A Veteran Plays Levels 1 - 20: An Early Game Walkthrough

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Addendum: This guide was originally written during Issue 26, Page 6. A few days after this guide was published, Issue 27, Page 7 dropped. Page 7 has significantly changed the new character experience, so I've gone back through this guide and updated it. There may be some screenshots that reflect Page 6, but I've updated the narrative to better reflect what players will see in Page 7.

 

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There are a lot of really good guides on what to do when starting out. If that's what you're looking for, then this may not be for you. What I will be illustrating in the next few posts is what I do when starting a new character. I start every character with nothing. No transfers, No emailing influence to myself. Nothing. Even though I have billions of influence stashed away, I will show you what I do to start a self-funded character solo.

 

For this experiment, I have created a new character on Everlasting. I have existing characters on Everlasting but for the purposes of this experiment, I'm going to pretend its my first character on the shard. If you're new to COH or are a returnee, this is basically your starting point.

 

You choose an origin, an archetype, primary/secondary powers, a costume and a name. For this tutorial, I picked what I think is the easiest AT for the early level experience, a Brute. Let me introduce Dagmar the Loud, an Battle Axe/Ice Armor Brute.

 

 

I click Next and I'm given the opportunity to choose to enter a tutorial. I advise entering the tutorial. It takes a couple of minutes and it offers you a chance to setup some things on your character. For this character, I chose Outbreak, making Dagmar a heroine who will eventually end up in Atlas Park.

 

In the Outbreak, I setup the following things.

• Setup up power trays (changed in Issue 27, Page 7)
• Setup up chat tabs (optional)
• Open up the map menu and disconnect the map interface from the main navigation bar at the top.
• Buy two free powers from the P2W Vendor (Athletic Run/Ninja Run and Jump Pack) (changed in Issue 27, Page 7)

 

New players may not be aware that the power trays are quite customizable. The power trays as of Page 7 come fully expanded as three trays. As before carets (the small triangles) on the trays allow you to compress or expand the trays and switch the trays displayed. You have 9 individual trays which can hold power icons, binds or macro functions (I won't cover binds or macros in this guide but they are easy to look up). 

 

How you arrange your powers are up to individual tastes, but I generally put primary (attack/control) powers in Tray 1, secondary (armor/buff/debuff) powers in Tray 2 and utility/misc powers in Tray 3. In Dagmar's case, Chop goes in Tray 1 along with Brawl and Apprentice Charm, while Frozen Armor goes in Tray 2. Sprint, and Athletic Run and other travel powers goes into Tray 3. When you're happy with how your powers are arranged, right click on a tray and Lock the Powers in the Trays from keeping from inadvertently moving around. You can also drag the power tray to any position in your game interface; it doesn't have to stay in your bottom right.

 

 

As of Page 7, Athletic Run will now show up as a default temp power. Athletic Run is a great travel power and will allow you to traverse almost all the low level zones safely. Occasionally, you may need to click the Powers menu and click on the mini icons to have them display or manually move them onto your trays. Some powers don't automatically show up on your trays. Most veteran COH players know this, but this is not that intuitive.

 

 

Chop, Brawl and Apprentice Charm is your very low level attack chain and will serve you well. Apprentice charm is a free, origin-specific power that all characters get. They vary per each origin. The Technology power for example provides a very short stun along with damage. They are short-ranged attacks, but don't overlook them in the low levels. With Brute fury, it can do respectable damage. As of Page 7, Apprentice Charm has a respectable 80' range and does more damage. Neat!

 

The last setup thing you should do is setup monitoring for influence. Go to the Combat Attributes menu, expand base attributes and scroll to the bottom. You will see your current influence, which should be 0. Right-click influence and set to monitor influence. You should see a small influence display on your game interface.

 

 

 

Once you have these setup, you're ready to finish the tutorial. Just follow the instructions and the way points will guide you to the next activity. Most veterans have done this tutorial so many times that it's probably muscle memory. Still, it's relatively fast and offers two large inspirations (a Rage and a large Respite). Keep them in your inspiration tray but don't use them. They can fetch good influence once sold outside of the tutorial and its an easy way to get starting funds. The tutorial also offers two enhancements (Talisman of the Initiate). I trash these right away because they have almost no bearing on your effectiveness and you'll out-level them almost immediately.

 

Once you're finished finding the formula, rescue Flower Knight and beat the infected, contact Coyote again and enter Atlas Park. You'll end up right next to Ms. Liberty and you should train to level 2. This should give you the Rookie exploration badge (new in Page 7) and give you a jump jet fly power with 30 minutes of flight time.

 

After leveling to 2, what I do is find a nearby low-level Hellion. They're adjacent to the fenced area of Paragon City Hall. Find one and defeat it. That will net you a smallish amount of influence. You will need that influence to sell your inspirations.

