Soulwind

Ahh, that makes sense then.

I was running into pretty much nothing but various spider-bot types, Fortunatas, Widows, and a couple of Webmasters. I don't think I saw any Banes or Wolfs (Wolves?) in that mission.

What computer do you have?

Who made it and what's the model number/type/name?

Based on the sketchy information you put in the o.p., I'm guessing that you don't have a lot of detailed computer knowledge, so I won't ask for more detailed info (like the motherboard model, etc), but if you can determine the make/model of the computer, we can proabably look the rest of the information up for you and let you know what path would be compatible and best bang for the buck on a potential upgrade.

Last night I noticed an odd behavior.

I noticed that I've got 175 out of 200 "Arachnos minions" defeats (in the new "closest to completion" badge tab...love that new breakdown).

As it so happened, my next Tip was to rescue a longbow agent captured by Arachnos.

So I ran the Tip mission, wiped out an entire base of Arachnos . . . and made no progress on the defeat badge.

Are the Tip missions like the AE missions where no progress towards the various badges are allowed? Or is it something else? (like maybe the defeat arachnos minion badge isn't allowed on hero side? I didn't think I'd beaten that many Arachnos while I was in Praetoria, but I might of)?

Anyone know?

At the moment (or at least when I bought mine approximately 2 months ago), ALL of the GTX 480's are reference design. Meaning they are all the same just with different reseller stickers on them.

I personally prefer ASUS, but that's just because I like how ASUS treats it's customers.

Reason:
While taking the heat-sink off of one of my brand stinking new GTX 480's (so that I could attach the water block to it), I had an accident and broke one of the capacitors off - ruining the card.

I explained what happened politely to the ASUS rep and asked if there was any way to get the card repaired - taking full responsibility for the damage (not trying to claim warranty or RMA) and offering to pay for the repairs.

Turns out they couldn't repair the damage, but decided to honor the warranty anyway and sent me a full replacement for the card. Now that's how you build customer loyalty.

Why Provoke? I assume you're using it to start the fights so that your bots stay in bodyguard mode. It's your choice of course, but personally I prefer to use one of the pulse rifle attacks - it accomplishes the same thing (getting the mob's attention), does a bit of damage, doesn't eat up one of your power pool selections, and looks cooler

Basically you're headed down the right path, but frankly your slotting is quite "iffy"

1) You've drastically over-slotted the battle drones with accuracy, they may be -2 to you but they don't need that much accuracy slotted.

2) 1 Interrupt Reduction in Aid Self/Aid Other is plenty (1 takes you to ~0.67 sec interrupt time, 2 takes you to ~0.5 seconds - with level 40 generic IOs). Either put another heal or a recharge in place of that 2nd IR IO.

3) Acid Mortar isn't an auto-hit, so you'll probably want to put an accuracy in there eventually.

4) Drop the Heal IOs out of Protector Bots (or 1 at most), and either put in more Damage or a 2nd Defense IO in it's place. The "repair" power that the protector bots have is actually pretty powerful without further slotting and since you can't actually direct it's use most folks don't bother with slotting it up.

FYI - My slotting schema for my Bots is this: (with level 40 IOs - I plan with level 40's but I'll use anything from about 37+ when actually slotting - the % difference is minimal)

Blood Mandate: Accuracy
Blood Mandate: Damage
Blood Mandate: Accuracy/Damage
Brilliant Leadership: Accuracy
Brilliant Leadership: Damage

So with only 5 slots I get ~95% Accuracy and ~95% Damage out of the pets, then I can use the 6th slot for a Defense IO (protector bots) or one of the "pet aura" procs (battle drones and assault bot)

Traps MM's can pretty easily get away without Stamina, but having it does make a difference once you start dropping everything down and add in the TripMines (if you do). The good news is, with the new changes coming to make Stamina an inherent power, you don't need to worry about it at all.

There are 4 "pet aura procs" available:

From the "Pet" sets:

Sovereign Right +10% Resistance
Edict of the Master +5% Defense

and from the "Recharge Intensive Pet" sets:

Call to Arms +5% Defense
Expedient Reinforcement +10% Resistance

"Normal" mastermind pets only use the Pet sets, but some of the "Special" powers (Hell on Earth, Gang War, Soul Extraction) can take the Recharge Intensive Pet sets, allowing those MMs to slot both sets.

The procs grant YOU (the MM) an always-on aura that provides the bonuses to your pets, similiar to the Supremancy inherent power.

