RikOz

Here's my main villain, Bruised Violet, in her current costume. Rolled one year ago today! Also, she's walking because she's kidnapping Akarist, and she couldn't run more than about 15 steps without having to stop and go back for him because he can't keep up (they really ought to do something about that - some escorts keep up just fine, others just don't).

Overheard a Hellion as he was involved in breaking into a building: "This better be worth it. Last time we broke in, all we found was Synapse dolls."

Indeed. I've seen, any number of times, a mob yelling about how he's going to tear me apart as he runs away.

I much the same way. Not in the specifics (I always go left in Oranbega and blue caves, not so much on other map types), but in the general idea that I have a particular approach and method to my madness. It's part of why I rarely team or participate in group content. I do things the way I do them, because it makes sense to me, and when you add in more people it just confuses the hell out of me because I can't synchronize my "makes sense" with other people's "makes sense". EDIT: On outdoor maps, I tend to locate the perimeter first. I have a hard time making a mental map if I don't know where the edges are.

Heh. I didn't have much choice, as a Mac user. I dumped it soon after discovering CoH, but alas, that happened only a year before the shutdown. Dumped WoW again as soon as I heard about Homecoming 🙂 (Though I am on Windows 10 now, so I have more options, but haven't found any others that I liked.)

Speaking of the costume missions ambushes, those can annoy me because, a) sometimes they wait to spawn until I'm already engaged with another spawn, or b) I exit Icon, and then wait, and wait, and wait ... and they never appear. LOL, that Kronos Titan was a nice surprise! It occurs to me that the difference in timing between that and "normal" ambushes is that the Titan ambush knows exactly where you're going to zone in: at the specific mission map exit. Ambushes that spawn upon zone-in while you're traveling to a mission have to wait and see where you appear, since there may be multiple ways to enter the zone - tram, tunnel from a neighboring zone, base teleport, Wentworth's teleport, etc. - all of which have different zone-in points. Though it does seem that, if the code can look and see where you're exiting a mission, it ought to be possible to have it look ahead to see what "route" you're taking to a new zone, and have the ambush waiting for you. My main concern with the Titan Kronos ambush, when it happened to me, was that it was going to rampage through the zone.

I have a small suggestion regarding the ambushes that occur in the open world while traveling to/from a mission: Is there an easy way you could adjust them so that the spawn either more quickly, or closer to where the player character zones in? The problem, from what I have observed, is that these ambushes all expect the player to be ground-bound, stationary, and/or moving in a certain direction. This results in situations where I step off the tram in my destination zone, activate flight, and fly off toward the mission door, and the only clue I have that I've been ambushed has been a ranged attack catching up to me and hitting me when I'm a good 100 to 200 yards away from the tram station. I have spotted some ambushes as have been flying away, where they've zoned in 50 yards or more away from the tram station and are running in that direction as I fly over them in the opposite direction. In either of those scenarios, I have to circle back to find the ambushers and deal with them. But all of this leaves me wondering how many ambushes I have been completely unaware of due to the ambushers having no ranged attacks, or because I've simply managed to get out of range faster than they can fire off a shot, or I've flown away in the opposite direction from where they spawned. I simply haven't memorized which missions have these ambushes. When I played WoW, I always maintained a policy of "if I aggro it, I kill it", because I hated it when other players stirred up mobs and kept going, and the mobs would turn and attack me, and I didn't want to do that to other players. But in WoW, at least those mobs would be near my character's level, since quests in that game are usually confined to the same zone where I accepted the quest, and virtually every player in the zone was going to be at an appropriate level for the zone, so it was more annoyance than danger. That's not the case in CoX, where a level 30+ mission can send me to Kings Row, and I don't want to be the guy leaving a Malta ambush at the KR tram station for level 12 players to deal with. This could be solved by simply having the ambushers spawn closer to the zone-in point, and make their presence know sooner.

I my case, I tried exiting and reentering, but it didn't work, so I needed to relog. Unfortunately, in the map I spawned, the PP and her opponents were right in the middle of a narrow hallway, leaving no way to proceed without aggroing them.

