JKPhage

Ahhh, see that's a different story all together then. I had the same issue for a long while until I discovered (and subsequently wondered how I survived so many years without and had managed to not know of) global channels. Namely on Virtue I joined VU2010, which is a general community channel with chat, team requests, all kinds of discussion. It's the best for social interaction seems like. Then I also joined Virtue LFG Alpha (name speaks for itself), Virtue Badges (ditto), and Virtue TFs 2010 (and again). I keep a window open with each channel in a tab by itself so it's easy to follow all of them and note when there are new messages in a channel.

I instantly gained a social outlet, a very easy and responsive place to look for teams and TFs, and even a spot to ask for help on badges. Added perk: two of those channels have the raid schedules for hami/motherships in their MotD so I always have it handy in case I forget. I've had no problem finding teams ever since and I get a nice little social circle to interact with. That alone made the game seem immensely more alive than I'd ever seen it be in all my time playing. Don't know if you've joined any of them, but if not, swing by the global channels sticky at the top of the topic list and you'll find a list of the most popular and heavily populated channels. Guaranteed to help if you don't have them set up already.

"Somewhere deep inside, that tiny little voice was telling The Ocho that he should have known better than to agree to a blind date with a girl named Lucrecia VonEvilstein."

If I am a winner, I permit NC Interactive, Inc. and NCsoft Europe Limited to use my name, likeness, photograph, hometown, and any comments that I may make about myself or this contest that I provide for advertising and promotional activities. I also certify that I am at least 13 years of age and am eligible to participate in this contest.

I for one would love an update to bases. I'm in an SG with a few good friends and only one of us has ever been any good with the base editor. If they give us a little bit more fine control and some new textures/themes/items I'll be pleased as punch that we might finally be able to get a decent looking base tossed together.

I'm also just gonna chip in my two cents on everyone being WAY too judgemental on WarWitch. Did it ever occur to any of you that closing that line with "suggestions?" was simply being cute/coy? It's kind of like listing off a huge amount of work that needs to be done and then asking for volunteers, it's just playful more often than not. Having seen WarWitch around for a while I'd say that's just her trying to lighten the mood. I'd imagine she's aware of the base suggestions thread. Alternatively, it could be a genuine invitation to send in your most wanted suggestions as, let's face it, those threads are massive, very old and have more than just a little filler chit-chat. They'd take forever to skim through personally to find all the usable suggestions in the grit. Not to mention that not everyone might even know it's there. Some of the more casual forum goers might not even venture as far as the base section or the server section, they might just be content to chill in general discussion and announcements just to get the meat of the news. Those people would likely appreciate an invitation to send in ideas if they don't know the thread(s) exist.

Either way, ease up on WarWitch. She JUST started as lead developer, they're in the crunch on GR, and she's doing her best to keep the development train moving as well as trying to keep in touch with the player base and make sure that people are as happy as possible. Just because bases aren't #1 on the list doesn't mean she's ignoring you.

I watched a video of the panel from PAX east last night and they said that Friends and Family beta for GR starts next week, so if there's to be an open beta for i17 it'll HAVE to be this week. This could mean one of two things, we'll be getting a very VERY short open beta before they shunt it to live or no open beta at all.

I'm still kinda conflicted myself as to what this could mean for release. They could be releasing i17 to live this week or early next if we're VERY lucky, or we might not get it till closer to the middle of the month and we just won't have an open beta beforehand.

On the other hand, as some have pointed out, one of the test servers says public access is denied, and the other says wrong game client, so it's possible that they'll run GR's beta on one and the i17 OB on the other, meaning all my supposition just flew out the window. Either way, I'd prefer either OB kick in today, or they just don't bother with OB and we get i17 next Tuesday. I'd be perfectly fine with that.

I for one am absolutely STOKED for this, it looks fantastic and I've already got a character in mind for it.

