Diantane

I got to level 35 in one day without sitting in a farm, but by playing the game as originally intended without knowing how to play my character? I'm 66 years old and have been playing computer rpg's and mmo's since they were invented (over 4 decades). I not only play the character, but delve into the mathematics behind them and study the AI's in the game. In City of Heroes, (because I am now retired) I run arc teams from KR or The Hollows to the end for 10-12 hours per day without taking any breaks beyond a bio or getting a previously prepared sandwich or more water. Spending my time running farms or bots that kill the same things over and over (grinding) on multiple accounts just to make huge amounts of influence needed for really expensive builds and do this over and over again making many vets, is not actually playing the original "old school" game that I love. So no, I don't know how to play the Sentinel in that way and don't care to.

I just used Sentinel as an example. Every AT class gets the same sort of non-epic powers, but the classes other than Sentinel get something that stands out: A Blaster, Controller, Defender, Dominator, Corruptor and Mastermind get a protective power like Scorpion Shield, Charged Armor, Frozen Armor, Dark Embrace, etc. A Scrapper, Tanker or Stalker gets a choice in Body Mastery or Energy Mastery called, Conserve Power, Focused Accuracy and Physical Mastery (not found in any AT's powerset). The Brute adds Superior Conditioning. The Peacebringer and Warshade doesn't get any Epic Powers and the Widow and Soldier get limited Epic sets, because their main powersets are so extensive that they have a hard time training it all. The Sentinel does get the option to take one power different called, " Coordinating Targeting, but that just gives a minor accuracy buff, and debuff protection.

There are several definitions. Open your mind to how a few of them apply to this game. You don't have to be technical here.

Back in 2006 a game called Titan Quest was released with an expansion called, "Immortal Throne" coming out the next year. This introduced a new amazing power set called, "Dream." The graphics of this set were amazing for a game over 15 years old. The description is as follows: Drawing power from the dream world, the seer uses sheer force of will to dominate the battlefield. The arcane workings of the psyche, time and reality itself are all playthings for those who have mastered the secrets of the mind. There were several amazing skill unlocks which can be read on their websites, but I think that a skill set of this magnitude should be brought from a scrolling third person game to an open world such as City of Heroes.

The word "Epic" means heroic; majestic; impressively great; extending beyond the usual or ordinary especially in size of scope. Well all that sounds pretty amazing, but when I see the epic pool powers they are just powers that a new character would get. What gets me to create a character is being able to look forward to what lies ahead. Unfortunately once I reach a high level just past 38, all those dreams are shattered. I've made about fifteen sentinels, because of their amazing twists of powers. Yesterday morning I created a beam/regen sentinel because I wanted to see what would happen to the character's stats as I leveled. Reached 35 after running arc teams for 11.5 hours on double XP. It was pretty amazing seeing my total health being raised by almost 500 and my regen over 25/sec. Even got an impressive heal that I needed to use only 3-4 times. But now at 35, I look forward to see what "EPIC POWERS" I can get and.... are you kidding? The epic powers need to be revamped to something that is truly amazing. More to the line of being a sentinel. Completely new amazing powers would be the direction that should it should go.

Oh I let the them know that you get a lot more XP clearing the map, then you do standing around waiting for the next mission to start. Every time some one leaves the team, the leader had to go to work filling in the slots again. If they don't the team will disappear. Sometimes when I do this even more players will leave. What if I need a break or want to make a sandwich. I tell everyone to take 5 (this after going over and over again for hours). But when I get back from the 5 minute snack break, usually half of the team has left. They want to level fast, so they feel that 5 minutes is too long for them. They quit and look for something else. Problem is there are very few teams like the ones I run for 10-12 hours straight every day. Players will usually play a few missions and take a break. If they want to level fast, how do they do that by taking an hour or so break every 15 minutes? I start a new character, run arc teams all day and in the afternoon I'm in my mid 30's. I'm not a young player either (66 and a retired tractor trailer driver).

Doesn't matter if its and arc or radio, they go inside the mission the moment it's available (don't bother waiting for the team). And the moment the blue exit button appears, they are out of there running to the next mission. Doesn't matter if the team is fighting when the button appears. They are gone. I usually kick them from the team and they wonder why. Is there a badge for how many missions you do or how fast you can do them? If so I don't want it. Most veteran players (those that have played a long time) will stay well beyond the blue button to finish clearing everything on the map for the XP. That makes more sense.

This just started about a week ago. I realize that I can change the taskbar setting to make it automatically hide, but I want it to be shown out of game.

