Zombie Man

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You only came in here, saw a topic heading, and went into rant mode without even trying to understand anything that I was saying, which everyone else here has gotten.

So in my opinion, you are a bad reader and probably a bad player, so welcome to the wonderful world of the ignore list.

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No, it just wasn't the topic heading, it was your complaining of how some ATs can be incompetent, but expressly leaving out brutes from that class of bad players. Your own follow up claiming that MMs are the least useful AT confirms your anti-MM bias. So, I did indeed comprehend what you were saying.

As far as rant mode, well, reread your original post. It is a rant against bad players (but not Brute players). Pots and kettles everywhere in this thread.

As far as putting me on the ignore list, that's fine. Doubt you'll do it.

Pants. Pants indeed!

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All I have ever asked is that you not blame the entire AT just bc you've met an incompetant player, and, that seems to be what the OP did. Thanks.

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That is because in my opinion, all other villain ATs offer more use to a team than the MM AT does. Like I said, this is all opinion.


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And that is why, this is a bad guide. In my opinion.

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Enantiodromos' Guide to Walking Around Paragon City


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Wow, a real walking (albeit, Sprinting, since we can't voluntarily 'walk') guide. And a good one, too!

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This isn't a guide to the respec,

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Lazarus: That's right, it is a list of things that should ring warning bells in your head when the team is being assembled. Nowhere does this say how to do the respec.

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Perhaps the Forum in which it was posted under (Player Guides) would lead someone to believe you were posting a player guide?


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Where were you when "Incompetent Masterminds" was one of his topic headings?

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Deamongelous: Never read it. But I don't see how that has anything to do with this topic. Please excuse me for thinking this, but it seems like you were very upset by this other thread and have brought it to this one.

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What other thread? He used "Incompetent Masterminds" as a topic heading (not thread title) in the original post of this thread. You did read the original post of this thread, no?



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Sgt_Subterfuge: You people spend more time crab-assing about each others’ offenses than you do sharing your notable wisdom with the rest of us.

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Which is exactly what you're doing in your post, Kettle.

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I enjoy doing the respec tf just for the sheer XP and Inf (and prestige!) earned from it. Once you know how to do it, it's cake.

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Exactly. With these extra difficult Force missions, if you don't know what you're up against, you will die... several times... until you learn the right tactics.[1] Or, you can simply research some of the tactical guides on these forums. That's what makes these challenging and out of the ordinary missions and a nice change of pace from the standard missions.

If everyone is set on the easiest level[2], and you make sure everyone is within 1 level of the highest allowable level of the Force (and with auto-exemplaring and auto-malefactoring, this is easiest to do by waiting till you actually outlevel the Force), then these Forces are 'relatively' easy... once you got the right tactic down.


Back to the argument that respec missions should be easy: The argument made is that those who need respec have characters that are challenged in some way by a bad build and that's why they seek the respec. But they can't do the respec well because of the bad build.

I disagree. If you follow the advice above (all players within 1 level of highest level and everyone set on easy) then even challenged builds can do the SF/TF. And there are plenty of players with good builds who will team up with you to do these respec trials for the fun of it or for only small tweaks to their build and not becuase they're 'broken.'



[1] I'm still dying over and over again in the Ice Mistral SF. Still trying to figure out the best tactics for the AV battle there. No definitive guide yet.


[2] Everyone should be set on easy in case the leader disconnects or logs out, then the next player who becomes the leader will spawn the next mission at easy level also.

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Great... just give the devs a reason to change this... *sigh*

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As they should since the logging off trick is an exploit.

If you want respecs to be easy, then petition the devs to make it easy.

However, if the decision is to make them hard to achieve, then don't exploit a hole in game mechanics to get your way.

Although, if a dev or a dev rep is reading this, let me say that before you fix this mild exploit, how about first fixing the things which are out and out broke?

Now to bring this back around to topic: If anyone on the team has TP foe, then before you kill any vines, and I mean before you kill any vines, you should tp the vines in front of the Tree away and out of sight of the Tree (but don't kill them yet). Then, when the time comes to kill all the vines, you won't have to worry about being one-shotted by the tree.

Yikes, what a final mission.

We experienced three summons from the final AV. It seemed to me that each summons happened at the same times the AV summons of the respec trial (Tree of Life) i.e., at 75%, 50%, 25% health of the AV. Each time we wiped and had to go back in skirting the outside of the summoned spawn to clear them (precisely because the summoned spawned had so many bosses). If you others did not get three summons, could it be that you were so successful in hurting the AV that you got all three summons one on top of the other (could explain why the whole ground level was full of spawns)? The good news is that, like the Tree of Life, the summons don't respawn if a fully healed AV goes back down in health. So, if you can accept three team wipes, then this is the SF for you!

