Plater

Thanks for leading the Hami raid 2 weeks ago. I'll be missing this one due to being out of town tonight.

I'll be sure to join next time. Good luck and enjoy yourselves in there.

A plant Something Blue, plant (dom pet), someone using a power (I think I was running shadowfall but iffy)
Absent from the picture Dj Zero Something blue, someone using a power, protester
Arachnos Flyer Something blue (cop uniform), GM (arachnos flyer), npc performing emotes, dead tree, brick building (debatable), someone using a power, something depicting villainy (about to ripper a cop)
Bad Cops plant, polarized PPD, brick building (debatable), someone using a power (sfx from shadowfall and domination), ragdoll physics, something blue, something depicting villainy, grafifti
Reeling a big one Npc performing an emote (Cpt Mako kicking), sunset (orange sky, but debatable), AV, beach, something blue

Edit : added items in screenshots

Regarding Grandville monsters, I think arachnoids are a bit too strong. Minions deals heavy lethal/toxic dmg and have 2-3 melee attacks. A pack of 3 minions can easily give trouble to a solo player especially if you factor that their ranged attack has a -recharge component.

Super arachnoids are just unkillable for lower dps AT and it seems that their single target melee hold got changed to a ranged hold recently (I could hover blast for 10mins above Biff one day and the next I got held doing the same thing). Combined with their high regen, this can make bosses unkillable solo. For the Biff elite boss, even at the lowest diff (+0 eb) I still can't outdamage his regen with my rad/kin corr and that's with having transfusion on auto.

I also feel that mobs with AS are a bit too strong for squishies, their AS is quick to setup and we don't have time to interrupt it (can it even be interrupted?). Also these guys tend to hit with a clobber (disorient) right after their AS, so a squishy is stuck losing over 50% of his health and having to quickly pop a breakfree or get killed.

I just tested dark embrace vs some +0/+1 arachnoids and it does really help standing toe-to-toe with them as a kinetics.

However I noticed the following, the residual sound effect of the shield gets annoying after a while and the power icon looks like overload in black instead of the regular dark embrace icon, I don't know if the icon is a bug since my only other AT with epic pools is a tanker.

I did my 2nd mayhem missions on test, this one with my 40 rad/kin corr. Everything was fun except for the hero that showed up.

Got HollowMan the illusion/FF troller. This guy is really bad for someone with no mez protection and I think he can use 1 attack that will hold/immobilize/disorient all 3 at once. He summons phantom army, phamtasm and spectral terror while blasting me with 200+ dmg repulsion bomb (had the same graphic as force bolt however). I don't know if it's containment but I got killed twice during this fight, both times I ended going to full to 0 in less than 10 with little chance to heal myself due to all the knockback and status effect he and his pets were able to inflict. As a note, I did have 4 breakfree in my tray (3x30sec and 1x60sec) and I had to use all of them before I finally managed to kill him.

I know that you can't get signature heroes anymore, but I still feel that some combos are too powerfull againts lower hp Ats with no status protection and since we have to complete mayhem missions to get our contacts now, maybe some of those heroes showing up should get a review.

Even after this morning patch, the 'Soul crystal' glowy in the red widow mission is still bugged and spawns inside a wall, so after several tries I still haven't been able to click it.

I'll try to get my rad/kin corr to 41 tomorrow and get the shield from ghost widow PPP. Soul drain is nice on paper, but the 4min recharge + need for acc means it's not really good unless you plan on 4-5 slot it. For a /kin that can FS every group of mobs, soul drain is some luxury anyway.

I'll do some test especially vs the stronger 40+ foes like longbow heavy lethal dmg and arachnoids lethal/toxic. I'll see if I can up my diff from vicious to relentless using the shield, but I somewhat doubt it since my main problem has always been status effect using bosses.

I did one mayhem mission with my em/ea brute. Rob bricks bank from the nerva broker.

Overall is was great fun tons of stuff to beat on and destroy. It wasn't too hard, I got killed once by a psy boss guarding a civillian that you can kidnap for extra time.

I got a huge rock from a coucil warehouse, description is 'ranged smash' really brutish but as a temp power with only 1 use with no acc bonus I find it's not gonna be of much use.

