The Good Missions Guide: A Heroic Levelling Journey through Story Arcs

[Gulbasaur]

On 1/21/2021 at 4:39 PM, Zhym said:

One final note: some of these are old-school arcs that will send you hopping all over Paragon City, so I'd recommend having some fast cross-zone travel powers set up to make that less painful

No... enjoy the sights! If you're playing the storyline, always take the scenic route.

[Zhym]

1 hour ago, Gulbasaur said:

No... enjoy the sights! If you're playing the storyline, always take the scenic route.

Hah!  There's slow, and then there's crawling.  There are only so many times I need to see the scenery of a tram station. :)

[Zhym]

On 1/7/2020 at 9:47 AM, Gulbasaur said:

If you're a vigilante you should speak to Shauna Braun in Independence Port to check out her new i26 story arc - it really helps progress the idea of your character as operating in shades of grey. Martin Weintraub in Talos Island has the Freaklympics early game story arc, which is pretty neat. It's also work heading over to Ouroboros and speaking to Twilight's Son for his Smoke and Mirrors arc, which was formerly a short task force. It's worth doing just to see the unique scenery, but the story isn't bad either.

It might be useful to add level ranges to the above text—I hadn't realized that Twilight's Son had a level cap for his missions.  For some reason, I thought everyone in Ouroboros was good up to 50+.  So there I was, looking for something to do at level 35 after finishing Night Ward, and I figured I'd do Twilight Son's arc.  Kind of a surprise when he had nothing for me! 

 

Shauna Braun and Martin Weintraub are both (25-29), and Twilight's Son is (25-34).

 

On 1/7/2020 at 9:47 AM, Gulbasaur said:

If you're a vigilante you could speak to The Major (35-40) in Brickstown. This mission is unique because it's one of the very, very few where you explicitly don't just "arrest" your enemies. It has some unusual steps and is worth doing, even if I think the whole thing is slightly bad taste. 

The Major is actually available at levels (30-40).  I agree that it's worth doing for vigilantes, most of whom are probably just fine not "arresting" people.  But I found this arc less engaging than other vigilante & rogue arcs, mostly because of the dead drop and keyword structure.

 

BTW, if you think The Major's story is in slightly bad taste, have you done the tip missions to go from Vigilante to Villain?  Some of those are pretty dark.  But they're also really well done, IMO—some of the best missions in the game from a character story perspective.  I highly recommend doing the alignment round trip through tip missions at least once.

Edited February 25, 2021 by Zhym

[Illy]

I searched for a storyline guide, and low and behold this thread popped up. Its exactly what I wanted, thank you for making this. 

[Chequers]

After about a year away I'm picking up where I left off from level 40, which I reached using this excellent guide.

 

I'm also grabbing mission specific accomplishment badges as I go, which took me to Founders Falls, for Maxwell Christopher's missions for his 'Find out why Nemesis is concerned with the weather' mission for the Meteorologist badge.

 

He didn't offer it straight away, but did offer the 'Eternal Nemesis' arc, which..  while very long... was a great dive into the Nemesis faction and all its twisted plots within plots... ending in a fun final encounter.

 

Thought it worth mentioning, as your guide takes me straight to Peregrine Island, but there's some good content in the 40-45 range in Founder's Falls too.

 

For context, the entire 16 part 'Eternal Nemesis' arc didn't even take me from level 40 to 41... so I'm not worried about outlevelling Tina in Peregrine.

 

 

[Gulbasaur]

6 hours ago, Chequers said:

For context, the entire 16 part 'Eternal Nemesis' arc didn't even take me from level 40 to 41... so I'm not worried about outlevelling Tina in Peregrine.

Oh, good call! I remember when Nemeis was touted as the big bad of the pre-CoV game. Lord Recluse and Arachos largely stole Nemesis's Thunder.

[littlelitz]

Can you outlevel a story arc once you've started it? Say an arc is 5-9 and I start the story arc at 9 and level to 10 during the mission, will I still be able to complete the arc?

[PeregrineFalcon]

21 minutes ago, littlelitz said:

Can you outlevel a story arc once you've started it? Say an arc is 5-9 and I start the story arc at 9 and level to 10 during the mission, will I still be able to complete the arc?

Yes. However, if the story arc has that book icon next to it then you'll still be able to complete the arc, regardless of your level.

[Gulbasaur]

4 hours ago, littlelitz said:

Can you outlevel a story arc once you've started it? Say an arc is 5-9 and I start the story arc at 9 and level to 10 during the mission, will I still be able to complete the arc?

You can continue it until the end of an arc. If you start the contact at level 9, you can keep going until that story arc is done. You can always finish an arc you've started. 

 

There are a couple of contacts that give you more than one story arc (more common redside, though), so make sure you don't outlevel the next story arc. 

[Acidon]

On 1/7/2020 at 1:47 AM, Gulbasaur said:

The Good Missions Guide

or 

A heroic journey to 50 without powerleveling

 

I just wanted to give you a HUGE thank you for this guide. I played the original and when it was sunset, I was so heart broken. When I discovered Homecoming, imagine my excitement. Your guide is absolutely perfect for what I would like to get out of the game this time around. I want to experience as much as possible!

 

You are so great for putting this together, which couldn't have been easy, then sharing it with everyone. Thank you!

 

                                                               

Edited January 8, 2023 by Acidon

[Gulbasaur]

@Acidon- thank you! What a kind thing to say.

