Wrend

I can reach a speed of 87.95mph with Afterburner on, and I have been able to get the Silver Medal in each timed event. I have not been able to get a Gold, but you might be able to shave a few seconds off your time by skipping part of the course and going straight to each way point.

We got wasted by the Avatar one time, other than that we have had little difficulty with any of them. We did a decent amount of AV farming for the first badge (Dreamkiller), so I have had multiple battles against all the AVs now. I do find that the Avatar is the most troublesome of the AVs, with Rulardark (not sure of the spelling) and Lanaruu the next most difficult.

At least I finally got Caleb to spawn, he was the last one I needed to get Dreamkiller and MoMoM... That really looks weird... Master of Minds of Mayhem... got to find a better way to say that. The badge should have been "Master of Mayhem" that would have been a nice badge title to wear.

I have been on several successful TPN runs now (around 10 I think), and except for the "Fair and Balanced" badge runs (2) we have not kept a team outside. It definately seems to make the trial easier for everyone to understand and it reduces the chance for any accidental civilian deaths. It is also a good way to get the badges for clicking all 4 terminals/HD health and completing each 500 pt challenge in 8 minutes.

I actually think this will be the "standard" way this trial is run, due to the lower level of complexity.

One thing that we have experimented with was having 2 players use the Incandesence Destiny to port the league to the required location. While the 2 people with league TP are running to the correct location the league stays out of combat. We are still fine-tuning this method, and it is very possible that we will find a better way, but it is fun to work it out.

My main problem with EM is not with it's effectiveness, it is based on the "feel" of the set compared to how it used to be. I have a 50 WP/EM tank and he was one of my favorite toons. I left the game for a while and now that I am back the toon just does not feel like it used to, and the change in feel is enough to make me not want to play the toon anymore, and that is mainly due to the length of the animations of ET and TF.

I understand why they were changed, and I am not really arguing that the changes were needed, but the last 2 attacks just feel too cumbersome to me now. I would be greatly in favor of adjusting the animation speeds to be quicker than they are now and will gladly accept any additional changes needed to the numbers behind the power to keep it balanced.

I have completed MoM 5 times (I think) and failed 3. I currently have 10/16 of the monsters, and I have seen Jack and Lanaruu at least 4 times each. I seem to be missing the Lichen Walker, Jurassik, Bat'Zul, Deathsurge, Caleb, and the Kronos Titan. Most of the people in my SG (that have commented on there progress) also seem to be missing Kronos, Caleb and Deathsurge. Just luck of the draw, IMO, but I know we will get them in time.

Part of the reason for the Test Server is supposed to be so that the player base can do things with the power sets/costume creator/missions that the devs have not thought of, or have not had the time/resources to test appropriately. I am not a programmer, but I would expect that there is a vast difference from running an updated CoH on their internal servers with a limited number of players and running that same update with 10x (or 1000x) the number of people using it.

It would be impossible for the devs to try out every configuration of computer systems, every combination of powers accross all ATs, every possible combination of missions/maps/contacts and whatever. That seems to be why these bugs pop up.

I would be truly curious to see a list of the bugs that the devs find and fix on the new updates before we ever see them. It might make a bit of a difference to the players upset about these current bugs if they knew that for every bug that makes it to the live servers they have found and fixed 100 bugs that we never knew about. Of course I have absolutely NO idea what the actual ratio would be, the numbers I used were purely arbitrary and simply a shot in the dark. But I would think that the number of bugs that we never see is quite a bit higher than the number we do see.

Agility will help with your Defense, which is great for a WP tank, it will also boost your recharge and END mod, and you have a few powers that can make use of that boost (stamina, physical perfection, possibly conserve power if you take that to open up physical perfection). I would think that would be enough to keep you from running out of endurance.

I would not think that a Cardiac alpha would be as advantageous to you as the Agility. But you might also consider a Musculature alpha. The damage boost might be nice to have, and it will also give some end mod boost as well. Not saying that it your best option, but it is something to consider.

Just logged in, and I had forgotten that today was patch day. I hit the LFG on one of my lowbies thinking I would hit up a DFB trial... and saw that both MoM and TPN are listed as iTrials now... does that mean they are live? Or is this just part of their preparation for the new stuff?

