When will Praetoria end??????

The Well isn't the only way

I think the thing you're missing is that not every character is a "main" character. For every "main" character, there's a pile of guys getting downed by a turret.

No offense, but maybe you're just not a "main" character.

/all this.

Especially about the COT (note: has deity who taught mankind magic to begin with in the war vs the BP) vs the Mu (note: has deity who taught Mu magic to eliminate COT) in Dark Astoria (note: has sleeping god the COT are trying to keep down) and versus the Banished Pantheon (note: has group of gods who found their own way to power in worship and feeding off negative emotions) with some Tsoo on the side (note: works with magical artifacts, already in zone seeking something.)

No reason to have the Toilet Bowl of Power involved at all.

Remember back when we could explain our powers however we wanted?

Original lore, by the way, explained "surges" of power by having an item ("Pandora's box") which, over centuries or millenia, "accumulated the potential and creativity of humanity." Every so often, it would be found, someone would throw open the lid and all of that would escape, people affected by it becoming seen (depending on era) as gods/demons or heroes/villains.

(Quick google search - Wikipedia entry on COH:
While at the fountain, they threw open the lid to Pandora's Box (holder of the golden light of Creation) which caused a dramatic increase in the number of superhumans worldwide and is directly responsible for their proliferation in the City of Heroes universe.

Paragon Wiki entry - Pandora's box (lore) :
Pandora's Box is an ancient artifact that was discovered by Marcus Cole and Stefan Richter, who later became Statesman and Lord Recluse respectively. Little information has been revealed about the box, but it is known that it housed the Golden Light of Creation, as well as all of mankind's creativity over the past millenia. Opening the box released the creative energy out into the world, starting another golden age of superhumans.

Note no mention of an insane Well being the source of all power, etc, etc.)

"The Well" - especially a talking well explaining how "You are now on a fast path to power" - didn't exist as they're pushing it (note how they've made locations such as the Well of the Furies "tied to" a main entity called "The well.")

And yes, while Pandora's Box is a bit cheesy, it released potential and creativity - which explains a surge of, say, inspiration to train harder and take back city streets, even with no superpowers, or the inspiration to create a suit of battle armor or new tech, letting you get as powerful as you can (slotting, inventions, etc.) without being beholden to an insane interdimensional "well."

Not original -- got shoehorned into the game around i6. It was a bad idea and led to many more bad ideas.

But again, that was before the invasion. It should be noted that only Tyrant is actually an Incarnate, the reason his lieutenants are so powerful in the trials is because Tyrant has granted them Incarnate-level power.

Once again ignoring the whole "up until they decided to do this you actually defeated Tyrant himself" retcon, this is still asinine and ridiculous levels of handwaving. Literally everything you run into in Apex, Tin Man, and the trials is incarnate level. Even the non-Praetorian Malta minions. Sure, Cole decided that "this Sapper from another dimension that is currently attacking mine and who belongs to an organization that wants to control all things metahuman is trustworthy and shall be bestowed with a measure of my power". Really. Honest!

You're trying to justify terrible writing by filling in excuses that were either unexplained or handwaved by the devs. There wasn't a need to involve Praetoria in the Incarnate story; there was a financial decision made to do so and then a poor attempt at justifying it. I personally feel that the Praetorian storyline should have ended at level 50, or at the most continued into one trial to take on Cole himself since they already retconned him out of the arc in the worst manner possible (it was a clone! Really?! Did Spider Man teach these people nothing?!).

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

The Well of the Furies does that.

Yes I remember. I just take the Well as an extention of it. Mind you this doesn't mean I care for the lore.

But then, I never understood the complaints about the Lore, when people so readily broke the lore even when it was simpler than it is currently.

Actually, that's not a retcon - the original arc still happened - it's even mentioined during the new arc.

It does fall in line with being a retcon, as you went from defeating Tyrant to defeating some clone of his.

It'd only be a retcon if the original arc repalced Tyrant with a clone.

Last I knew, that's exactly what it did as per the storyline.

You went to defeating the actual Tyrant, to the new storyline saying, Oh wait, that was a clone, when before that was never the case.

Someone needs to tell Statesman and Tyrant that these "kidnapping" charades they keep playing is fooling no one.

And besides, this is the 21st Century and no one minds any more, even if it is a little narcissistic.

After we take down Cole and we're finally done with Praetoria the next trial will be called Sapper Incarnate. He will be a Rularuu-sized level 54+4 AV who appears in the sky over Paragon City and blankets the whole zone with his sapping ray, draining the endurance of everyone in the zone and hitting them with a -9999% recovery debuff that lasts five minutes and persists through death. Everybody starts panicking and thinking we're all doomed, until they realize he is a still a Sapper and his damage is crap.

I knew there had to be a reason Recluse is so hell-bent on taking down Cole....

I don't think that Statesman is the main object of Tyrant's love:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...&postcount=419

...did you just link to a link?

It's for safety - it means that no one sees it by accident

Gwen: I'm a technopath. I can control technology with my mind.
Will Stronghold: Wow. All I can do is... punch stuff.
Mr. Medulla: [passing them] Yet he'll be the one on cereal boxes. Show me the justice in that.

Well, that's one obvious way of clearing the DE

Au contraire, Yoda, despite your , YES IT IS.