Lord Mayhem

Myth: Marketeers/Farmers/Gold-Sellers/Satanists/Bunnies are responsible for stupidly high prices on the BM/WW.
Fact: Impatient players paying stupidly high prices are responsible for stupidly high prices on the BM/WW.

Myth: Bane Spiders are weak.
Fact: Bane Spiders are strong (and pretty!). Bane Spiders are not supposed to be Night Widows with maces instead of claws.

Myth: Click-based mez protection is superior to toggle-based mez protection.
Fact: Toggle-based mez protection is superior to click-based mez protection in almost every way nowadays.

Myth: The second mission of the ITF goes faster if a lone scrapper runs ahead and wipes out all of the cysts.
Fact: The lone scrapper faceplants while his/her teammates drown in multiple ambushes.

Myth: The Devs hate villains.
Fact: The Devs hate all players equally... allegedly

Personally I'd probably go with a Kheldian for nova form if I was doing this, but another good option is an Archery/Energy blaster - you can have Aim, BU, your entire single target attack chain (3 attacks including Blazing Arrow with its snipe-level damage) and a fast recharging cone attack (Fistful of Arrows) by L10 and Archery is very easy on the endurance bar.

Caltrops/Quicksand/Glue, nukes (especially if they have +dmg too), and too much defence.

You also have to think about combinations of powers in a custom faction. One of my global friends had an arc with Ice Armour characters who were also being buffed by Lieuts with /Cold Domination shield buffs - that wasn't fun, even with plenty of ToHit/Acc they were hard to hit. The mobs weren't that nasty damage-wise - it just took so long to defeat them (because I was constantly missing) that it became dull and frustrating.

I'm fed up of crafting.

I hate crafting - well it's production/manufacturing really, because if you can't customise what you're making during production then it's not really crafting, imho - I hate "crafting" in pretty much every MMO I play and try to avoid it as much as possible. Here in CoH/V I really don't see what crafting adds atmospherically. Crafting temp powers, sure I can see that as inventing, but crafting enhancements really does nothing for me from a RP/immersion perspective and I don't find it enjoyable.

I love set IO enhancements and how they let me customise my builds, and I like auction houses well enough, but I just hate crafting - it's a timesink and a chore, I get no enjoyment from it - I wish invention enhancements just dropped fully formed instead of having recipes and salvage.

Which is ironic really because I make billions of inf from regularly crafting and selling set IOs (oranges mainly), presumably to people who can't be bothered to make them and would rather buy pre-mades. I profit from the laziness and/or ignorance of others which makes the rest of my gaming experience much smoother/easier, letting me enjoy levelling characters for most of the time rather than wasting my playing time on farming.

The temptation is too great, and I'm too addicted to expensive heavily IO'd builds, so I feel that personally I would be stupid not to make inf on the markets doing this because it suits my strengths (I have a background in offshore finance so I understand supply and demand - not that it's that difficult to understand anyway in CoH/V, though I see people struggling...) and it doesn't impinge on my MMO playing style too much (i.e. big profits for minimum time invested and minimal hassle/risk, so for most of my time I can just play however I wish).

But honestly? I wish I couldn't marketeer, even though I do get a measure of satisfaction from it, or I wish that I didn't feel the need to marketeer - because as much as I love my IO'd builds now (and could never go back to SOs) I do miss the innocent days of pre-I9 SO'd builds when this game was so casual you never had to worry about your inf balance once you got past L30.

I hated Rogue Vanguard on most of my characters until I did those arcs with my Bane Spider, Night Widow and /SR Brute - being able to avoid most of their debuffs/damage mitigates most of their nastiness.

Actually one of the things I love about CoH/V is the fact that just because an enemy group was difficult with one character doesn't mean they'll be difficult with another, and ditto for those you find easy with some characters. It gives the game a lot of replay value.

I love exploring in MMOs - admittedly my Bartle-type is heavily skewed towards Explorer - and even though I know the layout of every zone in CoH/V, and wish we had some even larger (and newer) zones I could explore, I still find new details quite often in our existing zones that I haven't seen before and which make me smile.

