Winter

Thank you all for the replies! I am disappointed to hear that I am more likely to kill the enemy before I really start to see -ToHit stack enough to make an impact, but glad to know it ahead of time rather than spending several hours grinding away only to figure that out later. Thank you for the input.

I have been kicking around a concept in my head of a smoke blaster. It would be a Dark/Ninja blaster, and the idea is that his powers obscure the enemies vision. I would be keeping a ranged exclusive character and foregoing the melee attacks of /Ninja. I also see this as a "franken-slotted" character, foregoing sets in favor of slotting for -ToHit in order to fulfill the concept. I do not intend for this character to be uber-powerful even by level 50 standards. He will likely only be played on SG teams, and I think I'll enjoy him as long as I can fulfill the concept. That said, I'm unsure how viable of a play strategy it is just because of how ToHit works. So I am turning to the more number-savvy players present on this board. Would a Dark/Ninja blaster, slotted with -ToHit in every power that will take it, successfully create the play-illusion that the enemies are surrounded by smoke, making it very hard to hit the player and his allies?

Hi Izzie! Welcome to the game, and to the server! My advice would be to get in with a Super Group, and the best place to find those is The Excelsior Super Group topic. It's about 3 pages long right now, but it is a really helpful resource in seeing what super groups are available on the server, and what they are like. That way, you can find a group that will actually take the time to help you learn the game, rather than just expecting you to keep up. I hope you find a good home here!

Ice Manipulation definitely pairs well with Ice Blast, since the secondary effects will all stack very quickly. In terms of providing you the best end recovery, you probably want /Electric. Force of Thunder grants you a 60 second recovery boost, on par with the other blaster secondary clicks that give "sustain." But the set also comes with Power Sink, which allows you to replenish your own end while draining your enemies.

I'm back, under my same old global (@Winter.). So is the Talsorian Guard. We are stationed on Excelsior, and I expect we'll start hosting weekly ship raids again in the not too distant future.

Name of SG: The Talsorian Guard SG Officers: @Winter. SG Outline: On November 12, 2009, the Lady Grey officially removed the title of "Talsorian" from Vanguard weaponry. Her reasoning (according to her official statement) was that the "Vanguard" troops, and associated heroes, should be using "Vanguard" weapons, without any other monicker. In actuality, she had new plans for the unique title: a faction of scientifically engineered and technologically enhanced super-powered soldiers, bred from Vanguard's very best, loyal only to Vanguard and its goals. Now, after nearly two years of enhancement and grueling training, kept hidden from even The Dark Watcher, the First Generation of The Talsorian Guard is ready for active duty! The Talsorian Guard is a story-based super group, in that the group and the characters are part of their own story within the existing lore of the City of Heroes game. We are not a RP group; speaking in-character happens seldomly, but is not required, requested, nor enforced (i.e. there's no such thing as "IC" and "OOC"). The original members came together out of a mutual enjoyment of taking the time to write a bio for our characters, and find arcs in the game that fit our character's concept and story. Stationed on Pinnacle, we hosted weekly Mothership Raids and some other events once in a while, but are otherwise laid back, friendly, helpful, and looking to keep our story going. If you'd like to read more about the story of the Guard, or see what else it takes to become a member, I invite you to check out our forums and, if you like what you see, send me a tell or email in-game!

I like the idea of the 50% xp reduction for people who perhaps want to play through a whole bunch of content in a given level range while at that current level (since they could conceivably always go back and do it via Ouroboros). However, I doubt they would grant the inf bonus. I think it would be way too easy to abuse with the market. Players could get obscenely rich and artificially inflate the market for their own gain. Other than that though, I'm a big fan of playing the content as you are presented with it.

The past sounds terrible. Have you ever heard the expression, "Good things come to those who wait?" It's true. (edited for brevity) This whole nonsense of being an "instant gratification society" is, frankly, tripe. I am sure people said the same damn nonsense about cars becoming common place, about air travel becoming common place, about phones, about radio, etc. The speed of information, entertainment, travel and, production have all been a major focus in technological advancements for centuries. Considering my words have now been quoted out of context several times, I need to clarify that that is only part of my post back on page 1, and that it was quoted for humor's sake. Your opinion about society is valid. My point was that players of this game are presented with hundreds of character options, and generally want to see how different archetype and power set combinations play as soon as possible. The fact that we as a society are growing accustomed to getting what we want/need faster and faster (due to, like you said, technological advancements) was used as a way to illustrate why the OP may feel like there are even more people power leveling to 50 than before.

