City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Respecs: Earned, Trial, Veteran, Free, Recipe

Alloric

By Alloric,
Posted on: 2007-11-28 03:13 in Player Guides

 

Posted

RESPECS

Short for respecification*, a respec allows a player to chose new powers and enhancement slotting for their characters. However, please note that you can not change Archetype, Powersets, or Origin. If you're a Science Dark Melee Regen Scrapper, you'll always be a Science Dark Melee Regen Scrapper.

It's important to know that there are basically two types of respecs:

  1. Earned respecs; and,
  2. Free respecs (freespecs)
And there are what I would call two types of pseudo-respecs:
  1. Forced respecs (Soldiers of Arachnos only); and,
  2. Second Builds


Earned Respecs

Earned Respecs come from three sources:
  1. Successfully complete a Respec Trial (the Terra Volta Trial for heroes, or the Thorn Tree Trial for villains) or the first Patron Arc for villains;
  2. Veteran Rewards; and,
  3. Purchased with Real Money
Earned Respecs are 'stackable' in that you can collect any number of them and keep them in reserve until you want to use one. A character that has done all three respec trials and has the four veteran respecs (9, 21, 33, 45, and 69 months) will have 7 earned respecs. A villain may have an extra earned respec after completing their Patron Arc.

In order to claim a Veteran Reward respec, you'll need to open up the badge window and click the drop down menu and chose 'Veteran Badges' to show the Veteran Badges. Scroll down to the 9, 21, 33, or 45 month badge and click the claim respec button.

Earned Respecs are used by going to a contact. For heroes, they see Jack Wolfe in Galaxy City; for villains, they see Arbiter Lupin in Nerva Archipelago or Arbiter Sawyer in Port Oakes. Clicking on either puts one into respec mode.

If you want to purchase an Earned Respec, log into your server and chose your character for whom you want to buy a Respec (but don't enter the game). Click on the "Enter Store" button and follow the directions to buy a respec. They cost $10 each.


Free Respecs

Free respecs, often called 'freespecs,' come from three sources:
  1. They are given to players by the Developers as celebratory gifts (e.g., to celebrate a game anniversary) or as corrective gifts because game mechanics have changed and players might need to respecify their characters to adjust to the changes;
  2. Starting in Issue 11, inventing them from Respec Recipes; and,
  3. Starting in the Winter Event of 2009, inventing them from a Recipe from the Candy Keeper paid for with 500 Candy Canes and 250,000 inf. Thus, they can only be purchased during the Winter Event.
Freespecs are not stackable. If you have a freespec and a new one is granted by the Devs, you'll still have only one. If you have a freespec and try to create another one from a Respec Recipe, you'll find that you can't. This is to prevent you from 'burning' a Respec Recipe needlessly. If you don't have a freespec and then use the Respec Recipe, then you will now have one freespec.

You can store the Respec Recipes (the regular ones, not the Winter Event ones) though -- as many as your personal recipe inventory and the storage slots in your Consignment Market interface** will hold (don't forget your 'alts' can hold recipes for you, too). Respec Recipes can be traded, gifted, and bought and sold at the Consignment Market. So, if you don't get a Respec Recipe as a 'loot' drop, then you can possibly buy one at the Market.

Respec Recipes are rare Pool A (defeat foes) drops.*** If you have one, you can go to any invention crafting table (found in universities, in the RWZ base, or bought for super group bases, or unlocked as a summonable power through Market badges) and invent a freespec from it.

To use a freespec, simply type the command /respec in the chat window and it will put you into respec mode. Or, you can go to a respec contact.

If you got to respec contact and you have a free respec and one or more earned one, the contact will use your free respec first.



Forced Respec

When a Soldier of Arachnos (the Villain Epic Archetypes of Soldier or Widow) levels up at a trainer, they are forced to respec at level 24. This is so they can chose which 'branch' of their Archetype to follow. Keep this in mind since you probably wouldn't want to respec at level 22 when a free, albeit forced, respec is coming at level 24.



Second Build

This isn't a respec at all, but it almost functions like one. Each player character has a Second Build that they can switch to. The first time you do so, you get to 'level up' that second build choosing your powers and slotting from scratch. If you don't have a respec available and haven't touched your second build yet, this is a way to sort of respec your character.

Note that you can then respec the second build, too, as well as the first. Each respec of each build 'burns' a respec. To respec both builds, you need two respecs (free or earned).



How Many Respecs Do I Have?

When your character logs on, you may see in the System chat window, "You have X unclaimed respecs available," if you have one or more unused respecs. This number includes freespecs and earned respecs. It does not include Respec Recipes and the Veteran Respec awards that haven't been claimed by clicking the respec button in the badge window. If you want to know if this number includes a freespec, simply issue the command /respec, and if you enter respec mode, then you have a freespec (you can back out of respec mode and not lose your freespec).

