Ukase

The reason you struggle to fill teams is, just my own anecdotal experience, teaming with you is less fun than teaming with others. The bringing in of a new server is a good thing. More shards means more options for names that may not be available on the more populated ones.

I find myself envious of the enthusiasm so elevated one makes a spreadsheet to track each character/powerset combo. I've tracked the loot and stuff on a spreadsheet, but never the powersets. I should probably do that, and it would prevent me from discovering I have 3 ice/cold corruptors, and 4 fire/fire blasters.

So, I read this in context, and in context, I'm not sure I agree. Depends on "utility" I suppose. For both end/hp, sure, use the Numina before the Miracle. But if it's specifically stamina a player is concerned about, I would use the Miracle before the Numina. Maybe something has changed? I remember reading about 18 months ago, maybe, a player mentioned they had forgotten to reslot their numina after a respec. And then noticed that if they played for several hours and never realized it, maybe it wasn't doing as much as they'd thought. (paraphrasing) I wish I could cite the post, as I read it in the HC forums. And another player did some testing and verified as far as Stamina goes, the numina comes last in order of benefit. But, I've not been paying full attention as of late, and things may have changed.

I'm frugal, but even I can agree with this one.

I am in the minority, but I fail to grasp why anyone would want to spend hard earned cash to travel to see people that play a game they play online. What's the draw? Where's the value in that? Curiosity as to how much Cheeto dust is on our fingers? The dulcet tones of a kitten avatar? Now, in certain cases, I know there are groups of folks who formed an SG back in retail, and teamed up for the most part exclusively and would chat over Ventrillo or another voice chat service. Or in today's case, Discord. Hearing folks communicate over voice can certainly allow you to feel like you know someone a little better than the chat in game. In those cases, I can see the value. But, other than that? A very easy "have fun, I'll save my funds for something else".

I have had strange experiences leading tfs. Not all the time. But, here's an example. Positron caps at 15. So, I always wait until I'm level 15 before I lead it. And invariably, there will be a player who's higher than level 15 that thinks I should hand the star off so they can have more of their powers. I explain to them it wouldn't make any difference, as we're going to be exemplared to the cap of the tf - level 15. They'll get powers up to their level 20. Having a level 50 lead it would make no difference. The TF is still going to cap at 15. I explain this to them and they think I'm wrong. Thankfully, they just leave the team because they didn't want to team with an idiot. It makes me chuckle. This happens maybe...once every 5 or 6 characters I put through a positron tf. It never seems to happen with any of the other TFs, though. Weird.

Typically, my order of operations is: T-3 alpha. Sometimes I use threads, but usually shards and the notw. Depends on if there are some itrials I want to do instantly. Once I get t-3 alpha, I will typically bring 2 alts with the primary character through the Dark Astoria incarnate arcs and collaboratively complete all but the final, then do the final mission 3 times for 3 reward tables for each arc. I'll use what threads/emp merits I get to craft first: Lore, then Destiny. The reason is for the level shifts. One, it makes the DA arcs faster to zip through, and 2, the level shifts help get you into some of the higher level iTrials. Most of the time, other folks are spamming judgement before I do, generally making it useless anyway, and interface...I know it works...but I don't really miss it if it's not slotted. And lores are very useful for various trials and such. Once I get all t-3, then I check on the shard collection for the alpha, and by the time I get t-3 in all, I have enough shards to make the t-4, but I tend to have to wait an additional week to get another notw to craft the t-4. Then I t-4 the others in close to the same order: Lore, Destiny, Hybrid, Judgement, interface.

I don't know if I shared this one yet, and I'm too lazy to sift through the previous pages to find out. Last November, I made "Naughty Zoot". I am amused every time I log in and see the character name.

I have a clear memory of making a broadsword/invuln scrapper on retail. And then I made a katana/invuln. Things have probably changed a bit for them since, but then they were pretty much the same animations, just slightly different damage and end usage. Other than that, to me, it was the same powerset with different names. The old devs were clearly lazy and in a rush to get new stuff out. I look at thermal and immediately, radiation comes to mind. There's a lot of overlap between various powersets, but katana and broadsword are just too similar for me to consider them different sets. They're the same thing. At least they were. I made them when HC first popped up, but have since deleted them because I wasn't playing them. Changes to each like the changes to battle axe would be welcome.