This is the slotting I intend to use: (the normal pet slotting is my standard across all my MM's, the special slotting depends on which powerset it's from)

Pets: (any level 38+ is acceptable - but I do my planning with level 40's)
Blood Mandate: Accuracy
Blood Mandate: Damage
Blood Mandate: Accuracy/Damage
Brilliant Leadership: Accuracy
Brilliant Leadership: Damage

[6th slot is one of the 2 pet procs or a specific generic IO depending on the pet - with Bots for example tier 1 pets get a proc, tier 2 pets get a defense IO, tier 3 pet gets other proc]

This gives: 95.2% Accuracy, 95.2% Damage, +1.5% Recovery, +4% Regen, and a small Fire/Cold/AoE Defense bonus

Special Power:
Hell on Earth: Level 50 Recharge IO, Level 50 Recharge IO, Call to Arms Proc, Expedient Reinforcement Proc (4 slots)
or
Hell on Earth: Blood Mandate Acc/Dmg, Blood Mandate Dmg, Rchg IO, Rchg IO, Call to Arms Proc, Expedient Reinforcement Proc (6 slots)

I've been going with 2 level 50 Recharge IO's and the 2 Recharge Pet procs in my test builds.

(I haven't actually gotten around to making a demon summoner yet, so I could easily be wrong, but going by Mid's that's my plans)

Thugs (Gang War), Necromancers (Soul Extraction), and Demon Summoners (Hell on Earth) get the capability of slotting BOTH the Pet procs and the Recharge Pet procs. Resulting in +10% Defense to all and +20% Resistance to all for thier pets.

There is also at least one Tip mission where you run into a (apparently) Nemesis Automaton version of yourself down in the 30's range.

There's also a Tip mission in the 30's range where you rescue a bunch of hostages and one of them is pretty blatantly an Automaton (based on his dialog), but you still rescue him/it and then your clues state something along the lines of "wow that guy is messed up in the head"

As long as you don't change alignments, once you've gotten your Alignment power you'll keep it.

The first time you affirm your alignment, you get 50 Reward Merits and the "Countdown to X" timer power. When the timer power runs out (7 days real time), then you get the actual Alignment Power - you then keep that power forever, unless you change alignments.

On 2nd and subsequent affirmations of your alignment, you get an Alignment Merit.

1 Costume Token per Vet level (1 every 3 months)
+
3 "Vet Merits" per Vet level (3 every 3 months)
+
1 Respec Token per 3 Vet levels (1 every 9 months)
+
1 Character Slot Token per 4 Vet levels (1 every 12 months)

Then make all "vet item goodies" available for purchasable via Vet Merits

If my counts are right, there are currently 28 different "vet item goodies" available,
and 72 months of vet time (24 Vet levels at 3 months per level)

So you could take those 72 "Vet Merits" and price the various goodies at different levels.

1 Vet Merit for the each of the various costume parts rewards
1 Vet Merit for the each of the various "base item" rewards
3 Vet Merits for a choice from the temp powers rewards
6 Vet Merits for the "really good" stuff (city traveler, inventory slots, inspiration bonus, etc)

If you allow for the purchase of all the temp weapons (Nem Staff, Blackwand, Sands, GSA) instead of just 3 of 4, and seperate a couple of the combined costume parts that puts it right at 72 Vet Merits to get everything...or just leave everything combined and "real" vets will have a couple of extra Vet Merits (combined costume parts puts it at 69 Vet Merits).

You could even potentially make the Respec Tokens and Server Slots buyable by Vet Merits,
but since that slices into the currently real-money purchases, it would probably be best to leave those tied to "real" vet reward levels as they are now.

I've run my two "keeper" characters through Praetoria (one loyalist, one resistance), since they are a MM and a Brute that I wanted hero side.

I've also built - and deleted - 3 other "throw away" characters just to run through some of the other story options in Praetoria (undercover and the violent sub-factions).

From now on though, unless I'm trying to start a "wrong-sided" AT, new characters will start in the appropriate Primal Earth locations.

Praetoria's great and I love the story lines and new mobs, but trying to coordinate all the "catch-up" stuff that I missed in the 1-20 range once I get over to Primal Earth has been a pain, and I just can't see doing that for all my new alts unless it's really necesary concept-wise.

(By which I mean missing the first 3 safeguard/mayhem missions, not having any contacts in the first couple of zones, missing a few of my "always do" missions [can always catch those up via oro later], etc)

OK, well that makes sense then.

I've only been running 20-29 because that's where the new character is at level-wise.
AND
I've only been running Hero tips because I want Hero Merits, not to switch alignments.
AND
I've been a bit unlucky to only see the same 5 missions (out of 10 apparently).

Oh well, I was hoping for more variety there. I was kind of planning to do a perpetual cycle of 5 tips per day, then normal story arcs for the rest of the day, then 5 tips, morality, Hero Merit, more story arcs, rinse and repeat.

