Vidszhite

I team maybe once a week. I hate teaming with randoms, and I don't have much time to play as it is. Once I run a TF, I get so burned out, I have to take a break from teaming, maybe even playing, for the rest of the night. What little time I do have, I spend either leveling alts or running tips. I have only a single level 50, none of my other characters are even over level 30, most of them aren't even over level 10--I have only four characters over level 20, and two of them are from Double XP Weekend. My main is the only one with a SG, and most of its members are gone.

I got my one level 50 outfitted with his Alpha Slot, and got his level shift last week because I decided to do something that made me uncomfortable: I formed three whole Task Forces over the course of three months. One task force a freaking month. Those TFs, in addition to what I got soloing and teaming with my 3 friends in my SG (the latter of which I can only do once a week at best, if I choose to level my main), gave me enough shards to craft both my Common and Uncommon, and since one of the TFs I ran was a WST, I got my Notice, and converted the shards I got from the TF into components for my Rare. Literally as soon as the SF was over, I crafted my Rare.

I think your attitude is the wrong one. Instead of seeing the generous compromise that has in fact been laid out in front of us, you won't take anything less than a total single player experience capable of giving you a Rare in the same amount of time as it takes a team player, when Incarnate content was initially supposed to be a Team-only experience. They met us halfway, let's try to show some appreciation and meet them halfway right back.

Christ, people, if I can do it playing 1-2 hours a night 0-3 times a week, being an introvert just like a lot of other soloists claim to be, you have no excuses. If they make the conversion requirements too easy, it'll be trivial for people who DO run TFs and farm shards all night to just convert shards. I got 10 shards the last time I ran just one Strike Force that took a little over 1hr 30mins. They have to take that into account too, you know. Don't forget that Incarnate content is supposed to take forever. Right now, it takes a minimum of 3 weeks to go from an Uncommon to a Very Rare if you do a WST every week. Even hardcore farmers can't get them any faster than that. How fast did you really expect it to be if all you did was solo?

Correct.

That's the thing about Praetoria, there's so many shades of gray that neither side is always good or evil. There are Loyalists that genuinely want to protect people, who believe that Emperor Cole is a good guy, and there are Resistance members who are so dedicated to freeing Praetoria from Cole that they're willing to kill hundreds of innocent people to get the job done. The game is built so that no matter which side you choose, there's a good and an evil side to both.

They're not wrong, though. Sometimes we have to leave our comfort zones if we wanna get things done. If you prefer not to, tough cookies. People like us will just have to live with getting things done more slowly.

Do tips, man. Two A-Merits can land you a Luck of the Gambler +7.5% Recharge recipe worth at least 100 mil.

This.

The rest of your post is awesome, but I've never met a single person in-game who didn't like confuse, and my main is a Mind/ Dominator.

I'd also like to add, Confuse is such a powerful hard control that faceplanting will be rare, and since debt makes you earn 50% exp for doing 100% of the work, I'd take Confuse over that any day.

That example would be as if the reward for a LRSF was a single SO enhancement of your choosing. I believe this is also the reason very few people do Hami raids anymore, except for kicks. You get the same reward from the LRSF, for which you only need 8 people, and the strategy is much simpler and doesn't require teams full of every type of AT.



Eiko-chan, hear me out. I agree with Arcana, and to a small degree, Taser; but I'm an introvert too. I see you saying things about yourself that apply directly to me. I'm weird in that I hate random people... but I love the action that comes from big teams. I solo'd my Uncommon. I play maybe 0-3 times a week, for just a few hours if I can manage it. I'm rarely on when the rest of my SG is on (and there's like 3 of us left, so it barely counts). I hate trying to make new friends, and most of all, I hate talking to people. Ugh, I hate talking to people.

With all that being said, when I actually tried it out, I realized joining a TF once a week for Notices is utterly painless. Join a Global on your server that's known for getting TFs together, ask a forming team to let you in, and if they're worth your time, you'll get an invite and probably a successful TF. I got my notice and enough shards to convert stuff for my rare all in that first TF. The experience has actually made me want to team more, and the more I do it, the easier it gets. If you get the chance, I think you should at least give it a try. People aren't as scary as it seems before you let them in a little.

