Jacke

My anchor Toons (the one Toon I make on every Shard who never moves from the Shard, Red Star in the Jacke Supergroup there) are Dark/Inv Scrappers. They're a homage to the Scrappers I made when I first was shown City of Heroes by a good friend, making Toons on her account. No idea what I actually made in the Summer of 2005, but they were Scrappers. And of course, I have a Inv/Dark Tanker, Jacke Obsidian. Went with a hardboiled detective theme. 😺 I'll have to have a look at your build, @Snarky, see if I can take things to tweak my build.

When you set your title, you also set the colour of its text. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Title_change_(Slash_Command) https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Titles The Title Change window can be brought up anywhere with the "/titlechange" Slash Command (underscores are optional). There are 2 colour widgets, similar to the colour widgets in the Supergroup Base Editor. Here's my Toon having just opened the Title Change window. ^^^ I've not accessed the Title Change window since starting this game client, else there would be little rectangles on the colour widgets where the last settings were. Note that both the Primary Color (for the upper part of the text) and the Secondary Color (for the lower part of the text) are both set to black to begin with (clicked on the left end of the lower left block on both colour widgets). Note you can just see through the Title Change window my Toon's current title, which had both colours bright green. Set the hue (colour) on the top part of each widget, except black and white are set on the lower left block, and set the brightness on the bottom right scale part of each widget. ^^^ Here I've set the hue of both to red. ^^^ Here I've set the brightness of both to bright. ^^^ Here I am with a bright red title. ^^^ Here I am setting the title back to bright green. ^^^ And done. You can experiment with different hues and brightness on both widgets, see how you like them.

The Preventive Medicine special is also misnamed. It's a Global that provides a Proc under the conditions mentioned. That means the Power it's slotted in doesn't need to be used for it to work. Like all Pure Globals (no Enhancement Aspects) it should be minimum Level (L20) or Attuned, as it will be disabled when Exemplared more than 3 Levels below that of the Global IO. For just 1 IO, it's also saved my Toons from defeat so many times. I always try to fit it into a build.

Caltrops can have some utility, even at high Levels. I use this macro to drop them around my Toon: /macro vXXX "powexeclocation forward:2 Caltrops" Caltrops do minor damage, but their most important Effects are 45s Mag50 Afraid (the one that makes Mobs run) and a 45s Slow, also perma due to Global Recharge bonuses even if none are slotted. Some Mobs (like Werewolves) are immune to the slow. Most AVs will ignore the Afraid as their Purple Triangles will be stronger than it. On a run of Crimson's World Wide Red arc last night, my AR/Devices Blasterr screwed up Malta a lot with Caltrops. 😺 Caltrops along with Trip Mine(s) can be used to form a quick defensive position that prevents the Mobs just running down and going into melee with your Toon. I keep the KB on Trip Mine to help here. Traps Defenders, Corruptors, Controllers, and Masterminds, as well as /Devices Blasters, can use this to their benefit. Throw in an FFG and an Acid Mortar and other tricks that Traps has. 😺

Be aware that even Effects labelled as "Ignores Resistance" are still affected by the Purple Patch. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Purple_Patch "When contemporary forum-goers talk about the "purple patch", they may be referring to the way player character effectiveness scales against different-level enemies. To use the table below, multiply the effects of your powers by the value in the Above column if you are Level levels above your target, or by the value in the Below column if you are Level levels below your target. "These modifers apply to almost everything in combat: Debuff strength, Mez duration, Knockback magnitude, and Damage are all affected." Mobs are usually a higher Level than the Toons. The common max difference is +3L from Toons to Mobs (Mobs at +4L versus the Toon's Alpha +1--but most Pets don't get the Caster's Global buffs, including Level shifts, so it's +4L from ally Pets to Mobs). Which means +3L from Mobs to Toons, +4L from Mobs to Pets. That gives these multiplicative factors: +4 (Mobs to Pets) x1.44 +3 (Mobs to Toons) x1.33 -3 (Toons to Mobs) x0.65 -4 (Pets to Mobs) x0.48 There's other factors for the Base Chance to Hit on the lower table on the Purple Patch page. That's just for Toons to Mobs. -3 (Toons to Mobs) 48% -4 (Pets to Mobs) 39% For Mobs against Toons and Pets, that really complex. The details are in here, spread all out. I'm also more uncertain here about these things. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Attack_Mechanics For Mobs: "HitChance = Clamp( AccMods × Clamp( BaseHitChance + ToHitMods – DefMods ) )" "AccMods = the power's inherent Accuracy × the Accuracy of the enemy's Rank × Accuracy factor due to level difference" The Clamps hold a value to between 95% and 5%, ie. "min(max(value, 5%), 95%)" or in ratios "min(max(value, 0.05), 0.95)". BassHitChance for Mobs is 50%. Accuracy factor due to level difference: +4 (Mobs to Pets) x1.4 +3 (Mobs to Toons) x1.3 Accuracy of the enemy's Rank:: Minion, player Pet 1.00 Lieutenant 1.15 Boss, Elite Boss, Sniper 1.30 Monster, Giant Monster, AV 1.50 Power's inherent Accuracy is a number, usually 1.0, but sometimes lower, sometimes higher, same as Toon's Powers. My brain hurts now, so putting this all together I leave as an exercise. 😺

