SkeetSkeet

To expand on this point just a little, it's worth noting that every time the game is patched, many of the game files are re-written and very likely re-fragmented.

Running a full disk defrag after every patch is more time than most people, me included, would want to bother with but there's a quicker way to target just the files in your CoH directory using a utility called "contig" available from microsoft that will defragment only the files/directory specified.

Link: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb897428.aspx

It only takes another minute or two to run after a patch is done applying and gets the CoH files fully defrag'd again. Here's an example of the shortcut target I use to tell it to defrag everything in CoH and all subdirectories: C:\SysInternals\Contig.exe -v -s "c:\program files\city of heroes"

I tend to regard it as a pretty major red flag when someone is trying to buy a spot on a team. Knowing that payment is entirely unnecessary, few of the motivations I can speculate on reflect well on the person offering so I just avoid them.

I wouldn't tell it to a badger because they're of no concern when it comes to pvp. Except of course when they come into a pvp zone and start complaining because pvp didn't come to a halt so they could badge. Fortunately the fact that it's pvp makes this problem self-correcting since they just get run over in traffic.

Eat cake? No, if they can't accomplish those simple tasks let them starve. Jets defensive line? What game are you playing?

The badges required for villain accolades are exploration badges, easily obtainable by anyone regardless of build. The only way to fail is through sheer stupidity. For instance, walking into the zone and announcing your intentions in broadcast along with a request to not be attacked. Then rushing straight into a crowd of enemy. As idiotic as that sounds, I see people do it every day.

For shivans and nukes, organized opposition in bloody bay or warburg is non-existent.

None of the time or rep badges are required for anything. A badge represents having done something. If you aren't interested in doing what the badge signifies, no cake for you.

Look at it from a PVE perspective. Does hamidon roll over and spit a reward into your lap because you casually strolled into the hive and wanted it? How about lord recluse? Statesman? Reischman? See where I'm going with this? There is a lot of content in the pve game that requires you to actually plan to succeed at it. You have to learn the ins and outs of what particular npcs do, how to counter it, how to build your own toon, how to assemble an effective team.

PVP is like that. It's not about paying dues, it's about taking the time to learn how the content works and developing a strategy to get what you want out of it. If you are unwilling to invest then you will fail at it, just like you will at the more challenging PVE content.

Name one sport worth playing where investing time beforehand in practice, training and study of the game does NOT provide an advantage. The goal in PVP is a level playing field not "equal" players.

When I'm forming a TF I put out a generic "looking for buff/debuff" call. For the most part I will snatch up any available defender/controller/corr without prejudice. In spite of the hundreds of pages of forum debate over over which of those ATs and powersets is the "best" any of them can be plugged into the role and get the job done as long as the player can make good use of the tools in their set.

That said...

ITF/Dr K - I want at least one good debuff set to ensure the finale goes smoothly. If I don't already have a debuffer I'd take Rad or Cold out of the choices you offered. Otherwise, any of them is fine.

LGTF/Katie - Doesn't matter. The team will easily overpower the AVs on LGTF and you can make most combos work on Katie, the rest of the stuff is no particular challenge. Players knowing the ropes counts far more than the particular power sets on these two.

It depends. Blasters, defenders and dominators can get 45.5 kb with power push/power thrust. Corrs can get 36.4 with power push. Those numbers are for six-slotted kinetic crash which is likely to be the most common slotting for those powers because of the set bonuses (3 kb prot, 7.5% recharge). DR of course affects this but generally if someone had the mag to beat your protection before DR, they will still beat it after.

If you are going to spend most of your time in zones, you can probably get by with less than 40. It's just not that common for blasters to bother with power thrust in zones and defenders with power push are rare enough to almost not be worth considering.

In the arena, people will put you on your back with regularity and it's definitely worth having the extra protection.

I'm seeing this problem on a daily basis. If I've been doing much of anything else in the game before opening an auction window it will take so long to open that the game disconnects.

I'd throw in a mention of power push here. A set of kinetic crash in it will net you 36.4 mag kb at 70ft range.

I think you vastly underestimate the amount of time blasters will spend rez'ing and recovering.

Looking at it from blue side, I'd have to agree. On list of "things that lead to me being AS'd" holds rate well above webnades/glue.

That's because most of the time a TA will have 5 other people on them after they've grounded/debuffed you. TA is great for setting up kills for teammates but not so much with standing around to tank all the agro it will draw.

Also, a little too much is made of glue being auto hit. Yes, that's a very useful thing but the target has to already be on the ground to fire glue arrow only the occasional meleetard is going to be standing around waiting for that to happen. Glue also has a longish recharge and not that much range. There's the option of following a jumper button mashing glue until you get lucky with the timing but that will mostly just get a TA killed by other agro.

The mainstay of the set for grounding people is entangling arrow, which needs a tohit check but has a reasonable range and very, very short recharge. After entangling, the next priority is usually to leave the target with acid arrow and then finally glue if it's available.

If it frustrates you enough to make posts like that, then good players are playing it.