Sylph_Knight

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So, wait...in the picture with the gladiator armors, is that Statesman in there?

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That does look like the Statesman cape and Helmet. Do we get access to those???

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That helmet is SIMILAR to states helm but it isn't. look very closely at both of them. Not the same just very similar and I expect to see a few new states look a likes using that helm once the feature goes live.

When Jay said "No to the above" he meant the whole statement "Is that statesman helmet and cape? do we get access to them?"

Hence "No they aren't and no we won't get access to the states cape and face plate."

I may be wrong but personally I believe that the pics are accurate and we get all the good stuff we see there. Again look close to both states and the roman helm. Not the same just similar.

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So let me get this straight.

A ) I'm a Tank, so I can't get the super-huge shoulders that the female Arachnos chick in that one pic has. That SUCKS. I've waited forever for giant shoulder pauldrons and now I can't get them because it's an archetype exclusive (even Kheldians didn't get an archetype exclusive costume).

B ) We don't get the Cloth Mantle (made famous by Statesman).

Two of my biggest wants dangled in front of me with sadistic availability options in place for one and false advertisement for the other... wait, isn't that illegal?

I see you have lost your sexiness, Jay. And your Silent Bob, to boot!

SG Name: The League of Champions (sub-groups include the Champion's Vanguard, the Academy of Champions, the Pips, the Legion of Tyranny, and several others.)
SG Leaders: Lumin
SG Website (if any): http://leagueofchampions.guildportal.com
SG Recruiters: n/a
Teamspeak/Ventrillo Server: n/a
SG Peak Hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday nights
Other Info: The League of Champions is a fairly large group of Heroes who have a wide range of opportunities. We are not specialized in any particular form of gameplay but tend to dabble with everything. We have an event calendar from which any member can set up and manage events, which has proven quite successful. Most of our community has, at the very least, one level fifty. We enjoy aiding newcomers via our introductory group "the Academy of Champions" or our Villain-Side group, "the Legion of Tyranny", helping them to learn about the game's many aspects while granting them team support to level up more efficiently.

We have a fair share of Roleplayers (PSLAnimal and myself), PvPer Specialists (Sgt. Payne and Vue), and high-level mission farmers (Nanook, Spike Dragon). Many of us are dedicated raiders and have served as group leaders in the Hamidon Raids at one point or another. Overall, most of us have experience in all these fields and throughly enjoy a chance to try them all, so if you're ever interested in knowing about every aspect of City of Heroes and/or Villains, we'd love to give you a first-class tour, Champions Style!

This scenario reminds me of the EA/Origin disputes and Ultima Online. But in the name of all that is holy, I dread seeing CoH/CoV recieving an update that warps it like the AoS expansion to Ultima Online did. Here's to hoping we never have that scenario.

I hope for the best, but plan for the worst. Can't say I have a whole lot more to say on the subject.

Nice work this week! I love the emphasis on some player-operated events that were added with this issue. It's fun to see what everyone's up to!

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We’ve talked about this amongst ourselves, and we’ve come to the conclusion that the Test server contains its own community that should be treated exactly as well as the other communities in this game (servers, PvPers, fan art, etc.).

We also decided that it was a mistake to not acknowledge that this was a test server event, and that this news was relevant only to those that care about either Issue 10’s progress or the test server community. In the future, we will be more mindful of that. To put it more bluntly, shortly after people pointed out our mistake, there was a large collective slapping of foreheads as we realized our oversight.

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I rather like this resolution. Good thinking!

Found another typo. Hopefully the last one.

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Researchers from Vanguard, the special UN organized sent in to aid the city, have expressed much excitement since the wreckage was brought into their laboratory the following morning.

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Organized should be organization.

Not an important typo by any means though. Again, great job Scoop Team.

Awesome. Again, just a suggestion. The complete version of the revision might be worded more like this:

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The Heroes of Task Force Vendetta are now calling themselves the ‘Steel 70’ in reference to the place and number of Heroes involved. And before the attack began, several of them removed their capes as a symbol of dedicating the battle to Hero 1 and the sacrifice of Omega Team. The act was a clear sign of Humanity's continued defiance against the alien threat, recalling Omega Team's valiant sacrifice in the first war once again.


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This is fairly close to the length and size of the original text. It should hopefully ease some issues regarding the strategy that was woven into the story by replacing it with a meaningful reference. Again, like you said, not sure how well this can be implemented, but hopefully it will be of use.

Considering that the news of the Steel 70 event took place last week, it wouldn't be suprising that an "interesting development" took place shortly after the print (or, in role-playing terms, beforehand if you want to amend the issue in some way).

I would suggest removing the paragraph involving the strategies we mentioned such as the "Slow" powers. You can fill that space if you have to by mentioning how "Before the attack began, several Heroes removed their capes, a symbol of dedicating the battle to Hero 1 and all who the Rikti have taken from their loved ones. It was a clear sign of Humanity's defiance against the alien threat, recalling the original act of commemoration that was made in the wake of Omega Team's sacrifice." That should fit nicely and remove the problem about the strategy fix. Besides, the cape thing is partually true: Several of us removed our capes and wings to try and reduce lag (hense why I'm not wearing mine in the screenshot).