There's two groups I run with on Everlasting. The Global Channels for both are the same as the names (exactly): "Repeat Offenders" I've run with RO since 2006. Great for good and casual teaming without any drama. "Everlasting TFs" Note that there are a few variants of this Global Channel name, be sure you spell it exactly. Great group organized by a few Team/Task Force/iTrial leaders with a lot of experience. With them I got all the Mastery Badges on my main Badging Toon. Otherwise, listen on the LFG channel (which is one that's Shard-wide) for others recruiting for Missions. Task Forces, whatever. The experience may vary. At worst, you could start competing with @Snarky and others who post about their bad-PUG adventures. 😺

The Badge "Bug Hunter" (internal name "BetaTester") is shown at the top of Accolade Badges. It's also not included in the count of Badges a Toon has.

It also depends on the relative Level and type of mob, as with more +Levels and some types, they'll have KB Protection and won't be knocked down on just 0.67.

To earn the "Patroller::Criminal" Day Job Badge, you need to earn 30 bars of Patrol Experience. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Patroller_Badge https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Patrol_Experience Currently on Homecoming, Patrol XP can be earned in 3 ways: 1 bar per 24 hours logged out. 5 bars per charge of Experienced used. A variable amount per Exploration Badge when first encountered. From the Issue 27 Page 7 Patch Notes (2024 Feb 20): Exploration badges now grant Patrol XP instead of regular XP. The amount of Patrol XP gained is dramatically higher than the previous amount of regular XP previously gained. The amount scales with level, starting with 1.5 bars at level 1, down to 0.25 bars at level 50. A Toon can only hold 10 bars of Patrol XP. But for the purposes of earning the Patroller Badge, can continue to earn Patrol XP from sources #2 and #3 even when at 10 bars. I get the Day Job Badges on all my Toons. Back when it took 21 days logged-out to earn a Day Job Badge, I got in the habit of recording on my Toon spreadsheet where each Toon was when they were logged out. And I was very careful to log a Toon back in soon after earning a Badge to move them to the next Day Job Badge in the scheme I used. At the same time, I also earned the various Day Job Accolade Powers up to their capacity. Now it only takes 100 hours logged-out (4 days 4 hours) to earn a Day Job Badge. As I've resisted my altitus and slowed my creation of new Toons, nearly all my Toons have earned all the Day Job Badges and Accolades. (The Vanguard Recruit Day Job Badge and Accolades needing it will only unlock when a Toon is Level 35 or over, but the time logged out in the RWZ Vanguard Base can be earned at any Level.) Prior to source #3 being added for Patrol XP, to earn the Patroller Badge, as I didn't want to waste charges of the Experienced Power, I had to fill to 10 bars of Patrol XP, then use it all up, then repeat this two more times, or some variation on this that added to 30 bars. This meant multiple play sessions on each Toon with at least 30 days logged out. This was a bit awkward. Now, there's source #3. While ideally should only get Exploration Badges and the Patrol XP from them when under 10 bars, for simplicity's sake and just to knock off another Day Job, I do use source #3 for some of the 30 bars. At low Levels using only source #3, it just takes around 20 or a few more Exploration Badges to earn the "Patroller::Criminal" Day Job Badge.