Sure, I understand that with the rewards system built the way it is, you can't solo EVERYTHING this game has to offer, but the rewards from teaming are so easy to target that you don't even have to do much teaming at all to get what you want. You can team once a week to get the hard components, but still solo the easy components. Don't look at it from a one-or-the-other perspective, because it's not that way at all. CoH is still so much better than any other MMORPG in that regard, because in most of those games, there is no easy stuff, just several tiers of hard stuff, where you can't solo anything of value. That's why, even though endgame will require teaming, CoH's endgame is the only one I like. There are no strict schedules to follow, no cliquish guilds to apply for, and best of all, you can work towards your goal little by little even when you're not on a team. It may not go far enough for some, but it certainly goes farther than any other.

There's no way the devs would remove Propel. I could see them making its animation time shorter, though, making it actually a good attack--and say what you will about Doms having attacks, it has the potential to be good for a set like /Earth.

True... but Castle's gone now. >.>

I don't see enough dots, more dots now!

Recluse is a cheating godmoder. He deserves it.

That... hurts to read.

Same here. As far as I care, they're both melee DPS, and if we're running against +0s, I and one other are probably all the AoE we need, so unless we have 5 Defenders, I'm not really worried about it. If I really want more AoE for higher level mobs, first person on my list is a Blaster, not a Scrapper, since I'm going to be mezzing everything as is my job, so a Scrappers' only advantage will be against spawns we accidentally bump into (but Blasters also give me a chance to use Power Boost + Vengeance in that case so ). I effectively regard Scrappers and Stalkers as equals on my list, so in the event that I have to choose one...

Actually now that I think about it, I'd take the Stalker. More likely to die, more chances for me to pop Vengeance. >.>

Blasters are more focused on AoE damage, though, while Stalkers are almost pure ST. I don't feel a match at all when I play Stalkers, and I *love* Blasters.

Stalkers ARE more like Blappers, however, but the OP mentioned his favorite is Ice/Ice, which isn't a very Blappy combo.

You can't run tips until level 20, so to save time, roll a Blaster goldside. As soon as you hit 20, you can become a villain right away.

And, of course, as all have said, the closest Villain AT match to a Blaster is a Dominator. Before level 40, you won't have quite as much in the way of AoE options, but with APPs, especially //Ice (Sleet is imba), you'll feel like a Blaster with Control. I personally went //Primal, and even that's enough AoE for me.

You don't *need* a Defender or MM; I did cuda tonight without any. The team was DPS-heavy, though, with 3 Doms, 2 Corrs, a Blaster, a Brute, and a Scrapper. We wiped only once, we came back and cleaned house. We did have two sources of -regen, though, since our Corrs were /Dark and /Kin, respectively.

I only have half the uniform parts on my main. None of my alts are 35. I'm a 33-month Veteran. I have several alts who would love the Vanguard pieces, but none of them are over 35.

Hearing about the Vanguard pack being a loyalty reward was the greatest thing ever to me, since yeah it's old content, but it's old content that you had to unlock late in the game, like Auras.

I wholeheartedly agree. Just hearing about it got me psyched, because ever since Alphas were released, we know that everyone needs to do TFs for their components (fastest, anyway), but since everyone needs different TFs, there's no focus, so you're better off just farming shards. With Weekly Strike Targets, everyone on the server will focus on one TF, so getting a team together for it is trivially easy at peak hours. If the TF is one you need, great! If not, you get free notices and double rewards, and the one you need will come up eventually anyway.

The net effect of this is twofold. First, more people are playing TFs, since getting a team for one is easier, which means more people are experiencing the content, and you'll have an easier time getting merits. Second, BECAUSE more people are playing TFs, Alpha Slot components and shards are easier to get.

We do need a server channel for recruitment. Request is inadequate at the job because either it's off by default, or a lot of people turn it off.

It makes them last nearly twice as long.

I believe it does not draw aggro.