The City Scoop

Everyone is invited to The Sisterhood Halloween Bash!

By CA_Outlaw_Woman

Vol. II, Issue XXIV

October 26, 2007

Go. Hunt. Get Badge.

by Lemur Lad

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This week's segment is about the Banisher
badge. Timing can make all the difference when it comes to making
a badge hunt easier or harder, and this time of the year is the
best time for some players to work on getting Banisher. There is
nothing more annoying than a badge hunt that is limited by the
in-game day/night clock. Most of the year, Banished Pantheon
Spirit Masks hide during the daytime, which makes hunting harder
in the most fruitful areas. During the perpetual night of
Halloween, Masks are out all the time, and there's nothing to
slow down a badge hunt.

Outdoor Hunting

General Hint

This badge is for defeating Boss-ranked
foes. If you are the only person around in an area, the game
recognizes this and downgrades the strength of spawns
accordingly. The more people around (teamed or not), the larger
and stronger the spawns. That means more bosses. Whenever you
hunt outdoors, bring a couple friends along. The conditions are
not as rigorous as mission maps, so you don't need a full team of
eight. Just three or four people can increase the rate noticeably
and speed up the hunt. Personal difficulty settings don't
matter.

Heroes

In Dark Astoria, there is perpetual gloom, and Masks can appear
anytime. However there are only a few small areas where they
appear. The best place to find them is the small park in the
Southeast corner of the zone.

On Talos Island, near the Dark Astoria gate and heading down
the highway toward Founder's Falls, the area for Masks to spawn
is much larger. The area around the office buildings and
alongside the highway should be your patrol zone.

Villains

In Sharkhead Isle, Masks were added to the Potter's Field area of
the zone at the same time they were added to Bloody Bay. Both I
and Snow_Globe seem to remember them showing up during daytime,
but it's hard to double check that right now. This is the best
option for villains hunting the badge (see below).

Both sides

Bloody Bay is an option available to both Heroes and Villains.
The Northeast forested area of the map has several locations
where Masks spawn. There are pros and cons to hunting in Bloody
Bay. First, the day/night rules do not apply to Masks in this
zone, so they can appear anytime. Second, the rules of the zone
auto-level everyone to 25, and the Masks spawn at that level.
They will always be a tougher kill than in a regular zone where
you have the option to hunt them once you out-level them.

I recommend that Villains take advantage of this because it
helps then achieve more than one badge. T he level 25-30 contact
Doc Buzzsaw is unlocked by earning the Bling badge. This is
sometimes difficult to manage before getting very close to 30. If
someone level 26+ goes to Bloody Bay with no debt, they will be
auto-exemplared, and everything they defeat will give them 100%
Infamy toward the badge.

You also earn time toward the five-hour time in-zone badge
while hunting, so you're essentially killing three birds with one
stone. As for the risk of PvP, this can be a big con for many.
Just remember three things:

Travel powers make escaping pretty easy.

Bloody Bay is rarely occupied so risk of attack is less.

You will be underneath trees most of the time and very hard to
spot.

Indoor Hunting

Heroes

There are several Magic Contacts with arcs and missions versus
the Banished Pantheon that spawn them in the correct level
range.

Notable hero missions:[*] Wheel of Destruction Arc.
[*] Stop both groups of mystic madmen (Spirit Warrior Badge
mission).
[*] Find Suzanne Trent.

Contacts:[*] Dr. Cheng ( Independence Port )
[*] Piper Irving ( Talos )
[*] Cain Royce ( Talos )
[*] Andrea Mitchell ( Talos )
[*] Josef Keller ( Talos )
[*] Oliver Haak ( Talos )

Villains

For a long time, there was only one available way to earn this
badge since there were no outdoor spawns of Masks in Villain
accessible zones. The mission from Diviner Maros: Steal the
Scroll of Tielekku was the only source of Banished Pantheon. The
mission owner had to get the mission at level 25, and then
increase their difficulty setting so the default level of mission
spawns was 26+. Then, with a large team, Masks would spawn, and
the mission could be farmed. Needless to say, this was very
tricky to manage.

Final Note


Earning this badge contributes to the Archmage Accolade. It also
grants the additional Avalanche Shaman Gladiator Badge. This is a
lieutenant-ranked Gladiator, and is usually outclassed in most
free-for-all battles dominated with Boss-ranks. However, if you
ever have a match with team guidelines limiting Bosses, this is
definitely one Gladiator to look at. The Earthquake ability can
wreak havoc to the opposing side if they picked a lot of
non-flying foot soldiers.

