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One thing I did with my 'bots MM (upon Respec) was to slot the two (?) highest rifle attacks as well as Epic attacks with Knockdown. The T1 and T3 bots also are slotted with Knockdown. At higher levels this has my toon firing off shots to keep baddies in place. Prior to the Respec, I was using the Medicine pool to keep bots healthy. After the Respec I solo enough x8 content that the Triage Beacon is generally enough to keep the bots working, especially with Incarnate powers. You can also take Grant Invisibility if you feel like doing a lot of individual casting on pets.

There was always something that felt 'off' to me about the comics (as an original subscriber); I am still weirdly non-plussed by the SSA, Incarnate, and introductory Arcs that are "lore heavy". I'm just not interested in the 'drama' of certain characters. City of Heroes was always supposed to be about 'us' (the players) and the constant stream of content wrapped up around the big NPCs always felt like I was being forced to listen to someone else's retelling of a 'cool' RPG session from several summers ago. City of Villains (and the Villain take on 'Who Will Die') are very cathartic, as you get to punk all of the various obnoxious Blue-side NPCs. I even found weird satisfaction in taking down Indigo and Crimson as revenge for their painfully long story arcs.

IIRC the powexeclocation command can also take arguments for distance and radial direction, in case you don't want to target on yourself. For example: powexec_location 0:10 is directly in front of you "0", and 10 units away from you). The direction is 0 - 359 IIRC with "90" being to your right.

Allow me to jump in (very early) to this post. *IF* you can find a group of like-minded players who will team with you, it is perfectly possible to run Flashback missions that return the feel of the slow grind through missions/TFs as long as you select the specific limitations of the flashback. It isn't going to return you to the pre-Enhancement Diversification days, but if you want to eliminate Temporary/Travel powers and enhancements (e.g. from IO sets) you absolutely can do this. Do I have a desire to send my Energy Melee/Invulnerability tanker back through the Legacy Positron TF in this manner just to relive what it is like to finish a story under painful circumstances when everyone else on the team had dropped the TF because of boredom? Not really. It was something of a triumph for that character at the time... but that time has passed.

Can we take a few minutes to describe the groups which scatter that cause the most aggravation? For me it is the Knives of Vengance, specifically in the second mission of Heather Townshend's arc in Dark Astoria. I usually run this arc at x8, and the cursed RNG always allow a few to escape being hit...and so they will run (or fly) to the literal ends of the map. This unnecessarily prevents completion of the defeat X, as long as one of them is hiding somewhere else.

You may want practice by running a Ninja Mastermind on Test...

There are three ways I know of. You must meet the minimum level requirements of the individual arcs. 1) You walk up to the contact and talk to them. 2) You use a Pillar to select the mission as a 'flashback' 3) You can get a tip that starts you... this happened with Pandora's Box redside for me.

I craft precious few Orange recipes, and after lvl 50 I turn them off because they generally aren't worth the use of Rare salvage. Most disappointing to me is when a lvl 50 gets an Orange recipe drop notice and when I go looking for the PvP recipe and I see it is a Touch of the Nictus 😛

Like I wrote, I'm not using it. That is a self-gimp for now, but last I read it was scheduled to be removed from General access.

I get a lot of use out of Presence on Defensive builds that don't have (but can use) a self-heal. I generally find the Medicine pool to be difficult to leverage with the most utility coming for Masterminds (and I suppose Crabberminds) when solo. I can understand why some players have a low opinion of Provoke, but if you want a Taunt, as a targetted AoE I find it more useful than single-target taunts from ATs. I personally find Pacify to be a niche power, but if the character is allergic to a multi-taunt it is actually a great alternate choice, as in 1-on-1 combat it buys time for another couple of actions. The single-target Intimidate is IMO the most disappointing, but that's only because it is sort of complimentary to T1 single-target immobilizes which I generally find to be weak. The PBAoE Invoke Panic is a different story, as it can slow down a large group of enemies and even dish damage via the Psi proc... 5-slotting the PBAoE with Glimpse of the Abyss gets some decent set bonuses. I've already talked up Unrelenting, so I'll just repeat that I think it is best single-slotted or 6-slotted with Preventative Medicine. With 6 slots on a heavy Recharge build it can be available in about 3 minutes give-or-take. I certainly recognize that Presence doesn't offer single-picks for LotG, nor does it have a path to resistance set mules which many build crave. For my builds that don't need pool powers to get those slots, and don't care about Hasten, I find that it doesn't deserve 'detraction'. TL;DR The Presence pool offers a pleasant mix of powers usually restricted to certain ATs and powersets (AoE Taunts, Control, Self-heal/Rez) that offer utility to certain builds.

The TP to Ouroboros is on a shorter cycle than Base Teleport (no sgaccess being used by my toons).

I was in a PUG where one toon was using Rise of the Phoenix as an attack (not as part of a chain!); I thought it was pretty clever. As a self-appointed defender of the Presence power pool I will point out: Unrelenting doubles as a self-rez as well as its non-dead use as a super Regen/Recovery and +Damage boost. As far as fifth pool powers, there are many far worse options. I think the Presence pool is the most under-rated of all the Power pools.

