Neuronia

Invader isnt' so bad, you can just get alts to stagger the Mayhems.

I can't stand Born in Battle, stalled my level 26 Dom for so long farming the 10 mil damage. Villain Geas is kinda grindy but not so bad.

Mostly I can't stand Born in Battle.

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I'll pose a question for other groups: When your teams saw that dUmb was running storms, did your lineups change at all or did you practice differently?

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I remember there was a time when PCJL and you guys (well us guys, wtf stop confusing me!!!!1111! ) ran Storms ALL the time. Except PCJL ran this passive turtle and you guys had some Jolt hopped up Fire/Storms or something that would stack like 1431414133523511 immobs with the tier 1 then drop Freezing Rain. So rite nao.

ANyway, Proj would usually have us run two Kins, or two Rads against stuff like that...the idea being the +Recovery would help and so would the -Res. Sadly, what would really happen is Yosef and Syph would get into an old couple fight, Stryker and I would get tagged with Hurricane and Proj would sob quietly and helplessly.

I have a 50 Thugs/Poison, kinda Accoladed and IOd that I bring out every now and then and he does fine.

Have a 50 Necro/Pain that I nominally made for PvP but I find too boring to play in either setting, especially with everyone and their mother having a Thugs/Pain or Whatever/Pain these days.

PvPing with my MM is fun, I just dislike fighting /Pain MMs. Bodyguard+Aura + a beatings from Gang War = sad Kara.
The closest I've come to overcoming one was with my Plant/Psi Dom, oddly enough and I had 4 purples running at the time and spammed PSW and such like crazy.

Still haven't found that elusive mix of exiciting, annoying and non-soporific MM for PvP, though my Thugs/Poison is very nice.

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I've played redside almost exclusively for the past three years or so now. However, my server, Champion, is / was in desperate need of bubblers for Rikti mothership raids, so I gritted my teeth, and made a new Force Field / Dark Blast Defender.

Having managed to slog my way through that, I did some radio missions in Kings Row. Wow, they finally added stores there!

Then came the Positron Task Force. "Hey guys, come to Steel to meet me and start my TF!" "Okay, great, we're here in Steel." "Okay, good. Now, go to Skyway." Huff, huff, huff. "Okay, we're done in Skyway." "Great! Now come back to Steel!" Huff, huff, huff. "Okay, we're here." "Cool. Now go beat up these guys in Skyway!" "Again? Okay." Huff, huff, huff. "Vahzilok are terminated, sir." "Good job, guys. Now, head off to Perez Park." And so on, and so forth...



Why do people still play blueside again?

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I play Blueside because I have a large base, accumulated loot and I don't have to fight Snakes or Contaminated at levels 1-5.

I play Blueside because I can clear that same Posi TF in an hour to an hour and a half for 64 Merits.

I play Blueside because I can clear a Synapse TF for 59 Merits (?) in about an hour and a half or two.

By the time I'm level 20, I have almost enough Merits to afford a LOTG 7.5. Level 30 run a Katie (heh), then I cruise to level 35, run some fast ITFs or join FarmTank on a speed ITF/LGTF, collect more Merits with chances for purple drops as well.


Villainside:

Run Virgil Tarikoss for what is it now, 10 or 12 Merits.
Then I can do a Silver Mantis SF for 30 odd Merits...yeah.

So about 50 Merits, 65-70 if you did some story arcs. That's as much as I'd get in a Posi run.


I can get more rewards more quickly Blueside.
I don't have to do a Patron arc for my Epic powers Blueside.

Redside content kicks Blueside content in the posterior consistently.
There isn't enough content, not enough zones, not enough Merit sponging activities at the lower levels either.
Now, AE has made me play MORE Villains because I can skip the tedious Kalinda/Burke arcs and have my friend's Elec/Shield Brute just PL me to 22 or so.

Would love at least ONE grindy low-level SF that can be half-stealthed for 60-70 Merits.

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Fundamentally, you want the market to be a store. You believe that inventions should be provided to anyone who asks for them. This overlooks the notion of IOs as alternative progress for characters. They are not something that everyone is supposed to automatically attain simply by asking the interface for them. They are intended to be something attained through effort and play. Whether that effort is spent at the market or through long hours of play isn't particularly relevant - what matters is that it takes personal investment in some activity to attain it. The devs need us to spend calendar time on that investment. They don't care if we're logged in or not, just whether we're engaged enough to stay subscribed. I guarantee you that chasing IOs is keeping a subset of the playerbase engaged and hanging around.

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Count me in both these subsets.

I couldn't have been happier when they made Merits, thus allowing me to obtain a part of my shinies through staggered gameplay. I was proven wrong when they also made Pool As, Pool Bs, Pool C+D and specific rare salvage available though the Ticket system.

