Tahliah

This is an awesome thread, and I've been using the suggestions as I go through the badges. I did take some notes about merits if you are interested in adding them. I am taking my time on getting these badges this time (last time I would crank out as many as I could in one day), and I'm finding that waiting on some levels for the merit cooldown to expire is worth it. To that end, I'll do run 2 in one level range and run 3 on another, etc. in the same day. So here's what I have for blue side so far: Level 15-19 Hero: I Lost My Daddy! 5 missions: rescue NPC, escort NPC, ambush; talk to contact; defeat 10; find boss (beware mezzes); find NPC, escort NPC, ambush (beware mezzes). 10 merits I ran Mind of the King, too. 23 merits. (One thing about this one is the clocks hunt, so keep that in mind for runs without travel; clocks are just easier to hunt on rooftops) Level 20-24 Hero: The Sky Raiders Secret. 5 missions: 3 rescue NPCs, clear boss room; talk to contact; rescue NPC, clear boss room; six glowies, rescue NPC (timed!); kill boss mob. 15 merits Level 25-29 Hero: A Mad Man's Council. 7 missions: 5 glowies; defeat 10 in specific zone; defeat 3; glowie; defeat 15; ambush, defeat boss mob; talk to contact. 13 merits (with LOTS of travel, something to keep in mind for run 2) I also ran Origin of Olbermann for runs 2 and 4 (and will do it for run 5, too). 28 merits Level 30-34 Hero: Rise of the Vampyri. 10 missions: 10 glowies; glowie; defeat all, 2 glowies; 3 glowies; find correct glowies, defeat boss mob; defeat 10; defeat 15; defeat 20; click glowie, defeat boss mob; clear boss room. 42 merits I also ran Hatred's Hungry Heart (run 4). 12 merits and Aura of Power. Super suggestion, Platca, very easy and quick. Perfect for run 5. 0 merits Level 35-39 Hero: The Ouroboros Initiation. 8 missions (4 doors): Talk to contact; glowie; talk to contact; glowie, 7 rescue NPCs, defeat 25; talk to contact; rescue NPC, defeat boss mob; talk to conact; rescue NPC, destroy guard mob, destroy glowie. 12 merits (I still need the Shivan badge, so I also cleared the map each time since I was there anyway) I also ran the "old" suggestion Mass Duplicity for run 3. It was super fun but took a while. 47 merits That's as far as I've gotten so far, but I'm loving this thread and having a blast doing missions and arcs I only vaguely remembered until I got there. [edit to add: my run numbers are based on the "old guide" that had the first run as time limit/defeats. After you get those, you don't need to do them for every level range which is probably why it was changed here. So for me, run 2 is "first" on this guide, run 3 is "second," and etc.]

I heartily second (or twenty eleventh) the call for snow as a ground cover option. It could be like the grass in terms of sizing and hills, etc. for optimal choices. I'd also love love love to have the kind of slippy ice you find in the Frostfire mission (both the ground and the slopes that go up the stairs); one of the reasons I love to solo that mish is the chance to slip-slide all over the place (with "weeee!" playing over in my head as I giggle happily). Having that available in a winter room in base would be fantastic (I have a shark swimming area so I can swim with sharks without having to go to First Ward, and unless I'm on a team, I rarely go to my base without taking a quick dip). Snowy trees would also be nice. I can't recall if we can change the color of the conifers in the base edit option, but an all white tree or white tinted wouldn't be the same as those heavily-laden snowy trees in the Ski Lodge and Winter Event missions (but it would work great if we had options for creating our own winter wonderlands). Also a blizzard area effect would be awesome in addition to the snow options we currently have (though maybe swirling blizzards of buffeting snow would be too FX heavy?). And maybe make some of the sculpture options available in ice? Oooh, and how about an ice skating rink or frozen pond? And a sleigh. And eight tiny reindeer. Heh, okay, just kidding (mostly) on those last two.

