Good post, well worth repeating.
Too many people complain about the drawbacks of Exemplar - when in fact they're simply not using it effectively.
Also, many people don't keep training 'order' in mind when respeccing. Use the hero planner, and follow the plan as if you were leveling manually! That's a point that is so often missed - to the point of being fairly laughable at times.
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This is a brief post, but addresses one of the main discouraging issues we face in later levels: perma-debt. The fastest way to bring down debt is to use the exemplar feature to temporarily lower your level. I continue to meet people who have heard of exmplaring but never used it, don't realize the advantages, and don't know they can use it to conquer a mountain of debt.
This is not simply because all your xp is going to debt reduction. If that were the case, it would take roughly 50% of the time to eliminate your debt, since you're working it off at 100% instead of only 50%, In practice, you should eliminate all debt in MUCH less than 50% of the time it would take at your current level.
Why be an exmplar, instead of simply hunting at your current level? The main advantage is that hunting at the lower levels is usually MUCH easier. The lower mobs are unlikely to mezz or use special attacks, or to support each other with skills like healing. Furthermore, there were probably specific levels and places which you can remember went very well for your particular level and play-style. You can return to those places and reapply what you learned to wipe that debt clean.
One good example of this is Perez Park. Perhaps you remember going to Perez Park and taking on large groups of mobs with little danger? Welcome back to those glory days! And at the low levels, teaming with specific AT's yields even more of an advantage than later levels. High-damage classes such as scrappers and blasters are leveling machines in Perez, and teaming with them should make the debt melt away.
An interesting advantage of the exemplar relationship is that it doesn't seem to be effected by distance, unlike sidekicking. You can have someone on the opposite side of the map bring you down successfully, so you're not even forced to hunt near them.
There are some things to watch out for when you exemplar. If you have gone through a respec, you will get whatever powers and slots you chose for that level during the respec process. You might get a mild case of "power nostalgia" if you removed powers from your build that you've outgrown. In a more severe case, you might find yourself without a travel power if you added it on at the end or respec. About the only things you can do are take the exemplar process into account when you're respecing, or make sure not to exemplar yourself down to many levels. It's a good idea to plan the respec out in the hero planner beforehand.
As a final bonus, if a battle is going badly you can unexemplar and immediately be returned to your normal level. Simply bind a key that you can find easily (such as z) like this:
/bind z unex
Now when you hit z you will instantly go back to your normal level, and probably find yourself surrounded by harmless grays.
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the only problem with that is you get just as weak and you get the hp of that lvl
"Never attempt to balance mechanics through Role Playing."
Castle
But you also get enhancements at your current level. There's a big difference between a few SOs and Training Enhancements.
That's probably the most painful thing about using the exemplar system to work off debt (but still the most efficient way). Finding out what powers are gone and the missing hps. I recently worked off some debt with my lvl41 toon exemplared down to 24 with a buddy. I felt less than heroic heh.
The Mentor Project - Because we were all new to the game at one time...
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=212083
I would also like to add that ideally, the best way to examplar is with someone 3-4 lvls lower than you, that way you lose the least amount of your powers and slots. I participated in the Justice Server Hami Raid and accrued the debt cap for a lvl 45 which is 610k. Next day, one of my SG members who was a lvl 42 Fire/Rad controller and I went to the Rikti Crash Site and I got rid of all of it in less than 3 hours. Not too shabby, eh? On a different occasion, I got rid of 280k of debt in about 90 mins with a Scrapper SG member who was also 3 lvls lower than me.
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But you also get enhancements at your current level. There's a big difference between a few SOs and Training Enhancements.
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You do not get SO-quality enhancements if you're at a level before you get SOs (like, oh say, L15). Heck, you don't even get SO-quality enhancements at all levels you could get them (have perma-Hasten, exemplar down to 22, you won't have perma-Hasten anymore).
Enhancements degrade in some unknown fashion. However, you'll still be more effective than someone at that level. Partially because the enhancements you have are more effective than anything they could have at that level and partially because you'll still have more enhancements than they will. Powers get greyed out. Enhancements on powers do not.
OP's post is true. Teamed with a Perez team and they loved having me onboard. It was a good hydra team (usually I never touch the things with my low chars), but it went quite smooth really. Not even a near death for anyone.
Took me about 45 min to work off two deaths worth of debt.
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Enhancements degrade in some unknown fashion. However, you'll still be more effective than someone at that level. Partially because the enhancements you have are more effective than anything they could have at that level and partially because you'll still have more enhancements than they will. Powers get greyed out. Enhancements on powers do not.
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Furthermore, Inspiration slots don't either. So you could be fighting as a L2...but have 15 Inspiration slots. What's more, Inspirations drop as if you were your real level, not your Exemplared level...so you'll be getting a lot of second- and third-magnitude drops even as you fight level 2 Hellions. If you're in a party, you can hand these off to your buddies and be very popular.