Here is something I'm ashamed to admit I suspected but never verified until recently: During Flashback missions, after selecting the mission you have the option to teleport to the contact via the Pillar. After doing a few low-level flashback arcs, I got lazy and verified that after the first mission in an arc I can open a portal to Ouroboros and still use a Pillar there to teleport back to the contact to get their telephone number. This is much faster than working back to the contact in many circumstances, especially at low levels or in zones where the first mission in the arc is >0.5 miles away from the contact.

There is also a single contaminated that spawns in the train station in Recluse's Victory.

No need to run farms (in AE or elsewhere) as it is relatively painless to make INF on the market itself, especially if you have another toon with some INF to use as a seed. I have bought all ATO and Winter sets from the AH. If you are just getting started in the INF-making game, and your low-level exemplared build can handle Perez Park, blue-side you can run the Matthew Hasby arc in Perez Park pretty quickly for (3? 5?) merits but pop into Perez Park mid-arc to beat up on some Hellion Bosses and Lts for inflated INF (depending on your true level). Tanks (either red or blue) of level 20+ should be able to easily handle the first SSA (Skyway, Cap Au Diable) for 20 merits per week in about 10 minutes. You will probably want the P2W attacks to fill your attack chain, depending on your build.

Here is 'Rust', the Night Widow half of the character. Rust was designed for Melee, with the use of an Epic pool for Ranged attacks (like most of my Melee characters). Generally I find that Rust is slightly less effective for the following reasons I can identify: 1) The reliance of melee attacks means he has got to move to the baddies, and many baddies don't group nicely. 2) His (positional) defenses are slightly less, although they all exceed 45% with his perma-Mind Link. 3) He's a bit of an Endurance hog when compared to Diamonds. I'm still committed to the Presence pool, but only 3 powers to get 6-slot Unrelenting. I felt like I had extra slots, so the choice was between a multi-target Provoke or a single-target Intimidate... and I felt like the single target Intimidate would be worthwhile at level 32, so I opted for Pacify instead. I really like the Widow's Placate, but I couldn't fit it in until even later in the build, so this is just used to get a breather against certain enemies. I'm honestly not sold on the Fitness pool for this build. I'm only getting ~22% resistance to Smashing/Lethal with some minor set bonuses from Reactive Guard (including the HP boost unique). I never use Kick as an attack, unless I've been slowed. I feel like this was a waste of two power picks and three slots. I'm very open to suggestions on the Rust build.

Here's my current take on an Arachnos Widow that uses multiple builds and multiple costumes. I had multiple motivations: 1) Sometimes I'm in the mood for melee play, and sometimes I'm in the mood for more 'control'. 2) I hadn't played VEAT on Live. 3) I have quite a bit of inf to use, so there didn't have to be much skimping between builds while leveling. 4) I was listening to some Judas Priest, and I was wondering what I could do with "Diamonds and Rust". I think I've made some uncommon choices in the builds, so I'm sharing them here. One conceit of the two different builds is that I didn't want to mix melee and ranged attacks from the primary. I have a macro for each build to switch between them. I preserved an 'Arachnos Widow' costume slot as slot 0 which is unused. Build 1 is the melee (Rust) and Build 2 is the ranged (Diamonds). In case anyone wants to see what the macros are: /macro_image "AlignmentPower_FearIncarnate" "Rust" "select_build 1$$cce 2 CCLightMagic" /macro_image "AlignmentPower_Duplicity" "Diamonds" "select_build 2$$cce 1 CCLightMagic" Caveat 1: I'm noobish w/ planners, so apologies in advance if this looks like a mess. Caveat 2: These are NOT the builds used during leveling. Obviously some of the sets wouldn't work during leveling, but generally while leveling up I tried to have powers at the ready to use during Mayhem Missions for destroying objects. Caveat 3: I exemplar most of the time. I'll actually start with the build for Diamonds (the Fortunata), because this one works a little better IMO: Here are my thoughts on the build's bonuses: Recharge: I tried to get as close to perma for Mind Link as I could while still being comfortable with the other powers & set bonuses. I really didn't want to take Hasten if it was only entering the build at level 47. I am certainly gimping the high-level damage (from recharge on Psychic Wail's AoE) by not having Hasten, but it's a button I usually forget I have when I do take it. As it is, I rarely use Combat Jumping except as the LotG mule. Defense: Without Mind Link, at lvl 50 Melee and Ranged defenses are >= 45%, with AoE ~= 39%. Mind Link, is an extra 13,2%. This is a crazy amount of Defense and may be overkill! I'm willing to read other's thoughts on this. ToHit / Accuracy: Most of the bonuses have accumulated from IO sets in pursuit of other bonuses, with the exception of the Kismet +ToHit slotted early (@lvl 7) so that I could delay slotting Accuracy. I keep an eye on the combat logs, and it is rare that I have < 95% chance to hit, but I have been reluctant to pull out the Kismet IO. I can say that the RNG appears to be skewed (looking at 'multiples of 5') such that I often wonder if I should just pull out Kismet to spite the streakbreaker! Recovery/End Usage: Even before Accolades, this build never really had problems with Endurance. I have slotted the toggles with partial End reducers. This may be overkill but I like to run missions with both Sprint and Ninja Run active so I default to conserving Endurance when possible. Here are some of my observations on power choices: I really appreciate the Presence Power Pool, especially for Unrelenting. At the notoriety levels I play This build doesn't get hit very often, and I find that Unrelenting is generally available as a heal when I want it. The 'Fear' controls may not be as necessary for a Fortunata, but at low levels they are great for buying some time, and at higher levels the AoE is especially good at helping out teammates in over their heads. It took me some time to realize this, but Dominate is not as much of a hold as it is a ranged damage power with a hold. I originally had this slotted a little differently, but I've come to appreciate it's damage potential, especially at low levels. Travel Powers: I'm a sucker for Flight (or Mystic Flight). I simply appreciate the freedom of movement and I'm not crazy about the visuals of the P2W options. This build opted for Flight because I wanted the Force of Will pool available for... I'm a little uncertain on the net effectiveness of Weaken Resolve, but I feel like it has been helping on the lvl 50+ Bosses+.

