Call Me Awesome

Gray arcs... we've all been there. I made the mistake WAY back when, probably around issue 4, of talking to one of the low level story arc contacts pre-level 10 and then got sidetracked teaming with friends, then TF's and suddenly I was 50 and unable to get missions because I had the maximum story arcs open. It took a bit to figure out what they were and one of them was something like a 5-7 mission arc of level 10's. Really a challenge at level 50. Kill all missions too of course... pain in the butt.

That reminds me of a time way back around 2005-6 when Guardian had a "clear Perez event" and over a hundred high level characters came in and attempted to completely kill all the mobs in the zone. I doubt we succeeded but it was a lot of fun and a great time was had by all who participated. I think we also had a couple of Devs show up for the fun and after we'd finished our sweep they spawned various GM's and AV's. Sigh, those events were a lot of fun.

You roll the character up as normal and select "Hero" before you enter the game. Your choices are Hero, Praetorian or Villain, then you have the choice of entering the Tutorial zone or going to Atlas Park. If your character is already in game then go to Pocket D and talk to Null the Gull, the bird on top of the truck in the room on the villain side of the zone. You'll have the option to change how buffs affect you, change your alignment and several other things.

I took Earth once years ago to experiment and fairly quickly respec'd out of it. In my experience it was pretty lackluster. My default choice for an APP is Pyre for Fire Blast and Fire Ball, two decent ranged attacks, one with a large AOE. My second choice is Energy if I'm still having end problems; but I usually have that under control by the mid 30's. My Inv/Stone tanker currently has Hurl Boulder, Fire Blast and Fire Ball for ranged attention getters/attacks and Heavy Mallet/Fault/Tremor/Seismic Smash for melee attacks. I drop Stone Mallet and only use Stone Fist in low levels.

No, he's right. You're insisting on SO builds, then insisting on "6 slot all armors". In an SO build you'll NEVER go more than 3 slots in any passive and almost never go more than 4 slots in a toggle. Unless you're slotting for IO bonuses you'll almost NEVER 6 slot any armor. The rule with SO's is 3 resist or defense in a passive and add one endurance reduction to that for a toggle. More than that is a waste with SO's. When you start looking for IO bonuses the slotting becomes much more complex, the number of slots in any given power depends completely on the overall build. Sometimes you'll 6 slot an armor power or two and sometimes you'll stop at 3 or 4 depending on your build. There is no one size fits all rule for the number of slots in a power when Set IO bonuses are involved.

This one caused confusion on a team I was on a couple months ago. I think I was the only veteran player on the team and it wasn't until about halfway through that I realized they couldn't figure out where the glow was and I had to tell them it was a kill all... like so many of the happy happy joy joy missions in that TF.

I originally tried using the 8 way option on the rocker switch back in 2004 on the original Belkin Nostromo, I found it a bit tricky to get it to register the diagonal settings and after some frustration abandoned it and haven't looked back. I was always getting the wrong function when I was trying to move, or moving when I tried to access whatever I set to the diagonal settings. By the way, you CAN map multiple keys by creating a macro on a key, and you can make a pretty complex one if you desire. The macro record function is fairly capable and you can have it include or exclude time delays between portions of the macro. Admittedly I don't use them much and generally set my macros in game. I've found the scroll wheel is a bit buggy, I have it set for scroll up = next target and scroll down = previous target but it frequently seems to default back to the mouse wheel zoom in/out. After a bit of experimentation I decided to forget about it.

Haven't thought of Cyberstorm in maybe 20 years, it was a lot of fun. Hmm, I DO still have the game in the old junk drawer, maybe it's time to try it out again.

Here's what you want to shoot for if you're melee tanking him: S/L/E Resistance of 90% while the Red Tower's active (it doubles his damage) S/L/E Defense of 75% while the Blue Tower's active (it gives him 30% to hit AND Speed Boost so he's hitting you more often) High endurance drain resistance (Stone Rooted or Electric Armor) or a couple big blue insps if his end drain hits. If your primary doesn't have this then you're SOL and need to carry Blues for when that drain hits. If your defense is high enough he won't hit very often. Until the Yellow/Orange tower dies don't bother attacking him, just spam Taunt. That tower gives him a MASSIVE defense bonus so you'll only hit him 5% of the time. Also, by not attacking you're not wasting endurance, this can be huge if his end drain hits. If your end is full when he hits with it you'll drop to, if I remember correctly, around 10-20% endurance. If your end is NOT full when he hits with his drain your toggles drop and a second later so do you. With my tankers I go into the last mission with roughly this inspiration load out: 8 big Purples 4 big Oranges (depending on the tank) 2 big Greens (if he gets lucky) 2 big Blues (if the end drain hits) I'll modify it some depending on my tanker, I want to have enough Oranges to maintain 90% S/L/E Resistance until the Red tower dies, enough Purples to maintain 75% S/L/E Defense until the Blue tower dies and the emergency green/blue for backup. LR is a tough foe to tank when he's buffed by the towers, but you can use your insp tray to compensate long enough for your team to down the Red and Blue towers. Once they're down he hits about like a normal AV so presuming you can handle AV's you should be good while the team kills the final two towers.