My only request to the devs is that, not with GR, just somewhere relatively soon down the line, with an upcoming round of proliferation, they give us a variation on it for a Blaster secondary. Most blaster secondaries are very melee oriented (Energy manip, Elec Manip, Fire manip) and if they gave us something with a few of the melee attacks and a variation on siphon power for the build up move, possibly toss in a gravity-style immob for thematic and archetypical uniformity, it would pair FANTASTICALLY with Psi blast for an offensive-themed psychic charcter. My biggest beef with Psi blast is the lack of any really cool looking telekinesis attacks and this would fill that hole in my heart. Psi blast for telepathy, and kinetic melee for telekinesis and you'd have a rather effective Jean Grey style psychic (doubly so with pyre mastery, heh). It would make a fantastic bit of mitigation too with the knockup/knockback that comes inherent to it as blasters can use all the mitigation they can get.

Just saw the video for Kinetic Melee on youtube (link at the bottom for those who haven't seen it) and immediately reserved my name. XD This is going to be sweeeeeeeet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFQPqPwayfI Check out the sexy-ness folks. *Drools*

As to the issue of the OP:

I rolled up a new corruptor last night and found that all of the police NPCs is Breakout were standing there merrily twirling their billy clubs and doing absolutely jack while I strolled out of prison. Even more jarring when you see a prisoner kneeling down and vigorously punching him in the shins. Methinks something broke when they sent Dual Pistols topside.

Yeah, new powerset I doubt, but I'll agree with others here and say I really do HOPE that it'll be available as animation customization. Hell, could be something you have to unlock for your character by joining the Praetorian Police Department or the Resistance for either of their powerstyles respectively. On that note though I'd HOPE that if you unlock that PPD style there and it is just a fancy looking energy blast that you'd be able to use normal looking/custom colored blasts with simply the open palm animation. I have a few toons who would kill for that.

I'm going to echo Yogi from further up the thread and point out in case nobody read it on the prepurchase page:

Guh, don't wanna beat a dead horse but dude, F_M_J do you think the marketing and community team are idiots? If they blurted out all this stuff about "PRE-ORDER AND YOU GET EARLY ACCESS TO DUAL PISTOLS" and then it was a beta, people would be furious. The announcment is supposed to be taken for exactly what it says, you'll have access to Dual Pistols for dxp, which would be a moot point if it wasn't on live seeing as Test is simply for testing and is labelled with a big old "We can deleted everything on this server at any time without warning, kthxbye." sticker.

Also, if it was beta access, they would have called it beta access. You know, kind of like the loyalty program announcement, where they stated specifically that you'd get beta access for participating? It's going to live, so I'd get ready to eat your words.

If I am a winner, I permit NC Interactive, Inc. and NCsoft Europe Limited to use my name, likeness, photograph, hometown, and any comments that I may make about myself or this contest that I provide for advertising and promotional activities. I also certify that I am at least 13 years of age and am eligible to participate in this contest.



"No, no, NO, Jack! You're supposed to turn to the right there! The other two have got it, what's your excuse? Now, once more from the top..." *Speakers begin to play Baby Got Back*

Okay, so I have a few fifties but for some reason they've never really clicked before enough to be loads of fun to play, but I just recently got a Plant/Storm to fifty, have had a run of good luck with him (Got an apocalypse recipe that lined my pockets quite nicely) and he's loads of fun to play so I've decided to make him my current project in terms of getting him slotted and filled with IO's so that he's as effective as possible.

To preface the whole thing, I've gone all this way with no enhances pretty much. If I happened to have one I could use I slotted it and it expired pretty quickly (He went a long way towards fifty on DXP weekend last time and just got finished up recently) and that worked for me, so he's currently barebones and waiting for enhancing. I got a little enthusiastic about the whole thing and slotted five of the Malaise's illusion set into his seeds of confusion (I opted out of the range/endurance one simply because I only put five slots in the power and I didn't see much point in a longer range than I've got, it works just fine) and I've also been VERY lucky and happened upon a level 50 Luck of the Gambler defense enhancer that gives 15.9% defense to all to a defense toggle as well as a global 7.5% recharge boost that I've decided I want to use rather than sell as it's a pretty darn good enhancement.

