Justaris

That was actually my first thought, I must admit, but I do like these ideas. Even so, Starhammer makes some good points.

Didn't think about doing the police scanners, that is a good idea and will even net you a free travel power if you do three of them and the accompanying Safeguard mission, but you do need to hit 5 first. Other options once you hit 5 include further contact arcs in the regular city zones and story arcs in The Hollows.

Options to get yourself to 5 are more limited, but thankfully it doesn't take very long at all to do, especially if you team up (although it is pretty fast even if you do not).

You have managed to hit one of the few remaining dead spots in terms of content (though this will change soon when the new issue hits). I would suggest you team up with others, hunt things on the street by yourself or do some missions in the Architect Entertainment building to get yourself to level 5, at which point the contact trees will reopen for you.

There haven't been many sweeping changes to Kheldians above and beyond the changes that have affected everyone like inherent Fitness (which does work in the forms now), so most of the guides stickied are still very much applicable, so I would start there.

As for whether or not you can play a viable Human/Nova build, the answer is yes. Obviously you give up some things by skipping Dwarf, most notably mez protection (other than Light Form), but a Human/Nova build tends to play very offensively and relieves the slot crunch enough to slot your attacks very well.

Your PB is not going to outdamage your blaster, but it is going to significantly outdamage your defender while being considerably safer than your blaster, so I think you'll find it's an enjoyable new experience. Welcome to the AT!

Just to echo what has already been said, I would very highly encourage you to petition this sort of behavior whenever it occurs. While it is irksome to have to take time out of your play to file a report, these sorts of people have no business in this community and the sooner they are banned the better it is for all.

As a longtime player of this game, I take a certain amount of pride in our reputation as a friendly community and hearing this sort of thing from a new player is concerning. I sincerely hope your future experiences in the game are more positive.

Well, "good server" is highly subjective. Obviously we think this is a good server or else we would not be playing on it and posting on its forum. Whether or not you will find it a good server depends of course on what you are looking for. It would probably be more helpful therefore to ask specific questions tailored to your needs, but since you did not do that I will try to provide some specific info that may or may not lead you to consider Victory a good choice.

Pros and Cons:

Victory server is usually about middle-of-the-road in terms of population - enough folks around to get anything done you want to do but not so many that you are constantly being deluged with team requests and beggars. This means that if you like to solo sometimes and team sometimes than this may be a good fit for you. If you like to have a team invite pop up within 30 seconds of logging on and consider a server dead when that does not happen, then Freedumb may be more your style.

Victory also has a fairly large contingent of non-North American players and is therefore more active than some other servers at off-peak (for North America) times of day. If you tend to play frequently during those sorts of time or if your schedule of play is erratic, this may work for you.

Finally, Victory also has several active niche groups including a strong GLBT community and a small but growing PvP community which certain players are making a concerted effort to grow.

As with most servers, Victory has its share of global channels, colorful and highly visible personalities, and drama. There is community here - which really you will find on any of the servers you elect to play on if you look hard enough. The trick is finding a community that you like. Maybe that will be Victory, maybe not.

I'm thinking:

Illusion/Time Controler
Time/Beam Defender

Not really all that interested in street fighting thematically, but I might go for a ST/Inv Brute or a WP/ST tank if inspiration strikes me. Titan Weapons I'd have to see screenshots of to decide if it's something that appeals to me, but I'm more interested in that than in Street Fighting at the moment.

More than likely what you were looking at was the Destiny incarnate power Rebirth, as Linea_Alba and others have postulated above.

Power Build Up (PBU) enhances secondary effects such as healing and therefore if it is used just before a heal it can make the heal significantly more powerful.

As others have noted, however, there are more important concerns for an Empath on trials than how much healing is being done.

I've wondered that myself.

Personally I ate it up like candy, but I've always been a sucker for things like that. Might have something to do with why I've played a superhero MMO for the past 7+ years, now that I think about it...

But I do see how our culture ("our culture" being American popular culture in this instance) might look at something like this as an artifact of another age at best and as untenably false at worst. And that is sad, that we can't seem to just believe in our heroes anymore without trying to find fault with them. I think this movie deserves praise for having the courage to present a hero like this boldly and without the need to make it ironic or wink at the audience to do it.

I'd tend to agree, I found that moment to be quite well-done and really encapsulate not only who Cap is as a character but why these guys are giving the super-soldier serum to him instead of someone who might be a better test subject physically. It's one thing to put lines in the character's mouth about nobility and honor, but that scene works better than anything you could have had him say. Even the gruff Tommy Lee Jones character respects him after that, albeit grudgingly.

I get that in the modern era where we're all used to flawed antiheroes and deconstructed sagas that a square-jawed honestly noble hero rings a bit false, but that's a core part of who the character is and I thought the film did an admirable job of portraying a character like that in a way that while not always completely believable (the bully line was a bit over the top, I thought) was completely consistent and managed to be empathetic - something that can be hard to pull off when your hero is almost inhumanly decent.

