srmalloy

Depends on circumstances. Playing solo, my Grav/Traps Controller uses Poison Trap regularly, putting down 3-5 Trip Mines, a Poison Trap (occasionally two) and sometimes an Acid Mortar, then Wormholing a spawn onto the mines. The Poison Trap helps ensure that any survivors of the blast don't react as they get a random piece of sculpture bounced off them. On teams, though, the team is generally fixated on speed, moving so fast that in the time it takes to put down Poison Trap and one Trip Mine, the team has already bumrushed the next spawn, so she normally uses Poison Trap and Trip Mine for preemptively mining the known approaches of ambushes (like in the Yin TF, when she plants several PTs in the antechamber of the reactor room, knowing that a Freakshow ambush will be coming through there). Since Traps doesn't have VG, though, I can't speak to it for that character.

Set the pet window controls to Advanced Mode, so you get both the Aggressive/Defensive/Passive and Attack/Follow/Goto icons.

Weirdly, when I took one of my characters to Annah just now, the "Supergroup Details" category was visible, with 'Candy Cauldron' as a non-available choice -- but because the character already had all the badges from earlier Halloween events and had been dumping the salvage into a storage rack for new characters to grab a set for the extra slot. Update: Checking with another character that did have the requisite salvage, both the category and the Cauldron were visible, with the Candy Cauldron a creatable choice, even though all of my characters belong to the same vanity SG, which already has a Candy Cauldron installed. Is the Candy Cauldron a 'buy once for each placement' item, or a 'buy once, place many' item?

They're resistant to psionics in general, making not just Confusion but Psi Melee and Psi Blast annoying to use against them.

Which way you're facing when you exit the portal appears to depend on your position relative to the portal when you click on it; I've been able to go through the portal and come out facing the stairs (both ways), but so far have not been able to do it consistently.

The fact that there was no PvP in City of Heroes (at least, not at the start of May 2004 when I started playing the game) was one of the things that made it more attractive to me. And since then, the greatest period of time that I've done PvP was shortly after the release of CoV, when I joined a few friends in taking the sun on the roof of the hero base in Bloody Bay; we cleaned off the turrets and hung out for about an hour, not doing anything but being an annoyance to the heroes, smacking the turrets as they respawned, along with any hero who came up on the roof and objected to our being there. More of a "We're on your base, catching some rays" situation than actual focused PvP.

The auction house lists enhancements running down from lowest level to highest level -- minimum level at the top and maximum level at the bottom -- but the recipes reverse this, with the highest-level recipes at the top and the lowest-level recipes at the bottom. Can this be made consistent, so that both enhancements and recipes are listed in the same order, so that those of us who, due to advancing age, sometimes have problems picking out the tiny number at the top of the enhancement symbol without leaning forward to peer at the screen don't have to scroll in different directions depending on where we're searching?

There is a cue -- and one which I am slightly embarrassed to admit I didn't pick up on through the entire Live run (sometimes turning 270° the wrong way to find the stairs), and only discovered when I joined Homecoming -- if you look at the ground, there is a 'landing pad' that butts up against a raised walkway on one side (which is opposite the stairs, but that's not the cue), with the other three sides having a yellow-and-black caution stripe along them, forming a 'C', and the middle of the 'C' points toward the stairs, whether you have taken the portal in or out of the base. Just turn so that you see the stripes to your left, right, and in front of you, and the stairs are in front of you. You will always be able to see three sides of the landing plate, and if you see a side without the stripe, turn away from it. If you don't see the non-striped side, you're facing the stairs already:

As well as, for PUG solicitations, the "Essential: Must have T4 Barrier" gear check crutch so you don't have to have players that can actually coordinate in teams, just spam Barrier rotating through the team.

