Must Do, Must See Content - CoH

I need to go back and do some of these, it appears.

However, for me, the 3 most fun things in this game are as follows:

1st Respec Trial -
Anyone who plays with me knows my love of Sky Raiders and the awesomesauce that spills from their bodies as I defeat them. Few things are more fun than BSing with a team of 8, running around in circles atop the Terra Volta reactor with a big red bubble around you, waiting for a mob of Sky Raiders to appear in front of a door and scare the crap out of you, only for you to run in and kill them almost instantaneously. There is so much fun in killing Sky Raiders to me, and the respec trial has an awesome ending map, and all in all, I think the most fun I have in this game is when I'm doing a first Respec.

Imperious Task Force -
This is far and away my favorite task force in the game, for many reasons.
1. You get to beat up on Ancient Roman jerks.
2. You get to face an Archvillain who gets infused with Nictus and then must be killed 5 times in total (counting the time before he gets infused).
3. The maps are huge and sprawling, so a kill-all ITF can take a couple hours just because of how long it takes to find and kill every last Cimeroran, especially on the last map.
4. If you run it with something not at 50, you will gain a level. Period. The XP is insane. When you get to the 2nd mission and you jump into mobs of Black/White Dwarfs/Novas and they're all bosses and you see your XP bar just cranking, you understand. Not to mention that every crystal you kill spawns a mob with an EB, either a freakin' Minotaur or a Cyclops. Also not to mention you kill Rommy 5 times, for more massive XP.
5. It usually has the best drop rate. For some reason, I've seen more people get purples during an ITF than any other TF in the game. I've always gotten at least one rare salvage or recipe that's worth a damn anytime I've run an ITF.
6. Tanking Rommy is hella fun.

Hess Task Force -
Why do I choose this one? Because it was one of the first TFs I ever did, and I ran it last night and it reminded me of it's awesomeness. I love fighting Council, especially in the 20's before the damn Wolves show up. The entire TF is all in Striga, so there's no "travel to this awkward zone to kill 20 of this, and then come back", it can be done in 30-45 minutes, you still get 19 merits out of it, and the last room of the last map is just awesome-looking.

The other TFs are good, like I could run the new Posi all day long, but those three things are my favorite things to do in this game. Now if you'll excuse me, I think I have some story arcs I've never done before that I need to do...

A lot of the zone story arcs and TFs are worthwhile, and most have been noted already. The Hollows is good up through Frostfire, and it's much more easy to get around to missions now. It's worth opening up the trial as well, I would say, though the last two arcs in the zone aren't quite as fun to play through.

Faultline as a zone and its story arcs are great (completing the third also unlocks the Orobouros Portal for you). The devs seem to have noted this, tying in the second Posi TF with the area quite a bit.

Striga is a bit more hit and miss. I don't like how many hunt missions there are (hunting Council in the Bog usually means you having to solo team-sized groups of Warwolves or Vampires), but some of the stories are good, and it's worth unlocking the Hess TF at the end. Love that volcano base. The Moonfire TF there is nice as well.

Personally, I love Croatoa. Very atmospheric zone, fun story arcs, interesting villains, and the Katie Hannon TF is an interesting one.

The 20s seem to have some good missions. The new story arcs (through Midnighter's and the new ones exploring your "double") are fantastic. Then you have the Freaklympics in there, and some great missions against the Warriors and Banished Pantheon. Kind of frustrating that you can't get to it all.

Good stuff later, of course, but there is a heavy concentration there.

Velocity's top 10 stuff to do both red and blue side:

10. Villain Respec Trail: Tough as nails at the lower levels. Really fun though.
9. Hamidon Raid: Succeed or not, this will show you the difficulty of the real Hamidon.
8. Imperious Taskforce: Easily one of the most fun TFs to do. Romulus is a badass and a fun fight.
7. Sewers run. Show off your 2-3 powers at level 4 as you and a team of newbies beat the crap out of whatever is down there. (all the while leveling like 6-7 times)
6. Statesman's Taskforce. Essentially the last TF. Once you beat it, you feel like a real hero. Or atleast the credits should roll after you win.
5. Renault's Strikeforce. Fight a giant eyeball of a giant monster you dont even get to see. Not much else to say. One day I hope we actually get to fight the entire Leviathan.
4. Lady Grey's Taskforce. Ever want to see Nemesis punch out an Alien? Heres your chance. Last mission is a very fun fight.
3. Zombie Apocalypse! Always fun to kill zombies with friends. Hold them off as long as you can and get 4 badges in the process.
2. Badge hunting. While not as fun as the ones below. Collecting badges is like collecting pokemon. Strangely addicting even though it shouldn't be.
1. Create over 9,000 alts. what 9,000!? Yeah, just creating characters alone is fun. The most flexible character creator in any MMO is simply too much fun not to ignore. Not to mention the powersets and all that jazz.