Here's my current build for my Time/Beam Rifle/Dark Mastery build, updated last October. I've not taken the Toon to any great Level, so it remains untested. You should be able to flip it to Corruptor, with the Defenses and Resists being smaller, but should still be good. Defender TimeM-BR.20241007.DarkM Stealth Maneu Assault TT GI [i28p1] @Jacke - Jacke Rae.mbd

I've looked to @Psyonico for guidance in my Inv/Super Strength Tanker build. He told me his position on Rage more or less as he just stated above. I know how to work around the Rage crash. But I just do not want to. For all the things I've got to take care of while running a Toon, I just do not want to have to pull out the Prestige Powers to attack with during a Rage crash because being resistant to Damage enhancement means they're resistant to Damage negative enhancement. Or if not them (or they're not available), nothing at all. For 10 seconds. So talking it over with Psy, I decided to reroll my Inv/Super Strength Tanker as a Super Strength/Shield Defense Brute. (Already have a perfectly good Inv/Dark Melee Tanker.) The SS/Shield Brute will be skipping Rage. I'm much happier. Although recently, I wondered about adding in a mutually exclusive Power to pair with Super Strength's Rage. (Kind of like how Super Reflexes Sentinels can pick one of Practiced Brawler or Master Brawler.) What's its name? Why, Mellow of course, the perfect name to pair with Rage. Mellow will have no crash. Because it's mellow. 😺

Not really. It's either possible to find the recipes on the Auction House and just buy them. Or AH-convert another Level of a particular recipe to whatever is wanted.

I always thought with all the Ghosts in this game, those 2 we lost (because someone at Paragon Studios had a hate for them or something).... Why'd they never come back as Ghosts?

Whence the Blaster moto: "Blasters! Face down and PROUD!!!" 😺

That's what I remember and matches what's in the HC Wiki here: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Costumes#Extra_Costume_Slots Blueside, the contact for turning in Halloween Salvage for an Extra costume slot was always right by the PTA Station (so low Level Toons could access her). I don't know if there was a name change, but that Croatoa contact is now called Annah and offers a lot more than just an extra costume slot. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Annah That's not quite how I remember things. HC Wiki says saving and loading costume files was added in Issue 13. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Costumes#Saving_and_Loading Soon after I started, for each Toon costume, I would record the Costume Editor's settings for each of my Toons. I still keep this manual record. 😺 Anyhoo, I remember we could get 5 costume slots: 1 Original costume slot. 3 Extra costume slots from running the Icon/Facemaker tailor's missions. 1 Extra costume slots from turning in 1 each of the 4 Halloween Event Salvage. Later, when things changed and we could buy stuff besides the monthly subscription, we could buy 5 more Extra costume slots, giving a max of 10 costume slots. Either with cash or maybe also "Veteran points" or whatever we could earn back then. Can't remember the details. During the years of Issue 25 (AKA in secret), things were changed and we now start with 6 costume slots. And can later add the 3 from tailor missions and the 1 from Halloween salvage.

