Amberyl

If you make the plural text for the objectives the same, it will auto-combine.

i.e., you can have a computer glowie detail with a nav plural of "clues to seek", a desk glowie detail with a nav plural of "clues to see", and a kill-boss detail with a nav plural of "clues to seek", and they'll all be nicely combined into "3 clues to seek".

People hate Defeat All, especially in large maps, because of the high chance of missing one mob or one spawn and needing to spend a ton of time going over every last inch of the map trying to find the darn thing. Or, in some rare cases, having to petition for help because the last spawn has gotten itself stuck in unreachable geometry or is otherwise invisible. Or in the worst case, not being sure whether you're an idiot because you can't find the last mob, or you can't find it because it spawned bugged.

Woe betide you if you combine Defeat All with one of the unique maps that don't have a minimap, thus preventing you from seeing where you've been. (Woe betide you if you have people hunt for anything in one of those maps, period.)

Defeat All is also extra-annoying in maps that are inherently a pain, like the layer-cake caves. It's far too easy to miss mobs in there, and if you don't have hover/fly, super-annoying to go through.

Solo players who don't have much damage output prefer missions that are at least somewhat stealthable. They get their XP primarily through the mission-complete bonuses, rather than killing things.

The effort-to-reward ratio of a Defeat All can be overly low. If you're looking at a fairly static mission complete bonus, you want to get to that bonus in some reasonable amount of time.

In general, I don't voluntarily solo Defeat All missions unless the map is reasonable (small and medium-sized office or warehouse maps, for instance). If I'm playing for XP, faster mission complete bonuses are better. If I'm playing for story, I'd like to actually see the story, with only enough time spent punching mobs to get the flavor of things.

I use Defeat All in my own arcs if there's a good story reason for it -- "leave no witnesses", for instance. That only has useful impact if it is used sparingly, though, and I generally only do this in a map of very limited size (Tiny maps, uniques like the banks, casinos, stores, etc.), where you're probably going to just wipe everything out anyway in the course of completing the mission.

If you want to think of this from a roleplay perspective, not all characters feel that they need to stop every crimewave personally. Maybe they grab what they need and call in Longbow or the Paragon Police afterwards.

In the arc I'm working on, I handle choices by simply making them non-required objectives, with different additional goals spawned in each case. The easiest way to do this is a destroy-object detail, IMHO, since this lets you write a clear description of the choice in the Info for the object. Destroy object X, get one path; destroy object Y, get another path.

To make a more significant choice that results in mission failure, simply make the mission timed. This is how one of the CoV arcs handles it (you can either capture a reporter, or you can let her go; to let her go, you just run out the timer).

You're probably playing Dev's Choice missions. Those give normal rewards. Other MA missions give tickets.

How do you pick a boss from a custom group comprised of standard bosses?

My problem is this: I want to have a relatively non-level-restricted arc. I am putting in a non-custom boss in a mission -- a Circle of Thorns mage. (It needs to be a CoT mage for story reasons, and there are no costumes that allow reasonable approximations of the look, either.) Each CoT boss mage type in the game is restricted to a particular level range. Theoretically, I'd like to create a custom group containing one boss from each level range, then tell the MA to use whichever one is level-appropriate.

The first problem with this is that the custom group doesn't appear in the MA editor in the boss detail. No custom groups that don't contain any custom characters -- i.e., ones that are just mixes of enemies from the game -- appear in the drop-down for this detail, although they do appear in drop-downs for other types of details like patrols. I assume this is intentional, since you're always picking a particular boss, so if you're picking a standard one, you'd just pull it from the standard groups.

The second problem is that there doesn't appear to be any way to say "pull a random mob of appropriate level from this custom group", in the general case.

Any idea how to work around this? I don't want to unnecessarily level-restrict my mission by picking a particular boss. (I cannot just use the "random CoT boss" pick, because the random CoT bosses also include the Succubus, etc., which wouldn't make sense in the story.)

Oh, spiffy! Thanks.

I hope someone documents this. :-)

I've now seen several different MA missions where the behavior of a collect, rescue, etc. changes with each subsequent (identical) item/mob that is done.

For instance, in @Autumnsno's "Nuking the Fridge" arc, you're asked to collect 6 DVDs. (Text bar reads "6 DVDs to collect" or something like that.) Every time you click on one of the glowies, you get a clue. Each of the clues is unique.