So it is written. So it be done 🙂

You're laying there asking others for a "wakie" so you don't have to run all the way back from the hospital. However there's a way you can always have one or any other inspiration you might need. When you get an extra one or just buy an inspiration from the nurse on the bottom floor of hospital, then mail it to yourself. Mail several (one at a time). Then you will always have one when you need it.

There are so many. Sonic Attack leads the way. Shriek - light damage Scream - light Howl - light Shockwave - Minor Shout - High Sirens Song - Minor Screech - Minor Dreadful Wail - Extreme You have to wallow through horrible attacks just to get to 32? Most of Blaster attack sets are just a little better. The best of the bunch was definitely Beam Rifle. Single Shot - Light Charged shot - High Cutting Beam - Light Disintegrate - High (also buffs the other attacks) Lancer Shot - Superior Penetrating Ray - Extreme Piercing Beam - Superior Overcharge - Extreme After playing Fire (my first blaster) and then seeing the amazing attacks of Beam Rifle, I quickly created one. It was so powerful it could kill a purple before they got to me. After that, I had no interest of playing a different “weak” blaster.

That's great! Thanks

So I can buy enhancements in my base.

I’ve read about several builds that promise great rewards (the best combinations). This was curious to me so I investigated. Not just by playing the identical combination, but by the power set itself. For example, bots and traps mm. Didn’t bother playing that set as it would take too long to see the secondary all the way through. I’ve already played bots/ many times and know what they are capable of. But didn’t know much about “Traps”. So I made a traps/ defender to see this “primary” at its very best. It had some nice utility, but how on earth was this going to make bots more damaging in combat? I just don’t see it. Another one was Ninjas/Time. Again good utility, but the Ninja is a frail pet that fights in close melee combat. If it doesn’t have some sort of armor (being resistance and/or defense), it will die quickly. A weak heal won’t be enough in fierce combat. The “Time” power is just telling you how much of it you will spend re-summoning your dead pets. This was bad enough when I used “thermal” in combination. Even with the high resistance shields and the strong heals, I was re-summoning my ninjas constantly, let alone with “time.” There’s a “time” and place for this power set, but definitely not with ninjas. As I first stated, “I just don’t see it.”

Looked at a blaster because of its amazing DPS. Played my first blaster a month ago. It was fire/atomic and currently level 46 when he was abandoned. Stopped playing him because I was sick and tired of creatures putting me to sleep and then killing a helpless blaster. Unless I had a breakfree inspiration (or about 90 of them, I was in trouble). Didn't just give up. Instead I tried to find a better way (and I did). A blaster lacks protection against lots of things including sleep, hold, etc. Now a sentinel has all those protections and also has beam weapon, but a sentinel's damage output is about 25% less than a blaster's. It's just like trying to play as a defender or corruptor. That is until I discovered Bio Armor. With this defense you can play in offensive mode and gain back that 25% difference. It may not be an exact difference, but it sure is nice. My beam/bio sentinel is level 41 and rising. He is a "blast" to play and I don’t get put to sleep. When I hit a creature, I can watch their health drop quickly. It is far better than any other sentinel I have played and abandoned due to lack of DPS (my first sentinel fire/will had to go through every attack three times to kill anything (abandoned at level 38)). The beam/bio sentinel is by far the most powerful sentinel and comes close to tieing with a blaster. Maybe even better. How much DPS can a blaster do if they're dead?

I've always ran full teams doing various arc's. Its how I would level one of over 50 alts (so far). But yesterday was slow on Excelsior. My tells for starting up a team went unanswered all day long. So I decided to solo. Although as a mastermind it doesn't feel like you are alone. In my creative mind, I quickly come up with a scenario where the "pets" and I are all fighting together. When I turned 6, 12 and 18 (currently 20), we would welcome in the newcomer onto the team. Nope, didn't feel like I was playing solo at all.

Thanks Warpact for that Ninja Wiki link. That was very interesting.

Update: I gave my two Genin's the first upgrade, then dismissed one and re-summoned. Both look identical. Both kick with one leg lifting in front of them (Thunder Kick). The upgraded Genin also spins around and kicks (Storm Kick). I must have missed that before, but the same costume will throw you off. Note: The first two Genins are not identical twins. Each has a different face (upgraded or not).

I've started three new Ninja masterminds this morning (three secondary's to try each out), played them all to over level 10 and keep "not seeing" the same thing. Whenever I make a mastermind and use the level 6 power like "Train Ninjas", I see two things happen. The first is some difference on the pet (slight change in costume, a light on a bot, etc.). But I see no difference in the Genin or Jounin. The other difference is an added or change in attack. I see no change in the Genins (just their ranged weapon and kick). When I add "Train Ninjas" I see the animation from me, but no change to them. Anyone else see or don't see the difference or am I mission something?

