Starfox_NA

Found an error in the 20-25 section:

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Pupil - Atlas - (-730, 0, -1340) Approximately 50 yards S of Equinox dot. Plaque is on a pedestal just east of kneeling statue in reflective pool.

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This plaque was moved whenthe arena was build. It is now 40 ft north of the Equiniox dot, very easy to find.

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Heres another question, for history badges, do you have to do them in any order?

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No, you can do them in any order, or sweep an entire zone before moving on to the next.


Excellent guide.

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Any orderwill do. The ordr in my list is one I feelis convenient.

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What I DID notice was a big difference with Lingering Radiation, which I don't understand being hit. It got hit with the Controller nerf of half duration, double recharge rate. Why did that happen?! I can barely grasp why EM Pulse might have been hit with it, although I haven't really checked on that.

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Controller Slow powers, such as Shiver, where hit too.

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Bringing all the mobs there won't work since you can only debuff 16 of them.

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Not so sure on Tar Patch. Drop powers seem not to have a restriction on number of targets. Tested this on Ice Slick. My gues sis that drops like Blizzard, Ice Slick, Tar Patch etc don't have a maximum number of targets.

As for replies to my comment on Tar Pit; if all you can badger on is the name I use... Anyway, pretty sure it used to have a shorter recharge, but that might have been long ago. Havn't played Dark Miasma in a while.

Get a grip people. Rad is still very powerful, with almost every power being a keeper. Just look at how people have been arguing - defenders can't have more damage because of radiation, defenders control too well because of darkness and radiation, immobilize is sufficent control because of radiation debuffs, etc.

Tar Pit WAS reduced in power - the recharge was just about doubled. I don't know about freezing Rain, but that power has enough drawbacks to deserve being the premier debuff in the game.

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An interesting question for you . . . for those Ill/Kin controllers, what does Siphon Speed or Speed Boost do to the recharge? (I know a Kin can't cast Speed Boost on himself, but what effect would it have on another Ill controller?)

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Speed Boost is supposed to be 50% recharge. But the Phantom Army itself is unaffected by buffs, so Speed Boost and Fulcum Shift doesn't affect it at all. I say Rad is better than Kin as a secondary for Illusion.

I have rewritten an old guide into a new one: Accolade Hunting - When and Where?

I have rewritten this guide from scratch here: Accolade Hunting - When and Where?. The new guide covers not only exploration, it covers everything you need to do to get accolades. It also structures the exploration task and patches errors in this one - the list here is too long, you don't need to do all this exploration.

This is an update to my previous guide: Accolade Hunter's Guide to History and Exploration, and much more comprehensive than that one. It was posted first in the EU forums, and has been slightly updated based on comments there.

The endgame, where you get the last accolades – Freedom, Portal, and Archmage. Some of these taks are monumental – in particular the Illusionist and Dimensional Warder badges.

Unveiler - Freedom
100 Fake Nemesis
These are hunted east of the shop in Peregrine Island or in level 40 and higher Nemesis missions. This is all you lack for the Freedom accolade, so do it as quickly as you can.

Multidimentional - Portal
Do the "Go to the Hydra's dimension and learn anything you can" mission given by Tina Macintyre.

Dimensional Warder - Portal
Defeat each Preatorian archvillain excluding Tyrant. If you defeat Antimatter from Tina Macintyre's arc, then do the entire story arc offered by Maria Jenkins you will have met them all. This runs from level 40 to 50.

Illusionist - Archmage
Defeat between 200-300 Illusions. These spawn of Carnival of Shadows Master Illusionists. These can rarely be found in Peregrine Island, but the best way is to fight them with eight man teams in carnie missions.

Shrouded - Portal
Complete mission "Disrupt Nightstar's ritual" given by Maria Jenkins at level 45-50.

This is where you begin to cash in on previous work. By level 40, you should have the Conspiracy and Vanguard accolades as well as the Scholastic and Savant history badges. If you do the Unveiler badge by now, you will also get Freedom. Solo players often run out of missions at level 38 or so – hunting Fake Nemesis can be a worthwhile activity at this time.

Soul Binder - Archmage
200 Circle of Thorns mages
Any number of Circle of Thorns missions, or hunt them in the south of the Hollows or in Dark Astoria. The reason why it is listed so late is that you will probably have it anyway by now.

