Wicked_Wendy

Wait you haven't seen what is probably the exact same guy doing exactly the same thing when he does decde to form one? cause I Have:

Team Leader Lambda forming PSt for invite
Team Leader Lambda forming PSt for invite
Team Leader Lambda forming PSt for invite
Team Leader Lambda forming PSt for invite
Team Leader Lambda forming PSt for invite

all within like 10-15 seconds of one another. And to answer your question... No I have never once sent THAT guy a tell and joined his team

No not really. First as DarkGob points out until it hits live anything on Beta or just being "talked" about is subject to change depending on what the testing reveals. Second I'd hardly call it Destiny 2.0. Yes Melee and Assault are single target toggles... they are designed for melee characters or anyone else that wants more defense or damage. Support provides added resistance, damage, accuracy, etc to anyone with your 50 ft radius and can stack up to 4 times.. So if your close enough you can get boosts from several team mates. Control .. is CONTROL its all about holds/immobs and again has a wide arc .. not one single target.

So far my characters either have support or melee, a couple have both, and I have tested them. Once turned on the power lasts for 2 minutes and then has a two minute cool down before being activated again which is a lot less recovery time than Destiny. Ok so it's not on constantly but it can be activated and assist you during just about any AV battle. Today alone my SW/WP stalker used it successfully against Tyrant (twice)[magisterium trial], Maelstorm [tpn trial], and several times througout the Underground trial including in the final chamber and against the lichen heale WarWalker. Unlike some Destiny powers the effects do not degrade over time so for the entire 2 minutes you get exactly the same benefits as you did the second you toggled on... In the case of Melee it actually increases depending on how many mobs you have around you.

Four options does seem a little skimpy at the moment but who knows they may have added Hybrid powers planned for future release just like they have done with Alpha, Lore, Destiny, etc, etc. Am I disappointed? Nope So when does the next one come out?

This pretty much covers it. I have taken my MMs on plenty of TPNs with little or no problems at all. I recently joined a TPN with my Beast Mistress and someone asked if I was "GOING TO BE ABLE TO CONTROL MY PETS?" My reply was I started out 6 years ago playing MMs on COV and there wouldn't be any problems.

When that trial ended I'd helped take down technicians at terminals, helped defeat mobs pulled to the center to free the terminals, buffed my team mates and debuffed Maelstorm during all 3 battles and not one time did my henchmen attack a camera or a civilian while outside. It doesn't take that long to click once and put all pets on Passive ... I like to keep them that way until I get past the guards at the entrance of each facility anyway so I don't have 4-5 mobs following me around trying to kill me.

We still have at least four more incarnate powers to open and slot so I hate to tell you but I doubt the Well references are a thing of the past.

There are what half a dozen posts here now complainig about the situation as it stand and your solution is .. I actually join a league planning to do the entire trial. We defeat Shadowhunter, Pendragon, Chimare and the Black Swan before getting totally destroyed trying to deal with tyrant for .. whatever reason. And your solution is .. Now I can't earn ANY more XP for 20 hours?

/UNSIGNED

You think you have players complaining now? Let them even TRY doing that and see just how many cancel subsciption and leave forever. That's not a solution that is pure insanity. I have done both to date.. Run full trials and succeeded or failed in the attempt and farmed for IXP. You show me any other situation in game, aside from the option players have now to shut off xp themselves in options, where a limit like THAT is placed on earning ANY type of XP. You can't because none exists and for a very good reason.. the Dev team knows perfectly well something like that would upset the entire community. Don't thinks so.. Imagine the screaming here and in game if your suggestion had been put into effect when all of us were after XP to open judgement, lore, interface and destiny .. Fail a BAF, which happened back in the early days, and dont drop both Siege and Nightstar below 50% at least .. No Physic XP for you till sometime tomorow. Fail a Lambda, which happened a lot more often in the early days than the BAF, and don't drop Maurarder to 50% and no Physical XP for 20 hours. If they had done that it is questionable if there would even BE a City of Heroes today.. That many people probably would have rage quit in disgust.