It really depends on AT's and power sets. Some are easy with most any well built and played characters while others can be tough thanks to AV powers and mechanics. As you discovered all the Signature TF's spawn at the TF cap, so I HIGHLY recommend running them once you've reached or exceeded the max level of the TF. A good duo should easily handle the signature TF's, particularly Posi, Synapse, Yin and Citadel. Manticore is the potential problem due to two AV's at once, you'll either need to solo both of them or have a method of dealing with them one at a time. Hopkins is a really pathetic AV, if you have good defenses you can ignore him while you take out Countess, then get him later. I had no problem soloing him with a Fire/Regen Stalker while the rest of the team focused Countess down. By the time they'd killed her I had Hopkins down to about 25% The ITF has been solo'd successfully quite a few times so a good duo should be able to handle it as well, you WILL need to bring your A game and very good builds. Dr. Kahn will be a major challenge as will Lady Gray. The STF/MLTF is possible but it will test you more than any of the others. I've heard of it being successfully solo'd but that was an extreme outlier and a fantastic build/player. You'll need to have your strategy down and you'll need really good builds and synergy between both players. I see the final battle with Lord Recluse and the Towers as the biggest problem; you'll need massive defense and resistance to survive his attention while you kill the Red Tower and Blue Tower. The bottom line is your two characters, their AT's & power sets and how they work together. Two high damage/durability melee characters works for most of them, a pair of really strong buff/debuff characters with good damage can work as well. Ideally both characters have very good damage, good buffs and good debuffs.

Certainly, as Psyonico said Oroborus will allow you to run missions and contacts you've out leveled. Additionally you can run lower leveled Task Forces which will cap you at the maximum level of the TF. Do you have friends who are lower level? Join a team with them, give them the star and bang, your level is the same as theirs. When you're on a team you will automatically be either exempted down to the team leader's level if they're lower than you or you'll be sidekicked up to one level below theirs if their level is higher than yours. This game is extremely team friendly allowing players of disparate levels to join a team and run missions. The only limiting factor is Task Forces which have a MINIMUM level to join, so everyone on the team must be at least that level. There's no maximum level, if you're higher than the Task Force cap you will be limited to the cap level, or the level of the team leader, whichever is lower. As an example, the very popular Penny Yin TF in Independence Port has a level range of 20-25, so you MUST be level 20 or higher to join, and if you're higher than level 25 you'll be lowered to level 25 for the TF. Task forces are generally a lot of fun, and they come in all level ranges with the first, Positron Part 1, having a minimum level of I believe 8. Positron Part 2 has a level cap of 15 if I remember correctly. The highest TF's in the game will be for levels 45-50.

I have button 11 on the pad for jump, having it as one of the thumb buttons would require me to take my thumb off of the movement control, this is a problem when jumping. Jumping forward requires holding spacebar and the forward movement control, you'll also need left/right/back at times to control your movement in the air. When you let go of jump you immediately start descending, not always what you want when moving. Particularly with Super Jump. When you're Super Jumping you hold the spacebar to jump AND you hold the directional control to jump forward instead of straight up. Having both controls on the thumb won't work. It's the same for Flying, spacebar moves you up and the directional control moves you forward/back/left/right. You need to press both at the same time.

Star Kissed doesn't want Tuna with good taste, they want Tuna that taste good! (And isn't that a mental image)

Ego the living planet? I'd think Natural, as I recall he's an evolved lifeform that either grew into planetary size or colonized and co-opted a planet. It's been a lot of years since I paid much attention and the Guardians of the Galaxy version didn't go into any details as I recall.

I've gotten into the scrapperlock mentality on a Blaster before, albeit from range since my Blasters are built as ranged combatants. I DO build them for near soft capped Ranged defense which may be a contributing factor. I do like the Aim/Buildup/Bonfire/Rain of Fire/Nuke combination though, and it's great for eliminating most of a spawn. I've tried other APP's but I always come back to Pyre for Bonfire... a KB-KD IO makes it into a thing of beauty.