 

Then go to your chat bar on the bottom left and type /ah. This will bring up the auction house. Drag the two inspirations you got from Outbreak, list each for 10 and get easy starting influence.

 

 

The price you will get will vary quite a bit, but with little effort, I was able to get 54k of starting funds.

 

54k for almost no effort isn't bad, but it won't be enough to fund your character even in the short term. The next thing I do is to collect Atlas Park exploration badges (these are little plaques that you can collect by standing near them). Exclusive to Homecoming, collecting all the exploration badges in Atlas Park will reward you with 5 merits and the Atlas Tour Guide badge. Using Athletic (or Ninja run) and your new temp flying power, you'll be able to easily collect the badges and run away from potential threats safely.

 

 

Atlas Park Exploration Badges (this link shows the location of each badge; note: wiki may need to be edited to account for the Rookie badge)

 

If you want to become an avid badge collector, I recommend installing Vidiotmaps, a mod for the COH client which enhances the normal in-game map with location of each badge.

 

If you've properly collected each badge (note: you do not need to have Tried and True or the Silent Sentinel badges in your collection), you should have 8 exploration badges. This will give you the Atlas Tourist badge and reward you with 5 merits.

 

Note that the in the screenshot below was taken during Page 6. During Page 6, the collection of all the Atlas exploration badges also awarded the Passport accolade  and the Long Range Teleporter power. These are still obtainable in Issue 7, but to unlock them requires a character to have 10 exploration badges. It's easy enough to take the Paragon Tram to nearby King's Row, find two badges and collect this accolade. But consider this optional.

 

 

While you are collecting the Edge of Chaos badge in City Hall right next to the D.A.T.A. hall elevator, take the elevator down and click the portal to enter Recluse's Victory. Recluse's Victory is a PvP zone set in a theoretical future. As such it will award you a badge, Entrusted with the Secret and the ability to enter an Ouroboros portal. Using Ouroboros is probably one of the handiest fast travel abilities in the game, so you'll want to do this.

 

 

Don't stay in Recluse's Victory. You're a level 2 and there won't be much you will be able to there effectively. Go jump through the portal again behind you and return to Atlas Park. Time to make some influence.

 

Go back to the main foyer of City Hall and you'll soon spot an ATM-looking machine there. You can also find it via your map. Click the Merit vendor and exchange each of your merits for 3 enhancement converters. You'll sell those on the auction house for your starting funds.

 

 

Like you did for the inspirations, type /ah and bring up the auction house interface. Drag your enhancement converters (you should have 15) from your salvage menu into the auction house interface. List them all for 10 influence. Don't worry too much about maximizing profit or listing them for more. You could do that, but the difference at most will be a few hundred influence; not that much in the long run. Selling them for 10 will allow them to be sold instantly.

 

 

The converters sold for 65k apiece which nets 877,575 influence. Add that to the amounts earned from the inspirations and the random mob kill and Dagmar the Loud starts with 925,524 influence starting funds at level 2. Not too bad, especially considering that during Live play, 1M influence was considered quite a generous head start.

 

In the next post of this walkthrough, I'll detail how to level up Dagmar efficiently, collect more merits and multiply the starting funds to something more substantive.

Edited February 21 by FFFF

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Part 2: Leveling up and collecting rewards

 

There is no orthodox way of playing this game. I know of some players who have done some of these low level missions so often that they'd rather just power level their characters past this content. Others bypass this content by joining a Death from Below (DFB) trial. This is a trial which is advertised frequently in the Looking for Group chat and are designed for players levels 1 to 6. There is no maximum level for this trial so many players use this to boost themselves to level 10, the minimum level needed to join the Positron Task Force in Steel Canyon. If you're interested in a DFB, join one. The trial boasts a some unique badges, provides a good amount of xp and offers a boost to accuracy, damage, defense or recovery that lasts until level 22.

 

I like the first series of missions. First, the missions are easy, don't require a lot of traveling to do (they all take place in Atlas Park), and yields you about nine merits at the completion of the full three series. The arc is also emotionally satisfying as you're the hero that not only prevented a larger catastrophe but also reunited a family. These arcs and the Shauna Stockwell arc you encounter later feel the most like being in a comic book, so it doesn't feel tired to me to do them.

 

You start by ignoring your initial contact in City Hall (in Dagmar's case, Azuria), and locate Matthew Habashy a bit northwest of Ms. Liberty. The easiest way to locate him is go to your Contacts menu, click the Find Contact button and he'll be offered as one of them. Choose the option of being teleported right next to him.