/umactually I don't know if it was the *main goal*, but you could only get to lvl 40 in the earliest game.

/agree x10. If you are a player that feels that Group Fly is griefing, go to Null the Gull and make your choices. I've been surprised to see non-MMS take it, but it does offer a pretty fast flight with an excellent amount of control so I can see some appeal for non-MMs. /echo. I have Provoke as the choice of taunt on one of my Night Widow's 'shallow in the Presence pool' builds for the exact reason that it is multi-target option. The Fortunata certainly could use it for the same reason, but she made a different choice: I've also chosen Pacify (on the 'deep into Presence pool' Fortunata build that has plenty of other means of grabbing aggro), and I will admit that this entry power into the Presence pool is of limited use. If only it would allow Widows to get 'Hidden' status! That being written, there are a couple of situations when I find myself using it: 1) Boss+ fights. The Fortunata build with Pacify is short of perma Mind Link, and Pacify keeps the biggest thing from attacking until I can re-fire Mind link (or whatever else). 2) At low levels because that Fortunata build is going deep into the Presence pool, Pacify is chosen at lvl 14. That build doesn't pick up it's 5th dedicated 'attack' until level 32, so Pacify is used as one more means of slowing down incoming attacks from large enemy groups, if necessary. Often it is not necessary, but I've found it being used against groups like Freakshow which have the chance to self-rez, as the self-rez can really break up the flow of solo combat.

I will also chime in that the early days of the game (at low levels) were frustrating, the two biggest things I recall: 1) The general slowness of attack chains. This was primarily due to having to burn power choices to get to Stamina, but also because... 2) Delay of a travel power (requiring another 2 power picks) until level 14, which got in the way of picking attack powers. I remember first getting the Sands of Mu (and at higher levels, a Nemesis Staff) as temporary powers (as mission rewards) and all of a sudden it felt like my character was actually taking the fight to the villains! I remember doing a LOT of street sweeping because just getting between contacts (and their missions) was extremely tedious. I recently recreated this feel via Ouroboros by turning off travel powers, temp powers, etc. during a low level flashback mission...ee gads what an experience!

Hold my beer. I have a couple builds that go wide and deep into the Presence pool and another that is narrow. The narrow build is simply to get to Unrelenting for the self heal. On high Recharge builds I have found that Unrelenting is available more often than I want a green inspiration. The Preventative Maintenance IO set is a good fit here. I've been a fan of the Medicine pool but Presence is a better 3-power path to a self-heal IMO. YMMV The deep build includes both Intimidate and Invoke Panic 5-slotted on the way to 6-slotted Unrelenting. I appreciate the extra control these provide at low levels, and in Mayhem missions both can be used to destroy objects! At higher levels (and larger team sizes) the single-target is less useful, but as a follow-up to the AoE you can get the magnitude needed for bosses. The two initial choices are very situational, but neither is completely useless and both are fine candidates for single-slotting. The most truly useless power in the Homecoming configuration is Long Range Teleport. There are so many better options for getting to the zones accessible to LRT that there is no need to waste a power pick on it.

There is in Spanish.

No. It is only if attuning the IO makes it "Superior" will a set be 'broken'.

I have to agree. Once you have so many catalysts it actually seems to me like a waste to not use them.

The second statement is very good advice; the first is subjective. You can always sell crafted non-attuned IOs and try to buy back the same IO at the same price, and you may only be out the 'vig'. The vig should be less than the roughly 2.5M inf you might make by selling a catalyst. However: that (approximately current) selling price for catalysts is actually depressed compared to other things that can be made from merits(*) so it isn't irrational to use an accumulated pile of catalysts to convert crafted IOs that are normally farm more than the sales price of the same IO as attuned. (*)There are many different opinions on what to do with accumulated merits. If you affiliate with one of the schools of thought that you should just convert merits into Enhancement Converters, it shouldn't be hard to convince you that the (current) market for Catalysts seriously undervalues them, and not just because of the auto-attuning.