Just a month ago I realised that one of the buildings in eastern St Martial has a garage/pavement sale outside, with lots of items (mostly junk) individually priced - I've been through that area dozens upon dozens of times before and had never noticed it until then. There are also amusing signs in some shop windows (again, St Martial is quite good for this) and the funny outdoor NPC chat (thanks War Witch!) rewards exploration too.

It's little details like that which really reward you for just wandering around - and being set mostly in urban cityscapes, CoH/V zones are comparably very dense with detail compared to most other MMOs. Also those kinds of atmospheric details, plus all the little easter egg details hidden throughout the game, just make the game feel as if it has been lovingly crafted by programmers and artists that really adore their job and this game.

But I also totally agree with the people who say that forcing players into slow or long distance travel is the wrong way to encourage exploration, because nobody likes repeating slow/long journeys that they have experienced before (and some people just hate long journeys altogether - sometimes even I feel like that) - there's no added value there, especially when you just want to go do a mission or meet friends - it's just a timesink.

So I can say that I like larger zones and (more importantly) lots of detail in those zones, but I also like having fast travel available from the start - you can't force exploration, but it's great to see a game encourage it - and adding interesting details to the world is the best way to do that.

So while CoH/V doesn't have the most expansive MMO world, it's still very dense with detail that rewards exploration (CoV more than CoH zones, I find) - and while I can't really say that this game ever gave me the same sense of "adventuring in the wilds" that I got from exploring zones for the first time in EverQuest or World of Warcraft, there are still plenty of rewarding details if you look for them.

Roll on Going Rogue - for me it's the most exciting thing that has happened to this game since CoV/I6 because we'll be getting multiple new outdoor zones that we have never seen before - I can't wait!

Most of the Cyborg pack shoulders, the Valkyrie cloak and belt (and lately the shoulders/gloves/boots too), Large Robotic gloves, the Samurai chestpiece and "belt", the assassin/ninja face/mask, and the male face with green eyes (Face 7?) have all been used many times on my characters.

Aside from that I really try not to overuse anything.

I'd use it for mayhems/safeguards, because right now they're the only content I feel that I absolutely have to do every 5 levels (mainly mayhems on redside for the explore badges for the accolade power, but also for certain mayhem/safeguard temp powers).

I know there's no mandatory content in CoH/V, but my duo partner and I treat mayhems/safeguards as mandatory content simply because they're a pain to try and get once you're L50, whereas most other accolade-required badges are easier to get at L50, whether via Ouro or whatever.

So yeah I'd like to see self-exemplaring - either that or mayhem/safeguard missions added to Ouroboros.

My sole speedster is a Fire/Kin Controller - it seems hilarious now that it's the de facto farming build, when he was made in I5, levelled mostly in I8 (i.e. pre-Inventions), and has been stuck at L16 since then (mainly because he was one of the characters abandoned when I went on hiatus away from the game in I9-I12). Since coming back I've mainly played redside, though I must admit I'm not overly keen with how Kinetics plays (as much as I love the set, it's just not for me), plus I'm not so keen to be labelled a farmer-in-the-making if I was to play it now

His bio is as follows:

Sunswift
Jason West was born with an unusual mutation; he can alter the vibration frequency of molecules. This lets him move at incredible speeds, but he can also speed up or slow anyone nearby. By vibrating the air molecules around him, exciting atoms to release energy, Jason can cause various fiery effects too. There is a price to pay for such power; overuse of his gift leaves Jason exhausted.

His powers first manifested when he was working as a clerk at a bank and a gang of Outcasts tried to rob it. When they threatened one of his co-workers Jason leapt into action, knocking out all of the gangers before they knew what was happening. Having always craved public adoration, the media circus following his first heroic outing persuaded the speedster to become a registered superhero. His fame peaked when he beat the hero Synapse in a race across Paragon City for charity, but afterwards the newspapers began to criticise Sunswift for loving fame more than justice. Now he must prove those criticisms false...

