Ukase

I can say the same thing. The only reason I played after I found out was the box included a code for the first month's fee. After that, it was easy to justify. So many learning lessons about slotting, powersets & tactics. I kind of wish I could go back in time and see it brand new (to me) again. Joined a couple weeks before issue 4 hit. What kills me is a girlfriend of mine had told me about the beta when it came out - and I passed at the opportunity because of grad school. I kind of regret that.

Genius!

I seriously disagree with your statements about "faceplanting most of the time" and "focuses on slowing things down". I have played my ice/ice blaster for thousands of hours -during live, and on HC and other private servers. The "slowing things down" is not a focus for the player. It's just something ice does. The player need not slot any Slow IOs - primarily because the bonuses aren't very good and the dps is so good, it's unnecessary. Once Frigid Protection is six-slotted, along with Bitter Ice blast and Freeze Ray - there's really no looking back. And when you get Blizzard...well, that's just more gravy. Ice Sentinel is a BIG mistake, because the freeze ray isn't a hold. It's low damage and needs work, in my opinion. With Rune of Protection on perma, the ice blaster will have all the status protection a Sentinel would have and do far more damage. Blasters really don't faceplant. Players do. It reminds me of a phone call I got recently: Me: Hello Caller: Hi, may I speak with Miss Gradenko? (name changed) Me: Nobody here by that name. Caller: Oh, I'm sorry, this must be a wrong number. Me: There's nothing wrong with my number. You are the one who is wrong. Snarky - but the point is - there's almost nothing finer than an ice/ice blaster. DPS, Damage mitigation, why it's just about the most perfect combination you can ask for.

As stated earlier, Paragon Wiki is aiming to preserve content as it was before shut down. Additionally, we have to realize there are other private servers that haven't made nearly as many changes. You're more than welcome to adjust THIS wiki: https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Main_Page

If I'm honest, I've done this to a degree myself...but it's generally because the team lead doesn't give any guidance about strategy. If I'm on a character that can solo just about anything, and we're a large team with some folks slow to arrive...unless I hear instruction or guidance/request to the contrary, I'm going to race for the mission objective. It just makes sense to me. XP is prevalent to gain throughout the game, so I never "clear all" or "kill most" unless it's a mission objective, or the team lead (or team) wants to do this and states such ahead of time. My reason behind this is primarily due to having realized the story arc completion bonuses when leveling. Way back when, I had a fire tank that I often solo'd with. I'd compete with a friend who was in a different SG. Me, solo, running X8, her running with her SG on a team of 8. By the half hour, she would probably be half a level ahead, but every time I completed a story arc, I'd get 2-5 bars of xp as a bonus and surpass her. So, that tends to be how I still do things. Post 50, the habit just continued. Every now and then, on a very fun character to play, I'll kill all. Like my Dual Blades/Invuln scrapper, or my Broadsword/Willpower stalker - I'll kill all, simply for the crunch of the blade going through the npcs. Otherwise, It's all about the mission objective. When recruiting, to me, the team lead needs to communicate what playstyle is desired, otherwise, most folks will do what's fun for them.

Many of you make some fine arguments for different changes on different sides of the issue. I'll be very candid. To me, there are several aspects of CoH that are fairly simple to someone who's leveled a character to t-4 incarnate a few times (or more). For a newer, less-experienced player, those aspects aren't as simple. A small learning curve for those folks. I envy them, a bit. It's very easy to say, "If the game is too easy, don't use IOs, or turn off all your inspirations at p2w." (or other suggestions along those lines.) Yet, someone pointed out that there's no true incentive to do this - you still get the same rewards, regardless of how simple/difficult you have things set at. Yet, isn't playing it the way you like it reward enough? For some, maybe, but certainly not for everyone, or we wouldn't be having the debate. CoH was missing for most of us for ...8 years? I forget. A long time. HC had made a lot of changes that I imagine most of us were unaware of to make things a lot easier, as they were accustomed to a much smaller player base than HC now enjoys. Because of these changes, it's much easier for folks to establish solid builds, and the "ease" of the game is more noticeable for more people. I would suggest if you find HC's version too easy, head to another private server and try out the different flavors. I'm NOT suggesting you leave HC altogether, but just try them out, and see if you're suffering from palate fatigue. Maybe another flavor would be better? I don't see any sense in suggesting HC devs spend time changing things in game that already work just fine. I am afraid that with things the way they are now - if HC were to try to put things back in "pandora's box", most of the players would rebel and rage quit. I could certainly be wrong, though. Still, nothing wrong with a discussion about how things could be, I suppose.