The City Traveler

By Taxibot Belle

"http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd145/TaxibotBelle/Belle.gif"
border="0" align="left">Hi everyone, it's me, Belle! Happy Halloween! I hope
you all have been enjoying the wonderful season and getting lots
of treats and no tricks! I love this time of year. My friend
Katie and I have been going to lots of parties, and I have this
really neat costume that looks like a Headman Swordsman. It looks
so real and scary, I don't wear it outside because I'm afraid a
hero will arrest me! I like to walk up to people and say, "Excuse
me, can you help me? I seem to be Lost." It would probably be a
lot scarier if I could keep from giggling!

Last week, I told everyone that I was going to talk about the
Rikti War Zone this week. Well, I'm a Taxi of my word, so I'm
devoting the rest of this column to it. Let's get to it!

As probably all of your know, the zone came about as it is
today after the original Rikti Invasion of 2002, when one of
their ships crashed into the middle of the White Plains business
district. Fortunately, a lot of people had been evacuated. Until
recently, the zone remained largely empty, with a large number of
Rikti essentially sealed inside, contained by the U.S. military.
Heroes would occasionally venture in to accomplish specific
tasks, and some even used to "surf the shield," as they called
it, riding down the repulsor field almost like a ski slope.

Recently, this all changed dramatically when the Rikti set up
powerful defense pylons and expanded into attacking other parts
of Paragon City. Thank goodness there are so many heroes that are
willing to help defend the city! Fortunately, the time also
marked the return of the Vanguard Omega Team, the one that was
led by Hero 1. The only news I've heard about his fate is wild
allegations that I just can't believe are true. If you want to
help investigate, please talk to Lady Grey.
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As you go into the zone, one of the first things that you
should do is to talk to Levantera. She's hard to miss, just walk
out of the base towards the War Zone, and she's in front of the
large Vanguard symbol, dressed in a magnificent purple outfit.
The reason why you want to talk to her as soon as possible after
entering the War Zone is because she is in charge of initiating
heroes into Vanguard operations. Vanguard rewards heroes with
outfits and neat things like temporary abilities, but only after
they've been initiated by her!

There are several things of geographical interest in the War
Zone. The most dangerous ones are the new Rikti pylons that
surround the crashed ship. Please be very careful around these
pylons, they can even see invisible heroes and they do a lot of
damage, enough to either defeat or leave most heroes extremely
vulnerable after just one hit! The pylons show up on your
portable map, but only after you uncover the area first. If you
can fly, I suggest doing an aerial survey so you'll know what to
avoid.

The pylons are numbered one through eighteen. This is
important becasue when groups of heroes go to fight the Rikti on
the ship itself, they have to tear down all of the pylons before
the ship's shields drop. Typically, a leader of these groups call
out the next pylon they will be attacking by its number. If you
hover the pointer on your portable map over one of the pylon
markers, it will show you the number of that pylon.

There are a whole lot of exploration badges. Including the Ace
badge that was there before the increased Rikti activity, there
are a whopping fourteen of them! I won't go into detail where all
of them are because that information can easily be found in other
places. If you do go with a group to fight the Rikti on the
crashed ship, be sure to get the badge that is in the middle of
the ship because it can only be obtained while the shields are
down. And be really careful, the area is usually heavily defended
by Rikti Magi and sometimes even the Rikti Master at Arms
himself!

There are also a lot of plaques in the zone, including one for
heroes that are studying the history of the Freedom Phalanx's
fight with Nemesis in 1945 in order to obtain their Academic
title. That is not the only plaque, though! A lot of heroes don't
know this, but each of the four Vanguard forts in the zone is
marked with a dedication plaque with its name on it. The exact
location of the plaque varies at each fort, so you'll have to
look around a little bit to find it. I've included a picture of
the plaque on the fort at Point du Hoc below. The picture is the
western side of the fort, facing east. Look closely, and you'll
see it in the bottom of the picture on the wall as you go up the
ramp to enter the fort.

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Here's a fun little contest! See if you can find the names of
all four forts in the Rikti War Zone. Once you know all four,
send me a message with the names and you'll win... um... I'll
make you an honorary Taxibot and officially recognize your
geographical mastery in my column next week!

There are a few other things that are worth mentioning in the
War Zone, but I'm running out of room for my column this week, so
I'll have to wait and talk about them some other time. If you're
in Infinity, send me a message and I'll try to show you some
other neat plaques. I hope you all have a wonderful Halloween
season. Enjoy yourself at the parties, but please remember to
have a designated driver or call your friendly local Taxibot
instead! Until next time, byeee!