Caestus

After seeing the replies, I can say this.

I know how to create teams. I do it when necessary. Last night no one wanted to be on my team. I asked politely and either I got no answer or 'no'. Well, no, that's not entirely accurate -- I got one guy who said yes, but he left almost immediately for an AE team.

The problem is not that I don't know how to start teams. It's that in Cap au Diable, on the Virtue Server at that time, there were no players willing to team with a measly 17th level brute.

Is it that I should have gone back to Port Oakes and tried there?

Maybe it was just that time of night. (11 PM CST)

Or maybe something else.

I've played CoX for going on two years now. And never before have I had this problem: I can't find any teams. Just today I logged on my brute hoping to get in some missions for a while, only to find out no one in Cap au Diable wanted a level 17 brute on their team.

Why? They're all in AE, getting their powerleveling on, and didn't want to bother with a measly level 17 anything!

I can't play this game solo anymore, it's just so gosh darned B O R I N G. AE is ruining this game for the people who want to team with fellow players. Is there a solution to my problem?

After some tinkering, I've decided to rebuild the character... this time going with a DA/WP tanker, not a scrapper. Tankers suit my playstyle better anyway: rush in, pound on the biggest bad guy, attract all the attention while the rest of the party is dealing with everyone else. And the extra defenses Tankers get helps, too.

Okay, just had a little example which proves my point about not upping the difficulty level of the missions.

I was in a mission against the Council. I ran into a trio of +1 minions. Their assault rifles tore me up and I found myself in the hospital. This was on Heroic.

Yes, I do suck. And let me tell you why.

First, I'm physically disabled. One of my disabilities is a problem concentrating. I can only really do one thing at a time, and I cannot multitask. This is another reason as to why I solo, as I find myself a liability in a team, more often than not.

Also, I am very slow, in terms of manual dexterity. I tend to react slowly to danger. I didn't realize I was getting myself torn to shreds, because I was concentrating on setting up my attack chains to put the minions down. My inspiration box is full of heals, two wakies and four breaks.

My character also KEEPS MISSING!!! Even with my powers slotted with two DO's for accuracy, they KEEP MISSING!!! I swear I have a roughly 50% accuracy rate!! I mean, at this point, WTF?!?

This is getting FRIGGIN' RIDICULOUS!!!

I'm almost to the point of scrapping this toon and starting over! Dark Melee is just too inaccurate for me. It's frustrating me to the point that I want to find the guys who programmed this concept into the game and have a very pointed discussion (involving a large ballbat) with them about new players, frustration levels and accuracy.

This SUCKS.

Folks, I'm on a limited income. I'm disabled, on social security, and I really shouldn't be paying for City of Heroes in the first place, let alone now being tempted to pay even more to NCSoft for these excellent graphic pieces of art...

This blatant money-grubbing is really insulting to me.

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Then you should read this guide on how to easily make your own teams! Guaranteed to work or your money back!*

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Read my message again. It's not that I can't find teams. It's that there's not enough players online at the times I play with the same interests to form teams.

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I'd be more specific but the overall problem if "Dying" is kind of vague. Is it that you're not killing in time to survive? Is the alpha too overwhelming? Missing a lot? What missions? What are you usually fighting?

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Okay, right now I'm working on a Dark Melee/Regen scrapper. He's up to level 16.

For Dark, he has the first three attack powers and Siphon Life. I find Siphon Life to be a very nice mini-healer which, in conjunction with Reconstruction, has saved my bacon a number of times. Most of these powers are 3-slotted, with two accuracy DO's and one damage DO. And I still miss a disturbing amount.

For Regen, he has Fast Healing (3-slotted), Reconstruction (2 slots), Quick Recovery (3-slotted of course) and Integration (only 1 slot). No Dull Pain? With Siphon Life, I haven't really needed a second heal. Yes, I know Dull Pain is more than just 'a second heal', but I don't have the experience with the game to really know how to use it.

Aside from that, I have Combat Jumping and Super Jump for movement. I missed out on the first bank mission and the raptor pack, so I decided to grab a movement power by 14 no matter what. I'm too impatient to wait to run through a zone to get to missions.

I've just started playing in Steel Canyon, and mainly I've been doing radio missions. And if I up the difficulty by even one, I end up going to the hospital when I inevitably come up against three or four +1 level minions and their lieutenant, all with ranged attacks. So when I'm trying to deal with one, the others whittle me down to no health. Popping inspirations lets me deal with one of those battles... but for the next one, I have no inspirations left. Time for another trip to the hospital. No thanks, I'd rather earn XP a bit more slowly and not rack up the debt in the first place.

The problem is a low damage output with Dark Melee combined with low accuracy. If I slot for accuracy, I can't do enough damage to put my foes down fast enough. If I slot for damage, I miss too often. Seriously, if I'd known Dark Melee was going to be this tough to solo with, I'd have just done another Martial Arts/Regen scrapper, even though I dislike the concept that 'martial arts' is just kicking.

If there's any devs reading this thread, I'd seriously like to suggest that at the character generation part of the game, you list what powers are easier for newbies to play. 'Cause sure as heck Dark Melee ain't one of them.

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Up the difficulty on missions, fight tougher mobs, farm the mobs that drop the highest selling salvage,

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1. I tried upping the difficulty on missions. It kept sending me straight to the hospital. I had so much XP debt after attempting the same mission four times that I turned the diff back down and swore never to do it again. How the rest of you manage it, I have no idea.

2. Fight tougher mobs. Yeah, see above.

3. I have no idea what mobs those are. Is there a farming guide out there?

And as I noted on the Combat Guide's page, it's mainly for playing on teams... I mainly solo, since during the times I play, it's harder than heck to even find other players online, let alone a decent team.

The real problem with this guide is that it relies on a team-based paradigm. And when you're mainly a solo player, which I am, most of the team-based advice is useless.

Of course some wit's going to tell me to get a team. I mainly play during the mornings and early afternoons when most of y'all are either at school or work -- it's impossible to find a team, so I'm stuck soloing.

Thanks for the reply, but a force field guide really doesn't help my Dark Melee/Regen scrapper. :-)

One of the most annoying things I read in the player guides are all the builds and guides that assume that you're playing a new character and have an alt or a buddy that can supply you with the most powerful IO sets.

I've been playing this game, off and on, for the last 9 months. In that time my highest level character has gotten to all of 24th level. I haven't even earned more than a million influence on him, and I play the auctions as much as I can. I'm never going to afford the IO's, so all the advice about what powers need what sets is completely useless to me.

Also, these builds that people put together must assume that you're respec'ing the character at 50th level, since they tend to skip powers that, at low level, are very handy for low-level characters, such as the first attack power in any attack powerset. While I realize that at higher levels, those miniscule powers may not have as much 'oomph' to them as the higher-level powers, when you're low level and trying to get the damage output so you can solo, those powers are pretty handy to have.

What I'd like to see are any player guides for powersets that reflect the crawl from level 1 to level 50, and don't assume that you have a mountain of inf to draw from as you try to slot those powers so that you have a chance to fight the bad guys. And please, don't tell me to increase the difficulty. I play solo most of the time, I've tried higher difficulties, it usually ends up in XP debt. And while I know that moar debt = moar inf, I want to get a character to 50 sometime before the next ice age begins. I know how to play the game; I just don't have the resources that most everyone else seems to.

Are there any guides that take the newer/less experienced player into account, or is everyone more interested in slotting Sting of the Manticore to remember what it was like when you were struggling to afford DO's, let alone SO's, waaaaaaay back when you started playing?