Tahliah

Welcome back! Excelsior has the highest server pop, but not a thriving redside. For that, I would go with @Kal5 and recommend Everlasting. Reslotting is up to you; I haven't found it necessary since the changes are to the good, but if you are a numbers cruncher/min-maxer, you may want to tweak your slotting on secondaries. Or not. Run your toons and see what you think. You can move your toons very easily by transferring them to whatever shard you choose (blue to Excelsior, red to Everlasting, or whatever). We get a lot of transfer tokens all the time, so you can't possibly run out. Well, I guess you COULD, but it would be hard. Heh.

I've noticed this, as well. I used to get Inner Inspiration just to sell the insp for 50k a pop and get a lowbie off to a good start without having to send inf from my main. I haven't a rolled a new toon lately, but I won't be getting Inner Inspiration next time because of the market crash on insp prices. I wonder how much badging has to do with it? When I am working on my selling badges, I just toss anything up for next to nothing just to get the badge, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. But then, how many badgers can be still working on those? Shrug. I just take it as some kind of supply/demand thing and move on.

If I had to delete all my blasters and keep only one? Easy choice. The easiest: Ice/ice/ice. Superior damage, awesome mitigation, and just super fun to play solo or on teams.

I'm not sure that I understand what you are asking. If you liked your grav/storm on live, just make another one on HC. Why not? It's a solid combo. I'm partial to plant and stone for control and to nature and time for secondaries, but these aren't all on your lists. Given what you have said, I would suggest just running whatever you like and making it work with your build/slotting.

So wait, you put everyone who asks for an AE farm on ignore? Wow. You do know that this means any team you ever want to form will exclude those players from being able to respond to your LFG messages or from any chat at all? That includes stupid crap like Rikti invasions and trying to kill a GM or form a Trick or Treating team or whatever. Why would you cripple yourself that way? So some dude wanted an AE farm to level his [insert whatever AT], then built an absolute monster of a toon and joins the "main" game, and he's off your team and league list forever? This is weird and strange and self-defeating to me. But then my ignore list is completely empty because I try to avoid guessing at players' motives or goals (or even caring about them) based on an LFG post. I'd be happy to send you all my ignore slots if I could, though! 😛

Good points @Bayand @Dark Dove. Personally, I would never dream of ignoring someone for advertising their sg's costume contest, their stream, or some player/sg-organized event, so this literally didn't occur to me. Funny how people are really different about what constitutes ignorable behavior. My ignore list is usually empty--though I do slap annoying possibly drunk people on it from time to time just to clear up the chat, but I unignore them the next time I'm on--and I still can't think of a single reason I would want to ignore one toon of a player and not the player him or herself, no matter how briefly. Again, I guess we all have differing thresholds of tolerance and kindness, and I don't think it's wrong to be annoyed by someone spamming their sg or costume contest, etc. In fact, I find people who spam the thing over and over, no matter what is, very very annoying. Not ignorable annoying, just annoying annoying. :P

I'm up for it! I'm mostly on Excelsior, but I will make an MM wherever.

What? The same global player is behind every screen name, so what does this accomplish unless you are targeting RP? I don't understand what use this would have since the player is still the same, no matter the toon.

I am also your friend on Excelsior, just hit me up @Tahliah. That goes for all you guys who think you don't have friends, you do! Me! And @Solarverse, of course. :P

This is a very valid point. While I'm not into backstory, lore, RP, and all that, I do play along with sg-mates who want to found some heroic confab among the villains to . . . well, who knows? I don't really follow that part, I just get into the fact that our "cell" of heroes amongst vills is Russian or Martian or whatever and focus on the Natasha or Gld'dn costumes. We have subverted the villains, infiltrated them, and are poised to destroy them. While looking utterly fabulous. They are dooomed. And stuff.

I think this is true, and it's interesting that the graph @America's Angelincluded is for lvl 50s. Players stick with empathy on their defenders right up to end game (not sure if they play into incarnate or not). And I don't think there is anything at all wrong with players choosing empathy for the "traditional" MMO role of the healer, and it seems clear from the numbers that a great many players enjoy that playstyle. That's okay, even good, because if that many players are having fun and loving what they are doing, that's a win. Since empathy was here from the start and we've had so many other choices added for defenders, it may be time to give the set some love and make it really shine in that role. Right now, with all the other upgrades to other ATs and the introduction of incarnates (all of which I love), empathy is not really useful once you hit 50 except on certain TFs, Rikti invasions, and the like. I do love to exempt down and run my emp defenders and /emp trolls on lowbie teams (or on PI radios, etc.) where their powers are useful, but only my plant/emp is useful once in incarnate content (DA, trials).