Thank you very much, Lemur_Lad. You're a saint, pal.

Looks like you'll get your due credit after all, Ember.

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Hmm, I think the lead story should have mentioned that the Steel 70 thing happened on Test and that the strategy employed has already been negated by the Devs. That would've been a more complete story. Perhaps next week's lead story can be a follow-up, to clarify those points. Otherwise people might get the idea this is a guide of sorts.

If you want to try for the same immersion, you ought to use the gambit of "the Rikti have countered the Steel 70's strategy by employing force fields which negate slowing powers." It might lend an air of verisimilitude to do it that way.

And ouch: "Where us 70..." It should be "we." Remember it this way: "We happy few, we band of brothers..." Let Willy the Shake be your guide.

Edit: Looks like others have already mentioned the Steel 70 thing.

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You make some fine points. Though I don't think it should be front-page, there should be a small side-article mentioning "UPGRADED RIKTI DROP SHIPS ON THE MOVE!!" or something.

We got plenty of nice screenshots to display the new hyper-overkill Drop Ships.

Our testing results in Cap Au Diablo this evening showed us something that just had to be a bug. Over 4 Drop Ships had merged together and could, in effect, virtually one-hit players. They also appeared to be at the Speed Boost cap, dropping bombs faster than the Malta Kronos Titan can fire its missile volleys and moving at speeds arguably faster than the run speed cap.

It's madness right now. I'm sure it's just a bug, though. You must see it to believe it.

Update:

Having witnessed the Drop Ships now... they didn't simply make them immune to slow, they made the buggers zip through the zone faster than Super Speed, and they bomb alot faster too. There are several path bugs with them flying through buildings as well.

I think Back Alley Brawler has a twisted sense of humor.

I want to congratulate the Scoop Team on another fine addition. I expecially want to thank Lemur_Lad and everyone involved for the Steel 70 article.

To answer some concerns and comments ahead of time:

The Steel 70 event, while largely a massive "Bug Find" battle just to see "If we could do it or not" as none had been defeated to that point, has some role-playing possibilities. You can also disregard its' validity as part of your own characters' story canon entirely. I think City of Heroes has proven time and time again that it's story so incredibly deep and fractured that I doubt no absolute canon can possibly exist without a few smidges here and there. This is just one more opportunity to make that decision: do you personally accept it as a part of your universe, or simply disregard it and state that it never happened. Either way, the most important factor is your own story and your own view of the world. This is a game and we're all here to have fun the best way we know!

Another concern that recently came to my attention is that "The Rikti" have already "modified their Drop Ships with Physics-resistant energy fields". Speaking out-of-terms: The Rikti Ships can no longer be slowed, which was their greatest weakness to this point. "Their Engines can now produce greater forward-thrust than before by removing inertial resistances of virtually any type." I personally find this evolution quite attractive as it will reinforce the "Chase Scene" element of the Rikti Drop Ship raids and fully support the Devs' decision to implement this change. I think it was the best solution they could find to keep the Drop Ships from being completely wreckworthy while maintaining the Players' abilities to become an intimidating fighting force when enough are banded together to be worth fleeing from. It is my hope that everyone accepts these changes and will simply look at them as an improvement, and are working towards finding new ways to make the event just as entertaining for themselves and their friends. Please remember that the Rikti Drop Ships are Raid-worthy opponents, equivalent to Hamidon or the Rikti Mothership (which means they need alot of people to defeat! ). They are unique in the fact that they fly and maintain a steady movement, providing the first true high-flying battle and first chase-scene in the game. Though I doubt this is the Developers' intentions, I have learned through the years that sometimes players just don't treat something the way it was meant for, and this happens to be one of those cases where we have the option to either dread the Drop Ships or view them as the penultimate flying challenge!

The next mention is that, yes, there is a Villain-side raid going on tomorrow evening on the Test Server. We are presently making adjustments to our battle plan based on the modified Rikti Drop Ships. I don't know whether or not this turnout will be equivalent to the Steel 70 event, but we can atleast say that this will be a good chance for you Villains to dish some torment upon your greatest competition for the world-at-large!

I've also recieved several requests to host another Drop Ship Raid. I am currently debating the issue but it does look to be a promising proposition. I'd like to see the number of participants vastly multiplied if we did choose to do such an event again. I'm pretty sure no one here would stand for anything less than the magnitude of 100 Heroes standing valiant against the Drop Ships! The real question is whether or not we should wait till Issue 10 goes live to go through with such an event or play it through beforehand as a farewell party to the end of the I10 beta. I'd really like to make the opportunity as open to everyone in the game as possible, and as alot of PvP/Special Event hosters have learned: Test Server is the ultimate, equal-opportunity gathering place.

Anyway, whether you hated the story or not, I hope you loved the rest of the City Scoop this week. I, for one, am greatly appreciative of the Scoop Team for their hard work and dedication towards making the game feel more alive than ever before! Cheers!