There is no limit to the amount of times you can respec. A Soldier of Arachnos could use up 8 earned respecs, their forced respec, five freespecs granted over the course of several years and then go on to buy 10 respec recipes with infamy at the Market and 10 purchasable recipes with real money and thus have respecked 34 times!


Known Issue

There is a bug in the text of the Vet Reward Earned Respecs. When you 'cash one in' by clicking on the claim button under the badge window, you will be told you can use that respec by typing '/respec.' If you've read the above carefully, you'll know why that's a bug: The command '/respec' is used to use free respecs, not earned ones. If you type /respec after claiming a Vet Reward Respec you'll either be using up your free respec, or, if you don't have a free respec, then nothing will happen.

To use the Vet Reward Earned Respec, you'll need to see the contacts Wolfe or Lupin (see above), and *not* by typing '/respec'.





*Regardless of what Positron says, 'respec' is short for 'respecification' and not 'respecialization.' And the rule for adding a k before suffixes that begin with a vowel for words that end in a hard 'c' apply: respecking, respecked (and never 'respect'), just like picnicking and picnicked.

**Items placed in the storage slots of the Consignment Market will be lost on characters whose master NCSoft account is inactive for more than 60 days... be careful. (Note it used to be that 60 days of character inactivity caused you to lose your inventory, but that has changed to 60 days of your account lapsing).

***Best way to farm for Pool A recipes? Large number of minions that con blue (-1 level) or green (-2) to you. (Greys do not drop recipes. Ever.) So, take an AoE specialist and Go. Hunt. Kill Skuls.

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Posted

Good guide. Hopefully it'll help lessen confusion over what is and isn't a "free respec."

Might want to add the villain patron arc respec under "earned respecs," though.

 

Posted

Very nice. And yeah when Posi said "respecialization" I was like "wha?"

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Very nice. And yeah when Posi said "respecialization" I was like "wha?"

[/ QUOTE ]

Slots are actually called Specializations, or were to be called so. The term has more or less fallen into disuse, but appears in documentation prepared prior to release. Example here. Hence, Respecialization is defensible, since the respec process involves reselecting these.

I humbly suggest we don't worry about assigning an "official" meaning to the term "respec" when it can just as easily stand as an abbreviated form of Respecification or Respecialization.

Sorry I didn't see this sooner.

 

Posted

Update: Another source of a respec is the one VEATs (Villain Epic ArcheTypes, the Soldiers and Widows) are forced into when they level up at Level 24. This is unlike either the Earned or Free Respecs and has no effect on either the Earned or Free Respecs (except that you may want to plan on the fact that you'll be respecking at level 24 and so, burning some other respec at level 22, e.g., might not be worth it).

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Posted

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Very nice. And yeah when Posi said "respecialization" I was like "wha?"

[/ QUOTE ]

Slots are actually called Specializations, or were to be called so. The term has more or less fallen into disuse, but appears in documentation prepared prior to release. Example here. Hence, Respecialization is defensible, since the respec process involves reselecting these.

I humbly suggest we don't worry about assigning an "official" meaning to the term "respec" when it can just as easily stand as an abbreviated form of Respecification or Respecialization.

Sorry I didn't see this sooner.

[/ QUOTE ]

When the respec trials were revealed they were billed as "respecification" trials.

 

Posted

Can characters only use a limited number of Earned Respecs over their careers? Maybe I'm crazy, but I thought at one point a max number of 4 (or some other number) earned respecs could be used by any character.

I seem to remember when the TV trial came out that we were only able to earn respecs from it up to 3 or 4 times, regardless of the level of the trial, or your security level. I could very well be wrong. If I am, then the amount of vet reward respecs would certainly make more sense to me.

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Can characters only use a limited number of Earned Respecs over their careers? Maybe I'm crazy, but I thought at one point a max number of 4 (or some other number) earned respecs could be used by any character.

I seem to remember when the TV trial came out that we were only able to earn respecs from it up to 3 or 4 times, regardless of the level of the trial, or your security level. I could very well be wrong. If I am, then the amount of vet reward respecs would certainly make more sense to me.

[/ QUOTE ]

One can use Vet or Purchased respecs, along with any other respecs one can earn via trials.

I know this from personal experience, as I went through 4 Vet Respecs and 2 earned respecs trying to get my most recent character (Fortunata) just right.

I can still earn (and will use) the Patron Arc respec to finalize things.

 

Posted

Update:

There is a bug in the text of the Vet Reward Earned Respecs. When you 'cash one in' by clicking on the claim button under the badge window, you will be told you can use that respec by typing '/respec.' If you've read the above carefully, you'll know why that's a bug: The command '/respec' is used to use free respecs, not earned ones. If you type /respec after claiming a Vet Reward Respec you'll either be using up your free respec, or, if you don't have a free respec, then nothing will happen.

To use the Vet Reward Earned Respec, you'll need to see the contacts Wolfe or Lupin (see above), and *not* by typing '/respec'.

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