Add arcane third leg to Tinpex

[Gerswin]

Tin Mage and Apex are very popular endgame content. The Praetorian aesthetic aspect  is fantastic.  The rewards and challenge level are great.  I would love to see a third tf with similar design (hard AVS, locked at 54, itrial-like mechanics, based in RWZ, no cutscenes, no tedious hide-and-seek maps) but using the more... occult aspects of Praetoria for the enemy types as well as overall vibe.  I would love to see what the devs and writers come up with, but this is an example of the concept I am looking for:

 

The invasion/counterattack described in Tinpex was countered, but Primal earth is not safe from Praetoria. The Circle of Thorns (or another occult enemy group) has opened a portal and started pulling Ghouls, Talons, and other Praetorian enemies to a staging base in the Rogue Isles on primal earth.  Because Praetoria is dying and Primal earth is thriving, the increased life force on earth causes these otherwise low power enemy groups( to have higher (incarnate) power levels.  The tf has 3 missions, the first is to protect a hero zone from an arcane attack, the second is to destroy the staging base in Nerva (or another Vil zone with cool maps) and the third mission is to travel to Night/First Ward and destroy the gate and prevent it from happening again. 

 

I am sure the writers could come up with something more interesting and nuanced, but I think an incarnate level tf fighting something other than robots (and Malta) would be a big hit, especially if the choice of mob factions encouraged a wider variety of damage types and resistance/defense options for players.  

 

 

[Rudra]

Just a note: the Ghouls are science, not magic/arcane. The Circle of Thorns would have no interest in them. The Talons of Vengeance serve no one and they already exist as Incarnate content.

[CoeruleumBlue]

On 11/7/2025 at 7:31 AM, Gerswin said:

Tin Mage and Apex are very popular endgame content. The Praetorian aesthetic aspect  is fantastic.  The rewards and challenge level are great.  I would love to see a third tf with similar design (hard AVS, locked at 54, itrial-like mechanics, based in RWZ, no cutscenes, no tedious hide-and-seek maps) but using the more... occult aspects of Praetoria for the enemy types as well as overall vibe.  I would love to see what the devs and writers come up with, but this is an example of the concept I am looking for:

 

The invasion/counterattack described in Tinpex was countered, but Primal earth is not safe from Praetoria. The Circle of Thorns (or another occult enemy group) has opened a portal and started pulling Ghouls, Talons, and other Praetorian enemies to a staging base in the Rogue Isles on primal earth.  Because Praetoria is dying and Primal earth is thriving, the increased life force on earth causes these otherwise low power enemy groups( to have higher (incarnate) power levels.  The tf has 3 missions, the first is to protect a hero zone from an arcane attack, the second is to destroy the staging base in Nerva (or another Vil zone with cool maps) and the third mission is to travel to Night/First Ward and destroy the gate and prevent it from happening again. 

 

I am sure the writers could come up with something more interesting and nuanced, but I think an incarnate level tf fighting something other than robots (and Malta) would be a big hit, especially if the choice of mob factions encouraged a wider variety of damage types and resistance/defense options for players.  

 

 

 

The basic idea is nice enough, but the Ghouls aren't arcane as Rudra said, and I don't know what on Earth the Circle of Thorns would be interested in summoning from Praetoria. While I get tired of the people who are obsessed with magic making a gazillion succubus catgirls, First Ward and Night Ward are areas of Praetoria that overlap with the Shadow Shard where Rularuu also lives, and Praetorian Hamidon has Incarnate powers which isn't the same as spellcasting, he's a mad scientist after all, but could also be something mages want to use since they try to capture all sorts of people for powers due to the Origin of Power. There legitimately should be more arcane missions in Praetoria that aren't just all the succubus catgirl people who read Sandman wanting more magic, but I heard Praetoria just got blown up because some of the old devs wanted to make City of Heroes 2 and that's the same reason Dark Astoria looks like that instead of Echo: Dark Astoria and the same reason Galaxy City got blown up, because the old devs just blew everything up to try to end the game so they could make a new one with a new engine like Guild Wars 2. Meanwhile this game is way better than Guild Wars 2 even with the ancient engine it's still using and that should never have dictated any story decisions anyway. Yes, canonically Praetoria is actually supposed to be blown up sadly. So yeah I wouldn't shoehorn in Circle of Thorns or other stereotypical spellcast-y groups just to say "more magic" because people like magic, but there is legitimately a bunch of stuff with Rularuu going on in Praetoria and you just don't get to see it because it gets blown up before the game gets shut down and that hasn't been updated since the current reboot. I remember the Carnival of Shadows is specifically an arcane group in Praetoria, so possibly they could work with one of the Primal Earth ones, maybe even Circle of Thorns, without it being shoehorned in. 