EDIT: YEOWZA!! I guess the Devs really don't want us killing those things after all. They failed to mention that the Drop Ships also got Speed Boosted! *laughs*

Well, it was fun while it lasted.

EDIT 2: Five Minutes of analysis prove that Drop Ships now run in a predictable pattern, and in circles no less. This might be interesting.

Unfortunately they took my Edit Button from me today for the original topic post for some reason. I'll ask to see if the Forum Admins can restore that ability.

Yes, I'm actually pretty depressed that the Devs felt it necessary to strengthen the Drop Ships further. They're extremely admant about making them as difficult as possible. On the positive side, this reinforces the idea of a "Chase Scene" battle. To that end, I am certain this will only improve the excitement of the battle by increasing the odds. But there's always a weakness, and right now I'd say that weakness lies in the ambush points...

*laughs* That's good. You had me spooked there.

I sent in a submission to Lemur_Lad a few days ago. I asked him to validate a few responces he requested from me but I haven't heard from him or seen him on the forums in 2 days. Hope he's doing alright.

Thank you very much for the update, MTFB_Pko! I'd be interested to add your data to the guide with credit given if you'll allow me. If you have any screenshot data, that would be of great help too. I have some personal webspace that I imagehost from, so we have that covered.

So far as mapping flightpaths go, I'd be glad to help. I have two monitors hooked up to this system so it will be quite doable for me.

I have updated the guide and added several CoH-side spawn maps. I hope to finish the CoH spawn maps sometime next week and work on the CoV ones unless someone can lend me a hand.

Marvelous!

I'll append the information with you recieving full credit sometime tomorrow evening. I've got a number of Drop Ship entry points and suggested areas of ambush (where the Drop Ships come close enough to certain buildings to fire upon them without Fly) for the Hero-side of things.

Here's to tomorrow's update!

"Cuz we could"

Raid Guide for Rikti Drop Ships
Written by Sylph Knight and Mofeta

We all know what they are. The Rikti’s latest weapons, those pitch-black abominations we call Drop Ships, have brought down more than one Hero (or Villain) who was either courageous or foolish enough to stand against them. That all changed with Task Force Vendetta (the “Steel 70”), a coalition of over seventy Heroes, when they launched one of the largest ambushes in the history of Paragon City against a whole squadron of nine Drop Ships and reduced them all to scrap.

As of this writing, the Drop Ships are one of the most intimidating opponents in the game (or at least on the Test Server, although they should be on the Live Servers very soon), and there is very little reason to fight them as they grant virtually no reward whatsoever. However, they are the first true “Chase Scene” battles the game has to offer, and provide one of the most entertaining challenges since the Hamidon.

This guide was created based on data gathered by the initial success of Steel 70. With any luck, the Developers won’t alter them any further since it would completely negate any details I put together here. *laughs* Believe me, the Drop Ships are plenty hard enough as is. This guide should give you some idea how to defeat the Drop Ships.

Forum member Mofeta was among the first people to organize data on the I10 Test Forum against the new Rikti Drop Ships, before and after the Steel 70 event. A lot of this data was pulled from her notes along with several contributions from the rest of Steel 70 including myself. I hope to expand this article in the future with the help of some generous donations from Heroes and Villains who are willing to provide Map Screenshots of the Rikti Drop Ship entry points into the various zones they attack.

Initial Notes:
--You WILL need Fly or be teamed with someone who has Group Fly to properly combat a Drop Ship. Exceptions are rare.
--Drop Ships shall not stop for anything willingly. The moment they enter the zone, you are racing against time to kill it before it flies out. You should know where the Drop Ships are going to appear ahead of time and lie in wait for them there.
--Speed Boost is invaluable for keeping up with the Drop Ships.
--Drop Ships attack targets at random. They cannot be Taunted.
--Drop Ships can be Slowed and Debuffed. Your best bet is to nail them with Slow effects till they can no longer move, then combine debuff and attack efforts.
--Drop Ships are Giant Monsters and have an incredibly massive amount of health. Bring friends and strangers alike, even your neighbor’s old dog if possible! This is a raid, and will require in excess of 30 people to properly succeed.

The order of priorities to take out a Drop Ship are as follows:
1) Get everyone in the Air (Fly, Group Fly, Speed Boost)
2) Find out where the Ships are going to spawn in the zone you're in and go there.
3) Wait... (This takes time!)
4) When they arrive, stop the Drop Ship's movement (Slow, possibly Immobilize though we're not sure if this works as current tests are inconclusive)
5) Debuff the Drop Ships
6) DAMAGE!! (Buffs, Attacks)
7) Ka-Boom!!
8) Repeat

To see this in action, check out this video by Bellflower and Star Lancer.



Organizing Teams:
So far as organizing teams goes, micro-manage such an event long ahead of time. I suggest that you break down into 5 types:

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Group-Fly teams
--These are a hodge-podge of Heroes and villains who lack powers of flight to call their own. This groups' sole purpose is to provide for those who can't fly. These teams should have 1-2 Villains with Speed Boost, 1 with Group Fly, and the rest are "passengers". Why put them on a Group Fly team instead of somewhere where their respective speciality could be better useful? For lack of their ability to Fly, specificially... this travel power is the first and most vital thing in the Raid. Everything else comes second. To sacrifice a little organization in exchange for more firepower is worth it.