It's an interesting question. There's a lot of teaming that goes on - but there is also a lot of soloing. And the OP - is absolutely correct - this game was designed from the start to be team-focused content. Fortunately, the HC team of Devs realized that it wasn't everyone's cup of tea, and it's now City of Options. I think how you're looking for team may be the issue. Simply find the mission you want to do, broadcast in LFG, something like , "Level XX Hollows Mission team forming, PST for invite. Level 5 minimum to get in the hollows." Wait one minute, and re-state the same thing, but add "Last call for" to the beginning. If you get no requests, simply proceed solo, and invite if the tells come later. No sense wasting time. I suggest you recruit using Excelsior first, then Excelsior Badges, then the LFG, in that order. It's just my own curmudgeon perspective - but if you're no good solo, you're no good on a team. So, play solo while you're looking for a team. But, you do you. I'm kind of fussy that way.

From a thematic perspective...power pools never made much sense to me. I never understood why, in the old days, we would have to pick one power before we got to choose the power we actually wanted. I always thought it would have been better to have chosen your method of travel during character creation, with the complementary powers being chosen as you level like normal. HC has fixed that in part, as we can now go right to the travel power if we choose. There are some passionate perspectives about Hasten and the glowing hands, the Super Speed and Combat Jumping combo, perhaps to a lesser degree the limit of only 4 pools. So...the Experimentation Pool...seriously? It is appropriately named, for sure. I haven't compared the speed from Speed of Sound with Super Speed, but I suspect they are identical. The rest of the set: Experimental Injection -- a buff for an ally. Toxic Dart - minor damage, followed by High Toxic DoT. Corrosive Vial - High Toxic DoT AoE, defense debuff Adrenal Booster - +ToHit, Damage, Recharge & "Special" I'm never quite clear what they mean by "special". Doesn't matter, it's a 5 minute base recharge, with a 1 minute duration for Adrenal Booster, yet you have to choose two other powers prior to getting it. So much is interesting about the set, but it just seems that if a little more time was invested, they could have made an entire power set with these choices. The Leaping pool has one power that needs some adjustment, in my mind. Acrobatics. The idea of Hold "resistance" as opposed to protection just rubs me the wrong way. I realize that there is a term "magnitude" which dictates how strong a hold or hold resistance is. What's not overly clear without some diligence is how much resistance is needed per different ATs. Further, with certain unique IOs, the power isn't really a great choice for most ATs. If it had hold protection, similar to Unyielding or Plasma Shield, then it would certainly be worth the choice for most ATs that don't get status protection. There are probably more I could discuss, but I've already written more than most folks want to read.

Yeah, I get that we can just use the SG TP Macro to use the base, along with /altinvite as you suggest. Given the upcoming change where we'll get access to SOs by level 5, it just seemed to me more folks might be willing to do gold content; and possibly form a group to do said content together. But, it was curious to me that there are currently no SG portals, nor registrars in Praetoria - at least, not that I know of. It makes me wonder why the original devs didn't allow for that, and thought perhaps the HC devs might make the change.

Given the lack of population of players in Praetoria, this certainly isn't something that needs attention now - but there really should be a way to form an SG in Praetoria.

Mine get 100M to start - covers the workbench, the teleports, a summon pet, jet pack, and other miscellaneous temps. They all have to earn 1.1 Billion by 50. 1 Billion to hold, and 100 million for the next alt.

For me - the AT I just don't "get" is the dominator. I think, the primary reason is because supposedly, Dominators, like Khelds, are designed to perform better on teams. I recall reading something about them reaching Domination faster when teaming. I solo far more often than I team up, so that may be part of it, but even when I team up: Damage output is minimal. Candidly, this notion that an AT is "support" is pure rubbish in my mind. I want to be the boxer in the ring, not the guy in the corner helping the champ by holding a bucket for him to spit and rinse in. If you can't kill a minion in 3 attacks, you delete it, and maybe try a different powerset or slotting combo. If that doesn't work, you simply never play it again. That said, I've found controllers to be more enjoyable, if slightly more difficult to play well. You have aggro/alpha management, with a secondary to help out your pets or a team, depending on powers/ powersets chosen. They are painfully slow to level up to high 20's, particularly when solo. Obviously, if you team up regularly, with the 2xp buff, leveling is ridiculously easy and fast. Solo - not so much. But, once you get pets, it's a smoother ride. And, honestly, although I've taken the time on some of my preferred characters to write "an origin", my "concepts" are more about self-induced challenges, not thematic power selections. Never cared a bit about that.