The Vahzilok Plague

I think this arc gets skipped most of the time these days as it's a low level arc and you miss it plowing through the early levels via sewers and radios. But it was pretty unique for its time, still is pretty noteworthy and has an ending fight that, at lvl 10ish, was just plain awe-inspiring. It's a shame no one runs through this any longer.

Edit: I see Dr. Vahz is part of Posi v2.2 now but I stand by my suggestion

I like fighting Dr. Vahz. I dislike being debuffed and having flies about me, however, so I tend to skip it. I found it fun when I played it through as Grey Pilgrim way back at the game start, but I have no desire to do it again (I got annoyed when I accidentally had a character go through it again recently just to see the map, heh).

I like HAVING DONE the Dr. Vazh arc. So I think everyone should do it once. But I don't know if it really counts as fun, at the time.

... has anyone mentioned the Envoy Of Shadows? 36-40 Circle of Thorns arc. Find out why some things should STAY under the ocean.

Hamidon raid is far from must do or must see. Hami is the closest thing to a raid and is designed for the full zone of 50 people to be involved. If you are not intersted in doing large scale events this will have no appeal.

Everyone should run Crimson's very long story arc "World Wide Red" on at least one character. This is a rather wild ride against Malta that is famous mostly for summoning the Kronos Titan as an ambush, a giant monster. Defeating it gives you a badge, and it's a good way to get together with people on your server.

Crimson has another mini arc that starts with "Rescue Candice Boxer from the Malta Group" that is one of the more poignant pieces in the game.

I'm also a fan of Gordon Stacy's "Revenant Hero Project" story arc.

<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison

Some very good suggestions here. (I'm a huge Shard fan myself, for instance)...
I'll add some more thoughts, in no particular order or importance.

1> Signature Monsters: Sadly, this doesn't get done much anymore, but I
can recall several epic fights against various monsters notably: Lusca,
Adamastor, Clockwork Paladin etc. Redside Monsters just irritated me (I'm
looking at you, Deathsurge, you running pansy), but the Bluesiders were
always epic feeling.

2> Read the stories: Some of them are funny, and some are just plain
interesting. Redside is better in this regard, but there are a lot of good ones
on both sides of the fence.
I especially like the Johny Sonata arc, Diviner Maros arc to name just two on red.

3> Explore the zones: Sure, we see alot of the same foes throughout the
game, but most zones have their own unique flavor to them - imho Blueside
is actually better than Red in this regard. The Shard, of course, is the poster
child for a seriously cool place to simply wander around in for awhile.

4> In keeping with #2 & #3, read some of the NPC commentary during
your travels - esp. Redside ... some of it is pure comic win -- hilarious.

5> Try some PvP - put on your tinfoil hat, put in your industrial grade
earplugs, go in, mix-it-up, expect to die some, hope to kill some... Don't
sweat or even evaluate the results - just go in and punch somebody

Just Once.

I too echo the Warburg visit: Seeing one of the rocket launches IS cool.

The first time I saw a Shivan, it was a wth moment... Those guys are pure weird.

The RV Heavies have on occasion made me want to get a remote-controlled
Battlemech of my very own...

Three things I'd never have seen had I not gone into a PvP zone...


All in all, experience the game - I'll share a bit of wisdom given to me by
one of my former flight instructors.

"There's a Big difference between 500 flight hours, and 1 flight hour repeated
500 times".

Depth and Breadth of experience matter.


Regards,
4

Dear Ocho,

This is not a bump, as I know bumps are verboten.

I'm contributing by reminding people that this is a very useful thread for new & returning players...that they might find useful.

As a thread.

A useful one.

For new and returning players.

And I like liver with onions.