The only way I can think of to do this is to begin with a collect objective with a quantity of 1 and a singular text of "6 DVDs to collect", then have a "5 DVDs to collect" objective spawn when that one is done, and so on. However, that could cause some awkward problems with having to backtrack and whatnot.

Similarly, in @Jetpack's "Save the Spiderlings!" arc, you're asked to save 12 captive spiderlings. Each of them has a different set of dialogue ("rescue a captive" set-up).

Am I overlooking some useful button in the MA interface that lets me customize what happens with each incremental achievement of a multi-quantity objective?

The devs really need the ability to keyword-filter in-game spam emails.

I cannot count the number of messages I've now gotten from gold-sellers at gagora.com.

There's a lot to be said for "if it's a new account and it mentions a domain listed in vast-list-of-goldfarmer-domains-here, don't allow it to be sent".

I'm at the point where I'm deleting a half-dozen or more messages PER TOON that I log in DAILY. It can't be good for CoH's email system and it's certainly annoying as heck.

Control-click. Or, if you have a laptop, put two fingers on the touchpad and then click.

But, er, if you have a current Mac, and it's not a laptop, you have a two-button mouse. The Mighty Mouse is sensitive to what part of the mouse you're clicking on.

If you have a laptop, I'd strongly recommend buying a regular mouse for your gaming needs.

Okay, this one puzzles me. Why are Prisoners exploitable?

An important note on custom critter design (or any combining of groups in general):

Pay attention to power synergies.

You need to consider the entire spawn group, not just individual critters. Multiple mobs that debuff accuracy or increase defense can make things unhittable, especially if the base critter has defenses of its own. If you've got a bunch of minions that have control powers, recognize that they can readily stack enough of them at a magnitude that will overwhelm player mez protections. If you've got a hard-hitting melee boss backed up with minions with sonic, you need to recognize that this may turn into the ability to one-shot a player.

If you are using heavy endurance drain, DON'T. Okay, this is not really a hard and fast rule, but remember that there is a REASON that sappers show up in a limited context, and that players hate them. Having player endurance bars emptied is certainly an easy "I win" button for your critters, but it's not a particularly creative way to create challenge, and again, most people will hate you for it. Similarly, large number of critters with electrical drain can be just as bad as one critter with major drain mojo.

I'd like to suggest that the default arc listing format indicate whether or not an EB or an AV is present in the mission.

I also think it'd be useful to give some indicator of the difficulty of the mission -- perhaps explicitly flagging anything with Extreme powers, or noting the highest difficulty setting of a critter included.

While some people do note it in the arc description, I'm finding more often than not that these things are not pointed out.

I've found, by contrast, that my balance-related commentary is often met with, "Well, other people thought it was just fine."
Indeed, the more stars the arc has, the more likely it seems that the author isn't willing to listen.

I agree that if you want feedback, the commentary is overwhelmingly more useful than stars.

I also agree that non-anonymous commentary results in greater civility.

But I also think that non-anonymous commentary discourages leaving any comment whatsoever.

I do think that the single unified rating is vastly less useful than a system that had at least two ratings -- story and gameplay.

I just had to abandon an arc that had a nicely done set of custom villains (nice power picks, good costuming, etc.) and functional if extremely minimal writing, but after four deaths -- three of them at the hands of the unannounced elite boss at the end, despite coming prepared with full trays of inspirations -- I threw in the towel and decided I'd accumulated enough debt. The icing on the cake was seeing a big ambush spawn as I faceplanted the last time. If I could, I'd offer three stars for the construction and one star for gameplay.

Would it be better for me to leave feedback for the author, so they could improve? Sure. Am I going to get into a potential argument over it by doing so non-anonymously? No.

I do think it would be extremely useful if authors could datamine their missions for things like "how many times was this arc started without being finished" and "how many deaths".

I've come to the realization that I am generally not willing to leave negative, non-anonymous feedback on architect missions.

Authors are naturally defensive when you critique anything that is not a totally factual problem (anything of the nature of "X did not spawn", typos, etc.). I am not particularly keen on retaliatory low-stars, nor am I interested in simply being told that I'm wrong in my opinions; I want to leave feedback and move on. Most people are not genuinely looking for criticism. For those who are, there's the feedback; for those who aren't, you can ignore it.