Mobs inside included police drone, rather annoying since they're rikti drones clones with a diff graphic so they got lots of def and I missed (deflected) 3-4 times in a row often. Psy cops aren't much trouble since most minions level have only 1 or 2 attacks but bosses are nasty with high dmg psy dmg (400+ will domination + sleep effect). I saw only 1 mech guy boss level, he spend most of his time disoriented with ET-TF but they seem similar to power tanks.

The major annoyance was when I took the money, the hero Swan spawned in the mission and since I was on the highest diff she was hero she killed me in less than 5sec. So I had to reset the mission and set it on vicious diff. I got swan again as a elite boss, she was rather hard with psy dmg and kinetic buff/debuff. I had to use some 33% luck and a 20% resist, spam aid self when it was up.

I think the signature heroes as eb/av with triangles will make those missions really hard for some AT. And since they are timed missions you won't always have time to get someone to help finish it. Also note that the broker doesn't warm you that a signature hero can come to stop and that you should bring help.

Maybe beating the signature hero should be a optionnal objective giving the temp power. So if the hero kills you, you bust out of jail and take the money to the exit (like hostages) and you get mission complete, with the bonus and your broker will intruduce you to a new contact.

Some concern I have about the blast (haven't been on test server myself yet)

The hard number description list the blasts (Mace Blast and Disruptor Blasts attacks) as doing knockback however the PPP page description list it has ' knocked down'.

Since the 2 effects do have major difference for me, I prefer knockdown to knockback, which one is the correct effect.

The tsoo mission is pretty hard if you lack some support, having 4 siphon speed on you is horrible as well as seeing 3 ancestor spirits open up with a KoBlow at the same time on you.

The first time I did this SF with my em/ea brute the AV really summoned a bunch of stuff, even with tactics and a breakfree running I was still getting confused with all the succubus. Only when you come back from a wipe, you realize that this is one big battle with 5-7 succubus, 10-15 behemoths lt and few minions and death mages.

Otherwise, this AV is one of my favorite fight Overload is just a godsend. Alone, out-numbered and loving all 3 minutes of it.

I played a dark def and /dark corr up to lvl 30.

I've read your guide and I do disagree with your opinion in powers/slotting on a few points.

Darknest night : you're right that in some groups some players seems to just go right for the anchor, that seems to be the case with your regular pick-up group. You have to pick your anchor carefully, usually a lt at the back of the group(bosses are 1st target and minions just die too fast). I think not picking darkest night is a mistake, the 25% dmg reduction will help you to solo a lot, not much vs minions but helps a lot vs bosses. Also this debuff is a killer on AV, 25% less dmg means much better chance of surviving the big hits and much less healing required. I would had wished someone had darkest night when Infernal hit my /ea brute for 1.2k dmg.

Shadowfall : I think this power is worth picking just for the stealth which helps a lot for travelling in outdoor zones. The resist bonus is also nice since psy resist is hard to come by and most brutes have 0 defense vs this type. I wished that we had a /dark corr with darkest night and shadowfall instead of 2 thermal when we did that 8man carnies missions. Those bosses were just so painful with their 400 dmg+ psy blasts. I don't see how shadowfall is nuisible to a brute aggro management, unless you're rushing head on alongside him and that's 1 good way to die often because of all the AoE/status effects in the alpha strike. Also shadowfall is a great tool for position yourself next to a spawn and hitting a maximun of foes with fearsome stare cone.

explosive blast : I never used this power, but most of the time when someone in my group use it, I hate it. The mass knockback effect just scatter the whole spawn meaning : 1. anchor debuff just lost a good chunk of their effectiveness 2. AoE effects from other players will not hit a maximun of targets. I will grant it's a great power used responsibly, especially has a oh! [censored] button but spammed it might become a nuisance to the team.

Your build and slotting
Combat jumping : I think the def boost is low on this power. The 3 extra def slot will bring it to 4% from a 2.5% base. I think those slots might be better somewhere else.

You picked recall friend at 22 probably to use with howling twilight to rez more than 1 player. It might be better to pick recall friend instead of CJ and teleport has your main travel power unless you really can't stand tp. Doing so would free up 1 power.

