Kataryn

Well... I've returned to playing since stopping sometime around issue 6.
My highest level character is only 45 now. I've been running nothing but Borea missions since level 42/43 and I'm still only on shoulder piece and wrist costume pieces. I've got 100 now towards the 500 sack (which I assume is 10 more salvage to my inventory).

Sounds like I have the rather dull job of doing nothing in this game except run Vanguard missions from where I am now (45) to 50 just to get enough merits. Is that how this game is meant to be played now? That's more farming than I have to do ever in the game I've just left (cough... wow... cough)

Suggestions?


PS: I've seen someone suggest "ship raids". I've never done any TF missions and have no idea what a ship raid is. Nor have I seen anyone ever advertising one in all the time I've been trying to gain merits.

PPS: I'm not capable of taking on much more than 4 critters at a time either (ice/ice blaster focusing on holding ppl while taking one down). I can manage to get through a Borea mission set on +1 or +2 levels. But not even on -1 with multiple players set.

I'm an Ice/Ice Blaster. When I reached level 38, I chose;

Frozen Aura
Your mastery of cold enables you to dramatically lower the temperature immediately around you. Foes near you when you perform a Frozen Aura will be caught in a fragile casing of ice. Frozen foes will break free if attacked. Frozen Aura deals no significant damage.


Now I'm 42, I've reached 3 slots in it. If I remember right, there's 3 x level 40 IO Accuracy enhancements in it. If I'm reading all the paragonwiki pages right, that puts me over the 100% accuracy cap where anymore would have seriously diminished returns.

I solo most the time - and most of the mobs are in 3's or less. I start a fight with Bitter Freeze Ray on one of the mobs, then freeze ray on the 2nd and by then the 3rd mob has reached me and gets a punch of Freezing Touch in the face. That holds em and allows me to cycle my damage spells and re-freezing where necessary till they're all dead.
I chose Frozen Aura really for emergencies when my freezes missed, or when I ended up with 2 packs of mobs.

The problem I'm finding is that Frozen Aura just never does anything except look cool when you use it. Rarely in packs of 6 will I manage to freeze one mob. The mobs are not dot'd or anything to break the sleep from Frozen Aura. I just find it doesn't work right.

Am I the only one with this problem? Does it have some really lame rate for affecting mobs?

I'm just wondering if I should respec it out and take Ice Sword for an extra damage attack instead.

I used to play pre Issue 6 (and have recently started again).

I've only come across this a couple of times ever when it's been a real problem (ie. mob inside crate/wall). Usually it's just me missing them hiding behind crates or something in the warehouses, or missed a room in one of those 5 floor city block missions.

I bet it's been said a million times before, but flying back to cover then entire map (walls and everything) spamming the tab button always helps.

Thanks for the answers.... it means after respeccing, my enhancement's can all be slotted neatly and my OCD kept in check. :-)

I'll admit I must have some kind of OCD. I like my enhancement slot page to look neat. In other words, if I have 6 slots on a blaster power, I may have 3 Acc, then 3 Dam slots on it, in that order. They've been put in that position following a respec.

Now, If I get exemplared, how is this taken into account?

For example, my Ice Bolt enhancement slot looks like this after respeccing (using Mid's hero designer);

Level 2 Ice Bolt: Acc(A), Acc(3), Acc(5), Dam (7), Dam (11), Dam (17)

If I get exemplared down to level 10, will the game treat the skill as if it had a load of accuracy and only 1 damage bonus? or will it just scale the whole lot down?

When I respec, should I put the enhancements in more like;

Level 2 Ice Bolt: Acc(A), Dam (3), Acc (5), Dam (7), Acc (11), Dam (17)

so I have a better balance if exemplared?


I've tried to find the info on this, but I'm still unsure if exemplaring scales down everything you have in that power, or actually looks at level slots.

(Hope my rather rambling question makes sense here)

Thanks for any help/advice on this matter.

Thanks for the replies to my original post. Very helpful.

Now... another question;

Because I was (still am!) so slow at levelling, due to patches, I always used to have built up a free respec by the time I got to a key Enhancement changing level.

eg. When I reached 37th, I had a respec which allowed me to removed all my currently equipped enhancements and end up selling them back for influence, which I could then use to spend on getting the level 40 enhancements. (as normally I couldn't sell used enhancements)

I'm now 41st, so when I hit 42nd (I have a respec already), can I still do this? ie. Respec and sell all my currently equipped enhancements back as part of the respec and use the influence towards a batch of level 45 enhancements from the store? Is this still something that can be done?
If so, what happens to IO level enhances? can they be resold as part of a respec or not?


Thanks for any further help you can give.

Hi,

I returned about a week before the double xp. I hadn't played since sometime during either 2005 or 2006 - about the time of issue #6. I'd never had a character to lvl 50 as I didnt play too much either.

So far, I'm loving it... but I have a couple of questions.

1) How many Missions can I have in my active list?
2) Is there a way to drop a mission?

I ask the 2nd one because the other day (at 40th) I picked up a quest to kill 40 carnies in Peregrine Island. It said it was level 40, but other than huge packs of oranges. I could find nothing but purples on the map. I decided it wasnt for me and wanted to just drop the mission. The only option I could find was something that completed the mission as if I'd done it, but could only be done once per 3 days. Is that the only way to drop a mission?