Even stars aren't anonymous, especially if the author is online -- they'll get your global tell of feedback right along with a message of how many tickets they earned, and tickets = stars times 5.

On the specific gripes, I don't want to argue with any more authors about their mission balance. I've turned my difficulty down to Heroic for my lower-level toons running MA, and down to level 2 even for my 50s (who were running Invincible in normal PvE), in recognition of the fact that MA custom critters are tougher and that most players don't really understand how to balance. I want to inform authors when I see problems, but I also don't want to get into arguments about it. (I recognize that my taste may be divergent, and for me, good writing is not enough to overcome gameplay issues. For instance, there's a cleverly-written dev's choice arc that is stuffed full of the equivalent of sappers, which I enjoyed reading but loathed playing.)

Similarly, I'd like to offer feedback to the terrible writers who are nevertheless trying. I played a mission that had good ideas but whose author has a writing style like a bad porn fan-fic writer -- you know, never use a period when eight ellipses will do, have lots of OH exclamations, and mix capital letters for emphasis. But again, I want to leave the feedback and not get into a discussion.

I'd really like an anonymous option for feedback. For the moment, I've switched to just leaving stars, no comments.

This is not so much about backlash (although that's a concern, too), as the simple social contract: I'd like to say something negative without having to deal with a confrontation.

It's not related to your system specs, unless the corruption of the graphics cache (or whatever) is more severe if it's being used differently due to less RAM. Just /reloadgfx every time you zone and it should be fine. (Remembering to do so consistently has completely eliminated my crash problems, both on my fairly beefy iMac, as well as my very lightly-configured Macbook Air.)

What settings do you need to have to have a custom enemy spawn as an elite boss or archvillain? (Assuming a team, since AVs are downgraded to EBs for solo players. Although, is this universal? Is there a setting under which an AV will always spawn as an AV, even for a solo player?)

Are there any settings under which non-custom enemies (a regular standard-group boss) can be forced to spawn as an EB or AV?

I originally planned to level my next toon solely on MA content. This has turned out not to be reasonable. Most people don't design their arcs to be workable for low-level toons. However, post-32, I expect that I can probably play most MA architect missions, but that's also the set of levels where dev-generated content tends to run thin anyway, so MA missions will be very welcome.

In the end, the devs want people to pay for monthly subscriptions. An endless flow of content for bored, seen-it-all veteran players is pretty much exactly what they need.

Someone is going to do a good install tool that makes it simple to grab an arc from a website and copy it into the appropriate folders. I believe the .storyarc file contains everything necessary, as it automatically reads in the necessary critters, so this tool is trivial, and not actually necessary -- it can just make it easier.

Then, you'll have a website where entire .storyarc files are uploaded. Since they're 100k at max, the amount of storage they'll take up is utterly trivial. Presumably this site will have a search mechanism making it easy to find arcs. Having a facility to rate arcs would be helpful, too.

You want to play someone's arc, you download the mission (using the tool or just by manual save into the directory), you fire up CoH, you publish the mission, you play it, and then you unpublish it.

Less satisfying than an all-in-game mechanism, but not unworkable.

Personally, I'm currently building a website for searching storyarcs; authors can register their arc by uploading their .storyarc file, which my site parses and extracts out useful stats, so you are not having to type in manually how many missions, how many bosses, whether you have AVs, etc. Ratings can be entered on the site. I'm contemplating allowing people to choose to archive their .storyarc file on the site, too, so it can be played by others even if it's eventually unpublished.

I've been doing MA arcs with my SS/WP brute. (I've been focused on trying to earn tickets to get unlockables to use in my own arcs.)

I'm used to mowing down everything in PvE content run on Invincible with very few problems, assuming I'm not trying to solo an AV or the like. I've got a solid build and some decent IOs, but ironically, most my IOs were picked up around level 30-35, so I'm by no means uber, at least as far as SS/WP brutes go.

However, I've had more problems in MArc missions than I've ever had in normal PvE missions. In most ways, this is welcome, since MArc authors end up putting in challenges the devs never would precisely because they either don't care about balance, have failed to test adequately for balance, or are deliberately trying to design something really hard.