Twilight graps : accuracy is more important than healing. The 6 slot are good except I would put 2 acc before anything else.

Tar patch : 3 recharge will make this power almost perma and usable at each spawn in a team.

Petrifying Gaze : you might want to slot this with hold duration since it will not allow you to perma-hold a lt/minion on it's own.

Maneuvers : I think the def boost it also really low, like 3% unenhanced. Unless you want to pick tactics post 40, I would skip it. Assault is probably a better choice.

Dark Servant : I never got this power (my dark aren't high enough) but I got a MM friend that has it. The dark servant isn't perma. 3 recharge in it will make it almost perma with a 5-10sec wait between each summon.

Hasten : I like to pick up hasten with corruptor even if you can't have it perma anymore. It a great power if you need a boost to dps for 2 mins or you need your support powers to recycle faster, ex. when your recharge rate is slowed by cold/psy attacks or web grenades.

Leveling guide : Villain side

This is a guide to leveling in CoV, it will cover the basics of each zones, which contacts contains elite bosses and AV, which contacts are best avoided and some extra tips for extra xp with less efforts.

I’ve done most of the missions from contact in the game with the following exception : contact requiring the privateer (spectral pirates in PO), Crimson Revenant, Magus Mu’Drakhan, Arbiter Leery in Nerva and the Slot Machine in St-Martial.

This guide will not cover street sweeping, because it isn’t really a popular thing in CoV with the mission bonus xp reward increased and that solo wise, only brutes and mastermind seems to be the best suited for a street sweeped.

This guide was done mostly on my knowledge of the game, but I will say that I also read other players guide. Most of the info for unlockable contacts comes from Hermod guide to unlockable contacts. I will try to post a link to other guides related to leveling in the next version.

Difficulty/Reputation Slider
Increase your reputation will increase the numbers and/or the level of the mobs you will face in missions. You will also get a higher bonus in some cases.

The scale is :
Villainous : normal amount of mobs, +0/+1 in level, boss scaled down to lieutenant level
Malicious : more mobs in each pack, +0/+1 in level, same mission bonus as Villainous
Vicious : normal amount of mobs, +1/+2 in level, extra mission bonus
Ruthless : more mobs in each pack, +1/+2 in level, same mission bonus as Vicious
Relentless : normal amount of mobs, +2/+3 in level, higher mission bonus than Vicious

The newspaper
At lvl 5 and when you arrive into Port Oakes will have access to the newspaper once you have talked to your broker (shown on your map). This will give you missions, in small/medium maps with one of these 3 objectives : kill the named boss and guards, fetch some item or find a npc and capture it. For the kill X and guards and the get item missions, you will need to kill everything in the last room in order to complete the mission. For the get hostage mission, you will need to escort the guy to the entrance to finish.

A now common practice for quicker leveling is to pick a find the glowy or kill X and guards mission, stealth to the last room using a stealth power like super speed, stalker hide, shadowfall from dark miasma set, and kill everything in this room for quick completion of the mission and getting the xp reward fast.

After 3 (Port Oakes and Cap) or 5 (sharkhead, nerva, St-Martial) schemes missions, your broker will offer you a heist which is usually click a glowy and defeat the following ambushes. Some Ats will find doing these difficult, but you can refuse the heist and resume your newspaper mission working. Completing a heist is the only way to get introduced to a new contact.

Especially early on, some groups like to do bank farming, which is you kill everything on the map, clear all 6 ambushes and leave the map whitout clicking the money in the vault. Then you reset the mission and do it again. Cops are easy opponent and this can net some nice xp but it will probably become boring after a bit.

Groups and level of newspaper missions
Council : always available
Circle of Thorns (CoT) : always available
Helions : 5-15
Skulls : 5-15
Snakes : 5-20 (or maybe they cap at 19)
Mooks : 5-20
Trolls : 15-20, maybe you can get troll missions at lvl 10, can’t remember exactly
Freaks : 20-30, freaks don’t dissapear after 30, you just getting newspaper missions of this group
Tsoo : 20-30 (might be 29), like freaks Tsoo still exist after lvl 30, their official cap is 40
Lost : 5-30 (level cap might be 29), 30+ lost become Riktis
Sky Raiders : 20-35

Zones and contacts
I tried to remember everything, but I haven’t done some contacts in a long time. I think I got most of the eilte bosses/AV/Hero, but the villain type you’ll be facing might be incorrect or imcomplete.

