GlaziusF

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Ok so last night I was a L21 tanker, and I had just selected the Dr. Vahzilok mission. I did not sit on this mission and wait to outlevel it, I recived it at L21.
I took two people wit me to see the famous Archvillan, A scrapper L16 who I sidekicked and his wife a defender also L16.
Dr. V conned red to me. He was Level 19 even tho there were plenty of L20 mobs on this mission. Why were there no 21s? After this was the level of the mission taker, me.
Well I was happy to hear that they both got SOs for helping me complete this mission. There was no way with my damage output and Dr. V's healing factor I would have won this fight solo.
Why did I not get a SO? The challenge was clearly there. And those who helped me got theirs.

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Vahzilok only spawn to 20. The mission was actually base level 19, the level of Dr. V, but you probably hit some +1 rooms to account for the 20.

I think at 21 you should still be getting the reward (as in, you got bugged) unless during the mission you leveled to 22.

--GF

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7. Occasionally you can superspeed through the trees in Perez. STand next to a wall of trees leading into the park, face parallel to the trees, and superspeed strafe, you should pop through the trees. It takes a little practice but it's a nifty trick.

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"Inside the trees" is less confining than "outside the trees but inside the maze". You can head for your target in a straight line, but there'll be some juking to get out of the other side. The "stand of trees" image filler is like one-way glass. Not sure whether it actually blocks targeting.

Just be careful. Sometimes when outside you have different slopes and gradations, inside you have two stretches of differently-leveled ground and a gap.

If you enter the gap, you will fall, and fall, and fall, and fall, and then wake up by the boathouse in Everett Lake in a cold sweat - it was all just a dream!

--GF

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but we still do not get anything and tech support is telling me the error is that we see the reward screen.. According to them all we should see is the mission complete and no DO/SO/reward selection. Now I know I completed the arcs before and I got my rewards (granted this was a while ago on my first hero.. ) So again when did it change that if we outleveled these mission (mind you I was 22 whn I did the Dr Vhaz and 23 whn I did the MR. Po so I am not sure how I out leved the missions..

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Because Dr. Vahz and Mr. Po only go up to 19.

Cut a swath through a bunch of -3 enemies and see how many inspirations/enhancements you get.

--GF

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So, do different types of magnitude stack. For example, if I hit a mob with a sleep, with a magnitude of 1, and then a hold with a magnitude of one is it now magnitude 2? Do they stack or is it type specific?

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It's type specific. Otherwise Unyielding Stance would be absolutely useless considering it hits the user with a magnitude 100 immobilize effect...

--GF

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Well written. Now if there was just a list of what magnitude all the powers the cause status effects use....

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Every controller effect has magnitude 3, often with a chance to critical to 4. The "dedicated-effect" blaster and melee powers that do very little damage also have magnitude 3.

Anything else that says it has a chance to stun is usually magnitude 2. This actually includes Barrage and Thunder Kick now, which is kinda a shame. I missed them back when they were guaranteed 1s and I knew I could stun a boss with them.

About the only effect that has a lower magnitude than it "should" is the Dark Pit of defenders, which is only a magnitude 2 stun.

Some extra trivia - spine scrappers do a magnitude 2/3 immobilize. Work the numbers on _that_.

--GF

Intangibility and fear also work this way, and most powers I know of that cause either are magnitude 3.

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As to Slow and Snare effects:

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Right click on an effect icon and select "info". If it says -speed, then it just slows your walking down. -recharge makes your powers come back slower.

--GF

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Fewer powers

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Keep in mind, we have no idea what he means here. They might have Stamina, or some other unseen power. They might have Flares and Fire bolt and they're losing the flares. Lets wait and see.

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I hope this refers to the lieutenants and bosses with ninth-tier powers, not the minions with first- and second-tier.

Those were great for flavor.

--GF

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I was wondering, but how did you guys get the names of the badges before anyone has recieved them? When i look at my badge list all i see is a bunch of qustion marks with some of them giving subtle hints (non tourism) .


Also to find them are you guys just literally running around every square inch of the city, or am i missing markers or something that give them away? The history plaques i can see that there are pedistals, i found one in IP. But the normal badges dont seem to be anything except a invisible hot spot. But i could be missing something.


I just want to know because if my badges are not supposed to be all question marks i will /bug it.
Thanks. :-)

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Somebody dove into the /pigg files to get the badge names.

However.

The tourism badges _are_ visible on the ground, if only barely. A small medallion with the tourism-badge symbol on it.

--GF

Hmm. Well, if you get Keeper of Secrets by dropping Adamastor...

You probably get Clockstopper for bringing down Babbage. Even though he's an ambush and Adam the Sailor Man is just a wandering monster.

