crayhal

Just imagine if War Witch got her own Task Force...

Toon 1: WWTF forming, pst for invite...

Well, if nobody owns up, you can give it away. Folks like Costume contests and new accnts are always happy to get startup cash.

Oooh... I like this idea. I've miscounted several times. Assigning slot #s might help my math.
If I do miscount, I don't quit team. I just apologize and promise to invite them on the 2nd run if I have the time to do so.
If I'm running a team for regular missions, and get tells after it's full, I tell the ones who didn't make it that I'll put them in the list. If anyone quits, I tell the folks on the list that a spot is available. Half the time, folks on the list get on the team.

Because Cryptic totally made their own rules and created an imbalanced game. Champions Online is nothing like the paper and dice version of Champions from Hero systems. The CO devs borrowed some terms like Ego, presence, etc... but wrapped it around an arcade style combat system ala Street Fighter where you spam buttons like mad.
Some of the annoying things:
1) Blocking - instead of statistically calculating your defense, you are forced to block to avoid critical damage. As long as you block, you can't attack.
2) Enemies 5 level below you can still kill you but you get no experience if you kill them. Ie, if a level 8 mob attacks a level 16 toon, the level 9 mob can kill the level 16 toon in 2 mins or so but the level 16 toon will not get any xp from killing the lvl 8 mob.
3) Monthly Bloodmoon event - zombies give no xp. XP is only given after you complete the quest in the bloodmoon dungeon.
4) Lowbies are penalized with incredibly less mission complete xp. This discourages friends from teaming if their levels are more than 10 lvls apart.
5) Flawed collect items on indoor map - If the mission is to collect 10 items, the map will only spawn 10 items. If anyone on the team clicks on a glowie but there are other teammates outside the mission, the teammates outside the mission don't get credit for the click. Ie, the ones inside are credited 1/10 while the ones outside remain 0/10. The items will not respawn while people are inside the mission. The items will only respawn after 5-10 mins after everyone exits.
5) It is very very easy to create a crappy hero. Also, even after finding a good power combo, the hero doesn't feel super enough. After playing 8+ different CO power sets, it seems to me that CO heroes are underpowered compared to CoX supers.

There are more, but these are the few that make it a really frustrating game to play. I only play it occassionally with a friend since we used to play the paper and dice version of Champions. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't waste my time on this game, even if it was free.

I agree. I tend to run with folks from my coalition for ITFs and SFs, so I know most of the people in the team. Also, the coalition leaders are very good at resolving issues with offensive players and weeding them out of the SG.
However, the trick is to get into a SG where members get along. Avoid groups with dubious names like the S.Oh.Bs. They're most likely players with big egos and look down on other players.

I have my own base with 10 salvage bins, organized by alphabetical groups. If I need Destiny for recipe X, I head to bin #2 which has salvage D-H. I tend to keep the more volatile salvage in the bins. I usually sell the following salvage at a vendor since the market has so much of them:
- Math proof
- spirit thorn
- silver
- fortune
- Demonic threat report
- kinetic weapon

I use Mids to plan out my build so I have an idea of which recipes I should keep for myself. I put bids out for what I need and when the bids fill, the recipes are crafted and placed in my enhancement table until my toon is ready to slot it.
Like other folks, I get lvl 25-30 common or set IOs. These are cheap to craft and last until level 50. Out of curiousity, I wondered if a lvl 50 toon with lvl 25ish IOs would do ok in a speed ITF, and the answer is yes. My brute died twice during the cyst run, but held Rom's agro in the final mish. (He was the only melee.) He can also farm AE at +1x8 with smash/lethal dmg.
If you are lucky, you can get crafted common IOs cheaper than it would take to craft. See Crafted->Other.
It does take some time to craft at lv 25. If you use DO/SOs, you will need to buy them about 8 times during leveling to 50. Each time you do so, you throw away the cost of the old DO/SOs and pay for the new ones. By using common or set IOs, your cost is fixed and don't expire as you level.

Agreed. If the base is 1000, that regenT will give a bonus of 250. If the base is 100, the regenT gives a paltry 25.

Welcome! I was on trial account about a year ago and it blew me away. If you haven't read it yet, check out the trial account guide.

Don't worry about loot. Cash and items go towards enhancing your powers. When I was leveling to 50, I only used what I picked up and I didn't feel weak at all. Eventually, you may want to enhance your powers to the limits, but that can come later. Not having uber stuff will not prevent you from playing the content.

There's a lot of content, and I've leveled 7 toons to 50 without doing all of it.

The game has a cool flashback feature though, so you can go back to the story arcs that you missed.

And if that isn't enough, players can make their own stories by the AE system. Some player created content have even earned 'Developer's Choice' awards.

Even at lvl 50 (the maximum), I don't feel like that was the end and didn't stop playing my 50. There was still a lot of things to do, and I enjoyed the challenge of lvl 50 content. With the new Incarnate system, there's even more than when I started a year ago.

Note that there are several versions of City of Heroes and each game code in a particular version gives you 30 days of free play time. From memory, they are:
1) City of Heroes
2) City of Villains
3) Good vs Evil
4) Architect Edition
5) Going Rogue

If you activated the codes in the order above, you get 30*5 = 150 days of free game time. 30 days of game time is $15. So that's 15*5 = $75 worth of game time.
How much does each one cost? If you shop around on ebay, CoH and CoV are around $5. Good vs Evil is $10 at Frys. Arch Ed is about $10-15 on ebay. Going Rogue is new, so cheapest I've seen it is $25, except for the $10 deal at Best Buy.
However, if you activate Going Rogue first, you may not be able to do the above trick and will only get 30 days of free time. Ie, you may not get 60 days if you activate Going Rogue and then 1 week later, Good vs Evil.
The order in which I activated my code are CoV, GvE, and Going Rogue for a total of 90 days of free time.
Hope to see you in game!

You don't need the Notice to participate in Apex. My cold/rad is a new Incarnate with no alphas crafted and only had the following items in inventory:
1 Dimensional Keystone
10 shards

He crafted a tier 1 Nerve Alpha and had 2 shards to spare. (Whew!) He slotted it and finished Apex with a Master of.

You have 3 tiers, which is much more than what my cold/rad had. To slot the alpha, go to Powers->Incarnate Abilities. Click on the Alpha and select 'Slot Power'.

Last day for Apex! Good luck!

My brute has Soul Mastery which gives 2 ranged attacks. Both SM attacks have a taunt, so BM follows me out of the blue and into... Lightning rod.
As for the pylons, there's a -debuff around them and it stacks. The trick is to not stay there. So I do BU + LR + SC and then jump away from the hydras. While I wait for any debuff to wear off, I use the Soul ranged attacks. Then I jump next to the pylon, fire off 2 attacks and jump away. This also has a side-effect of the hydras focusing on me instead of squishies.
I wear my MoApex proudly.

Nice tip!
Also, if I lead a team, I will invite those who have 'looking for team' set before those who don't.
I've been playing for a year now, and found that people would rather join teams than lead a team. There are very few leaders, so very few teams. When I form a team, I broadcast in a busy zone and I get 3-5 replies within a minute. Then I fill in the remaining spots using the search tool.

Just the minimum. I did this yesterday on my brand new 50, a cold/rad corr. I had already responded to the leader before I realized I haven't made any Alpha yet. I had just 1 Dimensional keystone and 10 shards, which thankfully, was enough to create a Nerve Alpha.
The team finished Apex with a Masters in 41 mins.

Inf given in missions isn't really that much. I think it's more of an ego effect. The bigger the debt, the more it reminds the player that they failed.