Now comes the question, I've put together my power choices for my preferred build down below as I'm about to respec into something a bit more final before I pour my funds into IO's/sets as I picked a few powers that I've found myself not using (Namely hurricane and spirit tree which I plan to opt out of). The build I tossed together in mids is currently without slots as I'd like opinions on what powers should be slotted to what extent and which should be left alone. Also wanting to know if there's anything I didn't take that you would recommend, or if you might change out a power for another. Just to note, I'm set in my epic pool, it's a theme character of sorts, so no changing that. I also know that fly isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it happens to be mine so I'm going with it, and taking air superiority for a bit of extra damage mitigation when needed. The only powers I'm iffy on are Thunder Clap (I've never taken it before but it seems good for control purposes) and Maneuvers (I was tempted to take assault but realized that I could possibly use Maneuvers for the LotG defense enhancer so I'd have access to it earlier and possibly net me more overall defense than if I put it in Rock Armor).

So, here's the heart of it. I need help picking slots for these powers, which ones can benefit from being slotted and which should be left alone as not being worth more than one slot. I also would like suggestions on what IO's sets would be best for this character. I'm a PVE player, not interested in PVP. I solo alot, but also team regularly so I'm trying to keep it balanced to something that will play well solo but also be useful on a team (Tornado was taken for solo play with pretty much no intention of use on teams unless it's an emergency). I'm open to frankenslotting for maximum enhancement value, or slotting for set bonuses, or even a mix of the two. I'll be using the aforementioned LotG enhancer in one of my defense powers (whichever would be most useful) and the Malaise's Illusions set at 50 sans the range piece (unless someone suggests it is worth six slotting and putting in the extra piece. I don't find the final set bonus to be worth the extra slot or money to purchase). So that set and single enhancement will be staying and I don't count on finding or being able to afford the rest of LotG so please keep that in mind. I have no delusions of being able to afford purple sets, and I'm okay with that. Someday when I'm very rich I'll go ahead and upgrade possibly, but for now I'll survive with the lesser sets. From what I've seen on the market it seems I can afford the sets that are just a step under the purples and that's cool with me. Just give me what you think would be the best and I'll work with it somehow. I have around 212,000,000 to work with for IO's. And now I'm going to shut up. Here's the build. Any help is greatly appreciated.






Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.601
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Ryan Stone: Level 48 Magic Controller
Primary Power Set: Plant Control
Secondary Power Set: Storm Summoning
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Stone Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Strangler

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Level 1: Gale

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Level 2: Roots

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Level 4: Snow Storm

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Level 6: Swift

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Level 8: Seeds of Confusion

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Level 10: Steamy Mist

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Level 12: Air Superiority

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Level 14: Fly

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Level 16: Health

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Level 18: Freezing Rain

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Level 20: Stamina

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Level 22: Vines

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Level 24: Hasten

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Level 26: Carrion Creepers

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Level 28: Thunder Clap

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Level 30: Maneuvers

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Level 32: Fly Trap

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Level 35: Tornado

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Level 38: Lightning Storm

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Level 41: Fissure

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Level 44: Rock Armor

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Level 47: Hurl Boulder

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Level 49: Seismic Smash

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Level 1: Brawl

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Level 1: Sprint

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Level 2: Rest

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Level 1: Containment

My favorite concept character so far has been my Plant/Storm/Earth controller. He goes by the name of Ryan Stone because he's not really a superhero so much as a superhippy. He belongs to a fairly wealthy family, Paragon socialites really, but he never cared for it much, being a nature-loving wild-child pretty much. He doesn't dress up all fancy as his family would like, doesn't attend social functions unless they're some sort of environmental awareness fundraiser, and spends most of his time just hiking around outdoors and camping. He went for a camping trip on the Vernal Equinox and just happened to fall asleep in front of a particularly ancient oak tree that held the spirit of Grandfather Oak, who saw fit to bless him with the powers of nature and become his new avatar.