I did have plans to make an MA/SR Scrapper as more of a pure Flash/Quicksilver-like speedster, but I was somewhat discouraged by how long it took /SR to mature on my brute, so that may not happen now.

To rip one of the few good ideas from Champions Online, maybe Snipes should be changed into an attack that you charge up by holding down the hotkey, then release it to fire. Then the longer you charge it up, the more damage it does, perhaps up to maximum damage equal to a current snipe with BU+Aim. Oh and remove the interrupt from it.

Then snipes could still be used like they are now as an alpha-strike (by building them up fully) or to pull or finish a runner, but they could also be used as a filler in an attack chain by just tapping them (or only charging them up for however long you needed to fill before another attack recharged). That would make them more universally useful and even a dominator or defender could find a use for them.

Actually with such a change it could become a preferred attack for defenders/corruptors - no longer trapped in such a long animation, you could use your snipe at any time and just stop charging it (and release the shot) whenever you needed to be doing something else, such as applying an emergency heal.

I hardly ever use snipes on the few characters I've taken them for.

I find them probably the most useful on Blasters, occasionally for pulling (having stealth and/or using terrain for partial line-of-sight blocking helps for single pulling btw) or an alpha-strike, or for taking down a far distant runner.

My Corruptors don't take them (nor would any Defenders I made - though my Dark/Sonic Def didn't have option to take one) as they would generally open a fight with a control or debuff.

I think it's crazy that snipes were given to Dominators instead of something useful, as they would always open combat with controls. Sure, my Mind/Psi took his snipe, but only as a set mule to get more +rchg for perma-dom - it's not even on his hotkey bar.

I think it's even more insane that Stalkers were given snipes in 3/4 of their patron pools, especially as they do so much less damage than Assassin's Strike.

I have 17 level 50s, but not one of each AT yet. They are listed below in the order they hit L50: The first 2 hit L50 in I7, the next 4 in I8, and the remainder in I12-I15 after an I9-I11 year-long hiatus, with only the last 3 hitting L50 post-I14/AE.

Lord Mayhem - Magic Brute (Fiery Melee / Fiery Aura / Mace)
Baron Steelfist - Science Mastermind (Robotics / Dark Miasma / Soul)
Nightbow - Tech Blaster (Archery / Energy Manipulation / Force) - purpled-up
Powerbreaker - Science Brute (Energy Melee / Electric Armour / Mace)
Trinary - Science Warshade (Umbral Blast / Umbral Aura) - partially purpled
Winter Tiger - Science Scrapper (Claws / Willpower / Body)
Sergeant Havoc - Tech Corruptor (Fire Blast / Radiation Emission / Mace)
Marshall Saint - Natural Soldier (/ Mace) - Bane & Crab purpled up
Ghost Spider - Tech Stalker (Energy Melee / Energy Aura / Leviathan)
Agent Godwin - Mutant Dominator (Mind Control / Psionic Assault / Mace) - partially purpled
Raven Shadow - Natural Brute (Super Strength / Dark Armour / Soul)
Arctic Prince - Mutant Corruptor (Ice Blast / Storm Summoning / Mu)
Krog the Conqueror - Natural Brute (Battle Axe / Willpower / Leviathan)
Mistress Distress - Natural Widow (/Soul) - Night Widow purpled up (working on Fort)
Magma Colossus - Magic Dominator (Earth Control / Fiery Assault / Leviathan)
Punchy the Loon - Magic Brute (War Mace / Super Reflexes / Leviathan)
Stormcharger - Magic Stalker (Electrical Melee / Ninjitsu / Mu)

None were powerlevelled: Mayhem was mostly teamed, Baron/Winter/Krog were mostly soloed but with occasional PuGs (as were the last 20 levels of Powerbreaker), and the remainder were played mostly in a regular duo (pacted in the case of the latter few).

