I created half of the source code, many years ago. After ... Iakona (?) figured out how to dump pigg files, I tried it. I managed to figure out most of the formats. And then I supplied to data to ... Red Tomax like 13ish years ago maybe? And he handed it off to ... some other people. And I think they started dumping piggs on their own, and didn't need my data. This was like 10 years ago. I saved all of my code to parse piggs. No idea if I can still read it off the DVDs, and no idea how much things have changed. But I've been thinking about resurrecting it to get at all of the real power data.
His first appearance is in the second mission of Heather Townsend's arc (Burden of the Past). That's the mission where you have to defeat 3 boss spawns of Talons, then save Sigil after the Talons take Kadabra. Hop is always on the second floor of the mission at the end of the hall from the elevators. Save him AND talk to him. Then he will appear and be savable in the later arc, though lying on the ground and easy to miss. I don't think he always appears in the same spot the second time, so you have to search for him.
For Cataclysmic, gather all of the AVs in Mender Ramiel's first mission, and toss an AoE on them about every 23 seconds. You have 3 extra Incarnate powers, one of which adds a massive DoT to all of your damaging attacks. They should heal fully up between each shot. You'll probably need some sort of automation program to attack on schedule. If you don't have that, you could put a 90+ second recharge power that does damage on auto (nuke or damaging AoE hold). The Incarnate powers also give you +400% recharge or something like that, so any short recharge AoE will fire much too often.
It isn't my method. Unfortunately, I've long since forgotten who told me about it. Pay it forward. Find some creative new way to earn a badge faster than ever, and post about it here so the whole community can benefit.
I can't think of anywhere blueside that has a high concentration of Longbow or other friendly units just standing still. You might find a small number in RWZ, including the Vanguard base.
I'm not upset at all. I just wanted to make it clear that I was posting a recipe, not a theory.
I am SO glad my badgers on live were Rads. I still had to do the billion, but at least I didn't have to do the arenas.
There may be history badges that you have to be a villain or rogue to receive. I think that's the case for Swashbuckler, as I didn't get the badge when I hit all the plaques as a Vigilante oh so long ago on live. At least I have a vague memory of that. I made sure to be a villain when I was hitting all of the villain explore and history badges, and that worked fine.
More likely, you just hit the plaque once and it didn't register. That happens, and it's very annoying. I tend to bring up the badge window to make sure I get progress when I click a plaque. You DEFINITELY want to do that when working on Headjuiced. You DO NOT want to go back and hit every plaque to find the one you missed.
There is no issue with that. This is not theoretical. It works. I got Empath within the last week. Feel free to argue whether or not it SHOULD work, but understand that it actually DOES work.
He's a level 45-50 contact, so you need to be at least level 45.
If you're that 45+ and didn't get an intro, you can do what every villain normally does to earn contacts. Do newspapers, do a Mayhem from a broker, and get an intro to a new contact. I just did that tonight to get an intro to Pither, then did all of his missions and got his badge.
Eva almost had it...
Craft Rebirth Total Core Invocation
Start any level 50 Flashback
Go to Mercy on the helipad (behind the elevators)
Stand in the middle of the 1-6 large spawns of marching Arachnos
Set Rebirth on auto, you can almost hit all of them
Come back a day later to all badges if there were 6 spawns