At the risk of becoming a pariah - I see absolutely no need to mention anything about "talks with NC Soft". First - we've heard that song and dance for years, with absolutely zero evidence of such occurring. Not that something like that would be easily proven - but talk of NDA's is just silly. The code is released into the wild. It's done, nothing NCSoft can do about it, except maybe legal whack-a-mole to every server that pops up every alternate Thursday. What would be the point, anyway? We all know (or should know) that a company paid fair money to people to develop the code for this game. None of us should be playing it without giving the owners their due, despite our feelings for how they conduct business. And since the legal owners of the code pulled the plug, we're all basically software pirate opportunists. It doesn't matter if HC gets some operating license in the future or not. We'll still be able to play. It would be nice if they did - but discussing these potential happenings with a new player is totally pointless. As for a new player being influenced by 1 out of 10 or 12 people saying "Don't get power set XXXX", that's not a real problem. That's someone taking advice from a player who feels strongly enough to express their dismay after a number of years. It may have, in fact, saved the player asking from making a horrible mistake. (Conversely, the mistake could be listening to this 1 person) Either way - they'll play something else. Perhaps, over time, they'll learn more about the game and realize that some folks aren't happy unless they're complaining about something and roll that blaster that dishes out KB with almost every attack and have the most fun they've ever had playing a character. That said, if you play a Mind/Psionic Assault Dominator, I feel really sorry for you. They are the worst! Weakest character I've ever played. Got one with perma-dom, up to level 47 now, and I just can't bring myself to play it any more. It's horrible. I just don't get why they even made this AT when they're basically controllers that lack buffs. See what I did there?

Every time I see an error in a question answered, I send a tell to the person who initially asked the question with the correct answer. If it's just an incomplete answer and I'm not terribly involved in a tf or something that requires my attention, I'll send them a tell suggesting that if they'd like to know more, simply ask me via tell or in the help channel. By taking it to PMs, the one who made the mistake remains blissfully ignorant - but they're not getting chat-smacked by me in a public channel so no smack talk occurs.

Do you mean, "The Eternal Nemesis"? Or "Nemesis Weather Control". Depending on your character's build, the SSA out of Steel is likely the best bet, simply because you can do it at 50 and have access to the incarnate powers. (you can also reduce the difficulty setting while you're in the first mission and proceed to finish the SSA for 20 fairly quick merits, once you've gotten the badge for clobbering the fakes. )

Oh - another thought! SG Rename tokens for 10 Billion or so. I've often read people looking for the cosmic tp macro - and thought - "Hey, I could make them a functional SG fairly quickly and just give it to them. Load it up with one set of each purple, Some PvP IOs, Each ATO set for each AT...a few loaded salvage racks." But I'm fairly certain that even though folks might be willing to assume ownership of the base, loot it dry and then make their own with their own name...or not make their own and still ask for the tp macro...just makes the idea less than savory for me. But if they could pick their own name, it'd likely be an effort that most folks would appreciate and use.

Candidly, I would love a bank account in game. Instead of E-mails, we stash it in the "bank", accessible by any of our alts (under the same global). Further - all balances would be public information so we can see who's struggling, who's not. And we are free to make deposits to any account anonymously - but no withdrawals by non-account holders. Another fun thought or two: Pre-formed SG bases for 100 Billion inf. Instant ATT, Mission TP and Team TP recharges for 100 Billion each.

This section of the forum lays it out clearly. Several strategies. Some will afk-farm with 2-3 accounts at the same time. Depending on the map, they may check in every 10-15 minutes, start another map, craft, convert, sell the drops. Some will buy a super pack for 10 million in stacks of 10 or 100. Open them, and simply sell all the ATOs for anywhere from 1 inf to 10M, depending on ATO and strategy (and competition in the AH for that ATO listing) I like the pvp IOs. The recipes are selling for...lately, 2-4 million, and at level 10, they cost less than 4k to craft, plus maybe 600k in total salvage to craft. Converters are cheap now, if you lack the merits to get them. Even at 100k per converter, if you use 15 converters per IO, you'd still make bank on the sale at 10m per. If you got a proc - 3% Def Glad, 5% res Shield Wall, Panacea +end/Hitpoints, you'll do even better. When you bid on each recipe, looking for 5 of each at a certain price, and the next day you have over 80 of them to craft, convert and list...you can make billions very quickly. Just depends on how often you want to check in with your marketing character. I made 5 billion this week just checking in a couple times a day.