I remember a lot of of what @Scarlet Shocker remembers from back then, except back then I: Started in the later half of 2005. Didn't get anywhere near that Inf cap. Didn't know the Rikti Crash Site (wasn't high enough Level). Didn't do PvP. This one though, oh wow: I remember Hover'ing through the Hollows to get to a door mission deep in the south of the Zone. Wasn't just the Hollows, but a lot of Zones. By the way, back then, get defeated in the Hollows, go back to the last Zone with a Hospital. Usually the Hospital in Atlas Park. More generally, get to a new Zone, just at the starting Level for that Zone. Very soon a contact's mission sends you deep deep deep into the high Level end of the Zone. And Hover was slooooow. Or not on a Toon. Or you thought it wasn't as bad as the Hollows, so.... I learned to run down the exact centre of streets hoping to avoid aggro from the street mobs. Which didn't always work.... Then after the Invention system was added (but not long after): On my AR/Dev Blaster main ❤️ I had to finish solo the last mission of the OG Positron Task Force set to 3: 3 (including me) on the TF started that last mission. The other 2 quit for reasons I can't remember. Back then, I didn't know about resetting Task Force missions, so it stayed at +?x3 (not sure, may have been +0). Back then, couldn't level over the highest Level for a Task Force. Can't remember what Level I started at, but got to L15. I persevered. Through several Hospital runs from Steel Canyon back to the door in Perez Park (which how it was back then). Including dealing with a wider area of a corridor on the mission map that had 2 mob spawns either side, set for 3. I couldn't figure out how to aggro just 1 of the 2 mob spawns set for 3. So I had to wear them down, including several Hospital runs just for those 2 spawns. But the OG Positron Task Force doesn't have an AV at the end. So with enough Hospital runs: I won the OG Positron Task Force! My award: L15 Celerity Stealth Proc. Put that in Sprint (later with Prestige Sprints, I put the L15 Celerity Stealth Proc in Prestige Power Surge). Running Sprint slotted with a L15 Celerity Stealth Proc gave 30ft of stealth! Which made those long across-Zone runs to the doors of missions much much easier. Got to L20 and added Cloaking Device (long before Field Operative) with 25ft of stealth. Combined I had 55ft of stealth, just over Boss-level perception of 54ft! And forever thereafter I worked to get stealth on more and more Toons, eventually EVERY Toon. I still do this. And this one: Can't remember where I heard this, but for lower Level Toons back then, considering how things were back then. When wanting to change their costume in an unlocked costume slot: The first slot granted at character creation. 1 extra slot from turning in Halloween salvage. Then: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Costumes#Extra_Costume_Slots 3 more slots from doing a mission from the each tailor (Hero or Villain) in the 3 Icons (or in the 3 Facemakers in the Rogue Isles). But if you weren't max Level or higher for a Zone with a tailor, doing that tailor's mission was rather hard if not impossible. And not at max Level for Steel Canyon (may have 1 or 2 costume slots) and wanting to change a costume in those slots, often easiest to: Go to Kings Row. Go to the Gate in Kings Row to Independence Port. Enter that Gate to go to Independence Port. Carefully do a short run to the Icon in IP. Get into the Icon, safe! Edit your costume via another contact in Icon. To get back, do the run from the door of Icon back to the Gate to Kings Row.

Large Language Models have some good uses. As AI, they're very limited in their legitimate applications. I'm expecting the AI bubble to crash. As @Scarlet Shocker says, trying to add them into a 25-year-old game is a good way to completely break the game. Large Language Models likely have a server code base many times larger than City of Heroes, probably several orders of magnitude. Mob AI needs to be as simple as possible, because so many mobs need to independently run some sort of AI to provide a useful opposition to Players.

On Blasters, the Sniper attack (if the Primary Powerset has a Sniper attack) provides a +50% Range enhancement for 10s. As the Snipes can easily have a cycle time under 10s, this Range buff can be perma'ed easily. Also, I have to stand up for my loved Blaster Secondary, Devices. Awesome Powers like: Toxic Web Grenade (slot with Immob enhancement, +3 SO or L50+5 Purple Immob, take at L1 Caltrops (Tempered Readiness Attuned or L50+ Range/Slow, take at L8 or so, as early as possible, great +50 Afraid mez that makes most mobs run away from the Toon) Targeting Drone (ToHit +3 SO or L50+5 IO, must take at L10) Smoke Grenade (early Recharge Reduction +3 SO, later ToHit debuff +3 SO or L50+5 IO, take at some place in the build to handle those mobs that ignore stealth) Which with the awesome +ToHit of Targeting Drone on a single ToHit +3 SO or a L50+5 IO enhancement, can all be single-slotted, leaving more Extra Slots for other Powers. Also, Targeting Drone always gives +20% Damage enhancement. When out-of-combat, the first attack will also get another +60% Damage enhancement. Also also, that big +ToHit from Targeting Drone, over +22%, means even when Snipes are fast, they have maximum Damage. That Damage buff is outside of the Enhancement of Damage and always gives more damage. Also take these 2 amazing Pet Powers, which should be 6-slotted with a combination of IOs that gives ED-capped Accuracy, to get near final 95% ToHit against the usual end-game extreme of +3L mobs (+4 mobs with the Toon having +1 Level due to a T3 or T4 Alpha Boost; the Pet doesn't get any Global buffs from the Castor, but has attacks with Base Accuracy 1.2). Trip Mine (6 slots with ED-capped Acc; don't worry about the KB; also Blaster Devices Trip Mine has no interrupt time) Gun Drone (6 slots with ED-capped Acc; must also slot the Expedient Reinforment special as that boosts the Drone's resistances from 80% to all to 90% to all, a mini-Tanker for the Blaster) And of course, the Blaster sustain Power: Field Operative (must take at L20: I slot with 4 eventually: LotG special, Synapse Shock +EndMod/+Runspeed, and Preventive Medicine duo, Attune Health and a L20 special, which is a Global that gives a Proc, so it works even when Field Operative isn't running, as long as the Toon isn't Exemplared below L15) Don't worry about the stealth (in fact combine it with a stealth proc to have Boss-level stealth). When you hit mobs, that stealth drops to 15ft (from Field Operative), they will pursue you until their aggro on the Toon goes away.