All the remaining 4 teams are built specifically with the Fly travel power in mind.

Deceleration Team
--These teams are filled with individuals who have Slow and Immobilize powers. Their singular goal is to make sure those Drop Ships stop dead in its tracks so the other assault teams can have their way with them. These can be mixed with the Debuff Teams if there's not enough to constitute their own teams.

Debuff Team
--These teams exist to weaken the Drop Ships. Keeping them concentrated will allow their leader to help them organize order of priority. They should be debuffed in speed (although the Deceleration Team has this priority), Resistance, Defense, and Damage in respective order (arguably, someone else may prefer different tactics).

Ranged Attack Team
This type of team is the first and heaviest line of offense. I recommend putting some Kinetics or other related Damage and Accuracy buffers on these teams.

Melee Attack Team
The Calvary. The Melee Attack Team will most likely get to the Drop Ships after the ranged attackers and deal less damage overall. But their concentrated efforts will undoubtedly make them a determining factor, like every other team, in their defeat. I suggest placing 1-2 buffers on these teams as well.


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This has been the best planned strategy for defeating a Drop Ship to date.

Mofeta's Original Guide and Notes (with additional advice from myself):
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As the Rikti attack in I10 (and continue to make attacks in later issues), we will be provided the chance to clean up UXBs and deal with ground forces. However, some of us may want to take a more proactive approach to the coming invasion. This guide will help you to take down the attacks at their source.

This guide is still very much in development. Any comments to this thread may be added in to improve the guide.

Knowing the Enemy

The Rikti dropship is a potent force; it was made especially to counteract the various super-forces, whether individual exceptional heroes or forces such as Longbow or Arachnos. Even the Freedom Phlanax would have a hard time doing it. But we're not talking about Statesman doing this. We're talking about you.

The Rikti Drop Ships move at a fairly fast clip; faster than running or Group Fly (unslotted), but not faster than unslotted Fly. If you cannot defend against this, you will have a chase scene on your hands. This also means you are fighting against the clock; every second you have to spend flying is one less second you have fighting, and one less second you'll have to fight all the other Drop Ships.

They are fairly defensive, having a modestly-high Defense and very good Regeneration. They have poor offenses, compared to the power of their bombs and the troops they teleport down -- however, their cannons are very accurate and potent, able of taking most squishies out in two hits and tankers in three (Sylph Knight’s note: About 5-6, actually, without healing).

Drop Ships come in groups of nine (Sylph Knight’s note: Atleast the Steel 70 Drop Ship squadron was, not sure if these vary from spawn point to spawn point). Who knows why nine and not then. Maybe Rikti only have thumbs on their right hand. They come in predictable patterns, always the same in every zone; they may come in more than one group at a time, and they always come in two distinct waves, a bombing wave then a ground assault wave.

Getting in the air
The biggest problem is getting in the air. Obviously, you're fighting a spaceship; you have to be in space. (There is a strategy that gets around this discussed later, but for now, let's assume you want to do this the easy way.)

If you're a Kheldian (with Nova Form), feel free to skip this part. Lucky punks.

If you are going to have any chance at all in the air, you will need to be able to fly. That is a given. Luckily, taking the Flight power pool isn't too bad; the bonus defense of Hover helps out builds that need a little more defense, while I often hear scrappers gush over the power of Air Superiority.

Hover, however, may be the best choice for several reasons: Low Endurance cost, a Defense buff, no suppression after attacks, and not needing any other prerequisites. With speed boosts (including the Kinetics power Speed Boost, as well as powers like Radiation Emission's Accelerate Metabolism), you can reach the Fly movement cap without any suppression at all, with a Defense boost, with a reduced Endurance cap.

No archetype is useless (Sylph Knight’s note: Some are better than others, undoubtedly—even my Tank can’t contribute nearly as much as other Archetypes and I’m fine with that); almost all builds have at least one ranged attack, and almost all builds have one debilitating attack.

Group Fly, or the Mobile Weapons Platform
The alternative to taking Hover or Fly, however, is relying on someone who took Group Fly. One character can provide Flight for eight people, which can help specialized builds, people without the ability or will to Respec, and random members who join your raid to get in the air and do some damage to the Rikti menace. This is where the villains will have an advantage, as many Masterminds have discovered the joy of being able to turn their pets into a flying weapons platform and just fly through missions and zones alike.

(Sylph Knight’s note: Group Fly is virtually useless without some Speed Boosts for the Team. You’ve been forewarned! )

There is a nasty side effect, however: Group Fly drains extra endurance from the fly boy for everyone held aloft, and it causes major accuracy debuffs. Tactics will be a must for any team to counteract this debuff (and unless you play solo and don't like to do extra damage more often, you should have Leadership anyways). The 'fly boy' should concentrate on defense, to keep their endurance from getting too low and suddenly dropping them out of the sky, and let their entourage do all the damage; when they do attack, it should be a debuff, and they should watch their endurance. The Group Fliers should each take a large number of blues to make sure they keep flying; powers like Conserve Power will be invaluable. But don't think of this 'passive' role as being a taxicab; think of it as piloting a giant superpowered weapons platform!

