Galactor

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Yeah, not too sure where to post this, but it's going here.



Me as brute: *gathers up nice hoard of enemies (EDIT: NOT HERDING, MAKING SURE THE MOB IS ALL WITHIN MELEE RANGE FOR EVERYONE TO USE THEIR AoEs!) for a big footstomp*

Mastermind: "Attack, my minions!"

Mob: *goes flying 5 million feet in every direction possible*

Me as brute: ">"




Every single time I team with a MM this scenario happens and I just don't feel like playing anymore. Seriously, I can probably down a bunch of insps and solo 3 more mobs in the time it takes them to track down all the enemies they scattered. Bots MMs are especially bad at this, and 90% of the MMs have to be bots for some reason. And then because they aren't paying attention to who their minions are attacking, they end up aggroing another group. Does anyone else feel my mastermind pain?

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bummer for you - that's why I play heroes.

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I'm always happy to see power sets proliferated, so please don't take this post as a sour grapes post. With that said, is anyone a little disappointed that the most wanted sets weren't proliferated.

Here's what would've made me jump for joy:

Blasters -Dark Blast (though I admit, Rad Blast is a fine choice)

Brutes - Regeneration

Controller - Dark Miasma

Corruptor - Poison (though Trick Arrow was a fine choice too)

Defender - Poison

Dominator - Illusion

MM - Kinetics

Scrapper - Super strength or energy melee or fire epic powers

Stalker - Shields or fire melee

Tanker - Spines or energy aura

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LOL

First, Rad blast was more requested for blasters than dark.

Secondly, like they are EVER going to port kin OR rad to MMs....I think NEVER. Fulcrum shift on MMs would be way over powered. The trinity of debuffs and choking cloud from rad on MMs would also be way over powered. Never going to happen.

Thirdly, giving poison to defenders is a NERF not a buff. I don't want to make or play a poison defender. Yuck.

So that's why I-15 was so skinny.

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For all of you unhappy with Desdemona's figure:

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My Posse's on Broadway... that's old school.

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I find that after my initial 4-6 or perhaps a year run of the game... I can only handle this title for no more than 2 months at a time now... Actually I wanted to cancel prior to my 2nd month being charged, alas was late by one day....

I mean /farm @ 50? /boggle WHY I did it last night on 50- Brute and it was painful..just to gain influence for some IO's or drops? nahh

I usually upon resubbing, I try to play brand new classes combos to try and get a “new car smell” feeling to the game and everything that may have changed since I last played. After a while though there isn’t enough to hold me interest I think the Devs knew this when the game was released they just figured other things would fall into place for them…

The game has great qualities, great graphics, nifty powers and solid PVE, GREAT character customization. Also it did have an overall very nice, solid tight nit community. I'm not going to go into an AE rant GOD knows there are enough of those but I think by acquiescing to the power gamers the title lost its identity.

It use to be a really an MMO light, perfect for Casual gamers or even “Carebears”; you log in spend your time playing with your costume then go out and group. I believe it was equally fun to get into a group in game like minded people and run missions or TF’s-die horribly laugh about it and try again The game was an altaholics dream, as most players easily lots of different Heroes/Villains(later). Now most groups if there is one wipe most log or solo or play alts..

I believe that Cryptic really thought that Marvel and/or TR would take off and that COH was just a building block for future MMOS from the company. It was a controlled experiment I believe. Doing all this kind of pushed the casual gamers away and left the game open for the l33t crowed that during the first few years-while there were some-it wasn’t as prevalent as it is now.

I think that the devs really didn't foresee the game lasting this long, so when Marvel MMO fell through and TR tanked. So to make cake and to cater to the typical mmo player, they added Arena matches, then PVP (horrid implementation never add PVP to a PVE MMO game, always ends bad) and to please the min/maxers the first drops "Drops" (Hammis) then finally IO's and /farming just to keep said crowed interested and $$ flowing.

I PVP did so in AC and was/am a DaOC vet . I never played WOW but based upon what I’ve read PVP added to the game took away from lots of classes.

Perhaps CO will be balanced around PVP from the outset, at least that allows you to pick and choose powers. While I’m sure the l33t d00ds will find the best set ups, at least you can still be an original in that upcoming title.-not that I’m putting much faith into CO but it does look promising. Hopefully the DEvs learned a lot from their experiment and moving forward apply this knowledge to future titles.

