zig Jailbreak event, so presumably would be new code. In either case, XP should remain scaled to the zone, not to the character. Taking on even-con Hellions is hardly the same thing as tackling even-con Malta, so the XP rewards should reflect this. Ultimately I'd like to see something like this done with all outdoor zones. I've never understood why a Hellion with a gun literally can't touch me if I'm level 40-50, but a Crey agent with a very similar handgun can.

I look forward to being body slammed across the map by Warrior Shield Maidens.

I hadn't known that and it's disappointing, actually. They basically are Hellions 2.0.

While it would be nice to see the Warriors change up their game a bit after all this time, I tend to agree with Grouchybeast - having the Warriors break their own code and veer away from the philosophy that defines them would be a little disappointing. From a philosophical point of view, they're not boring at all, in fact they're one of the more interesting groups out there. Everyone else scrambles for whatever scraps of power they can get, but not the Warriors. The only other gang that comes close to this ethos is the Outcasts, but they were born with their gifts. They didn't have to work for them like the Warriors did. There are certainly some options that aren't currently being used which could make the Warriors more interesting or challenging. Starting with pool powers, the whole of the Fighting, Leadership and Presence pools would be appropriate options for them, along with parts of the Concealment pool (but see below). The Warriors strike me mainly as filling the Scrapper niche at present. They hit very hard, they prefer an in-your-face approach to problem solving but perhaps don't feel as tanky as some other groups in the level range. There are plenty of valid options there that have come along since the group was first created back in issue 0. Staves and Shields have already been mentioned, and I'd love to see a Warrior boss using Shield Charge. How about some Ninja Training or Martial Combat options from the Blaster secondaries? Anything you can pass off as just better tactics would seem to be in their wheelhouse. I'm not sure if they'd go full Archery Blaster on you, because I'm not sure it fits their ethos, but they might if it helps them to handle the Freaks and the Tsoo. Same goes for Stalker tactics - it would work, but they might see it as being beneath a true Warrior to strike from hiding. There's another problem with Warriors using archery and TA though. Mainly TA, if I'm honest. Where exactly do you draw the line between the Natural and Technology origins? How many gadgets are needed before the group starts to feel more reliant on tech than training? It's the same issue with magic artifacts, of course, and to a large extent has to be left an exercise for the individual reader.

To be fair, the Family do display actual superpowers, most notably with their psychic bosses, so I suspect there's an undercurrent of that running throughout the whole group. I think the Warriors are there in part to justify the Natural origin. To show that sheer hard work and learned skill can triumph over shortcuts to power, making them tougher than groups like the Hellions and the Trolls. Then of course the Freakshow come along and steal their lunch money, so...

I know, right? Dialogue options with the potential to lead to a peaceful resolution wouldn't necessarily work for all missions - if I'm busting into a Council base to foil their latest Evil Plottm then by definition I'm up against a bunch of ideologically motivated nutbags in the middle of commiting Crimes Against Humanity. They're not likely to be talked out of it. But the Warriors? They're motivated by more... practical concerns. I suspect the real reason is that the technology didn't support it when the game launched and it would be a lot of work for the Homecoming team to do. It'd be nice to see it crop up just occasionally though.

I last played on live before the Incarnate system came out, so my 50's (and there weren't many) tended to get parked or re-rolled. I didn't like playing a character that was "finished", apart from completing any open arcs sometimes. I had a Defender and a couple of Scrappers who got the re-roll treatment, because I wanted to try a slightly different powerset combo that worked with the theme. On Homecoming? Ask me when I get there. I don't have a 50 yet, so I'm likely to give the Incarnate system a try just to see what all the fuss is about, I think. After that I'll take a view.