I gotta say, it is not offensive in the least to me. If this kind of thing offends you, things like driving in traffic must cause you to seek medication to handle the stress. I am just stunned that you took offense to a harmless joke. Maybe you're just having a rough day? It certainly happens to me often enough.

I just use the page down and find a way to click the entrance. Perspective changes the angle, usually. And if you get closer to the door, you can usually push the pets out of the way.

Finally, my "search-fu" was strong enough to find this, rather than post my own suggestion. Example: I'm on a level 13 defender at the moment. I was in Skyway grabbing explores, and I see the Troll Rave going on. I thought, those supa trolls are good xp. I'll go clobber some of those. I ran into a couple, 600XP with the 2xp buff going. Nice! I get to the point on the map, and there's a level 50 dominator laying waste to the bunch. I can't complain, as it's nothing I haven't done myself for various badges. Yet, if I join their team, I'd get badges, fine. But no xp, which is what I'm there for. And..candidly, I would feel stupid asking a level 50 to exemp down to my level, as he's clearly there for the badges, not the xp. Two opposing interests. They don't need to be in opposition, but in this context, they are. For events like these, they should be level-less, and scaled to whatever level the player is. This way, I could be SK'd, and get the xp I want. And, the other player would probably welcome the help as it would be a little more difficult than laying waste to grey mobs. The badger in me hates the idea, because I want to knock these out quickly. But the lowbies I play want to grab the XP. So, there's the rub. I think making them level-less is probably more in line with the spirit of the game.

So, Chaos Spiel is easily awarded - you don't even have to defeat anything. You simply select the Nemesis option. Now, I wasn't paying too much attention. I was solo, and while I'd read it would be spicy, it was actually the first option I selected. (don't ask me why, lol) I met with death almost instantly. But I still got the badge. The timer was still running, so I just switched alignments and ran it as vigilante a couple of times and a rogue a few times to get the rest of the badges. It was indeed chaotic. An aptly named badge.

Some folks do. They are in the Jack Emmert camp of "The only reason to play an MMO is to team". I am not in that camp. I would be if I found enough folks that were aligned with how I generally like to do things - and even more critically, when I'd like to do them. But, even then, particularly during the day, I can go afk with little to no advance notice. Generally fine when solo, but when teamed, that's just not fair to the team.

While what you say is true, I'm pretty sure a lot of farmers have a fair number of alts. After all, I think that's why at least half the folks with a farmer made the farmer in the first place - to fund the alts. So, at least from what I've read in various chats and Discord, one aspect of discontent is those folks who are farming could be doing a Synapse with the player who can't fill their team. I certainly can't speak for anyone, but that's some of what I get from various posts.

The truth is, you'll get a number of answers. And in some cases, they're all correct. And they're all wrong. Ultimately, it depends on how you've slotted your powers. DPS relies on not just recharge and damage output, but also survivability, and accuracy. There are some petless MMs that will outdps that one fire blaster that is played by an 80 year old. Or an 8 year old. It all depends. As a rule, it's hard to argue against ice or fire blast. The numbers suggest fire does more damage...but ice has freeze ray which improves survivability by a fair margin.

There usually two missions I auto-complete. The first Infernal mission given by Maria Jenkins, as there's a later mission in her arc where we have to defeat Infernal, so there's no reason to do the first one, unless you just like clobbering demons. The 2nd one is the defeat all in Black Scorpion's patron mission. But the rest of them, I generally do. I might, every now and then auto-complete some stupid hunt mission, because they just shouldn't even exist in game, in my opinion. Hate 'em. I'll do them for the merits, but I certainly don't do the story arcs because of them. I do the arcs in spite of them.

I have a clear memory on retail of various controllers and defenders getting a little upset because fire tanks didn't need their help to clear a map. Mind you, they had a use if you wanted to clear the map faster. But a lot of farmers just didn't want to share the XP with them, as they were trying to PL another player with a "bridge". So, as fire farming became more prevalent, there was a lot of discontent because a number of the squishy classes weren't getting teams like they had before. And while in today's version of CoH, people get more irritated about a new player getting to 50 and not understanding the basics, there's still a number of folks who are irritated that the folks farming aren't playing with the rest of the community in general.

