Techwright

Wait, wait, wait.... let me finish making popcorn first. This ought to be good.

Always thought anti-grav grapples would have made an excellent travel power. Think Spider-Man web shooters, but instead of webbing, a thin, high tensile wire shoots out with a cylindrical anti-grav piece on the end that shoots out to a point then holds position mid-air (no need for walls), allowing swinging below, and turns off the anti-grav and retracts the wire when the other wrist-borne wire is extended. Perfect for "web slinging" over Talos Harbor, or anywhere else there are no buildings to web to. Also a flying segway, drawing inspiration from the travel device used by DC comics Orion:

Just how many Spider-Man opponents do they intend to stuff into this movie? This is starting to look like Infinity War in the size of its character cast.

I've been wondering why I've not seen any Praetorian zone event recruitings in LFG recently. Now I'm really interested to do those again, and see this and anything else hidden.

It is my goal to read them, though I would politely question if you're actually looking at the shipping price. The mass market paperback of "Freedom Phalanx" is going for about $43 used currently, and that looks to be the best price. Some, even "acceptible" are over $400. Yowsah! I like the game, but not that much!

And that's exactly the problem: the game, to provide targets for the heroes, overstocks the streets and warehouses with villains. The "reality" would be more like 20% of the population are villains, 10% are heroes (I seem to recall reading somewhere that it was believed the heroes numbered less than 10, 000), and 70% are citizens. That still makes for a very lethal city to live in. There's a reason kids are almost never seen. You don't live in Paragon unless you need to live in Paragon. And that brings up another point. A lot of these citizens have to work here because their companies require it and in some cases because their companies provide protection. Take Crey, for instance. Sure we know they're rotten to the core, but on the surface they provide "heroes" which would probably act as a deterrent to crime against their workers, maybe even escort duty to/from work. But in exchange, their workers are tightly bound to the will of the company. So you want to work with Crey? You come to the big city, despite the danger. On another note. it's Rhode Island. It's about 55 miles top to bottom. There's an international airport half that distance from Paragon City in Province. Not sure we have to have another (though I'm sure I'd love it if such a zone were developed.)

Yeah, this has nothing to do with my opinion on the subject. I always thought that "mutant" should be constant in the timeline of the game, just like all four other powers. However, and I forget where to point you for the reference, even back in the original game it was stated that mutants were not seen (in modern era?) until right after the splitting of the atom. I think it was Sister Psyche that pointed out the conclusion was that something unknown (Marvel would say "quantum" here) shifted in the universe, and super powered mutants came to be. I'm digging way back to my memories of the original game here, and something I've not yet re-encountered in Homecoming, but I was given to understand that powers largely came and went in, well, eras as you've used the word, and that suggests why the game writers pegged the splitting of the atom as the "start" of the mutants of the modern era. Meaning that they had the idea of mutant powers resurfacing with each era or epoc. Perhaps a dev with greater access to the lore might clarify for us, or someone with a more encyclopedic knowledge of the game quotes. Exactly. You summarized my confusion nicely.

SPOILERS AHEAD for any who still want to learn the lore at their own pace. I think it's been out there long enough that we won't need to used the spoiler windows. The hero Talos: when was he in action? The unofficial wiki says the 50's and 60's, which matches with what I used to assume which was mid-century, but then I was passing by that marker of Mayor Spanky's birth street on Talos Island the other day, and suddenly realized that Spanky was born in 1878. Which would be in direct conflict with Talos Island being created in the 60's. Plus Spanky was heavily tied to Talos Island in the 1920s. What was Talos origin? Again, when I thought he was mid-century, "mutant" seemed reasonable. The wiki hints that Talos has been around for centuries, so that couldn't be mutant, since the splitting of the atom was the starting point for mutants. I'm guessing "magic" since that tends to be a catch-all. Was it ever stated that there were plans to bring the Talos story back to the forefront? Again, the info on the wiki suggests in the 60s that Talos was mysteriously tied to a young boy (the implication being that the boy either summoned Talos or transformed into Talos, ala Shazam.) But if he's summonable, over centuries, then perhaps he wasn't killed, and the kid, now an adult, might summon him again at some point.

Episode 8 dropped and it is a doozie! (and yes, hero vs villain) Give it time. Marvel-Disney is playing the long game, and doesn't want to rush those characters into the MCU. They are moving that way, however. Eternals next, and strong evidence that the Fantastic Four will arrive in the next year or two. X-men unfortunately will be later than that. Deadpool, that one I'm not certain about. But What If...? has the potential to run for years, dropping a new season after every major shift in the MCU.

Yep, I finally discovered the term while doing additional research.

You got that right! Mine has been simple trial and error. I first started with separated bins for orange, yellow, and white salvage. Too much work and too fast a fill. Dumped that concept and now store alphabetized. I do agree that white salvage should probably not be stored. You can literally buy it for chump change on the market. Actually, I do store certain whites, but only those of certain recipes I buy in bulk on the market, craft, convert, and sell for profit. Having many of these handy speeds my work. I will keep yellows handy as well, but set a limit on how many of each. As to the IO enhancements, I first tried to store everything, which proved ridiculous. A big change came with the addition to the game of the Upgrade button on the enhancement screen. Again by trial and error, I realized that upgrading SO's was more effective than basic IO's all the way to level 38. At that level the basic IO's fare better. So I never store any basic IO's less than 40, and will sell any basic recipes less than 40. (I find the vendors generally offer a better return on basics than the market). I advance characters fast enough that I don't bother with using or storing set IO's until 50. There is one exception to this. I will craft and store lower level knockback-to-knockdown conversion enhancements and use them in any power with native knockback. Any other lower set recipe I may craft and convert for sales, as there are some fine prices to be had for the right lower-ranked piece on the market.