Edited yesterday at 07:02 AM by CoeruleumBlue

[Rudra]

24 minutes ago, CoeruleumBlue said:

First Ward and Night Ward are areas of Praetoria that overlap with the Shadow Shard where Rularuu also lives,

No, they aren't. First Ward is part of Praetoria. It is the part of Praetoria that Tyrant effectively abandoned to Hamidon and lets D.U.S.T. run wild doing their training against the people dumped there. First Ward has no dimensional links other than to Night Ward. (Even the Primal Earth portals are in Imperial City's Underground, not in First Ward. I'm not counting the SG base portal as a dimensional link.) Night Ward is the part of First Ward that partially merged with the spirit realm, not the Shadow Shard. That's why you see the spirits of the recently deceased there and the Drudges trying to gather them up and move them on to their next destination.

 

24 minutes ago, CoeruleumBlue said:

but I heard Praetoria just got blown up because some of the old devs wanted to make City of Heroes 2 and that's the same reason Dark Astoria looks like that instead of Echo: Dark Astoria and the same reason Galaxy City got blown up, because the old devs just blew everything up to try to end the game so they could make a new one with a new engine

Praetoria, as in the Magisterium and probably a large part of the Nova Praetoria zone it is in, was blown up by Tyrant as a last ditch effort to stop Primal Earth Incarnates in Tyrant's losing war with Primal Earth. It was a prelude to bringing the fight to the Praetorian Hamidon as part of the expanding Incarnate content. The rest of Praetoria, as in Imperial City and Neutropolis, are not blown up. They are overrun by the Hamidon's forces. (Edit: First Ward is also overrun by the Hamidon's forces at this time.) Though Neutropolis does get partially blown up later by Anti-Matter as a last ditch effort against Hamidon to buy Metronome time to escape. Dark Astoria looks the way it does because Mot got free. Echo: Dark Astoria shows Mot's influence just before he finally gets free. Galaxy City was obliterated by the Neo-Shivan invasion as part of the Battalion story line to reduce the number of blue side starter zones, though I don't remember why the devs wanted to do so.

 

24 minutes ago, CoeruleumBlue said:

but there is legitimately a bunch of stuff with Rularuu going on in Praetoria and you just don't get to see it because it gets blown up before the game gets shut down and that hasn't been updated since the current reboot.

There was never anything going on with Rularuu in Praetoria. Rularuu was going to be released on Primal Earth to stop (devour) the Battalion before being sealed back up in the Shadow Shard.

 

Edited yesterday at 07:27 AM by Rudra
Edited to correct "pf" to "of".

[Darmian]

12 hours ago, Rudra said:

There was never anything going on with Rularuu in Praetoria.

The ONLY thing with Rularuu and Praetoria is Mother Mayhem and Malaise appearing in the Shadow Shard in the Faathim TF, and THAT was pre GR and grandfathered in and never ever explained later.*  So a total dead end storywise.  I'm not overall disagreeing with you, just mentioning a thing.

 

*I'd have liked an explanation but right now to do so would involve going backwards rather than forwards so I don't see that realistically happening at all.

