GavinRuneblade

That is totally awesome.

I'm waiting for the Katie Hannon week =)

It seems that you didn't read the announcement of the rare and ultra rare patch then.

In that patch it specifically mentioned that the taskforces were the first method to get notice of the well but missions for soloists would be coming out soon.

And I'd do the obligatory "I can haz yer stuff" but 23x beat me.

Shield at least, but as I understand that is only via a bug the devs haven't figured out how to fix which is why you have to use Hami-O's for it.

One of the biggest limiting factors are for those who have bosses turned off. Bosses have a MUCH higher chance to drop shards than minions and lieutenants. Since you always fight bosses in teams this could be a significant factor.

I've been told that they do drop purples, so I'm guessing they would drop shards, but I've not checked recently. The best place to ask might be the Mission Architect forum.

As others have mentioned, I'd recommend getting some AoE from the APPs to round yourself out and look at what non-AS options you have after placate. I think bonesmasher will kill a minion after placate, and placate-bonesmash+energy punch should be enough to take a lieut. Waterspout and the leviathain guardian would be another option rather than just AoE atacks from APPs.

/energy does ok without running to get hide back. Shame it doesn't have too many tricks up its sleeve though.

You've got good stun capability to augment killing so should be able to switch targets without killing them often and provide solid benefit to the team. IE, get a lieut or boss down to 10%, then move on leaving it stunned and about to die on the next AoE any team member tosses out.

Between removing key minions and lieut's instantly out of initial hide, and some of the tips people have offered here I'd think you should be able to do fine on a team feeling stalkery and not just feeling scrappery.

Somewhere there is/was an old post about recharge that just says "I'll have enough recharge when my attack chain is headsplitter-headsplitter-headsplitter"

I love the concept.

If we look at vengeance, you can get past the limit of one per corpse by triggering them in close enough succession, either by accident, or more often by using teleport ally.

I'm guessing the same "might" be true of TK. So using teleport foe by a third party while the two doms are in position with tk queued might be the ideal way to test.

Those are not procs those are "global" IOs.

Links: Global IOs
Procs

This is probably accurate.

I and most of my friends have only 1 or less that we will care about getting a rare alpha slotted. And by that I mean ever. in three years I'll still probably only have 1 with a very rare alpha slotted. but I'll play them all and have uncommons slotted on all of them and I'll probably have a few rares just because I get the ingredients from playing without actively trying. And I am the same way with purples. 90% of what I get from drops go on the market because I don't use 'em and have no plans to. the more I play, the more I help fight purple-flation. =)

I think you'll find that making your first character takes longer than patching the game. Unlike other systems this one gives you almost all of the best costume options right off the bat. There are some good ones you can unlock, but the sheer number of options in the character generator are amazing and sometimes overwhelming.

I know most of my friends need about an hour to make a new character and they know most of the options.

In my mind here are the pros and cons:

Pros:
Very casual friendly. You can do virtually everything solo. If you miss something there is almost always a way to do it over. You can play for just 15 or 30 minutes and actually accomplish something meaningful. I love this.

You don't have to level up to play with someone who has a 7-year-old character, you can join them immediately and your level-1 character benefits from the "sidekick" system to be a bit weaker than them, but still able to tag along. Or they can "exemplar" down and join you without being totally overpowered and not having any fun.

If you want to be a pure good guy, you can. One of the things that turned me off to many fantasy games was how so many stories and settings were based on corruption and shades of grey and anti-heroes, and so on. Those can be fun. But now and again I want to be as much a pure good-guy as the modern take on superman. City of Heroes is one of the only games that really lets you.

Almost no limit to how powerful you can get. In other games, the top-end enemies need whole teams to defeat. In this one, people have solo'd almost everything. It's not for the faint of heart, it's not easy, and it takes a staggeringly expensive and specialized build. But the truth is, you can be almost unlimited in power.

Comedy mixed with drama. There is a lot of fun and light-hearted stuff in the game. But it is also mixed in with genuinely tragic stories. Some of the villain-side arcs are brutally cold hearted. Even some of the hero-side have tragic endings. But along the way there are in-jokes, fun references to comics and pop culture, as well as just plain silliness. The mix works for me. By the way, most of the NPC dialog you come across in the game was written by the developer War Witch. Credit where credit is due. =)

Great stories. I stay here for the stories. I love watching them unfold and re-experiencing them in different ways. I wish they were more choose-your-own-adventure style, but they're still great. There are a ton of threads on the "best" and "which ones should you never miss". Don't powerlevel, take the time to read mission text and clues and really talk to your contacts. The developers put a lot of effort into the story and they did a good job.