Huh. I never noticed that before. Not that I have a stalker or anything. I've got a MA scrapper, and Dragon's Tail is a critical part of his design. I wonder what the developer thinking was that swapped out Dragon's Tail rather than the lightweight Stormkick?

Loved that. Absolutely loved it.

I almost posted this, then I saw you answered it. Spot on. But then I saw Wavicle's note and realized it is correct, too, as exhibited by the setting down of the hammer. Only Thor and elevators. We mustn't forget them.

Never have I ever read this and wondered what everyone is doing. 😉 They're late bloomers. In the original design of the game they really were a struggle until security level 22, and teaming was almost manditory. It's easier now with things like DFB teams and Posi 1 & 2 task forces (not to mention the 2x XP from the P2W vendor) to more quickly push them up to the mid-20s, where they really start to come into their own. While never extreme damage levels (someone's going to disprove me on that), by level 50 many of them are quite the terrors. I've said it before, but illusion/storm controllers, for example, are a joy to play. So much variety to choose from!

Yeah, OP, I've seen it. I don't mind when one or two stealth to the end then tp everyone to the end room. That's a team effort just trimming down the time. What concerns me is I've seen more and more, especially on task forces and missions with AV's, where they'll deliberately race to the end, NOT use team teleports, and try to finish off the elite boss or AV on their own leaving others to try to fight their way to the destination with a reduced team. It could be that those one or two CAN solo or duo the AV, but that's not what the team experience is for.

That's 'cause it isn't one, but two shorter ones. Their contacts (Tin Mage & Apex) are adjacent to each other making running them back-to-back a logical arrangement. Well, until this summer, I'd never never participated in a Hami raid. Have now checked that off my virtual bucket list. Have also checked a failed Hami raid off my list. I've never run all four parts of the Summer Block Buster. I've only done it one time. I've never done all of the "Who Will Die?" storyline. I have teamed to others on one or two bits. I've never done the Seed of Hamidon zone event. I've never used a widow archetype. I've never actively done PvP in the game. I have, however, been attacked in PvP zones trying to badge hunt.

Are you sure you didn't find one of the Freakshow? Better check his arms.

Yeah, both Steve Rogers and Tony Stark went through a development phase, with Tony having to work in primitive conditions, then with better conditions, learning how to fly, etc. We actually have seen something like this recently with Sam Wilson learning how to wield the shield. I suppose a case could be made for Wanda as well. Admittedly, we didn't get to see her initially discover her powers, just a brief end credits scene where she was toying with some blocks she apparently made. But in WandaVision, she was actually opening up a whole different level of her powers and coming to grips with it, and we left her studying that out. (Meanwhile Photon walks through a magic field one too many times and instantly understands rudimentaries of her new power).

Character powers can be delivered in an instant (Captain Marvel, Captain America, Photon) , so I'm guessing you're referring to them being able to use said powers to the fullest without experimentation and training?

Episode 7 thoughts:

Tried out the generator. Venombite -- hmm, not bad. The Aqua Termite -- 's ok. Messy Prodigy -- okaaay, I'm not sure you're understanding.... Commander Brave Robin -- um, yeaaah, I don't know... Colossal Katana -- 😳 No. Just...no.

Looks like Void Hunters and Nictus Shadow Cyst in...Boomtown? Badges for street hunting those would be very interesting, though it's probably some mission or task force. Shadow Cysts are one of the few things in game that I feel genuinely threatened by, and I like that sort of challenge. The gold guy with the boulder, I don't recognize the curved blue-glass building behind him. Might that be the original hero Faultline? And one of the others is clearly the long-hoped for upgrade to the Warriors. Yassss... Not sure what the deal is with all the Gold Brickers and a portal(?)

AAAarrrrggh! How have I never known this? I never hear anyone talking about it. I actually went looking for it a year ago as I'd had multiple builds in other MMOs and thought surely CoH would have this. I searched for a while in fact. But either I never searched on the right term or in the right corners, I guess. This is a game changer! Now I can build solo and team builds, especially for my energy/energy blapper. Unleash the knockback! Thank you soooo much for linking that @Glacier Peak!

Fire/Ice blaster. Though I don't remember exactly how bad the end drain was to level 20 doing it the old-fashioned way. I just remember every character suffering massive end drain until the early 20s. F/I deals a lot of damage for low levels, and any ice powers help control the melee range. Now if you're soloing only, energy/energy blapper is a heap of a lot of fun, and you can cut loose and send guys flying, but if you're going to team, you'd have to reign in the knockback. I would have said ill/storm controller, they're a blast, but not for soloing until about level 22 or so when he gets all his pets. If you're teaming the old fashioned way, then yes.