One thing that the guidelet that started this thread might could stand to mention is a section I might call...
Gack! I've outlevelled my mission! What do I do now?
We've all been there: we've got three instanced missions in our mission tray (and two of those are storyline missions...beginning of storyline missions) and we do a Task Force (or get powerlevelled, but that's something you do with intent; Task Forces can happen to anyone) and zing, we're suddenly two levels higher than we were when we got the mission. (Or perhaps we just happen to level on one mission when two more are in our list. That happens a lot, too.) Perhaps then we don't want to face those missions we've outlevelled, and before we know it we've gained one more level. We have a lot of blue, green, and gray mobs in our future.
It used to be we had to just grin and bear it, slog through a boring timewaster of a mission that will give us about three experience points total, and just resolve not to visit that contact again because they'll give us outlevelled missions.
No longer! Now all we have to do is exemplar down to a lower level--and the missions are fresh and exciting again. What's more, if we've got a bunch of debt to work off, we will find that we can use those outlevelled missions to work it off as if the mobs were at or above our own level. Which do you thinik would work better toward killing debt--half the XP of a green or blue mob, or all the XP of a yellow or orange?
Of course, teams for such missions have to be set up with the mission level in mind. If you're L30 and exemplaring down to L27 to take on a L29 mission, it would probably be best to add at least one or two L28 or L29 heroes to the team, along with you and the other 27, so those orange mobs don't cream you (or force you to unexemplar, which means reduced debt down the drain).
Yes, be VERY careful which order you re-choose your powers in a respec. They will be treated as if you got them at those levels (in the order you choose them). When you Exmp, that's the criteria used to determine which powers are inactive when Exmp'd.
I have personally Exmp'd a few times to eliminate debt. It works real well. Lvl 30 Exmp'd down to 24, eliminated 5k debt in 30 min on a lvl 24 mission (and had fun doing it). After debt gone, it all goes to Inf.
Thing is, fighting at your own level you will, eventually, gain NEW levels and powers that may make gaining XP easier. You'll also get enhancements.
People also seem to forget the plain old ~fun~ factor in Exemplaring in-game.
Ok, so I can buff my buddy up to my height and do a mission of mine, and then I can get back down to his, and do a level of his.
Instead of making his mission boring because I can out-damage his Tanker inside that door.
Or... I might just want to have a little boost in Influence for those shiny, neat Enhancements. If you don't have any debt, you may not be getting XP, but you get bonus influence. Way to actually manage and get all your slots up to par before you outlevel them /all/ again.
TechDefender Rad/Ele Defender
D'20 Gladiator DM/SR Scrapper
Cyclonite Cat Fire/Fire Blaster
[url="http://www.dutchfurs.com/~taross/w/screenshots/Ferretgal/Ferretgal.jpg"]Ferretgal Claw/Inv Scrapper[/url](Virtue)
@Cyclonite Cat
(Names changed at GM 'request')
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Thing is, fighting at your own level you will, eventually, gain NEW levels and powers that may make gaining XP easier.
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The key word here is "eventually." This guide is written for people who want to level sooner, rather than later. I find that going exemplar and then returning to my own level permits me to advance more quickly.
I prefer to use the PowerLevel/Debt removal farming techniques. Get a buddy that is willing to herd for ya. Find a lowbie that has some AOE attacks and would like to do some Powerleveling and go hit up Boomtown. Exemplar down to the level14-15 lowbie, head to the red zone and herd the Lost. The Lowbie will be MOST appreciative of your help in leveling them, your debt will be gone in less time that you really could have imagined and you now owe a boon to the person how was kind enough to herd for you.
For the really high level guys who want to work off debt and want it to be a win win situation for all here is a suggestion: Find an Invulnerable tanker that is somewhere around level 25 that would appreciate earning soem influence and offer them all the influence you acquire while working off debt. Everybody gets something good.
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Or... I might just want to have a little boost in Influence for those shiny, neat Enhancements. If you don't have any debt, you may not be getting XP, but you get bonus influence. Way to actually manage and get all your slots up to par before you outlevel them /all/ again.
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I have exemplar'd for the fun of doing a friends mission. I was however, very dissapointed to find that the bonus inf was pitifully small. Total for the entire mission was less than the sell price of one of my normal TO drops. Level difference was only about 3 or 4 levels.
Unless I'm doing something wrong, no way this helps me to keep up on the shiny new SO's.
I have just found the best method ever for lowering debt using Exemplar.
It's simple. Get a hunt mission (that is, kill X number of a particular mob)...then Exemplar down to an 8-levels-lower character to do (or at least complete) it (making sure to wait a minute after exemplaring to run the timer out first, of course). (Depending on if the mobs are not actually available at that level, you may need to get a third party member to do the actual killing for the completion.)
