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Opinions will vary. I would play it how you think it would be the most amusing/entertaining. As you play it, you may find certain tips and tricks that would lead to a more optimal path. Sometimes, an optimal build leads to optimal amusement - but not always.

I will NEVER cut out CJ from a build. I refuse. It's too useful as a set mule, and in the early levels before I can slot it, I feel the difference. I can certainly stomach losing the fight pool on certain characters, like a tank that might not need the extra resist from tough. But my characters require at least some kind of s/l resist from somewhere. Granted, we can have four pools. But, I require superspeed - that's one pool. CJ - that's another. Fight pool, that's 3. And Leadership. Yeah, I can squeeze in maneuvers at least. And I can turn it off if I'm not on a team so my endurance isn't drained into nothingness. But give up CJ? You must be putting some Bailey's in the coffee or something. That's just madness.

I joined a team with the OP yesterday. It was part of Marchand's arc..the 2nd one. It was so funny to me. I zone in, and I know they're in the Brick's bank. So, I proceed down the stairs, and out the door and into the instanced block or two of Bricks and head into the bank. OP: "How did you know to come here when it wasn't on the nav bar?" Me: I've done this once or twice before. I was laughing...and I almost typed out "Did you want me to exit and act like I have no idea where to go?"

While I completely agree with this, bear in mind the OP's aversion to "market shenanigans". Now, I'm not clear what a market shenanigan is or isn't...so I think the advice given isn't awful in that context.

I've a mixed mind about this. I do think leadership is a good set of powers - but what you're wishing for would be making us all do a cookie-cutter build, wouldn't it? Only instead of the solo/farm build, it's the teamed up/tf/trial build. One way of playing isn't any better or worse than another way of playing, is it? It's like donuts and Brussel sprouts. They're both food. They both have calories. One is more nutritious, sure. Eat too much of either one and you're going to have problems. I think the charm of CoH is that I can grab any 7 other players and hop into a mission and we can complete it. Sure, some players may struggle. Some may have it too easy. It all balances out. Yesterday, I ran a team doing one of Sunstorm's arcs. I looked at the powersets, levels, etc of the team and chose to run at +1, knowing that a team of 8 is going to have some +2 and +3s in it. But, it would be challenging for some, and some would have no issues at all. Without lightform, for me it was about right. Annoying dealing with the kb, but manageable. Then a couple folks left, and some folks that were higher level joined, and I upped the diff a notch, and it was really just right. I am not likely to ever run any content at +4/8 except a farm, or content that is that difficulty by default, like Tin Mage or Apex. (and even those, if we're level shifted, they're not really +4) Unless, it's a challenge character or something, but those are usually solo efforts. Nobody else needs to run at that setting either. I don't think we can tell our devs the game is too easy, and then harshly grade them when they move the slider a bit. Additionally, there should be no expectation that a PI radio team is going to run at +4/8, unless they can run at +4/8. It would seem that not everyone will be able to with these changes. It might be frustrating, but it's not going to hurt us. We just change the difficulty downward. Will it slow our inf and xp gain? Most likely. But so what? Annoying for some? Yeah, I get that. But we'll be okay in the long run.

I didn't really want to reveal everything - but for me, the primary reason is the pvp IOs, primarily the big three, but the damage procs as well. They don't sell for as much as they used to, but with the influx of newer players, the demand for them seems to have gone up a little. Grab the recipes for 2-3M, craft for 500-600k, sell for what you think you can get, which lately is anywhere from 6 to 10M, depending on the impatience/generosity/clumsy fingers of the bidder. That said, the steadfast resist, the kb, the achilles heal -res, and quite a few other level 10 ios sell for 3-6M routinely. And they're a lot cheaper to craft, as I already stated.

This is essentially the macro I use to go from Human to dwarf : powexec_toggle_on White Dwarf$$goto_tray 6 So, here's a problem I run into every now and then - the tray will change, but I remain in human form. Here's the macro to go back to human form: powexec_toggle_off White Dwarf$$goto_tray 1 And, every now and then, I'll go back to human form, but the tray remains at tray 6. Anyone have any idea what's going on here? It's not a constant issue, just every so often.