What are these "amplifiers"? I've seen them mentioned 2-3 times now, but don't recall anything called an "amplifier" on the P2W vendor.

Some good ones here, but some of y'all are missing the qualifier in my OP: Habits that have no effect on gameplay. In other words, things you always or almost always do even when there's absolutely no reason to do it. In my example of always moving into an open space before clicking the mission's Exit button, I didn't even realize I was doing it for a long time, because it was so automatic. Now that I think about it, I suspect it's related to my years of playing WoW. In WoW, you cannot summon a mount indoors, or inside most raids and dungeons. Even outdoors, despite quests not being instanced, things like caves count as "indoors". So if you have finished your business inside a cave, you have to run back outside of the cave before you can summon your mount. In CoH, I think that translated to an automatic urge to move out of a confined space before "traveling".

Who has little in-game habits? Things you always, or almost always do, that have no effect whatsoever on gameplay? And you don't really know why you do it? Mine: Upon mission completion, I almost never immediately click the "Exit" button. I first step into a nearby open space, then click. That last hostage/glowie is tucked away in a side office or other little nook, and that's where I am when the mission completes? Step out into the hallway before clicking Exit. What's yours?

I'd like to have the loincloth belts worn by the female BP shamansesseses. Those seem to be normal human female models, as opposed to the custom models some enemy groups have, so I don't see why they couldn't be easily implemented.

"Celestial Rifle" like VG said.

My vigilante has a mission from "The Major", to force a Paragon Protector to kill Crey VP Hernandez. As such, I'm supposed to lead her through the map to the target. Unfortunately, she has glitched out while attempting to take the elevator from the 2nd to the 3rd floor. She's just hovering a few feet off the ground, erratically zipping back and forth in the elevator room: She's just rubberbanding back and forth, never getting on the elevator. So I reach VP Hernandez but can't do anything without her. EDIT: I was able to complete it after exiting the mission, logging out/back in, and starting over. Still maybe worth looking into.

In one of Harvey Maylor's missions, you can hear one Carnie call another "Captain Obvious". Then when you approach them: "That's not Captain Obvious! That's <playername>!"

I had an idea for the name, "Memento Maury", but somebody beat me to it. So here's international bounty hunter, Darkray: He's a Beam Rifle/Fire Manipulation blaster, with his beams and flames colored as nearly black as I could make them. The costume uses that Headhunter belt that apparently nobody ever uses.

"Natso Fungi" is a ... Fungi, not a Devoured 🙂

There's actually a DE boss in one mission named, "Natso Fungi". I figured it was supposed to look like "not so fun guy".

Inside one of Christine Lansdale's timed missions, "Stop villains' leaders, their men, I spotted this bit of chatter: The second line should say, "... your voice carries". "Your", not "you're".

I experienced three game "crashes" yesterday. Each time, I was inside a mission map. The first time, I wasn't aware of an actual crash; as I proceeded through the mission, a single sound effect started looping endlessly, preventing any other sound from playing, but I was able to continue through the mission normally. Upon finishing and exiting the mission, I intended to log out to the Character Select screen and then log the character back in. However, the looping sound continued on that screen, so I exited the game entirely. That's when I discovered the standard Windows alert box, "City of Heros.exe is not responding", with the options to force-quit the process or wait for it to respond. I force-quit, then relaunched, and everything was normal for the rest of that session. The next two times, there was no looping sound, but I was alerted by my standard Windows alert sound in the background. When I tabbed out to the desktop, I found this crash report box: Both times I got this alert, I clicked "No" and continued playing, with no further issues. Unfortunately, nothing provided me with any helpful data, so I don't have any ideas as to the cause of this. I'm running a VPN, but that's always been true. The only apps running in the background were Firefox and the Folding @ Home client, but I've always had Firefox open while playing, and have been running F@H in the background for a few weeks with no issues. I can only suspect it's something in the most recent patch. As I said, I was inside a mission map each time this happened, which seems to be the only constant as to what I was doing in-game when it happened.