Edited 17 hours ago by Darmian

[Snarky]

No

[Bionic_Flea]

@Gerswin, Dilemma Diabolique Trial is kinda what you are asking for.  It involves magic, Praetorians, is fairly straightforward, level 54+ AVs, and a bunch of rewards.

 

For a new TF, what if some powerful dark magic escaped from the Night Ward Midnighter Mansion and powered up Drudges, Animus Arcana, Talons, Apparitions, and Spirit Stalkers to incarnate levels?

 

Those Animus Arcana can be damn tough in large groups.  That one mission where you have to defend the mansion against them is killer.

[Rudra]

4 hours ago, Darmian said:

The ONLY thing with Rularuu and Praetoria is Mother Mayhem and Malaise appearing in the Shadow Shard in the Faathim TF, and THAT was pre GR and grandfathered in and never ever explained later.*  So a total dead end storywise.  I'm not overall disagreeing with you, just mentioning a thing.

 

*I'd have liked an explanation but right now to do so with involve going backwards rather than forwards so I don't see that realistically happening at all.

That's fair, but I have to counter that isn't First Ward or Night Ward being part of the Shadow Shard. That is the Praetorians being able to travel to other dimensions just like Primal Earth. And Praetorians being able to travel to other dimensions is established in Black Swan hailing from a shadow dimension (in a blue side arc), Battle Maiden hailing from Warrior Earth (also in a blue side arc), Neuron's tampering with time in another (two other?) dimension(s) (a blue side arc), your mentioned foray into the Shadow Shard, the kidnapping of Positron (previously Statesman) (in a blue arc), and the invasion of Primal Earth itself.

[Darmian]

26 minutes ago, Rudra said:

That's fair, but I have to counter that isn't First Ward or Night Ward being part of the Shadow Shard. That is the Praetorians being able to travel to other dimensions just like Primal Earth. And Praetorians being able to travel to other dimensions is established in Black Swan hailing from a shadow dimension (in a blue side arc), Battle Maiden hailing from Warrior Earth (also in a blue side arc), Neuron's tampering with time in another (two other?) dimension(s) (a blue side arc), your mentioned foray into the Shadow Shard, the kidnapping of Positron (previously Statesman) (in a blue arc), and the invasion of Primal Earth itself.

Oh totally.  I'm just pointing out that that's the only connection that we know of where Praetoria crosses over with the Shadow Shard.  First Ward and Night Ward have no connection to the Shadow Shard.

 

A point of confusion is down to reusing maps perhaps.   When players chase after Black Swan they're faced with a map of what appears to be the Shadow Shard, plus this "explanation".

 

 Shadow Earth is Black Swan's personal dimension. She created it using similar methods that the Midnight Squad created the Shadow Shard to imprison Rulaaru.

 

Confusion aside, Shadow Earth is not the Shadow Shard.

 

 

The weird thing with the kidnap of Statesman and later Positron is both happen!  So another part of the "let's erase Statesman from everything but screw it up" that seemed to have gone on. I mean I'd be happy for both to exist. For example, if you do Maria Jenkins before Who Will Die? then you get the choice of "A Hero's Hero", but if you've done Who Will Die? then you get given "A Hero's Epic".  What about that?  And scoot to Ouro if you're a badger who wants all the goodies.

 

"Maria Jenkins mentioned that years ago, Statesman was once before kidnapped by Tyrant. He was bound in a machine that supposedly had Praetorian Tech, which Statesman had no power against. That theory never held up, but further investigation showed that it wasn't Praetorian Tech, but Incarnate power from the Well of the Furies that bound Statesman. If that was true, there was only one place on Praetoria they could hope to keep Positron held up, the same lair Tyrant held Statesman in previously. You portalled in and were greeted by Manticore. In the end Tyrant didn't even have the gall to meet you himself, he sent one of his Olympian Guard clones to deal with you. Positron was thankful for the rescue and for stopping his robot-duplicate before it could enact Tyrant's plan.

Edited 18 hours ago by Darmian