 

 

I won't illustrate this entire mission chain as it involves beating up Hellions and beating up more Hellions. Sprint + Athletic Run/Ninja Run will allow you to get to each destination point quickly. The arc also introduces you to an infiltration mission where disguised as a Hellion, you retrieve something within their hideout and then escape. It's easy and the Hellions won't attack you no matter what you do.

 

 

After completing Matthew Habashy's arc, you're offered two contacts: Officer Fields and Sondra Costel. Feel free to choose either one. I personally prefer Sondra Costel's missions as they are against the Skulls and not against the Vahzilok. During the Sondra Costel mission chain, you'll encounter your second infiltration mission as you pretend to be a reporter who is seeking to interview a member of the Skulls.

 

 

The mission arc ends when you, accompanied by a cynical hero, you take down a major crime operation run by the Skulls. The only tricky thing in this last mission is that final boss can only be reached by using a set of stacked boxes like stair to reach a floor. The boxes are stacked in an elevator and you need to jump to reach where the boss is waiting.

 

 

The last contact in the arc is Aaron Thiery, someone who feels stand-offish and a bit unsavory. His missions involves a lot of missions overland, beating up mobs nearby, deactivating bombs and taking out Arachnos Pylons.

 

Depending on your server, there may be quite a bit of contention for Pylons or they may be guarded by several Arachnos mobs, which may elevate the danger in taking them out. There are a couple of unguarded Pylons on one of the warehouse roofs that most players ignore. These can be taken out to fulfill the mission requirements.

 

 

The arc ends when you stop the machinations of a potential traitor and reunite the Habashy family. It's a feel good arc and I like the little touches in the mission that shows how appreciated you are.

 

 

At the end of this entry, arc, you should have 9 more merits. As with previous 5 merits, this can be quickly converted to influence by exchanging them to converters and selling them. However, I recommend holding onto these for now. After talking to Matthew for the last time, you'll get a chunk of experience as well. This should get you to level 7 or very close to that. Go ahead and level up.

 

Below depicts what Dagmar looks at level 7. As a general rule for melee characters, I prioritize slots in the first toggle power (usually an armor) and then the slots go into attacks. You'll ideally want to have at least four slots for each attack so you can slot one accuracy enhancement and three damage enhancements. Slot no more than three of each kind of enhancement as they will offer diminishing returns after the third of the same type.

 

 

At level 7, I will also start slotting enhancements to all powers. Despite what most players may think, your character benefits very little from enhancements from levels 1 to about 10. The mobs aren't that tough and accuracy early on determined by Beginner's Luck, which normalizes accuracy so that you'll have the standard accuracy of 75% at level 20.  At low levels, your character often doesn't miss and will be less dependent on accuracy.

 

Dagmar has around 950k influence so I slotted her powers with SOs. At low levels, SOs, or Single Origin enhancements, are extremely effective. The Live game was balanced against characters having access to less powerful enhancements so using these is a very easy way to increase the effectiveness of your character.  Below is what Dagmar looks like at level 7. Each SO offers an enhancement of 38.5% since they are three levels above character level. SOs diminish in effectiveness as you level. It is why a lot of players find IOs, or Invention Origin enhancements, more appealing since they do not diminish in power as the character gains levels.

 

 

Note that I think it's a valid choice of foregoing the accuracy enhancements in the attacks at this stage. Your accuracy, due to Beginner's Luck, is probably just fine. It's probably a mixture of old habits and an extreme dislike of missing that causes me to slot this way. Also, no need to slot endurance reduction in the Frozen Armor toggle. Frozen Armor expends .26 endurance per second and given that it is your only toggle at this point, it won't have a noticeable impact on your endurance.

 

After shopping, Dagmar has a bit over 793k influence remaining. It's time to head over the Hollows to really start farming those merits for even more influence-making opportunities. That will be detailed in the next post.

 

 

See you next post.

Edited February 15 by FFFF

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Part 3: Beginning Hollows Arcs and Frostfire

 

When we last left off, Dagmar had completed the beginning mission arcs in Atlas Park and was moving to the Hollows for the next set of challenges. The Hollows is actually an old zone (debuting in issue 2), but it was clear that the Live devs learned what worked and didn't work from launch. The Hollows is a hazard zone but with a small base surrounding David Wincott, the first contact, that provides a trainer (Foreshadow) and an enhancement store.

 

I like the Hollows arcs because of the large number of merits that can be earned in completing them. Not only does each story arc earn you merits, there is a bonus awarded when all four story arcs are completed. It is with these merits that a character can become completely self-sufficient.

 

First up, David Wincott. He's a contact that you must contact before level 10 or I'm not certain you will be offered the next contact in the chain, Flux. Dagmar started her Hollows adventure as a level 7 hero.