Additionally, Group Fly isn't as fast as normal fly. If you can't get the ship slowed, you'll be in trouble

If you are in a group relying on someone else's Group Fly, for Pete's sake, be nice to your pilot, and listen when they say something! In the original Steel 70 event, I told my team to have me on auto-follow, and that we would be doing tests; about half the team followed this instruction, and were able to contribute versus the spaceship. The rest did not, and were not aware of the 100-foot radius of Group Fly; two of them wound up falling out of the sky. The rest, however, were able to enjoy uncapped Fly speed (from the multiple stacked AMs and SBs) with no endurance cost on their part, and were able to blast, tank, and scrap away happily.

Cannon fire
The Drop Ships have only one direct defensive method: Their main cannons. As listed above, they can two-shot most builds (three-shot tankers (Sylph Knight disagrees! )), in most situations; for this reason alone, soloing the Drop Ships is a bad idea. (Sylph Knight’s note: In fact, it is not only a bad idea, but impossible to succeed!)

However, despite the fact that they do massive damage, mitigating their damage output is not a serious concern to a modest sized group, and almost no concern to a large one. Why? Because they can only hit one target at a time (Sylph Knight’s note: And, they also attack at seemingly at random. Taunt has no effect on them). Rikti Drop Ship damage is effectively a sniper attack, not a AoE; they don't even have Force Fields. Even any random smattering of heroes will have enough self-heals and PBAoE heals to cover everyone; damage mitigation will not be a problem.

This is very different compared to other giant monster raids. No longer will we need to build dedicated resurrection teams or will every team need their own dedicated Empathy defender. Instead, defenders should heal as needed, but instead concentrate on their more potent abilities: Debuffing.

Debuffs
After reading the logs of the original Steel 70 event, it seems that debuffs on most abilities are effective, although the ship may have some slight resistance to debuffs. This includes, for sure, Resistance of various types and speed.

Obviously, hitting both of those caps is going to be very handy. In the first ship in the Steel 70 raid, we thought of debuffing as a secondary afterthought behind our main attacks; we were astounded, all of us I think, to see the large ship slow down to a halt -- with its damage per second quickly going up... Every ship after that, more of us caught on, and fired our debilitating effects first; that made every ship faster than the last. But we still have incomplete numbers (this will improve as logs are analyzed).

What we know works: -Resistance, -Defense, -Speed.

What we think works: -Accuracy, -Damage, -Recharge.

What we think does not work: Confuse, Disorient, Immobilize, Hold.

-Fly is a special situation. It seems that ships do not follow the normal flying rules -- or the clipping rules, possibly as a side effect of whatever allows them to move through the War Walls unlike normal objects. When you defeat a Drop Ship, it will fall under the ground. If -fly is worthless, then the point is moot; if -fly works, it's entirely possible that (somewhat like the old Arachnos Flyer bug) it will fly under the stage!

Good sources of -Resistance are the Sonic sets. Good sources of -Speed include any Cold or Ice themed set and Spines. Sources of -Regen are rare, but include Poison and Thermal Emission (both villains-only). And of course, the Radiation Emission and Trick Arrow sets can debuff just about everything, and are available to three archetypes each.

Slowing and non-fliers
The greatest benefit of slowing seems to be by design. It seems that every Rikti ship comes to short range of a certain landmark or piece of ground, perhaps intentionally. Almost all characters have at least one attack that can reach that sort of range -- even Super Strength characters can throw rocks, and many scrappers have taken a Super Jump-recharge-repeat policy towards attacking airborne foes.

If your group has a large number of characters with minimal or no melee attackers, or if you just want your raid to be open to all comers (like our Steel 70 was -- at least 30 of those 70 just heard about it by running by), using Slows bring a Rikti ship to a crawl will be invaluable. They aren't that fast to begin with, and this strategy will limit the amount of time you have -- but since travel is no longer a problem when you let the ships come to you, you could have many more attackers at once.

Buffing
Leadership, as always in 8-man teams, will be handy. Tactics is a must in Group Fly teams due to the accuracy debuff incurred by Group Fly, and Assault will be very useful for everyone (solo or group). Maneuvers are not necessary, however, as the ship seems to attack random targets.

Other PBAoE defenses and buffs will be great -- in a recent fight outside a hospital, I was hit by five different Accelerate Metabolisms almost as soon as I walked out the door, peaking at 8 later. And this was just from a modestly sized group fighting randomly.

Additionally, keep in mind that two SBs or a number of AMs (or some combination of these two) can let people with Hover or relying on Group Fly move at the uncapped Fly speed -- an invaluable asset.

