Vice_Virtuoso

Doubtful. If I had to start from scratch, I'd likely start from scratch on a new game so I'll have a new experience. Unlike the majority of players, I typically played a core group of about 4-6 characters for most of my COH career, and having to get them all back to where they were would entail too much repetitive grinding of stuff I've done before. I really wouldn't want to go the route of new characters, either...I tend to come up with character ideas and concepts that don't work properly in this game.

To anyone looking to file suit: Disputing the charges with your credit card provider/Paypal will be much easier, cheaper, and more likely to work than going to court over it.

Dispute the charges with your credit card company or Paypal.

1. 9
2. 20
3. 4
4. 6
5. 18
6. 3
7. 20.5
8. 14
9. 10
10. 7
11. 5
12. 10
13. 12
14. 19
15. 2
16. 21
17. 21.5
18. 11
19. 8
20. 16
21. 19.5

...

9000. 1
9001. 22
90001. 17
900001. 15
9.000...001 x 10^100. 13

A lot of the middle ones have interchangeable positions, but the top and bottom 5 are definites for me. Let's see yours, or you can just argue with mine.

I always laugh when people cry that "learn to play" isn't a valid argument for a challenge which people complete on a regular basis with little to only moderate trouble.

Anyway, regarding the it's-not-actually-hard-even-though-it-kills-people-on-a-regular-basis "gimmicks" people love complaining about, the alternative to make anything challenging for a league of 24 incarnates is to just make AVs with ludicrous resistance, defense, and damage output, somewhere around 95% passive resistance, 120% passive defense, and 4000+ damage Brawls as a baseline and going higher from there. And then it becomes purely mathematical whether you win or not -- enforcing the "holy trinity" style of required ATs/powersets that I'm sure none of us want.

So where exactly does the difference between "tedium" and "difficulty" begin? Because if the goal is just to reduce tedium, they should've left the pulse alone and just reduced the number of terminals needed. That and cut the length of the Underground trial map in half.

I'm gonna make my position on this clear. When it was first introduced, Keyes was by far my favorite PvE content in the game. It was tense and required coordination with healers or good inspiration management if you wanted to stay alive the whole time. It was fast-paced and challenging -- you went AFK in this trial and you're dead, I loved that. It brought characters into the spotlight who were normally glossed over and forgotten in the rest of the game: good healers to keep everyone alive in both the terminal phases and the Antimatter fight, and characters who could do lots of knockback to save time killing the Warworks around the terminals.

Now, it's yet another trivial grind. Hell, the past three times I've run the trial, Antimatter never even made it to us at the second reactor. The pulse can easily be out-regenerated now. There's no sense of accomplishment anymore, it's just another grind to get the reward at the end, like the entire rest of the game. And I really miss feeling proud of finishing something in this game.

Keyes is already fun. The changes on test are gonna make it another snorefest though.

Lord Recluse is the only character who has what I feel to be a truly iconic look.

Statesman, though I don't particularly like the costume, I can respect its status as archetypical of the "all-American hero" such as Superman or Captain America.

Every (and I mean every)other signature character has bland, forgettable costumes.

COF and OG suppress and will not break Hide, but it will break Placate. I have a keybind which both activates Placate and detoggles OG, which I consider a must for playing /DA Stalkers.

I don't consider COF worth it at all considering how much slotting it needs to be effective, and how relatively ineffective it is even then. Although, at least with Stalkers you don't have Death Shroud breaking their fear if you're solo.

OG is very useful though, especially if your primary has a guaranteed stun like EM or MA. My MA/DA has some of the Dam/Mez HOs in Eagle's Claw and can easily keep bosses stunned until they're dead.

Nothing at all. Galaxy has never had much of a draw to it aside from the exploration badges and plaques needed for the accolades.

I let people know, politely, not to cutscene dance in Lambda each time I lead one. I ask both teams to help the other team with their temp powers if their team finishes first, unless the other team only has one left.

For any violators, I immediately 1-star, ignore, and kick them. Zero tolerance.

The possibility of failure if Marauder exits and the reduced speed of getting the objectives done in an instance where there is limited time are two major reasons I do this. But the real reason is that the person in question has demonstrated an unwillingness to follow my directions and a disregard for me and the rest of the league, and, therefore, is someone I do not want in my leagues from then on. Both BAF and Lambda still require some degree of coordination, Keyes requires quite a bit of it, and future trials will continue to require more and more coordination and listening. Weeding out the ignorant or purposefully obstructive players will only help me and my leagues out in the long run.

