Blue_Centurion

Glad to be able to inspire folks!

P.S., it looks like this thread will not die. (And no one is going to buy the name.)

In which case I will have fun with it as well. Just following Danica Patrick's new Honey Badger advice!

Dark Blast / Invul Armor Stalker. Softcap, season to taste. I even have the concept half written up.

A fire armor brutes with SOs can farm AE fire missions. Monitor def and fire res and pop insp as needed. GL.

Yeah, I am running at -1. Still doesn't help with the hunts in Terra Volta. The only mission I have had a prob with so far is a Devouring Earth mission where I triggered a spawn and an ambush at the same time. there were a good number of mobs, and the fight took 3 to 4 minutes. They drop those little buffer/debuffer things. they are hard to see/target. I had some end management problems in that fight. Still, not significant green bar issues. Have only been defeated in street hunts, and so far only a couple times. Yesterday a group of around 11 Lost built some momentum on me and put me down in Terra Volta.

I am using a stealth proc in sprint. This allows me to grab glowies, find kidnapped peeps, and generally run through large areas of uselessness without fighting. I have the Vet power reveal, and have most of the city memorized, the patterns, etc.

Indeed welcome. http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page is the start for most questions.

Leveling. yeah. It is very different in CoH/CoV. My standard 1-50 is about a week, and I work full time. I can level one to 50 pretty fast to 50 maybe 4 days, if I can add a couple full weekend days, then 2 nights grinding. My current project is to do all content Blueside on one character as I level. He is currently 29 (I turn off experience a lot) and will be for another week or so. He was rolled up about a week before New Years. I am hoping to 50 him sometime in early March at this rate. Late February would make me happy too. Early February would make me ecstatic. You want to find something in between those two extremes.

I suggest running the introductory mission, then the story arc in atlas Park, that opens missions in Kings Row with the same contact. If you do not have the patience for full story arcs see if you like running with teams. Big teams are a very good source of experience, and after 20 or so the only reliable and stress free way to level at a good clip. Soloing story arcs is a very slow way to get experience. The rewards there are different. You learn the city, and get "Merits". More at Wiki for that. If you find you like story arcs you can open them this way: anytime you run a series of "radio missions" or "paper missions" villain side you get a "bank mission". Heroes run the Safeguard, villians get the Mayhem. After completing the contact that gave it to you will give you another contact, who has a story arc.

There are sewer missions, aka Death From Below trials. They are very fast ways to level to 10, and fast to 20 if you do not mind grinding some. You learn almost nothing about the game, teamwork, or anything. They are sanctioned powerleveling, they dumb down everything they can, and give incredible rewards. I would suggest using them a bit, but really focus on getting out and playing your character, seeing if you like the powers, the effects, the concept. Sewers are dumbed down so much you cannot even use most powers in them.

The biggest experience killer in the game? Altitis. This is the termed coined for making up new characters constantly. Most people who play are afflicted to at least some degree. It is cool, and we all definitely understand. But that is the biggest threat to not 50ing right there. If you find a character concept you like, and a couple power sets you like, and an archtype that suits your playstyle (and you stay mostly on that one character) within a few weeks you should 50, if you play about 10-20 hours a week. Moreover, you will learn to play the character well, and have a lot of fun.

Good luck in the cities.

Finished Eliza THorpe arc. Learned some stuff, like the fact that Devouring Earth are a real tough fight. She had 11 missions beside her arc. We got to know each other.

Then I rolled on to Miriam Bloechl. After her story arc there were another dozen or so missions. Lot of CoT and Banished Pantheon. Neither are a tough group for my build. However, she had a lot of collect this, rescue 400 peeps. One map I could not find 3 (I try to stealth where I can.) I knew the map pretty well, After searching fifteen minutes I start the massacre, 15 minutes later, still not found anyone, starting to think it was bugged. They were all 3 in a small area (rarely used, rarely spawned to) I think whoever wrote that was evil. Anyways, got a surprise badge at the enfd of Miriams stuff, yeah.