This is mainly a post about me being surprised by things which are probably common knowledge. There's also some boring testing stuff at the end. TL:DR - pool power challenge characters are surprisingly playable, IO's are really good and apparently I'm a n00b. AS mentioned earlier in a post mainly about Acrobatics (worth it, btw), I recently started a pool power challenge character. I've played it, mainly solo, up to level 36 and it's taught me a lot about the game which I might otherwise never have been motivated to find out. The self-imposed "rules" of the challenge were simple. Take only those powers from your primary and secondary which you can't avoid (i.e. the mandatory picks at 1st and 2nd level). Everything else has to be a pool power. To make it a little more challenging, I decided that it had to be only the power choices open to you at level 1 - the T1 and T2 from the primary and T1 from the secondary - and that Epics weren't true pool powers, being tied to your archetype. You'll have taken all the pool power choices the game will let you have at level 47 though, so your level 49 pick can take from your primary, secondary or epic, as you wish. I should note that there have been a lot of variants of this challenge over the years, some of them far tougher than this, some less so. This is just one way to do it. The full current build is at the end of this post, but the short version is this: SJ/WP Scrapper, Fighting, Leaping, Concealment & Sorcery. 36 is just the mid levels, but I think I've played enough to have gained some sort of perspective (I meant to post this at 35, but levelled by accident). When I started the project, I decided that no tactic would be beneath me. If I had to level to 50 at -1/x1 with bosses turned off, so be it. P2W powers, Shivans and temp powers granted by mission arcs were all within bounds and I resolved to use them shamelessly. So, what was it actually like in play? The first 10 levels Right out of the blocks it feels just like any other character. You're building an attack chain, nobody has decent defences and the archetypes aren't very differentiated. You're no different to anyone else in this level range. Mez is not yet a problem. Cheap P2W powers like the basic grenades and Plasmatic Taser are useful but not essential. Levelling is set to +0/x1 with solo bosses but not AV's. 11 - 20. Discoveries are made Things start to get a little tougher. Most pool power attacks are melee, which forces you to live at close range. You notice your lack of defences during these levels, although mez is still not a big issue. Acrobatics at level 14 really helps, although you still have nothing to help against stuns. Sleep doesn't seem a big deal though, since you wake up the moment you take damage. I found myself leaning much harder on P2W powers to succeed. All my attacks by default have a chance to either stun or knockdown. Cross Punch has both. I resolved to add KD and Stun procs to the powers that were missing them, so that every attack did double duty. Thanks to Yomo Kimyata for his ongoing Whizbang Potpourri Extravaganza of a Giveaway, He was kind enough to gift me with a much-needed 20M to help purchase the necessary IO's, which improved performance markedly. It was a bit of a revelation, actually. That started me thinking though. Kinetic Combat provided the KD procs, but its set bonus also adds 3.75% s/l defence and 1.875% melee defence, plus some mez resistance. I started buying up more IO's to complete the sets and discovered that there was no way 20M was going to get me there. What now? I checked out a few guides to making money on the market using enhancement converters and decided to give it a whirl. Revelation the second: Making money on the market is incredibly easy. Seriously, anyone