For instance, the "Welcome to Architect Entertainment" arc was thoroughly painful, even with my difficulty level turned down to Malicious; I'm contemplating trying to go down to Villainous (the base level, i.e., no bosses) just to see if I can get through the thing, because it's basically like playing a mission consisting solely of super-powerful sappers. (At one point, I managed to clear one of the ambushes that show up at the end of the third mission by going and buying an inspiration tray entirely full of blues, except for a big red and purple to start off with, but then I was out of blues, unable to talk to a contact for more, and I'd already bought out the auction house, probably making somebody terribly happy with the prices I'd paid.) I really enjoyed the arc's dialogue, but there's only so much pain I'm willing to put up with. However, the real issue with that is that SS/WP only has soft control. For someone with hard control powers or very good defenses, it probably wouldn't have been a big deal.

Or, to take another example, the Catgirl Neko Lord Recluse's Strike Force arc had the interesting property of fitting squarely into the weakness of WP's Rise to the Challenge, which is that the regen rate depends on how many enemies are in melee range. It's filled with just one type of minion, which stands at range with an assault rifle, and who stay spread out enough that SS's Foot Stomp or my patron pool Ball Lightning can't hit the group. I once accidentally aggro'd two big groups on an outdoor map that both contained bosses, and that turned out to be a nasty fight. Again, someone with hard control powers would probably have done quite well.

Actually, more broadly, given the very large number of custom enemy groups that contain unusually nasty minions, I suspect that toons with hard control will have an easier time dealing with these (although the downside is that such toons also have a lack of status protection, and enemies with mez seem much more common in MArch missions).

At earlier levels, Hasten is a big help in damage output and (for me, the impatient) in the feel of the set, although it might feel less necessary with GC rather than SotW as the first attack.

At later levels, I tend to like having Hasten available because it speeds the recharge of SD and GD, making it easier to keep targets off their feet, and also helps in getting Build Up more often. But at that point it falls into the category of nice-to-have; I often don't bother with firing up Hasten on my 50 unless I'm fighting a boss.

My updated Post-ED, Post-Animation-Change, Katana/Regen Guide.

Looks like it's been a while since the guides list was updated...

I am actually an incredibly opportunistic IO shopper, and therefore do not so much "plan" as "take what I can get cheap and make the best out of it". Thus, I haven't really done the play with IO sets necessary to really give good advice here. In general, I've gone the route of looking for bargain deals, lowball bidding them, and being patient -- usually there's a chance at a lowball deal within a day or three. It means that I'm not slotted optimally, but I have overall attractive combinations plus some modest set bonuses. In general, I bargain-shop for cheap ways to get extra enhancement into a power, rather than for ideal set bonuses. About the only thing I could write would be "IOs for the Cheapskate".

Mids' Hero Designer Builds

For convenience, here are the builds in Mids' import format.

Initial build through level 19

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>| Copy &amp; Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
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|?P`&lt;1'R[.F9D&amp;K`L7#N3[)__\9^8,TWYN6H2\'!.E?.J[&lt;=SO#B,W#"$R&gt;C"&lt;T,`/QM|
|/:E9NXU&amp;W&lt;P!AH(PD:NWLZ(61Y'NVWP0=P1&amp;HC&l t;YOP"#0&amp;AY=!Y"9&gt;0.U+.H$(:.+,)|
|T8G"'RG&amp;P*,+#X]\Q(*&lt;6R*']\;3Q*;SR_IDQ=[`\_WDJG="KVA&lt;Q*,IOVV&amp;R&lt;035=9|
|1SOLFV%K?*0J%TTE.56H)M62VL2LPK.$&amp;,)[U:7%ZI4_ZELL*PY)&lt;ZHM/&amp;-!MU@F+S)|
|:7GJ%!5U:T#=6(ZZ1$EUZ[\PH\LY2IL([8YXI^L^9!&gt;&amp;5%W2;94IRKU)=&gt;!?,JX@ZM:|
|(+KVK\U)K4&lt;[9NBWK%EKW4I*;_'&gt;M:]EB$[T:N?SD=+7L0HG!G4\N&gt;[5_CTYJ?5;S!V|
|_80'&lt;0MX@YQCWA`N(@!8HA(O[+JRCXV=(`X1!PA9AC2308382%*B#*B@J@BZH@5Q!KB|
|`Y%^`S-0\&gt;D`|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|</pre><hr />