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Other than my new blaster I made all I play is 50s. In fact I find leveling up to be tedious and boring.

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I thought it was impossible, but I think the devs have stumbled upon a masterstroke in killing 90% of the complaints about AE.

Why do people complain about AE? It's not because the people who farm it are getting massive rewards - if these people didn't know where the rewards were coming from, or if they thought about what the rewards of AE brought to the rest of the game, they'd realize that AE farming is beneficial to everyone. (For example: How many people could afford a Steadfast: Res/Def before AE? How many people seriously planned on grabbing that Regenerative Tissue Unique? How long, before AE, did you have to wait for a reasonable bid on a +Knockback protection enhancement to go through?)

I, for one, had stopped reading the same old story text over and over long before AE - so the fact that AE has killed the 'story' of the game is also a rather pointless concern.

There are two reasons, logically, why so many people hate AE.

1) It's visible.
2) It takes the teaming masses of 'average' players off the streets.

I'll explain in a bit more detail.

The concern with #1 is that you can no longer go through the most populated zones (Cap, Atlas) without being bombarded by AE spam. Hell, a lot of people go onto the Request or Help chans spamming for it nowadays. Clueless newbies who have never leveled themselves past 30 now have multiple 50s they have no clue what to do with because you can go to one of these zones, spam the broadcast channel, and eventually get a team.

#2 comes up from the simple fact that those clueless newbs (and more average people - the ones who may not be clueless, but 'just play' instead of IOing out) are now riding along as fillers in the farms of people like me and many others who -do- have a clue and can trick out a character to take down boss spawns in the time it takes most people to team wipe against mixed minion/lt groups. Those people aren't out there on taskforces, street sweeping, doing paper missions- and they need to be. That's how you learn the game, and it's how newbies get exposed to the true team play that will get them hoked to CoH.

The devs are about to fix both of these problems with one change, one that I don't know if they fathom the consequences of:

In I16, you will be able to set your AE mission to spawn as if you had a full team of 8.

Instantly, you have eliminated most of the spamming - random average joe will no longer have a place on -my- boss farms, for instance. Why would I pad out my team with pointless non-contributors and reduce my inf/prestige drops? Why would I leech XP from the toons of my friends - people who can already play, people who know the game, people who just want to skip that 1-35 grind before the characters they want to play actually become fun? People who realize the game -starts-, rather than ends, at 50?

The answer: I won't. I won't ever again make myself feel dirty for broadcasting that I'm running an AE Team LFM. I won't ever have to worry that I've just PL'd some newb who won't know what he's doing with the toon I've just taken from 1-35 in a few hours.

Imagine a world where AE slowly transforms, organically - from a loud, noisy crowd to a few silent solo farmers moving in and out of that glowing cylinder with their close friends, silent but for their Skype or Ventrilo chats. Where the random average joe who wanders into AE does so for actual story arcs because he can't boss farm - and if he can, he can do it alone, for much greater reward than spamming the channels.

Imagine those huddled masses of lowbies and newbies and AE babies forced back onto the streets and into paper missions again. Out into the game where they'll have to learn the ropes for themselves, carry themselves from 1-50 like we did before AE, because nobody needs them to get proper-sized spawns anymore.

I think this is the best move the devs have ever made. I hope that they were smart enough to realize what they were doing, that it was on purpose, but really? Even if it's an accident, I think it's the best accident to happen to the game since AE.

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You know what? I think you are correct, sir. Brilliant deduction.

What I've always felt all along is that the devs actually are not looking to 'kill farming' so much as what they are really trying to do is reduce the amount of server resources being used in the pursuit of people getting in an actual mish and doing something, regardless of whether its a series of mishes or one mish run repeatedly.

Also, I believe the devs are trying to find solutions to the 'farming' problem that reduces the amount of work they have to do later in dealing with the 'farming' problem.

The devs don't want to be mission police. The devs want to make new zones and powers and badges and rewards and stories and stuff.

The custom difficulty thing is a brilliant change coming.

Now the regen/wp, etc. scrappers and fire/kins can make a solo/small team mish set to 8 and just go to town.

Good luck everyone. And to the farmers: more power to ya. And to the non-farmers: more power to ya.

Now if they could only 'fix' pvp in such a way that pvp toons that DON'T farm are at such a build disadvantage vs. pvp toons that DO farm. That's really Brüno.

The colored and transparent chat bubbles to finally be fixed.