The Doctor’s Ally - Conspiracy
Do the "Read the email from the Doctor" mission given by Gordon Stacy. You can only get this mission in the 35-39 level range.

Zookeeper - Vanguard
1000 Rikti Monkeys
Monkey Island in Peregrine Island, Crey’s Folly, or in any number of Rikti missions.

Infiltrator - Conspiracy
100 Crey Paragon Protectors
You find these in the remote parts of Eden, but it is better to do them in Crey missions.

Explore Brickstown – Archmage, Portal - Vidiot Map
Scholastic - Portal - (-230, 0, -370) SE corner of a brick building that is 430 yds S of the tram.
Mystic - Archmage - (Grated Catwalk -590, 30, 1380) 330yds E of Crey's Folly exit on Circular Grated Catwalk
Scholastic - Portal - (-3460, 0, 2065) Just a smidge N of the SE corner of The Zig's fence.

Explore Crey’s Folly – Conspiracy, Vanguard - Vidiot Map
Crey Watcher - Conspiracy - (1080, 0, 2320) 230yds W of Crey Factories dot then travel the S side of sewage ditch next to you
Savant - Vanguard - (2570, 0, 2680) 239 yds N and a bit E of The Blight dot. It's a freestanding pedestal on the corner of a turn in the road.
Savant - Vanguard - (7225, 32, -550) 160yds N of Carnival Town dot. Turn E and go over wall to the electric tower. Plague is on tower's base next to cardboard box.

Explore Founder’s Falls – Portal, Vanguard - Vidiot Map
Scholastic - Portal - (1720, -15, 2400) 217 yds W of Gaspee dot, on the E facing wall of a riverbank (with a dock attached).
Savant - Vanguard - (4245, 0, 3685) 211 yds N of the Hutchinson Park dot. Next to a bridge that is just W of Penny Preston (mutant store).

Explore Eden – Vanguard - Vidiot Map
Savant - Vanguard - (-2815, -25, 2970) 107 yds NE of The Pit dot. The plaque faces SE on a sloped bit of concrete squares pavement.
Savant - Vanguard - (-1320, 0, 4490) Pretty high up on a wall 148 yds W of the Utopia Complex dot.

Explore Rikti Crash Site – Vanguard - - Vidiot Map
Minimum level 40
Ace - Vanguard - (1360, 295, -275) 636 yds W of entrance, giant statue that's in sniper blast position, on extended hand

Explore Skyway City – Freedom - Vidiot Map
Purifier - Freedom - (-1085, -15, -7610) Basketball court in NE

Explore Faultline – Archmage - Vidiot Map
Faultless Mystic - Archmage - (-845, -405, -715) Follow crevice N from Precipice dot and take first E.

Explore Talos Island – Freedom - Vidiot Map
Authority - Freedom - (1777, 20, 7845) By the statue of Talos, behind his left foot.
Authority – Freedom - (3410, 42, 3035) 180 yards SE of Toffet Terrace dot, to the left of the bottom of a short stairwell. Plague faces E.

Explore Dark Astoria – Archmage, Vanguard - Vidiot Map
Dark Mystic - Archmage - (1675, 5, 2835) 310yds north of the Didos View marker on top of the cinema
Seeker of the Unknown - Vanguard - (1870, -80, 1355) 175 yards W of Moth Cemetery marker, drop into the trench and go inside the middle of the crypt

Explore Steel Canyon – Freedom - Vidiot Map
Nimble Mynx - Freedom - (-2425, 50, -3405) On roof of first building about 150yds W of Boomtown exit

Explore Boomtown – Freedom - Vidiot Map
Regal - Freedom - (-450, 45, 2170) 680yds W from the Powder Keg marker, inside the tunnel, in the center divider

Explore Independence Port – Conspiracy, Freedom - Vidiot Map
Authority - Freedom - (-1035, 30, -2445) 430 yds W of the Kings Row exit, near the water on a raised overpass.
Vigorous - Freedom - (-1615, 80, -1870) 665 yds S of Crey's Cove marker, near a green air-ventilation unit on top of a warehouse
Authority - Freedom - (905, 100, -4180) 180 yds S of Valor Bridge dot. On the E side of bridge.
Crey Havoc - Conspiracy - (-440, 20, -270) E of the Terra Volta exit in buildings ruins on outside edges

Explore Terra Volta – Freedom - Vidiot Map´
Authority - Freedom - (350, 190, -3600) Go 300 yards E of Terra Volta Reactor, you'll be at a ledge, go to the NE corner and drop, it is at the base of the ledge facing E.

