Scientist

First controller, a Grav/FF. Based on a rpg character I loved, so I got him to 50, but he was slow to solo, which I did a lot of back in the day. "Slow" is saying something given that my main was a Defender who I felt soloed ok. I even incarnated him out, but I could just never find any content, with the exception of MSRs using Dispersion Bubble to block mezzes, that he was better for than some other character I had. That was a pretty narrow niche, given I rarely play evenings when MSRs happen. . . Not only did it convince me not to make any more controllers, I also never made a Dominator until recently on HC. Still not convinced the Dominator is amazing, but to be fair, she is only at level 12. I remade the controller on HC as a Grav/Time, which also fit the rpg character concept, and with the buffs to Grav plus actually helping teams kill things with Time, I no longer feel like a waste of a team slot. 🙂 Still not planning to make a bunch more controllers, though, one seems like enough.

Started a couple months after the game start, because I had two good friends who started in Beta and talked me into this, my first MMO. I hit a bit of a delay because it turned out you had to have one of a number of SPECIFIC graphics cards to play a MMO, who knew? 🙂 First characters were two Rad/Rad defenders, as a science geek doing things with radiation appealed to me and it sounded flexible and effective from the guides and comments. One was for soloing/PUGs and one was for a static team we set up. One of those was my first 50, became my main, and is again now my first 50 and main on Homecoming, and despite multiple nerfs to Radiation Emission over the years still a lot of fun to play. To be fair, I acknowledge some debate between myself and my friends about whether said nerfs were deserved. Defenders are still my favorite AT, I love helping a team stay alive and go faster, and Radiation is fairly, um, obvious about it. . .

Arcanaville thought that when they put Praetoria together they had "forgotten" how to design low level mobs like Skulls. Original low level mobs have like 2 or maybe 3 attacks, with long recharges, which goes up to high level mobs with more of a real attack chain. The Praetorian mobs were designed more like high level mobs, with an attack chain. I think it was also when the devs got a software improvement that let them trigger ambushes from more types of actions, so they REALLY wanted to put that through its paces. I think that was somewhat true with Rogue Isles as well, it had harder foes in a lot of cases then blueside. In particular, there were more AVs as part of normal story arcs, and I think it came out before you could downgrade them to EBs, because I remember my MM fighting them as AVs a lot. Fortunately a bots/traps MM can beat an AV on SOs.

I tend to consider Radiation a Tier 1 along with Time, mainly because I play at a variety of levels, even at end game, and Radiation, like Storm, gets its key abilities at much earlier levels (teens) than Time (upper 30s). Radiation also works pretty well even with a plain IO or even SO build, Time really wants some set slotting to shine, as well as inclusion of some Power Build Up type power. I do agree Time, like Cold, is very good at high levels with an IOed out build. Regarding /Radiation for a blast set, I've found it actually helps keeps mobs clumped if I run in and fire off PbAoEs in my debuff cloud, so I prefer it with Radiation primary to the cone based powers. I do agree that some end game content is too dangerous to allow that, but then it has pretty good ST ranged damage with a snipe plus Cosmic Burst, and with an Achilles activating very reliably in the snipe it has good ST -resist as well. I guess I'd move it to Tier 2, as I found it more fun to play than /Sonic, even though I know Sonic is a great hard target melter.

As I recall, Brian's volley of fireballs made short work of the Dread Gazebo, fortunately for our heroes, I mean that darned thing just IGNORED a crossbow bolt of Slaying. . . 🙂

One other thing I'd mention is that the P2W vendor sells temp powers, a Defense Amplifier, Offense Amplifier and Survival Amplifier. The cost per hour scales up dramatically with your level, so if you buy them at first or second level they are much cheaper. If you are PLing right off the bat, they could last up into the 20s pretty easily and help make up for the fact that you probably won't have enhancements slotted for a lot of powers. It can also be handy to prepare for your PLing by having a lot of plain level 25 IOs in base bins, so you can go grab them at the right point and they won't expire as you continue up through the levels. Having to run back and forth for SOs to the correct vendor is a pain, and it isn't really worth buying them anyway if they are only going to last a few hours of your leveling.

I also discovered some new niches when I got a recipe drop, checked the price, and said "Hmm, if this obscure recipe is selling for THAT much, there must be something interesting it can be converted into." More often these days when I'm doing a character build I say "Huh, I thought those crucial set IOs I need would be more expensive."