 

 

Wincott starts you off with some street sweeping, first clearing some nearby Outcasts and then groups of Trolls, which can be found on one of the nearby hills. You will then be given coordinates to some Outcast bases. These are defeat-all missions. Athletic Run/Ninja Run and Jump Jet prove their worth here if you don't have a travel power. The two combined can easily help you safely navigate through the Hollows. With Dagmar, I decided to forgo a travel power until later, finding other power choices to be more optimal and fun.

 

 

The missions are easy and straightforward. The difficulty is mostly in getting to them rather than completing them. Once you finish your last mission for Wincott, you are introduce to Flux. Flux is an infamous contact but he gives you the Defeat Frostfire mission after you do some street sweeping of Outcast and a base clear.

 

Frostfire is typically the first elite boss most characters face. He's difficult because he's surrounded by an Outcast boss (Lead Freezer, Lead Shocker, etc.), at least one lieutenant and a bunch of regular Outcast mobs. Frostfire himself has increased hit points as an elite boss and has the ability to freeze you, which means that having a breakfree or mez protection may be necessary. The room itself has large patches of ice which makes maneuvering and character positioning difficult. Finally, the room is the last room in a large office instance, which means a lot characters may face the challenge low on inspirations. 

 

 

Dagmar faced Frostfire at level 9 and had not reached the level where Wet Ice (Ice Armor's mez toggle) was available. Further, while her inspiration tray was full, she had only had one luck (defense) inspiration and no breakfrees. I thought it was a worthwhile gamble to take on the elite boss because Dagmar had leveled as she fought her way to the room and the mobs therein conned one level lower than normal.

 

 

Chugging the luck, one rage and a sturdy, Dagmar entered the room to do battle. A key is to try to slide or jump to a bare spot in the middle of the room to engage the enemies. This way, you won't slide around and be out of range for melee attacks. The fight was more anti-climatic than I thought it would be, and Dagmar defeated the entire room without taking much damage.

 

 

Further, the clear of the mission, completed Flux's arc, earning additional merits as rewards. The arc also awarded a Prismatic Aether, which is a very rare salvage that can drop at the completion of a story arc. Dagmar was well into level 9 and had earned 34 Reward Merits. On hand, she still had 796k influence.

 

 

Dagmar was a few bars away from level 10, a required level to both unlock Wet Ice, but also the minimum level to talk to Julius the Troll. I needed a filler arc, so I decided to head back to Atlas Park to do the Twinshot missions. The Twinshot mission arcs are honestly not worth doing due to their relatively low rewards (3 Reward Merits per arc completion) and because they require you to travel to multiple zones. I typically skip them, but having a choice of doing random missions in the Hollows via Meg Mason or just street sweeping, I decided on the Twinshot missions. The finale of the Twinshot mission is actually kind of neat as it has a Justice League versus the Legion of Doom feel. More on that later...

Edited February 16 by FFFF

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Part 4: Back to Atlas Park, Level 10, Making Influence

 

As I mentioned in Part 3, I decided to head back to Atlas a few bars shy of level 10. Level 10 is an important milestone. It brings:

 

• A mez protection power for many Brute builds
• An expanded inspiration tray (from 8 slots to 10)
• The ability register a personal Supergroup and to setup a base (really handy if you're a solo player)

I won't go into a ton of detail on the Twinshot missions. They are intended as an extended tutorial for newer players. If you're a new player, they are worth doing once. However, if you're a veteran or even a returnee, these are skippable. The missions are designed to get you familiar with features in Atlas Park, King's Row and Steel Canyon.

 

 

The missions require quite a bit of travel, and from a xp per time standpoint, pretty inefficient. They also contain some of the more irritating personalities in the game...

 

 

The only mildly tricky thing for a new player in these missions may be in finding the secret door in Manticore's mansion. The door is the bookcase between the statue and the fireplace. If you hover over the bookcase, you'll see your cursor turn to a blue hand showing that it is clickable.

 

 

Dagmar got the last bars of xp required for level 10 after finishing the last mission of the first Twinshot story arc. Going back to Ms. Liberty, I chose Wet Ice (yay, mez protection) and walked into City Hall to register a new Super Group, Dagmar's Army.

 

 

Super Group registration allows for base construction, and on Homecoming, bases require no prestige with all options being unlocked from the start. That's a great change from Live in my opinion. Bases can be constructed to taste, but for something functional, you need an inventions table, salvage storage, enhancement storage, a merit vendor, a Tree of Wonders (or its technology equivalent). With a base like this, you can start utilizing the merits you have hoarded up to now. It also allows you to have a place to craft without zoning to Steel Canyon to use the invention tables at the university.

 

 

To start making influence, start by converting your Reward Merits to Enhancement Converters. As mentioned before, you can exchange one Reward Merit for three Converters. Dagmar at level 10 has 34 Reward Merits. I chose to convert 17 merits to obtain 51 converters.