Not only does the end-of-mission reward XP go entirely to reduce debt, but it is scaled up by the number of levels between your exemplared level and the level you were when you got the mission. The amount of debt you can banish just by completing a hunt exemplared is truly phenomenal.
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Not only does the end-of-mission reward XP go entirely to reduce debt, but it is scaled up by the number of levels between your exemplared level and the level you were when you got the mission.
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Whooboy. Thanks for the tip, but that sounds basically like a bug, or more accurately an overlooked design flaw. I work in the software industry so I go looking for them, but experienced gamers get a feel for them too. I bet the devs didn't think thsi through completely, having high-level missions getting completed while at lower levels.
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Whooboy. Thanks for the tip, but that sounds basically like a bug, or more accurately an overlooked design flaw. I work in the software industry so I go looking for them, but experienced gamers get a feel for them too. I bet the devs didn't think thsi through completely, having high-level missions getting completed while at lower levels.
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Well, it's not so very different from the powerlevelling high-low game, where a lowbie is brought along on a mission much higher level than he, and earns an inordinately large XP bonus at the end. The difference is, here the only person you're 'powerlevelling' is yourself, and you're just 'powerlevelling' the debt off.
That's a very plausible argument, and it's possibly correct. I wasn't aware that one aspect of the high-low game is getting "an inordinately large XP bonus at the end." Interesting. But I wouldn't be shocked if they tweaked the code to scale xp to your "real" level, not your virtual level.
The xp at the end of the mission--I take it this doesn't happen when you are sidekicked to be in the same range as the other people in the mission, right? Since being an exemplar is a "reverse sidekick," I'd think the intention is to have the xp payoff for a mission to be in the same ballpark as what you get when you're sidekicked--no bonus.
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The xp at the end of the mission--I take it this doesn't happen when you are sidekicked to be in the same range as the other people in the mission, right? Since being an exemplar is a "reverse sidekick," I'd think the intention is to have the xp payoff for a mission to be in the same ballpark as what you get when you're sidekicked--no bonus.
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When you're sidekicked, the end-of-mission XP bonus scales to your own level, just as it does when you're reverse sidekicked. If you're level 10 and sidekicked to a level 21 character so you're effectively level 20, and you do the L21 character's mission, you get XP for a mission that's one level higher than your current level...because the mission you took was one level higher than your effective level at the time you completed it. Thus, you get XP as if you'd just completed a L11 mission unsidekicked.
It's the same when you exemplar down. If you're level 20 and exemplaring to a level 10 character, but doing the mission of a level 11 character in the party (since exemplaring doesn't have that 1-level-difference I'm throwing in a third party member just so the comparison is similar) you get debt reduction equivalent to XP for a mission that's one level higher than your current level. So, you earn as much debt reduction as you would earn XP for doing a L21 mission unexemplared.
It's just another application of the risk-reward relationship we've seen mentioned in various threads: you take higher risk, you get higher rewards. Now, granted, it's highly unrealistic for a character to be able to complete a mission 8 levels higher than his current level on his own, or even contribute much to a party going through it unsidekicked. But that's the way the system works.
Personally I find Exemplaring very effective if done right. In my situation I am a level 46 Invul/Super Tanker. I have all my "important" powers at level 38, anything gained in my 40s is just filler/extra/not really needed. So if I exemplar down to level 38 I still have every power I use regularly...and all my attacks are 6 slotted this way. Now I can go back into PI and do the same thing I was at level 38, street cleaning. I am now fighting stuff that is at least 3 levels higher than me, which I find easy to fight, and clearing off massive ammounts of debt. In addition to this I am helping some level 38 get their important fake nemesis defeat badge, since it is easy to find level 41-43 fakes (and easy to kill them personally). Now where is the draw back in this situation...none.
One other method that works well, I have a scrapper friend that is level 43 and he teams with me and does my missions all the time. When on my missions the mobs are +3 to +5 levels to the scrapper, which are easy for him to kill. So I RSK to him and it is easy for me to tank the mobs, we power through my mission and both get killer exp from the mobs. When/IF we run into an AV on the mission, we back up and un-exemplar...I then SK him and we beat the AV down and still get great exp. Yet again, another win-win situation.
Just find a way that RSK can work for you and you will embrace it. Btw, I clear off debt faster as a RSK this way than as my normal level, and thus I get exp faster at my normal level.
Just a little follow-up to this thread. The last 4 times I've taken a ride on the ambulance, I've used the trick of doing a hunting mission and exemplaring down for the final kill. It has always wiped out ALL my debt. It takes just a few minutes to do the hunting since you can just do grays, and it actually takes longer to find somebody to bring me down. Not many people seem to be aware of this trick, the don't understand what I mean even when I say to them "we don't have to hunt together, this will take 90 seconds of teaming, I just need to be exemplared down so I can kill this last mob myself and finish the mission." They always think I'm asking them to travel to me and help fight the mob, when I just want them to stay on their end of the map and lower me to their level. I wish I could come up with a good descriptive name for this tactic. I'll have to think about it.