Farming is a decent, but slower way to gain influence. But, it is steady..at least as steady as you are when you play. That said, you can run the largest maps at +4/8, and you get what? 12-15M? It's been so long since I even looked at inf when I farmed, I really don't have a clear memory. Let us suppose it's 50M per 30minutes. I want to say that's giving a very clear over-estimation, but what the heck do I know? The faster way is from turning trash into gold. There are guides by very sharp players who have shared at least some of their tips and tricks in the market forum. Even YouTube (consider watching @Dahles video, even though it's a bit older, I think it's still very relevant. In a nut shell, consider the converter. Never, ever sell a converter. Use it. For the sake of efficiency, here's what I tend to do: First, I reduce the level of what I'm looking for to level 10. Why? Because it's cheaper to craft a level 10 than the higher levels. The salvage to craft this recipe will cost about 500 to 600K, depending on what market forces are at work. Whether it's a pvp recipe or something more mundane like a perplex, you can craft it, and convert it into something that will sell for a lot more than the price you paid for the recipe. But wait - that's if you're JUST a marketer. What if you're a farmer? Only sell the white recipes. Craft the rest as you get the salvage drops to do so. If you don't get the salvage to do so, don't craft it. Eventually, you'll get what you're needing. Once it's crafted, throw it in the AH and look and see how much inf it will get you. Keep in mind the cost of crafting. The "cost of goods sold"...like the salvage that went into the enhancement. You could have just sold the salvage, so how much would you have gotten? Your average uncommon recipe will cost about 600k to craft. Converter costs can vary greatly. If you're a farmer, your converters are free. You get vet levels and emp merits. Use those to convert to reward merits and then to converters. And when you hit, say vet level 48, re-roll your farmer and start over so you always have the merits coming in. So, convert the uncommon by type, as the uncommon will have a rare counterpart. As an example, think of Titanium Coating, a resist set. It's uncommon. You convert a level 50 Tit. Coat, and you will get an Aegis or an Unbreakable Guard, both rares. And they will sell for more inf than the Tit. Coat. When you learn after checking prices what things sell for, your efficiency picks up. And eventually, you're selling every uncommon and rare (and I never sell purples, but you can if you like) and the inf stacks up high. Very high. Once you learn to scale, you'll be rolling in it. Just recognize that if you're going to multi-box, do so on a lower populated shard, and be sure to check the population first!

So, I respect the position you're in. Most of us that didn't have a mysterious (or known) benefactor dropping a chunk of inf on us have gone through the same kind of "growing pains". There are a number of tricks that have nothing to do with "economic shenanigans" that could be of some use. You've already learned the most painful one - turning XP off. So, here's a few more tips and tricks that won't require "economic shenanigans" that could alleviate some of the burden. You mentioned Kings Row...and in the same breath, you mention Praetoria. I don't know what level you are, but since you mentioned kings row, I am going to assume you're over level 20. Consider joining or running a DiB trial. Drowning in Blood is a short trial that offers four individual week long buffs, you get to pick one. Another task I recommend is the Invention Tutorial. With the new changes, I suspect you've gotten this contact: This is a simple, non-combat click fest. But, you get a free invention enhancement out of it. And..this one does not expire like SOs do. I think this is the path to solvency. The problem is these are often more expensive to craft than the SO! But, you only have to buy it once. And, truth be told, as you grow a pile of influence, you'll likely want to buy another higher level one, every 5-10 levels. But that's just for a larger buff. They do not drop to zero like the SOs that turn red after 4 levels. Another option is to participate in the frequent DFBs, as there are 5 SOs given at your level - one for each AV defeated. Tinder, Meinst, The steroid-freak-built Lost boss, and the two giant green hydra heads. They each give an SO, and if you weren't over level 20, you'd get another buff that expires at ...level 22. I can't say these activities will have you rolling in loot, but they can ease the pain of weak or missing enhancements. Another option, in lieu of selling your salvage - use an SG empowerment buff station. There are public SG bases available - not sure what server you're on, but if you check the server specific forums here, you'll likely see the codes required for entry and you can come and go at will and use their buff stations freely - as long as you have the salvage for it. Now, I could mention things like reward merits and how you can visit a merit vendor and exchange those merits for recipes, which is inefficient, or you could exchange them for converters, or boosters and sell those ...but I am afraid those options might seem like "economic shenanigans". The last thing I'll mentions is "Day Jobs" . Certain Day Jobs can provide a small buff on your character. How long the buff lasts depends on how long it was logged off at that day job. It's really counter-productive for leveling, yes, we know. But, we have 1000 slots to make characters. Stands to reason you'd make another one and become more efficient now that you've learned a few tricks. Like running DFB 4 times for a fair number of SOs and buffs that would last until level 22. I wouldn't do this on every character, but it might be worth it until you can scrape a stack of influence together. Lastly, if you would like a pile of influence for free, you only have to ask in the help channel. I promise you someone is going to drop some influence on you. How much is anyone's guess. The more entitled you come across, however, the less you're likely to get.