Endurance
An important consideration in this fight is Endurance. In addition to (1) having several people with a highly taxing Group Fly that we Just Can Not allow to drop to 0 endurance, we'll be (2) running lots of copies of Leadership and other toggles, and (3) nobody can attack for the 1000 or so hits you'll need without running out of Endurance eventually. (Fortunately, -Resistance abilities drops that number significantly, and you can run all three togglable Leadership powers for less than the cost of keeping a travel power going, and with Group Fly we shunt the cost of the travel powers over to one designated 'pilot.')

Thus, we'll need endurance out the wazoo. This, of course, is where the Defenders, Controllers, and Corruptors come into play -- specifically, Accellerate Metabolism (Radiation Emission), Transference (Kinetics), and Recovery Aura (Empathy). Since two of these are PBAoEs, and the third is a targeted AoE, these will work great with multiple teams coming to one common point.


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Paragon City spawn points
When a zone enters Invasion-Phase, the Drop Ships will begin spawning in fixed areas. They will follow a predetermined flight path, one following the next, until all the ships from that phase have run their course. Then there will be something of a pause and, not long after the Rikti ground troops show up, Phase 2 will begin and a whole new set of Drop Ships will begin to spawn from a different set of pre-designated spawn points with their own flight path.

The effort of these screenshots and markers is to help players plan ahead for Drop Ship raids and effectively cut off the enemy before they can get a foothold into the city.

It is estimated that there are two spawn points per Phase, totalling to four per zone. Thus far I've only managed to pinpoint a few per zone. This section is currently under construction.



Galaxy City
Coming Soon!

Atlas Park
Atlas Park Spawn Map
Phase 2 Ambush Point --Note: This is, by far, one of the best possible ambush points in the entire game. The ship goes between a crossing of two evenly-spaces, same-height platforms in the middle of a building. The thing is well within 30ft of the players, so getting shots off will be a synch. If you can freeze it in this area, Fly will be completely unnecessary to perform a raid, possibly even for melee combatants.

King's Row
King's Row Spawn Map
Phase 2 Ambush Point

Skyway City
Coming Soon!

Steel Canyon
Steel Canyon Spawn Map

Talos Island
Talos Island Spawn Map
Phase 2 Ambush Point

Founder's Falls
Coming Soon!

Peregrine Island
Peregrine Island Spawn Map

(More updates coming soon, including even more Zone Entry Points)
==Contributors Wanted!!==

I’ve had my share of battles. And God knows I’ve suffered losses. My childhood companion Tanya Tyler was among the first victims I failed to rescue in my newly-established career as a hero. I still have nightmares about her disfigured form, cursed by Hamidon’s ungodly microbes, looming over me with bestial vehemence. Nothing quite scars a woman like slamming her former best friend through concrete walls in a desperate struggle to stay alive… even if she is a monster. All these years I spent building ties with NASA so that I could finally touch the endless depths of outer space amounted to nothing after that. All that mattered was Tanya’s well-being, and the search for a cure.

That’s why I joined the Vanguard.

It didn’t take long for me to draw a connection between the activity of the group known as “The Lost” and the Rikti’s surging reinforcements, even before those… those “things”… started blotting out sun and sky. The Rikti had been warping our own people, bringing them into the fold of the Rikti Collective. How does this add up for me? A cure for the Rikti Mutation may well parallel a cure to the condition of Hamidon’s Devoured… and Tanya as well.

Vanguard employed me only a month before the Rikti began their brutal renaissance of war. I used my physics-warping Quantum Energy technology to help them shape the countless tons of Impervium they had fabricated seemingly out of nowhere into useful constructs. Every piece of Vanguard Armor has my scientific signature written all over it. If that weren’t payment enough for the services of their scientific staff, then perhaps my leadership within the staff of Vanguard Shield and civil duties towards my beloved Paragon City will rest any thoughts of my payment… I will go any lengths to protect Tanya. And, what she held most dear…

Tanya was wild-eyed, an extremist of the highest value. I wasn’t ever quite far behind her there. But the world doesn’t much listen to ecologists anymore. I can’t say I really blame Tanya for getting wound up with ecoterrorists, not with heartless jerks like Crey Industries leaving messes everywhere they go. Sadly, that lead her to Hamidon, and that cost her all the humanity she ever had. But she did it all in the name of the earth and the shining, azure skies…

The sky is my domain. It lies between the starry heavens that I have sought to touch for so long and the emerald plains of the earth. The sky is the window to outer space and the marvelous sun which instills hope into countless lives each and every day. And now those skies are threatened once again. The Rikti buried me alive beneath the rubble of the Paragon University during the first Rikti War. I have tasted their destructive power, felt helplessness first-hand. I watched as that cycle unfolded again with those horrendous machinations. The Rikti didn’t just rush back to us empty-handed… they came armed to the teeth. They had studied us, our physiology and technology. They had witnessed our power, tasted our wrath and ingenuity and sorely underestimated our will to survive. They would not so easily make that mistake twice. They had constructed a new type of weapon, one that would endanger the people we Heroes so bravely throw ourselves into harms way to protect in order to leave us open... and then they would destroy us, one by one, with that infernal beam cannon. If that wasn’t suitable enough, they had plenty of ground troops to reinforce their efforts, driving us out and laying waste to us with numbers unprecedented.