 

One of the easier means to make influence on Homecoming is to buy up unwanted, less desired recipes, craft them into enhancements and then convert them into something of higher value. This requires very little market knowledge, and you'll see that my strategy is unsophisticated: buy cheap recipes, craft, convert them into something of higher value to sell on the auction house.

 

I started with scanning the auction house for something cheap. I target rare recipes rather than uncommon recipes because many of the rare enhancement sets contain a higher percentage of valued enhancements. On the flip side, many other players know this and rare recipes are often more expensive to require. Further, to convert specifically to a valuable enhancement, you may have spend a lot more converter to make an In Set Conversion (which cost 3 converters per try).

 

I looked at the Call of the Sandman sleep recipes and was able to obtain an End/Sleep recipe for 1,000 influence. Sending an opportunity, I put in a bid for 3 more and was able to procure 4 copies of the recipe for 4,000 influence.

 

 

Rare recipes, require rare salvage so I sprung 325,000 influence for the Strand of Fate salvage needed to craft it. With these investments, Dagmar has 820,157 influence remaining.

 

After crafting the recipe, you end up with a level 25 Call of the Sandman: Endurance/Sleep enhancement. These don't sell very well, so you click the Enhancement menu and then click the Convert button that is now available (it's grayed out if you don't have converters). Select Out of Set Conversion, and convert until you find something valuable.

 

 

Upon the first few rolls, Call of the Sandman converted to a Miracle: Healing/Absorb/Recharge enhancement. Healing/Absorb/Recharge is valuable but not as valuable as the +Recovery proc in the set. Rolling a few times with the In Set Conversion setting toggled, and I converted the enhancement to Miracle: +Recovery.

 

 

Unfortunately due to acquisition costs of the recipe and salvage, Dagmar didn't have enough influence to pay the auction listing fee to set a competitive price for the enhancement. In hindsight, I probably should have sold the Prismatic Aether I obtained during the Frostfire mission to raise the funds, but for some strange reason I didn't think of something so obvious. Gambling, I set the price at 10 influence and someone got a big bargain.

 

 

 

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Part 4b: Converting Enhancements and Making Influence Continued

 

As I mentioned earlier, the Miracle: +Recovery was sold at a lower than expected price. That's okay. In the auction house, there will be some transactions, where you will get a higher than expected price and some where you will get lower. The 1.5M influence was low but enough to fuel crafting of additional enhancements.

 

 

I got luckier on my next transaction, turning another Sleep/End enhancement to a Decimation: Chance for Build Up, which sold for a cool 3M influence.

 

 

That sale pushed Dagmar's personal funds to nearly 3.8M influence.  This allowed me to craft four more Sleep/End enhancements to enhancements of greater value, among them a Luck of the Gambler: Defense/Increased Recharge Speed and a Performance Shifter: Chance for +Endurance.

 

 

After selling these, Dagmar topped 10,150,052 influence. I decided to spend 312,384 influence on upgrading her now yellow and white SO enhancements before heading back into the Hollows and a meet up with Julius the Troll.

 

 

 

In Part 5, I'll cover a return to the Hollows, finishing up another Twinshot arc (as xp filler) and more enhancement conversions.

 

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Part 5: Back to the Hollows and More Twinshot

 

By now, you're probably seeing the gist of how I'm playing. I run through the contacts, collect Reward Merits, and use those to convert enhancements to something that is likely to sell well on the auction house. This isn't the only means of using the auction house, and I'm purposely sticking with this in this walkthrough because it is very simple.

 

Julius the Troll offers some mission. Two street sweeps of trolls which are on the islands right under his bridge, and a few cave mission where you have blow up some crates and defeat a couple of the bosses. I'm doing all these missions at +0/1x difficulty, the default setting, because I want to earn progress while not missing out Reward Merit possibilities. Julius' missions takes Dagmar a tick below level 11, and I send Dagmar back to Atlas to finish up Twinshot's two arcs.

 

Meanwhile, I've been busy buying up recipes (this time, level 31 Glimpse of the Abyss: Fear/Range), crafting those and then converting. This is what my auction house transactions look at the end of the Julius the Troll arc:

 

 

 

At this point, Dagmar has over 15M in influence. That's not bad for a level 10, soon to be level 11, but not quite enough for funding her needs through her lifetime. As a rule of thumb, cheap IO builds can be anywhere from 10-20M, and higher end builds are 400M+. I think 30M is about what a character needs if you are sticking mostly with SOs with a few nice goodies.

 

Twinshot's second arc concluded with the reveal that she knows some of the bad guys personally. The missions aren't designed to be hard and hence have poor rewards.