The past sounds terrible. The past always sounds terrible by the present standards. To people listening to iPods in 2005, walking around with a big clunky Discman or Walkman seemed laughable. Now we think about having to carry both a cell phone AND an MP3 player in 2005 and it sounds like a chore. I am in no way suggesting that "the good ol' days" are behind us, simply that the current video game market (both what is being made and what a large part of the gamer population is playing) has moved away from the structure that CoH was designed and operating on at the end of 2012. I am doing the same thing, making an effort to find story lines that I never touched on Live, but I just want my one main toon back to where he was.

We live in a world of instant gratification. Order something online, you can usually get it within 48 hours. Watching a show, you can watch the whole season in a few sittings rather than having to wait every week for a new episode. Want to find a date? Swipe right, bang, you're a stud. When you present a game with SO MANY different character possibilities, where even 2 characters of the same archetype will play very differently than each other depending on power set choice, many players want the gratification of seeing how that character plays in the quickest way possible. OR see many of the other responses. Different playstyles for different players. So no, there are no regularly scheduled Hamidon raids (to my knowledge), and the writing quality of some of the end-game content is a little better than some content at lower levels, but fewer people want to play "the long game." I'd say the only thing you are missing by not powerleveling is that you get to see how characters are going to play once they are "tricked out" (have most of the powers, have decent enhancements, etc.) much faster than playing through content at your own level. Speaking from experience, some powersets play great at lower levels and then don't feel as powerful or as fun at higher levels, while other powersets are kind of low-powered early on but can be devastating at higher levels (Sonic Resonance, for example). It just comes down to playstyle and doing what you want.

In my opinion, the allure of this game was not how high you could climb with a single character but rather how vast the game was/is. You could play up to 50 on 5 different characters without playing the same mission twice, while also playing through the game with a completely different skill set than you did before (i.e. playing through the game as a Psi/Storm Controller is going to be completely different than playing through as a SJ/Nin Scrapper). You could also easily switch from character to character when playing on a team, to help fill talent gaps as people swap out. And the fact that you don't have to change what you are wearing just to get the better stats, you can design your look exactly the way you want. That being said, I acknowledge that I am someone who is constantly thinking of new character ideas and new concepts that I want to try out, and I think that I am the type of player to which the original design team was catering. If you are a player who enjoys playing 1 character, and that is your character, it's a little tougher. If you are looking to just find more stuff to do, I'd say try collecting exploration badges (they are all listed on ParagonWiki), or other badges like Defeats, Accolades, etc. Personally I am a big fan of the history badges because I get to learn about the lore of the game. But yeah, in terms of content for lvl 50 characters, it is pretty limited.

Ice/Ice and Elec/Elec were my first and second 50s (respectively). I made those characters before I really knew the game, and by the time I hit 50 on them they were in dire need of respecs. But they were GREAT learning opportunities. For playing at pure range, absolutely Ice Blast. Every single power is ranged (unlike Elec in which you have Short Circuit), and you get two holds, which means you can hold 2 separate enemies or 1 boss, all by level 26. If you take Ice Manipulation as well, you'll be able to drop Ice Patch at choke points and anything hit by Shiver+Frost Breath will be slow-capped with little enhancement needed. My Ice/Ice/Cold blaster played like a controller with massive damage output and was very very fun. I ran Elec^3 exclusively ranged as well. I didn't really start to feel confident taking on +1/+2 solo with him until lvl 35 when I was able to pick up a second hold (Shocking Bolt) and a second ranged AoE (Static Discharge). That said, with the new workings of snipes and Zapp being able to be used in-battle now (with enough +To-Hit), you might have an easier time of it. I still had a lot of fun with the character, but I definitely had an easier time avoiding defeat as the Ice blaster.

My favorite character I ever had was my Ice/Ice/Cold Blaster. As a blaster, being able to freeze a Boss at range is an incredible feeling. Picking up Shiver later in your career can max Slow enemies with very little enhancement. And Flash Freeze makes soloing a breeze. If you are looking for something that controls close to a Dominator, you probably won't find much better in Blasters than Ice/Ice or Ice/Time.

If you have found it to be successful and not total trash, how about sharing how you did that? You know, instead of just sarcastically mocking the OP.