You can't tell but his shirt has a tree on it, and his alternate costumes are basically different variants on jeans and a t-shirt with the recycle symbol and the earth symbol. Plus a snazzy suit for when he DOES need to make a social appearance and sneaker just aren't appropriate.

I always wanted to make a plant/storm but couldn't ever pin down a concept I liked for a hero, then it just occured to me one day that someone with such nature oriented powers would probably be a bit less flashy than a costumed vigilante, and BAM, the superhippy was born (and his epic pool was decided from the get-go due to thematic appropriateness).

I've actually tried this a couple of times now and when I log back in at the door I end up just stuck in the ground instead of falling. Am I potentially doing something wrong? Do you need to be standing in a certain spot beforehand or closer to one of the doors than another?

EDIT - Gah, nevermind, I was at the wrong door. There is one that looks suspiciously like the area you're supposed to be at, I saw another person trying to use the same one in fact, and I was trying to use it. Just got the right one. As everyone else has said, this room is AWESOME and I'd love to be able to use it in AE for a mission. Would make an awesome map for a straight up showdown with a virtual villain or something.

See, I actually think the thing was handled unfairly. I logged in and was almost instantly notified that there was an invasion in Atlas, so I hightailed it over there, quickly got myself a team and started hunting bombs (Which I might add were strangely scarce) and then when the invasion began in earnest we laid into them and had a jolly time (RIDICULOUS command lag aside though that really should be looked into somehow), only to find out after I spent the time fighting them off and looking forward to GMs or a mothership or what have you that all those things had happened in KINGS ROW were I was not aware an invasion was happening.

We did not receive the same treatment in Atlas, nor were we awarded the gold titles. If they were going to test a new event with special stuff like that it should have been in ONE zone, instead of two. I logged on today specifically expecting something from this and really looking forward to it, and I missed out because I picked the wrong zone. Not cool. I'd hope that there will be a repeat on virtue sometime soon because my blaster there wants a go at it, and she was downright cheated out of it.

Obviously this means that when the Winter Event ends we're going to get i17 which is going to feature a Rikti Epic Archetype for heroes and villains. Obviously.

I for one love the new cape mish, it just makes it seem more like an accomplishment, like you actually did something to EARN it instead of just talking to a few people then beating up some Lost.

I do have a couple of beefs that could be changed to make the mission a bit more solid though. For one when I talked to the City Official she told me almost verbatim "The capsule is right down the hall in this very building" and then promptly sent me out the front door of City Hall and over to a building that was clearly labelled as the Scheherezade, this should probably be changed so the mission door for visiting the capsule is tied to that door off the left side of the main hall in City Hall and can't be any other door. Just makes sense. Also to do with the room, how about get rid of the superfluous platform from the TF/SF and make it look like it isn't in the process of being repainted or something. Also, as Golden Girl said back on page one, Hero 1 could definitely be made to look more "spirit-y", just make him transparent and give him a glowy aura.

Then we move on to the kill all mish. I understand that having this part random can make plenty of sense, but I think there should be some kind of limitation on just HOW random. I talked to Hero 1 and was told to go to Dark Astoria, and then haul my happy behind all the way to the other side of the zone into a cave. Given, it was much easier to FIND than one of those blasted Perez Park tree maze doors, but SERIOUSLY, ridiculous travel time for those of us who don't have an SG with a Dark Astoria porter. Given I could have gotten lucky and had it pop up somewhere else, but regardless, missions are tied to specific locations in GR because the devs want it to make more sense plot-wise. Perhaps we could start implementing that on some of the content we already have that's been a thorn in everyones side?

Other than those gripes (which honestly don't bother me TOO much) I really do like the new one. It'll give people who are new to the game and don't necessarily know all the backstory and lore a little bit of insight to why things are the way they are.