Try thinking lie the average player who never SEES a new trial until it goes live and is here to have FUN. New challenges are fine and its what keeps the game fresh and players coming back... HEAVY HANDED restrictions because "Your not playing the way we want you to" will cost them players and profit EVERY TIME.

This is one of the big points I have been trying to make on this isse. When all this started we had a huge mass of complaints from different sources.. The BAF and the LAM "forced" us to run the same trial over and over if we wanted to open Lore or Destiny and gain extra level shift. There was no way at all for a person to solo or join small teams (2-7) and gain Xp, threads,,ect and open powers.

Then new trials were added and we even got the ability to use the astrals and empyreans we had on one character to help another by emailing threads. Then .. we got the ability to outright BUY slots open using those same threads we could now email. We went from two trials that we had to do in order to open powers to a total of 7 and some trials even allowed a character to collect both kinds of XP. Heck its slow as can be but its even possible to street sweep in Dark Astoria and get both types of IXP. And now we went back to square one and have ONE trial we have to do if we ever want to open Hybrid. There is no story arc that offers up Adv. IXP to solist, there is no place to go a street sweep to earn AIXP and there certainly is no way YET to use threads and INF and buy the slot open.

And yet .. there must be half a dozen threads out right now with players bad mouthing other players for farming Phase one of the Magi and quickly and easily opening the slot. Now I have never been much for farming in the past but I never outright condemned anyone else for doing it either.. But somehow despite all the steps backward the devs took introducing this new XP and power to us certain people seem to feel its "not playing the game right" to farm the Magi. The last time I checked there was no definative book published by NC Soft saying there was any one way to play this game.. unless it violates the TOS a player can play any way they see fit. And the last time I checked quitting a mission. TF, Trial or whatever was not a violation of any rule.

Well while I am not actually upset by tyhe new adv IXP system just the notion of a grand total of ONE way to earn it.. how about NONE OF THE ABOVE?

We've already had one system when Alpha appeared and then shards and THAT salvage became all but obsolete when we got the Threads and the new salvage. Would it have killed them to simply do the same sort of thing they did with going form judgement to Lore or Interface to Destiny? It takes 30 threads + 30 Million to BUY open Judgement or Interface and it takes 45 + 45 Million to open Lore and Destiny. So why couldn't they have simply used the exact same xp,which would have given players any number of options for earning it and once again increased the amount needed by 50%?

WHY? Because then, heaven forbid, players could actually open up their Hybrid powers without having to PLAY the new trial. I mentioned this in another post but what we have now is essentially worse than when the BAF and Lambda appeared. Sure each was only good for opening up half the available powers but at least we got two trials and two choices of what to do. Now we have one trial that offers up the xp required to open up the ONE NEW power available and people can't understand why players that have not had anything to use their threads and salvage on in MONTHS are using a quick way to get Hybrid open and slotted. I now have 15 incarnates that have opened up hybrid ad to give you some idea...

13 of 15 have a teir 4 slotted.. as soon as they opened the slot
(IF FACT THEY HAD THE ENHANCEMENT BUILT LONG BEFORE AND SIMPLY STUCK IT IN WHEN THE SLOT OPENED)

4 o5 15 have not one but 2 different Hybrid powers built
(Two of those have a second tier 4 and the other two have a tier 3)

the other 2 that have a single power open have a tier 3 in place.

I have nine more incarnate to work on and I sat down and figured it out ..

Five of those 9 also already have the threads and salvage available to craft a tier 4 power. Three more can craft a tier 3 and the last can slot a hybrid power to tier 2.

When I get all of that done I will still have characters with very rares, rares and a lot of Astrals and Empyreans left over for whatever power comes next.

Believe me I am not alone. Almost every person I have farmed XP with has been the same way. Run 4, 5 or 6 farms, Open hybrid, SLOT Hybrid and then log off so I they can log on the next incarnate they need to work on.

Oh and guess what.. I pulled out my Fire/Rad Corrupter today and joined a friend I helped farm his way to opening Hybrid last night. Today, along with a group of other hybrid enhanced players, we did the FULL Magisterium and a grand total of one character died, we only had to deal with the lights once and Tyrant went down so fast if you blinked you missed it. In other words once the majority of us farming get what we need from it we will be more than happy to pound Tyrant into the ground over and over again.

