Maestro Mavius

Way back in 2004, my very first character was an Eng/Eng blaster. This was also my first MMO... Rather quickly I noticed that most of my powers could send enemies flying away, I thought it was really cool and a useful way to stay alive. So I took great pleasure in making sure I knocked any badguy that was in one of my teammates faces away as much as possible. I began playing like a pseudo defender in missions. I'd knock a target away from the scrapper (thinking I was keeping him safe) and quickly tab to another target to do the same. I was frantically trying to knock every bad guy away so my team could damage them from a safe position. Nobody ever said anything to me for weeks and I was never kicked from teams. It wasn't until nearly a month later when I decided to try a different AT and rolled up a DM/Regen scrapper that it finally dawned on me what I was doing on my blaster wasn't helping at all. Just yesterday I was on my Ice/MA blaster running with a mission team and realized I was confused right as I hit Build Up + Blizzard on a large group my entire team was surrounded by. I quickly hit F7 but naturally nobody on my team knew why. I sat there dazed as I watched my nuke swiftly eating away their health bars. Thankfully most were vet levels and just shrugged it off. I make macros for flyposes on all my flyers. Was heading to a mission and my macro wasn't working. Edited it but it looked correct. Still didn't work. Deleted it and made a new one, still didn't work. I had Lightning Field on and apparently the poses don't work if you do...

Yes but also no. As a support character you'll have to be more picky with the teams you run with as fact is, most simply won't need you, or even give you a chance to fire off a power before rushing to the next spawn. It's not always the same reasons either. Yesterday I got on a team of level 30's and nobody had any IO sets but we had 4 blasters with nukes that could easily juggle and fire off a nuke every spawn. My holds were useless and since everything was melting in seconds, my fire shields weren't needed either. I'm an altoholic though so I just switched to one of my blasters and joined the nuke party. That said, you will still find plenty of times when your support is not only needed, it's the reason your team survives. I've found that mission teams in the 30 to 40's range specifically benefit the most from my support toons. Anything that can be done with speed for merits will attract the racers but things designed more for XP seem to lean towards traditional trinity style gameplay. That means TF's usually won't need support but radio teams (non PI) will. Fact is, the times your support won't be needed... you'll realize nothing else would be either. If 1 or 2 on the team are clearing every spawn by themselves, then even switching to a DPS toon wouldn't matter as you'd just be constantly running after the ones melting everything anyways. I made a similar thread a few weeks back wondering if another server would be better suited to my slower style of playing but after trying them all I've found this pattern persists across the board. Once you figure out what kind of teams to look for as a support AT, you'll find that plenty not only need support, they live or die based off it.

Ha! The very first time I ran SBB I was currently binging Leverage. Needless to say my reaction was along the lines of 'Wait... I know this!'

My main on live for 8 years was an ENG/ENG Blaster, so I learned to love the KB but... I mostly soloed with him as a result. Since coming back to the game I've found that I enjoy teaming more so, despite my main being the 1st toon I recreated, I haven't played him past level 12 as a result. This thread got me curious though. Can you effectively turn all KB into KD with IO's? Or is the KB effect in Energy so strong that it won't quite work out that way?

My new favorite thing on my Storm/Water defender. Freezing rain + Whirlpool + Geyser on a full group. Splish Splash no more bad guys.

I looked at the wiki but couldn't find the info. What was Maestro's original powers before sonic was added to the game. Way back in issue 4 when I started I wanted the name Maestro as I'd created a character by that name years earlier (I didn't know about the Hulk version) and needless to say when I realized why I couldn't, the AV Maestro became my arch nemesis. I vaguely recall he didn't originally have sonic powers despite his background saying they were but I can't remember what he did have. What other changes happened in game when later powersets were introduced?

I'm still slowly figuring out how to use IO sets. I can look at builds here and mess around with Mids but I've found that I'm still missing something. Last night in game someone on chat mentioned a few procs/IO's that they always get no matter what toon they are building. I've been operating on the understanding that each build was customized so now I'm curious... What IO's do you always make sure to get regardless of AT/powers? When do you normally slot them? The guy in chat was talking specifically about the Performance Shifter chance for endurance proc and since I was struggling with an ever thirsty Claws/Elec Brute build I went ahead and bought one and put it in Stamina. I didn't really notice a difference however, should I have put it in an actual power? What IO's should I memorize and try to get no matter what toon my altoholic self is rolling on?

Here I was thinking this thread was going to be about preserving things like Jerk Hacking, Gone to the Americans, Freeeem and other golden nuggets from our past. I'll just Go. Hunt. Kill Skulls while you all carry on.