There is a clear bright line, though, Megajoule. Your incarnate toons are . . . well, incarnate. I just don't get this at all. But I think you're awesome. :)

I've always loved your posts, Megajoule, but I don't get this one. You're complaining that incarnate materials pile up in your storage but take no room from your usable storage and that you are seeing messages about incarnate stuff that you don't want to see? Okay, so just ignore the stuff piling up in your storage that takes no space at all from your usable storage; you can even set your view so that you do not have to see the incarnate drops at all! As to the messages, you can do several things: disable them, move them to a tab you infrequently view, or just minimize chat (except whatever chat window you need to keep your RP going, of course). In other words, I see this as a weird thing to complain about: "Something that doesn't affect me at all makes me want to request a change that will affect everyone else." I don't get that. So what if you have threads and shards you don't want to use? There are many more of us who are happy to have them. Delete them, trade them in for random recipes or salvage or whatever and make some influence on the market . . . or do what most people would do and simply ignore them. Who knows, one day, you might want to make that toon incarnate. If that day never comes, so what? Just ignore the threads and shards. You don't have to look at them. If you feel infringed on (or whatever) by messages about incarnate drops, change your chat so you aren't assailed by these unwelcome notifications. It's not hard, just disable the notifications or if you're afraid you'll miss something, move them to a new tab where they won't interrupt your RP until you choose to view that tab. Generally: I just don't get how we all went from gut-wrenching, heart-broken sorrow about COH being shuttered to griping about being forced to endure the horror of incarnate drops without our express permission. /smh

My main is an ice/ice/ice blaster, and I solo everything in game except GMs. What I don't quite get is the "+2/x8 content or +4/x8 content" thing. Sure, my fully tricked out with set IO's and 4-tier incarnates can do that (depending on the baddie), but . . . why would that be a goal? Blasters are blasters. We're not tanks or scrappers or brutes or even sents. In other words, I guess I don't get the logic behind your basic premise. If you want an incarnate tank-scrapper-blaster, you can build one, maybe even an archery/fire one, but if your goal is to kill "+2/x8 content or +4/x8 content," why even consider a blaster? Build a hardy farm toon and love it. I love my main, she's about as awesome as she can be, but she's still a blaster. If I forget that for a moment, she dies. You're not going to get massive hp or resistance or defense on a blaster . . . unless and until you sacrifice dps. But why would you do that? Blasters are "glass cannons," we kill hard and fast because if we don't, we die. It's the nature of the blaster beast. But I've seen some super impressive blappers (that can't touch my own dps, but are way more survivable), so it's all in what you want to build and what you are willing sacrifice to build it.

I want to be on your teams. Naow. :P

I love this thread and am going to steal some ideas from others. 😛 I have yet to figure out how to scale down my extra trays (beyond the three we can scale). If there's a way to do this, please tell me how because this would hugely declutter my interface. For example, if I could rescale my extra trays, I would absolutely copy Vee's tray placement. It looks perfect . . . if I could get my extra power trays small enough and still be able to read everything else, which alas I cannot. As is, I have extra trays on the sides and one at the top between the target and nav bars (this is where I keep my tp stuff, team, base, Pocket D, WW's, etc. and some macros like hold torch). I move my health/menu bar over next to the nav and keep my map in the upper right corner. I undock my insp and scale it down so that I can place it closest to my powers (I click, so keeping stuff I click a lot close it key), my powers are also scaled down (except my extra power trays, grr. I put these around the edges in various ways). I am intrigued by the players who keep their most oft-used power trays high up on the screen, but I keep mine in the lower right. I'm just used to that, I guess. Over all, I love the way I have my interface set up, but I do wish we could resize the extra (past the three docked) power trays. If I could make these smaller, I would be so so happy! I know trays can be made tiny via options, but I can't then resize the other stuff I need, like contact interactions and story. You have to choose one or the other if your eyes aren't as keen as they used to be, and after fiddling with the available window scaling, I landed on the side of viewing contact stuff/etc. over extra tray sizing. This means my UI is way more cluttered and crammed than I would like it, but at least I can see and read everything. 😛 Edited to add: That's for my blaster. My UI for defenders, trollers, and MMs is slightly different in that I undock the team UI and the pet UI and move them over near my power tray (lower right corner). I find the old UI easier to read/click, so I select that from options, then scale both pet and team windows down, and have them next to my power trays (team to the left, pets on top and off to the right). Since I'm a clicker and have the keymapping set to easily "select next teammate" for tp and clear mind or whatever is still not team aoe, this is easiest for me when things get crazy in battle, and I can still see when sb or whatever is wearing off and needs refreshing. If on an emp, I can also easily click on a teammate who needs a single-target heal or buff. This setup works great for me since I'm not a "heal spammer" (except when required).