Explore Peregrine Island –Vanguard - Vidiot Map
Portal Parter - Vanguard - (3045, 0, 1290) On island with a utility tower 835yds SW of ferry

This is where the real work starts, and also where you get your first accolade. After completing these tasks, you will have earned the Pupil history badge and the Atlas accolade – congratulations!

Explore King’s Row – Archmage, Atlas, Freedom - Vidiot Map.
This is the first in a long series of exploration tasks. To save time later on, you will only explore each zone once, picking up any badges and history plaques you need for all accolades in one sweep. Do the sites in order and you will end up well situated for the next zone. Note that the Pupil badge is a history badge, awarded after clicking all the history plaques in a certain set. So are the Authority and Savant badges you will be hunting for later.
Keen Sighted - Freedom - (-2175, 95, 1140) 300 yds N of the Sewer entrance, top of powerline tower next to monorail tracks
Summoned - Freedom - (-940, -40, 2975) Against the inner side of the road at S edge of map, straight S & slightly E from Blue Steel,
Pupil - Atlas - (-400, 0, 1755) Corner of building between Police HQ and Hospital. Go N from front of hospital, where road goes W, go E behind the building, pedestal with plaque is at the far corner.
Mystic King - Archmage - (-375, 70, 245) On rooftop 250 yds SW from Gish dot
Pupil - Atlas - (-175, -40, -1465) Follow road from GC exit 640 yds S, then on right side (W of Hide Park side) jump down to find it on the E-facing side of building.

Explore Galaxy City – Atlas, Conspiracy, Freedom - Vidiot Map
Pupil - Atlas - (-730, 0, -1340) Approximately 50 yards S of Equinox dot. Plaque is on a pedestal just east of kneeling statue in reflective pool.
Bird Watcher - Conspiracy - (2nd story ledge -1100, 50, -2260) 87yds SE of Orion Beltway dot on 2nd story ledge
Brawler - Freedom - (-1180, 65, -935) Top of Mighty Mart 475yds NW of Perez exit

Explore Perez Park – Atlas - Vidiot Map
Pupil - Atlas - (-1170, -30, 2250) 320 yds SW of Perez Park dot, along the SW bank of the river, hidden from the river view under a tree.

Explore Atlas Park- Atlas - Vidiot Map
Pupil - Atlas - (510, 0, -1150) NW Corner of City Hall building in parking lot.
Top Dog - Atlas - (135, 315, -340) On top of Atlas' globe

Gearsmasher - Freedom
Defeat 100 Clockwork Gears – these spawn form defeated Clockwork bosses.
This is really a task in the 5-20 level range, but since it is so easy and to keep the guide simple it is listed here. Do the Synapse task force, or go to Faultline, to complete this.

Finder - Vanguard
Defeat 100 Lost bosses.
This is really in the 5-20 level range too. Lost bosses abound in the south-central part of Skyway City, or you can offer to help people do their cape mission.

Tracer - Archmage
Defeat 100 Tsoo sorcerers.
You will find sorcerers in great numbers in the west of Steel Canyon and on the north part of the island in Talos Island.

Banisher - Archmage
200 Banished Pantheon spirit masks.
These can be found in Dark Astoria and in Talos Island close to Dark Astoria – but only at night. A large team helps a lot here, as they spawn more of your team is big.

Tank Buster – Freedom
100 Freakshow Tanks
Real easy. Do Sister Psyche’s task force, or any number of Freakshow missions with a reasonably-sized team. Or just hunt them in Brickstown.

Silver Bullet – Atlas
100 Council Warwolves
These are bosses of the Council werewolves. Do the Striga Isle arc in big teams, or hunt them on the mountain in the Bony Morass of Striga.