This weekend when I have some more time I plan to find somebody about 8 levels above me, SK and do their mission, and then un-SK just before the mission completes. It seems like a great way to actually be a useful team member for 98% of the mission, and still get a big xp boost at the end.
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I wish I could come up with a good descriptive name for this tactic. I'll have to think about it.
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How about "exemplarbitrage"? 
I think I'll use that term in my next revision of my Rapid XP Gain/Debt Loss (i.e. Powerlevelling) Guide.
Oh, and the unsidekick trick also works in "reverse"--if you can't get any hunt missions, then invite an 8-9 levels lower fellow to sidekick with you, then at the end of the mission you exemplar to him and then wait a minute before clicking the blinkie.
Chris:
Thanks for the reverse unsidekick trick (that phrase has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?). It might actually be easier to do that than do the hunting mission myself, since people immediately understand the idea of going on a mission together. Not to mention that my lowbie companion will get a huge boost to xp from doing it that way, so it can be pitched as a limited form of powerleveling. THAT should get people's attention, as long as they realize I'm not offering to powerlevel them the entire way. "Want to join me for a mission to get the sidekick powerlevel bonus at the end?" They won't understand what I mean, of course, but it won't be any harder to explain, and will benefit them more.
That suggests using something like the term "exemplar bonus" for anything in which exemplaring gives you a bonus boost to experience. The boost at the end of a mission would be the "exemplar mission bonus." The general advantage to hunting would the "exemplar hunting bonus." Of course, there's little chance of these terms being adopted outside our personal circle of friends, but we can always hope.
I think your XP guide is very well done, btw, and I learned several useful things from it. I'm a little surprised there's not more people discussing it in the thread. If it had been posted a few months ago there would have been more people saying "This is the best guide in the whole world" and "You people are destroying this game, hell holds a special place for you, and I hope you go there soon."
By the way, is it really true you type 102 words a minutes, or are you just bragging on your resume? ;-)
Well, since this '04 guide is the most recent exemplar guide, I figure its time to pull it out, dust if off, and update it.
I wanted to add to this that DROPS are effected by your exemplar level. If you take your level 50 and exemp down to level 1, you are going to get recipes at level 1. Very disappointing when you get that great rare recipe you've been wanting, and its too low for you.
On the other hand, for those who are sidekicked UP, you get recipe drops (and enhancements) based on your sidekick level. A level 1 sk'd to 50 gets a level 49 recipe drop. Talk about quick starting cash!
This is a brief post, but addresses one of the main discouraging issues we face in later levels: perma-debt. The fastest way to bring down debt is to use the exemplar feature to temporarily lower your level. I continue to meet people who have heard of exmplaring but never used it, don't realize the advantages, and don't know they can use it to conquer a mountain of debt.
This is not simply because all your xp is going to debt reduction. If that were the case, it would take roughly 50% of the time to eliminate your debt, since you're working it off at 100% instead of only 50%, In practice, you should eliminate all debt in MUCH less than 50% of the time it would take at your current level.
Why be an exmplar, instead of simply hunting at your current level? The main advantage is that hunting at the lower levels is usually MUCH easier. The lower mobs are unlikely to mezz or use special attacks, or to support each other with skills like healing. Furthermore, there were probably specific levels and places which you can remember went very well for your particular level and play-style. You can return to those places and reapply what you learned to wipe that debt clean.
One good example of this is Perez Park. Perhaps you remember going to Perez Park and taking on large groups of mobs with little danger? Welcome back to those glory days! And at the low levels, teaming with specific AT's yields even more of an advantage than later levels. High-damage classes such as scrappers and blasters are leveling machines in Perez, and teaming with them should make the debt melt away.
An interesting advantage of the exemplar relationship is that it doesn't seem to be effected by distance, unlike sidekicking. You can have someone on the opposite side of the map bring you down successfully, so you're not even forced to hunt near them.
There are some things to watch out for when you exemplar. If you have gone through a respec, you will get whatever powers and slots you chose for that level during the respec process. You might get a mild case of "power nostalgia" if you removed powers from your build that you've outgrown. In a more severe case, you might find yourself without a travel power if you added it on at the end or respec. About the only things you can do are take the exemplar process into account when you're respecing, or make sure not to exemplar yourself down to many levels. It's a good idea to plan the respec out in the hero planner beforehand.
As a final bonus, if a battle is going badly you can unexemplar and immediately be returned to your normal level. Simply bind a key that you can find easily (such as z) like this:
/bind z unex
Now when you hit z you will instantly go back to your normal level, and probably find yourself surrounded by harmless grays.