Exactly my point, MunkiLord. I love love love an ITF of all 50s at +4 (especially if it's kill most), but why do that if you're including a bunch of lvl 35s who cannot possibly keep up? And yeah, funny you should say that, the other day, I saw someone on LFG broadcasting for a Synapse at +4. Why? It's a low level tf with clocks who zap end . . . who would think this a good idea? Obviously, some people did since the team (eventually) filled, but it took a long time compared to how fast other Synapse's fill. To me, it's all good. I would never ever join a +4 Synapse, so I'm happy that the leader let it be known that was the deal. Most people are doing those for the TFC and maybe xp, but the xp is negated when an already long tf takes twice as long because the team wipes at least twice every mish. /smh But to each their own. If it makes sense to run a low level tf far above your toon's ability and to spend twice as long doing it, go for it, I say. Just don't ask me to join. I could spend those four hours getting far more xp/inf/merits doing Synapse twice at a more doable diff setting.

You may indeed "be" a blaster, but this reads a bit like concern trolling. The goal of teams is to kill stuff. If you choose to play melee and find your blaster self turned off by having to toddle over to baddies to harm them, come back to the blastside. :P We're not going to stop blasting because you just managed to huff over to within melee range when we take out a baddie.

Everyone is mentioning ITF as a bone of contention, and I think this is valid. It would be helpful if people forming these were clear what they are doing so that people looking for a speed ITF can join a speed ITF and people looking to join a "kill most" can do so. I think, for the most part, people are clear on this, but it is disappointing to join a pug "speed" ITF and find that it's set to +4/x8 (and as an added fun bonus they let lvl 35 toons join. Gah!). As a related aside, is it just me or is the recent craze for +/x on everything a bit annoying? Why do a +/x bazillion radio mish team, tf, etc. if you spend more time in the hosp/collecting debt badge credit than actually killing anything? Wouldn't it make more sense to lower the diff to something manageable and do two or three mishes full of baddies in the time it takes you to recover from constant team wipes/endless debt? /just musing

Oh, I think this is fair enough. Had the guy actually taken ten seconds to write this, people may have listened (though I doubt it, we are used to fighting Rikti at Portal Corps), but he didn't. All caps is not a good idea unless you are leading or forming an MSR, incarnate trial, etc. Randomly yelling at people to do something (and without explanation--preferably not in all caps) will not yield the desired results. Personally, I only participate in Rikti invasions in Talos and PI but only because I know where to go for them. I was once in FF when one happened and spent most of it looking for the "main" invasion grouping. I don't think I ever found it (this was back on live).

I'm mostly on Excelsior, too, and for the most part everyone is amazing. Sure, there are some grumblies here and there, but I just ignore them (not literally put them on ignore, just don't read their moaning--maybe they're having a bad day and don't rise to the level of actual ignore). I have seen a few "you're doing it wrong" types who berate teammates for some perceived misuse of powers, but the couple times I've seen it, the critic was wrong, not the player. I have witnessed (and once been the target) of utter senseless rudeness, but that's been the exception and not the rule. I do recommend avoiding pugs that are crazy specific and demanding. You'll see LFG messages for Posi, for example, demanding tells with powersets and AT and level. It's Posi. It's like level 10, and you can do that with literally any team makeup. Eight defenders can do it, eight blasters, and on. I do not respond to these people because they will not be fun to team with and are unlikely to construct or lead good teams (not that you need a good team--or leader--for Posi, but you know what I mean :P ). I do have a funny to share, though, it was shortly after I had found out the game was back, and I was ended up in PI while a Rikti invasion was happening. I was SO excited. It had been seven years since I'd heard those sounds, seen those colors, enjoyed the camaraderie as heroes amassed at Portal Corps to fight off the Rikti. Heals were flying, buffs were zooming, Rikti were dropping like flies. And all the while some guy was shouting (yes, in all caps) that we all had to GO TO THE PARKING LOT!!! I still giggle just thinking about it. He got really incensed, too, asking if no one could hear him (again all in caps). Everyone just kept doing their thing. Dunno if the guy ever figured out that you can't herd heroes during a Rikti invasion any better than you can you herd cats. I guess the thing I'm writing around is just don't let it get to you. There are jerks everywhere and that includes in our beloved game. Ignore them, avoid them, laugh at them, and just move on with your day. We have our City back, and that's what really matters.