Now, if I find prices for salvage too high on the Market, I just drop 540 tickets (a laughably low amount) for a Rare of my choice. Or I might just dump a bunch into Pool A rolls and collect my millions later on.

The only thing that could make things better would be costume pieces, purples and Respec recipes through Merits or Ticket vendors.

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Even if we accept that inventions are now a pervasive part of the game (hard for me to accept since they are still not required), my own experience allows me to categorically reject the notion that we have to become marketeers to get rich enough to by damn near anything. Nor do we have to suffer unduly because of those marketeers that are out there. If we did, I wouldn't be both heavily IO'd and stupid rich.

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Perception does not meet reality in many cases, sadly.
I still hear, many many times each day, my sgmates in global saying stuff is 'too expensive' on the Markets, that they'll 'never get my shiny or IO out my toons'.

Yes, yes, the game is designed around SOs. Unless you want to do hard tasks in which case IOs make it a breeze. Unless you want to speed run ITFs/LGTFS/STFs/LRSFs in which case IOs are required. Unless you want to be part of the 'gang' when your sgmates and friends have set bonuses all over their character descriptions.


Sadly, notion was set aside when IOs were not only launched but made available through random drops in normal gameplay, the Market and other sources. Add in the "grass is greener" syndrome and the innate competitiveness of some players and you will get your "standard IO build" for various tasks.

Anyway, getting far afield.

I'm not going to point fingers at people that make cash off the Market as I do it myself every day. I am glad we have alternate sources for stuff though, so that the complaints I heard from various quarters about IOs being unavailable or at least too expensive have subsided a bit.

Very nice!

GG Artic and co., last one was a nailbiter :-)

Yeah it looks like it, going to be helping out one of the teams.

"Farm Kara in 3...2...1..."

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Drama... like the time I got called a bad leader for letting everyone in my SG play and still win?

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That was epic. Can anyone else say they had 3-4 people quit because they won an official and everyone played?

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Wait what? Was this with OS or another SG?
What happened if you don't mind sharing?

If cities seem like ghost towns, try joining one of the popular badge or social channels on your favorite server. Lots of teaming through there.

Most people are also in missions or AE so try using the /search tool to tag up with people.

Welcome back!

Double post ftws I guess.

For me it started when Sabin and Stryker on Pinnacle got in touch with me while I was on my Emp and asked if I was interested in joining Statesman's Watch (later Integrity).
I was like, why not...my experience at that point was getting rolled by HVND on Champion, so I wasn't too optimistic...

They set up some practices where they'd have a Tanker in the middle and everyone would try to coordinate their damage spikes on the Tanker...then we'd have the Emps run around and try to keep buffs up while being spiked. Soon we picked up Yosef, Syph, tagged up with Projects and added Psyrene, Killobot, vAse and a bunch of others. There were some transitioning people that joined for a few weeks like Mags, Omega and so on. Mags was awesome. He'd get on vent and go "Yosef, you are just terrible. How do you ever get on target?"

We'd just laugh and laugh.

We mostly went with Yosef and vAse on Blaster, with Proj alternating on Blater or Rad/Psi. Syph was on Sonic when he wasn't AFK, Stryker and I on Emp most of the time...Killo would Kin and Psyrene and the others would rotate in as needed.

Our line-up never really changed and we developped some great chemistry after a while. We were never really going to beat Velocity, JAL or PX but we had some great tilts with dUmb and PCJL (BOTH of them ran Storm teams...) and switched places with them for like forever.

Eventually Projects moved on to go to college, Stryker got a new job and our leadership basically collapsed and we dispersed to other teams...myself to Paragon Elite, Awesome Avengers and now dUmb, the others to WoW or other interests.

Was fun, learning how to buff, evade, do all that stuff.

Nice read Emp, did a history of Arena issues 4-10 (?)
Actually did a history of Arena article...it should be archived in the City Scoop Archives here, pasting it off RedTomax's site. Everyone helped out with this one, from Avid to SuperMax to PositronBot to Ajax...

By Neuronia




There was a time when giants walked Paragon City. Not Devouring Earth monsters or Council Mekmen, but players whose blood raced as fast as the ice blasts they threw from their palms. It was a time of great upheavals, where players could remove themselves from play for entire matches, stack powers to make themselves invincible and rivalries were bitter and unforgiving.

This was a time that belonged to groups with names such as Tribute, HVND, Lion's Den, Sitting Ducks, Lords of the Dead, Freaks of Legend, Hell Raisers, Penance and countless others. This was the Golden Age of Arena PvP.

Scores were...a little higher than they are now:

Freaks vs. JAL (Golden Age)


Test PvP Through the Sands of Time

103 Meg patch on test, if it's Dom changes/Issue 15 might be there instead. >.>

Hey Ella

My Mind/Fire has 72.50 % in build 1 (Single target with Black Scorp PP and Stealth Pool) and 60% in build 2. I perma often in my first and it's iffy in build 2. I have 3-slotted Hasten in both builds and Geas/Force of Nature in a pinch.