Late to the party, but yeah, I'd say Brute or Scrapper for a starting character. Enough damage output to offer instant gratification in taking enemies down and enough survivabilty to prevent a lot of deaths early-on while learning. They're good ATs for about anyone who is first starting out but especially so for those with short attention spans or those who may be easily discouraged.

This description applies to but is not necessarily limited to children.

You don't mention what level you're at currently - the life of a Mastermind goes through distinct phases as the number of pets available to you changes. In the early levels, you can expect the pets to be weak and die frequently and this is expected. The Pain powers can help somewhat but it's having pets out in numbers and having the upgrade powers that really make them a force to be reckoned with.

I've played Necro quite a bit, and I can say from experience that the zombies are pretty weak. The second tier pets, the Grave Knights, are excellent and much more survivable. You get the power at level 12 and it starts summoning two Knights at level 24. Make sure to take the upgrade power that opens at level 6.

As far as endurance management, Premonitions is correct. Generally the summon pet powers have high endurance costs as a balancing measure - you want to put endurance reduction in other powers, especially your Pain buffs and heals since you will be casting these a lot. If you are using the dark blast personal attack powers from Necro, you will want to slot those for endurance reduction as well (although many Masterminds choose to forego these personal attack powers altogether and do damage entirely via their pets).

Welcome!

Well obviously you're powerleveling the build so that means you've skipped over a lot of your own experimenting and learning how to play your character. I'd strongly suggest you solo it some or play with friends so that you get an idea of what your powers are and what they do. I don't mind helping out low-level players, but when I run things at 50 it can be irksome to have to explain to someone what their powers do and when to use them. I think I can safely speak for many players when I say that I mentor on my low-level guys and when I am on my 50s I don't want to babysit.

That out of the way, I would suggest you download Mids Hero Designer and post a build for critique so that we can see where you might be going wrong and correct you. Since you haven't had experience with your build, you could easily have problems that you don't know to tell us about and that we wouldn't foresee. We can't just tell you every in and out of playing the character - firstly, that would be prohibitively comprehensive, and secondly, it would be tailored to the playstyle and preferences of whomever wrote it - which is not necessarily the best way for you or anyone else to play it. Generally speaking there isn't one and only one right way or best build for most anything in City of Heroes.

As for "why its a good idea", Radiation Emission is a very powerful debuffing primary and can be a key player in major battles against Archvillains (AVs) and Giant Monsters. Having a well-built and well-played Rad will make you an asset to many teams. The key Radiation Emission powers here are Radiation Infection, Enervating Field and Lingering Radiation. DO NOT SKIP THESE POWERS.

As for Dual Pistols, one of its main strengths is the ability to change damage output types using Swap Ammo, something no other blast set can do, so you can tailor your damage output type and secondary effects to what you are fighting. Keep in mind that if you do not have one of the three special types of ammo on then your secondary effect will default to knockback, which can make some melee types unhappy if used poorly.

If you have any specific questions, feel free to come back and ask 'em.

Congratulations! And thank you for your patience on the one failed run I went on - Keyes came out when I was particularly busy at work and I've not had time to really learn it at all, so I was completely clueless.

I am reviewing the following arc:

Title: Nothing to Worry About [SFMA][HLMA][CFMA][HGMA]
Author Global: @Apolinus
Arc ID: 500325
Keywords: Challenging, Save the World, Custom Characters
Length: 4 missions
First Published: 5/21/2011 08:19PM
Morality: Heroic
Enemy Groups: Custom
Estimated time required: 60-90 minutes (4 missions)
Description: The Freedom Phalanx needs your help investigating a meteor strike in Atlas Park. Your investigation turns up a lot more than anyone bargained for, and soon the entire dimension of primal earth is at stake.


Constructive Criticism

Mission 1:

Positive Feedback: Excellent choice of map, very well-realized custom characters for the Impact faction and the info for each was carefully written and compelling.
Negative Feedback: There is a rather large number of objectives, nine in all, which did make it feel a bit cluttered, but given that the map is small and contained, this is really a minor complaint and probably a non-issue if the arc were to be run by a team rather than solo as I did.

Mission 2:

Positive Feedback: Customs are again very impressively realized, and the info on the Invaders combined with their appearance is genuinely creepy. The backstory, especially the tie-in with Portal Corps, is impressive.
Negative Feedback: Info on the portal central computer (object to be defended) says "This computerr must be destroyed"

Mission 3:

Positive Feedback: Oblivion Mystics faction were again well-handled and I enjoyed the deliberate vagueness of their backstory.
Negative Feedback: Message "The empowerment glyphs have been destroyed - now to put an end to the ceremony" appears three times, after each glyph destroyed.