This was also my first 50, an emp/elec defender. I was lousy at it. Took me 540 hours to get to 50. Empathy now, compared to Natural and Kin...well, even though Adrenaline Boost is my favorite buff, Empathy just doesn't really serve a purpose in any content I do, except perhaps if I'm farming a damage taken badge. I might have an alt use heal other while a character sits in some lava. But I haven't gone that crazy with badges in a few years. There's probably an even slicker way to do that now. It can be fun to take an emp into a dfb to help out some lowbies, but to actually play one to 50? I wouldn't see the utility. Not saying it doesn't have utility, only that I don't see it. Which is just as well. You folks do not want me playing an empath. I'm just too obtuse to get you healed in a timely fashion.

I think about Green Arrow. While some of his arrows may use various tech gizmos, he's still just a man. Certainly not as techy as Batman. But both have labored in the gym, and I'm not sure they're not using anabolic steroids on some kind of cycle, but I guess then they wouldn't really be natural. Still, if I'm thinking "Natural" origin, Green Arrow is the guy that comes to mind. Or Hawkeye if you're a Marvel fan.

Nicely done. Clever, even.

I'm of a mixed mind on this. On the one hand, the grind to a trillion inf was interesting. It kept me engaged with the game. (I no longer have that much, as I've given away billions upon billions) That said, when I would do certain challenge characters that start with zero, I do recall the sting of not having the inf to get the enhancements I wanted. And I know at least most of the tricks in getting things about as efficiently and cheaply as you can get them. I can't imagine what it would be like to be as ignorant as I was when I first started. But then, I was so ignorant when I was new, I'm sure I didn't consider the learning curve, because all was had was TO, DO and SO, (and HOs). I think for now, let the struggle continue. But I am a bit biased, as I enjoyed that struggle.

So, no path is going to be super fast solo. But, hear me out. Imagine this: you have more than one account. Most folks have two. Or maybe that's just the folks I hang with. Further, imagine you have three. Let's say you and a friend have 3 each. Or, alternatively, you have a 3rd friend. No matter. You said solo, so assume it's just you and an alt account. Premise: each account has Heather Townsend unlocked, and you are doing this through Dark Astoria, NOT Ouroboros. This doesn't work as efficiently through Ouro. Menu-options- General Tab. In the very first section at the top, for the first 3 missions of Heather Townsend's arc, have this set to Enabled. Before you start the last mission (and for all I know you can change this before you complete the mission - I just always change it before I enter) Change that same setting to Disabled. Now, you'll select the first characters final mission from Heather Townsend. The 2nd character doesn't even talk to Heather for the final mission until after this first finale is over. So, after this first finale is done - both alts get the free emp merit, and the reward table. Then, you have the alt speak with Heather, get the next finale, and when you're done with that, each alt gets a reward table. So, yes - you did have to do the finale twice. But the first three missions, because of collaborative completion, you don't have to. Another lazy, but not entirely efficient way is to simply farm a trash character to vet level XX. Collect the emps from that, visit a merit vendor, and convert the emp merits to a transcendent, and email to your global. The character that needs the threads and the components can get the email, break down the transcendent at the merit vendor into emps, and craft away. Or, you can always just Vet PL the character in question up to vet level XX, and if you have any emps after the vet levels, use those. (assuming you're not vet level 75 or so already) For me, what I used to do was get 3 characters to 50, and not only do Heather Townsends arc, but all of the arcs, collaboratively completing all but the final missions. Beats waiting for a trial to fill up.

Yes, and no. While not exactly what you're looking for, there are some AE maps where you rescue an NPC. The NPC moves slowly towards the front of the map. The map is the same as the one you fight Atta in; so it's quite large. Not infinite, but large. You can go afk reasonably safe if you have a the proper build for it, but you will need a proper build. So, sure, you can literally take a call while your farmer burns stuff, following the npc to the front of the map. You will need to tab back in and make sure it's not stuck on some geometry. Try searching for Bloodom. You should see 3 options. You want the longest one. I think it says 45 minutes or so. And that's about right, too.

On the lighter side, or perhaps the regrettable side, you just reminded me of an invuln/stone tank I made back in retail days called....wait for it... Tat. The name had 2 purposes. I knew as someone who led teams that if you had some polysyllabic name that was a pain to type out, I probably wasn't going to bother with any /t action. So, I always leaned towards trying to keep the names fairly short. And, of course, in the character bio, Tat was not someone who had tattoos, or wore tattered clothing. He just had a yen for Colostrum. And you know the saying, tit for tat. It seemed funny to me at the time. Of course, in this day and age, I'd never resort to such naming conventions lest I get generic'd.