I have 2 FF Toons, a FF/Rad Blast Defender and a FF/Beam Defender, both idling at under L10. I recently changed my slotting of T1 attacks for Assault Rifle and Radiation Blast in my Toon's builds, to improve their DPA and utility. Doesn't affect them now, but as I Level them. I like the new build for the FF/Rad Defender. The FF/Beam Defender doesn't feel right. Force Field has 2 Powers with -Res, Single-Target Repulsion Bolt and Targeted AoE Force Bomb. The Rad Blast Defender takes both, the FF/Beam Defender only has Force Bomb. Beam also has a -Res Power. I've decided to reroll the FF/Beam Defender as a Sonic Resonance/Beam Defender. Made a build for it and it just feels a lot better, moreso that the new FF/Beam build. I'll be doing the reroll in the next few days. So here's all 3 builds, submitting for your examination. Defender FF-RadB.20250424.MuM Stealth TT Weave Tactics GI [i28p1] @Jacke - Jacke Radforce.mbdDefender FF-BR.20250414.MuM Stealth TT Weave Tactics GI [i28p1] @Jacke - Jacke Smyth.mbdDefender SonicR-BR.20250424.MaceM Stealth CJ TT Weave GI [i28p1] @Jacke - Jacke Smyth.mbd

Repeat Offenders had a wonderful Wake for Alty in-game. Details here on the RO forums which should be visible to everyone. https://www.repeat-offenders.net/forum/topic/20499-altys-wake-2025-april-26-saturday/

@Snarky, as for the effect of survivability of the small amount of Defense in Dark Armor, for i7 for Scrappers look at Arcanaville's analysis. It's long and complex, but it was a factor. That still applies. Even when there's no DDR. And the Defense for Tankers is even higher. As someone who stealths on all my Toons, I'm very well aware once you've aggro'ed mobs, they will find you no matter the amount of stealth you have. Not until their aggro expires will stealth prevent them from automatically knowing where to go to attack you. And the Stealth on Dark Armor Tankers does suppress: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=tanker_defense.dark_armor.cloak_of_darkness&at=tanker In both PvP and PvE for the stealth effects, that last icon, red ball with a white horizontal bar, shows under what conditions those effects suppress. They both happen to be the same: Cancel When AttackedOther HitByFoe Stunned Held Slept MissionObjectClick Even without those suppressions, Tanking with stealth works. I've done it. Aggro the mobs with attacks or taunting, they will find you no matter how much stealth.

I am suggesting to invest in Defense, but only so far. Back in Issue 7, Arcanaville compared the at-the-time 4 protection Secondaries on Scrappers and considered Dark Armor the most survivable. https://web.archive.org/web/20120905195532/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=115310 Because Dark Armor had good values of all 3 protections, enough to be more survivable than Invulnerability, Regeneration, and Super Reflexes in Issue 7. Defense Resists Heals and Regen Boosting Defense can help, if it isn't done to the point it hurts other goals for the build too much. Know that without Defense Debuff Resistance (available to most builds only with Ageless Radial Destiny Incarnate Power), some mobs will strip the Toon's Defense away in part or in whole. But also know that the mobs will have to strip more before the Defense is in negative values and the mobs are now at the 95% ToHit cap.

Actually, @Healix, that one's math doesn't scan. Hmmm.... Okay, I can't fix it without losing the humour. Math hard. Comedy hard. Math comedy worse. 😺

So that's how Red Tomax used massive debt to get all those details on all the Blue-side arcs. (Can't remember if Red-side was covered on the original City of Data site.)

Happy Birthday to the game I've loved since I was introduced by a good friend in the Summer of 2005. So say we all!