subbacultchas

I try not to knock people's playing styles. Some people min-max, some for RP or vision purposes, some people slot all willy-nilly, and some people get just flat out strange ideas about how the mechanics work. I only offer advice if someone's asking and don't tend to down their choices, let them play as they will. That said, WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS? Your secondary lends so much more, oft times even in the form of more debuffs and control.

Props to former delivery drivers turned info and tech professionals. I think I finally feel like an adult, and learned to let of some of the piss and vinegar of my youth.

I was just thinking, when I started playing this with my wife I was still in my late twenties or early thirties, delivering pizza and not much else. Here we are ten years or so later, still married but with two mostly grown kids, finished some degrees and working as a cataloging librarian. I'm sure life got better for some, worse for others, but we've all probably changed a good bit since this game stopped. So where were you then, and where are you now?

You mean this? Exactly that! Oh man, I can't tell you how much you've made my day brighter with this. Just may become my new background.

Sweet, sweeeet, suffering... Yeah, there are some tricks and as you learn them, awesome appears. I think we have a few people still thinking they will have 'just this one main character and no more", or that all descions are set in stone... Boy are they wrong. ;) No lie there. But do you mean people are still playing one or two characters, not a stable of dozens? Say it ain't so! I've got a penchant for taking squishies like blasters, doms, corrs/def, and getting pretty close to soft-cap defense with them. It works much better with some than others, and takes a hell of a lot of time, influence, and planning. But that feeling when you get it right is worth it. Thank God Mids' is still around, if not updated fully.

I remember some of these! It's a hell of a blast from the past. The thing I miss and cannot find was the threads called, "EA is so pretty, so strong, EA is pretty strong". They featured some hand drawn crayon pictures of the OP blinging and killing skulls with his War Mace/EA powerset. Those used to keep me in hysterics with his updates.

Just use commons! No need for sets until much later in the game, unless there is a very specific something like KB/KN you might want to get. IMO, it's just a waste to do more than plain IOs, and upgrade here and there, until way later. On this version, it will be easier to move them around, but still. Just my pennies. I appreciate it, but it's as you say, the individual IO's with bonuses (LotG recharge, Aegis +def, -KB) that I'm going for. Otherwise I'm with you, plain IO's and several specific IO's versus sets.

In short, yes. In less short, yes... maybe just replace them every 10 levels, which should be easily do-able if you're using reward merits to get "free inf" as other posters have stated. I really really wish I could afford to do that, and maybe I will eventually. But man buying some of those harder-to-get Set IO's just takes every bit of merits I come across right now. I'd suggest saving those set IOs for when you're at level 50 and start rolling in the dough. I agree, normally that's what I do. But the lure of perma-dom by thirties is just too compelling. We suffer for our art :)

In short, yes. In less short, yes... maybe just replace them every 10 levels, which should be easily do-able if you're using reward merits to get "free inf" as other posters have stated. I really really wish I could afford to do that, and maybe I will eventually. But man buying some of those harder-to-get Set IO's just takes every bit of merits I come across right now.

I'm running Water/Cold Corr right now and really enjoy it. The KD effects are really great combined with the slows from Cold, it keeps groups massed pretty often. And when you finally have Whirlpool and Sleet Storm, you will see more scourge ticks than you thought possible just from those. All around /Cold provides you with a good amount of buff, debuff, and even damage powers that synergize well with what Water offers. I've got a few others I rolled with Water primary, but Cold ended up being the one I stuck with. Also worth mentioning that /Cold has defensive and one resist power, which works really good for slotting Luck of the Gambler 7.5% recharges, and Aegis 3% def globals.

Both are valid choices IMO. Earth control is a good set, as is Elec, and as the previous poster said skipping the group immob in Earth control is advisable but keep the single target. I haven't played Elec Assault, but Earth Assault is the bees knees man. Before CoH shut down I rolled Plant/Earth dom named Stinkbug, and it was easily one of my favorite characters to play. Earth Assault feels brutish, puts out amazing single target damage, and has a few control/soft control options in it (Disorient from Fault, KB from the early AOE). Also the amount of KB/KD on powers lets you slot the KB IO that gives you recharge chance, which can help meet Perma-dom requirements until you flesh out IO sets and LoTG. It also just looks damned pretty and has an almost tactile feel to it. Highly suggested for /Earth dom, even if I'm currently loving Stingbug as Plant/Martial.

I agree with you totally. I'm taking the slightly different approach with a few IO sets at 25+, but I plan on respecs to pass them off to other lowbies when I outlevel them. We will see how it turns out lol.

It's a very iffy thing but certainly can be done. The thing is that although they do not degrade to the point of ineffectiveness, they are dependent on their level for how much benefit you get. If you start with say lvl 15 IOs, but 25 you will be underperforming compared to SOs by a pretty good degree. And it's a rather expensive degree, I might add. Just my personal preference, but I tend to not really use IO's until 22 or so when I start on sets, and use them for things I don't have the sets for yet. But I always intend for them to be replaced over the next 28 levels by IO sets or better IOs.

Name: League of Extraordinarily Old Players Officers: Can only remember mine, Stinkbug and Dweller Outline: Just a SG for anyone, populated by a group of folks who met mostly on this game on the Protector server. Pretty casual, low-key and just out to have fun in any way you want to that isn't griefing or exploitative. We used to run a few SGs on Protector, the big one I can't recall the name of, but Knights of the Redneck Republic was another main one (formed by Darth Tater) We are always looking for old members to reconnect with, but welcome new friends in the making too. We keep an active discord channel for those interested.

For those not in the know, BLOS was an old acronym for Break Line of Sight, which is kind of the central tenet of keeping enemies in tight bunches if you wanted to pull a whole room to one mass group. I know I'm not the only oldie that remembers this.

I'm not sure I believe this to be true. There's a lot of powerlevelers out there, always has been. In initial days it more resembled the masses parked at PI begging to join Fire Tank teams, then it shifted toward hazard zones and farming, and later into AE. There was never a shortage of it, there were always consistent complaints about the PI begging and AE usage, enough to influence the devs toward changing that. And there were a lot of guides, from where to best farm, the different ways of farming (who remembers box farming), strategies for tanks to keep aggro (BLOS yo!), and best builds geared toward farming. Heck, I may have done a guide back then on hazard zones and leveling. So I think it's our relative experience with the game and the people we played with that probably informs your opinion on this. And it's true for me as well, we are both speaking purely anecdotally. But I still believe it's utterly true that there was never a time that powerleveling wasn't a significant portion of the game, and people's distaste of it frequenting the forums. I don't know of any current guides, as per the OP. But hit me up if you have questions, we still use hazard zones a fair bit for alts and I can suggest such for your level. ** Or I could list them here. General flow is Atlas or sewers until 5-6, then Perez Park or Hollows from 6-10/11 (Perez outside of walls is best), then Boomtown from 10/11 to 20/21 (Faultine is possible but worse), and Striga Isle for the 21-30 range. It works best if you have AOE oriented characters, and runs much smoother with a group than solo, although solo the xp is flat out better. Use inspirations as needed (heavy on purps/blues), and focus on the bigger groups of enemies, wiping out a group them moving on. If you run into endurance issues every fight, I suggest finding groups at -1 level until you get your endurance settled. You can do the same via missions by setting your notoriety team size larger, but I don't think it's as efficient as hazard zone leveling. We commonly run Dom/Troller/Blaster, or Troller/Brute/Corr trios, but the more folks you get the higher level you can fight so the xp flows. Enjoy.