 

 

At level 12, it was time to head back to Hollows for the last contact, Talshak the Mystic. Talshak has some potentially annoying missions. The street sweep he proposes is to defeat 10 Igneous, which are dangerous because they are found in larger groups and they have rather large level range. Level 15 versions of them are quite common. There are a couple of cave missions, which includes freeing captives, and the last one being defeating Atta, leader of the trolls. The Atta mission takes place in a huge map, and you have defeat both Atta himself and his guards (who are scattered in the cave) While the map is large, trolls are easy opponents and if you clear all the mobs in the map, you can rack up quite a bit of experience.

 

 

The last mission takes place in a Circle of Thorns map, where you have to free a captive, and defeat all enemies. This mission, depending on the random generated map you are given, can be very easy or hard. I got an easy one this time, but I've also had much larger maps, including one that included the demon summoning portals.

 

 

The payoff for completing the full Hollows mission chain is pretty sweet. Not only do you get 30 merits for Talshak's missions, but you can an additional 20 for doing the full chain.

 

 

Completing the full arc also allows your character to unlock the Cavern of Transcendence trial, which is an added bonus.

 

 

With level 14 in the bag, and about 17M earned so far, it's time to head to King's Row to some of my favorite low level arcs.

 

[jprewitt73]

I love this and I'm excited to see how this progresses!

 

Definitely interested to see how you handle the 30-40 range as I have always felt that to be the doldrums of interesting missions. 

 

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13 hours ago, jprewitt73 said:

I love this and I'm excited to see how this progresses!

 

Definitely interested to see how you handle the 30-40 range as I have always felt that to be the doldrums of interesting missions. 

 

 

I'm planning only to play to level 20 for the purposes of this guide, but if there's broad interest, I can at least play to the point where you can start seeing investment in IO sets. And yes, I agree the least interesting missions hit around the mid-to-late 30s. It's where, if blue side, you have to rely on the launch era missions. Those missions have some great writing, but the mission designs are rather awful. Who enjoys finding 10+ bookcases in a large Oranbega map?

Edited February 17 by FFFF

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Part 6: King's Row

 

Shawna Stockwell and Eagle Eye are my favorite low level mission contacts. While a lot of players don't like seeing endless cut scenes, I think the cut scenes add a comic-book feel to the arcs. The missions are also very diverse: you are infiltrating, busting up crime operations, fighting off ambushes and facing off against some tough end bosses. The level of challenge feels pretty good even at the default difficulty. I like the build up where when you face off against the final boss, the fight feels epic.

 

 

The first mission is a street sweep, "interrogating", er "arresting" 10 Skulls for information. The second mission is also easy: a relatively straightforward beat down a boss (Toothbreaker Jones). The third mission gets is where it gets interesting, and I like the twist that the bad guys have become aware of you. It's a trap, and you have to fight your way out.

 

 

At level 14, Dagmar the Loud, seems pretty strong. She sports 23% defense (Frozen Armor and a Steadfast Protection: Resistance/Defense IO). The Steadfast was self-found as a random mission drop and I happily crafted it and slotted it. Her attacks, Beheader, Chop, Gash with Brawl and Apprentice Charm serves a decent continuous attack chain, and I haven't noticed any endurance issues so far. As Dagmar gets heavier hitting attacks and AOEs, this will change. Honestly, Dagmar could probably play at much higher difficulty and add bosses, but for now, I'm purposely keeping difficulty at the default setting.

 

Shauna's mission arc ends with a confrontation with an elite boss, Chernobog. While the build up with the cut scene is great, he's actually quite the pushover. I used one luck and one insight (Chernobog uses dark attacks that debuff attacks), but ultimately they weren't needed.

 

 

Dagmar and hit level 15 prior to the last mission, and not only leveled up but was active on the market. More exchanges of Reward Merits for converters and the conversion of enhancements to more valuable ones were done.

 

 

At level 15, Dagmar had already earned 24M influence. With this much, you could theoretically stop and just stick with SOs all the way to 50s. However, I never consider a character finished unless they are optimized with a decent IO build. More funds would be needed.

 

With Shauna's arc done, we turn to Eagle Eye. His missions are also quality with ambushes, a really well-executed infiltration into a den of Skulls, a raid of a Skull-operated rave and a final confrontation with Veles, a fairly tough elite boss.  I won't go through a detailed play-by-play, but I'll give you some highlights.

 

Dagmar joins the New Regulators.

 

Dagmar busts up a Skull rave, and plants a homing beacon on a key Skull lieutenant.

 

Dagmar confronts Veles. Veles is a serious threat, but at these levels inspirations can overcome most challenges.

 

Dagmar completed King's Row arc a few bars into level 16. All told, I've probably spent about 4-5 leisurely hours playing. My auction house activities have been done as I play. I bid for recipes and salvage, list anything crafted and then play. This way auction house activities doesn't really interfere with missions.