This is interesting. And kind of weird. I have villains, not as many as I had back on live when that was the only way you could even play an MM, but I don't play redside a lot because I don't like it as much as blue. There are fewer everythings there, and while plenty of people love the writing, etc., I'm kind of meh on it (I like the Goldside writing best, as a whole, then particular arcs on blue and red). Anyway, I also hate that navigating redside is such a PITA on a lowbie (though it's better now that you can get fly early), and I just feel more comfortable blueside since that's all there was when I started playing the game. Part of that is that I never really took the time to learn where everything is, so I'm not as comfortable redside as I am blueside where I know where everything is and how to get there (well, yeah, I still have some troubles in Bricks and Perez Park, hehe). I've noticed that players who joined when COV launched tend to stick to redside, but I would certainly not recommend judging their personal character for that. We tend to prefer whatever side we started out playing. I'm sure there are some players who have started the game with Goldside and prefer it just because it's more familiar and nostalgic to them. There are certainly a large number of players (myself included) who like to feel "heroic," but I've not noticed redside players being any less kind and helpful than blueside (or goldside). In fact, there are more than a few dedicated vills (those who play redside like 90% of the time) that are wonderful human beings and valued fellow players. And heck, sometimes it's fun to release from a particularly bad day by rolling Malice in Chains and wreaking havoc; then again, I do that on my main hero (blaster), too, so sometimes just bashing baddies (and to vills, goodies are baddies, but so what?) to bash baddies makes me happy. I guess I just think what side a player plays is more complicated--and more simple--than you do. Heck, we may both be wrong. 😛 [Edit to add: I have to admit that I love redside bank mishes way more than blue. There's something sort of fun about wrecking bus stops, parking meters, and cars. Stuff you'd never DREAM of doing in RL but that is kind of sneaky good fun in the game. I pretty much avoid banks blueside, but I jump on every one I see red. So fun!]

Heh, as far as rants go, that's pretty tame. I second this request, though, as long as it's not some difficult, time-consuming thing for our all volunteer team to accomplish. It would certainly be helpful to have the name of the contact by the contact picture. I think a couple of them are named in their opening dialogue, but this would make it easier if you are looking for particular contact arc but don't recall the name of it.

Fishnets and thigh highs of course! 😉

When I am in the mood to roll an MM, I typically choose to start out Goldside. Keeping your pets on bodyguard mod will alleviate any problems with pets being ignored (I honestly can't recall that ever happening to me, but when I solo, I tend to keep them on bodyguard, or at least keep the Tier 1 on it, since they get dead fast on aggressive). I prefer to run demons/whatever, so YMMV. I do also have a beast/nature MM that I rolled through Gold so, and it was a blast. If you're going to be on a set team that is going through Goldside together, @Snarky, I'm not sure it really matters what AT you choose, or you may want to coordinate a bit with the others intending to join to ensure you have enough damage and debuffs. Good holds will also come in helpful on more than a few mishes. 😉

My point precisely. Players who don't play defenders (or /emp), etc. have no idea what we do or how we do it. They just know their health bar doesn't crash, and they don't really care what powers we use to make sure it doesn't. If they see a green (or whatever color people tint with) flash that jumps their health, they assume that it's only these heals that are keeping them alive. They may not be looking at their buffs or see the debuffs on the baddies, and frankly, I doubt they really care. I'm fine with that. That's why I always take "nice heals" as "Woots! I didn't die, and you defender types I think of as "healers" are responsible. Thank you!". It's better to hear "nice heals" than not a damn thing when you are busting your butt keeping a team alive, right? I'm just saying don't be insulted by "nice heals"; it's a good thing to hear even if your defender has or used no heals at all. I really don't care what powers a tank uses, as an example of an AT I do not play, but if they can hold aggro, yay! Okay, not really the same thing, but you know what I mean. Heh.

"Playing the game" when it comes to COH means so many things to me, but I don't think that the definition, for me, was ever more clear than when the game went dark. It was only when I was searching desperately for an alternative that I realized that playing COH was not about just filling time on some game, whiling away the hours punching stuff with sg mates, or working on character builds. It was about community, about designing my own unique costumes, about exploring the game and discovery (even after all these years, I still find "new" things that have always been there, but I just somehow missed or ignored or didn't care about), it was about great story arcs, interesting and compelling backstory/lore, about each zone's particular feel and music, and all the things I love to do at different times, depending on my mood. Solo or team? Run mish arcs or radios or tips? Work on completing every mish available via the Pillar? Play blue or redside? Work on badges, do some marketing, or research and work on builds? Create my own story arc in AE? Run others' AE creations (not farms, just for a nice change of pace and to enjoy the amazing talent of our fellow players)? Heck, join a farm for some quick xp to get through the terrible thirties? Just coast around on my rocket board enjoying the scenery, the NPC dialogue, and checking out other player costumes? Take a swim, go ice skating, enjoy some disco dancing in Pocket D, or fly around the shards? Run something intensive and clicky like a troll or emp? Or blast everything in sight? Hang out in AP and hand out influence to new players (or vet players with new rolls)? Spend some time on base building? Visit other people's amazing bases? Focus on answering player questions in Help chat? See a bunch of people looking for something to do and start a team for them (and me)? The list of things to do, ways to play the game, is practically endless. I tend to decide early on which way I'll play each new roll that's not theme/sg-based,, and since I don't typically care for farming levels, I'll pick this one to do AP arcs and end up in KR or that one to do a couple of DFBs before heading to the Hollows. I love playing content, so I'll pick some to run Striga, some head to Faultline, and some run tfs right away now that Posi can be started at lvl 8. And some just sit at level two for years. Heh. Playing COH is a . . . a labor of love, a little slice of a world in which I can relax, be "super" or silly, be a loner working on some pet project or a gregarious teammate excited to run a TF or trial.