So, in trying to answer your question, I look at my own hybrid power options on my character while I'm in-game: Melee, Assault, Control and Support. My character is merely 30, which is why things are a bit dim, but you can make out the words. I've never bothered to figure out what in the world "Special" means. Perhaps this healing is part of that. If it is, I suspect there's an issue somewhere, in that it should boost your healing flames by some measure. As for why it's not...no idea. I did log my fire brute onto brainstorm, and easily swapped in the support radial embodiment to see if there was any change. Getting 767 with my assault core hybrid. I took it out and replaced with the support, and still got 767. For kicks and grins, I swapped out my Musculature Alpha for vigor, and did see the numbers increase to 888. But that's an alpha, which is not really a separate power, but like an extra enhancement. So, the mechanics for how things work is very likely going to be different. Curious, I created an emp defender on brainstorm and insta-50'd to see how this would impact a character that has healing as a significant part of their powerset. Healing aura with a full set of doctored wounds without any hybrid slotted healed for 275. And, same result with the support radial slotted. And, on an aside, perhaps we could have our devs change the wording to be more precise about what "special" actually means.

In the market forum, I revealed just about every thing I do as it pertains to the market. Most of those habits have changed, as I don't play as often as I used to. In a nutshell, each character will craft, convert and sell every uncommon and most rare drops, unless they can use them in their planned build. Salvage, when leveling is kept. All of it, because the last thing I want to do is buy salvage. Since I craft each day I play, I never run out of room. It takes about 2-3 minutes to do this, as I rarely have over a dozen recipes to craft/convert. Common IO recipes are weird. They vendor for more than you can sell them for, so it makes sense to me to vendor them. Additionally, it costs more to craft them at level 50 than it costs to buy them crafted on the AH. So, yeah, definitely vendor them. I'll let the badgers subsidize my need for recharge reduction IOs. I certainly did my share of subsidizing with my several badgers. As for SO/DO drops, they all get sold at the vendor. I generally have my next few levels worth of IOs in my tray so I don't have to be "That guy" that's out of a mission for 10 minutes while the team is doing all the fun/work. It would be annoying to see my trays full, although that hasn't happened in quite some time. I think it was a KM ITF, and I had a windfall running. As for "working the market", I don't really "work" it. As I level, I pay attention to how much this and that enhancement are selling for and look at the number of bids vs the number on hand. As an example, a couple of weeks ago, Shield Breakers, aside from the Chance for Lethal Damage in the set - they were all trash. Selling for less than 1M. Now, suddenly, each of the set are selling for 2.5M+. By the time I post this and you read it, it's possible the price has dropped again, but I can be patient. I also monitor the help chat. Occasionally, someone who wants a specific enhancement will complain that the price is too high, (so I'll look) or there aren't any. (So I'll stop what I'm doing and make some right away, and recheck in an hour and make more if my gut tells me more will be needed in the short term. And, because I wouldn't have known if the player didn't say anything, I'll email them the very enhancement they wanted to get, if the AH was indeed out. A finder's fee, if you will, of a need in the market. I also have a character that bids on 10 of each recipe in several different sets for about 25% of the enhancement cost. I take about 5-10 minutes, depending on how many recipes I paid for, and craft and convert them all into enhancements that bring more value. This is where the bulk of my inf comes from. Some days, I make a billion. Some days, sales are slow and I only make 200M or so. Some days, I have competition, and I have no sales at all and end up with hundreds of millions invested in crafted IOs and have to bring an alt on to hold what won't fit in the AH or the 70 slots in the enhancement trays. They do sell eventually, but it can be annoying to deal with the competition. For whatever reason, they only compete every so often, which is fine with me.