All right, here's the new build. It's obviously still a work in progress as far as getting the exact IOs I want. Since I already had complete, attuned Luck of the Gambler and Reactive Defenses, I split each of them between powers. I left the Sudden Acceleration: KB to KD in Crane Kick, sold the rest of the set. I had the recipes and materials to craft two pieces of Doctored Wounds, so I purchased the rest of the set to fill it out. I'll be replacing it with something better later. Other full IO sets I already had, including ATO's, were moved (the 2 ATOs & Mako's Bite) or left in place (Multi-Strike in Dragon's Tail) until such time as I can shuffle in other suggested pieces. All of the SO's and most of the regular IOs are placeholders until I can acquire better. I plan to replace the Perfect Zinger: Taunt/Range with the PZ: Chance for Psi damage. Hero Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.6.0.7 https://github.com/ImaginaryDevelopment/imaginary-hero-designer Click this DataLink to open the build! Mandy Manslapper: Level 50 Natural Scrapper Primary Power Set: Martial Arts Secondary Power Set: Ninjitsu Power Pool: Flight Power Pool: Leaping Power Pool: Leadership Ancillary Pool: Blaze Mastery Hero Profile: Level 1: Thunder Kick (A) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage (3) Mako's Bite - Damage/Endurance (3) Mako's Bite - Damage/Recharge (5) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge (5) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge (7) Mako's Bite - Chance of Damage(Lethal) Level 1: Ninja Reflexes (A) Reactive Defenses - Defense (36) Reactive Defenses - Scaling Resist Damage Level 2: Storm Kick (A) Touch of Death - Accuracy/Damage (7) Touch of Death - Damage/Endurance (9) Touch of Death - Damage/Recharge (9) Touch of Death - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance (11) Touch of Death - Damage/Endurance/Recharge (11) Touch of Death - Chance of Damage(Negative) Level 4: Cobra Strike (A) Accuracy (13) Damage Increase (13) Endurance Reduction IO (15) Recharge Reduction (15) Damage Increase (17) Damage Increase Level 6: Focus Chi (A) Recharge Reduction IO (17) Recharge Reduction IO (19) Recharge Reduction IO Level 8: Crane Kick (A) Accuracy (19) Damage Increase (21) Recharge Reduction IO (21) Recharge Reduction (23) Accuracy (23) Sudden Acceleration - Knockback to Knockdown Level 10: Danger Sense (A) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Endurance/Recharge (36) Luck of the Gambler - Defense (36) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed Level 12: Warriors Challenge (A) Perfect Zinger - Taunt/Range Level 14: Shinobi-Iri (A) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Endurance (37) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Recharge (37) Luck of the Gambler - Endurance/Recharge Level 16: Kuji-In Rin (A) Recharge Reduction IO Level 18: Crippling Axe Kick (A) Critical Strikes - Accuracy/Damage (25) Critical Strikes - Damage/RechargeTime (25) Critical Strikes - Accuracy/Damage/RechargeTime (27) Critical Strikes - Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime (27) Critical Strikes - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime (29) Critical Strikes - RechargeTime/+50% Crit Proc Level 20: Seishinteki Kyoyo (A) Endurance Modification IO (37) Endurance Modification IO (39) Endurance Modification IO Level 22: Kuji-In Sha (A) Doctored Wounds - Heal/Endurance (39) Doctored Wounds - Endurance/Recharge (39) Doctored Wounds - Heal/Recharge (40) Doctored Wounds - Heal/Endurance/Recharge (40) Doctored Wounds - Heal (40) Doctored Wounds - Recharge Level 24: Fly (A) Blessing of the Zephyr - Knockback Reduction (4 points) Level 26: Dragon's Tail (A) Multi-Strike - Accuracy/Damage (29) Multi-Strike - Damage/Endurance (31) Multi-Strike - Damage/Recharge (31) Multi-Strike - Accuracy/Endurance (31) Multi-Strike - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance (33) Multi-Strike - Damage/Endurance/Recharge Level 28: Bo Ryaku (A) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Endurance (42) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Recharge (42) Titanium Coating - Endurance/Recharge (42) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Endurance/Recharge (43) Titanium Coating - Resistance (43) Titanium Coating - Endurance Level 30: Combat Jumping (A) Reactive Defenses - Defense/Endurance (48) Reactive Defenses - Endurance/RechargeTime (48) Reactive Defenses - Defense/RechargeTime (48) Reactive Defenses - Defense/Endurance/RechargeTime Level 32: Eagles Claw (A) Scrapper's Strike - Accuracy/Damage (33) Scrapper's Strike - Damage/Recharge (33) Scrapper's Strike - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (34) Scrapper's Strike - Damage/Endurance/Recharge (34) Scrapper's Strike - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge (34) Scrapper's Strike - Recharge/Critical Hit Bonus Level 35: Tactics (A) To Hit Buff IO (43) To Hit Buff IO Level 38: Kuji-In Retsu (A) Endurance Modification Level 41: Maneuvers (A) Defense Buff IO (46) Defense Buff Level 44: Fire Ball (A) Accuracy (45) Accuracy (45) Accuracy (45) Damage Increase (46) Range (46) Annihilation - Chance for Res Debuff Level 47: Melt Armor (A) Defense Debuff IO Level 49: Char (A) Accuracy IO Level 1: Brawl (A) Damage Increase IO Level 1: Critical Hit Level 1: Prestige Power Dash