Can't wait to see the notes for this today.

Rebirth is VERY useful in UGT... *BUT* just be extra careful about using your Rebirth in the fight against the Avatar. If you are confused when you fire it off you will heal the Avatar, and that is bad. Very bad. I am not saying that you can not use Rebirth in the last fight (although quite a few league leaders have been requesting that no one use Rebirth and Barrier in that fight), but if you do you need to be careful when doing so.

Rebirth is also an excellent destiny to have for Keyes trials.

Gather salvage and merits from BAF and LAM. If you can, run Keyes and UGT as well. I know that a lot of people do not like these 2 trials, but Keyes is much easier now and I see a lot more of them being run.

When you join a BAF I would also suggest that you ask the leader if it would be possible to try for badges. Most runs typically go for the no computers and no escapees badges as a matter of course, but quite a few leagues will try for "Strong and Pretty" or "Got to keep em' Seperated". Obviously not every group will try for one of those, but I have been in plenty of groups that switched "on the fly" to trying for Strong and Pretty when a few people expressed interest.

The reason I suggest trying for the badges is that when you get a badge you will also recieve a bonus Uncommon Salvage (or a bonus Astral Merit if you already had the badge) and Mo badges reward a Rare Salvage. MoBAF is the easiest of the 4 trials, MoLAM is tougher since you need to have a group that can deal with Marauder's regen/resist without the temps. That pretty much requires a dedicated badge running team.

The first badge in Keyes "Anti-Anti-Matter" is extremely easy to get now as well. Bunker Buster is kinda annoying, but I would expect a decent number of badge hunters would be willing to do it if they knew about a Keyes badge run. The last 2 badges (and MoKeyes) is a very different proposition and is not really worth trying for just to get the bonus salvage.

In the UGT, there are actually 2 badges that are not that difficult to get, 1 that is kinda random, and one that is tedious. The "Regenerate This" badge is for killing the 2nd/3rd walker in less than 8 minutes, If the team is doing well then this happens all by itself. The "Tour Guide" badge is for keeping Desdemona's health above 50% the whole trial, another badge that is not that difficult and often happens without any special activities by the League. The "Avatar Assassin" badge is the one that I find somewhat random. it is for killing the Avatar while a seedling is spawned (10 second window I think). I have never been on a league that actively tried to get it, but have recieved it on 4 toons just by pure luck (kinda like Syncronized in LAM). The final UGT badge is "Preservation Specialist", for killing all the bombs in the hallways and side rooms. This slows down a UGT considerably, is difficult to pull off, but a failure at it rarely causes a failed raid.

If you can manage to get these badges you stand to gain a decent amount of bonus salvage, and that helps a lot while incarnating your toons.

And the bonus Astral Merits are also nice once you have the badges.

One thing you may consider: If you can get one of your toons to +3 and enjoy running him through the trials, focus on him and then use the Astral Merits that you gather to assist your other toon on his Incarnate path. My main has so many Astrals that I am constantly converting them to threads for my other toons (via Oro vendor) to make them progress a little more quickly.

Edit: Mo= Master of, rewarded for having all the badges from a particular trial.
I realized after writing this post that not everyone would be familiar with the term. Sorry about that.

Additional note: Only iTrials, Tin Mage and Apex TFs currently use that method of acquiring a Mo badge. STF, LRSF, Khan, Barracuda, LGTF, ITF all reward Mo badges for running them with the conditions of "no deaths" and "no temp powers" and those Mo badges do not reward anything special beyond the badge (no bonus salavge or merits, or whatever)

Without knowing the actual formulas, I would expect that you would get a better return from increasing your Regen rate. Since the "ticks" ar always the same (based on Max HP), the faster you get your ticks the more you will regen, and I suspect that the increase in tick speed will be greater than the increased HP per tick with +Max Hp. The +Max HP set bonuses tend to be rather small for most ATs (tanks possibly excluded).

I would think that the number cruchers among us would have determined the best way to get the most out of it, and if there was one method vastly superior to another then it would be rather well known by now.

I would suggest getting your +regen as high as you can while also attempting to increase your max HP when possible.

My Fire/Ice/Fire blaster (Firekraker). He lays waste to just about everything, has T4s in all slots, and several alternate T4s for specific situations. He is so much fun to play that I have a hard time working on other toons.