A few thoughts off the top of my head: I say this having played a blaster more hours than any other AT by far. At least 1000 hours as an ice blaster, maybe 400 hours or so on a fire/fire/Mace blaster. There are a number of ways to care and feed a fire blaster. I get that your focused on recharge and damage - but your build is using powers that in my experience, I don't use very much, if at all, in the higher levels. 5 slots of a purple set in the t-1 secondary, Ring of Fire. Yes, the recharge is nice - but you can better use those 4 slots somewhere else. You may not get the same recharge, but you certainly out going to be dishing out any great damage with that power, even if you could somehow cram 50 slots into it. I've never been clear how to just stash a link to a build, so the below will have to suffice. I would lose hot feet, and pick up vengeance to get another LotG mule in there, and slot up weave with three more Shield Walls, too - but I don't know how you play. I've never used Hot feet or bonfire - so they don't really suit me. But they may suit you well, so I didn't want to take them away from you. I took out the KB proc from BotZ, and put the celerity from sprint into it. You'll get the kb protection from the fire shield (Glad armor 3 slot bonus) Your defense reeks. Even with my build, the defense reeks - that's why I've tried to boost your HP with the 5 pc of glad armor and 3 slot of shield wall. Those chance to heal self from Power Transfer - they aren't unique, so the more of those you have, they can't hurt...much. Slots are precious. Sadly, I've put off my morning rowing to do this and can't spend any more time on it. http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/download.php?uc=1558&c=709&a=1418&f=HEX&dc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

Sheer madness! For me, when I got 'em all, I took a screenshot, then logged off and played something else. And I probably won't play that character again until another badge becomes available.

I have a cold/ice defender; I recall clearly being told to leave the trial and visit the tailor and select minimal fx because I was obscuring their costume. I told them I would never visit a tailor to do such a thing. I loathe seeing the tailor; not sure why. Just seems like a waste of time. Come to think of it - I don't think I've played that defender since! Life is too short to be worried about buffs when most players (that aren't new) are already kitted out and don't need buffs anyway. I will go through all the buffs on lower level teams, though. That's when they're most needed, I believe. That said, on an empath, I won't give clear mind to a scrapper or a tank, or any other AT with armor that protects against holds, immobs, etc. (except for specific enemies that have higher mag stuff, like Hami & the mitos) Now would I give ID to them, except in the aforementioned cases; but those without status protection will get them. And...I'm not chasing anyone down to cast 'em. If you're not near, I assume you're doing fine and don't need 'em.

Just to keep folks in the loop, I gave out 10 Billion in the past week. I will continue to do so, until I'm at a more reasonable 60 billion. I've given some to an SG to bolster PvP efforts, some to global friends who seem to find people in need more often than I do.

The things I have in my base: Insp dispenser and storage. (Farmers make deposits, lowbies make withdrawals - third tier, team and supers only) Empowerment buff station - the tech one with three "prongs?" or three arms seems to have all the buffs the other two have, and allows for the three tiers of salvage to be used, so you really only need the one with the three "arms". Portals & beacons to all zones - to include Praetorian and Villain side, along with hero side - coop zones, as well as the Echo zones. Rez /med bay Trainer, tailor/facemaker, quartermaster Salvage racks Enhancement bins Multiple work benches, depending on the size of your membership base. Pillar of Ice and Flame Power/energy & control as needed If you routinely invite new folks to your SG - you may want to consider labeling things in such a way where it's clear what direction people should go, depending on their purpose there. I have signs pointing towards Portals, Crafting, Training, Tailor, etc. One SG I'm in has what I call the "Ego room", with the TFs, and the times it took to complete them, as well as Character Names and badge counts. (I think we're all at 1531, so it's a bit silly now, but when we were in the 1200s, it made more sense to see a leaderboard. )

There used to be a program called "Blinkie Finder", that I'd love to have. Even with Reveal from p2w, sometimes, finding Dr. Calvin, or whomever can be pretty difficult. Sometimes, this is due to poor rendering on my end...I'd swear some of the NPCs don't appear unless you're fairly close to them. Finding a specific boss in a mission isn't that bad, they tend to use dialog as a hint to where they are, but the npcs we need to rescue don't speak. I use a macro to target them, but even still, sometimes the Dr. Calvin mission takes me a full half hour. It gets to where I clear the map hoping the red triangles will lead me to him. As for beacon labels, I wouldn't mind them, but I label the portals Low, Medium, High Level, Gold, Red, etc, so I pretty much know which portal to use.

Yeah, I knew that..but I hadn't actually thought about it, if that makes any sense. I've used tp foe enough to realize that if you can't keep the NPC targeted, you can't port them.