Lunar Ronin

TheSpiritFox, I understand your frustration. I was told a couple of years ago that, and I quote, "Masterminds can't do hard modes.". Not "can't do as quickly.". Not "can't do as efficiently.". Just "can't do.". They didn't know what they were talking about, and I proved them wrong. A lot of people don't understand the Mastermind AT nor how it's played. I do. You do. Prove them wrong like I did and try leading one of your own. You may get some pushback from people who have been conditioned to think that only about five ATs and fourteen power sets can do advanced modes, but just ignore them. If enough know you and know that you know what you're talking about, you will be good. With or without a "changeling" build?

Good thing that you don't need VOIP for 4*, let alone anything else in the game.

I, for one, welcome the new Storm Summoning meta. (Note: There is no Storm Summoning meta.)

I hear you OP. However, the powers developers have stated that disabling Group Fly and Team Teleport by default isn't an option, as they would stop working on pets and henchmen which is what most people who take those powers use them for. In the meantime, I point people to Null the Gull in Pocket D. If they keep complaining, I ignore them and keep it on. It helps that I lead the teams. If they leave the team over it, so be it.

You would have to run the story arcs via Ouroboros Flashback, which partly negates the reason for starting a character gold side in the first place. The first three zones of gold side just weren't meant for teaming. It's too story-oriented, and the morality missions are single-player on top of that.

One of the main reasons why SO enhancements are available at level two now is because gold side characters don't have access to the Death from Below trial and the equivalent SO enhancement bonuses from it. Adding DFB to gold side would negate that. In addition, as pointed out, gold side is much more of a solo player story-driven side. If you want to do DFB, just play blue or red side.

He's fine. Just be careful with a Symphony Controller named Tiny Tim.

I will have to agree to disagree there, especially in regards to Time.

No problem. Yeah, I've been asking for some kind of TF/SF/Trial tutorial to be added to the game, because a lot of new and returning players simply don't understand what they are nor how they work. Homecoming removing the signature part of the Positron TFs didn't help any, as it gives new players a bad idea of what the remaining signature TFs/SFs are like.

It means that mobs will be a minimum level of level 20 if ran at +0, up to level 24 if ran at +4 (why you would even want to do run Synapse at +4 is something you'd have to discuss with a therapist), but anyone from level 15 on up can join. So, if you form a Synapse TF at level 20, a level 15 Blaster named Joe can join, and be lackeyed up to level 19.

Honestly, I'd say Electrical Affinity is equal to Nature, only outdone by Cold and Kin. I am always extremely grateful to encounter one on a team. It just gets a bad rap because it's best played on Masterminds, IMO.

It's not a bug. Most Task Forces and Strike Forces are signature, meaning that the mobs will always spawn at a minimum level of whatever the highest level of the TF/SF is. The Positron TFs are a rare exception. If you plan to lead a TF or SF, your character should be at least the level of the highest level of the TF/SF, unless you want the increased difficulty.

It's a perfect support set for Mastermind play, IMO.

As well as Fort Trident and The Crucible.

In case anyone missed it, Homecoming provided stats of how many characters have been made on each shard, as well as how many characters of each AT have been played in the past three months. You can find it here. No real surprises here, personally. Hooray for Mastermind, the fourth most played AT.

Staff Fighting is best on Stalkers as you get more single-target damage. I would pair it with Stone Armor, personally. It's a very good combination. Katana is good on Brutes, and the extra +defense is nice for slotting options. For secondary, I would personally go with Bio Armor or Electric Armor, but your mileage may vary. Dual Blades is best on Stalkers like Staff, but doesn't suffer as much as Staff on other ATs, so Scrapper. Dual Blades really likes as much +recharge as humanly possible, so Energy Aura would go well with it.

Resistance-based armor sets like Electric Armor are generally better on Brutes and Tankers because of their higher resistance cap (90%), compared to Scrapper or Stalker (75%). That's one reason why you don't see much about Electric Armor in regards to Scrappers. Another reason is because Radiation Armor is close to Electric Armor in that it is resistance based and has a high amount of energy damage resistance, but is also (yeah, I'm just going to say it), a bit overtuned with Ground Zero and proc-bombs. So it can do more damage than Electric Armor between the combination of Ground Zero's brokenness, and the brokenness of procs. The last couple of years of live, Electric Armor was actually one of the top meta armor sets on Brutes and Tankers thanks to the large amount of energy and psi damage in Incarnate Trials. It's just overshadowed by Radiation Armor these days. That doesn't make it a bad power set (at least not on Brutes and Tankers), it's just IMO Radiation Armor is a bit overtuned.

The easiest way would be to test out between an OuroDev server which is based on the Issue 24 beta, and Homecoming. But I'm pretty sure nothing has changed in regards to XP.

From personal experience, it rocks with Symphony Control.

Ultimately, play what you want. But you asked for opinion, so... Darkness Affinity by far. It puts Dark Miasma to shame. It has all of the potent debuffs from Dark Miasma, with Fade and Soul Absorption. Both powers are so good.

It's both. Echo: Galaxy City was made due to badges and plaques. The others are, AFAIK, due to major changes.

If possible, I'd like an Echo: Mercy Island zone, yes.

FWIW, the Homecoming forums has two-factor authentication. I have it enabled myself. It's not a perfect solution, but it does provide some protection as you'll ultimately be able to recover your game account if something happens. To enable it, go here. It mentions Google Authenticator, but you can use other authenticator apps. For Android, I recommend Aegis Authenticator as it is open source.

To be fair, a large part of that is because of WoW. So many companies decided that any MMORPG they develop must have similar player numbers to WoW (EA, Microsoft, Funcom, Trion, to name a few), and they all failed with the exception of Final Fantasy XIV. As a result, large companies just stopped bothering. MMORPGs just aren't a popular phenomenon, especially non-fantasy ones. There's also a bit of a generational divide. None of the newer games interest me at all, partly because most of them are fantasy, a genre I strongly dislike. But also because they do have faster dopamine loops, so there's less attachment to characters. Making City of Heroes more new player friendly is an admirable goal. It will help some, but I'm not sure that it will help a lot. Older generations like what they like, younger generations like what they like. As far as gaming is concerned, there doesn't seem to be much overlap.

No problem. TFs/SFs/Trials were never meant to be soloed, although most can be by particular ATs, power sets, and builds. And yeah, the Positron TFs give a bad first impression for soloing as most TFs/SFs are signature, where the mob levels are locked at the highest level of the TF/SF.