With my AR/EM Blaster that I built to test Jack Emmert's claim that "range was a Blaster's defense" (it's not, especially not after every mob in the game was handed a ranged attack that in many cases outranges a snipe attack with Boost Range active), I can hit targets that are actually too far away to see if I target through another character. It's kind of funny doing this -- the first shot, the spawn is "Frank fell down. I think he's dead. What happened?", and it's not until I take out a second mob with another snipe that someone has the "Oh, shit, someone's shooting at us!" thought and they aggro.

There doesn't appear to be a "Range Increase" or "Increased Range" buff from the Empowerment stations, though.

But there's nothing inherently stopping the HC staff from enabling it there; it just raises the risk some for the really low-level characters looking for a ToT league -- and they could sit at the zone entrance until they get invited and SK'd up to where they're not meat on the table on their way there.

There's a proper 'murder motel' in DA that could be used if that zone had ToTing enabled; it wouldn't be as attractive as the one in PI because it's close to the middle of the zone, much further away from the hospital, though.

She needs to lay off the doughnuts for a while. Or at least admit that she needs to get an outfit that's at least one size bigger.

Don't forget the idiotic render limit — I've forgotten how many times I've been attacking a mob on a ramp or the sides of the bowl and had them disappear because more Rikti were porting into the bowl, causing the game to recompute which mobs should be visible to you, and because the mob sixty feet away you're shooting at is farther away than the mob porting in thirty feet behind you, your target gets reaped from the 'visible mobs' list and becomes not only invisible but untargetable. Targeting through an HVAS isn't much use to melee ATs, though, so you're painting with an overly-broad brush here. And even when targeting through an HVAS, you do more damage (getting you more XP) by rotating through your ranged attacks than just standing there spamming your T1 attack.

Because it has the 'enemies will not notice this attack' flag, you can edge up, tag a minion, and know that they'll either help you take down their buddies or stand around and not attack while you take out their buddies — a useful 'soft kill' power, even if situational. And I need to add Telekinetic Blow to the "Insight-hostile" powers — its Knock Up tosses mobs up out of your attack range, forcing you to wait for them to land - not just fall back into melee range; they're 'out of range' until after they hit the ground and the internal range check updates - before you can continue attacking. Oh, yes — and the invisible guy with the drum standing behind you striking a beat every time you attack gets old. At least that one I can find the name of the sound that plays and replace it something more appropriate for a mental attack.

It's an old British food, dating from WWII (served in fish and chip shops as an alternative to fish when it was unavailable) -- slices of SPAM (the recipe says you should get eight slices from one can) dipped in a beer batter, and deep-fried, with optional mustard and a cheese slice on the SPAM before dipping in the batter; you can find recipes either on the SPAM website or a couple of other places on the net. I'll pass on the mushy peas they're traditionally served with, though, but the chips are okay.

While ToTing in KW, several of my characters will find themselves with nearby Blackwing while they're knocking, and I have to wonder what they think of the whole business... "What's he doing?" "He's going around knocking on doors, then beating up the people who answer the door." "Is this something we should be taking notice of?" "It's apparently part of celebrating a local holiday." "Oh. Just them acting like idiots again, then." "Right; just ignore it."

It's not just the ToT costumes, it's the idiotic way you receive other temporary power, too. Take the Valentine's event; deliver a valentine, and you get either an Arrow of Romance or an Arrow of Jealousy temp power — and an icon for it in the first open tray that doesn't already have one. The same happens with the temp powers from opening presents in the holiday event — you apparently need an Instant Snowstorm icon in each of your open trays, and the game will make sure you get them. Or Build Snow Beast. Or the temp powers from the anniversary event. Even though you only get one entry in your powers list no matter how many times you get one of these temp powers, the game keeps dumping more icons into your trays if there is a tray that doesn't already have an icon for it. The game should check to see if the character already has the temp power, and not create an icon if they do; if they don't have it in a tray, it means they removed it when they got it the first time, so cramming one in is counter to how the player wants the character's trays arranged.