Respec into this build at level 24

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>| Copy &amp; Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
|MxDz;997;443;592;|
|&gt;-JED&lt;U.VT`4A2&gt;Q@XGM_)@0J!"H45FQ\1KH`JD-?Z*1H@2Q`B+'7)*1K'%D6XCL^@`|
|1[0OT0:H^G#MWYL92PZD?R=R?&amp;YUW&lt;RO&gt;&gt;NR]CW$U:J?XV"-!T-PR28S2"QKR&amp;&lt;BC|
|B*)_/-JR`+1-`9P`1$YQP$)#RT&amp;&amp;/M97C4@PC`U[F]PNW"(X@4?%4(29#Q6'B78@H)B|
|,Q?;NQ^'$?^&lt;`;PX*KM&amp;&lt;\$I*FC?T1\,LT\M;\4 3SSE8Q[Q;.Z=SGCH?XD?YJ-&gt;D&amp;:0|
|S#_(B0[DL\#1U,I-):;!RH96DW2=U/6T=K&amp;FI&amp;H8L[7W8I$E^Y3^L\^IK#%TC6&amp;09Z_|
|H)O7_)+,5G2U7Z-W:BOZ0&amp;8LR%GE;*_I3!JIJTERJ]LZDY^CSE)TU[=57=%]F:KHWJ[|
|6T=R&amp;]AJXS&amp;I;VFO:_ND%Z+M][-)M'LVPLSTA9D6_:\M^H8EO39Y;&gt;JU+KUM\K9IO|
|OS-:]&lt;L;IZI&lt;O;ME=,WBUME)&gt;5\-(N[?]?Z[2Z_51W@L:X1?&lt;0-XA9QA[A'!(@Q(D3D|
|?XKJQB$.=(0X1GQ&amp;+#!D.1(.PD74$'5$`]%$M!!;B!W$+T3^%PEKZ-X`|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|</pre><hr />

The basic build through level 34

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>| Copy &amp; Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
|MxDz;1179;509;680;|
|&gt;-JE4LMNTT`4G&lt;1.W3A.4C=-'VE#4EAUXW6!!1*D+04B16W%"HA&lt;]S:Q9(TCVT)DQP=|
|4@(`M'X+X.'.OY]I2C(20&amp;,GGC,^&lt;^YC'^,/($N+C$U%I/0O&lt;.)Y&gt;&gt;I&amp;[6$!D7H$WEV|
|$0SI9;+]W$E&gt;[P`F8@AV&lt;@(?(]0PC1S&lt;W3,00`CO+U"W4$MR!C&lt;+)`B-S$#Z5]+N&lt;0@|
|4R&lt;?&amp.PC!P+A&lt;`-U8V/?43"7'&lt;Y)_9//'ES,[^SN5[/_:O_&lt;!/EOPO&gt;&lt;I^'-&lt;CIV|
|XP2BY2[V=(3?'367C53/2-=$55.L,Z\S6[;B$&lt;54LA@A3*5],EC"/)5_S'.",9J*T33|
|6S!)O&lt;?[[Z*TI;[7&amp;:VLE_H(&gt;(^LB%0;W\!DG=8ZKLV^[Q*?H::C]5!MK2FN5^`%ZFB|
|J/:':4]ARUMHK3VH;2-LQ5WF0^PW6;]VISW&lt;U\C\R'[*VAM\/GV^%:!FI=UKKL6T=MA|
|_O&gt;X3YW2_P-/7NJ;FV/&gt;^SQV?3X/@Y*?(_[&gt;8'^?3Z[?7MU+&gt;&gt;OZ.GSN?0Y[W?4!EQS|
|P#6'O#;45ODP9\Z7_G4&lt;Z,5K%9E5O/I#F&gt;C%2Q253!GHQ7O]K_'3RFO5+^@*K@@F!*\|
|)WA"\)7A'X!)&lt;$W@$Z:\BNGU,#3TD&gt;$3PF.".3$8#H4 %@$30)6@1M@@V"#L$V08_@!T|
|'Z&amp;R1&gt;WYD`|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|</pre><hr />