Mercy Island
Kalinda vs Burke
After doing both, I prefer Kalinda over Burke has her missions seems to be closer to the trainer and have less a tendancy to send you to the other side of the map. With both contacts, you’ll get snake missions mostly.
Since there is no debt before lvl 10, I usually beat down everything I see for extra xp when walking from mission to mission if I’m solo.

Mongoose 5-9
Following Kalinda, Mongoose offers 1 rob bank mission and 1 snake related story arc.

Doctor Creed level range incertain. Max might be 5-6
If you are over lvl 5, Burke might not offer you this contact. But maybe it was fixed and now behave like a 5-9 contact like Mongoose. His story arc include infected and arachnos missions.

You will get another contact after you’ve completed the missions for Kalinda and Burke or you can head to Port Oakes sooner (level 5+) to start the Contacts there because 2 of them give badge missions.

Seer Marino 15-20
Located next to the Helicopter in Mercy, She gives the Ghost Widow story arc. This arc has one of the best storyline in the game so I suggest doing it at least once. The only bad thing about it, lots of arachnos bases missions. You’ll face lost and legacy of chain (1 mission each), the rest are arachnos missions.

Port Oakes
The newspaper become available in this zone, just talk to your assigned broker (check your map). I think the broker is assigned randomly the first time you visit a new zone after Mercy Island.

Angelo Vendetti 5-9
Mostly council missions, you get a vampyr elite boss in the last mission of his story arc. He gives a badge mission in the misc missions after the story arc.

Mr. Bocor 5-9
If I remember correctly, you’ll fight legacy of chains and some other groups with this contact. A mission in his story arc will award you a badge.

Billy Heck 5-9
Familly missions. You’ll have to fight 2 elite bosses of the family in his story arc. Those elite bosses are similar to regular bosses except they have more hp.

The radio 10-15
2 story arcs, the first will award the plague bringer badge after the last mission : Steal outbreak from lost/drop outbreak. A lot of players like to farm the 2nd mission, killing all the longbow on the map for nice xp. His 2nd story arc is mostly wyverns with some arachnos mixed in.

Cap au Diable
Most of this zone contacts are fun to do, travelling in Cap au Diable can be tedious is you don’t have a travel power.

Dr. Shelley 10-14
Council, Arachnos, Goldbricket in her story missions. One of the misc mission after it will award the Mask Maker badge, but it’s a Vazhilok mission.

Dmitri Krylov 10-14
Vazhilok missions, those guy are the bane of heroes early on. The mission hit really hard compared to other groups. The last mission include an elite boss.

Peter Themari 10-15
This contact will still offer you missions at 15 unlike the other 2. He got 2 story arcs, 1 with longbows missions. The other include arachnos and the legacy of chains.

Marshal Brass 15-19
If you read the Cap au diable zone description on the CoV website, you will find more info on Marshal brass role in the Cap. His 1st mission gives a temp power : 1 hour useage duration jetpack(fly) which is nice if you lack vertical movement. His story arc are about the PTS and things going around it. Missions from his story arc include arachnos, wyverns and shivans.

Golden Roller 15-19
If I recall properly, this contact features arachnos, crey, wyverns and lost for his story arc. His misc mission include Sea Witch (elite boss) in a luddite mission and might award the Seaweed badge.

Willy Wheeler 15-19
CoT, longbow and arachnos missions, the last mission features an elite boss. You can get the Paragon of Vice badge during his story arc.

Operative Wellman 15-19
This contact gives only longbow missions in outdoor maps, his story arc send you to Paragon city to cause mayhem

Sharkhead Isle
Sharkhead Isle contacts offers a variety of groups to fight. The first AV missions you’ll see will be from contacts in this zone. I like to do missions from this zone simply because of the variety in the groups you fight.