 

Next up are Montague Castanella (Lost Cure), the conclusion of Twin Shot's missions and then a journey to Faultine.

 

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Part 7: Lost Cure and Finishing up with Twinshot

 

I wanted a couple of more levels on me before I headed off to Faultline to do the missions there. I enjoy the Faultline arcs for the late teens to early 20s and then move on to Stirga Island for level 20s content.

 

One feature I enjoy is the Find Contact feature. Open up your contacts, click the Find Contact button and scroll through who's available to talk to you. Then click the button to Teleport right next to them. In a pinch, you could use this as a fast travel method, especially if you need to head to the University for example to use the invention tables.

 

 

Like the previous arc, I won't do a detailed play-by-play, but show some highlights.

 

The first mission Montague gives you can either be extremely easy or rough. The Oranbega (Circle of Thorns) map is procedurally generated and you can either have a small map or a really large one, which can include the large room with the demon summoning portals. Quick hint, you do not need to destroy the demon summoning portals or the demons that spawn out of them to complete mission. However, the game will inevitably place one named Circle of Thorns mage and one named Igneous in that room. You will have to defeat both of them without triggering the portals.  This time around, Dagmar got a simple map.

 

 

Lady Jane's mission can also be a bit dicey. Depending on how they spawn, Circle of Thorn specters can form in large clumps, mobbing you if you aren't careful. This happened to Dagmar, but fortunately judicious use of inspiration and the fact that the character is really tough pulled her through.

 

 

At the end, you craft the Lost Cure and learn one of the biggest secrets about the Rikti and their relationship with the Lost. Enter the Midnight Squad building and finish Montague's arc.

 

 

Now at level 17, Dagmar finished off the final arc of Twinshot's missions. I honestly find the missions a bit dull, and in a lot of playthroughs, I skip Twinshot altogether. However, merits are merits. And the finale has a really cool Justice League vs. the Legion of Doom type face off. The scene is great and I'd love to see it copied in other future missions.

 

 

Meanwhile I had another sale, and that brings Dagmar to over 27M in influence.

 

Next up is a visit to Jim Tremblor and the first two contacts in Faultline.

[FFFF]

Part 8: Jim Tremblor, Penny Yin, and a Mistake

 

I like a Faultline missions a lot. The characters (yes, even Fusionette) are likeable, and the arcs have multiple points of redemption: Jim's father, Fusionette (in learning to be a proper hero), Penny Yin and lastly Jim himself. These are feel-good arcs, and I love taking my characters through them.

 

Like before, just some highlights, as the story should be read and enjoyed if you haven't gone through the content.

 

I like Jim Tremblor as a character. He's initially sullen, but protective of his friends, especially the danger-prone Fusionette.

 

Ah, Arbiter Sands...you'll run into him a lot. You'll also face Kurse, another elite boss, who is nothing special other than having a mez and extra hit points. Put him in his place and progress the story.

 

Lastly, you'll face off against Nocture. Nocture is an elite boss Night Widow and can be annoying to fight. Bring an insight, because she'll try to blind you; also, a mixture of lucks and respites, as she can hit pretty hard.

 

 

Next up is Penny Yin, future Freedom Phalanx member, and currently the civilian daughter of a store owner. Help her find her missing father and she'll be forever grateful, and allow you into Yin's store.

 

 

Meanwhile, I've been using the converting the earned merits to converters and putting them to good use.

 

 

 

Unfortunately, this is where I made a mistake, which may or may not have been influenced by the enjoyment of an adult beverage or three. In the Merit Reward interface, there are both Enhancement Catalysts and Enhancement Converters. Converters are 3 per every 1 Reward Merit Exchanged, while Catalysts go for 20 Reward Merits each. Before realizing it, I clicked on Enhancement Catalysts twice, wiping out 40 Reward Merits. Ouch. While Enhancement Catalysts can be sold, they don't go nearly what 20 Reward Merits can potentially gain you. Oh well.

 

I sold off the Enhancement Catalysts (won't need them until much later), the one Prismatic Aether and ended up with a bit over 34M. I still had some inventory in the auction house left so reaching 40M in influence before reaching level 20 was realistically in sight.

 

Finishing Penny's mission arc, Dagmar had hit level 19. At level 18, Dagmar opted to take Swoop, rounding out her single target attack chain. Swoop is very endurance expensive, so level 19 came as a relief as I could slot an endurance reduction in the attack. Most veteran players already know this but it is the endurance consumed by using your attacks/primary powers that are the cause of most endurance issues, not defensive toggle powers like armors.

 

The next contact in the Faultline chain, Doc Delilah, won't talk to you until level 20.