Hi Bookeeper Jay, hope your doing well.

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Who else is pumped about Rad blast finally coming to blasters?

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My main is a rad/rad defender. Out of all the sets in the game, I have more experience (125+ levels) with rad than anything else.

I can't wait to make my rad/electric/electric blaster for RV.

I can't wait to make my rad/electric blaster.
I'm going to IO him out.
Oh yeah, Ravens, I'm coming for you.

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I'm told the Devs have described the Defender as the best balanced AT. I'm forced to wonder at this. Consider the following.


I took my Defender and my Scrapper through the SAME mission, my AE World War Two arc. Both characters are L22 and fully slotted with SOs. Their attacks are all similarly slotted (1 acc, 1 end, 3 damage). The main foes are German Soldiers with 200.0 health.

The Scrapper (MA/Shield) walks easily through the missions. The Defender (FF/EB) is constantly in desperate condition. Why?

The Defender has 477.9 health.
He has Tough, which provides 15% resistance to smashing and lethal, and Dispersion Bubble for 10% Defense.
His basic attack is Power Blast, which does 45.31 damage.
His best shot is the same Power Blast, for 45.31 damage.

The Scrapper has 752.9 health.
He has the basic Shield toggles, plus Tough. His resistance is around 11.25%, and his defense around 13.84%.
His basic attack, Storm Kick, does 95.45 damage.
His best shot, Crane Kick, does 137.07 damage.
In each case, this doesn't even consider the effect of Critical Hits.


It seems pretty plain that the Scrapper has VASTLY more health, more defense and more offense than the Defender. The Defender is expected to overcome the same challenges as the Scrapper, yet he is significantly hindered by his lesser abilities.

This puzzles me, because the usual pattern is to compensate for lack of offense with increased defense, or vice versa. The Defender has lesser defense AND lesser offense, with no benefit to himself.

Now, the obvious argument will be that the Defender is "intended" for team play, but that is sophistry at best. ALL characters are intended for team play, yet only the Defender suffers for this.

I've said it before, and I say it again. Defenders need a boost in damage output or defense. It has to be one or the other. They can't continue to be the second class heroes they are at present.

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If doms can get their secondary damage buffed to around the 1.0 scale, they ought to buff defender damage to the 1.0 scale too. Same thing with corruptors as well.

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"I don't team with stalkers...."

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LOL
ROFLMAO
Even villains hate stalkers.

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If you choose to use a defeat all, you choose story over gameplay, and if I have to rate AE arcs as stories the best ones barely get a 3, and that's mostly for effort.

Make the right choice - don't force me to rate your arcs as stories ; or just keep being stubborn about it and then make topics about people "griefing" you when my 3 stars drops your arc from average 5 to 4. Either way isn't a problem for me.

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Or you could make the right choice and just not play any arc with a Defeat All listed in it. It's not like anyone is going to miss your 1 little vote.

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And also just like no one is going to miss not playing one little defeat all mish.

I haven't done many AE mishes in the past 3 months.

But if I did choose to do one, and it's a defeat all, I'll quit the arc and automatically give it 1-star, no matter what.

Defeat-alls suck.

"Defeat as many as you want...then click the glowie to end the mish" are much better.

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Tell the devs to unimpeded stalkers and pull back the nerfs so they can solo again and alot of the ks'ng jackel like kills will stop. Back in i12 i used frown upon ksing because a competent stalker could beat down 95% of the zone AT's solo and in short order.

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Make KS'ing easier and the KS'ing will stop. Once again, Raven's logic is undeniable.

Undeniably wrong and idiotic.

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LOL
/Signed

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This is why I have a horrible dislike for Anthropologists. They liken themselves to Psychologists and Sociologists insofar as using observation to determine relationships and effects yet believe that, in order to properly observe, one must actually join said system, completely ignoring the fact that their very presence alters the system.

[/ QUOTE ]And this is why I have a horrible dislike for generalizations. No Anthropologist that I have met has ever held this to be a necessity, and I've met a fair few, seeing as both my parents had strong backgrounds in it (one an Anthropologist, and the other an Archeologist).

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Considering all of the Anthropologists I've met (and I've met a number of them at my school since I tend to hang out with the grad students rather than hanging out with the undergrads like I'm supposed to), it's turned out to be a rather accurate heuristic. Of course, I don't mean to apply it to everyone, but a vast majority of the Anthropologists I've met (which is a rather specialized subset considering my location) act and think in this way.