can do it. Not billionaire rich, certainly, but the next time you need 10 or 20 million for a new IO set or unique, it is within your reach. I had honestly thought that this was some sort of high-risk activity only experts could do succesfully, but even a total beginner like me can do it. IO's purchased and now packing some practical levels of defence, I finished off my teens with the Faultline arcs, EB's and all. 21-36. Hitting my stride More of the same, really. I did more research into IO's (Gulbasaur's Instant Improvements guide was particularly useful), slotted Scirrocco's Dervish into Cross Punch and a bunch of uniques and procs into everything else. I did Agent Watkins, First Ward, Night Ward, Field Agent Keith Nance etc. all without undue difficulty. I did use Shivans and temps for some of the EB's, but when your best attack is Cross Punch I think you deserve a little slack. Damage output is low and things can take a while, but that's about the worst complaint. To the test server! Finding my limits I'd been soloing at +0/x1 and was finding things too easy. Even accidentally aggroing two spawns at once wasn't really threatening, so I decided to do some testing and see just how far the character could go. I found an ideal mission for testing purposes in Colleen Nelson's arc, "Defeat Racco and recover Seed". It's against Council and has a mix of spawns with and without bosses, some spread out and some tightly packed, some +0 to the mission difficulty and some +1, and one fairly predictable double-spawn. There's a final Vampyre boss who respawns as a Warwolf at low health. Between each mission I nipped back to the hospital to load up a standard set of inspirations for each run. I tested difficulty (-1 to +4) separately from team size (x1 to x8). When testing difficulty, team size was x1. When testing team size, difficulty was +0. Difficulty -1 to +2: Easy mode. No special tactics required, very occasional use of insps and not much downtime between spawns. +3: Some use of insps or tactics (pulling, planned use of Misdirection or Enflame etc.) required for some spawns, but never both. Finished the mission comfortably. +4: Constant use of both insps and tactics to survive. Finished the mission, but felt marginal and could have gone either way. Team size x1 to x3: Easy mode again. No special tactics, very occasional use of insps, little downtime. x4: Use of insps or tactics for maybe half the spawns. x6: Use of insps or tactics (not both) on ALL spawns. x8: Constant use of insps and tactics to survive. Again, starting to feel marginal, but more comfortable than +4/x1. Frankly, this was a major surprise! The higher categories weren't comfortable, but they were certainly survivable, which was something I hadn't expected from a character like this. Of course, that's with a character practically dripping with IO's. What if I'd still been relying on SO's? I copied the character over to test, respecced to move a few slots around and replaced all my hard-earned IO's with SO's. Oh. My. Goodness. What a difference. Difficulty -1: Easy mode. Bounce happily from spawn to spawn with barely a care in the world. +0: Some use of insps of tactics required. I didn't hit this level until +3 with IO's! +1: Use of insps OR tactics on all spawns. +2: Use of insps AND tactics on all spawns. +3/+4: Unsustainable. Despite using every trick I know, I was burning through insps faster than I could earn them. Switching off bosses made this slightly easier. Things didn't become unsustainable until +4. Team size x1: Some use of insps or tactics required on some spawns. See above. x2: Use of insps or tactical play on all spawns. x3/x4: Use of insps AND tactics on all spawns. x6/x8: Unsustainable. Burning through inspirations faster than