Patteroast

I really enjoy having the Ally Heal from Alchemist on my Force Field Defender. The ally rez is also quite handy, even on characters who already have a rez... if things go really bad, I can rez someone while waiting for my main rez to recharge.

I've found a lot of the others to be handy from time to time... the Combat Shield toggle, the placate power... but the ones that I've probably found the least useful tend to me the AoE hold and sleep, what with their low magnitude. I might get more out of them if I used them on character where I could stack mezzes, but I never really think to do that.

The little base by the arbiter in Sharkhead also works.

Not going to post mine (they're all in my detailed character list in my signature in the unlikely event that someone's interested), but here are a few that I've seen from random people over the years that were memorable:







Very fun to read out loud.

I still don't get it. It's not like totally avoiding playing your character speeds it up more than a tiny bit in the long term. I want my badges too, and I like playing my characters. And it doesn't piss me off. Like I said, from my point of view, I'm going to be not playing my characters at some points anyway, so it's not that I'm getting rewarded for not playing, but I'm getting a little reward for going to a certain spot when I need to stop playing.

I can agree with it being annoying trying to remember where to log out, and going to that place... I decided that if I was going to work on Day Jobs on some characters, I might as well work on it on all of them... and I have over 100. All but the recently made ones and a handful of others have all the day job badges for their level and alignment, and it was a relief to not have to worry about where I logged out again (although it's started up somewhat again with some of my characters switching sides...) Getting there involved a lot of running around high level zones on level 5 characters.

I dunno. I can see the reasoning for most of the hate, even agree with some of it, but it just doesn't make me angry. And I guess I just don't have the same attitude in regards to the 'being rewarded for being logged off' situation. The fact that I have a crazy number of alts and most of them spend lots of time logged off probably helps!

Anyway. After working through that, there's something I realize that I should have said a while ago to the OP:

Congrats!

I just don't get why people focus their day jobs hate on the fact that you need to be logged out to get them. You must log out eventually! All you need to do is stand somewhere and you get an extra badge for the time when you can't play anyway. I don't think that day jobs are the most amazing addition to the game ever, but I do enjoy a few of the powers they provide, and I've been happy to get a few extra badges. If you're refusing to log in because you might be a couple weeks late on your year-long quest to get them all, you're doing it wrong.

Sorry, I can understand not liking them, I can understand thinking they're a poorly designed mistake, but that specific line of reasoning just baffles me.

Immobilizing angry enemies and blasting at them from a corner that I can duck around is one of my lowbie Gravity/Energy Dom's most used survival strategies. And Lift is also quite handy when I find someone nasty has gotten near me. I don't know why someone would consider a mass hold, even with a long recharge to be a 'maybe' kind of power on a Dom, but I guess I'm not an uber-player or something. I play all sorts of powersets, regardless of if others consider them sub-par.

My first character and second level 50, who still wears the first costume I ever made with the costume editor, is my Claws/Invulnerability Scrapper named Patteroast. Made him in late November '04, in the late days of Issue 2, on my cousin's computer because my computer couldn't run the game. I didn't get to play a second time until February '05...

My first character on Champion is Captain Jamaica, a Sonic/Sonic Defender who is currently level 17. I made him in early September '05 for a friend's internationally-themed supergroup. I've only really played him much in the last year, that's why he's so low... and he's my highest on the server. Sorry for sucking at being on Champion.

I'm about a month or two from finishing all day jobs on the only character I've fully side-switched so far, and I played him every time I felt like it, and frequently forgot to switch him to new locations for four or five weeks instead of three.

So yeah. You didn't need to avoid playing your characters. To make it take a full month longer to finish the day jobs, you would have to spend a full month playing that character. Over 700 hours. In the grand scheme of all the day job badges, any amount of time saved by not playing your characters is trivial to the point of not being worth considering.

I know other people have different feelings towards the whole day jobs system, and those feelings can't be 'wrong', but I just don't understand, and feel that people who complain about them are thinking about it the wrong way. I just made a habit of logging off in a few spots, and even when I occasionally messed up, I just made sure to do it right the month after that. Now I have about 100 characters with every day job badge for their level and side, that I don't worry about until they level up to a new one.

I use the notes much more frequently than the ratings. Friends and acquaintances get notes, explaining how I know them for people I barely know... and terrible players get notes reminding me of how they're terrible. I don't like having the stars display all the time, so I rarely use them.

Wait, what part of Lady Grey supposedly absolutely requires a hold? Seriously asking. I've run it plenty of times, and I'm in the dark on this.

There is some serious spread... but it seems people are clustered in about three categories: a month or less, around six months, and years. I seem to fall mostly in the third category, occasionally as quick as the second.