 

 

At this point, and as a capstone mission for this guide, I decided to take Dagmar into the first part of the Positron Task Force solo.  This would easily earn her enough experience to move to level 20.

 

 

Next time: soloing Positron 1.

Edited February 17 by FFFF

[FFFF]

Part 9: Positron Task Force

 

The first part of the Positron Task Force can be soloed by a wide variety of ATs. While there is one elite boss, there is no Archvillain and all the encounters can easily be overcome by a little planning and/or judicious use of inspirations.

 

 

Dagmar was actually defeated for the first time in her career by overestimating Epidural, a Vahzilok boss you have to defeat for the first mission. What I forgot was that as he dies, you are mobbed a large number of Embalmed Abominations, which unfortunately can explode. Dagmar defeated Epidural quite handily but was defeated by an exploding Embalmed. Stuff like this happens and the only annoying thing about it was how easily it could have been avoided. Oh well.

 

The Task Force is mostly in Steel Canyon, and is a mixture of finding an object and defeating bosses. While they are slightly more difficult than normal missions, they're nothing to write home about.

 

Eventually, you'll run into Doc Buzzsaw, a Vahzilok elite boss. She is pretty intimidating looking but honestly not difficult. I don't think I used anything inspiration wise except for one Luck and one Catch a Breath. She went down before I took any damage.

 

 

Meanwhile some of converters I got from the Jim Tremblor and Penny Yin arcs I put to good use, and influence started rolling in.

 

 

The only tricky part of Positron 1 may be the infamous Circle of Thorns ambush at the top of the City Hall stairs. Solo, this is very manageable and Dagmar only had to use a single Catch a Breath to win the fight.

 

 

The last two obstacles is fighting your double (which was easy) and then defeating the Circle of Thorns boss mage guarding Azuria. I've noticed that the doubles are harder if you are in a group, particularly if there are buffers and debuff characters on the team. However, solo, Dagmar had no difficulty in dispatching her clone or in saving Azuria.

 

 

One thing you'll notice is that the Task Force completion took over 3 hours. I played the Task Force off and on during the day, playing one mission, logging off and then returning to it. All told, the Taskforce probably consumed about 40 minutes of actual play time.

 

Having reached level 20, this guide is complete. At the end, Dagmar earned 48,596,550 influence with the potential to earn more in the future.

 

What I hope to relay to you is how to, without much difficulty, play the content and get enough influence to pay for everything you want without the need to farm or do anything complicated with the auction house.

 

If you've made it to this point, thank you for reading this walkthrough / guide.

[BazookaTwo]

I never level until I have gotten the reward merits for atlas, sold those, and gotten the amplifiers. All three. They are cheapest at level 1 and well worth it. 

[jprewitt73]

On 2/17/2024 at 12:45 AM, FFFF said:

 

Who enjoys finding 10+ bookcases in a large Oranbega map?

[Midnyte]

On 2/15/2024 at 1:31 AM, FFFF said:

New players may not be aware that the power trays are quite customizable. There are carrots that allow you to switch trays by each number and a carrot (upside down triangle) that allows you to stack trays (up to 3).  

 

This is a beautifully-written guide. So many of these are the same as I do them. Just wanted to point out that you spelled caret like the food, "carrot". It's an interesting choice of words though, because typically a caret is a symbol to show where something needs to be inserted, for editing purposes, and it can be facing upward or downward. I've never seen it used as a drop-down arrow. But I think it works! But not a🥕 🤭

Thank you for this. I put several things in my notes. 🤩

[FFFF]

2 hours ago, Midnyte said:

 

This is a beautifully-written guide. So many of these are the same as I do them. Just wanted to point out that you spelled caret like the food, "carrot". It's an interesting choice of words though, because typically a caret is a symbol to show where something needs to be inserted, for editing purposes, and it can be facing upward or downward. I've never seen it used as a drop-down arrow. But I think it works! But not a🥕 🤭

Thank you for this. I put several things in my notes. 🤩

 
I actually never knew! I’ll correct it right away. Thank you!

[FFFF]

I have updated the above guide to reflect the changes to the new character experience that dropped in Issue 27, Page 7. The biggest effect may be in how to quickly earn influence via the Atlas Park exploration badge collection method. The method still works but you will need to collect the badge Rookie (near Ms Liberty) and Silent Sentinel (which is now in Echo: Atlas Park) is no longer needed. The collection of 8 exploration badges also no longer award the Passport accolade and the Long Distance Teleporter. You will have to collect any additional two exploration badges to unlock these (easily obtainable).

 

The list of badges required for Atlas Park Tourist and 5 Reward Merits:

• Hero Corps Insider
• Undefeated
• Patriot
• Top Dog
• Freedom
• Edge of Chaos
• Observant
• Rookie