Alternatively, you can immediately retreat when a spawn comes and carefully re-engage it.... who am I kidding... no one's going to run in the middle of an AV battle.

I'm guessing that if the AV is successfully held (not immobilized) he can't summons. Unfortunately, our AV kept breaking the hold in short spurts that were long enough to summons.

Like many Strike Forces (and Task Forces), the level of the mission is hard coded to the upper level (40). This goes up with large groups and a higher difficulty setting. (Again, we return to the debate of whether it's just the leader's difficulty level or the team's average difficulty level which is significant. Anyway, since leadership can be passed to other members if the original leader logs off or disconnects, it's best if everyone sets their difficulty level to easiest, i.e., Villainous).

This means that if the level of all the members of the SF are 35, you will die... often, and be unable to complete the SF. In fact, since SFs are inherently much more difficult than regular missions this isn't the time to let a lowbie leech. Get everyone lackeyed up to at least 38. There will be, at the minimum, level 41 bosses and Archvillain (higher if the team has more than 5 members). If a player can't land powers on these foes because he or she is too low a level, then your team will be severely hampered.

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Wow, that was an awful lot of hostility against someone just trying to help others. Even if you don't agree with his advice you don't need to be insulting.

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Where were you when "Incompetent Masterminds" was one of his topic headings?

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Dude, we was singling out bad corruptors too,

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See, that's the thing. If you have 'bad players' no matter what the AT, then they're not helpful in completing a difficult task. So, it's not really about the AT. But the OP kept singling out badly played ATs, excepting the Brute, who seemingly, can do no wrong.

This isn't a guide to the respec, it's a complaint against bad players (except those who play Brutes).

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Wow, that was an awful lot of hostility against someone just trying to help others. Even if you don't agree with his advice you don't need to be insulting.

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Where were you when "Incompetent Masterminds" was one of his topic headings?

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go around take out CoT and the occasional vine that may be near. Once the CoT are gone take out the vines then wail on the tree.

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No! Those early kill vines will start respawning by the time you're getting to the rest of the vines. Don't kill any vines until you're ready to dive in and take them all out as fast as possible. Even if you're a low damage group, this is the win strategy (even more so if you can TP Foe the vines by the AV away from the AV (but don't kill them immediately)).


WRT to the OP: One question for you... what about advising us not to team up with stupid and incompetent Brutes? You know the type: in order to keep Fury up they rush into the next spawn without regard to the readiness of the rest of the team, and then when they do a faceplant, they blame us for not being there.

And let me telling you something else, uberbrute, when I have a foe debuffed and all of my minions attacking it... it goes down faster than a brute can do. That's something a few brutes in PvP have learned the hard way when they thought they could stand toe to toe with a squishie MM while standing in my Tar Patch debuffed with Darkest Night and my self heals. They thought they could ignore the minions. They thought wrong.

So much for damage.


BTW, I've been on a respec trial loaded with MMs. The tree was zerged by the minion army and the extra spawns were ignored. The tree was down in a minute.


I concur with those who've said the real trick to the trial is have the right levels of villains... not the right ATs. That is so much more important than team balance. This isn't CoH.

I was kind of hoping that this thread was going to be a comprehensive guide on how to walk in CoH/V.

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Nice list, Great info, and if this has been asked before, please pardon me, but which contacts send you to these "unlockable" contacts after you meet the requirements?
Thx in advance for the info

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Unlockable contacts are often stumbled upon by players who see a NPC with a glowie circle around them and wonder who they are and click on them. They often get a cryptic statement about doing something else before they'll talk to you.

Some unlockables are errand missions from regular contacts. In the high end game, just about every contact has you stopping by Tarixus. It's only if you have the right badge that Tarixus will become a contact in his own right and give you a mission arc.

Problem with assigning an AT to a role is that some ATs have powersets which push the AT into a direction different from what the 'typical member of that AT' can do. For example, in CoH, the Dark/Dark defender can specialize in blasting, or defending, or controlling, or a little of each. Then, when you take the versatility of the Dark Miasma set and add that to a Necromancy Mastermind, then you have a Mastermind that can pitch hit for each of your roles:

Frontliner: The N/D MM can focus all the minions on one target. And when one target is getting hit by 6-8 pets... its health falls as fast as if it was being hit by a Brute, Blaster, or Scrapper.

Sweeper: The N/D MM can let the pets run free attacking and chasing after many wounded targets at once just like a Scrapper, Corruptor, or Dominator.