The Slayer – Atlas
100 Council Vampyri
Another easy one – you find these in abundance on Striga Isle and in the arcs there.

There is but one task in this level range, but it is very important.

Spelunker Badge - Atlas
Complete mission "Rescue the Mystic", given by Hugo Redding, Dr. Trevor Seaborn, or Hayley Phillips. Many heroes spend their teen levels in the Hollows and miss out on this mission, which is needed for the first badge, Atlas. When you get this mission, it is very good form to broadcast an open invitation – doing so and asking for tips may solve your influence problems for quite a while.

This is a badge hunting guide focused on accolades. It is for heroes who don’t care too much about badges, but don’t want to miss out on the accolades. It is set up as a number of tasks that you should do at different levels. If you complete all these tasks, you will get all the accolades. The levels given are not absolute, just my recommendations.

This guide is a compilation, and not based on personal research. All my data comes from other sites, I have merely sorted and analyzed it. My main sources are City of Heroes Online and Nofuture.org.uk. I also hearthily recommend Vidiot Maps.

Throughout, I use the coordinate system built into the City of Heroes engine. You get your current coordinates using the /loc command.

The level range of hunting missions is when you get xp for them – you can of course do them later, which is easier but less rewarding.

There are six accolades in the game, and they are definitely not created equal. There are rumors of more accolades, but I have no solid info on these. A short introduction is in order.

Archmage
Level 45 (minimum 21). This is a 25-minute-recovery click power that grants a lot of resistance and defense to all but psi, at the cost of speed, recharge and accuracy.

Conspiracy Theorist (Hereafter Conspiracy)
Level 35 (minimum 20). This is a 25-minute-recovery click power attack that immobilizes.

Freedom Phalanx Reserve Member (Hereafter Freedom)
Level 40 (minimum 14). A 10% increase in hit points, and thus in regeneration rate.

Portal Jockey (Hereafter Portal)
Level 45 (no minimum). +5% Endurance and +5% Hit Points.

Received the Atlas Medallion (Hereafter Atlas)
Level 25 (Minimum 7). +5% Endurance.

Vanguard
Level 40 (minimum 40). This is a 25-minute-recovery click power that doubles the duration of all your Disorient, Hold, Immobilize, Fear, Confuse and Sleep powers. Knockback distance is also increased.

Sayig things is good - even canned things. Silent groups are eerie and scary. I tend to quit them.

Nice guide, but it seems to be written foirm a soloing perspective. nothing wrong with this, you should just note it.

I currently play Elec/Dev, made mostly as a concept character, but it panned out real well. Smoke Grenade makes normal mobs completely blind, which means I can maneuver for position on my Short Circuit freely. And Caltrops provide me with a small safe zone that allows me to remain at melee range.

Just a bit worried about how Cloaking Device will work in I5.

As for Fire/Fire, there is nothing wrong with /fire that a good tank or controller can't help with. /Fire gives you good damage in a single attack cycle, but the damage per second isn't all that impressive.

Starfox's Powerset Selection Guide - a very long guide with short introductions to all the power sets, pool power sets, and origins in the game.

Written while I5 was on test.

I have to agree with previous posters - we have to know why this was changed. Lacking the real reasons, we can only speculate. I am not going to go so far as to say that Stealth is now useless. It is a great comfort to be able to walk around a corner and be pretty sure you will see any mobs before they see you. But it has been reduced so much that many of its old uses are now completely obsolete. Maybe Stealth was used by too many, but hey, that means the play style it made possible was considered fun!

Having played in Stealth-heavy groups, I think I can see part of the reason. With stealth as it works now, you can basically ignore any group in the room except the one you are fighting. I guess this irked the designers. Having set up this “wonderful” room with four groups in it, they want to force us to adopt out tactics in order to fight them one by one - like a trick puzzle.

Well, this is what I think they think, but I do not think they are right. That situation can presently be solved in a variety of ways, such as confusion, phase shifting, sleep, stealth, pulling, or simply by fighting hard and well. Several of these are now being nerfed out of existence (namely stealth and sleep), forcing many to pull no matter whether we find it fun or not. And using stealth to overcome the problem is to use tactics.