Mission 4:

Positive Feedback: Epic stakes, I like the Freedom Phalanx as backup bit, and the doppleganger initial battle is a nice touch, with just the right mix of wow and uh-oh to give the situation gravity.
Negative Feedback: Void Titans are very tough in numbers, but since I only encountered them after I'd won the final battle I think this is more a challenge than a problem. I played this arc solo and aside from a near-miss with the computer did fairly well - challenging but without being overwhelming. All except the Void Titans, who squashed me flat.

Conclusions/General Impressions/Final Suggestions:

I very much enjoyed the variations on the theme of nothingness/void as a threat and I felt that all of the custom characters were well-realized, the Empty particularly so. The doppelganger was a nice way to change up the final fight a bit, and the souvenir is well-worded and the summation narrative is good.

There are a few typos in the Souvenir - one in the 5th paragraph where there is a 'y' dropped from 'ceremony' in the last sentence and another in the 6th paragraph where you have 'in unleashed its true form', should be 'it unleashed its true form'.

I'd also noted that you have some repetitive phrasing in the souvenir which I would recommend changing up a bit, specifically these bits: "...you were forced to descend into the bowels of the earth to fight the monster and prevent it from consuming the earth" (minor, repeated mention of 'the earth' in same sentence) and the more major example being "Initially, it took your shape to give itself form - but after the initial battle, in unleashed its true form - a twisted..." (double use of the word 'initial/initially').

Rating: 5/5. Excellent arc overall. Great evocation of atmosphere.






I would like to submit the following arc for review by the next poster:

Title: The Mechanical Menace
Author Global: @Justaris
Arc ID: 510129
Keywords: Challenging, Non-Canon, Sci-Fi
Length: 4 missions
First Published: 7/20/2011
Morality: Heroic
Enemy Groups: Custom
Difficulty Level: High
Estimated time required: 1-2 hours
Description: A few months after the appearance of dozens of robotic Tin Mages in Paragon City, robot thieves storm the city stealing high-tech equipment. Tin Mage Mk. V, leader of the Tin Mage Corps, maintains the innocence of the Tin Mages, but he needs your help to prove it. While this arc is open to any level range, it includes difficult custom enemies and an AV in the final mission, so higher-level and/or larger groups are recommended.

Additional Notes: This arc was conceived in part to show off my SG. the Tin Mage Corps, and to have some fun while doing so. I wanted the foes to be challenging, but not to the point of being unfun. This is the primary area in which I want feedback - which foes are too tough or not tough enough and any advice on changing things up. Of course, any and all feedback is more than welcome. Thanks in advance!

I saw it and thought it was good. Really the only issues I had with it were the issues I expected to have because they were the issues I had with the seventh book and the way that Rowling chose to end the series.

Actually, I felt the film did an admirable job of working within that structure. I was curious how they were going to pull off the transition to the big screen and I don't think there were any major lapses I would really complain much about. Yes, as with most of the other films there are huge swaths of the narrative missing but I think whoever did the screenplay did an admirable job not only of choosing what to keep and what to drop, but also how to make Rowling's ending somewhat compelling (lacking magic in the real world, you can only do so much with what you are given, after all).

I made a major update to this recently when I had some time on my hands.

Not only did I update the Tin Mage stuff, but I also put in some stuff about PvP University since I noticed that was blank.

Already registered there - my old GP username is Soulscryer so that's the name you'll see pop up. If we're still planning on using gemstone names I'll be Champion Garnet, Rad/Kin Corruptor. If we're just doing colors, I can be Champion Red.

Still waiting to see what everyone's powersets turn out to be, but right now I'm thinking of either a Rad/Energy Blaster or maybe a Rad/Kin Corruptor. Since we look a little light on support I may end up going with the Corr.

I know this is like the second time I've swapped ATs, but I just keep having ideas I like better.

If we have a tank and a brute then I will switch Red to Blaster, that was a close second for me anyway.

I've got the first draft of my red Champion ready. So far I'm picturing him as an Invuln/KM Tanker, but I'm flexible if we end up needing to move things around depending on what ATs everyone else picks.

I'd prefer not to use my global actually - something color-based sounds good to me, like "Champion Red" or maybe something more esoteric like using gem names such as "Champion Beryl" or "Champion Emerald". Just spitballin'

Oh, and as for the Vanguard pack, it unlocks all the Vanguard stuff and a litlte vanguard noncombat pet, it was given out free to everyone who stayed subbed for a certain period recently

Acro's ideas sound great.

Here's my availability:

Monday: After 6pm EST
Tuesday: Unavailable
Wednesday: After 6pm EST
Thursday: Unavailable
Friday: Unavailable
Saturday: Prior Comittment 9pm EST-11:30pm EST (can play anytime during the day, just have to be done by 9pm EST - alternatively, I could just leave our group early every time if there's a partial conflict, but I would prefer not to have to do that)
Sunday: Available