Man... when I got a level 50 in six months, I was playing most days, usually long sessions, and rarely playing anyone other than that one character. I know that crazy altism is what lead me to the one character who took nearly five years, but six months was me trying really hard (especially so since that was my first, and I really wanted to get there!)

Nowadays, a character getting to 50 in under two years seems fast to me.

I'm personally much more interested in trying out different sets than in getting the 'best' one. Even if there was one powerset or combo that was obviously better than everything else in the game, I'd still make characters from every powerset. Also, most single target sets have an AoE in them, and all the AoE-oriented sets have lots of single target attacks in them.

I dunno. I obviously don't 'get it', and I know my opinion has no bearing on minmaxers and powergamers. But from where I'm sitting, there's not much of a problem.

Another problem is that this suggestion seems to involve splitting a lot of the buff/debuff sets into two seperate powersets.

I dunno. I just don't really see a problem being addressed by this, personally. Defenders are my favorite archetype as-is, although I will freely admit that I only ever solo on a few of them.

I would also dispute that there's no equivalent archetype on redside to Defenders... Corruptors are just inverted Defenders. Definitely closer to them than Blasters.

Masterminds are definitely the most unique of the standard archetypes, but making a clone for blueside does not seem to be a good idea, even if you couldn't make Masterminds heroic now... which you can.

I'm an Infinity native, and I love the Ouroboros Portal Wiki. I probably wouldn't use an Infinity-specific wiki, since I already have everything I'd want on Ouroboros Portal, plus I have all my character on other servers, too!

There's categories set up for people to put their own personal character lore in the O-Portal Wiki as well.

Here's my list... 13 level fifties out of 113 characters, since Issue 2. I don't really farm... even if I go to a farm mission with some friends I tend to leave after two runs at most because I get bored.

Explomadoza (Empathy/Electrical/Power Defender)
Created July 1, 2005. (Issue 4)
Hit 50 January 2, 2006. (Issue 6)
Six months, two issues.

Patteroast (Claws/Invulnerability/Body Scrapper)
Created November 20, 2004. (Issue 2) [My very first character!]
Hit 50 December 16, 2006. (Issue 8)
Twenty-five months, six issues.

Professor Orange (Mercenaries/Poison/Mace Mastermind)
Created October 14, 2005. (CoV Beta/Issue 6)
Hit 50 March 13, 2007. (Issue 8)
Seventeen months, two issues.

Dr. Fejwol (Stone/Stone/Earth Tanker)
Created February 23, 2005. (Issue 3)
Hit 50 June 7, 2007. (Issue 9)
Twenty-eight and a half months, six issues.

Asoposl (Fire/Radiation/Fire Controller)
Created April 5, 2005. (Issue 3)
Hit 50 February 10, 2008. (Issue 11)
Thirty-four months, eight issues.

Kiviuq (Ice/Ice/Ice Dominator)
Created January 4, 2006. (Issue 6)
Hit 50 March 22, 2008. (Issue 11)
Twenty-six and a half months, five issues.

Particle Accelerator (Energy/Energy/Mace Stalker)
Created November 8, 2005. (Issue 6)
Hit 50 August 4, 2008. (Issue 12)
Thirty-three months, six issues.

Captain Kalamari (Tri-form Warshade)
Created February 19, 2006. (Issue 6)
Hit 50 February 1, 2009. (Issue 13)
Thirty-six and a half months, seven issues.

Crater Jr. (Stone/Willpower/Pyre Brute)
Created May 18, 2007; rerolled January 31, 2008. (Issue 9, 11)
Hit 50 February 13, 2009. (Issue 13)
Twenty-one months, four issues; twelve and a half months, two issues from reroll.

Lord Richter (Earth/Sonic/Stone Controller)
Created January 28, 2007. (Issue 8)
Hit 50 April 22, 2009. (Issue 14)
Twenty-seven months, six issues.

Patticus (Illusion/Trick Arrow/Psionic Controller)
Created December 13, 2005. (Issue 6)
Hit 50 July 30, 2009. (Issue 15)
Forty-three and a half months, nine issues.

Setebos (Spines/Regeneration/Darkness Scrapper)
Created March 1, 2005. (Issue 3)
Hit 50 December 15, 2009. (Issue 16)
Fifty-seven and a half months, thirteen issues.

Operative Greyling (Night Widow)
Created May 21, 2008. (Issue 12)
Hit 50 March 12, 2010. (Issue 16)
Twenty-two and a half months, four issues.

So yeah... my answer? It takes me from six months to nearly five years. So far.