It isn't realistic - whatever that means in a comic-book context. If groups B, C and D sees group A move out the room and not come back, they ought to investigate just as much as they should for an invisible battle inside the room. In fact the idea that a whole base of council mobs would not use radio to organize their defense and root out an invader in an organized fashion is unrealistic – but it is required for the game to work. The only realistic way to assail such an organized group would be to use Stealth – and that’s not the way we want it to be. So lets not get suck up on realism.

It is not fun - because you always have to use the same tactic. Lack of variation = no fun. Multiple different tools and ways to solve the same situation = fun. In soloing, a stealthy player can currently always use the same tactic – barge right in – but perfectly balancing PvE tactics for solo play is as pointless as perfectly balancing PvP for duels. In a team, it is costly to get everyone stealthed, and area stealth is easily fumbled with, so it is a tactic that you won’t use every time.

It's not balanced. In group A, everyone focuses on combat. Group B has paid the price to have Stealth. Group A obviously has an advantage in pure smackdown combat - group B should have the advantage in some other situation.

Finally, some of us just don't like trick puzzles, and are willing to pay (in power options and slots) to avoid them. Using stealth was such a tool, that you could bye at cost. Now that option is gone. This can be compared to travel power. Nothing stops you from going everywhere with Sprint alone, but most players prefer to pay a price (a travel power) to cut time and make things more convenient. Well, some players like to avoid pulling and are willing to take Stealth to do that. If very many players are willing to pay to avoid pulling, then perhaps you should take a look at how pulling works and how much of it is required in the game rather than destroy the workaround.

Let’s compare Stealth to Hover. Hover blasting and stealth blasting is currently two tactics that achieve similar ends. At least outdoors, Hover lets you do everything stealth does. Instead of having a shorter detection radius, you can safely and easily remain outside the standard detection radius. Even with two groups that are intermixed, if you stay 60' above them, you can fight one and not the other. In addition to this, hover does not suffer defense suppression and it allows you to stay out of melee - something Stealth can never do. To top it off, Hover is cheaper in End, so much cheaper that its defense bonus per point of end is better than Stealth. With Stealth's defense halved, Hover will now be more than twice as cost effective. The drawback of Hover is that it requires slotting to make the speed acceptible. So it comes with sort of a built-in disadvantage that can be compensated for. Well, so does Stealth - in fact the very same disadvantage, slow, and the stealth version is harder to compensate for.

[Note that I am not advocating a nerf to Hover. It is perfectly fine as is, and an interesting and viable tactic with its own costs and limitations. So should Stealth be.]

Defense pool powers generally have two effects - a primary (what they do) and a secondary (defense). Hover has free vertical movement, Combat Jumping has limited vertical movement and immobilization resistance, Stealth has concealment, Hasten has recharge and Weave has nothing but offers more defense. I can see that the base effect of Hasten was so good that the power is balanced by having its defense removed. But if Stealth's effect is considered so much better than the others that it needs to have both effect and defense halved, I'd like a dev to come out and explain why.

Whew, this became much longer than I thought it would. I am very happy we finally have a tread on this - a place to gather all our thoughts. But that should only be a first step. In the past, we have been promised an explanation for why you change things around, and that explanation is overdue here.



Aside from this, to paraphraze Cato, do Ice Tanks really need to be destroyed?

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Hey gang, made a trick arrow defender and its a blast to play, but there are a few questions i have about it. First of all what part in a team did you envision this AT to play? As with all the defender sets it's a jack of all trades type of set, but not really good at any of them. It's true I can fill in as a (weak) blaster, or (poor) controller, but wasn't that part of the reason you introed these nerfs to begin with...to keep the different AT's from acting like the others? Also i'm not really sure this AT belongs in the defender catagory....just how do we defend the team? We can't heal, unless we take powers from ther medicine pool, we can't debuff or buff...how exactly does this qualify as a defender?

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Just looking in on the state of the tread and noticed this and several similar posts. Maybe it is time to make Trick Arrow into a Blaster secondary rather than a defender primary? Wasn't that what everyone wanted from the start?

Speaking mainly as a FF defender and as a SR scrapper, but this is also relevant to Ice tanks.


All defenses has two main problems; Scaling and Accuracy Boosting. This makes defense test better than it is in actual stress situations.