Lorenz Ansalso 20-24
Mostly scrapyarder missions. The last mission of his story arc include Sea Witch (Hero version) and might award the Seaweed badge. One of his mission award the Strikebreaker badge.

Operative Vargas 20-24
Council, arachnos and longbow missions. The last mission of the story arc has an elite boss LeoKnight (SS/invul tanker). One of his misc mission include 2 EB, Blue Phazer and Golden Sphinx.

Captain Petrovich 20-24
Missions from mixed groups, one of his missions in his story arc has Spinerette, elite boss. Last mission of story arc is timed.

Lt. Chalmers
Mostly longbow missions from his story arc. The last mission is timed and has a longbow balista in it. In the last mission, clicking one of the glowy gives you a temp power : sky raider jetpack.

Vince Dubrowsky 20-24
Mostly scarpyarder missions, one of his misc mission award the slag reaper badge.

Crash Cage 20-24
Mostly CoT and scrapyarders missions, her first story arc features the AV Silver Mantis.

Diviner Maros 25-29
CoT, freaks missions mostly with 1 or 2 slag golems missions. Expect to fight Barracuda and Calystix the Shaper AV and a freak elite boss that can summon lieutenant level pets in his story arc. One of his misc mission is banished pantheon.

Operative Kirkland 25-29
Missions of mixed groups family, council and longbow. One of his mission award the Agent of Discord badge.

Henri Dumont 20-25 unlockable, require strikebreaker badge
Offers 1 story arc with scrapyarders, legacy of chain and CoT missions.

Doc Buzzsaw 25-30 unlockable, require Bling badge
Another fun contact with missions from mixed groups, freaks, arachnos, council, scrapyarders, slag golems, sky raiders for her first story arc. The last mission of the this arc include an elite boss, the Superfreak. The second arc is about council and family.

Archmage Taxirus 25-30 unlockable, require Lorekeeper explortation badge
Offers at least 1 arc, maybe 2. I was able to get only 1 story arc from him. Mostly CoT missions and a weird CoT + longbow mission on the same map. 1 mission awards the Soul Taker badge.

Nerva Archipelago
A lot of Nerva contacts are rigged with Longbow missions. In many of them you will also have to fight Heroes of the Vindicator.

Lt. Demitrovich 25-29
Mostly longbows missions, with some other groups inserted in. The story arc result in a nice temp power, the nullifier gun (-end, detoggle) only 5 shots however…

Shadowy Figure 25-29
A couple of longbow missions. This contact got a few fun missions like the defeat all losts in sewer with Furious B.

Darla Mavis 25-29
Pretty Much 100% longbow, you’ll have to fight Aurora Borealis at the end of the first story arc.

Psimon Omega 30-34
Another longbow mission contact, this one offers a few fun missions however featuring cops. There is a longbow ballista (elite boss, but you don’t have to kill him) and Aurora Borealis again in his story arc.

Timothy Raymond 30-34
Almost no longbow missions from this contact, mostly Riktis missions with a few other groups like Crey, Cot mixed in.

Operative Rutger 30-34
Right now, I skip this contact. Another 100% longbow dude and since 30+ longbow are a pain. You’ll end up fighting Luminary and Infernal heroes in his story arcs.

Tech Naylor 35-40
You’ll get some longbow missions from this guy especially in his 1st story arc. The 2nd arc features mostly Nemesis and another really nice story line. Not sure, but I think you’ll need to fight at least 1 longbow ballista. After both his Story arcs, you’ll get a mission that will award the Portal Hopper badge.

Kelly Uqua 35-40
If I recall properly you’ll get mostly Crey, Arachnosm Riktis and a few longbow missions from this contact. The last mission of her story arc is a timed mission with a longbow ballista in it.

Magus Mu’Drakhan 35-40
Skipped this contact, a friend did it and it just contained too many AV/Heros, you’ll fight Infernal like 3 times, Lilitu and Baphomet(timed mission). Most of mission will contain longbows with CoT mixed in.

Kristof Jaeger 25-29 unlockable, require Villain badge
Mostly longbow missions, only 1 story arc.