Level 40, with fighting pool

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>| Copy &amp; Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
|MxDz;1306;539;720;|
|&gt;-JE4TUOTT`07&lt;=.W3A.4B&lt;D;=.&amp;I.F7N/C,QP$)TD"!2%%;]01$;KHDEJQU9%N(W/@|
|!%2#!E1^"^'%FQCNV%),+8B6_MW[[9F=FUQY]&amp;IB,?7[*E.ISSPG#R&gt;4T&lt;!8+'AA7?#|
|H7ON?/ELW73N0(IW?!9USTANYL'KEBIC/&amp;FJE[,N(&gt;Y[8T=C)UP#]P$7([B&gt;2!$[F^L|
|,[%G`=&lt;1'8Z,&lt;:^[]F7"\YOS60Z="/!P[!"+S*?E;R=BX]NZ-ZXGALMK;.%.[6?^;?+|
|R&lt;@)(QXL=Z"F!_#&lt;87')B(L):2HKJ)(UXDUBTY)\2CS `6"6)9&lt;R0VA&gt;=)-A/^&lt;?]SB!|
|6I5B5-"/']RC/$?$I&lt;1]B90-QH4C&gt;C1Q_`X^&gt;5!&lt;SG6K["I,2Q97(U\KQ$#QEV6&gt;AO"|
|&amp;U:HX/P5.1^[!*0VHO0:O).+6F2VW+6.4Z\0M8MZAWB_+6TYZ)#W*]IUR$V`;=0X-RZ|
|Z`U26N2;Q.T;&gt;ICF^K&gt;R?%W\.Q2';M4&lt;YO.JDWWM I_C^U3?*_#OT5GN6:MK*2O@Z=`Y|
|=5I2^P%:EW)V*6&gt;/&lt;O;453Y(F?93P=^G,^Y3[&amp;%]/6NP?DS&gt;8_*&gt;:.LY7C/VM&gt;Q?88F|
|!O?E+&amp;6O9]\^41.EJV5_R7^.7F&gt;8J7&gt;"%7B&amp;,$:X1WB*\0WB/X"#&lt;($P1XM]9=.TA%O|
|0(X3'"$X0[-.EE@#*"B5!!J"+4$+80&amp;@@MA#;"3X3X#U%CVP,`|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|</pre><hr />

Level 40, without fighting pool

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>| Copy &amp; Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
|MxDz;1303;546;728;|
|&gt;-JE4\MNTT`4'&lt;=.W=A.4B=-'VE#TH2V8N,UCP42I"V!1HK:JBL@&lt;MTAL639D6TALN,|
|#*D#`E@]!?)RYUW-M*88-8J2&lt;,SD^Y\Z=&amp;7O\86@P]O$IDVK//3N*II=.:"\6/-2NN#|
|/W`R^8+3=?V;'MV[T+/N-^[XS[/'0=E3'6RLS3,?&lt;XMX2ODZM#_H[[$;?2(`_MV`U\&lt;|
|^3/&gt;&lt;C]V,HFVB0(/.MRP?FMD4Y/W=CG4:2+/YX[F\=F.A_Y[]W(O7$]-UZPO7L9X%|
|M\OIV(YB'BYWH*,'\+O#UM*1E%-29%:2!2O$Z\2&amp;*7A`/,2LE&amp;89TX3V224)ZDG_6.\|
|$LC)E9=*T`F_2.O&gtCXG[D!4;2$IE\JX5^`MXU+2[1%*IMX$B^#,(%&lt;I7R+]5X%/PZ&amp;|
|*_)7U-:+4"#\!3%758M2FT%Z#514ZNJT+;T%:Y07P&amp;STTZ`Y/6;61[)SXHG$'&amp;9&lt;@VZ|
|3Z:M+8*6HNT%OG60=NF?6Q3WSL%_@:&gt;7&gt;ICEWINTYFU Z?[V"WR/^GL)_CTZRSUS]5G&amp;|
|7\'3H?H=JG]$]8_D53[.F++?P=^E&gt;R/&lt;KVY%4^R)BR(_#WZ3SZ#:&amp;=@W9(=W9(ON0|
|O8U_)OQ66&amp;MCY'\I$R=]_)J5*5\F_DO\:/XULK&lt;H%7N05P@3A&amp;N$UPAN$MP@VP@V"@Y|
|#\RM/UA]C0(X3'"$\0[M"DZ@`Z@H%01:@AU!$V$)H(6PAMA!\(R6^$`=J[|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|</pre><hr />

What's Changed from the Previous Guide?