Okay, I've played a tank in wow, lotro and asheron's call. I've made many different kinds of tanks here. On CoH I try to maintain a team of 8 players. Sometimes we have a healer, other times we do not. I don't always play a tank (about a third of the time). When the team just stands there waiting for someone to make the first move against a mob, I know it's time to play a tank, but I've played tank on other classes (mm, sentinel, scrapper controller) just because I know how to play a tank so well. Difficulty: 1-15= +0 (always x8) up to 22 = +1 up to 32= +2-3 depending on the group up to 42= +2-4 depending on the group

I've played a tank in many mmorpg's. Their jobs was to run/jump into a group of baddies and take the aggression away from the rest of the team. That works in the first part of the game before the others get much in the way of a defense, but later on that all changes. I pick out a large mob, jump into the middle of them and taunt them to me. As I'm tanking them, I look around and the rest of the team went to a different mob. I explain to them what I am doing for them, but no one replies. They're just a bunch of mindless players. I've heard that players have a program that turns their character into a robot and it fights while they eat, sleep, work or watch TV. Now it's either this or they just don't care. Now most tankers don't do what I do. They just fight like a scrapper (don't realize what they have). Any other tankers have this problem or even care?

A rad/anything. You tell people not to kill the debuff “anchor” and its like putting a target on it. It’s the first thing they kill. Then the team wipes and they say that there weren’t enough heals. Sure, there was a change in the game that the debuff stays on the corpse, but it doesn’t move to other enemy groups so it’s not perfect. The reason the radiation heal is so weak is because it’s rarely needed. My defender is rad/elec. All I want to do is play on teams until I’m 30. Then I will solo. You put the Tesla cage and debuffs on a guy and kill them at your leisure. The only attacks I have are the top tier ones. When I play a defender I “play” a defender (not a weak blaster). Only train defender powers until later.

There are a few rules being in a team that you need to learn: 1) Be polite - the other teammates are just like you. When you pick a name for yourself, keep it short and easy to read/type. This way others will remember you and may ask you to join them on another mission. How well you play during a mission can really help here. 2) If you plan on leaving after a couple missions, let the team know when you arrive. The same goes for training, bio, getting a snack, etc.. Other team members want to know that they can depend on you. 3) Some mission really end when the blue exit button pops up, but many do not end. The more experienced players will stay behind and clear the map before exiting. The object of doing missions is not seeing how many you can do. If you exit early, you will be standing outside with no way of getting back in for as long as it takes for the others to clear the map. And you will be missing out on a lot of XP too. Running to the next mission and waiting for them to start doesn't help you either. So get the most you can in each mission. 4) There are lot of different types of missions. And unless you have billions of influence, you want to focus on Arc Missions. Radio missions won't help you except for the XP, but Arc's also give you merits and badges. If you are poor (like me), you can spend your merits on enhancement boosters and sell them at the Auction House for a little over one million influence each (each cost 5 merits). Just by completing the Atlas arcs, you'll earn 9 merits. King's Row gives you another 12. In all you can earn over 4 million influence. So doing the low level task force missions may give you a little XP, you'll still be poor afterwards. 5) I try to give others inspirations all the time. If their endurance us getting low, I'll pass them a blue to help. The problem is, almost every new player is a "hoarder." They never use their inspirations so they can't accept gifts from other teammates. Experienced players use their inspirations as soon as they get them if they are in combat. What good are inspirations if you never use them? 6) You ever play follow the leader? Stay with them as they move through a mission. If the team splits up its bad for all. If you accidentally attack another group and then become overwhelmed by them, don't lead them into the team. Run out the exit and the npc's will go back to where they started. The only exception to this is if you are playing a dedicated tank (all defense and the taunt skill). You can bring other mobs to the team as long as you can control the aggro (so they won't harm your teammates).

Sure, you can do anything you want in this game. So I did and saw the difference. As it was said up top, not all tanks can take alphas no matter how good their defense is set up. I've tried half of them. Some were better than others. My first was a WP tank . He could take alphas until he was 30, then he lost the edge. Rad tank was pretty good too for awhile. It was said above that you can't dedicate a character yet you can. Its already been done many times by myself. You get every primary power as soon as it's available. Average builds can never do this. I looked at player's info and saw see the powers they took and skipped. If I took all those kin powers on my mm, my beast mastery wouldn't be so "mastery."

Obviously you just read the title, skimmed the post and made your reply. You just don't understand the power of a dedicated archetype. If a plain tank that trained anything ran into a group of purple foes, they are going to die and die quickly.