It's not a horrible set, but I find it underwhelming in a number of ways — the randomness of Insight, its short duration and subsequent lockout, and the lackluster damage of Mass Levitate — which is listed as "+Insight", but even unenhanced for KB throws its targets up in the air out of range of your other melee attacks, wasting part of the limited duration of Insight; you can only get the full benefit from the Insight that using the power grants if your targets have KB protection and are unaffected by the Knock Up, which makes it useless for mitigation by keeping mobs knocked down. Boggle is highly situational, as it's only effective against low-rank mobs, and then not all of them — any mobs resistant to psi (more common in the late game) require two applications to affect them, forcing you to slot significantly for recharge to get it to come back up quickly enough — and resistant targets will still show the floating "BOGGLED" text even when they've resisted the first application.

Synapse could be done using the Psychic Clockwork from Tina McIntyre's first mission which could be seriously annoying for builds short on psi def/res.

Monument 2 for the Researcher history badge (the plaque is on the E side of the central building cluster on Talos Island describes Spanky Rabinowitz' birth: "Mayor 'Spanky' Rabinowitz was born on this very street, in 1878 to Aaron and Maria Rabinowitz." The Homecoming wiki page for Talos, describes his activities: "Throughout the 50's and 60's, he steadfastly rose to the challenge of combating giant monstrosities. He became the city's newest marvel and champion." It goes on to describe his last battle: "In the last climactic battle against his arch foe, the Chimera, Talos and the serpentine beast clashed beneath the waters of the bay. A mighty battle ensued, shaking Paragon City to its foundations, tearing a giant rift in the ocean floor from which earth and lava rose to form an island. Known today as Talos Island,..." We know from the Paragon City history page that heroes started appearing in the 1920s and 1930s, so Talos must have been doing his fighting in the 1950s and 1960s, with his final battle occurring no earlier than the 1960s, meaning that Monument 2 for the Researcher badge describes Spanky Rabinowitz as being born in 1878 on a street that wouldn't exist for another 60+ years, being bay/ocean floor prior to Talos' final fight with the Chimera. But the plaque has been around too long, and moving it to somewhere that actually did exist in 1878 would screw up maps, people's acquisition of history badges, and keep us from laughing at what is clearly a poorly-researched retcon, perhaps even Spanky Rabinowitz himself trying to set up his public image... and failing to do the research for where he arranged to have the plaques celebrating his life placed. A sort of cut-rate Emil Christie, as it were.

"Early-modern" being the 1600s? Although if you go back to their original employment as mounted infantry, the concept goes back to very early in the history of organized warfare. However, being disparagingly compared against true cavalry, dragoon units sought to increase their skills and status, and wound up in the space between heavy cavalry and light cavalry, in the role of reconnaissance, picket duty, and skirmishing. Gustav II Adolf equipped his dragoons with a sword, an axe, and a matchlock musket, and the armament of sword, musket (later carbine) and pistol(s) eventually became the 'standard' armement of dragoon units; some would add a lance for mounted work, but this would generally be discarded or left in camp when dismounted. By the First World War, the dragoons had largely become indistinguishable in role from other cavalry units, although the unit designations remained for reasons of tradition. If keeping the 'traditional' weapon mix, you'd have a sword like the pallasch, smaller and lighter than a broadsword, one or more pistols (likely just one for game purposes), and a carbine or light rifle.

It doesn't affect the way the powerset plays, but the power information is disjoint between Irradiate and Atomic Blast in the Radiation Blast powerset. Right-click the Atomic Blast icon, and it will identify itself as a PBAoE power; opening its Info window, the detailed information shows its target type as 'self', with an AoE of 20' radius. Right-clicking on the Irradiate icon identifies it as a "Close (AoE)" power; its detailed information shows its target type as 'self', with an AoE of 20' radius -- a PBAoE attack in everything but the name -- and both require Melee AoE damage sets as their 'categorized damage'. Why is one listed as "Close (AoE)" and the other as "PBAoE", when they're both PBAoE attacks? Was Irradiate originally a short-ranged AoE that was later converted to a PBAoE, but never had the brief description updated?

From my experience, it's not a random mission; it's always the first mission in your mission list window.