My goal in all my alts is to have one of each powerset for each archetype. Because the numbers of primaries and secondaries aren't the same, sometimes to make one set I need to double on another, and I tend to pick one I liked the first time around. However, since some powersets are used by a lot of archetypes, there's a few that I have as many as five times... but nothing more than twice on the same archetype. (For reference, the powersets that I have five times are Trick Arrow, Invulnerability, Sonic Resonance, and Electric Armor. I should mention that I wouldn't even say they're my favorite powersets, it just kind of happened...)

I personally don't get the whole playing the whole set to 50 over and over thing, especially in the cases of it being the same powerset combination (I once knew someone with several level 50 Invulnerability/Super Strength Tankers), but to each their own. I know the way I make characters would drive some people crazy. If it's fun, you're doing it the right way.

ETA: If we're going into things like origins and power pools, I pick Super Jump on all of my characters unless I can think of a good reason not to. I'd say almost half of my characters have it or plan to have it.

The tentacles that people are seeing don't have to be the Hamidon itself anyway. They could easily be some variety of Devouring Earth monster. It seems pretty clear that they are Devouring Earth though. I'm sure with more time to work, Hamidon's got more than just rather large rocks running around for him.

I can only speak for myself, but I do not run task forces for the sole purpose of find the most efficient farm for loot. I run task forces to try something a bit out of the ordinary, often with lots of Archvillains, on a character. Sure, I might repeat some of the commonly run TFs on my favorite characters, but I personally enjoy running just about any TF, even the old style ones. I have not run the new incarnate TFs on live yet, but that's just because I haven't gotten to them. I've only slotted my alpha boost on one character. However, I really enjoyed the Apex run I did on beta.

Also, you can move during a fight by moving between attacks. That's all I did on say, my Stalker, when I fought Trapdoor. It is NOT a brand new strategy, it is not a direction in the way the game's going, and it's really obviously one of the easiest ways to deal with an elite boss who spawns allies who buff him. How is there an argument about this?

ETA: First post after Arcanaville!

I always prefer to run missions from a contact over farming or even just running radio/newspaper missions over and over. Although certain contacts and/or story arcs can be very annoying, and if I notice them I may try to avoid them. Still, for the most part, I switch off running different zones on different characters, especially if it's been a while since I last ran contacts in that zone.

I've been mystified as to why some people think that Trapdoor is absolutely impossible, and I think you've gotten it right.

Thing is... hopping around when enemies are nasty isn't a brand new strategy, even with the older content. I was just soloing a couple random paper missions on a level 22 Dominator who still needs some work, and I was having some trouble with lieutenants beating my face in a bit more than I wanted. So I started using my immobilize (the only mez I could reliably stack) and running around corners, darting out to blast at them.

As for Trapdoor, the character that I had the most trouble on was my Stone Tanker, and that was entirely because of mobility (I had trouble getting to and taking care of the bifurcations before the next one spawned.) And when I wanted to unlock the alpha slot on my very un-solo-friendly Empathy Defenders... I teamed with a friend. I know, crazy unheard of strategy, right?

But no. Apparently, if the tactics that many people are successfully using don't appeal to certain whiners, those tactics are wrong, don't exist, and the mission is impossible.

Things do not need to be direct mirrors in Praetoria. The best example I know: on Primal Earth, Megan Duncan (Ms. Liberty) is a Martial Arts/Invulnerability Scrapper. On Praetorian Earth, Megan Duncan (Dominatrix) has gravity powers.

Also, it's perfectly possible that in the extra time that Praetorian Hamidon has been around, it's evolved into something more than a single cell.

Hm. I have a few characters designed around how the effects of dark look now. Then again my characters aren't really based upon the whole netherworld or black magic angles of the set, but things like an embodied shadow, a manipulator of dark energy, and even simply smoke to go along with fire or electricity. I would have to say I'd be more than a little disappointed if they changed the effects so those characters didn't make sense anymore.

Not saying that I'd necessarily mind a sprucing up of the effects. Just saying that I for one would not like a drastic overhaul.

A good couple years ago, a friend of mine had a mission they really liked to farm... it might not have been the most efficient, but they had loads of fun with it. Unfortunately, they accidentally completed it one day. However, I also had the mission! So for a bit, we'd occasionally do a few runs where he'd go smash things with his brute while I'd kinda stand around and do other things (my character was NOT the right stuff for farming.) Among other things I did while I was really bored was hop around the map, spelling random things. It got to be kind of an inside joke, and a lot of the time it had to do with how his brute (named Crater) was good at smashing.




It even got to the point that when I later made a character as a sidekick to Crater (named Crater Jr.), when that sidekick character got to 50, Crater spelled out 'Crater Jr. slap okay' on the map.

So, I guess my point is, you're not the only one who's weird.