Just putzing around in Sharkhead on build 2 (AoEs/Leadership/Mako) I was able to overlap Dom though the window is small.

I typically have Dom on Auto at all times, so have to click Hasten as soon as it acitvates, or at least have Hasten ready for that occurence.

You likely won't perma in zones, sadly. I can only perma when activating Force of Nature or with outside buffs occasionally.

(P.S. Deth to fite klubbers )

All the best EvilRyu, thanks for adding some much needed humour and balance to the forums.

The Devs aren't going to tell you specifically what exploitive behaviour is, as they do not wish to encourage it.

This is a monthly subscription MMO.
It's better for them if you spend MORE time doing tasks and levelling than spending LESS time.

If you zip to 50 inside of 2-3 hours, you'll likely raise some eyebrows.
If you play efficiently (read 'playing smart within the confines of the game and your archetype), there should not be any issues...

Angel wins an Internet.
Awesome!

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I want to dance with you.

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Does anyone else think that Reichsman looks amusingly reminiscent of M. Bison?

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Thanks to his subtle influence...

You know what would be neat? A 5th Column zone invasion once you finish the TF, tied to custom weapons and an accolade...

Hoping it's worth 35ish Merits on both sides and can't wait to debuff and farm Reichsmann like a plot of land.

Nice article!

I find my Plant/Psi Assault Dom a great deal of fun.
Kat/Regen made me love Scrappers again.
My Mind/FF is perenially fun and adds a depth of variety to most encounters.
My Ill/Rad was fun and fast to level but got shelved months ago, got 'boring'.
VEATs are great. You can take them in many directions and teams love you for the buffs.

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The most I'll budge is maybe reducing the AV lvls down one. Other than that it's fine. I should think that the STF should be bumped up in diff.

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Agreed. Also, why does the ITF give more merits, but takes about the same time as the LRSF and is far easier? Can we please bump up the merit reward to 30? At least?

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Completion times.

On average, people complete the LRSF more quickly than they do the ITF. Heck, I know on some servers people do Master LRSF runs in under an hour and regular LRSF runs in 45 minutes or so.

They have to take this into account when increasing rewards. Make the rewards higher, more people speed run and more people try it 'the regular way'. Some people trying 'the regular way' find themselves unable to complete, which doesn't register on completion times, sadly.

In all fairness, LRSF should be in the 30-35 Merit range. The problem is half the TF is fairly easy (Tech issues aside) and the last mission is a challenge far beyond the first few missions (Vindicators can get though for some groups), thus skewing the times and so on.

Tried one of the Dev's Choice arcs. First mission I get ambushed by an Elite Boss with no warning at all from the contact. I don't run on high difficulty ratings either.

How is this supposed to be enjoyable? If your missions are supposed to be challenging or related to larger team size, tell us something like: "Hey Neuronia, I have an urgent matter but this will prove difficult. Please consider bringing along some help."

That way, I'll know to avoid it if I'm on a low-damage type.

I went Phase with my Kat/Regen, but I go Phase with almost anything.

Look to add a Steadfast Res/Defense into Reconstruction or anywhere else that allows Res slotting (3% defense is handy). I like going Numina Proc/Miracle Proc/Regen Tissue Proc in Health myself, but ymmv.

Also, consider Shuriken if you're going with that pool. Its damage is kinda lulzy but it's nice having some range. Also allows Apocalypse/Devastation slotting for hit points and the proc.

Not a big Kat/Regen expert though. Don't know if Werner PvPs on his but he might be more help.

Surprising how many people don't know the exemplaring system.

Did a Speed Posi a few weeks ago, a Blaster hopped in that had all of 3 attacks at level 15 but at least three power pools. He seemed genuinely interested in obtaining as many power pools as he could get.

We ghost the first mission, make good speed on the next one and he mentions that he isn't getting any experience (he was level 22 when he joined.)

"Well no, we mentioned this. You'll be gaining more influence, some prestige and 64 Reward Merits that you can trade in for Recipe rolls or save up..."

'How many power pools can I get?'

"Ummm 4 pools and your epic?"

''I'm not getting any experience, how do I level?'

"Well, you're capped at 15 but you're more than welcome to help us. There are 15 missions though and this is long. By the way, you might want to respec into more attacks."

At this point the other members are begging me to kick him, but given I have near infinite patience with new players, I try to make this work for another mission.

'How do I respec?'

"Well there is a TF in Independence Port. See Jane Hallaway off the bridge. Here, join the Champion badge channel and see if they can help out. You can also get recipes to do it...I can grab one for you if you want <had some stored at Went's>."

He quit team, looking bemused and hoping to level to 41 so he could get his Ancillary Pool.

Then there was the guy that adverted a Speed Posi and AFKd for supper in the second mission, for 10-15 minutes.