A Heroes greatest strength is the ability to adapt to any situation. I've taken some advice from here and it's currently working out rather well. I think the main problem I was having was due to running TF's exclusively. Speed or Kill All, didn't seem to matter, I'd always be paired with billon inf builds that didn't need a team. So I switched to looking for/forming radio mission teams, or story arc teams and it's been like night and day. Now when the 'tricked out' 50 joins they don't tend to run off solo as much, and the vast majority of my team are peers at my level. I'm getting to use all my powers to the fullest and have time to come up with nifty ways to utilize them instead of having them collect dust on my tray. My 2 mains currently are an Illusion/Time controller named Save Point and a Storm/Water Defender named Super Weatherman. I'll keep an eye out for those that offered to roll with me!

Only when there are a few Vet Level 100+ on the team. Ran a Manticore the other day with everyone at mid 30's and we were wishing we'd lowered the difficulty but it turned out to be a blast!

I probably should have mentioned that everything I've been running has been at max difficulty. I think seeing the sea of purple foes melting like butter is what's bothering me the most. Even on my scrappers and blasters I rarely have time to tab and attack before we're moving on. I played on live for 8 years, from issue 4 to shutdown, used to host Mothership raids weekly and was PCSAR patrolling the Hollows way back. I suppose I'll just have to keep trucking and hope to find a tight knit group of like minded players. I might look into the Long Riders as suggested. I mainly play from 8am to noon central time so that could also contribute to it.

I just spent the last hour using search but came up with no answers. All I found was a lot of bitter arguing where I realized this is a very heated issue for some. Let me state up front and clearly, this is not a complaint about the way people play, if you are having fun more power to you! But I'm not having fun recently and I'm simply looking for a potential solution. I don't like feeling like a leech. Teaming recently has been less than fun as a result. I've only been back for a month and half and I'm an altoholic, my highest level is currently 42. I enjoy discovering new combo synergy and concepts and lean towards support more than DPS. I'm on Excelsior and the 1-25 game is great. Past that however I feel like a sidekick continually rushing to keep up when I might as well be door sitting. This week I ran 3 Citadel's, 2 Synapes, 4 Yin's and a handful of Talos/Bricks radio teams and I was 100% superfluous. I made sure none of them were speed runs but 1 or 2 Vet levels on the team and I might as well quit and look elsewhere. I'm racing to keep up with the Vet level 400 Blaster on a Moonfire that is tanking the whole map, by the time I get done casting Lightning Storm the mob is dead and we're moving on. 90% of my powers are useless, I have no chance to try them out to see what works because none of it is needed anyways. I don't think I've even fired off Tornado since I picked it so I still have no idea how to utilize it properly. I tried running with less than 8 after reading that suggestion here. Didn't matter, there always seem to be 1 or 2 toons on the team that can solo Hami and can't wait to show the rest of us we aren't needed. I tried forming teams of 'SO only' within specific level ranges but end up getting a single response in 45 minutes. We duo a few maps and the other person groans and leaves. I've tried forming connections with like minded players I come across, global friending and trying to strike up friendships but inevitably find them engaged and unresponsive on following days or having gained 40 levels in 8 hours and not having any alts to jump to, they bring me along on their shiny new PI radio team but the above pattern still plays out. So I'm left hopping from PUG to PUG hoping I'll get lucky and land on one that lasts a while and doesn't have a 'ringer' that doesn't actually need the rest of us. This produces more frustration than enjoyment however. Again, I'm not bemoaning the vet levels that are enjoying the game. They've earned the right to show off, they've earned the ability to not really need my holds and buffs and to play the game the way they want, but I'm not having fun and I don't want to stop playing if there is an easy solution. I'm hoping one of the lesser populated servers might be my answer, but before I go spending transfer tokens and renaming, I figured I'd come here and explain my problem and see what the community suggests. Would the RP server be a better fit for someone less inclined to get fully pimped out and then start playing? I'm not against RPing in character if that's required. Is a particular server more geared towards casual play? Is there a server with less Vet Levels playing low level content? Point me in the right direction please!

I just came back to the game and ran the 'lords of death' arc in Kings Row. I never realized they added new cutscene arcs to the early levels. I've been trying to find a guide to the newer stuff like this but come up empty. Do you happen to know which contacts I should look for to get the newer stuff with cutscenes that aren't signature story arcs?

So I'm feeling really dense here. I've downloaded the mod but the problem I have is I'm not sure what directory to unzip it to. I don't seem to actually have a CoH directory, I launch the game from the HC launcher. I unzipped the mod into the game directory with the launcher but it's still asking me to point it to the right place. Doing a search for COH or City of Heroes on my C drive comes up empty. Is there a specific folder in the launcher I should put the mod file in or do I need to manually install the game separate from the launcher for this to work?