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Where does it say he's an anthropologist? All I see is that he is "media professor" and his website says he works in the Department of Mass Communication.

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The methods he used here are more akin to those used by anthropologists than by legitimate psychologists and sociologists. He personally labels himself as a sociologist but the Twixt experiment isn't really set up as a sociological experiment and reads more closely to an anthropology paper. To me, there seems to be a definite mismatch between what he called himself and how he actually behaves (as far as Twixt is concerned).

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Psychology degrees are not worth the paper on which they are printed. Psychologists are just scammers trying to sell books. At least a Psychiatrist has to go to medical school.

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Why in the world is this the only game I've played so far where it's impossible to transfer influence/infamy between YOUR OWN CHARACTERS without needed a stranger to help you out? And even then, let's say you do find someone and that person happens to keep the money or log off, do the GMs even help you out with anything in reimbursements??

How the hell am I supposed to give money to my lowbie toons??

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I transfer influence all the time between my heroes with WW.
I would transfer infamy with my villains on the BM, if they all weren't so poor to begin with.
However, cannot transfer money from a hero to a villain.

How about this?

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Step 1: Make a character. Hot Random on the costume, or make a girl with ginormous breasts in a pink bikini and high heels. Pick your heal power, it will be easier to find teams. If you can speed boost, it will be even be easier to find teams, so make that your primary goal. Defender or Troller. It won't make a difference for you. As for the troller primary or defender secondary, pick whatever. No one will even care anyway. Pick something that is pretty if possible.
Step 2: Go to Atlas Park. This is important, so pay attention. There are other zones, but they are without other heroes, so they are kinda scary. Stay in Atlas where there are lots of heroes to protect you.
Step 3: Spam AT lfAE team or lf AEfarm until you get on a team. This is the hardest part at low levels, but once you get SB, you are golden.
Step 4: Don't speak much until you get some levels. Some team members may quit if they see you are level 2 or 3, but if you don't draw attention to yourself, you will appear to be level 50 when inside the mish and people may not check. It is really important that people don't figure out you are clueless
Step 5: Don't get travel powers. You never have to leave Atlas Park, so it would be a waste. In fact, they really need to put the trainer in the AE building so you don't have to waste time getting to Ms. Liberty. Get Jump Kick though as it will open up SJ if you want it at level 50, but it really not going to do anything unless you want to jump really high. As a kin, you can get a jumping power too, so that way you could even get two jumping powers. That's twice as much jump. You could consider getting leadership pools, but since you probably wont be near the team much, it really won't help and those just make weird symbols float around you, and then you could interfere with the look of your random costume you set up from step1.
Step 6. Get speed boost as soon as possible. Use it on the guy or gal with the star often. Ignore the other team members after the beginning of the mish unless they are a stone tanker. The rest of the team may ask for SB. This can get to be really irritating and selfish of the other heroes. That's OK, some of them are just little kids, and you know how kids can be. SB a few members here and there when they ask, but don't do the whole team. It does not last long anyway, so then you would have to speed boost often with repetitive motions. You need to worry about carpal tunnel, and its long term effects on your quality of life, so if people give you a hard time, remember, you need to take care of yourself first. Also, try not to use your attacks much. They will just get you in trouble and tick off the maniacs in the mission.
Step 7: When you get fulcrum shift, try not to use it too much. It is a neat looking power, but then you have to stand close to the granite tanker and he is big and ugly. Ugly people suck.
Step 8: As you obtain higher levels, sb any granite tankers you see and tell them to friend you. You do not need to add em as friends on facebook, but in the game you can actually friend people. It is cool. If they don't answer you, they are big and mean and may have ignored you for spamming way back 4 hours ago when you were level 1. If they friend you, you will always get invites when you log on.
Step 9: Go AFK and get some dinner. You are probably hungry and have been on line now for 8 or 9 hours. Eat something really healthy like Pizza or french fries or both. Remember earlier how I said to take care of yourself. And do your laundry. No reason not to be hygenic after all. The team really does not have a need for you, but knowing a kin is on the team will make them fight more confidentally. Don't work too hard to make dinner and do chores. You need to maintain your gamer's body after all. A little extra fat will cushion your wrists and may even protect the the nerve compression from carpal tunnel syndrome.
Step 10. Ding, you hit 50. Awesome. You deserve it totally. Immediately quit the team, even mid mission and log this character off. You have no idea how to use the character anyway and there is no point in learning now. Just make an empath, and start spamming healer lf AE farm. You will have another 50 in a couple of days. That's two 50s. Totally Awesome.