Exactly Bill .. when 23 hit I pulled out my Dp/Ice blaster and joined a trial. A TRIAL not a farm and went to work opening Hybrid. I had on failed attempt .. I dc'd and by the time I got back the timer had run out and Tyrant won. The next 4 straight attempts were successes and I opened up Hybird, built my two tier 4 powers and moved on to another character.

I went with my BM/Ther Mastermind because I really wanted the Support that offered double protection for my pets. Well I had two straight distasterous trials that failed in the exact same spot... Time ran out on Tyrant and I came away with about 19% XP. Then I ended up on a farm .. we defeated 250 IDF and quit and I left with 18% on a team with 24 players. So I defeated 4 Arch Villains and wound up face down in the dirt about 6 times against Tyrant for a whole 1% more XP? Then it got REALLY rediculous ... I joined a smaller farm with 15 members and we averaged over 20% per run and on a 12 man team we got between 24 and 25%. In the midst of all that I did have a Fire/Rad Corruptor actually join a full trial that was successful and was up to 2 characters that had earned the badge.

When I went to bed last night I had 13 incarnates that had their hybrid power open and slotted.. and thanks to them waiting an incredibly long time between giving us a power to build all but two of those have a tier four in place, Two of them have two tier 4s, another two have a tier four and a tier 3. My Staff/EA Brute is at 74% complete on opening Hybrid as well and being able to slot the tier 4 power I already have built and waiting to slot.

The recent trend to farm has many causes.. Of course there are those that will always take the easy way no matter what. Then there are those that simply don't enjoy beating their head against a wall to complete the trial when its faster and easier to just do phase one until hybrid opens.. and like me they have multiple characters they want to get the power for and already have enough threads and salvage to slot it. Thanks to the long wait between giving us Judgement, Interface, Lore and Destiny and then FINALLY offering us Hybrid I managed to acquire 27 Incarnate characters and before Issue 23 even hit 23 of those had a tier 4 in every single power. Best of all I actually took more than a month and a half off from doing any trials at all while I leveled my Beast Mistress MM, A Staff/Wp Stalker and my Staff/EA Brute to 50. As of today only the MM does not have t4s in every slot and she has nothing lower than a t3. I also took off time from trials to level a SJ/WP brute, also an 50+3 Incarnate; a KM/Reg Scrapper. also a 50+3 Incarnate and I have a Dark/Dark Corruptor at level 43. So I have not simply done nothing but run trials since the day they arrived.

The point is the devs created this situation themselves.. Waiting far too long to give anyone something else to work towards and then building a trial [as we all know the absolute ONLY way at the moment to open the new power] that front loaded almost all of the IXP making it extremely easy to farm. They intensified the situation because its actually even worse than when the BAF and LAM first appeared. Sure each one only gave out one type of IXP but at least we had TWO trials and could alternate a bit between them. What we have now is a huge group of players, many with multiple characters that want Hybrid, and exactly ONE way to get it.. do the same trial over and over and over. At least by farming, not counting time to organize a league, you can get 20-24% of your needed iXP in about 5-7 minutes.


Once my characters all have their hybrid slots open I will go back and start doing the maginsterium trial to attain the badges for my characters but for now I see no reason to slow my progress and put myself through the frustration when I can open Hybrid faster and easier as a farm hand.

/agreed... let's face the fact that the reason people, myself included, are farming phase 1 of the Magisterium is because they have little desire to attempt tyrant without Hybrid or at all. That doesn't mean they don't want the power unlocked so they can use it elsewhere. I personally have opened up and slotted hybrid on 12 characters and 11 of them now have a t4 (several have TWO t4s). I will always have new characters hitting 50 and needing the likes of Lambda, BAF, etc to open and enhance the first five powers we got. Plus I can earn the same slavage I need to enhance hybrid doing a BAF or a TPN so why bother with Tyrant when i can pound Maelstrom into the cement outside the TPN again?