Compared to I4, katana's animations and cast times are now faster, regeneration was nerfed heavily, Stealth's defense boost was basically obliterated, and Enhancement Diversification dramatically altered the potential damage output and regeneration capacity of this combination.

The old build depended upon perma-Hasten. For better or for worse, ED results in trading out slots in damage for slots in recharge. Hasten is a 70% boost to recharge rate, so two slots of recharge will make up for its lack. The new build still has Hasten, and it will be useful as you level up, but it's not as important. (If you do a respec at 50 and plan to flashback a lot, you might consider taking some other useful power earlier in the build and save Hasten until later, since you will be gaining the full benefit of your slots of recharge, and will probably not miss it much.)

The change in the DPS output of katana is significant. Previously, five slots of +0 SO'd damage would get you 166% to your base damage; now three slots using the best IOs you can get your hands on gets you about 100% enhancement to your base damage. In other words, if your base attack is 100 damage, you're now doing at most 200 damage rather than 266 damage, or 75% of what you used to. Add to that the loss of perma-Hasten, and therefore the ability to cycle your most damaging attacks more frequently, and the effects get more pronounced. Simply put, it takes you a lot longer to kill things, which makes the changes to your regen rate even more pronounced. This is slightly offset by the cast time change, but certainly the lengthier kill time is noticeable.

Because of the loss of perma-Hasten, lower overall damage output, and more free slots, The Lotus Drops is now something to take and slot, whereas it was much more a matter of taste in the old build. You'll have the slots to put endurance reduction in your attacks, so it's much more possible to make this part of your regular attack cycle.

On the positive side, the new Gambler's Cut is a massive improvement, thanks to its new fast animation time. In short, it no longer sucks. In fact, its damage-to-activation time (DPA) is excellent. This makes the initial choice of attack much more of a playstyle choice.

With the drop in base rate of Integration from 200% to 150%, it's now more important to slot out Integration in the levels immediately following picking it up. (People who feel that they're getting enough healing from unslotted Integration during the teens may want to slot Build-Up in preference to it, and wait until their 20s to put slots in Integration.)

Because you can no longer 6-slot Quick Recovery, this build now pushes Stamina relatively early on. You can do without it, especially since you're not attacking at Hasten rates all the time, and ED means having slots that you can now devote to endurance reduction in your attacks, and you don't have to finish fights full on endurance (just full enough that you can recover back to full by the time you start the next fight). However, if you're going to run a lot of toggles, Stamina is still vital. (The one good thing about Instant Healing as a click power is that you no longer have a constant gigantic endurance drain, which frees you to go run other toggles for survival.)

Reconstruction, already favored by the previous build, comes to prominence now; it's a key tool for survival, now that Instant Healing has been nerfed into an occasional click power.

Moment of Glory has changed entirely. In the previous build, it was the panic button for incoming rates of damage too high to be overcome with regen. Now, its brief duration means that it's what you hit to cope with alpha strikes or to give your regen a chance to catch up. I still think it's a useful power, since you're getting 15 seconds of heavy damage mitigation, at no penalty.

Calling the Wolf no longer has a range that sucks, making it more useful if you play in no-tank small teams where you want to be able to grab aggro off a squishy.

The previous build really pushed Stealth, because it had a defense buff nearly as good as Weave's, required no prerequisites, and allowed near invisibility in combination with SuperSpeed. With the nerf to Stealth's defense, it's no longer a reasonable substitute for going with the Fighting pool, and is now really purely a utility power.

All in all, a katana/regen scrapper is no longer EZ mode. It's still a very strong set, but ironically, I think that with the various nerfs, the build options were actually narrowed rather than expanded. Much of the interesting option bits are actually now in choosing IO sets, whether during the leveling-up process (for those flush with Influence) or at level 50.

People who liked the fire-and-forget, high survivability of the old regen might prefer to play the Willpower set now. Willpower seems to have been the dev response to figuring out how they really wanted a regeneration set to play, and provides a well-thought-out, well-rounded, potent alternative to the "purity" of the Regeneration set.

How to Level Up

As a scrapper, you will experience the joy of being able to immediately solo your own missions, although this is not without its dangers, and you should still be careful what villain groups you take at low levels -- a bunch of Clockwork can really wreck your day, for instance.