Thanks for this! I've been using it a lot. Just curious if you (or anyone) happens to know the window scale name for the pets window? I tried pets, pet, petwindow, petlist, petswindow and probably some others I can't recall just now. For earning inf early on, I get Inner Inspiration from the P2W vendor (and save my insp from outbreak). After a quick DFB or running early mishes or just street sweeping, I get enough inf to sell them for $50K each. Then I sell the inspirations from the inner inspiration until I get enough inf to play the market. Once I'm done with that, I might revoke Inner Inspiration for Mystic Fortune or whatever, but it's also helpful to have on tfs when you're eating/combining inspirations faster than they're dropping. You can also email inf from your main to your alts, so that's a big help to lowbie alts, too.

I was just talking to a friend of mine about this the other night. He wanted me to get it so he could watch my pets fall out of the sky for the grins, but it got me thinking about group fly and masterminds. Some mishes are on the other side of maps, and if I'm flying to them on my mm, my pets are trotting along behind and sometimes taking damage and even dying (they are on defense follow but it still happens). if they could just fly with me, it would be so much better. And who doesn't like to see demons, ninjas, beasts and/or bots flying through the air? I don't know about game mechanics, but if it's at all possible to have a group fly just for mms that would solve the problem. I haven't seen anyone take group fly in forever; I tried it with an mm back in the day but respec'd out of it as soon as I realized it sucked (for mms, no idea what it's like for teams).

[quote author=Bossk_Hogg link=topic=5876.msg48516#msg48516 date=1561763266 The problem with the melee attacks in Ice Manipulation (and some other blaster sets) is they're pointless. Ice Blast deals 102 damage on an 8 second recharge. Frozen Fists deals 91 damage on an 8 second recharge. It isnt needed to fill an attack chain, so why are you in melee to deal less damage? Energy Melee gets this mostly right. Bone Smasher has a 14 second recharge, but deals 144 damage. Blaps need to have a longer recharge and hit harder to make the risk of entering melee worthwhile. Particularly given the changes to snipes, the blaps need to be re-examined to make them useful. Dealing the equivalent of a tier 2 blast in melee range is poor design. At minimum, the following powers need changes to recharge and damage to give them a niche. Ice - Frozen Fists, Ice Sword Martial Assault - Storm Kick Mental - Mind Probe Ninja Training -Sting of the Wasp, Golden Dragonfly Others might need tweaks, but these are so redundant and low damage as to be waste of power choices. Maybe we are all talking at cross purposes. If I'm playing an ice/ice blaster, I don't care if my melee numbers are below par for a scrapper. I'm a blaster. The only thing I need ice sword (or fists) to do is finish off an almost dead baddie that has somehow managed to still be alive and then slipped on my ice patch. Typically, though, in normal game play over (say) level 15-20, no baddie gets that close to me. I fly, I kite, I am nictus! Oh, wait, I'm not nictus, but I'm also not standing in one spot hoping to draw some baddie into melee range. Ideally, I will go months without ever allowing a baddie that close to me. But when it does happen (and it does), I can deal with it because anyone who gets that close to me is going to be nearly dead, unable to recharge or hit. A quick slash with my ice sword, and he is finished. But I run a blaster not a blapper, so ymmv.

As others have said, now that we aren't paying real money for these things, they work differently. I'm okay with that because rocket board is super cool and I just love it! :) I do wish it didn't de-toggle me, but that's the price we pay for the fun of zooming around Paragon on our very own hover boards.