That is a pro-tip I haven't thought about since the last time I made a Dominator.

I have a group every Saturday night that meets up, we started Gold side and will move to red side at level 20...probably this weekend. The thing is - there's no compelling reason to do things on redside unless you just want to. You can be vig and go back and forth. Or be rogue and go back and forth. There's no more reason to identify as red or blue. Just be a shade of gray.

Opinions will vary on this with playstyle preferences, anecdotal experiences and other factors. Let us look at a brute and ask ourselves...how much damage can it do when it's dead? In my opinion, each brute, scrapper, blaster, sentinel, corruptor, ..heck, every AT! should have a balance between dps and survivability. A lot of the more experienced (rich in-game currency) tend to use a lot of the same sets and procs in every character. One guy I know, Stitch, who left HC for another server, is a great player. The dude would speed run MoTFs. "The faster we go, the less time there is to die". I would ask him for build advice, and over the discord, he'd send his build, as he had just about every combo the game could offer up. In these builds, they all had a full set of artillery. a combination of either 5 sets of purples or ATOs, depending on how good the set bonuses were on the ATOs, a full set of reactive defenses, full set of preventative medicine (if the character had some kind of heal) and what I consider the usual procs - miracle +recovery, Numina +regen/recovery, Panacea +HP/End, glad armor 3%, steadfast prot. 3%, shield wall 5%, Kismet 6%, and in some cases a winter set or two. And, one power would probably be proc'ed to the gills for as much damage as he could squeeze out of it. All of them had fold space once that became a thing. I'd look at his defense and resist numbers and they'd be a lot lower than mine. See, I solo fairly often, so my numbers need to be different than someone who pretty much only teams. I can't rely on Fort or Speed Boost. My character needs to be self-sufficient. Stitch's dps was always higher, for sure. He could afford to neglect slotting for defense a little because he had teammates who'd buff that up. So, that's my long-winded answer to your question. Someone has undoubtedly given you a more useful answer in one sentence by now.

So, first question...you can try, but sometimes the game sorts them out differently. You have to go into the file (just a text file) that organizes them and move them yourself in certain case. And sometimes, they stick where you put them. It's a crazy game like that. One thing you might do, since you have this badge focus - sort them by badge count. Second question: I can't speak for you, obviously, at least not with any credibility. I can only tell you why I have duplicate characters. First reason is because they were fun to level up, and I wanted to try for something new. In the case of a ice/ice blaster, I wanted to try to prioritize slows, rather than DPS. And candidly, I can barely tell the difference, except in the teen levels when certain mobs are more susceptible to slows for reasons that escape me. Another reason I have a duplicate character is I simply forgot I had it. 1000 character slots, 10 per page...that's a lot of pages to sift through to see if an at/powerset combo is already there. And in one case is when I tricked myself into thinking I was some kind of speeder. I made a blaster with specific powers for a specific task force. As much DPS as I could swing, and not a care or concern about defense or resistance because that would come from team & destiny buffs. And a few situational powers that ordinarily, I'm not in a situation often enough to justify it's selection. I'm sure others might even have more reasons. As for why you did...I can't judge you; I've made the same mistakes more than once.

So, this is just a suggestion for those that may not be that experienced with Mids. Turn off Vengeance. On my own build, I was killing myself (and the Mids Reborn Discord) trying to figure out why my numbers on Brainstorm and Mids didn't match. I have no idea why, but Vengeance was lit up, creating the illusion of having a lot more defense than the build provides. It's the same way for this Foxhound build (I prefer ranged). It's always interesting to me to see how others mix and match the variety of options in a build. Thank you for sharing yours.