However, prior to Integration, you are extremely squishy. If you team up, you may be better off in smaller teams rather than larger ones. In the early levels, a controller probably makes the best duo partner, and there are usually far more of them looking for teams than there are teams to accomodate them, so make a new buddy. Their holds will reduce incoming damage sufficiently for you to deal with it, given your fast kill speed.

The time between getting Integration and Instant Healing can be spent either solo or on teams. Small teams will probably get you the best XP with the least risk of death. Soloing is very viable. If you're going to avoid any villains, avoid the Vahzilok (their damage output is still excessive compared to your regen rate).

Once you get Instant Healing, you'll have a nice panic button that makes large teams more survivable. You are not godlike in your 30s, but if you judge your click heal usage timing properly, you should have good survivability. If you're going to avoid anything at this level, avoid things that have both a slow and ranged attacks; you have no way to hit anything from afar, and your defense is melee, so anything that prevents you from running into melee range while hitting you from afar is going to be unpleasant. The Devouring Earth are also a real pain (for you and for everyone); they've got effects that slow down recharge times and the like, and quite a few of them have resistance to lethal damage.

The 40s, as mentioned earlier, are much harder. You'll still be able to solo without an issue, but the villains become much more of a problem. The build offered here is not designed to solo AVs, so you will need to team for those (and you'll need to be careful not to fill all of your mission slots with AV missions). There wlil be AVs that do enough damage to one-shot you, and other situations where your regen rate can easily not be equal to the situation (a takedown of Infernal's altar can be problematic, for instance).

This is also one of the few times in the game where you'll run into things that can overcome Integration. Most notable are the Carnival of Shadows' Master Illusionists whose effect magnitude can overcome Integration, if there are two of them attacking you.

Bosses in the 40s can be quite nasty as well -- there are some that can two-shot you, so stay alert. And minions are sometimes nothing to laugh at -- the Knives of Artemis, for instance, can really be quite annoying, as they'll stack caltrops around you, making it very difficult to move. (SuperSpeed helps, but not enough.)

There is not enough solo content in the 45-50 tier to get you through those levels, so you will probably end up cycling a lot of repeatable missions (police radio, Cimerora, Shadow Shard, etc.), or teaming up a lot. Thus, you may want to be careful about the missions you take at 40-44. As long as you start arcs from that contact tier by 45, you will be able to receive missions in that arc, and given that the arcs are usually a dozen missions or more, that'll keep you occupied for a while. 40-44 has more solo content, relative to the length of time it takes to level up, than 45-50 does, so take advantage of that by doing non-arcs for as long as possible in the earlier levels. (Once a contact has offered you the first mission in an arc, the arc slot is taken, and you will be able to get it from them even if you've outleveled the contact.)

During your 40s, consider making a lower-level defender's day by duoing with them. You can generally safely pick a defender 5 to 9 levels below you, as long as their powers don't draw aggro. If they're not around your level, you can offer them the choice of just buffing you and leeching, or getting sidekicked and contributing -- they'll vary in which they prefer. Either way, a decent defender can boost your kill rate and level of safety significantly, sufficient that you can get a hefty XP per minute boost duoing rather than soloing. An extra person only slightly boosts the spawns you'll see, so you do not really need them to contribute damage. Indeed, you can probably handle missions spawned for three just fine, especially if what your teammates are contributing are healing and buffs. An empath can turn you and an offensively-oriented kinetics into absolute killing machines.

Good Luck

I think a katana/regen scrapper is one of the most entertaining ways that one can play the game solo, while still being able to team when desired (or, in the late game, necessary). Because you can go through missions quickly, you will be able to see a great number of the game's storylines. Because missions, especially at the higher difficulty levels, are a pretty efficient way of leveling, you will be able to see content without sacrificing too much leveling speed -- this is a "go enjoy the missions" build, not a "grind in hazard zones" build. Good teams will still return much higher rates of XP than you can achieve solo, so if you like to team, you should probably team, but it's not a necessity unless you're fighting an archvlilain.

This is, obviously, only one constellation of possible ways to build a katana/regen, but I think it's a reasonably sensible cookie cutter which you can customize to your tastes. I hope you enjoy leveling up with it; constructive feedback and debate is of course appreciated.

When you reach 50, you may want to pursue an entirely different type of build, if you're planning on frankenslotting IO sets. In some cases, you may want more slots in some powers simply so you can put in IOs that will get you some bonus that you find desirable.