So that is it. I see a lot of fancy guides where people crunch the numbers and such and that is awesome, but I am more of a tactics kind of guy. I am sure some folks will have feedback and that is just super duper, but it is hard to make a more accurate guide than this. If people want to make addendums, that would be greatly appreciated, but it's really hard to make a more precise and well thought out guide than this (Except that damn archery one, that one is the shizznit). Also, I really did not want to provide the purpled out IO build at this time, because those damn PvP'ers will just copy the build on my Kin/Psi Defender and then Pwnz everyone in Recluse's Victory. PvPer's attack me when i screw up and wonder into recluse's victory and they are big meanies. Builds are also overrated. Real heroes don't spend all their influence on purples and IO recipes. They just collect it to be really really rich and sometimes hold random costume contests. You could also buy all the inanimate carbon rods from WW and drive the cost up to amazingly inflated prices that make no sense if you wanted. That would be neato and people love the challenge of building simple IOs for like 500K. That reallly seems to enhance the gaming experience.

I forgot to mention, you should start on Freedom first as it will be easiest to find a farm, but no worries if you go to another server. They all do it, just might slow you down to 12 or 14 hours, and that would suck, because you need to finish up in time for late night Cinemax and all there artsy shows.

Anyway, follow these 10 simple steps, and you will be well on your way to glory and you will totally feel like a super hero. A super duper hero in fact.

Some may say, Night Sable, this really can't work. Well, there are always naysayers. Folks say "AE ruined the game" and things like "farming is lame" and so on. But if you follow these 10 steps, you could have all sorts of kins from fire/kins to ice/kins to kin/rads to kin/archery. The combinations are practically limitless. Perhaps a number cruncher can do the math.

Good luck, and I hope to see you all get to 50, and then I can join up with you on some shadow shard tfs. That would be just awesome as I am sure you will totally know what you are doing by that point.

I love you all except those PvP meanies that kill me. Stupid dummyheads.


Love,

Night Sable

P.S. How much you want to bet someone follows the guide to 50?

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HAHAHAHAHAHA
ROFLMAO
This post is too funny.
I have a level 34 kin/nrg defender on pinnacle I like a lot. She's hot and has big boobs. Unfortunately It's taken me 3 years to get her to level 34. Mainly because I find playing kins very tiring. I can only do 5-8 mishes before I'm drained. I happen to be the type of player that makes absolutely SURE no one on the team EVER says, "can I have SB please?". I SB/ID everyone and then I re-SB/ID everyone before the first SB even runs out. Unless they say, "No SB for me", then I skip them. But I don't ask, I just do it.

I agree.

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(4) Informed consent will be sought from each prospective subject or the subject's legally authorized representative, in accordance with, and to the extent required by §46.116.

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He never identified himself as a researcher.
He never said he was performing research.
He never sought informed consent.
Therefore, his research cannot be 'objective' and his results are inherently flawed.
Unless, he DID state he was a researcher to NCSoft.
Unless, he DID get informed consent from NCSoft.
If NCSoft gave consent to this 'research', since they own all the 'content' of the game, then he's on solid ground.
However, if NCSoft DID give informed consent to this 'research' and never told the playerbase, that's very much a justification for not renewing my yearly subscription next time it expires.

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the response i expected to get.... Stalkers QQ more than anyone.... you have the only power in the game that costs 0 endurance.... You are the only Archetype that has a for sure crit... You have placate...

I dont think PPP powers should crit under any circumstances.

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I agree.

I think it's dumb that scrappers can critical from their epic pools as well.

I wish they'd just give stalkers the chance to critical anytime like scrappers in pvp and get rid of the 'only critical from hide' crap.

Of couse, the 5 main pvp board trolls haven't shown up to put in their 2¢ yet.

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Fixed PvP rewards to function once again. Now, influence, inspirations, and other normal rewards occur on every PvP kill, while PvP IO recipes can only be rewarded on rep-valid kills.

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This means no recipes in the arena right?

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Not true.

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Fixed rep-validation to function in arenas, even though it doesn't give you any reputation in arenas.

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They made the rep-validation work in arenas, so players could get PvP IOs in the arena. However, you WON'T get any REP in Arena.