Hero work is full of rescues, received and distributed like a weekly paycheck. But these things had made us into victims, and left us feeling like the ones needing to be rescued. I thought of this as I looked into the tear-filled eyes of a child I had just barely rescued as he trembled upon the sight of a charred skeleton lying next to our feet. From the tatters of cloth lying nearby, I had suspected that those remains had once been a proud defender of peace and justice. His hand was weakly fixated, outreaching towards the clouded skies which lay poisoned by the Drop Ships’ emissions, as though he were crying out for something. I could only take my hand into his and gently wrest it to the ground, accidentally knocking his unused Mediport Device away with a clatter. The poor soul never had a chance.

Weeks passed, and those devilish ships knocked out our War Walls and slinked through the various districts with their lethal payload uncontested. I had lead many groups of Heroes to battle them in the past, but our efforts were felled. While we did not suffer any losses, our efforts left us wounded and would have been better served trying to evacuate the civilians. The Rikti had us in the palm of their hand, they believed. Had they not counted on a simple fact, this might have been true. You see, the Rikti Ground Troops were numerous, but were suffering heavy captures. Our death toll and critical injury rate was much lower than theirs, thanks to our Mediport System… and, that the Rikti had not anticipated that we were, by far, more powerful than the first legion of Heroes whom they had faced some four years ago.

In the wreck of that first conflict, the Surviving Eight and others around the world sent out the call for a new generation of Heroes. The discord brought by the Rikti War seemed to fuel a Super-Powered resurgence in mankind, and many new Heroes rose to the challenge. But so did many enemies, new and ancient, grow in power and rise to stand in our path. These adversaries were better prepared than we were in the ruins of the Rikti War. They had surpassed their predecessors many times over, and in effect, we had to adapt as well. With training from some of the greatest heroes of the previous generation and a whole lot of luck, we conquered these fiends time and time again. We had become mighty indeed… mightier than what the Rikti had suspected. The fact that their Drop Ships were fervently seeking us out made this fact quite clear: They weren’t killing us as efficiently as they had suspected at all. In fact, aside from their dreaded “Meta-Buster” Drop Ships, they were having a pretty rough time managing against us. We were being pushed back, but we dug our toes in the gravel and resisted with more strength than they could ever realize. And, frankly, I felt… I KNEW… that we could push harder.

With the sunlight drenched in toxic clouds, a gloomy chill passed through the citizens of the city. Hope waned from their souls. Their laughter had become tears of despair. Those sickly skies were enough to drown the light from this world without the constant threat of annihilation breathing down our necks. And thus, to win… I knew. We all knew. Those skies must be made clear again. Those Drop Ships must FALL!!

We had little idea on how the Drop Ships actually worked, even given our past encounters with them. They were fast, but still had to slow down in order to deliver their payload. Their armor was made of an alloy as strong as Impervium, so they could take an incredible amount of punishment. I once struck one with Megaton Punches till my Hybuster Gauntlets burned out and hardly left a dent in the thing. Their cannons had a fairly low reload time, and could incinerate most Heroes in one shot though sometimes more if they were physiologically resilient or possessed some kind of energy-warping defense like I have. Overall, things looked quite grim.

I was then approached by a few another hero with a like-minded ambition. He called himself Heroic Judgement, and it wasn’t long before the two of us agreed to organize a Task Force for the sole purpose of destroying one of those accursed Drop Ships. We figured that if we could salvage at least one, then perhaps the brains over at Vanguard might be able to come up with a better means to attack the Drop Ships as a whole. Not one to waste time, I quickly began to contact any Hero I happened to come across. I called in favors, sent out bulletins, and used the Vanguard and Longbow networks to amass anyone brave enough to face one of these monstrosities head-on. Radmofet, Dark Ether, Darkonne, Beta Sword, Night Protector, the Hyperkinetic Hippy, Aikao, Darkonne, Amalgamate, Supercold, Star Lancer, Bellflower, the list went on and on! I had scheduled the attack to be less than twenty-four hours since the first announcement so the Rikti would not catch on, and within that time frame we were able to amass over seventy of Paragon’s least-known champions. It was reasonable that none of the heavy-hitters would be able to assist: they had the luxury of being stationed at specific places throughout the city. I’m pretty sure Positron laughed at me when I suggested the assault. After all, it would be suicide to attack a whole squad of the Rikti’s most powerful weapons and hope to come out successful, right?

While the word spread, I had pulled a few favors with NASA and took command of their satellite network. With a bit of help from various allies, we were able to predict part of the Rikti’s flight path. It was then that we found the perfect place for an ambush: the construction zone in northern Steel Canyon.

Steel Canyon was one of the luckier sections of the city. The attacks had barely grazed them thus far as the Rikti probably hadn’t accounted for its value. As the financial district of our city, it was the lifeline to any sort of commerce we had. Steel Canyon meant the continued success of Paragon City as industrial center, and if it fell then we would have a serious crisis on our hands. The city would be nearly unsalvageable without its center of commerce. It was just our luck that the Rikti finally found that the only major section of the city without a neighborhood was a worthwhile target, and we would be waiting for them.

