Sion

For your 1st Respec mission you need to be at least level 24 and it caps at level 32. I'd recommend going around lvl 28-30 with either a full 8-person team, or a 5 person team (as the mob size changes when you to 6 people)

Go to Independence Port and see Jane Hallaway She stands at the corner of the road at the Northern (upper) end of the big main bridge where the road turns West. You need at least 4 people minimum to start.

Once eveyone in your team is in the Independence Port (all team memebres must be in the same zone to start any TF) you can start. Talk to her and she'll give you your first mission

1. Speak to Jason Serano - Located in Terra Volta
NOTE: Be sure to have your leader of the Task Force stay next to Jane Hallaway so you are not taking so much time going to contact and back.

2. Get Sky Raiders’ attention – Defeat 25 Sky Raiders in Terra Volta
NOTE: Best Place to kill Sky Raiders is in the North-West corner of Terra Volta there are plenty of big groups there.

3. Defeat Sgt. Clayton & his men – This mission’s location is Random I have done it where this mission is placed in several places. Keep your eyes peeled for big green crates that are clues. When targeted they are called “containment equipment.” EDIT: Not seen crates before basically find the room where the Sgt is and clear out the room. If you have someone with Invisibility and Teleport Friend they can "ghost" around the building til they find him, then teleport everyone else to their location. Clear room, mission done.

4. Save the Terra Volta Reactor
– Alright now you have made it to the finale. But beware, once you walk in through those doors, you will find a group of enemies harassing 2 guards, once you save the guards they will open up doors to a Big room.

- Once inside the big room you should defeat all the enemies so no enemies are harassing you once you get inside the smaller rooms. BEWARE: Inside the Big room at the back to the left corner is an explosive that will blow up if someone blasts at it or goes near it. I would recommend that you send your tanker (if you have one) to taunt all the enemies into that corner so that when the explosives blow it will damage all enemies around it.

- When you are done clearing the bigger room you must go through every door except the one that leads to the reactor core, and save all the scientists inside the rooms. At one point a scientists will give you the Reactor Core Key card that will let you get to the Core. EDIT: Once you have the key you don't need to clear any of the smaller rooms.

- Once you go through the doors to get to the Core, you will find yourself inside a giant corridor that will wind around to the core. BEWARE: along the walls of the corridor are explosives. EDIT: Just blast them from a distant or get a tank to take the damage

- And now you have reached the Core! But before you go inside through those doors you must grab a few goodies. To your right will be a machine that gives you a red bubble that will resist all damage from inside the Core. NOTE: Bubble does run out so you will have to go back and recharge it. To the left will be a shelf of guns, that when fired at the Reactor Core will heal it. NOTE: You get only 20 uses of this temporary power. So use it wisely. EDIT: these "guns" are actually Coolant Belts and give you a temp power called "Coolant" make sure you have it ready. There is always fewer Coolant belts than team members so some will miss out. Don't heal the core unless necessary those 80-120 odd "shots" between your team may become necessary much later. Stand in the red bubble maker awhile to get a red radioactive bubble. It runs out about every 5 minutes so just replenish it (run back to the machine) between waves of enemies.

- Now once you are inside the Core you will be pelted with wave after wave of enemies that will come out of doors on an upper floor. There is no pattern as to how they come out. You just make sure that you and your team can survive the enemies.
EDIT: If the Core starts to look low (just target it to see its hit points) then use the Coolant power to "heal" it.
When it is all over and done you will receive an option of a bunch of rewards. They are a free Respec, or one of many different types of Enhancements. If you choose the free Respec you must go to Jack Wolfe in Galaxy City, at Freedom Corps (inside the Freedom Corps building behind the Trainer, he's on the right just in side the building). At the end you will also get a couple of badges to go with your exp. You get: Transmogrified, “Received the Stalwart Medallion.”