Crimsom Revenant 30-34 unlockable, require Hammer down badge
Mostly longbow missions again, 2 story arcs, one you’ll fight Minx (elite boss) and the other Backalley Brawler (Hero). I’ve the done the Brawler mission with a group and he does hit hard, I saw him drop a –2(2 level lower than him) stone brute in 1 hit, probably from a KoBlow.

Arbiter Leery 35-40 unlockable
I haven’t done this contact due to being bugged, I think you need to have 1 respec available to be able to receive missions. I think you’ll face Arachnos/longbows with this contact and the missions include a couple of EB/AV like Ice Mistal and Indigo(timed mission)

St. Martial
St Martial is a nice change from Nerva, since most of the contacts in this zone are longbow free. No regular contacts has any AV in it’s story arcs, I don’t think there is any elite bosses either.

Hard Case 30-40
Hard Case has 2 sets of missions, one for 30-34, the other for 35-40. His missions are mostly on wailers but you’ll get a couple of CoT, Tsoo and carnies. Seems that a lot of players don’t like the story of Hardcase because he make them feels too heroic. Some of his missions require you to fight 2 bosses at the same time : wailer king + another.

Hard Luck 30-34
Various missions vs Family, Arachnos, Tsoo, CoT and freaks (story arc). Award the bad luck badge in a misc mission.

Vivacious Verandi 30-34
CoT, family, freak, Tsoo missions, clicking a glowy during her missions will trigger ambushes. Only 1 story arc, no misc missions.

Jezebel Jones 35-40
Mostly carnies missions for her first story arc, the second arc contains family, longbow and arachnos missions.

Basse Croupier 35-40
Family, arachnos, longbows and freaks missions. Maybe some extra I forgot. One of his freak missions award the skip tracer badge. Good contact overall.

Slot Machine 30-35 unlockable require Gangbuster badge
No info on this one, I think it does offer 2 story arcs.

Jhonny Sonota 35-40 unclockable require Obsessed badge
Arachnos, CoT, longbow and Wailers missions. Another story arc with a good story line. His story arc include 1 elite boss and 1 AV (both wailers)

How to get ‘effortless’ extra xp

PvP missions
If you can kill minions all over a map, click a few glowies in less than 1 hour and don’t mind getting killed by a hero once in a while you can try missions in Bloody Bay, Siren’s call and Warburg. The bonus from completing those missions is higher, quite similar as playing 1 difficulty above your level, ex : you’re on villainous and complete the mission, the bonus will be similar to what you’ll get if you complete a regular mission on vicious. In all the PvP missions you will be facing longbows.

Depending on your killing speed, you can get 1 bub per mission (minions + bonus) on the lowest difficulty setting at lvl 15. On average I can complete a mission in Bloody bay in 10 mins.

Best Pvp missions
Unless you are looking to buff your team or to earn a badge, the best missions to pick are :

Bloody Bay : bomb base or steal compound : kill all longbows agent + click some glowy (either 3 bombs or the good crate)
The kidnad officier takes longer to do since you have to bring back the hostage and kill a few ambushes. The Destroy comm equipment mission also takes longer since you have to destroy 3 objects.

Siren calls : Destroy the supply depot is the easier since you will face only minions so it’s easy to up your difficulty. I could complete those missions in 6-7 mins with a corruptor.
Other missions are similar to the Bloody bay versions, except for the capture the comm officier, which he acts like a regular hostage and you don’t have to escort him back.

Warburg : Destroy the supply depot is also a minion only map, however the map is a bit larger. Still I was able to complete these in about 10 mins with a corruptor.
Other missions are similar to their BB counterparts.

Newspaper missions trick
Most player will know about picking a mission in the newspaper that is a kill XXX and guards or retrieve X object from Insert group here. Then you skip to the last room, kill everything in it (click the glowy) and get the mission bonus.

However some villains groups have a level cap, meaning you will never see anything from this villain group higher than this level, for example : hellion/skulls level cap is 15, sky raiders is 35. After this level, you will usually stop getting newspaper from the said group. A notable exception is the lost, the lost cap is 29, however if you should get some 30+ lost in a mission, they will evolve/become Riktis.