For the first time in a very long time, or maybe ever, I'm playing a PB, and doing the missions from Sunstorm, the PB contact in Atlas. Figuring I'm not the only one who has never done this content (that I recall, certainly not in HC) others may want to join in. Imagine my surprise when a level 11 is told to go to Faultline for a mission. In this day and age of Team Teleport, it wasn't that big of a deal, but when a teammate asked me how to get there, it got me to thinking about the location. I know back in the day, this was a fairly normal thing, heroes hovering over the zone, way up high to avoid getting smacked to death en route to the mission. But that was in The Hollows. And maybe this request is out of line, and should definitely be on the back burner, but it seems to me level 11 characters shouldn't asked to go to a mission in a zone typically reserved for levels 15 to 25. It could be that Sunstorm's content is arranged by level range, and I just happened to catch it earlier than later. I'm really not sure. Anyway, that's my suggestion, that missions given by a contact be in the same zone as that contact, unless there's some reason within the story/lore that it should be somewhere else.

While I have noticed the abyss is missing for some of my characters, it's not missing for all of them. I think the game may consider the Abyss a red-side zone. My rogues can see it in the /search list, but my vigilantes cannot.

Market Analysis: Some item prices go up. Some item prices go down. Some stay the same. Ultimately, the price of any item will rise or fall to where market forces deem they should be. Let us suppose we have two sinister people trying to manipulate the market. Perhaps it would be helpful to think of Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche (from the now old movie "Trading Places", starring Eddie Murphy - the character names were Mortimer and Randolph Duke. They placed a bet over whether they could essentially have Ackroyd and Murphy trade lives - for a whopping 1 dollar, at that. Mortimer chooses to buy ALL the defensive recipes, and ALL the defensive IOs from the market. Even the ones that were listed by very greedy players who may no longer play the game. You know the type - the rascals that placed a bunch of them at 10M, when the going price was about 8M. Old Mortimer cleans all of them out. So, what happens is, Randolph notices this and because he has a training origin enhancement bet on the line with Mortimer, he decides to buy as many of the cheaper non-defensive recipes and IOs he can, and proceeds to craft and convert them ALL into LotG 7.5% (and a few of the rest of them - never know when someone is chasing the other set bonuses) So, despite Mortimer's attempt to drive the price up, Randolph is trying to drive it down - just to win that training enhancement from Mortimer. Mortimer is so crazy. He's been keeping that TO in his pocket since he was level 3 and got a lucky shot in against a Hellion boss back when HC first opened - the very first day! Randolph doesn't need it, of course, but winning it from Mortimer will give him something to boast about for the next several holidays. If the price of LotG 7.5% should be more, the market forces will make that happen. Now, it could be that someone like Yomo may deem themselves a market force. Properly motivated in one direction or another, we would feel that force - for a moment. But not forever. There's too much influence being earned each day to allow any one or few players to control the price of anything like an invention enhancement for long. It may go up. It may go down. It may stay the same.

Ouro doesn't give +rech. Per the HC Wiki, Ourobouros gives a recipe bonus for mission completion. I believe you're thinking of the PvP day job.

If you see Shadeknight's reply to you - in fairness, I did send him quite a bit. I left his name off, not to call him out, or report him. Merely to show why I felt like I was walking on egg shells. When something I say that's meant to be fairly innocuous is so poorly received by so many, common sense says I should look in the mirror. And I did. I never intended for my initial comment to hurt anyone's feelings, only to illustrate the way things seemed to me. And reporting people is appropriate in certain circumstances. I didn't feel this was one of those circumstances.