WARNING: You only get to choose a Respec ONCE per Respec Trial, so once for lvl 24-32, again at lvl 34-42, and so on. In other words say at level 24 you do the Respec. If you do the Independence Port 1st Respec Trial again you wont get to choose Respec as a reward again. You'll have to wait until level 34+

I took all this info from Game Amp. Just go to the main site for CoH and choose CoH Trials from the list on the left-hand side and click on Jane Hallaway's detailed notes

http://cityofheroes.gameamp.com/coh

Tips: The level of the mobs are decided by the highest member in your team. If you have a level 30 then they'll be 30, 31 up to lvl 31 bosses. This makes it tough. Best thing to do is try to Exemplar high players down so everyone is at a lower level. Start the Respec Trial and STAY Exemplared through all the minor missions until you get INSIDE the Terra Volta Reactor building. Once inside, switch all Exemplared players around to Sidekick anyone they can. This makes the mobs in the Reactor core set to the Exemplared level you had when you entered but now the team is punching at a higher level.

Any other problems I'd post a question in the "Player's Question" forum. Plenty of help there.

Or as I found out the weekend, have some very big friends and lay a trap.

Had a particulerly active TP-ing stalker yesterday so we set up area that made it look like 1 lonely hero by themselves. When the Stalker struck and the cry "Here" went up, about 5 other heroes pounced on them. After the 5th time the Stalker claimed they were picked on and left... poor diddums.

I did manage to take down two Brutes with my Blaster though on that simple but often maligned trait Defiance. Just when they think they're winning! BOOM!

I'll have to think about dropping some pool powers and maybe going more melee elec based. Don't know why but I keep wanting to make my blaster a tank?

Probably not on tonight after all. Sick as a dog so crawling home to bed.

Can I just I'm so close but so far away on so many badges;
* Just need Cabalist (KM TF) to get Geas the Kind One, AND 10 times the victor.
* Only need about 35+ Paragon Protectors to get Crey Pistol but I'm level 36, and the only ones I can find (out of PP missions) is in Eded where they're all 36-36 Bosses who kick my a*ss. Which also gives Gladiator badge.
* Just need an hour or two in Bloody Bay, & Siren's call to get those two
* Literally ".." this close to getting igneous boss badge but now can't "invoke" them in Hollows as I'm too high a level for them to come out of the ground (Don't know how I missed this as I felt I killed 1000s of the buggers in Hollows???)
* Again, real close to Legionaire for Warrior bosses but they seem to be getting harder and harder to find in Talos.

...and a few others. Whenever I try lately I think "that'll take an hour or two to finish" and 2 hours later I've managed to get 1/10th of the way there.

At least it makes me appreciate the badge when I earn it even more.

I love my NRG/Elec, although elec secondary doesn't have the same "oomphf" that Elec primary does. But I like not because it's the best but because it looks cool!

And I have no probelm soloing. You get Build Up with Nrg, and Aim with elec, plus I took Aid Self with reduced interrupt time so I can almost tank a mob (as long as they're the same level as me). Just set up Aim+BuildUp, Explosive blast, Energey torrent then Thunder Stike. Even with a few survivors it only takes a mini-blasts to finish anyone off.

Still feel sad that all those other powersets like rifles, psionics, etc. don't appear much as they don't have the same punch as other blaster sets. It's nice to see a unique toon.

I've got an NRG/Elec as my main and to be honest I ditched Charged Brawl, Havoc Punch & Lightening Field. If figured if they get that close to my squishy blaster then I've got Power Burst, Energy Torrent which have range, and Thunder Strike which all seem to do more damage. I might be wrong about Havoc Punch as I ditched that on my first respec so it might be better slotted later on.

I'm not very up with PvP tho so I'd like to know what you find works best there. Especially against frikkin stalkers! ;-)

ouch!

And looking at the guide it seemed so easy...

Defeat Mary 10 times. 2 seconds to say 2 hours to do?

Yeah I did some reading and it says something like "In the first mission you have to find and defeat Mary McComber. After that she comes looking for you brining minions, so be careful". The guide assumes you'll beat her 10 times, and the badge counter goes up by one each time "4 times the victor, 5 times the victor" etc. I can only assume that if you repeat the TF and kill her another 3 times (with your current 7 times the victor badge) you'll get the full count.

Suggests to me that if the team DOESN'T achieve 10 victories the first go then quit the TF and start again. After all it is the first mission.