Everyone knows about the scaling problem. I won't go into it in detail, but in short; when foes get more dangerous, your defenses gets worse. This can be because the level of foes increase or because their “rank” increases. Thus, defense needs to be better than Resistance in run-of-the mill situations vs. Even-con minions, worsening to about the same as the situation grows more dangerous. This is since you generally die when the situation gets worse, not when it is running as usual. This point seems to have been missed in all the defense translations to I5, and it is easy to miss in testing as well.

Now on to accuracy. Accuracy buffs and defense debuffs in this game is just too prevalent for Defense to be a viable defense throughout the game. Every blaster and defender has them, most scrappers have them, all players have them in inspirations, Nemesis have them, Devouring Earth have them, Crey has them (radiologists), all bladed weapons have them (yes, even Hellions!). The situation in PvP is particularly staggering, but it is definitely bad enough in PvE that it needs to be looked at.

In other words, while defense may look good in "routine" testing, it has too many situations where it is debuffed - its Kryptonite is way too common. Once again something that easily slips through routine tests.

A fix to defense, that is quite drastic, is to change defense from a to-hit penalty to a miss chance. Say you now have a 10% defense - this reduces a minion's effective damage by 20%. This could be replaced by a straight 20% miss chance. No scaling, same to all attacks, immune to accuracy boosts, works the same way to AVs as to -5 minions. Almost evens the playing field to resistance sets, but does not address one-shotting at all. Defense would still be inferior, but at least it would be the same across the board. But I fear this is too drastic a solution.

The first cone has nothing in the descriptive text indicating that it is a cone. The icon is an obvious clue, but not everyone understands the icons.

Cidri, My Claws Scrapper

I think the root of the problem lies in Defender damage. 66% is just to low to put much effort into improving it. This means that most defenders put their slots where the power is - in their primary - which makes their effective damage even less. If more emphasis went into the secondary, defenders wouldn't be so similiar to controllers.

Of course, raising defender damage would make blasters feel even more useless, so it is not something to do lightly, and not a stand-alone change. But Tankers got more damage, so I can see defenders getting it too.

I do admit, however, that this may be more of a perception problem than an actual problem - if more defenders slotted their secondaries, their damage would increase, and 66% is still plenty useful.

When you see a defender wanting an invite, it is a lottery. You may get a damage-specced rad offender or a meek empath. When building a team, you usually know what you want - more control, tanking ability, more damage. But when adding a defender, you never know what you get or what role it is going to fill. This makes me reluctant to invite defenders I don't know.

Another issue is time during combat. Once my contoller has laid down her area controls, she has all the time in the world to apply buffs, heals, debuffs and other effects from her secondary (she is Ice/Kin). Wheras a defender is busy blasting, and prefers to do her buffing before and after fights. Thus controllers are perceived as better healers/buffers than defenders simply becuse they have more free time to do them.

This time-sharing problem is particularily achute for Empathy defenders, whose primary powers have to be used during combat. Heals have to be in combat, and the best heals have to be targeted. And Fortitude, on it's slow recharge, needs to be applied the moment it expires or it is working below expectations. This, more than the low damage, made my Healer respec out of her attacks - in big teams (where she was doing best), there was simply no time for her to blast in combat.

Also, I want to agree with what has been said in other threads. If mobs had more (and more powerful) debuffs and less mezzes, healers would become more useful. So what if the tank has maxed-out resistance - if he gets hit by Enervating Field he will still need buffs.

Finally, I want to add a word on an important quality-of-life issue for both controllers and defenders. TARGETED BUFFS SHOULD ALL HAVE THE SAME DURATION. I hate how Speed Boost and Density Increase have different durations, or Clear Mind and Fortitude. Or all of them and Grant Invisibility or Stimulant - though I can see why a pool should be weaker.

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The worse thing about the show (if there was anything to call "worse") was that people were more interested in the NCSoft bag than City of Heroes!

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The NCSoft bag? [Interested]

And... Hapy Birthday!

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The RPG and the CCG are NOT about trying to make $. Instead, I pushed for both of these products because I knew they'd be cool. Strange, hunh? I'm not just the designer of CoH, but I'm also a fan. And as a fan, I want to see those things

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Of course, this attitude is part of the reason why you ARE making $.