Right now we are all farming for Advance Psychic XP .. so what's next? In Issue 24 lets say they decide to open Genesis [please dear lord this is hypothetical don't start running around saying Genesis is coming in issue 24] .. and it requires Advanced Physical IXP. Since by then everyone will have their hybrid slot open do we now say that the Magesterium is obsolete too?

Give it time eventually we will have arcs that offer up AIXP and how much do you want to bet once they figure most of us have already gotten it .. They will start letting us BUY AIXP with threads just like they did before with regular IXP.

I'm sorry but do you realize what your saying? Of course you do but here's the thing in number 2 you are saying we need all the dps we can focused on Tyrant.. agreed! Then in number 3 your telling the same people to not use certain attack at all to avoid long animations that may get them killed. I have some characters that doing this would require me to all but abandon half my attack chain and in a number of cases we are talking the higher powers with the better damage.... Heck my Titan Weapons Brute may as well just sit on top of the hill and watch the show.. ALL HER ATTACKS take time (nearly). Interestingly the only character I have that has had an outstanding success rate on this trial is my DP/Ice Blaster and she has any number of attacks with fairly long animations and I used every sinle one of them. She had 4 straight successful trials and one that she dc'd on and by the time she got back it had failed.

So don't camp the lights we need your damage but only use the attacks you got between levels 1-20 cause we can't have you die.

Now just like Bright my favorite trial is the Underground so lets set aside any notion that all I want is fast and easy. Now some of my least favorites are the Lambda and Keyes. Both of these can be absolutely devastating for a squishy character and just to emphasis the point I saw someone else make.. I don't care what AT the player is using they want to feel like they are an actual part of a team .. not spend half their time face down on the ground or running back from hospital while the tanks, brutes, etc WIN THE DAY. Its the main reason I dislike speed runs on things like the ITF. My Rad/Rad defender gets an invite because we'll need her for the final battle against Romulus. But in mission two if she spends the entire trial dead while two brutes run through the caves like maniacs destroying all the crystals that's just fine. Nothing less fun than having 4-5 ambushes spawn on top of your already dead body.. and frankly I refuse to go to the hospital and come back just so I can get slaughtered again.

I'm currently farming all my incarnates to open hybrid.. when that's done I'll TRY running full trials with certain characters. To be totally honest I probably won't send a single Melee character inside on of those things as it stands right now. I don't mind a challenge but when I have to spend more time RUNNING away from a fight like a scared school child than actually standing my ground and fighting then I am NOT HAVING FUN. I don't mind a bit of this like during the TPN but then we battle Maelstorm three times and he only get's that ability once. I have already helped kick his but inside once and know that I get to do it again later.. so a little tactical retreat I can deal with... but not for the entire battle with THE main villain we face.

Hehehe I understand your analogy but BAD example. I can take my wand to the Hollows and in about 10 minutes cure 20 LOST. I can stand face to face with a 7 level Lost boss I see there and never have him move a muscle to attack me because I am a level 13 or 14 by then. I don't have to run like a mad woman every 15-20 seconds away from an auto killing electrical storm between curing each one while they attempt to dislodge my cute head for the attempt.

Now to the OP. I understand your pain but listen ... just run the farms. Almost all of the available Adv IXP from a successful or failed Magisterium trial is wrapped up in Phase one. Go kill 250 IDF about 5 times and your Hybrid slot is over.. and you never once have to run from Tyrant. It will get better and easier as people learn the ropes and devise their own strategies. Soon like everything else it will be easy..

Case in point KEYES. okay so they did nerf the pulse a bit. The reason they succeed now unlike when the trial first started is people learned to GRAB glowies and rn up and slot 6 terminals before Anti Matter ever arrived. At that point you don't even need to taunt him just go fill the rest of them holes and move to the next reactor.

TPN .. as long as you don't want that final badge and the MO badge don't send a soul outside to deal with Seers or maelstorm just run from building to building taking out terminals and TADA you win!