It wouldn't even be possible to corner the market on a whole set, many of the "converter lottery" people are just converting within a category, like purples or defense IOs or orange rarity, so they are generating all kinds of sets as they go. The profitable ones get sold, otherwise hit another convert. The only things I think might even be possible to corner now are things which can't be produced this way, like Hami-Os or ATOs, and even those I suspect would be tough to keep cornered for very long.

My endgame slotting for Singularity is Acc/Mez Hami, Dam/Mez Hami x2, Soulbound Allegiance Damage, and the Expediant Reinforcement and Sovereign Right resistance bonus IOs. That gives capped Hold duration, capped Damage, and 20% extra resistance on top of Singy's already high resistances. It is very rare for it to drop before I do. Depending on your secondary, you might want the two Defense bonus pet IOs instead. Before I could slot purples and HOs, I went with 4x Call to Arms for the 6.25% recharge bonus, a Damage IO and a Hold IO. It was still pretty darned tough even with that.

Do be careful if you join someone else, if they have been in the mission for very long and you join them and kill the end EB too quickly, you may not get credit because you "weren't in the mission long enough for the rewards". You may want to kill a couple of other spawns first to make sure you get end mission credit.

Does Group Fly still impose a -tohit (or -acc, sometimes the game description isn't as accurate as it should be) debuff on anyone in it?

I would recommend /Traps for soloing, /Time for teaming. I was soloing AVs redside in the early 30s with my Bots/Traps, since they popped up in those arcs and it was before you could change them to EBs solo. This was using SOs and frankenslotting, not even set IOs, which were hard to find redside before the market merger. Web Grenade does indeed work on most AVs to immobilize them, and if they do get out, they may well run out of your caltrops instead of over to squish you or a bot. But I have other, more team friendly characters for teaming, MMs will rarely be a first choice for teams. I'm using the new Bots/Traps MM I've rolled up to read story content without having to worry about an ambush when I'm "talking" to an NPC, or impatient teammates. 🙂

I know for the Degenerative slot in the Incarnate system it is usually recommended to go the Core path, for the -HP debuff, rather than the Toxic DoT. I was curious whether for a Crab using the Arctic Breath patron power, which has double the -resist to Toxic, -40%, it might be worth going the Radial path for more toxic DoT. Are there any numbers available on that DoT to see where the crossover point might be?

I like the options available now, from double XP to turning it off (though a friend has seen a bug where XPs turned back on for him after logging out and back in, that was annoying). I have never been into the AE or other mission map farming, but am happy it supplies the market, and cutting AE XPs by 2x early on seems to have been about the right factor to send people to a wider variety of content and apparently reduce load on the servers a lot. I'd rather make my money marketing, but I'm glad other people enjoy farming and buying the stuff I'm selling. When starting on Homecoming, I've gotten 3 characters to 50 quickly by a mix of TFs and joining +4/x8 council teams, so I can participate in high level content in any of the major roles needed, support, tank and dps. I've got several others where I plan to play a lot of solo, story arc stuff because it has been many years since I've seen it, so they will be many months to 50. One character is shutting off XPs for much of the 1-20 range so I can duo Praetoria with a friend and see that, most of which I never did in the original game. I like to do a variety of things, and CoX is supporting that.

The player count is low, that is correct, and the content is actually fairly hard in a lot of cases (they love ambuhes while you are already fighting another spawn). I thought it was a very interesting change to regular blueside/redside content, though. It is the first time they added content to the game where things you did earlier have a very real effect on your world, and what other arcs you can do. In some cases in an earlier arc you actually kill off someone who could be a contact later, and they are GONE from what you see in the outer world, even though someone else can still do their missions. Betraying a faction actually changes later dialogue you see from your former faction. A friend and I made up characters there to see as much of the content as possible, though, and we are following the Guide in the Guide section of the forum about how to change factions every time you get a chance. You have to turn off XPs at points to do all of that, in particular at level 7.9, not 9.9 initially. It will probably not be to your taste if you want to play a really "heroic" character, though, there are a lot of very morally grey or worse missions. Fine if you are the villianous type, though, arguably some missions are more villianous than most redside content. I recommend either duoing with a friend, or making a pretty sturdy, self sufficient character like a MM for soloing it so you don't have to coordinate faction choices.

Accidentally did that on rare salvage I was buying to craft some recipes I'd bought in bulk, lost about 120M before I noticed my mistake. Turns you you CAN pay over 1M for rare salvage, even if you SHOULDN'T. . .