With only 10 possibilities and needing to do 5 of them daily, it's going to be more grind-y than I'd like, especially trying to use HMs as the "get all the set IO's that I really want but are so rarely in-stock" method across dozens of alts.

I know there's only "really" 3 newspaper missions (defeat boss, rescue hostage, bank robbery) but with the more random factions attached to each type it feels more varied than the "always meeting these same mobs and bosses in each tip mission" that I've been seeing...

So I guess I'll only run a few tips here and there (so I don't get too bored with them) and still stick with WW and TFs for most of my IO needs ... at least the new Reward Merit conversion to Hero Merits effectively makes all the IOs I want cost only a fraction of thier old Merit costs (if I'm understanding that part right...haven't tried to convert Merits or actually buy anything with Hero Merits yet).

Masked is a very good anthology book, if you enjoy short stories.

I just so happened to have noticed it on the shelf during my monthly "run" through the book store and picked it up.

It's got some very good stories and it's quite an enjoyable read.

My only issue with it is my basic issue with most short stories...I want more. Especially from the really good ones, I want full novel length and I'm often left with "whaaa? what's next?" when the story just ends abruptly.

But, if you like short stories, definately pick up Masked.

Are the tip missions level locked or something?

I was under the impression that there were a lot of different tip missions, but I'm not seeing that in practice.

I'm working on my 2nd Hero Merit, so I've done a total of 25 tip missions and 2 morality missions so far (all between level 20 and level 28).

It's been the exact same 5 tip missions each times (so 5 times on each one) and the same morality mission both times.

Did I just misunderstand how much variety was supposed to be there or are they level gated or something? I suppose it could just be pure coincedence, but the exact same 5 tips 5 times in a row seems to be pushing it for strictly randomness.

While I will agree that the mobs in Praetoria are a BIT tougher in general than the original mobs in Paragon, I can't agree that things are that much tougher in general.

I've taken a brute, a mastermind, a controller, a defender, and (in-progress) a scrapper through Praetoria so far, both teamed and solo, and it's not that much rougher than the 1-20 run in Paragon has always been.

In fact, if I had to point to a single example of the "things are just too tough" argument, the only thing I could really come up with is that there are a lot more instances of Elite Boss encounters at the end of the various arcs in Praetoria (as opposed to ?what? just FrostFire and Dr. Vhaz in Paragon 1-20 arcs).

The higher instances of EBs is a bit rougher on the squishy ATs, but that's really the only big difficulty increase in general.

Now that's just plain COOL !

Well, since it seems like the alignment merits will be an easier way to get some of the more in-demand IOs that I like to use, but are never in-stock, I'll probably add doing them into my normal rotation of "things I do", but I'm not going to obsess over them (at least I don't think I will at this point...too early to tell yet).

Note that I'm not really talking about the "overpriced stuff", I've got more then enough money to afford (pretty much) anything I want off of WW, but it's the ones where there simply aren't ANY for sale (for days/weeks at a time) at all that I'm hoping this new path of aquisition will help with.

I don't play the other MMO, so thier definition of "Dailies" is probably different.

To me, though, the concept of "Dailies" would be along the lines of what those silly facebook games (which my wife is totally addicted to) require.

Things/Actions (missions) that you MUST do every day or else you are punished by losing progess.

In that way, our Tip missions are not Dailies, as we can do Tips then leave them be for months at a time if desired without actually losing anything. Our "Dailies" may be limited in the quantity you are allowed to do per day, but aren't in any way required.

Are you running on a Non-Administrator, or Restricted user account?

A lot of people keep the Admin account and thier "regular" logon account (to the computer not the game) seperated, to help prevent accidental virus infections.

You need to be running as an Administrator when you first install the game so that it can make the necessary entries in the registry. Otherwise, next time you start it up, it can't find the "where am I installed at" entry and thinks it needs to install itself.

EDIT: Nevermind, looks like paragonwiki has finally been updated with more details rather than the base stubs that were there last time I looked. So I found the answers.

Some of it does depend on how often you get defeated post lvl 10 as well and if you do any teaming.

My new KM/EA Brute went down the Protector path ONLY, he just dinged 19 last night at the end of his final morality mission (working for Anti-Matter).

So, he didn't QUITE make it doing just one path, pure solo, with almost no street-sweeping (just whatever groups of resistance/syndicate happened to get in his way between missions).

But he did have 8 or so defeats (post level 10) [4 of those were trying to take out Tub Ci and Mr. Yin Elite Bosses at the same time]

So, now I guess I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and sewer sweep or grab a team for the final level.