UG ... PAY attention and let the tank/brute or whatever pull the Lichen healed Warwalker into the corner so only one Lichen is in range, keep killing that lichen and lay on the DPS to the Warwalker. Part 2... for goodness sake before you enter the trial ASK and make sure 3,4 or 5 people have tier 3 or better tier 4 clarion with the 120 second duration. Then make sure they have it available when you hit the final chamber and .. you win.

It may take a bit for more people to conquer the Magi but we will. Till then throw on some overalls and farm your way to hybrid

Sadly that's true i see more farms form than actual trials and I have joined a number of them. The thing is.. Yes eventually everyone would like to get the nice shiny badges and the end bonus but right now a LOT want Hybrid open. The vast majority of all the Advance IXP from a Magi trial is in Phase one (defeating 250 IDF). On a 12 man farm I walked out with 23% on a run.... On a failed full trial I left with 20. The farm took less than half the time and I wasn't frustrated at the end. We get Hybrid open and more people learn what to do and when and like all the rest the Magesterium will get easier.


Oh and Zombie.. I had a blaster on another failed Magi on Virtue this evening.. thanks to range bonuses I have only 1 attack that doesn't allow me to constantly stay 72 feet away from Tyrant.... on three seperate occasions I got one shotted by a Tyrant foot stomp from that range. I think I died once to the lightning when I got caught in a long animation. Now the lightning may flash a warning but the foot stomps don't .. tell me how to avoid that? lol

Have to sort of disagree with that Zombie.. did a couple runs today with my MM and the problem was NOT that anyone didn't know what to do.. I know for a fact a few times there was never any AIR CRACKLES AROUND TYRANT waring before the lightning started to strike.. At that point you have seconds to turn and run like mad. With an MM if you are mid attack animation.. your history!

I have yet to be on a run where anyone had a bit of trouble defeating 250 IDF (phase 1), Defeating Shadowhawk, Penedragon and Chimera (Phase 2), or defeating Black Swan (Phase 3) .. the only problem is DEFEAT TYRANT phase 4.

Interestingly to date the two characters I have thathave been on successful runs are my DP/ICE Blaster and my Fire/RAd Corruptor... BOTH ranged characters that didn't have to be anywhere near Tyrant's foot stomps or any of his other attacks before the lightning storm ever errupts. Like everything else eventually the masses will find the tricks required to turn this into another easy pickings trial but I'll be perfectly honest.. My BM/Ther MM completed the DD trial again 54+2 Minons and got Master Of of her first try.. she didn't die a single time and I found it a lot more enjoyable than spend half my time face down against Tyrant.

LOL okay in all fariness I am not your typical player. I retired from the military a few years back and with no job to go to and no school dragging me away I have quite a bit more free time than someone younger. I also don't find very much on television that interests me these days and generally watch older TV shows or movies online when i am in the mood for that.. something I can do anytime. I also have been fortunate enough to hook up with a lot of good players than can quickly and easily run every single trail available. UNTIL TOMORROW, and our success rate is extremely high. It doesn't take us long to put together a team, and we frequently do minis, and once we do we run one trial after another untl we have all the Emps we can get and then move on or log off. when you can do 6 trials in 4-5 hours and they all succeed and the group you team with does that every night for more than a month .. You can get a LOT of characters done. A

Oh and I have also used the system to my advantage on a number of later characters. Two Astrals opens up the Alpha slot and 150 threads will open up Judgement and interface (30 threads + 30 Mil in INF each ) and Destiny and Lore (45 threads and 45 Mil in INF each). At that point you can transfer threads to those characters to slo powers as well. 300 threads will slot all 5 powers to tier 1 (3 commons each at 20 threads) and another 500 threads will allow you to slot all 5 powers to tier 2 ( 2 commons at 20 each and 1 uncommon at 60). I forget exactly how many times I did that but at least 4 possibly 5 of my characters ran their first actual trial with every power already slotted to t2.

I total agree with your suggestion in the final paragraph Bill. In fact at some point a while back I suggested it here. The fact is shards and even the notice of the week have become unnecessary .. I can build the exact same alpha power using threads and salvage I earn doing any of the seven current trials and the best part is I don't need to wait an entire week to earn 2 NOTWs so I ca craft it. My suggestion back then was switch it so everything a 50, with open Alpha, does drops threads and actually replace the current salvage offered on things like the ITF with the reward table we see in DA arcs and let players chose between threads, salvage or a possible Astral/Emp. You could even replace the current Notice of the Well given by doing the WST with 2 Empyreans.