I could generate them, despite best efforts. Again, switching off bosses made things slightly easier, but not by much. Only the x3 category got a step easier, in fact. Conclusion IO sets, procs and globals make a huge difference to performance! With them, the character was barely breaking a sweat against challenges which were the absolute upper limit for the same character on SO's alone. This is not going to surprise the old hands at all, I know, but the difference was shocking to someone used to SO's as the standard. Could this character get to 50 with only SO's? Yes, there's no doubt about that, but I might have to have skipped some content to do it and would have had to stick to the lowest difficulty settings. IO's made the character at least twice as powerful. For reference, the version on live (with IO's) has apx. 34% s/l def, 26.6% melee def and 19% def vs everything else. The version on test (SO's) has just over 14% vs everything. There's also a massive difference in mez resistance, endurance usage and health recovery. Hero Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 3.0.0.0 https://github.com/Reborn-Team/Hero-Designer Click this DataLink to open the build! Pool Boy: Level 49 Magic Scrapper Primary Power Set: Street Justice Secondary Power Set: Willpower Power Pool: Fighting Power Pool: Leaping Power Pool: Concealment Power Pool: Sorcery Hero Profile: Level 1: Initial Strike -- KntCmb-Acc/Dmg:35(A), KntCmb-Dmg/EndRdx:35(3), KntCmb-Dmg/Rchg:35(3), KntCmb-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:35(5), KntCmb-Knock%:35(5) Level 1: High Pain Tolerance -- Heal(A), Heal(7), Heal(7) Level 2: Heavy Blow -- KntCmb-Acc/Dmg:35(A), KntCmb-Dmg/EndRdx:35(11), KntCmb-Dmg/Rchg:35(13), KntCmb-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:35(13), PndSlg-Stun%:30(15) Level 4: Boxing -- KntCmb-Acc/Dmg:35(A), KntCmb-Dmg/EndRdx:35(23), KntCmb-Dmg/Rchg:35(25), KntCmb-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:35(25), KntCmb-Knock%:35(27) Level 6: Kick -- KntCmb-Acc/Dmg:35(A), KntCmb-Dmg/EndRdx:35(27), KntCmb-Dmg/Rchg:35(29), KntCmb-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:35(29), PndSlg-Stun%:30(31) Level 8: Combat Jumping -- Ksm-ToHit+:30(A) Level 10: Super Jump -- Jump(A) Level 12: Stealth -- LucoftheG-Def:36(A), LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+:36(31) Level 14: Acrobatics -- EndRdx(A) Level 16: Cross Punch -- ScrDrv-Acc/Dmg:36(A), ScrDrv-Dmg/EndRdx:36(31), ScrDrv-Dmg/Rchg:36(33), ScrDrv-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:36(33) Level 18: Weave -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+:36(A), LucoftheG-Def:36(33), DefBuff(34), DefBuff(34), EndRdx(34) Level 20: Invisibility -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+:36(A) Level 22: Mystic Flight -- Flight(A) Level 24: Arcane Bolt -- Acc(A), Dmg(36), Dmg(36), Dmg(36) Level 26: Rune of Protection -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(37), RechRdx(37) Level 28: Tough -- GldArm-3defTpProc:36(A), StdPrt-ResDam/Def+:30(37) Level 30: Phase Shift -- RechRdx(A) Level 32: Enflame -- Dmg(A) Level 35: Misdirection -- Acc(A) Level 38: [Empty] Level 41: [Empty] Level 44: [Empty] Level 47: [Empty] Level 49: [Empty] Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A) Level 1: Critical Hit Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A) Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A) Level 2: Swift -- Empty(A) Level 2: Health -- NmnCnv-Regen/Rcvry+:36(A), Mrc-Rcvry+:36(15), Prv-Absorb%:36(17), RgnTss-Regen+:30(17), Pnc-Heal/+End:36(19) Level 2: Hurdle -- Empty(A) Level 2: Stamina -- PrfShf-End%:36(A), PwrTrns-+Heal:36(19), EndMod(21), EndMod(21), EndMod(23) Level 1: Combo Level 1 Level 1: Combo Level 2 Level 1: Combo Level 3 ------------

