Buddhahs Back! SG?

Hey all, it's been forever since I've played. Well 3 years I guess. A lot has changed and I'm a super newby again, I have multiple level 50 characters and am interested in getting back into raids and testing out the new expansion Going Rogue.

Welcome back! I guess you've missed out on tons of stuff, but all in all it's for the better.

The changes have made the game better btw.

Pinnacle hasn't changed much!

I believe Ship Raids are currently run on a regular basis, although I've been too busy to do them recently so I dunno about their current status with the release of GR. Haven't seen a (public) Hami Raid in a while; there was an effort at getting regular redside Hami raids started a while back but aside from two successful raids nothing much happened with them (the last one didn't even start due to lack of people showing up). I guess you could consider the Cathedral of Pain (that's right, it's back) a mini-raid, since 24 people can do it, but it's instanced. Base raids are dead, the CoP functions without them, and claiming an IoP now results in a temporary (and some would argue not-quite-worth it) buff, along with the old IoP badge (Power Liberator/Master Thief).

Welcome back! Make sure you're on PinnBadges if you aren't already, it's still alive and kicking and a little surly from all the booze.

Hehe, thanks. So no Hammi raids means no ultra buff players on pinnacle then ???

I'm not sure what you mean by "ultra buff", but no, lack of Hami Raids is more indicative of lack of will rather than lack of skill (also lack of interest; can't run a raid without folks who want to run it). We've got plenty of folks who could and probably have run them in the past, they just don't for whatever reason (although I can think of a few people who might have run them privately with their SGs/coalition prior to Going Rogue, but I would guess even they've abandoned them in favor of new shinies).

new shinies?? What do you mean? Hami raids are done for the Enhancement it gives out. You don't just quit doing raids because there is new material. You incorporate the new material into your routine, but by not doing hammi raids how on earth are you suppose to obtain the strongest character possible? Those enhancements are priceless!

note: I have'nt played since 2007.

Basically you can get "fake" hamis by doing either the Lord Recluse or Statesman T/SF. In addtion you can get reward merits that let you buy the special invention origin enhancement sets. The bonuses you get from them are greater then that of hamis. They are mainly just used to plug in a few holes in your build now with a mix of IOs and hamis.

Hami raids can't be done in the new zones. Which is odd because Hami rules almost all the outside areas in Praetoria.

Also - the enhancements given out on Hami raids can now be obtained (although synthetically) via a Statesman TF or LRSF.

Also one of the new shiny things that has been introduced is PvP IOs...which if you accumulate enough Merits, Hero/Villain Merits, and INF, you can buy those. As well as purple recipes. Most other IO recipes can be bought with just regular merits.

gr, this is a bad time to come back. So much information scattered about. Maybe the best thing for me to do is to make a new character instead of working with the ones I've made previously.

If you want to get used to the invention system, a good way is to download mids' hero designer and play around with it.

You can find it here: http://www.cohplanner.com/

Inventions give you bonuses for slotting a set into powers. You can't have more than five of each specific bonus though (for example, you can't have more than five 6% recharge bonuses, but you can have four 6% recharge bonuses and three 7% recharge bonuses without any problems). Generally speaking, you want to focus on either recharge or defense bonuses, whichever is more useful for your character.

If you want to see an example build, just tell me what powers/pools you're using and I can throw one together for you.

funny thing about buddah posting kinda reminded me about how much SG's and the server activity has changed from what it originally was. Used to be you could only get I think 200 (maybe 300 ? cant remember) in a zone for a hami raid, the zone used to fill and people would get locked out. Now the zone caps at 50 and even on active severs where hami raids are common they still don't fill it. SG's were limited to 50 people so SG's were a lot more robust. You didn't have like 100 alts or nameless pl'd prestige noobs that you kick for not logging in for a week because you gave them a free 50 and otherwise have no interest in playing past that. I am not sure how the current population compares to original population, I would be interested in finding out. Seems when the SG size was smaller the overall quality was better.

SG size was 75, then doubled to 150, not like he ever came close to hitting either number in that Vg.

I have the wrong person here but.....I think I remember you being a decent healer in PvP 8v8 in a sg we were in.

Anyways, welcome back!

Philosophy, the Twilight Avengers led those two successful redside public raids that DarkGob was talking about, as well as showing up to run a third that we didn't run because of a lack of turnout. The first two, though, were full zones with people at the door knocking to get in. We will likely sponsor others at some point in the future, if there is a continued interest.

As for the Hamidon Raid itself, our guild has continued to take him down on both Pinnacle and Guardian multiple times each week as we've always done. In fact, we sponsor blueside public raids on the Guardian server every Wednesday at 9:30 eastern, if you have a toon over there and want to participate. It only takes about 20 minutes from entry to reward when we run it, so it won't take much time out of your schedule if you want to experience a raid again. You'll need to show up by 9:15 in all likelihood, though, as the zone fills weekly.

And, as has been pointed out, many of the Hami enhancements aren't what they used to be. But there are certain ones (Enzymes, Membranes, and Ribosomes to name a few) that are still fairly popular (and expensive) because of the kinds of powers they go in or the kind/level of buff they give. Many of the folks in our guild take the 63 reward merits we get for completing the Hami raid in lieu of the Hami enhancements--at least I always do. But then, I've got two full enhancement bins of Hami enhancements in my base, waiting to be slotted, so I need the merits more.

Welcome back to the game. If you need a hand getting re-acclimated, drop me a line.