I have run all 3 arcs on 3 or 4 different toons. And I consider them to be among the most god-awful garbage in this game. I know that my opinion is in the minority, and I do not tell people to avoid those arcs like the plague (although it is tough for me to not do that), but I find the thought of running any of the 3 arcs to be slightly less appealing than drinking sour milk out of a dirty ashtray.

I was away from CoH for about 2 years, and I just returned about 3 weeks ago. I was not here for the initial roll-out of the Incarnate stuff, but have been running a lot of trials and TFs since I returned.

In those 3 weeks I have not converted any shards to threads, nor have I upgraded any Incarnate salvage (no rare to very rare stuff). I *have* downgraded a few uncommons to commons. You need less uncommons than you do commons, To mkae a power T4 you would need 2 uncommons, 2 rares, 1 VR and 12 commons (I think it is 12, might be off on that).

In my 3 weeks of playing, I have unlocked my Alpha on my main, crafted a T4 Spiritual, T4 Musculature, T4 Cardiac, T4 Pyronic Judgement, T4 Reactive Interface, T4 Lore Robotic Drones (Assault and Laser), T3 Lore IDF (Shield Drone and ACU), T4 Clarion, T3 Ageless, and a T3 Rebirth.

I have also used the Astral merit conversion to unlock the Alpha on 2 other toons (that would have trouble running the Alpha Arc solo). I currently have 112 Astral Merits and 29 Emperyan Merits.

I have also earned close to 500,000,000 Inf while doing this (not counting the Purple Recipe I found and sold for 600,000,000, as that was pure luck).

I have found the Incarnate system to be a lot of fun, not much grind and definately worth the time invested.

Of course I was also playing Dungeons and Dragons Online for quite a while, and the "end game" of crafting Epic Items in DDO is vastly slower than Incarnates in CoH. In DDO I made the "Epic Sword of Shadow" (the most powerful 2-handed weapon in the game, at that time). To craft that Item you had to acquire the Shard of the SoS, Seal of the SoS and Scroll of the SoS and then combine them. The Scroll was a random drop from any *mininon* in the appropriate pack of content but was very expensive to buy, costing roughly the same amount of gold (actually platinum, but more people recognize gold as a standard currency) that could be carried by 3 toons holding all the gold the game would allow. The Seal dropped only at the ends of a few missions, and it took me 197 completions of 1 mission to get that Seal. And those missions are on a "hard timer" of 18 hours, so only 1 mission per day for your chance at the Seal. The Shard dropped only in the end of a Raid with a 3 day timer... took me about 1 year to make the final item.

The reason I mention my experience in DDO is to point out that the Incarnate system in CoH moves much, much faster than the end game content in DDO, and much faster than the end game in many other MMOs. I am very happy with my return to CoH, and the Incarnate system is a large part of that.

I am thrilled that they are adding new sets to the game, and it is obvious that Titan Weapons has a rather large following. But that set just looks... BLEH is the nicest thing I can say about it. I can not envision ever playing one for any reason. But that is why I like CoH, because I do not need to like it, lots and lots of other people will, and I will lose nothing by not playing it, and will gain a LOT by having more of my friends happy with the set. And there is much to be said about expanded choices.

Keep up the good work devs.

Now, about Staff Melee..... Bring it on

Originally Posted by TonyV
Considering that a lot of these new players are playing these missions and experiencing the story behind them for the very first time ever, I seriously question whether XP has much to do with it. I know that the OP referred to XP, but it's possible that he is projecting what he thought the players were thinking onto them or that the new players were shy about admitting that they want to take a minute to read what they were doing instead of getting as far as, "The disturbance I have been sensing seems to spiral ever wider. The industrial complex--" MISSION COMPLETE!

You are incorrect. The players which left told us, very clearly, that they only wanted the maximum xp from the TF. They also mentioned that they did not care about story or badges, simply xp.

So, before you "serously question whether XP has much to do with it", or that I am projecting, I suggest you work on your reading comprehension, because I was very clear as to what the problem was.

The players in question were not shy, by any stretch of the imagination, nor were they unable to express themselves in a clear manner. They made their expectations loud and clear.