I saw the same thing in IP on the beta server on Sunday. Two ships, just sailing along in parallel.

Lots of great suggestions in this thread for things to add - objects, textures, NPC's that can walk around etc. - but as a novice base builder, some sort of walkthrough for the more "advanced" features is by far the most important thing for me. I know what I want to build, I just don't know how to achieve it. As has been noted, some of the methods required feel like workarounds when they're explained to you. They're quite counterintuitive and not at all obvious to someone playing around with the editor for the first time. You'd probably never guess most of them on your own. There are some truly fantastic bases out there, but it feels almost like they were built despite the editor, not because of it. Almost... because obviously no editor, no base.

Bitter Freeze Ray. Most guides to Ice Blast say to skip it because of the long animation and if you team most of the time, you're not going to see the point in this, but if you solo a lot it provides a lovely one-two punch with Freeze Ray. Use it at the beginning of the fight to lock down bosses, or take a couple of minions/LT's out of the fight before the enemy can fire back. It does some nice damage, too. It's even better if your other power set has another ST hold. A 1-2-3 opener, all holds, provides a great safety margin for solo play.

Actually though, this is one reason why the origin-specific pools irk me. Some of them are so damned useful for certain AT's (e.g. Sorcery with its Rune of Protection) that you almost have to work them into your build. If your AT lacks built-in mez protection, you'll certainly be better off taking Sorcery than the Flight pool in most cases. Most pools don't work this way. If I take the Concealment pool, I might be using a spell to hide my movements, I could be using a high-tech chameleon device, I might be leveraging my spy training to be just that stealthy, I could be using mind control to constantly distract the guards or any of a host of other possible mechanisms which all result in the same effect - I'm stealthy. Pools like this abide by what I call the Tactical Effect Doctrine; don't worry about precisely how it works, just worry about the final effect. But with Sorcery... it's magic. The clue's in the name. There are even runes around you when you fly which you can't change or turn off, so that others know it's magic too. It's all very cool if you are a magic-origin character, but if not then you have some mental contortions to go through to justify it all. To make matters worse, while Sorcery copies powers from other pools (flight, teleport) no other pool has an equivalent to Rune. I mean, seriously - the Force of Will pool doesn't have stun, sleep or hold protection? I know this will only bother roleplayers or those who build to a concept instead of a mechanic. However, I'm one of those and it feels like an itch I can't scratch at times. I'd prefer it if you could turn off the VFX or if there were alternate animations (maybe equations instead of runes, or a FF- or sonic-style bubble).

A couple of my characters do this. Pool Boy is an amateur boxer (Natural) who stumbled into one of those shops selling wierd and wonderful things that aren't there when you go back to try to return your purchase or clarify how it works (Magic). He bought a book detailing how to enchant a pair of gloves so that you can punch ghosts, among other things. Now wierd events just won't stop happening around him and he can't seem to get rid of the thing, He tried leaving it in a dumpster and a helpful samaritan mailed it back to him. Threw it in the bay, it turned up in his shower the next morning looking no worse for wear. He even tried burnin the thing - it showed up on his bedside table the next day and it turned out he'd burned his tax return by accident. Radio Girl is a science witch. Her power source is a black hole which she's linked to via quantum entanglement. Typical lab accident stuff, ergo Science! She wouldn't be able to control that power without her training in sorcery though, therefore also Magic.

Sorry to butt in when I'm not running the challenge, but I couldn't help overhearing. There is a conveniently tilted skyscraper nearby, which you can use to access a nearby building, which in turn will let you Super Jump tp the Towering Inferno badge. Head NNE from the entrance, following the busted-up monorail line until you see this building, at approximately 2273 x 4671. Use the slant to get to the top of that and you'll see another convenient rooftop, almost due north. Jump to that, and you should be able to SJ up to the lowest corner of the building with the Towering Inferno badge. Good luck!

I like Scrappers for soloing, but that may be because Brutes never quite clicked for me. Anyway, I find Scrappers to be a nice mix of durability and horsepower, clearing missions quickly and able to take on the tougher challenges. Not as durable as Tankers, obviously, but faster. Salt the build with a few IO's for extra bite. Which ones will depend on where you think your build is lacking, but you can easily add large amounts of S/L and melee defence or S/L resistance, cover the knockback hole in your status protection if you have one, slot KD or stun procs in your attacks etc. Honestly, I'm barely scratching the surface when it comes to IO's since I'm actually quite new to using them. If Moar Powah is what you're after and you want to be a proper powergamer though, you can't neglect them. There's a nice, short introduction to using procs, globals and uniques for some quick gains here (thanks Gulbasaur) and a handy-dandy comparison table for set bonuses themselves here (thanks HCWiki). Both have been invaluable to me.

This is the point that's often missed. It's not just the owner of the trademark being mean. If they become aware of a possible trademark infringement (only a court can determine whether it really is or not) they have to take action against it or lose control of their intellectual property right then and there. Even if they're fairly sure that it wouldn't stand up in court. In the case of a character like Mammoth, DC probably trademarked the "distinctive likeness" of the character. In other words, any super powered character called Mammoth that looks like their character would be a potential infringement which they would have to challenge. Legal action will usually take the form of a simple cease-and-desist letter in the first instance - but not always. The injured party may demand more than simply removing the offending character, at which point lawyers get involved and things become very expensive, very quickly. The Homecoming team, I'm pretty sure, doesn't have the time or money to fight court cases over trademark infringement, hence they'll generic you if they spot a potential infringement rather than take the chance. Cryptic did the same.