Snarky

Long wait there my friend. Might as well sit on a dock and wait for the Titanic to arrive.

I have done everything on one toon in order except goldside. By stopping experimece at 4, 7, 9, 14, 19 etc and side switching. All gold is available tbrough Ouro and was do e asap. That toon still needs to finish all 35-50, 40-50 and 45-50 to be “complete”. It was a hard run

All Goldside and content added with/after Goldside is pretty much the Mr G and Dark Astoria incarnate zone. Almost (not all, but nearly) of red and blue are stories from before Now here is where it gets interesting, if you are ready to jump down the rabbit hole… Due to the ETREME influence of Ouro on the timelines and the beautiful way (rare praise and much deserved) the storytelling in CoH/V continually use going back and forth through time NOTHING is before ANYTHING!!!! Think of your character as a Hero or Villain who is aware of Ouro (should be, right?) You are now a Time Agent, reeling through the years and accomplishing whatever you choose to do. Sure, a lot of the people you interact with are “stuck” in their timeline. Unaware of Ouro or your meta time nature. They go about their lives. You drop into their story and run a few missions. Then slip back into another timeline. Maybe even redoing your time with them. Or an alternate them. Or…..okay it gets a teeny bit odd here…..you might even be part of creating whole new dimensions when you go back!

I run storylines in this (and another huuuuge mmorpg) mostly as a mental fidget. There are some moderate rewards. Sometimes i learn something. Sometimes i get better at the game. Sometimes i have fun. Sometimes it just makes the voices go away….for a while…..

It does build super fast. Almost every time I have got the badge I race there and am lucky enough to find a few other fanatics trying and we PUG it. It does not go smoothly every-time however.

Epic. Keep Rockin’!

This is a bigger issue for me than I like. Any game I play I want to have as much logic as possible. This helps with immersion. Defeats complicate this greatly This is one reason I favor Villains. Immersion. You are killing people and taking their stuff. Heroes are “arresting” people and, erm, “confiscating their influence?” For safekeeping? The greater good…. O bother The defeat issue is one reason I favor undead and robots. Or a personal favorite undead robot mashup. Try keeping that monstrosity down! But, yes, in every game defeats are just an inconvenience I am playing another MMORPG a lot recently and they have areas that look EXACTLY like the are they send you to quest in, a few yards away, instant death. So you kind of have to just swallow the immersion pill and suffer

If you turn off experience and solo a lot of content at lower levels you will knock most of that nostalgia away pretty fast 🙂

Always comes down to how you play. Do you play "vanilla"? solo, x1/+0? You'll have a great time. Are you trying to keep up with badging speedrunners on +4/x8? You'll be miserable.

I think Dark Dark reaches its ultimate on the Brute. It is easier to be survivable on the Tank but achievable on the Brute. Like almost same survivability. Then there is the fact that the Dark Armor “Tanks” really poorly. Not in survivability, but in design. Part of the survivability of Dark is the stealth field. In survivability Def>Res>Heal. Dark literally stands this on its head. No defense or nearly none. No defenses debuff resistance so worthless to build. Instead Stealth, two toggles that do crowd control, massive to hit debuffs, and the best heal in the game. But that stealth, non suppressed stealth. Bad from a Tanker perspective. Great on a Brute

The yellow salvage wars also led me to reconsider how much I post on the boards. Which led me to spend most of my gaming time in another mmorpg except for two weekly SG events. Cosmic Council is just too chill to not stay connected. But, for now, I am just burnt on most of it

I tend to not PROC. My builds are extravagant things that chase set bonuses to achieve other goals. Sometimes even smart and worthy ones. I enjoy the smoothless feel of a high armor Brute or a high defense Blaster. I build Doms just because they are fun to chase bonuses on. Too bad they are meh at 50+ content. Sorry not sorry for any offense. Similarly I love building Sentinels, it i feel those start to lose gas 30+

I have a tax guy that can help you with that. It is all in what you call them and how you deduct. Also eliminating the peskier auditors helps

Most Redside maps are enclosed. There are a precious few that are wide open. In Port Oakes you steal something in one mission and then plant it in a big city map. 4 crates and one hero. Lot of LB. In GV there is one from TV. Also late game is a ruined city two island. Most of these you have seem on farm maps. On the virgil tarikoss SF there is a big map, which is also in a Cap mission somewhere Oh Dmitri Krylov in Cap has kidnap citizens for live vivisection by Vahz. Big map. Cheers

I tend to not be super helpful. Sorry not sorry 😢 Magisterium is the final Incarnate Trial. It has some interesting mechanics. If you want a tour on Excelsior the Cosmic Council SG does a Really Hard Way badge run of the Magisterium every Saturday at 9eastern 6Pacific. Discord required for listening. If you are a good player who can follow instructions from voice chat it is real easy. Cadd and the leadership carefully explain each step patiently and completely each week. Tier 4d Incarnates with full build required. But if you are a devent player who can follow instructions it should be fine. I brought a Dark/Dark Brute my first run. Word of experience….melee is tough in the final fight die to mechanics. We need to keep a crapton of DPS up and Tyrant keeps dropping lightning fields. I have a Beam Rifle Blaster built up and dedicated to the Trial. O Ya. The Magisterium is not run often by PUGs. It is a complicated trial made mysterious by lack of anyone doing it. I bet you would have better luck running it with an organized group on a serious run than a PUG without Discord trying to figure out WTF os happening in this new phase

Magisterium Incarnate Trial

And this “not reading/following instructions” thing is why a lot of people who PUG just want to run +0. Just get it done, badge/merits

Most TFs are done for merits/badges. Half of PUG teams are under powered, under enhanced, or people trying new things (not optimal) There are plenty of ads for +4 or you could start your own

It is still (from my experience) a hit or miss PUG event and a fairly quick SG event with Discord

I usually try for a real quick origin story and a touch of character attitude my main, Snarky the vampire’s bio is basically a couple sentences griping at people for assuming he might be related to the council non vampire abominations or even worse want to go to high school and date a teenager. Then he gives one last snark about “why are you still here?”

i'll give you that. i thought of cones after i posted. but cones are more target capped in general i believe? i think a lot (and this is by memory of blaster aoe and cones so may be wrong) of the circle AoE tend to have more generous target caps making an increase of footprint more functionally powerful

A quick note. Increasing AoE Radius is not equal to increasing range on a ST attack. Increasing ST range is a linear bonus. AoE radius increase would by definition be a geometric increase, and therefore way more powerful.

you can run it at really low difficulty as well. Do this with a SG team to learn a bit more. or run it a dozen times "speed" pug and slowly get the gist of it. good rewards

no

I do this as the core of some builds. Some builds/archetypes it favors. Others it is counterproductive. I never ignore build goals to do it. Dominators favor this due to chasing global recharge, but the last half to third of the build they dive into other sets, chasing global recharge A Ss/Inv Brute built for me by Hyperstrike is nearly all PvP, ATO, Purple and Winters. It still dallies with “lesser sets” to achieve build goals though