The Cons:
Repetative gameplay. Most of the missions are very simplified and similar. Go into a building, defeat (a boss or everyone), or rescue someone, or click the important object (glowie). The enemies you face, the reasons you do it, etc those change. But the base actions always come down to those three. Recently we've had some very nice changes, like interrogations. But that is new and there is not a whole lot of it yet.

Too many minions not enough supervillains. You spend a lot of time taking down the henchmen and underlings of villainous groups, gangs and other forces of evil. Even when playing a villain rather than a hero you spend more time taking down your rival villain support network. It is really easy to end up missing the climactic fights with costumed villains/hero enemies. This makes me sad. Some tips: after you pass 5th level there are "newspaper" or "radio" missions that you can do (teams often advertise for these) and every 5th mission you get to rob or protect a bank. There is always a super hero or villain in these. There are new "tip" missions you get after level 20. There is almost always a super hero or villain in these. After level 15 there are team-oriented missions called "task forces" that all but a very few have super hero/villains not just i the climactic fight, but often scattered throughout. And if you're a hero, go to the hollows and help David Wincott, then Flux the Outcast. You will get to fight a super villain named Frostfire. this is one of the most memorable missions in City of Heroes, everyone loves it. You only need to be 5th level if I recall correctly and it is really easy to get a team for this. Like I said, everyone loves it.

No Voices. Partly because it is a comic book game, and partly because of its age, there are no voices for the NPCs. The cutscenes are not high-def cinematics, they all use the in-game graphics. There are no special soundtracks or voice actors for them. You read word bubbles coming out of people's heads. There is one zone with a giant TV where you can watch the main villain Lord Recluse give a speech, and that has sound. I love that TV and the voice actor did a great job. But to my knowledge, that's the only voice acting in the game.

Repetative powers/animations. Many powers have mostly similar animations. For example, there is a slow-motion attack where you jump in the air raise both fists over your head and smash them down into the ground. This attack is used with only slightly altered glowing hands in at least 3 different powersets and I think the full number might be higher. the cool side of this is that there aren't a whole lot of powers the enemies get that you can't duplicate. There are a few, but not a whole lot.

stores, auction house, teaming window and other interactive menus not very user friendly. If you're used to a lot of the fancy side of other games menu systems, this one seems a bit lacking. For example you can earn badges that track what you have accomplished in game. Enemies you defeat major quests/missions you complete, etc. they are very confusingly sorted, have no search feature, and often you can't figure out what you need to do to finish earning the badge. As a direct example, there is one for defeating 13 specific enemy super-villains. The tracking tells you how many out of the 13 you have defeated, but not who they are or who you still need. It is very common for people to get stuck on 12 out of 13 and not know who they missed. You will eventually figure it out but they can be confusing. Feel free to ask here on the forums if anything gives you trouble.

You also have to look at cost over time, which is Eva's point.

Purchasing SOs from level 22 through level 50 costs an average of 426k/slot (calculated by CatWhoorg here). Putting a single memorized level 35 IO into that same slot costs less than 35k and gives a constant 36% bonus compared to the SO's max of 38% and average of 33%.

If you slot a level 25 IO at level 22 (same time as you start the SOs), the cost is only 19k. One time. That gives a constant 32%. SOs give a high of 38.3, and a low of 23.3 and an average of 33.0%.

I slot IOs because they are less expensive, I don't have to worry about levelling during a mission and suddenly having 0% accuracy slotted, and I get a higher total bonus enhancement.

If you do cheap sets instead of commons, a level 18 triple gives 34.7% total enhancement, which is insignificantly different than a +1 SO's 35%. I can slot it at character level 15 instead of character level 22, and it will never expire or give a lower value. Even when I am character level 50 it is only 3% weaker than a +3 SO.

Some of them I can buy for 100k or less. That's half the price of using SOs.

which makes me part of the problem of low supply since I won't pay a premium.

but I do offer mine for sale at comparable prices when I generate them at least. =)

Just FYI, there are PvP IOs as cheap as 5m right now on the market. Not the uniques, procs, etc, but still.

I'm just surprised that they had so much melee and didn't have a bunch of people running maneuvers or at least a VEAT or two. Thanks to inherent fitness I find there's a lot of manuevers going around these days. It's been very nice improvement in my opinon since so many people are obsessed with healing and don't realize the way bubbles/shields/etc vastly out perform heals.

Sort of. The set bonuses exemp, but the % enhancement doesn't. For that you want to mix and match.

With level 50 quads, 43 triples and 24 doubles you can keep your full % all the way down to level 21. It is pretty nice have 98% enhanced damage and recharge on low level taskforces/oro arcs, in some cases more helpful than having set bonuses on those missions. With 6-slotted purples you'll have the set bonuses, but only about 36% damage and recharge on the power at level 21.

I wonder if they shortened the kilts/skirts enough if it might be doable. It really is a shame, I have a couple characters with monstrous legs that I would really love to have more options for.