About to log on and will run through it.

I mostly play heroes. I do have a couple of vills, and way more Praetorians than vills. I really really like Praetoria, I love the zones (so pretty!) and the storylines and dialogue are awesome, but I tend to avoid it on most ATs because I prefer tor run squishies / support, and teams are hard to come by Goldside. So I just run MMs over there since I can easily solo the content, but I would play there more if there were more teaming options for def/troll/blasters, etc squishies

BFR has a longer range than FR in my experience, and honestly, I drop BFR on the PB or Fake Nem, and I don't get the agrro I would if I launched bitter ice blast, ice blast, or ice bolt (obviously frost breath is an aggro magnet). YMMV, but I'm just stating what I experience in game. (Not a numbers cruncher, so I'll concede that my sense of the power's range and lack of aggro pulling may be off, but I'll continue to lead with my BFR on any baddie who can, by whatever means, become untouchable. Once they are held with BFR, I just finish them off with bitter ice blast. Easy peasy.)

I don't think ice blast needs a snipe at all because 1.)) our range is already pretty good, and we're likely to pick up "incidental" (i.e. not planned) range bonuses from set choices, and 2.) in addition to range, our attacks are pretty darned deadly. As a largely single-target blaster, ice blasts/bolts/freeze ray are already pretty darned good (balanced against other blaster AT's AOEs, etc.). Slot up for damage (acc and recharge), and you're a DPS rockstar. That said, I do get that bitter freeze ray is a super slow power to execute and agree that it does not "fit" into a 'go-to' attack chain, though as @TheZagnoted, if you use it first, it's a much better fit for an attack chain (that then, after the first cast, is skipped). However, turning it into a snipe or some sort of icy blades thingy doesn't appeal to me. It's too samey same, cookie cutter (ice/fire/elec/blah blah blah all function exactly the same way with only the element changed? Meh.). My main, an ice/ice/ice blaster, is also my badger, so I do a LOT of soloing on her in my never-ending quest for my next shiny. When you solo an ice/ice blaster, the crowd control features of the primary and secondary are vital, so bitter freeze ray becomes a crucial part of game play. Out for your Fake Nem or PP badge? Well, you need to stop them from sup'ing up, and bitter freeze ray is perfect for that. Lead in with your bitter freeze ray to control a Paragon Protector/FN, and kill it dead, along with the rest of the mob with your Blizzard, mop up with your bitter ice blast (and freeze ray, ice blast/bolt, whatever, if needed). Bitter freeze ray has great range right out of the box, and it also tends to be accurate (given the time it takes to execute, it better be, right?), so it's a great way to freeze not just Fake Nems and PPs but the blaster-dreaded sappers. Bitter freeze ray also seems to attract little to no aggro, so it's very useful in caging sappers and other undesirables (like Freak stunners or CoT mages) both from a bit of a distance and without drawing attention to yourself before you can drop your full icy fury on the mob. I love this power more just thinking and writing about how I use it. I do admit that I don't drop it constantly, but it has its uses and comes in very handy when there are particularly unsavory baddies who need to be shut down before they can do their worst.

Just saw this post, @ineffablebob! I remember the Iron Eagles on Freedom; that was a LOT of fun. I don't think I ever got past the low 20's (often didn't even make it to the teens), but it is a fond memory. You guys were all so supportive and fun to hang out with; I think I mostly tried trolls back then, and it was an earth/ that made it to her 20's (if I recall correctly). I ended up removing her from the sg, but I didn't delete her. I think I deleted the rest, though. I'd be up for it, for sure, if you're still running.

I noticed this, too. I could have sworn that I did this flashback months and months ago, so when I saw the other day that it wasn't showing as completed, I figured I was misremembering doing it. I did it again. Same thing. I complete it, go back to the Pillar, and it's still showing not completed. I'm pretty sure (about 75%) that I have the Doctor's Ally badge from when I first ran it (maybe even a year or more ago), but I can double-check that part if it's helpful.

I'm with @MTeague. Go nuts. I've seen a gigantic hulk of a man wearing only pink underpants in AP, a clown with rat ears and a reptile tail, and even run my own sparkling "Off Topic" toon (her name is literally 'Off Topic.' And she sparkles.). In fact, why not call your Atalantian 'Loreless' just to embrace the flexibility and nutsiness of it?! I will say, though, that I would love to have an underwater zone akin to Atlantis after it sank into the sea. But with living people in it, just underwater. I have a vague, distant memory that this was once an idea the devs were pursuing, on live, but I could be misremembering. For now, I just content myself with underwater swimming in those sandy cave mishes with the bridges (like in the Montague Midnighers arc).

OMG, this is hilarious! I literally (not online fake) LOL'd at just the title, but your description has me giggling like crazy. SO many thanks for a much-needed laugh.