Ideas for a Flashback character challenge

[Yomo Kimyata]

Here's my concept:  once a character gets to lvl 15, he moves into Ouroboros/his mother's basement and spends the rest of the game doing solo flashback missions with the same challenge settings for every mission.  Clearly I will eventually get all the flashback badges, but I mainly want to make sure that every mission has an external challenge setting so that I get used to setting it before every mission.  

 

I'd like your thoughts and or personal experience with these:

 

1.  Players are Debuffed.  This seems doable.  At first glance, the debuffs seems to be -50% accuracy and -50% damage.  Anything else I'm missing?

2.  Enemies are Buffed.  I'm not sure how this translates, and I'll probably get the power analyzer out at some point, but if anyone knows offhand on exactly what this means?

3.  AT Powers only.  I'm assuming that this excludes pool and epic powers, so that would put a big crimp in survivability?

4.  No travel powers.  This seems trivial, yes?

5.  No temp powers.  Seems pretty easy, but there are probably a lot of temp powers I'd have to give up that I don't even realize are temp powers.  Like Reveal?

6.  No inspirations.  This actually seems like one of the hardest.

7.  No enhancements.  I'd think this impossible, but then again I was on a Lady Grey TF the other day and realized halfway through that my scrapper had almost nothing slotted since it was an alternate build I hadn't built out yet.  But solo means I'm not getting buffed by anyone else.

 

Any relevant thoughts or experience?

[MTeague]

No Enhancements is the worst by far. But, as long as you do not combine No Enhancements with No Inspirations, you can make it work. You just have to really lean on inspirations when you're effectively unslotted in all powers.

 

Things like Tactics, Targetting Drone, and Focused Accuracy go a long way on "No Enhancements" runs as well. You will feel the END cost, and you'll rest between most fights. But you were going to have to rest a lot anyway, and missing Sucks.

[Jenna Clarke]

25 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

Here's my concept:  once a character gets to lvl 15, he moves into Ouroboros/his mother's basement and spends the rest of the game doing solo flashback missions with the same challenge settings for every mission.  Clearly I will eventually get all the flashback badges, but I mainly want to make sure that every mission has an external challenge setting so that I get used to setting it before every mission.  

 

I'd like your thoughts and or personal experience with these:

 

1.  Players are Debuffed.  This seems doable.  At first glance, the debuffs seems to be -50% accuracy and -50% damage.  Anything else I'm missing?

2.  Enemies are Buffed.  I'm not sure how this translates, and I'll probably get the power analyzer out at some point, but if anyone knows offhand on exactly what this means?

3.  AT Powers only.  I'm assuming that this excludes pool and epic powers, so that would put a big crimp in survivability?

4.  No travel powers.  This seems trivial, yes?

5.  No temp powers.  Seems pretty easy, but there are probably a lot of temp powers I'd have to give up that I don't even realize are temp powers.  Like Reveal?

6.  No inspirations.  This actually seems like one of the hardest.

7.  No enhancements.  I'd think this impossible, but then again I was on a Lady Grey TF the other day and realized halfway through that my scrapper had almost nothing slotted since it was an alternate build I hadn't built out yet.  But solo means I'm not getting buffed by anyone else.

 

Any relevant thoughts or experience?

From my experience, the “no inspirations” & “no enhancements” rules are definitely the hardest, while things like no travel powers are more of an inconvenience. The debuff settings are manageable if you play carefully but survivability really takes a hit without epic powers. Curious to see how far you push it, sounds like it could be a fun grind 😛

[Snarky]

any one of the majors (buffed, Debuffed, No Enh, No Insp) is tough.  combining that with anything else gets very real very fast.  

 

I am just crawling into the last month or so (5 Blue, 10 Red left) of doing every contact for every mission.  This will complete all contacts that must be done before 50.  Leaving 25-50, 30-50, 35-50, 40-50, 45-50...  only another 100 or so...  

 

I believe this will be the last time I do something like this.  I am gaming twice a week with Justice Superteamers, but I am missing the madcap PUG life.  

 

I wish you well in whatever you decide.  It can be a serious commitment.

[Yomo Kimyata]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

any one of the majors (buffed, Debuffed, No Enh, No Insp) is tough.  combining that with anything else gets very real very fast.  

 

 

That's useful terminology, thank you.  I'm guessing that buffed and debuffed each can be done on just about any character, albeit slowly.  No insp, probably as well, but no enhancement would need to be a specific build and possibly specific ATs/primaries/secondaries.

 

I'm envisaging running 15-50, and probably focusing on one or two specific enemy groups for the lolz.  The idea of doing every contact and every mission seems tedious to me, but then again I'm not undead.

[Six-Six]

Other than the self debuff + foe bufff setting, this seems very similar to an SG I joined a few years back. The idea then was old school CoH:

 

no IOs, which meant no crafting and no AH, only what you can get from drops or get from NPCs.
same level or higher setting story arcs
ATs were limited to the original offering of CoH

also max level was 38. you can take missions after, but you're level-locked and xp locked at 38 (SG was called 38 Special).