Reaper: Same as with the Sweeper. Don't forget that the Lich, Spirit, and Dark Servant all have control and debuff powers in addition to the MM him or herself and can do as good a job as the Blaster, Corruptor, or Kheldian in Nova form.

Hitman: My N/D MM, like the D/D Defender is the AV and Boss killer because of the debuffing (-DEF -ACC -REGEN -RESIST -SPEED). [Oh, the number of times I've heard "Wow, that AV went down fast."] The MM can even take on some AVs solo just like the Scrapper, Brute, or Stalker.

Meatshield: You already grant this to all MMs, the N/D is no exception.

Bodyguard: Since the N/D MM can Sweep, can also Bodyguard.

Protector: The N/D MM's debuffing powers allows squishies to not get hit or to get hit *gently*. As a squishie him or herself the N/D MM can wade into the middle of a mass melee and stand there directing minions.

Manager: See above for Protector.

Helper: Again, debuffs and group heals.

Scout: Dark Miasma's group stealth power (coupled with the stealth of Superspeed = invisibility). Also another good power pool for MMs is TP foe... once you've scouted a target, you run behind a corner or wall and teleport the foe into your group mugging.

Supplier: You grant this to all MMs.

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Could someone look over this build and tell me what to and what not to do?

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First don't: Post in the wrong forum.

First do: Send a PM (private message, i.e., email) to one of the moderators listed at the bottom asking to move this to the right forum where you might get good responses from people who have played and are interested in this type of Archetype.

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I don't get it, Why would a redname start a post with a link to the history of Trolls in Paragon City? Something is a foot.

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This is part of a regular series of articles with the City of Heroes backstory that features a villainous group.

It was by coincidence that the Troll article appeared at the same time of an incursion of the internet type of troll on these boards.

This is going to get a handful of people irate: statistics.

You see, if the special temp power is rare, then a few lucky people will get both quickly.

The overwhelming majority will eventually get both after a long, long present-hunting crawl.

And they'll be a few unlucky who won't have both, even after hundreds and hundreds of clicks. They'll scream it's bugged. But that's statistics. And this is almost guaranteed to happen... unless... there's a streak breaker in the code (e.g., if someone has clicked 300 nice presents and hasn't gotten a temp power, then a temp power will be given).

So, what are the odds that a streak breaker was written in the random generator?

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I thought like you at first. Hardcase has a LOT of mission, carried me well into lvl 36. Then i did Leery, Sonata, and the other 6. And yet i came out short at lvl 38.8. See, many have very short arcs (like Leery). Other stop talking to you (like when i failed Naylor on the Rularuu mission). The TF brought me to 39.3, but that was just an evil TF with an evil ending.

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Hmmm, time for me to take myself off easy (except for the Rularuu mission) and actually start killing everything inside the mission. Thanks for the heads up.

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Noted.

We also need to add more Contacts from levels 35-40.

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Really? I'm 34 and I have three contacts in St. Martial from the newspaper schemes that won't talk to me until I'm 35. Additionally, I have three contacts in Nerva that tell me to come back when I'm 35 (I'm presuming I'm getting three new contacts from them, since I've found two of those contacts I haven't been introduced to yet). Plus, there's the unlockable Arbiter Leery and Johnny Sonnata at 35.

So that makes 8 contacts for 35-40. That's not enough? (Not to mention that the second respec was opened at 34 and there's a costume mission at 40.)

It was when I hit 33 that, for the first time, every contact outleveled me. But I was purposely trying to do that since day one so as not miss any content. If I had been playing regularly, I probably would have finished all those contacts and arcs at 36. Granted, I haven't done 35-40 yet. I let you know how it goes when I finish it the next few days.

It is inexplicable why Statesman would respond here when I provided a list of problems with unlockable contacts and their screwy badge in this thread.

Do you *really* want to be fighting the Knives of Artemis?

Actually, what I want to see for the sake of diversity are missions with mixed villains: two or three different groups working together.

"Longbow, Wyvern, and the Legacy Chain are meeting to coordinate their efforts. That would be bad. Stop it."

"The Carnival have mind controlled the Legacy Chain to do their bidding. Are we villains next? Put an end to their domination schemes."

Etc...

All I can say is that if anyone posted on the VirtueUnited global channel that there were Heroes griefing the base and hospital in a PvP zone and pinning down the Villains, I'd be there in a second to turn the tide.

Get help.

Or, go to the Arena for 'fair' PvP.

From today's patch notes:

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Tasks

* Villains who have used the respec granted by the first respec trial will now be properly granted the respec from the second trial.

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So, there was something hinky with these accolades. Hope it fixes Leery.

I created an Empath called Dr. Ironic.

As an Emapth, Dr. Ironic got many house calls, "healer?"