I actually had someone quit a Market Crash TF a couple of months ago about 15 minutes in because "it wasn't challenging enough". If you have particular expectations for how a TF is going to go (speed, kill all, etc.) they should be communicated, and that goes for a team member as well, not just the leader. It is perfectly fine to want to run your TF on +4/x8, or run it slow and read all the dialogue, or stealth everything, but ask before you start so you end up with a whole team who wants to do it that way. Unlike radios or even a mission arc, you can't get replacement members on a TF.

If you want lazy but still be more desirable on end game teams than FF, consider Radiation. While it has a lot of tools, you bring most of what is useful about Rad when you throw two debuff toggles (fire and forget for the most part, especially now that they linger on corpses) and Lingering Radiation. If that is all you do people will still be pretty happy. Against content the team is blowing through, skip Radiation Infection, the slow to cast toggle. One caution, there are a few mobs you don't want to use the toggle debuffs on; Tsoo Sorcs, Gunslingers, anyone who teleports around, causing your debuff to aggro more spawns.

Well, my friend and I discovered that if you level to 9.9, you go directly from Jack Hammer to Mr. G and miss several arcs and switches. Apparently we should have turned off XPs at 7.9, to avoid leveling to 8. Question, your guide cautions to avoid doing any Calvin Scott missions until after you have done all the Aaron Walker ones. In the Mr. G arc in Imperial City, at the "Reveal Truth to Eddie Polstra" mission, it offers the option to talk to Calvin Scott about going undercover in the Powers line for Loyalist. Is that mission and similar ones safe to do, until Calvin's actual arc at level 15-20 when you need to make sure Aaron Walker is done first?

When playing my Rad defender back in the day, I ran into another who hadn't taken either debuff by the mid 20s. He was focused on Acc Met, Hasten, and Radiant Emission because he wanted the fastest cycling heal possible for "end game content". I'm guessing he was from another MMO, which could be just about any of them, where you needed constant heals for hard content, and debuffs were largely worthless.

I didn't see Praetor White's initial missions mentioned, any reason to do or not do those before, for example, the Ricochet arc if you have gone Resistance in the Tutorial?

I see a lot of discussion of dual pistols for proc builds, does beam rifle work reasonably well for that? I prefer those animations.

I actually wonder if a sports category might make sense as a non-profit type for Homecoming, given the rise of e-gaming as a spectator sport and the increasing number of professionals in it. I saw a projection by Activate that by 2021 e-sports will have higher viewership in the U.S. than every sports league but the NFL. I think the time frame is way early, but it could be just as legit as making CoX "educational", for example. On the broader topic, I have been quite impressed by the Homecoming team's ability to stabilize servers that swelled in population by 100x in a mere week or two that were running 15 year old code they didn't write, move them almost seamlessly to another provider later, get forums running, find GMs to answer petitions in game, and get into substantive negotiations with a company that wouldn't talk to the developers originally running the game back in the day. They also know when they need to hire specialized expertise, lawyers specialized in the gaming industry, rather than thinking they can do everything themselves. They were also VERY transparent about their finances, money taken in and what it was spent on, so I believe them when they reveal that negotiations are going well, but they have reasons not to release details yet. Frankly, to come back here every day and write up notes on what got discussed that day, deal with people's posts about what they should do the next day, and try to go back to the table with it would be a huge waste of their time, IMHO. We are lucky they are taking time to write as many posts as they are to clarify what they aren't willing to trade off, e.g. free to play. That demonstrated level of competence in both computer operation and people management skills makes me comfortable with their decisions on what to release and when. I also agree with several other posters that the fact that NCSoft is negotiating with them over an extended period is a good sign, not a bad one, at least for Homecoming.

I thought that too, and in fact I've suggested that they raise their contingency fund to a full month's operating expenses. That gives them a lot more flexibility if, for example, they change to a different server supplier that wants a month up front, while they still have to pay the last month on the last one. Like when you change rental apartments, you usually need at least one extra month of cash. I realize implementing my plan could drag out the donation window to a tedious 8 minutes, admittedly. . . 🙂 If they are getting involved with attorneys, bills and filing fees could also lead to unexpected lump sum costs.

Oddly, I don't think I've seen a single Hami raid in the 7-8:30ish AM EST time slot that is almost my only play time. This morning I saw a TM/Apex forming, and it took them half an hour to get from 4 to 8 members for it. That was about when I needed to log, unfortunately.