w00t! I went through all of the suggestions offered here, made a number of changes to my character (as best I could with my current resources), and adjusted my strategy, and Marauder is down! Thanks y'all 🙂 Now I also have some good ideas on how to approach builds on other alts so I don't have to resort to a massive respec at level 50.

Well that certainly explains why my biggest hits on him after he popped were doing something like 19 damage. Against all other mobs, the MA scrapper seems to seriously out-damage my DB scrapper, but Marauder is effectively a wall she can't get through, completely halting her progress in the story arc. My DB scrapper ran into a similar wall when she got sent up against the Praetorian version of (I think) Citadel. He was in a big robotic body and once he popped whatever +RES he has, she couldn't do a thing. Oddly, in that case I abandoned the mission, and when I later went back to the same contact to try again, I was instead offered a completely different mission with a different elite boss. Almost as if that particular mission, or at least that portion of the arc, had some randomization, so when I abandoned and then went to reacquire it, it selected a different boss/mission. I'll definitely grab that Lore pet when available. This toon is a very recent 50, though, so it's gonna be a little while before she's got that slot unlocked.

Wait, Marauder's buff drops eventually? How long does that take? I've managed to stay alive a good long while a couple times, and the buff never seems to drop. I'll look over all of these suggestions, and see what I can do. Inf isn't too much of an issue. Thanks!

In the Hero alignment mission from the "Discarded Picket Sign" tip, there is frequently an odd delay in the Cage Consortium Guards spawning. I'll speak to the Miner leader at the beginning of the mission, then defeat the Cage lieutenant that shows up. Then I'll proceed deeper into the map to find the Cage Raid Leader. Along the way, I'll pass through completely empty corridors and rooms, reach a dead end, turn around and go back the way I came, and now there are Cage mobs all over the place just a few seconds later. I don't think these are supposed to be ambushes - I've never seen a mission where every spawn is an ambush, and certainly not all of the mobs, all at once. And in any case, it doesn't happen every time. Most times the mobs spawn normally and I encounter them on my first trip through. But the late spawns are happening frequently enough that I'm confident there's a glitch somewhere. I would guess that one of the triggers in the mission is sometimes not going off at the right time. It looks like talking to the first Miner triggers the first Cage lieutenant to spawn and attack, and defeating that guy then triggers the rest of the regular mobs to spawn. I've seen this in action - the very first time I ever ran this mission, I didn't see the first guy I was supposed to talk to because he was standing up on top of a cargo container and a bit behind a corner, so I ran right past him and found the rest of the map completely empty. I found him when I eventually ran back to the entrance, spoke with him, and then things proceeded normally. And I've watched the regular mobs pop into existence after defeating the first Cage mob - sometimes they're still fighting with other miners.