My main on live and on Homecoming is an ice/ice/ice blaster. I used the secondary powerset (/ice manipulation) to its fullest . . . for the way I play the game. My main is also my badger, so I need to be able to mitigate aggro when I solo content for badges, and that is the strong part of /ice manipulation. Chilblain, as you've noted yourself, is a very useful power. Not only does it drop flying targets, but it's a handy place for frankenslotting. I'm a blaster, so I think range and don't take both melee powers; however, it's crazy to think that you will never be in melee range of foes, particularly at lower levels where shiny-seekers seem to find themselves. For this, I not only pick up Sands of Mu from the P2W vendor, but I opt for ice sword. If a baddie gets within melee range of me (and I'm on the ground), I'll drop ice patch and giggle while the biggest baddest baddies flop around and then take them out with my ice sword (or my range attacks, which work equally well at short range). I don't take Chilling Embrace, but that's just because I would rather have other pool powers. It's not a bad power, I just think about my build/where to put the sets I need/want. Of course I take Build Up, Ice Patch, and Shiver. Build up is a no-brainer, as is ice patch, but I take shiver because it is a good power. There's another thread on this very topic, but I love Shiver and think it's an excellent power, particularly if you solo content (aka badge hunt). I have neither of the two last powers in /ice manipulation, but again, this is just my personal choice. I like the epic power pool sleep better because it hits more than one target, and i prefer to have snow storm than anything that assumes at a higher level I can't stay out of melee range (or mitigate if I'm stuck with blizzard, ice patch, ice sword, etc. and etc.). So I guess if I were to make changes to /ice, it would be in the last two powers. My guess is that the devs wanted an option for a /ice blapper, but I would not, personally, take this route on ice/ice. It may be fine for other primaries, but for ice, to me, it just doesn't make sense. The primary powers are about dealing quick death and mitigating incoming damage . . . from afar, so top tier /ice melee powers seems counterintuitive. That said, I'm sure people play them just fine. It's just not for me. Ultimately, that's the bottom line, though. Sure, we could get better ice manipulation powers for the last two power choices, but we have to weigh in everything else. If you're building a blapper with /ice, you will want both early melee powers (fists and sword) and the top tier ones. You'll also want tough and weave and other powers in which to dump some defense/resist procs. So you balance out which range powers you can take with the melee. That's how the game is supposed to work. You build the toon you want to play. If you want to redo /ice manipulation, then what do you offer to people who don't want to play your toon? I like the options and the possibilities afforded by /ice. I wouldn't change a thing.

I agree with this. Snark sometimes ripples out of me, but I do understand that it's not helpful in almost all situations, including this one. Thanks for the grounding. :)

Every server can be non-AE. Just don't go there. How hard is that? If you are so "weak," as you self-proclaim, that you can't manage that, we are talking about your personal failings, not failings with AE. A lot of people, myself included, enjoy expressing ourselves with AE story arcs. My stories on live were not farms, so if we follow your logic, my sadz that everyone wasn't forced to run them is justification to force everyone to run them if they log in to [a] particular server. Right? I haz feels and a sad! I matter more than anyone evah!!! Just stop.

I think it depends on what you are doing with your ice/ice blaster. Is it your main and/or badger? If so, I would definitely recommend Shiver. It's a great slow/-recharge when part of your slow/debuff chain, and as others have noted, it's great for soloing and for extended team combat (AVs, GMs, incarnate content, etc.). If you're not planning on min-maxing, though, it is a bit of a throwaway power (poorly slotted and without other slows/-recharge/-tohit powers, that is). Drop a blizzard, snow storm, frozen aura, frost breath, and shiver, and your target will be a fish in a barrel . . . just slow-moing, unable to recharge (or hit if they manage it). Pick them off with your damage cannons. Fun for the whole family.

+1 [Edit to add: I don't care for redside. Part of it's the desire to be the hero, the do-gooder; part of it is that I find redside hard to navigate (to be fair, I don't spend much time there); part of it is the low population/difficulty finding a team; part of it is the depressing scenery (again, to be fair, I find DA, Boomtown, parts of Faultliine equally depressing); and part of it is that the content isn't as interesting to me, see part the first--I don't want to be villainy). All that said, I did enjoy doing SFs back in the day on my badger (who switched for the shinies) and had a blast doing the higher level redside content via Ouro that a lot of villains don't get to for whatever reason--the low level redside content seems grindy and the stories unappealing to heroes-at-heart, so I don't think I ever got a villain above the low to midteens on live. Maybe I got one into the 20's. All that said, if there were an unofficial villain server (the one with the 238 in the pic upthread seems a good candidate unless they're all standing around RPing at level 5), I'd definitely roll a villain and join the fun. I've probably missed a lot redside, and I'd be happy to dive in and give it another try if there was a chance of finding a team. As to incentives: I wouldn't do it on my own server for inf or merits or xp, though I might do it for a specialty costume piece or novel villain-only vet-type travel/tp/[insert whatever coolness] power. /just my 2cents as a hero who can be lured to the dark side for occasional villainous fun]

I've been enjoying COH Homecoming since around May 10th, and I want to add my voice to all of those saying a resounding THANK YOU to the devs, mods, and entire Homecoming crew. I won't wax on about what the game means to me because others have done so far more eloquently than I can, but I do want to share that the first time I logged in (for the second first time last month), I literally cried. I couldn't believe it was the whole game. Or that it would last more than a few hours or days. I didn't care if it lasted minutes, I was going to squeeze every bit of joy and love into that time that i could. And here we are, over a month later and I am still filled with such joy and gratitude to be home at long last. Thank you.