Solo, it was challenging but doable. as a team it was better, especially since we didn't behave like a PUG. Each member had a particular function and responsibility (tank-healer-dps type of thing) and coordination/strategy was important -- not too strict though, just enough to be an added fun factor, and not so much to be a wet blanket. You could still Leroy Jenkins it at your own peril.

Moreover, I myself have gotten used to no temp powers from P2W (she and I are not on speaking terms of late), but temp powers that are part of the story arc are permissible. I rarely use the insp tray, and have recently stopped taking travel powers except for CJ or Hover (if the character demands it).

I would say your idea is attractive... I hope I'll have the time to try it seriously.

[SeraphimKensai]

I hosted an all rad defender ITF awhile back where we ran with no enhancements at +4. We pulled it off, but it wasn't a speed ITF like I normally like to run, but rather a group of us on discord moving as a cohesive unit spamming radiant aura, firing off AM on recharge, and stacking rad infection, enervating, and lingering while we whittled mobs away. We were typically safe as long as we stayed together and didn't try and engage 4 or so groups at a time.

 

So if you're doing a solo flashback character be leery of no enhancements. But then again it could be a fun challenge, but I don't know about all of the Ouros content I don't have that level of patience.

Edited 20 hours ago by SeraphimKensai

[Ukase]

I like and despise various challenges. Right now I'm playing an EM/EA scrapper who's only real challenge is no 2xp, and has to earn their way to a billion starting with nothing. And that, folks...the hard part is not using 2xp. Very strange being able to finish the first 2 arcs of Faultline, doing another arc until 20, then finishing the other 2 faultline arcs, then starting the 2 striga arcs, having to find another arc to do to get to 25, finishing the striga arcs, and then starting the 2 croatoa arcs, and waiting until 30 to finish the other 2. It's very strange. 

Not hard at all - but strange. 

When encountering an idea like this, Yomo, it's not a secret that some of us like a challenge and can do hard things. But..is this really going to be fun? Or just interesting? The character you choose is going to be critical. You'll definitely want something with some kind of self buff, I would think. For me, I'd probably go with a dark/natty corr, or maybe dark/marine corr. 

I would think dark/rad, but the debuffs on rad have annoying activation times. It can be a challenge just to get them all running before you're dead against some of the harder npcs. 

Sometimes, unconventional slotting - like slotting a damage attack for tohit debuff - is in order. But you have to take the feedback your character gives you in battle. 

If I were you, I'd give myself an out and limit the challenge in scope. I get that there's not a lot you haven't done in game, but this seems a bit much. 

[mistagoat]

I like the buffed enemies modifier, it offers a more challenging mission but isn't too hard to overcome. Combining the extra modifiers is where things get messy.

 

No travel powers is tough as it will also disallow any temp travel powers like jet packs so you will have to hoof it everywhere. Vertical travel becomes a real pain. If I remember correctly, stuff like base portals will also get disallowed.

No temp powers is also tough, I use more temps than I think. Again your jet packs would go away so grab a travel power early. I think stuff like team teleporter and mission teleporter are disallowed too.

 

It's been a while since I've played with the modifiers so apologies if off on anything but I distinctly remember more powers going away than I expected with the no temps/no travels modifiers.

[mechahamham]

Back on the Live servers, on a blaster I'd learned VERY thoroughly, I started to feel like the 'Enemies buffed' setting was a great baseline at pretty much every level while solo. On characters I know less well, it's much tougher. However, that was before the Notoriety revamp.

 

Post revamp, on the characters I know reasonably, I can often crank up the team size way up and be very comfortable with the amount of challenge and difficulty I'm facing.

[Yomo Kimyata]

7 hours ago, Ukase said:

When encountering an idea like this, Yomo, it's not a secret that some of us like a challenge and can do hard things. But..is this really going to be fun? Or just interesting? The character you choose is going to be critical. You'll definitely want something with some kind of self buff, I would think. For me, I'd probably go with a dark/natty corr, or maybe dark/marine corr. 

 

Valid observations and questions, and I appreciate your posting them.  This was partly a way for me to learn more about the flashback system, partly a way to interact with the community, partly a search for an interesting challenge that I can complete with no rewards without getting bored enough to stop, partly a spiteful snapback to people who complain how difficult it is to walk across the street and kvetch about why they aren't getting greater rewards to do so.  I'm a puzzle solver by nature, so the question is not "what will enable me to run without enhancements?' but "what will most easily allow me to run without enhancements while keeping me engaged?"  I'm also torn between trying something I can learn more about, like a beast/marine mastermind, or doubling down on something like a kinetic melee/willpower brute which will be godly after the inevitable buffs.

[Yomo Kimyata]

On 8/18/2025 at 5:57 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

2.  Enemies are Buffed.  I'm not sure how this translates, and I'll probably get the power analyzer out at some point, but if anyone knows offhand on exactly what this means?

 

It appears that is the inverse of the personal debuff from 1 -- all enemy accuracy and damage are buffed +50%.