I also found out I CAN start the TF. Like Ernesto Hess I did all the Zone contacts except one (in both zones), but still did the all last/highest contacts mission you can do in both zones. And it's they who send you to Ernesto or Katie.

So any badge hunter's be warned. To start the Ernesto or Katie's TF yourself you MUST do the last contacts missions in Striga and Croatoa, respectively. I think there's 4 contacts in each?

Croatoa;
1-Gordon Bower
2-Skipper LeGrande (I skipped his missions but when I hit level 32!? or similar I spoke to him and he gave me Kelly as a contact)
3-Kelly Nemmers
4-Buck Salinger... finish his missions and he'll point you to Katie Hannons TF.

Striga Is;
1-Stephanie Peebles
2-Long Jack (I skipped his missions but when I hit level 27!? or similar I spoke to him and he gave me Tobias as a contact)
3-Tobias Hansen
4-Lars Hansen... finish his missions and he'll point you to Ernesto Hess' TF.

I wonder if you did NONE of their missions but spoke to each as you hit their level quota whether they just keep referring you on?

Yep! I can probably do it Thursday. About 8pm start?

How does that "10 times the victor" Badge work? Do you beat her as many times as you can in the first mission and hope you do it 10 times? Or do you keep restarting the TF 10 times after the first mission and just continue on the last go?

Oh, and what's the auto-expemplar cap? I've got lvl 36 blaster so fully excpect to get no XP anyway.

I can't start the TF as I didn't finish all the contacts. Well, I did finish all of them but completely outleveled Skipper LeGrange before I even spoke to him.

Does anyone know where I can find Katie Hannon for the Croatoa Task Force?

Had a look the other day and don't know where she is?

Also, can anyone (30+) lead the task force, or is it like the Ernesto Hess where he will only talk to you once you've done all other Strige Island contacts (I did all the contacts in Stiga bar one. But the last one gave me Ernesto Hess as a contact). Does Katie Hannon work the same way?

AND would anyone be interested in doing the Katie Hannon task Force around 8pm Wednesday (9 August) tomorrow night?

Go on [img]/uk/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] [img]/uk/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] [img]/uk/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Just want to say big thanks to Mother's Love for helping me with Jack in Irons and Eochai. Huge amount of debt but she helped turn the tide.

And thanks to TechMan 1 who was there and organised the team to get Jurrasik as well! 3 GMs in 3 hours!!

Also picked up Doctor's Ally and Frontline, so no worries about contact badge missions to level 40 now! [img]/uk/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

I'll be on tonight (hopefully around 8ish), should I look for @J_Dogg, Badge Hunter? which? With Fake Nem I get my next accolade!

Yep according to my badge hunting guide book (Vidiot maps badge checklist download). You only need to hit them once for a "kill" to count. I guess that's why they made it 200 as you only have to tap one to count it.

It also recommends getting a bunch of people and keeping as many Master Illusionists as busy as possible so they keep creating them.

BUT IT DOESN'T SAY WHERE TO FIND THEM!!!?! Which it usually does. That's why I was asking WHERE to find them? Are they in a particular mission set? Area? Zone? I haven't seen a single carnie so no idea?

I'd definitely be interested in a hunt.

Still not totally clued in about kill & teams but I'm assuming 1 person kills 1 Illusionists pet = 1 kill for badge. 8 people team, 1 person kills pet = 1 count each towards everyone's badge.

Seems like a smart choice!

I can't always guarantee when I'll be on but if you do a search for "Sion-X", then you'll find me. Pretty happy to go hunting for anything I haven't got yet, and farming in company is more fun than farming alone.

Ok I need the Banisher badge and the Illusionist badge to get the Archmage accolade.

Banisher I'm fine with as I already know I can go hunting around Argo Highway at night in Talos Island.

But I know the Illusionist one is tricky and requires a lot of patience but WHERE can you even find Master Illusionists? I've only got a level 35 and haven't even seen a carnie!? Is there are particular mission, or similar thing I should look out for?

Why 200? Virtually everything else is 100 but some weird numbers here and there? 500 prisoners? 1000 monkeys? Anyone else think that's odd?