Couple tricks I am adding to my bag is always keeping a temp End power crafted. When I fight non stop my end curve is ugly. So that is good for when I cannot stealth and I run short on blue yummies. Also saved the day when I was running 50 hero tips with a blaster and we drew Carnies. Oof, start with a bad end problem in long fights and add Carnies. But with the temp running I was okay.

Also, doing a weekly Cathedral of Pain for the buff. When you spend this much time in a week on one character it is more than worth it.

Still got quite a bit of 25-29 to go. I am hoping to have it done or mostly done by the next weekend. I want to start slotting a few more enhancers. THe bonuses are really saving my bacon. 35 (and the next +End Proc) looks very very far away.

Oh, and now I get why the banished pantheon looks like a lot of ex soldiers. One question, what genius buried them all with guns?

Going to an event in Northwest in a couple months. Maybe I'll try to throw an outfit together. Went to Comicon in SD about 5 years ago, it's pretty crazy. My costume would be closer to what City of... autogenerates when you pick "hero" as the pack. Gotta love a helmet and pointy shoulder pads! Of course, the devil is in the details, making it your own. er, that and looking good in spandex.

I tread pretty lightly in my critique. In one of my first self portrait presentations (a drawing, of course) My instructor pointed out everyone makes the eyes too light when they are starting out. Eyes are one of the darkest parts on the face. In fact, making them even a tad darker is a very good dramatic effect, darkest dAark being the eyes, with whitest white, the whites of the eyes right beside that. Becomes the focal point of the work pretty fast. grats on the costume and modeling presentation, very interesting. I have painted less interesting subject matter lol. The semester of bottles comes right to mind, sigh.

Okay, took a couple days break from the city. Now I'm back at it. I don't think I will finish up 25-29 content this weekend, but hope to make a good dent in it. Did Jim Bell in Talos. Kinda boring. Then did the 25-29 portion of Croatoa. Very nice stuff. The writing is not quite as tight as First Ward and the new stuff, but overall high marks. What impressed me the most is the depth of the content. Sure, this is an older game. But that also means it has tons of stuff, like all of Croatoa zone and it's storylines just waiting there. I had never done this content before since my first few years in the game were almost all redside.

The plan from here is to comlpete stuff zone by zone. I did the Ouro Arcs, cool stuff. Not my first time though them but still fun. Also, good way to get the badge for the contaminated. My plan is Talos, then IP, then Striga and anything else that pops up from contacts opened during 25-29 stuff.

Here is another thing that helps. do 4 Death From Below Sewer runs. The 3 badges are cool, but the 4 temp powers that last until 22 are great.

I need another opinion on this, and maybe some intel. To me, some of the creatures in the new Dark Astoria look a lot like creatures from an artist named Wayne Barlowe. Did he collaborate? Am I getting this mixed with another artists work?

I'm bowing out of the thread. Thank you all for a great discussion. I learned what I needed. 1) Never run Energy Melee in it's current form, I will be unhappy with it. 2) They will probably make some changes to EM in i22 3) the changes are not going to be enough to get me to ever run this set. I'm a little unhappy about it. In a game devoted to Super powered individuals there are very few good sets for melee that do not revolve around getting a knife, sword, stick, or whatever else is lying around the room to beat some fool down with. Super Strength is a great set, but unlikely to ever get ported to Scrappers. I would love to try a Scrapper, without a weapon. But KM has knockback, and I use either Will or Invul on 99% of my favorite builds. EM is... yeah. And MA is great if that is the theme, and youre happy with 400 styling ST attacks. Again, thank you all for helping me understand the set better.

Thx Chad. and crap lol.

I bought a couple sets of tuned LOTG a few weeks ago. Was going to buy another set for my solo blueside project. Cannot find them. Am I looking in the wrong spot? Did they move? Do they only offer them for a limited time?

Yeah, they would be freaking brutal. Still, I would try it even knowing they were coming in hard at my weakest spot. Again, just using inspirations, the base Buff adder, and various other veteran player tricks. Not saying it would go well, but I think I would have a shot.

It would not be enjoyable, and I would never regularly play that content, but I would try it as a one-off contest.