So what have I learned and what impressions have I gleaned?

• I love CoH/V's basic gameplay and tactics in combat more than any other MMORPG.
• I prefer redside in every way possible (all I really miss from CoH are Blasters and Warshades).
• I like playing offence (damage, debuffs & control) more than support (tanking, heals & buffs).
• I adore Warshades, Bane Spiders & Night Widows - so pretty and strong!
• I like Brutes a lot, but Masterminds don't suit me.
• I definitely need to level more Blasters (have several low level) and most will Go Rogue.
• Super Jump is my favourite travel power.
• I don't like playing melee characters without CJ+Hurdle.
• Archery is my favourite powerset of all and Rain of Arrows is my favourite power.
• Rad Emission is my favourite buff/debuff set, with Dark Miasma close behind, but Kinetics doesn't suit me.
• Earth Control is my favourite control set, but Illusion and Plant Control are winning me over too.
• I want to play Gravity Control, if only for Propel, but just can't stick with that set past L15ish.
• I'd need a very persuasive thematic excuse to not play /Willpower on future Brutes/Scrappers.
• I'd need a very persuasive thematic excuse to not play /Ninjitsu on future Stalkers.
• I'd need a very persuasive thematic excuse to not play /Energy on future Blasters.
• I would definitely play Mace, Axe and Claws again, but not Energy Melee.
• Earth Control and Storm Summoning make me feel more like a superhero/supervillain than any other sets.
• Earth/Fire redeemed Doms for me after struggling with my Mind/Psi.
• Elec/Nin redeemed Stalkers for me after struggling with my EM/EA.
• I want to get a Defender, Tanker, Controller and Peacebringer to L50 for a full set of all 14 ATs (working on Controller atm).
• I despise click-based mez protection (prefer toggles).
• As AVs go I prefer Nemesis and Requiem over Lord Recluse and Tyrant, and I wish Mako and Ghost Widow jointly led Arachnos.
• Statesman is a git; I would rather see Manticore, Positron, or preferably Back Alley Brawler leading the Freedom Phalanx.
• I hate boring Longbow!
• Viridian gives out my favourite arc in the game.
• Seer Marino tells my favourite story in the game.
• Vernon von Grun is my favourite contact in the game.
• Being able to cooperate and knowing how to play your character makes you a better player than your powersets/build.
• I still don't like PvP in MMORPGs and feel it works far better in FPS games (like Planetside).
• I like Inventions a lot more than I thought I would, but I don't like MA/AE as much as I thought I would.
• I am an ebil marketeer, but wish I didn't feel the need/temptation to be one.
• I don't understand how players can be inf-poor in this game, or why they pay silly prices for things then moan about it.
• I don't see the point of TOs/DOs/SOs anymore and haven't used them since I12.
• I15 disappointed me, but I16 makes up for it by giving me Claw/ Brutes and Archery/TA Corruptors.
• Base building is fun, but it still takes too long and the base system needs expanding and improving.
• I'm getting very bored of the existing content, but still enjoy playing the game.
• I wish we had new Dev-created mission content in every issue, like in the old days.
• I wish the Devs would revamp all pre-I3 CoH missions/contacts and add new mission content to all hazard zones.
• This game has the most friendly community and civil forums of any MMO I've ever played.
• We have by far the most responsive and innovative Dev team of any of the major AAA MMOs.
• We get more free content than most AAA MMOs.
• Post-I16 the only powerset proliferation I'll want is Spines for Brutes, Traps for Controllers and Ice/Ice for Stalkers.
• I wish I hadn't unsubscribed during my year-long hiatus, especially when my duo partner reminds me how far ahead he is on veteran badges.
• I still haven't deleted my L17 BS/Regen Scrapper, Count Valkryst, the first character I ever made in CoH in I5 (on Union) even though I'm unlikely to play him again and have remade him as DB/WP (on Defiant).
• I will probably be here until they turn the servers off, even if/when SW:TOR lures me away for a lot of my MMO-playing time.