The trick is to pick missions from a selected group at his level cap and to raise the diff to the maximun to get a bigger mission bonus. My favorite example is the sky raiders, at lvl 34 or 35 put your difficulty at relentless and pick newspaper missions of sky raiders, inside the mission, nothing will be higher than level 35 but you will still get the relentless mission bonus. At 35, with a sky raider mission on relentless I could get a 10k xp bonus while fighting only even level minions and boss.

I’ve done this only with sky raiders and cops (in heist, their cap is 40), but it might be possible to do this with helions/skulls at lvl 14-15 and snakes/mooks for level 19-20.

Misc section (extra tips)

Break free
Post level 25 when you get a 15 places inspiration tray, I usually start to carry break free. For a brute or stalker 1 is plenty as you have some protection vs the most common status effects. For my corruptor I usually carry 3 of these. Minions and lt don’t usually give much problems with status effects but bosses do.

I do recommend the break free for brutes because it is useful vs fear, confuse and placate (succubus of CoT will use confuse/placate and Tsoo Herald use fear), also I’ve seen groups bypass my mez protection : 30+ family boss + singularity was able to hold me once but this doesn’t happen very often. While grouped, especially in larger teams 2 bean bags + 1 lightning clap of longbows managed to bypass the Energy aura protection and get me disoriented for a while.

Things to avoid
I’ve learned that I should avoid some things unless I want debt. Some villains group get plain nasty at some point, post 30 longbows is the best example. 15-20 longbows are fun to fight, they are wimps. 20-30 still fun, but can get annoying has they get a knockback attack and if you don’t have protection vs this effect. 30+ longbows become a real pain.

Personnaly, I avoid like plague 8 man pickup groups doing post 30 longbow and carnies missions. Carnies bosses do huge psy dmg and most brutes get totally owned by those, the end drain effect is also hard to deal with since only dark armor has resist vs psy and end drain.

The problem with post 30 longbows is that every minion has some AoE attack in the form of full-auto, flamethrower cone or a grenade which lead to an alpha strike that can decimate weaker Ats. Longbow bosses get just pain nasty, some of them are still weak, but a SS tanker can 1 shot players with KoBlow (a +1 boss will hit for over 700-800 dmg). The same applies for spine scappers. Most 8man pickup groups usually fall apart in a longbow mission just because you can expect 1-2 death (or more) per spawn.

AV/Heros/Elite bosses and you
Most AV are scaled down to a elite boss if you lower your difficulty setting, at the lowest setting 2 players in the mission will still spawn an elite boss. If you have trouble with such an AV, gathering a big team isn’t always the best solution, sometimes 1 or 2 extra player(s) will do the job, especially vs a EB. A even level AV can also be killed by 2 players granted they have the right build, having a debuff heavy AT like radiation emission, dark miasma, cold domination or kinectics corruptor or a poison or dark miasma mastermind usually helps a lot. Using either my em/ea brute or a ice/dark corruptor and a robot/dark MM friend, we have been able to duo most AV in regular missions. In this case, the robot/dark MM does most of the work providing good dmg and lots of debuffs. The AV we duoed include Silver Mantis, Calystix the Shaper, Infernal, Aurora Borealis, Luminary, Lilitu and Baphomet. At +0 none of them really gave us any trouble. However maybe this will change a bit when the 40-50 AV get in CoV.

2 debuffers will usually turn an AV into a wuss meaning you will only need to dent is 30k hp and overcome his regen to beat him. With the AV to EB patch him, if you want to duo one, you will have to set your diff to vicious at least.

Getting Rid of debt
If you are above lvl 25 and what to get rid of some debt, you can always try fighting in the PvP zones because you will be auto-malefactored to the zone level if you are above it’s maximun (25 for BB, 30 for SC and 38 for Warburg). Sure it’s a bit risky with all the heroes but you can just go in the middle of nowhere and there is a big chance that you won’t see many heroes.

Conclusion

This complete my leveling guide v1.0 for now. I will try to correct all spelling mistakes in it if they are pointed by someone else and kepping in mind that english isn’t my main language. I will try to update the guide when I7 comes in, until then enjoy the leveling and avoiding those pesky contacts.