This is easier to say than to type, but I'll do my best and I can clarify tonight during the crawl. A few months back, in what I would call a fairly heated debate about some of the proposed changes in page 5, I basically said "Y'all are like a gal who, just as soon as she finds a man she loves, she wants to take him in for alterations". No lie - that's not an original thought of mine - it was a line I had to memorize in high school for the play, "Guys and Dolls". So, the setting is from a time when sayings like these are common place - along with words like humdinger and doozy - which are character names of mine, I might add. Apparently, some of our more immature crowd took offense to that comment. And when I say immature, it's kind of a dig, but I really mean the younger folks. This is just an example of one DM I got. I'll omit the name, because that's probably against the rules. **************************** This is a quote, by the way: ***************************** And then I got the privilege of hearing from the mighty exalted Veracor! And in that, he shared that he "always had a low opinion of me" and I'm not welcome in any content led by him. So, screw him and others like him. I will say things the way I wish. And I will apologize if I feel I'm in the wrong, but in that specific context, I wasn't wrong. And if folks got upset, that's not my problem. That wasn't my intention, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. And it's worth pointing out that no GM said anything to me at all about it, because anyone with common sense knows that while the comparison is dated, the meaning of the full comment was and is accurate and absolutely on point from where I sit. And I think that's what really pissed them off. That I dared to show them that they really don't like this game as much as they claim to. If they did, they wouldn't be trying to change it so damned much. And now - here we are...player log in activity is lower than it's ever been. So much so, that a lot of folks want the servers to merge. Torchbearer, Indomitable, Reunion - they might as well be a version of Rebirth or Thunderspy, given the population numbers. I even see some of the roleplayers of Everlasting switching to Excelsior because they're having a rough time finding a team over there, too. That's not to say everything is gloom and doom. The HC devs are doing quality work, even if I don't always like the direction they take things. Over time, the folks that stopped playing here, odds are - they'll return for a spell, probably after each patch. But then they'll go away again. And, to their credit - I raised a big fuss over the vet rewards not working in AE, and they changed that. So, I can never say they don't listen. Clearly, they do. We cannot go back in time. And reverting things back to the way they were, even if the HC devs were convinced it was the right thing to do would probably do more harm than good. I would just encourage them to measure twice and cut once. There's no need to install all the changes immediately or as soon as possible. Leave things on brainstorm for a few months. Give your busy casual players time to not only try what's there, but to actually think about how the change will impact them, and others they know. Limit the changes each patch. If HC ever gets any kind of licensing agreement from NCSuck, (I am not holding my breath), then they can open the floodgates of change. Until then, be very cautious. Because while the changes were implemented successfully, you can look at the increase in Thunderspy and Rebirth, and even Purrgatory and see that is where many of the players from here went. I have said to the Cosmic Council SG leader once - keep treating this SG like it's yours and soon you'll be the only one in it. So, I'll adapt that to this context: Keep treating this game like it's yours, and soon you'll be the only ones playing it.

So, my advice would be to go to Ouro. Start wherever you like - the top or the bottom. And do them all. Then, and I know it sounds crazy - change your alignment the old school way. Using Null ...and trust me, I'm super grateful we have the option - but there are a lot of missions in those tips that were new to me. For someone like me who likes to zip through, they don't always make it easy. And you'll likely get tired of seeing Blast Furnace before it's over, but it is different content than what most of us have become used to. And after you've gone from Hero to villain (or vice-versa), go back to Ouro and do it again.

My thoughts are a bit jumbled. I have played here, of course. I played on Rebirth during the summer of 2021. I still play here, but only once a week to lead a small group, during which we seem to do our best to see if we can get the others to groan out loud due to the pain of bad puns and other off-the-wall commentary. When I load up Thunderspy - this is what I see: I do not get that impression here. I get the impression that I have to walk on eggshells here. Thankfully, I love the crunching sound under my feet. To HC's credit, they recognized that running the same content over and over for incarnate loot can get stale. Enter in the vet level rewards. Maybe they're too much. Or maybe they're just enough. Opinions will vary. They don't have that option on Tspy. In fact - there is no farming in AE on Thunderspy. Thunderspy has a much lower population. But so far, the only thing I haven't been able to do is a magisterium. We're still waiting on some Task Force Junkies to get something in lore & destiny.

I should have been more precise in my wording. I've never truly "missed" 7x in a row. It would be like 2 misses, and 5 "deflected".