Praetoria - A hard fight.

So the other day I was running around in Prae talking to random people on the street(ultimatley trying to find a contact) to see whatl ittle tid bits would show up.

I run into one of those info civilians specifically the one that tells you how long you've been logged in with a character. So in 8 hours I made it to level 12-12.5

Which doesn't seem to far out of the ordinary as I don't rush things or maximize my xp/min.

It took me about 40 hours for my Stalker to hit level 20, but I believe about half of that was spent with me chatting, getting badges, and profiteering from the market. I also disabled XP at lvl 7.9, 14.9 and 19.9 to ensure I got as many contacts and missions as I could, which prolonged the experience as well.

I suspect someone who just lasers in on gaining solo XP as quickly as possible can get to lvl 20 in maybe 15 hours - probably less for a vet with a really good game-plan.

On another note: you can leverage inspirations to weather many a storm in this game. Here are some examples:

3 Lucks will give you 45% defense, which will allow you to cap against most mobs. (It helps to do this as early as possible, when the s*** goes down.) Thus leaving the rest of the inspirations for whatever purpose. You could either a) use the rest for resistances, thus increasing survivability if you get mobbed by quite a few enemies. Or b) in the case of some EB's, put the rest in damage, and focus on that EB until you beat it down.

I generally try to keep a minimum of 3 Lucks at any time, and often I end up with more over time, as I pick extra ones up in missions, occasionally using the "overage" in additional battles over time, which I think will be beneficial.

I always delete the rez inspirations. I never have more than 1 accuracy in my tray. If I ever have 3 or more of any inspiration that isn't a Luck, I convert that into one. Once I have the minimum of 3 Lucks, everything else gets converted to Enrages.

On my last character (the now level 20 Stalker), I face-planted 6 times total. 3 were totally my fault, for not even looking at my health. The other 3 were calculated decisions on my part - out of many, so I don't feel so bad.

Just brought my level 21 archery/TA corruptor out of Praetoria and into Paragon City, specifically, Talos Island. Her first impression: Ugh. What a strange and ugly place.

First mission: Find Suzanne Trent.
Enemies: Banished Pantheon.
First fight: level 22 Death Shaman and friends.
Result: Hey, this hospital has no handy inspiration-dealing nurse on standby!

So...

Can she go back to Praetoria? Please?

That was my first impression as well. Ugly, but it was still home.

But the first fight….. gah, what did they do to the ambush rules for the whole game? Prae was bad enough, but add onto that the ambushes in the tip missions, and then my 2nd costume slot mission! A friend and I left Prae at the same time, and went to Icon right away to get Serge’s mission. We stood outside for 2 or 3 minutes and figured, meh, no ambush. We could not have been more wrong. I swear, these guys must have spawned at the hospital, and on the way, picked up every friend and relative that they could find. By the time they blindsided us, they must have numbered close to 20, including 5 lts. and 2 bosses. All of this to take down a controller and a mastermind at +0/+0. Before I knew what was going on, I was watching a line of ants march down the sidewalk past my nose.

It's funny, because there are other vets complaining about Praetoria being too easy. Ah well!

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

Just put in a difficulty slider and the devs can call it a day. Easy solution.

Here's that 8-person spawn I mentioned earlier. It is probably meant to be two spawns but I didn't see a way to separate them and even then it has 5 in the one on the right.



Luckily they were all even-con minions.

There is definitely something wrong with the mob placing in all of GR missions.
The same is happening during Tip missions. I really hope this isn't on purpose but just something they will fix soon.

My worst was 2 +1 Lieutenants and 4 + 1 Minions.

Also bad mission where I had to defeat Boneeater and Maneater. Both where + 1 Lieutenants and standing side by side. Both had Superstrengh if I remember correctly, which where really a joy to take out with my Stalker who didn't have his signature assassination attack yet.

I am managing to get the missions done, but as others stated it less fun then missions in CoH or CoV. And more and more people are quitting Pretoria.

I'm still not sure what the reason is for having Pretoria so heavy. Do the devs fear will finish it too fast? The way it is now I'd rather finish it faster but have more fun instead of having so much downtime.

What mob buff are you talking about?

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

Relatively new player here -- been playing for a couple months, highest toon is 23 or something like that. So I still don't know all these cool tricks, and I was never good at number crunching anyway, certainly not at speed. My experience is that Praetoria is definitely more challenging, with frequent spikes of "Oh my gawd, how is anyone even supposed to do this?"

My non-Praetorian characters have been leveling a lot faster since GR came out. :P

Oh, and can I just mention... 2 minute timers? Who thought up 2 minute timers? Because I owe that guy a bug down his shirt. Argh.