[tidge]

I want to chime in with a sincere THANK YOU for putting the guide together for blue siders.  The only issue I have with the guide is that as written, it may not be immediately obvious to an uninformed that the Croatoa arc has to be started before moving on to level 30. It is there in the text, but it seems weird to come after the "before you move on" bit for level 25-29 content. I was playing at launch day, and I have (for the past several weeks) been playing a blue-side character through as much of the content as I can. This has meant TURNING OFF XP and some amount of grinding. That character is currently level 37, here are my thoughts while they are somewhat fresh:

 

I started the character with the typical gift of Influence, in order to buy P2W travel, utility, and temporary attack powers. I did invest in (cheap) amplifiers at low levels but I don't think they were needed. Much of the game has grindy travel between zones, so P2W helps. I also picked up the Ouroboros portal ASAP for the same reason.

 

Full disclosure: I skipped the Hollows arc. There is nothing wrong with that arc, its just that it is essentially designed to let you skip those low-level grindy missions. I have used Oroborous to work on it when I feel like taking a break. I think I've done all the "newer" zones/contacts at appropriate level (including Faultline, Striga, Croatoa, First Ward, Night Ward). I have mostly skipped the PVP zones, although they are trivially repeatable at higher levels so I'm not sweating them. I did have to use Ouroboros to get a couple of Atlas Park missions that I wasn't offered.  I also didn't get around to joining a Death from Below until I was already level 20, and I haven't seen a Drowning in Blood offered!

 

I made one peculiar choice: I took Infiltration as my "travel power" (because Kismet +ToHit), which meant that as soon as I got Agent G's Arachnos Disguise I spent an hour traveling to all the blue side zones I could enter (except the Abandoned Sewer Network, curse you Rikti Drones!) to collect all of the exploration badges and history plaques. This has saved me later effort and allowed me to leverage Long Range Teleport as needed. Infiltration also allowed me to "stealth" many missions that would have otherwise forced me to "defeat most" which would have sped up XP.

 

Turning off XP has another peculiar effect that I am sure doesn't apply to most players: I found myself collecting enough recipes and salvage (and vendor-able items) that this character has been able to craft the Invention badges as he goes along. This is particularly important for the 25-30 inventions, as those badges increase salvage storage capacity. The level range 20-30 has a LOT of content, so XP was off for most of it. Crafting and using the Auction House allowed this character to make back every drop of Influence invested in him (and then some) per typical Auction House strategies by level 30. I should not for "badgers": Taking a "defeat all" approach as a solo player will naturally earn many of the defeat badges (YMMV on bosses). I did turn up the team size to get the Croatoan Ghosts badge withing that arc of course.

 

I have been sure to do a single round of radio missions, to collect the exploration badges in the Safeguard missions. again, Stealthing these makes this go really fast without having to earn too much XP. I've also been doing Tip missions (both hero and vigilante), as I find them to be among the better written missions in the game, and usually I blow past the levels 20-29, 30-39 to get all the different perspectives of the various "soft arcs" in them.

 

I was surprised how much of the OG content I enjoyed in the level ranges 20-40. The "feel" of this content is much different than when revisiting (via Ouroboros) the missions as a level 50+. I'd also forgotten that many of the non-badge, non-story arc missions from contacts drop clues about the greater Lore.

 

Thanks again for the guide, and good luck to all who try the OG "slow path".

 

 

[lemming]

3 hours ago, tidge said:

Turning off XP has another peculiar effect that I am sure doesn't apply to most players: I found myself collecting enough recipes and salvage (and vendor-able items) that this character has been able to craft the Invention badges as he goes along. This is particularly important for the 25-30 inventions, as those badges increase salvage storage capacity.

Hmm, might have to sit down and work on the crafting badges.  I didn't think of that.  I'm still level 19 (been there for a bit while I worked on some other projects)

I have definitely self funded the character since there are a ton of inventions that are cheap to make and profitable in the 15-19 range.

[Paladin-6]

Thanks for a Guide extolling all the Wonderful CONTENT too many miss in their rush to Level. 

[Gulbasaur]

On 4/11/2023 at 9:18 AM, Paladin-6 said:

Thanks for a Guide extolling all the Wonderful CONTENT too many miss in their rush to Level. 

Thank you very kindly!

 

I am planning on doing a bit of an update when the next patch is out to add in some newer content and a possible pathway I missed!

[Boon]

I want to thank you for the time you invested in creating this for us players.

[Xalon]

Why skip:

 

Skyway City

Talos Island

 

I'm doing most of what you laid out OP but not bothering with Gold content until I make my Gold characters. Then they can do 1-20 gold, some other zones and then back on praetorian track

[Gulbasaur]

On 2/11/2024 at 9:11 PM, Xalon said:

Why skip:

 

Skyway City

Talos Island

 

I'm doing most of what you laid out OP but not bothering with Gold content until I make my Gold characters. Then they can do 1-20 gold, some other zones and then back on praetorian track

Nothing against either. Talos has some cool arcs, particularly. Definitely worth spending time in both places.

 

This is a completely insane thing to say as it shows just how unemployed I was in 2020-2021, but Skyway's roads don't link up in any sensible way and I've never forgiven the zone for that. I think one loops back without joining onto any other roads. I tried to walk from one end of the city to another on only roads and Skyway was such a mess it didn't work.

[American Decoy]

On 2/17/2024 at 11:59 AM, Gulbasaur said:

This is a completely insane thing to say as it shows just how unemployed I was in 2020-2021, but Skyway's roads don't link up in any sensible way and I've never forgiven the zone for that. I think one loops back without joining onto any other roads. I tried to walk from one end of the city to another on only roads and Skyway was such a mess it didn't work.

 

Bridge to Nowhere!

 

Thank you for the nice guide.

[FvXMalstrom]

One slight edit I would make to this guide: Turn of EXP for Twin-shots second arc and do that before Julius. Reason Being, Twin-shot got a third and final arc at lvl 15. Also Striga Isle got a revamp in the latest issue and is now a co-op zone. (Maybe also turn off EXP for Twin's 3rd arc.)