Astralock

Stone Armor is another great option, and what I'd personally go for, but again that's preference. Bio, Energy Aura, Shield, and Stone Armor are all great.

I hoped that some of my friends would return at least for a bit to check out the Dr. Aeon SF hard mode, but not a single one did. It was just too late. They've already moved on to raiding in World of WarCraft, Guild Wars 2, and other games. They've tried to get me to join them, but I dislike the fantasy genre.

Especially when that "convenience" was a legitimate exploit never intended for players to use, and let people go anywhere in the game... including other people's missions and trials.

If it's worked for years now, Homecoming wouldn't be bleeding population and currently have about one fourth the population it had two years ago. The vast majority of my friends stopped playing two or more years ago. The main complaint? A variation of, "The game is too easy now. Everything is just handed to you. No one needs to run Incarnate trials." No, no, I would never argue to go back to Issue 5. It's too late to make any changes to veteran levels, unfortunately. The genie has long been out of the bottle. But I do recognize what we have now as inherently broken, and something that should not have happened.

The "here and now" method is inherently broken. Emyprean merits should never have been added to veteran levels, even developers now admit that. It was done for the SCoRE server during the "secret years" as it had a far lower population than Homecoming has (even now), where getting enough people together for Incarnate trials was very unlikely if not impossible. Many of Homecoming's problems originated from the Homecoming staff's decision to take what the SCoRE "secret" server had, and rush it into production as Homecoming. What SCoRE had works for a tiny population. It does not work for a server with the population of Homecoming.

Incarnate abilities were first introduced in Issue 19, back in October 2010. The only way you could obtain them was from Emyprean merits, Incarnate threads, and Incarnate salvage from... Incarnate trials and Apemage. A solo-friendly method was added in Issue 22 with the introduction of the Dark Astoria revamp back in March 2012, a year and a half later. For a year and a half, the only ways you could possibly gain Incarnate abilities were by running Incarnate trials and Apemage. Paragon Studios relented and added a solo-friendly option a year and a half later to try to appease solo or mostly solo players, but it was time gated and you could not acquire Incarnate abilities anywhere near as quickly as you could by running Incarnate trials. So, no, it's not an assumption on my part. It's how Incarnates were originally designed.

If you play strictly solo, you don’t need Empyrean merits nor Incarnate threads as you don’t need Incarnate abilities. Incarnate abilities are for Incarnate content, namely Incarnate trials. Everything else can be played just fine without Incarnate abilities. Honestly, one of the biggest mistakes Paragon Studios made in the end was to let Incarnate abilities other than Alpha work in non-Incarnate content. I understand that they were actually against it but were pressured to allow it by NC corporate, but still.

The debuffs from Howling Twilight (including -regen), only last 30 seconds, not 90. See CoD here. Thus, you cannot get the -regen from Howling Twilight perma-able, and will always have a downtime due to Howling Twilight's base recharge time of three minutes. Radiation Emission's Lingering Radiation's -regen debuff also only lasts 30 seconds, but the power has a much lower base recharge time of 90 seconds, and can easily be made perma-able with enough recharge. That's why Radiation Emission is superior for AV/GM fighting compared to Dark Miasma/Darkness Affinity.

Radiation Emission is a better GM soloer than Dark because of its permanent-500% regen, and it’s -to-hit debuff can be just as good or better than Dark Miasma’s. A lot of support sets can get -regen, but only last thirty seconds. In the down time, you will either need to rely on Longbow Lore pets or plink away with envenomed daggers. Also, if one of your goals is to solo GMs, then I would advise against a melee AT. There are a couple of power sets that can do it, but it’s slow in comparison.

Illusion Controllers are great at it, but I wouldn’t recommend soloing on one from level 1 up. It’s a very bumpy ride until you have decent recharge in Phantom Army. A Corruptor, especially Radiation Emmission Corruptor, will be a much smoother ride from the beginning and be just as effective in the end.

Radiation Emmission Corruptor is your best bet. Depending on your primary, you can solo most TFs, SFs, and GMs with ease. I recommend a primary with good single target damage. Fire Blast, Ice Blast, Beam Rifle. Perhaps even Dark Blast, as its -to-hit debuff and additional self-heal would help with survival.

I have no idea where some people got this notion that voice chat is required for absolutely anything in City of Heroes. Perhaps PvP. Certainly nothing PvE. I've done numerous successful Triple Threats, Really Hard Ways, and Relentless ASF Vanguard Heroes fights without ever using voice chat of any kind.

It isn't. It's been stated by a developer elsewhere that it can be fixed, but it would require reverting the badge progress for everyone who doesn't already have the badge back to zero.

No, it’s a tacit admission that the general gameplay isn’t as rewarding. It’s been shown time and time again in numerous video games that people will do tedious, boring things as long as the rewards are exponentially greater than elsewhere. I.e., fun isn’t the determining factor for most players. Rewards is.

You actually have to play the game to get said mission. There’s more inherent risk involved as the mission could be accidentally completed, especially if you invite Joe Schmoe along. Greater exposure to the game world outside of Atlas Park and Pocket D for those invited along. There’s also more risk in that the mobs are not crafted by players.

Some things are noticeably slower on Excelsior compared to other shards, especially in crowded zones. *Side eyes Atlas Park and the Rikti War Zone.* I suspect that is what you are seeing. Like Flea suggested, do test runs between Brainstorm, Excelsior, and Torchbearer or Indomitable and time them.

Agreed. There should be a two year policy on level 50 characters. If you haven't logged on in two years, odds are that you are not coming back.

Radiation Emission is not very good on Masterminds as the +recharge in Accelerate Metabolism is wasted on henchmen. Much like Kinetics and Speed Boost.

Booper already posted that there will be at least one release candidate build. My best guess is two weeks from tomorrow for release.

I hear you. Regeneration, recovery, to-hit, recharge, defense, and resistance are all just there to know if I've been debuffed or not. I've thought about adding others, but it's too much as is IMO. I hate screen clutter.

INF Regeneration Rate Recovery Rate To-Hit Bonus Damage Bonus Recharge Time Bonus A type of defense, depending on the character A type of resistance, depending on the character

That's the way it should have been. The only reason it is the way it is now is because Homecoming took what SCoRE had (which was set up for a tiny population, a fraction of Homecoming's), and ran with it. Unfortunately, it's too late to put that genie back in the bottle.

Deleting the file can sometimes bring back “missing” characters by removing any funky character order arrangement you made. On an off chance, are you sure that you are using the right account?

Now, now. I don’t want Mission Architect removed. I just want INF in AE missions reduced to 50% to match the current XP reduction, go back to tickets only, and prevent XP boosters from working while inside an AE mission. Then it would be perfect.