"Empath," was his answer. And the invite came lickety split.

Unfortunately, those other moronic ATs somehow found fault with Dr. Ironic.

"Where are the heals??!" they would scream.

"The only heal I have is Aura and that was forced on me, so I didn't slot it."

"BUT YOU'RE AN EMPATH!"

"That's way I'm called 'Dr. Ironic'" I'd reply.

Dr. Ironic has been kicked from team.

Excellent guide, just a few editing nitpicks for future editions:

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To follow is just to obtain as much as you can...

To Follow is 1 method of getting all missions that lead to...

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The following guideline is for obtaining as much as you can...

The following is one method of getting all missions that leads to...



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Kalinda
She wills end you on 5 missions, Upon the 5th mission You will obtain Kalinda's Kiss as a souvenir.

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Upon reading this, I thought that maybe a pilot light blew out in your house until I realized it was simply a typo of a misplaced space. [She will send you...]




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Peter Themari has 2 arcs for you Secure Olivia Daque from the Longbow Ambush will get you a souvenir Olivia Daque Ring. The Other arc ends with Get Pyriss our of Legacy Chain Base. Souvenir: Lock of Pyriss Hair.

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Darque.

Other pointers:

Badges:

There's a badge and gladiator for killing Snakes, which one normally gets by doing Mongoose's missions, which are full of Snakes. If you're skipping Mongoose, then don't forget to go back to Mercy when you're a much higher level than the Snakes (and thus, little or no xp to cause you to outlevel content) and do some street sweeping until you get those badges. If you follow all the other suggestions in this thread, I'm sure you can still do Mongoose without causing you to outlevel other content.


Slowing Down the Leveling

Avoid escort (kidnap) missions from newspapers. You'll be forced to clear a path to the victim and defeat several waves of foes. Too much xp for too little content.

Take 'Defeat NAME' missions. Only have to kill NAME and surrounding guards.

Take 'Find' missions. Only have to click on the glowie and defeat mobs in the room. (Some missions are still click only.)

With the 'Defeat NAME' and 'Find' missions you only have to run to the mission objective. Get a stealth power early. Sometimes just running past mobs and absorbing one or two hits works. Masterminds can use their minions as decoys and meat shields to get by. Superspeed gives both stealth and the fastest way to search to get to the mission objective.

Keep your difficulty rating at the easiest level.

Ironically, running to the mission objective and avoiding the extraneous battles will level you up incredibly fast because of the big xp bonus to completing missions. This provides a very high xp/hour rate. But don't let that worry you, because, at the same time, you get to read all the content of all the arcs and grab all the badges and temp powers and souvenirs.


Infamy

If you're running to mission objectives and avoiding mob battles, you'll get lots of xp for the missions, but you'll be missing all the influence and enhancement drops from mob battles. You'll be leveling quickly (from mission xp), but not be able to pay for your DO an SO enhancements.

Getting more xp than influence creates another problem later in the game with an unlockable contact: Doc Buzzsaw, who requires you to have the Bling badge (1 million Infamy) before you outlevel her at level 31. Many players have gotten their Bling badge at 31 or higher and thus, outlevel this contact.

There are two ways to cut down xp gains while keeping or increasing influence gains:

First, die. A lot. When you hit level 10, you can cut the rate of xp being gained by half simply by dying (i.e., being defeated) and gaining debt.

Second, Malefactor (the reverse sidekick [exemplaring] of CoV) the Cap ua Diable Strike Force (Virgil Tarikoss, level 15-20) when you outlevel it. You can even do it as team leader. You'll be auto-malefactored down to 20. Any xp you might have gained will go to removing debt and then be turned into infamy. {At level 29, I did this SF again, and that's when I dinged my Bling.}




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How do you do newspaper missions before hitting the contact? I tried with the /newspaper and it said that I needed to go the broker first.

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When you first enter Port Oakes (or any zone with a Broker Contact), you will automatically get a Broker as a contact (check your contact list). Go to the Broker and get a Newspaper. Now the Newspaper shows up in your contact list. Click it. It will give you a choice of one of three missions. Click on the one you want to do. Do three newapaper missions. Watch the status bar fill up in the Broker's window (in the contact list) as you do those missions. Once you've filled up the status bar of the Broker, go to the broker in person. The Broker will give you a special mission, a heist. Take it. Do it. Go back to the Broker and the Broker will give you a contact.

From here on out, whenever you go into a new zone, you'll automatically get a broker for that zone. Taking a newspaper mission (a 'scheme') in that zone fills up that zone's broker's status bar. Once you get to Sharkhead, it will take 5 instead of 3 schemes to get a heist mission.