When the STF was first introduced it WAS actually possible to avoid all the towers, their effects had a limited range and you could pull LR back to the boat. That particular strategy got nuked fairly early on. Ever since then I've been a fan of killing all towers, the extra time in killing the potentially skippable Blue was more than made up for in the reduced pressure on the tank and the lower numbers in the 20% spawn. My record time taking 4 towers and LR down was under 4 minutes, if your team is good it's no big deal taking down 4 towers instead of 3. Even a slow team if they're competent should be able to kill a tower in 2 minutes. If I'm leading I usually set for a MoSTF run so leaving the blue tower up with it's tohit buff and speed boost is a pointless risk.

While the Incarnate Trials don't technically have an order requirement I'd highly recommend not running Underground or higher until you've gotten at least one level shift, and preferably two. The final trial, Magisterium, should wait until you have three level shifts. You'll find that the BAF and Lambda are run quite often while the others are more rare, I don't think I've been on a Magisterium since shutdown. The later trials get considerably more difficult, the AV's will start being level 56 - 59 so you don't really want to face that until you can do so as a 53 (50 +3). Even at max the Magisterium is tough, facing a +6 AV. The rough order of them is: Behavioral Adjustment Facility Trial Lambda Sector Trial Keyes Island Reactor Trial TPN Campus Trial The Underground Trial Minds of Mayhem Trial Dilemma Diabolique Trial Magisterium Trial As far as the standard level 50 TF's go the popular ones are the ITF, Dr, Kahn, Lady Gray and the STF (MLTF). They're all challenging but a good team will make them look easy and they're a lot of fun.

IF you have enough non-S/L/E damage in the team. I'll bet that a minimum of half of the team deals mainly or exclusively those damage types, and likely most of the team does. Any Scrappers on the team? Almost certainly they do one of those damage types so they'll be useless against LR. Tanks? Likely the same boat. The majority of attack sets in the game are based on S/L/E damage either completely or in part. Skipping Red is a bad idea, LR hits twice as hard... hard enough to one shot a non-melee character and unless the tank natively has 90% resistance to S/L/E he'll likely end up dropping before LR. Many of your teammates will be unable to damage him at all so he'll go down much slower. I always want Red down first, followed by Blue, this drastically reduces his danger level. I've been on a few STF's where the team decided to leave the Blue tower, it always made for a harder fight and twice lead to a team wipe once the tanker was out of purples and couldn't maintain the 75% defense. Oh, and I was on one where the idiots decided to leave both Red and Blue and couldn't be convinced they were wrong even after multiple team wipes. That was the only TF I've ever bailed on. They were ABSOLUTELY convinced they could kill him without taking ANY towers down, then it was "We just need to kill the orange tower" and then "Just the green tower". Red and Blue are the towers that make your Tanker's life hell, kill them FIRST.

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I think this change came about after shutdown, I used to have it two slotted with Membranes back on Live at shutdown.