We waited. Oh yes. We waited so very, very long.

The hours whittled away as we head on the rooftops of skyscrapers, beneath the construction, inside buildings, and anywhere else that would prove sufficient shelter. It was a long wait, but spirits were high. The largest effort against the Drop Ships had been less than half our number in the past. This would be an overwhelming show of force. Only the battles against Hamidon’s gigantic single-celled mass had ever called for such an incredible count of powers against a single foe. Many felt victory was assured, though I remained skeptical. I tried to keep the tactics simple, for I knew something they did not: a sizable army of this mass would be extremely difficult to coordinate. I kept the tactics plain and simple in fear that anything more complicated would fall to ruin. And I prayed, to whatever nameless divinity would hear my plea… I prayed, for hope.

Someone asked: “So, what did you call this little shindig again?” I pondered a moment… I hadn’t thought about a name for our Task Force. However, it seemed quite appropriate. I pointed to the Vanguard “V” on my helmet and inquired, “Do you think this thing on my forehead stands for Longbow?! We Heroes have a vendetta to settle with the Rikti. Thus, we are… Task Force Vendetta!!”

Hours passed… and suddenly, the War Walls snapped off! Everyone was on edge, but I desperately called for them to remain patient. We watched as the Drop Ships circled ‘round and entered formation. Our time had come. We suddenly exploded from our hiding places! A swath of Heroes, like a swarm of bees, wrapped its mass upon itself and formed a massive, impenetrable wall of power! We had heroes of all types and all powers gathered, creating barriers of energy and fields of force, increasing vital functions and mystically charging one-another with primordial energies or with advanced technology. Ours was a hodge-podge of sheer, unmitigated power! The very fabric of space-time felt as though it waxed and waned (and in no small part due to the presence of a time-warping Hero in our presence).

I can only guess that the Rikti were unimpressed with our defiant entry because they darted right at us, one right behind the next.

The first ship groaned like a malicious beast as it lunged towards us! It met with beams of energy, fields of force, fists of unbridled strength, and by some accounts even mere rocks! Our initial assault left gigantic craters in the pitch-black armor of the abhorrent thing, but despite our best efforts it was but a mere energy burst from the Drop Ship that forced us to scatter. Tear-ridden, I was flung aside and clawed at empty air until I caught my balance and resumed the chase. Like a living cannon-ball, I flung myself into the hull of the engines, beside myself with agony as several other Heroes struck the same position and presumably got mixed up in the crossfire.

Many of us were dazed, nearly all of us despaired. Where these behemoths truly indestructible?! …and then, the ship… it began to stagger to-and-fro…

Several of the other Heroes had been trying to “net” the ship to slow it down with every bit of power they had. Our desperate attack on the engines reinforced this and we were now faced with the bewildering results. The beast was injured! Rejoicing sang through the air as cries of confusion and pain became those of valor! We struck again, and again! We latched onto that blasted ship like leeches and began to rip the armor plates off while our allies continued to humble it from behind with energy blasts and various other powers that left it weakened and powerless! It wasn’t long before we breeched the bulkhead and the entire thing began to plummet towards the cemented earth!

Our hearts raced as we turned to the next approaching Drop Ship. It neither slowed nor changed its course… as though it doubted our power even though its occupants had witnessed our act with their very eyes. We threw ourselves upon it without hesitation, zealous and fit with resurgence after our initial victory. In short time, the ship was reduced to a smoldering ball of flame that crashed into the open highway, just like its predecessor.

Ship after ship, we charged forth. Seventy Heroes stood their ground that day, and not one lost their life. The Rikti lost nine of their most powerful weapons, reduced to so much rubble beneath our feet. The ground forces didn’t fare much better. No, they were completely decimated by a revitalized force of Heroes who fell upon them like a flock of wrathful angels descending from the heavens! As though the very skies heard our cries, the sunlight chiseled through the gaseous cloud and shone to our backs, blinding our foes as we wrought destruction upon their evil hordes. Those seven minutes changed everything: The War was not hopeless. The Enemy was not invincible. The Skies were not lost.

When you read the news tomorrow, will it be of Statesman and the Freedom Phalanx? Nay, I say to you. It shall be of the “Steel 70”, the Heroes who brought the light of hope back to the city! Though we may not have won this war, we have proven that there is still a way. Though the skies may still suffer under the weight of the noxious clouds, the sun still shines and waits for those whose shoulders dare burden the first steps towards the return of humanity’s bright future.

Tanya, I have not forgotten. The Emerald Plains and Azure Skies will never fade and be but a memory. The people of this city again know hope. Hope… perhaps that is the greatest gift a Hero can give.

I just hope/want to know if there's going to be any outer-space zones coming with this feature (similar to how the Shadow Shard operates). Kinda hard to be a Space Hero without any Space to go into.

That aside, this looks like it'll be a fun ride... I ponder if Hero-1 will be making a return, perhaps as a Lost Archvillain?