I've become addicted!

Always looking to do badge hunts, TFs, Trials, etc. My main is a lvl 31 Blaster but all my chars are named Sion-(some number) and you can catch me on @BlueGopher.

I'm also one of the few people who actually sets their status as Looking for TF and Looking for Missions! So I always appear at the top.

;-)

I was on last night about 8.30 BST time and had a look for everyone but no one answered my Broadcast call in the Hollows!?

I'll have to take some user handles down so I can beg an invite on a more personal level.

...and yes I was in Union.

I have a fire/fire tanker but it's level 12, and I don't think it's a science origin?

I missed out on Wednesday, too much to do but I was confused by one bit. What's BST? Being a humble colonial (Australian) I have no idea if this mean British Standard Time (which I thought was Greenwich Mean Time?, Belgium Standard time? eh?)

I usually start play about 8pm England time!?

How bugged is this system? Wish I'd known defaulting on rent meant you paid less. I always paid on the reminder just to get it out of the way.

Plus I'm sure I read some of the fan sites regarding bases say that even if you don't pay rent and get locked out you don't lose anything or get penalised in anyway. NO PENALTY FOR BEING A DEADBEAT!

One tip I will give, make sure you reset the "Days til Leadership demotes" or whatever it's called. My mate set up a VG with him as leader and myself as second in charge. He didn't change it, went on 2 week holiday and hey hey! I'm the new leader! I then reset it to 90 days! Mwhua hua hua hua haaaa!

You'd think they'd come up with a system where the smaller the SG the cheaper things were? Problem is they'd have to nerf it so it couldn't be exploited with a 1 person SG until everything is built then 75 new members.

Maybe a baskward debt system. If there's 4 member SG, got things cheap, then you get a 5th member, then you have to back pay the difference it would have cost for a 5 member SG. Which wouldn't be hard considering you get 20,000 prestige for each new member to help!! (Oh, and if you think you can exploit this by building new chars, making then join your SG, then ditching them, think again. You lose 20,000 if a member leaves! . . or so I've been told!)

Hopefully I'll be able to make it, Wednesday are good for me but I have to work on my visa application to stay in this country!?! The things I have to do to keep playing CoX!?

Oh, btw I'll be there as Sion-8 handle @bluegopher

Cheers! Love these forums, their so helpful. Just wish I could get such quick responses when I'm looking for Task Forces team mates ;-)

Just wish I had more mates who played CoX! As it is I'll have to try either being invited, or the "eligible" option someone mentioned.

Thanks again!

I know about the gladiator badges just wasn't sure how they were used in Arena (I was curious after I found out that by selecting Sorcerers for your gladiators their healing goes towards the "Healing Others" badge, and is the only way of getting it without actually having any healing powers).

Must give it a try tonight! ;-)

Can't really say what's best but I can say this...

Energy - Primary is great! Fast recharge on most, and some heavy damage. Eats up end but Stamina (when you finally get it) solves the problem.

Electricity - Secondary - Sucks! Other than Electic Fence to hold runners down while I smack them with Energy bolts I actually dumped all of my Elec powers in my first respec. Gimped!

Cool! Thanks for that. I've seen the arenas, run around them etc. but no where does it say "find blue terminals and invite other platers" etc.

But can you (or anyone) explain how Gladiators (badges) supposed to work?

P.S. Thanks again.

Probably should go in th player questions threads but seemed more sensible here...

I'm new to CoX (about 3 months), but don't understand how Arena matches work?

I've tried finding stuff out here and other sites but most of it is geek-speak about pwning someone and how much people hate stalkers in the PvP zones (boo hoo, life's unfair ;-)).

Can anyone give me a little guidance? Thanks

I built a fire/fire tanker a little while ago mostly as a means to back-grab low-level mission badges for my main char. Level 12 at the moment.

I have my own SG but it's only got a few members so would be nice to have a regular meet on Wednedays. I'll keep an eye on this but send my a Private Message if you're still looking for people to join.

Btw, my main interest is to form a solid group for task force & trial type stuff.

Hope to hear from you!