This would give EVERY player, those that enjoy trials along with those that don't, another way to slot powers and increase the ways players can build powers. Could end the boerdom that some feel doing the same thing over and over... Don't feel like running a TPN tonight .. Let's go do the Manticore TF and grab a few threads and a piece of salvage instead.

Okay now back to Hybrid and a small concern i voiced in comments on the trial and slots during beta testing. It is now possible for me to open alpha simply by sending one character to Ouroborus and using 2 Astrals (worth exactly 8 threads) to email an alpha slot to any of my other 50 levels. I have used this method on several occasions. It is possible to PURCHASE IXP using threads and influence (takes 30 threads and 30 million to open Judegment and Interface and 45 threads and 45 million to open Lore and Destiny). I can take a new 50 level to dark Astroria and street hunt and earn both types of IXP to open all four of these powers as well. BUT the ONLY way I can earn the new Advanced IXP is doing the Magi trial? Isn't this the exact same situation all over again that had a number of players screaming bloody murder because it forced them, their words not mine, to run one particular trial if they wanted the power? Don't get me wrong I have no problem working for my rewards but more and more these days we find things for sale in the Paragon Store that we used to have to actually work to obtain.. If you are willing to pull out a credit card you can half a ton of stuff people used to actually run missions to get. Yet once again we are in the same situation as when the BAF and Lambda were new.. The ONLY way to open Hyrbid is to run the Magi trial.! Now I m sure at some point more trials will be added but by then most of the serious GOT to have it now players won't neeed them anyway and it will just be another way to mine astrals and emps.

Actually Bill its been interesting in Dark Astoria lately. Things picked back up the past week or so since a lot of us assume 23 will go live on June 5th ( I am pretty sure as well but been around long enough not to assume anything until I either see it first hand or hear it direct from a red Name here). Players are running a lot of trials and in particular UGs and TPNs .. for the 60 thread bonus and the guarenteed rare or V R on a UG.

Prior to that when I got back into doing trials after my month long hiatus to level characters .. there were times it was almost impossible to find enough people to buld a team and when there were it seemed like most of the leaders had no desire to do anything but LAMBDA and BAFS.. by far the easiest of all the trials out there now. You could find a few Keyes and TPNs running but no one seemed to care to do the Underground, MOM or the new DD.

Judging from past history yes I'd say for a while after 23 goes live almost everyone will be focused on the Magi Trial. Once they fullfil their neds for that .. It seems like quick and easy wins out over chalenging so I'd say your new 50s would have little trouble finding a Lambda or BAF. Hey I am part of a group that has its own pivate global designed primarily to make recruiting fot the trials easier. At one point we use to log on around 8-9 PM Eastern time and start with Keyes, then TPN, the UG and as things thinned out a bit MOM. That usually took us about 2 hours since we stuck together and took very short breaks between trials and NEVER did badge runs. Then we'd add in the BAF and LAm to complete the set for the night. In about 3 hours we'd run every trial then available once and had earned 10 Emps, more tha 120 threads and at the very least 1 rare or very rare. We did that 5 nights a week .. so you can see how I wound up with over 20 t4ed incarnates.

Yes and Yes as far as I know nothing has changed but still On Beta I earned around 22% from One Magin trial . That's where i came up with the 4-5 trials. So ALL I have to do is run about 100+ Magisterium trials and I open Hybrid on all my characters .. And the NEVER want to see the trial ever again heheheh

That was sort of my point they took so long giving us a new power to aim for how many people just like me now have dozens of characters powered to the MAX and with all the salvage they need to slot Hybrid.. All that's left is to run the trial again and again and again . If we'd had hybrid sooner we wouldn't have as much salavge built up and probably less characters powered up as well. Depending of course on the individual, their time available on line, and the amount of time it takes fo them to get bored doing the same thing again and again.