I'll give you my method for melee tanking Lord Recluse, I've done it on MoSTF runs with Invuln, Stone and Shield tankers... your secondary really doesn't matter much, and you don't need a babysitter to keep you alive. You MUST HAVE TAUNT!!!! First, I have an Insp load out for it, I carry 4 big oranges, 8 big purples and a pair of big blues and greens. This varies with the tank I'm running... for example with a Stone tank you can skip the orange and blues... you'll be at or almost at the 90% resistance cap with Granite and a decent build so Orange is pointless. Rooted makes you nearly immune to end drain so the blues aren't needed. You will want to be at 90% resistance to S/L/E damage while the red tower's up (which doubles his damage output) and you'll want 75% defense while the blue tower is up (it's a large +tohit buff for him). Keep in mind you'll find it almost impossible to actually hit him since the tower also gives him a massive defense buff, this is why you MUST have an auto hit taunt to keep his attention. Ok, you've done your homework and have your strategy and load out. Enter the mission and clear the 4 patron AV's, the Flyer AND all the mobs in the courtyard. If you leave the mobs they'll come and be a nuisance while you're clearing the towers so get rid of them first. One more point, the Flyer will respawn at the 20 minute mark from when you entered the mission, it's a good idea to keep an eye on this so it doesn't take you by surprise. It will spawn in the center of the towers on the platform and if you're still fighting towers at this point it will likely aggro on you. After you've cleared the patrons, flyer and mobs then make sure everyone is on the same page, eat your candy and jump in to say hi to LR. I pull him to the rear of the platform away from the team to keep them away from any splash damage while they take down the Red tower. This also has the effect of keeping him and me away from the point where the Flyer will respawn if the mission runs long. If someone on the team has a placeable damage power like Bonfire then have them keep it on the tower, this will kill the repairmen that spawn at 50% of the tower's life. Hurricane also works here. The repairmen are the team's #1 priority to kill immediately, they'll heal the tower back up to full amazingly quickly. Fortunately they're only around level 40 minions so they're easy to kill. Knock them down, keep them away and don't let them use their heal. Bonfire loaded with damage usually kills them all by itself. While your team is killing the towers, preferably in this order: Red/Blue/Orange/Green you'll be taunting LR and keeping him away from the team. While the red tower's up maintain ~90% S/L/E resistance and 75% defense (S/L/E or Melee/Range/AOE). When the red tower drops you can allow the orange insps to wear off while maintaining your defense until the blue tower dies. Once the blue is gone he's pretty much an ordinary AV and you should have no problems surviving if you have a decent build. The Red tower buffs his damage output by 105%, the Blue tower buffs his ToHit by 30% and gives him Speed Boost, the Orange tower grants him 200% defense so you won't be hitting him while it's up and the Green tower gives him a massive regeneration buff as well as a constant heal and +HP. If he gets lucky with either an attack or his end drain eat a green or blue, or hit your heal if you have one. Don't stop taunting him! If taunt wears off of him he WILL decide to kill your team! Your aura alone won't hold his attention, and if it isn't auto hit then it likely won't affect him. Stone's Mud Pots and Fire's Blazing Aura for example require a to hit check and while the orange tower's up it won't hit him 95% of the time. Invuln's Invincibility is marginal for maintaining his interest unless you slotted it's taunt component. YOU NEED TAUNT to hold his attention, and I highly recommend spamming it. Don't waste endurance trying to attack him while Orange is up, at best you'll hit him 5% of the time and at worst your endurance will be low when he nails you with his drain and your toggles will drop. Once the towers are down I keep him at the back of the platform and the team attacks him from behind. This is important, LR has a really nasty cone attack that will do major damage to your squishier teammates so they need to stay behind him. When LR gets to 25% he'll start summoning minions, everyone should ignore them and burn him down, they'll all vanish when he dies. In all the runs I've made I doubt there's been more than 2 or 3 times that the adds were a problem, most teams can drop LR the final 25% faster than they can spawn, target and start to attack. That's the method I use when I'm tanking, doing it in Melee gives me more control of his position than hovering over his head and some tankers don't work as well hovering as they do on the ground, Stone for example, and Invuln so you keep the defense buff from Invincibility. It does require a tougher tank and you need to pay attention. I frequently put Taunt on auto fire while I'm tanking him to make sure I don't get distracted and loose his aggro. If your aura is auto hit then it's also contributing to holding his attention if you're in melee. If you simply want to range tank him you don't even need a tank... I did it a couple times with a blaster firing from extreme range and making damn sure to get him to the opposite corner from the rest of the team since I obviously didn't have any lock on his attention. One time I got him to jump up onto the top ledge of the building behind him and his AI glitched so he just stood there not moving. After killing the towers the team had to fly up and kill him there while he never moved or attacked. It only happened once and that was shortly after the STF was introduced so whatever bug allowed it may have been patched.

I've seen this exact suggestion dozens of times over the years and it's always gotten a "no". People would roll a "fast starting" combo and then change into a "late blooming" combo. And, of course, apparently the game is hard coded to Origin (worthless as we all know), AT, Primary/Secondary. Those are the locked in stone attributes of each character. So, on the one hand it allows an easy way to game the power/leveling curve and on the other the game code doesn't allow that to change without likely MAJOR surgery to the core functionality... which would likely introduce some really nasty bugs and/or side effects. Hmm, major programming change (if it's even possible without basically a page one rewrite of the code) with the benefit of partially breaking the power and leveling even more than it currently is. I see that as a Loose/Loose proposition.

Yep, dang thing is addictive isn't it? At least it's cheaper than drugs... although it can have much the same effect on you the next day.

I can promise that teammates will have disparaging things to say when they peel enemies off of you. Things like "pointless" or "pathetic". A tank that easily looses aggro isn't a tank, they're a low damage scrapper or brute. If you're planning to team then you need to learn to manage aggro, and Taunt is an invaluable tool for that. CAN I manage aggro without it? Yes, but I know the tricks and WORK at it. DO I have Taunt on all tanks? Heck yes, it's the best tool in your arsenal for grabbing aggro, and one of the very few you can use to get aggro without physically moving over to each individual mob that may be outside of the group clustered around you. Bottom line, if you're not going to take Taunt and manage aggro then roll up a brute or scrapper... they'll do better damage and their durability is more than adequate. Plus teams won't expect you to manage aggro and cuss your name when you don't.

I agree that it went straight into the crapper after season 1, but I do think that first season was a fantastic show.