Frostwork is a good power, but it requires some thinking about who to give it to so you can get the most use out of it. You'll need to check your teammates' normal max HP by hovering the mouse over their life bars, and have knowledge of what the HP caps for each AT so you'll know who can get the most out of it.

Keyes is worth it for the fun of it alone. It is much more exciting to me than BAF or Lambda, now that both of those are down to a science.

That said, it has a solid deal of difficulty compared to those two, so I wouldn't see a problem with the trial awarding more Astral Merits. Perhaps two per phase instead of just one.

/Fire Defenders should get the same DOT numbers as Blasters (or at least Corruptors), in keeping with the "increased secondary effect" theme. Initial damage would use Defender numbers.

For using cones and PBAOEs in tandem, take Combat Jumping. You can jump forward as you start the cone attack, land in the middle of them as it animates, then throw out your PBAoE without a hitch.

Love the look of the Polar Lights. Their simplicity and low profile lets them fit in with all sorts of character concepts.

I liked the mission the first two times I ran it, but I vastly prefer The Unusual Suspect since it can be finished more quickly.

Story stops mattering when you run the mission every two days and have it all memorized.

Enjoy:

STF
LRSF
LGTF
Apex (this is by far my favorite PvE content)
All 3 Incarnate Trials
Praetorian story arcs
Hami Raids
AE (both farming and doing legitimate stories)
Pre-I13 PvP (unquestionably my favorite part of the game, but alas...)

Dislike:
Literally every story arc, mission, task force, and trial from before I5
Mothership Raids (practically mindless, not to mention lag central station)
Sutter (if Duray wouldn't teleport quite so often I wouldn't mind)

I would indeed pay for a good hero builder app for iPhone, but not $10. Something like $1.99 would be reasonable, $2.99 at the most.

Few more points.

1. If you don't have someone with taunt, have someone use a toggle debuff to drag him around. If your whole league somehow has neither of these things...well, taking him down to like 85%-90% by periodically attacking him to keep aggro isn't gonna make or break the trial.
2. There's an oft-unused "HELP!" macro bound to one of the F keys. So unused, in fact, that I don't even remember which one it is without having access to the game right now. But you can have anyone call out disintegrations using it. You can be more fancy and create a more specific macro or bind yourself, but this is something you can tell your entire league.
3. AFAIK, he always goes to the same terminal at the same points of HP. The first time at 75%, he always goes to the terminal to the front-right, based on what direction you're facing when you get to the truck depot from reactor 3. Then he goes to the back-left one, and finally the front-left one. Keeping him near the right terminal before he uses ZA WARUDO will keep it from lasting long enough for an obliteration beam to start charging while you're frozen.
4. Not 100% sure on this one, but I'm pretty sure the only debuffs to which he is absolutely immune are movement speed debuffs, and -fly/-jump. Otherwise, he should have standard AV debuff resists. This is a good thing, because you sure as hell wouldn't want him to be stuck in place while you're dragging him between terminals.

Empathy should pretty much only ever build for recharge.

You should have 5 Doctored Wounds in all five of your primary powers which take it. (HA, HO, AP, RegA, and AB). There's an easy 25% recharge, with (IIRC) 20% healing bonus to boot.

Then, in your secondary, slot Decimations and Positron's Blasts until you have a set of 5 of either of them in a total of 5 powers. So with /Energy, 5 Decis in Bolt, Blast, and Burst, and 5 Posi's Blasts in Torrent and Explosive Blast. Purples can be substituted for even more recharge.

Putting any more than the default slot with a recharge in Resurrect is something I'd never do, personally, unless perhaps you were gearing solely for running trials, in which case you'd have to train your team constantly to not click the hospital button (it's enticing when the hospital is in the same zone).

CM is fine with just that one slot. Lately, with Clarions flying around, I'm starting to consider dropping it entirely, since I won't exemplar with my Emp.

Fortitude would be a personal choice between slotting 4 of the LOTG set or slotting 3 of the Tohit/Def/Rech HOs. I personally went with 3 HOs and a LOTG +Rech, but you may prefer the set bonuses from LOTG over the often-irrelevant Tohit enhancement in Fortitude.

With RA, I just slotted EndMod/Rech from both Efficacy and Performance Shifter sets, and then an L50 Recharge IO. RA is strong enough that it doesn't need that much EndMod slotting, so as long as its recharge is high, you're gold.

The rest of the slotting depends on what pools and epic you take. I would recommend taking 4 LOTG +Rech dump powers if at all possible, so consider the Concealment and Leadership pools.

Not slotting for defense or resistance at all in targeted ally shields is a terrible idea, so you may indeed be the only one.