Maybe the 'other' DE badge is for Jurassik?

--GF

The Sky Raider badge requires dropping Sky Skiffs, which I saw for the first time inside the (bugged?) respec trial.

Petition to the devs: At least let the Sky Raiders pull out their full arsenal at the south end of Terra Volta!

--GF

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TerraVoltaTour2 - Meltdown - on Reactor One in TV
TerraVoltaTour3 - Nervous Dreck - Center West of TV by Wall

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Anybody got /locs for these two? I was all over the reactor waiting for people to get back from the hospital for the TF. No luck.

--GF

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The word stun is used, but a lot of other people use the word disorient. And as far as I can tell, this is one and the same.

In game, your character will have the word "stun" float above his head if he is effected. But there are no powers with a "stun" effect...there is only disorient.

I find that just odd.

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Yeah. The 'disorient' enhancements are filed alphabetically where stun would be. Seems there was a partial vocabulary change that didn't quite make it all the way across.

Disorient = stun. I can see why they might have called it 'disorient', though, because 'stun' is a more generic world that could legitimately apply to being held by a Tesla Cage, for example.

--GF

Kicking this back up, since it can prevent a lot of frustration.

--GF

So you want to deal with status effects? Sure, we all do! Whether it's inflicting them on mobs or making sure mobs don't inflict them on you, understanding status effects and the way they were can be key to avoiding unnecessary frustration in City of Heroes.

The status effects I can safely talk about are Immobilize, Stun, Hold, Sleep, and Confuse. Knockback, Slow, and Snare either don't operate under this precise system or use a vastly mutated version of this.

A brief introduction, first. Stuns prevent action - this includes activating powers, using inspirations, and maintaining powers that need to be toggled on and off, like Sprint. They also indirectly slow movement, since all you can do is stagger around. (Though if by the vagaries of stunning something mid-jump, it'll continue the motion of the jump and then stagger around on the ground.) Immobilize prevents motion, but that's all. Hold is the best of both worlds, combining lack of motion and lack of action. Sleep is like a hold that breaks if the sleeper is hit. Confuse is a beast of its own - in some ways better than hold, because while the mob is free to move and act, it's on your side, and will attack other mobs instead of you.

But all these effects operate under an (undocumented in the manual) system called magnitude. Which has been brought up on these boards before, but doesn't show up in a search of this forum.

Tres odd.

Anyway.

Every one of those status effects I just detailed has a magnitude. It generally varies between 1 and 3. And so does villain resistance - minions are usually 1, lieutenants 2, bosses 3, and monsters and arch villians are somewhere around 100. Anyway, the first rule of magnitude is:

Unless the total magnitude of an effect is greater than the villain's resistance, nothing will happen. The power looks like it hit, and will do damage and secondary effects as though it had hit, but the status effect will just be kinda waiting. If _you_ want to defend yourself against these effects, the simplest way is to pop a discipline inspiration and increase your resistance to 3, 6, or even 11 for the highest one in the line. Other powers that provide resistance to certain effects work the same way - they increase your resistance number.

But wait, 11 resistance? Don't magnitudes only go up to 3? Well, yes, individual magnitudes do. So now for the second rule of magnitude:

So long as the power remains active, further powers will stack magnitude. So that magnitude 3 hold that didn't affect a boss? It's still on him. And if you fire off another hold before the first one ends, that'll be magnitude 6, and the boss will be held - as long as both holds are in effect. Oh, and those powers (Barrage and Thunder Kick come to mind) that say they stun 'in conjunction with other attacks' but never seem to do it on their own? They're magnitude 1, and work really well for pushing a stun that doesn't quite hold (a mag 2 Energy Punch on a lieutenant or a mag 3 Stun on a boss) over to full dizzy goodness.

There's one last thing to explain about magnitude - why Rikti Rifles only stun sometimes, why Aberrant Eremites can punch through Discipline and hold you with only one attack. May as well make it rule three of magnitudes:

Magnitudes can have a percentage chance to take effect. Sometimes it _is_ just luck. Most controller holds/sleeps/stuns (like the ones the Eremites ape) have, in addition to the always-on magnitude 3, an additional magnitude 1 effect with a small chance of occuring (or a 50% chance for the AOE mind control sleep/hold) This extra magnitude stacks normally. Attacks like Energy Punch and Whirling Hands, but also simple Boxing, have a percentage chance to inflict their stuns - as do Rikti pistols and rifles.

So these are the basics of magnitude, without digging too deeply into the stuff you'll have to buy the Prima Guide for.

I hope it explains some of the things you see in game.

--GF