Thanks for any help.

Thanks for the advice on slots and powers.

When I get to level 38, I'm not sure what to take, I was going to take Frozen Aura as it sounded good, but you say to avoid it. Does it do what it says on the tin and hold all the enemies near you or not?

My other choices were going to be either Aim or Ice Patch.
They were the 2 other skills I had to miss along the way to having the pool powers I wanted.

I've seen Ice Patch in use a few times and it looked quite handy. When I took Build up, I couldn't decide whether to take Aim or Build up. Build up won the choice in the end.

After I5/6 I have done the respecs and managed to get rid of some powers that I deemed useless. Blizzard was one of them imo.

I only have a .pdf rulebook which shows the levels stop at 40. What sort of powers or extra slots can I expect after 40th?

Actually I don't have Ice Patch. My build at the moment is;

Primary
Ice Bolt (3 Acc, 3 Dmg)
Ice Blast (3 Acc, 3 Dmg)
Frost Breath (3 Acc, 3 Dmg)
Freeze Ray (2 Acc, 2 Hold, 2 Recharge)
Bitter Ice Blast (3 Acc, 3 Dmg)
Bitter Freeze Ray (2 Acc, 2 Hold, 2 Recharge)

Secondary
Chilblain (1 Acc)
Build Up (3 Recharge)
Freezing Touch (1 Acc)

Pool: Flight
Hover (1 Defense)
Fly (1 Speed)

Pool: Fitness
Swift (1 Speed)
Health (1 Heal)
Stamina (4 Endurance)

Pool: Concealment
Grant Invisibility (1 Recharge)
Invisibility (1 Endurance)
Phase Shift (1 Recharge)

Pool: Speed
Hasten (1 Recharge)
Superspeed (3 Speed)


I know it's not probably some type of uber build, but I love playing it. I use everything on the powers list except grant invisibility. I got that incase I did some grouping.

I use Superspeed/Fly to travel, maybe not the most efficient way, but its the way I enjoy the most.
Phase Shift doesn't get used a lot, but the times I do, it's been a life saver.

My usual tactics is to start with Bitter Freeze ray to hold one, Freeze ray to hold the next, then pile into the 3rd mob with Build up and the damage spells. Quite often you can fire off the cone damage spell after build up and hit all 3 mobs easily.

I *have* chosen Freezing Touch and love it. I can now solo 4 yellow mobs without any worries and never use any insps.

All I've got to do now is learn to group with more people. I've been a solo player since day one, even solo'ing Frostfire. I really need to change, and I guess at my level, I'm unlikely to bump in to the useless type of players who get you killed all the time and who put me off grouping when I was a noob. Those that have got to 35th+ I suppose must have some skill.

[ QUOTE ]
That's immobilize, not hold

[/ QUOTE ]

Oopsie.

CoH was always my second MMORPG that I played when my main game went down for service. I've yet to really even group with anyone in City.

I suppose the fact that it crashed every 1 to 5 mins since I5 didn't help either. - Last patch seemed to fix my problems, dunno why or how though.

Guess I need to get those phrases revised.

Just about to hit 35th with my ice blaster with ice manipulation.

I solo a lot and often encounter mobs in 3's.
I start my attacks with bitter freeze ray on 1 mob, then target the second mob with freeze ray. I then pile all my other attacks into the 3rd mob to finish it before the others unfreeze, and then refreeze them.

Is it worth me getting Freezing Touch which I understand is a melee attack. Does it freeze the mobs totally like freeze ray, or does it just do one of those partial holds like Chilblain which still allows them to range attack and use powers.

Thanks for any comments.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Can I convert my Influence to Prestige? Surely it can't be 1 for 1. Does it give you any options such as how much you want to convert?

[/ QUOTE ]1 million to 2000 IIRC.

[ QUOTE ]

Also, is salvage carrying capped at 9 pieces of each salvage?

[/ QUOTE ]20 pieces each.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm... Just wondered about the salvage because I've had 9 Arachnos guns for ages now and in a mission earlier, it said Salvage gained Arachnos gun, but my salvage stayed at 9.

As for the 1,000,000 inf for 2,000 prestige.
You serious that's the figure?

On missions at the moment, I get 1000 inf and 275 prestige for completion.
1,000,000 : 2,000 (500:1) is rather a harsh ratio compared to 1000: 275 (close to 4:1)

Ah well, guess its gonna take me about 9 more months to get a basic generator and mainframe. :-(

Still need to know;

The person in City Hall that creates the supergroup has a couple of options I'm not sure about;

1. Pay Rent
2. Change Influence to Presitge

Not sure on the exact wordings of those and I've not clicked them incase it does something irreversible.

My questions:

How much is rent for a small base gonna cost? Does it tell me before it takes off the prestige?

and

Can I convert my Influence to Prestige? Surely it can't be 1 for 1. Does it give you any options such as how much you want to convert?

Thanks for any answers to the above questions.

My SG has a small 4 room base (Entrance, Workshop, Control and Power) but is still short of a Mainframe and a Basic Generator. Cost of those is gonna be around 375,000 prestige and its taken me a week of getting Prestige to reach around 30,000.

Also, is salvage carrying capped at 9 pieces of each salvage?