Brutes: Paragon vs. Mercy Isles vs. Praetoria

Hey all. I've been playing COH since 2006 on and off. After three years off, I returned to the game on Freedom server just in January 2012. So much has changed, including the incarnate system etc.

I love playing brutes as a part time player. But I have only been playing blue side brutes because of the familiarity. However, after getting to level 50 with my claws/electric in AE and venturing out to explore, I found the Talos Island portal to The Underground and First Ward. I have also played Brutes up to teens on red side, but not much farther.

For people with experience doing all three, how can one get the full brute experience with one character? I know its possible, but what is the most rewarding path in terms of story, and more importantly, build development (i.e. patron powers). There seem to be so many possible paths. If one levels to 50 doing mostly AE missions for expediency, can one go back and see the world? Or are you limited?

I am considering rolling non-farming brute in Praetoria because I love how exotic it looks. But there didn't seem to be anyone over there. So, is Atlas Park still the best option? Or should I branch out?

Well are you trying to see these places for lore? For aesthetics?

In terms of leveling speed and ease best to worst its probably, blue, red, yellow. In general it seems the newer the content the more challenging.

For lore, I'm not sure. I generally find redside to have the most interesting writing I found praetoria to be very unininspired and often cliche, but in a game that often deals with moral absolutes those can be more common.

Since this is the brute forum I'll leave with, don't level a regen or wp brute in praetoria.

Edit: You can always ouroboros your way through the arcs later if you want to see. I'm not sure about praetoria on that...., but that way you could see most of the content if that's the goal.

the only reason i never start in praetoria is because the first 20 levels your literally locked to praetoria, you cant go anywhere on primal earth until lvl 20 (except pocket d)

however if you start hero or villain you can go to praetoria at lvl 1 and just run mishs with someone who did start there, that way you cant read the lore though but you still get to experience praetorian content without being confined to house arrest

IMO, to see the praetorian content you should make more then one character to do it. basically there are "paths" to choose, and a string of contacts for each. 4 "strings" total, 2 for loyalist and 2 for resistance.
Solo at normal difficulty, you should be able to see both paths of loyalist or both resistance early on, as you wont outlevel the contacts for each path. later on it gets harder unless you turn off XP. I prefer the loyalist missions myself. Mostly because the jibberjabber talk of the resistance is too agitating to me.

I have never tried to run ALL of the missions with one character. I think it would be immersion breaking anyway, so I have no inclination to try anyway. I had good results playing brutes/scrappers through the loyalist missions. Played a brute through the resistance missions without much trouble.

Solo friendly AT's i think work best, both because teams are scarce there, and also I feel the content really lends itself to solo play. Especially the loyalist stuff. Lots of missions where you as the player character are the important key componant to the story, which is actually refreshing once in a while, especially compared to villains where a lot of the content flies in the face of a self-driven ambitious villainous character concept.

Villains has a lot of good writing. just dont expect to see your player-character advancing in rank or even really in respect from any of the organizations there. Lots of cool stories are told, quite a lot of unique maps or mapsets, enemy groups, lots of flavor. Dont make superspeed your travel power. SRSLY. Dont do it. Fly is the easiest. SJ works pretty well. Superspeed will make you use cursewords. As for AT, whatever you want. This is actually my favorite so far as story content goes, but there is just too much slums and just... garbage and junk and not enough cool unique areas for me to run this side that often. In the main zones I mean. that aspect is almost moot in regards to missions.

Heroes is heroes, tons of content, though the really old stuff shows it's age in the way the missions are designed. teams are easy to come by if you look, although IMO teams to run old story arcs from old contacts are much harder unless it is your contact and you build and run the team. For instance, I havent seen anyone broadcasting trying to put a team together for Striga Isle in YEARS. Last time I got an invitation to a team in that zone was issue 8. But like I said, run your own team. last time I ran missions there on a team was Issue 21, people will come if you ask them yourself.

Hope that helps, got a little long winded there.

Is it true that Praetorian toons can't access Ancillary/Patron pools because they are from another dimension? If that is the case, they should have their own epic pools. WTF, devs? That almost seals the deal for me. I might play the content up to level 20, but then abandon the toon. That really kills what could have been an otherwise awesome expansion to the game.

Okay, well at least you have access. Does the market exist in Praetoria? AE? Couldn't figure out what it would be called. Is it the building of tech?

yes to market and no to AE

the market exists only in imperial city IIRC, while AE was not added to praetoria for theme reasons (AE was designed by aeon who resides in primal earth)

I dunno. In Praetoria its possible to permanently kill off a contact you would need to branch both sides of a faction. In Loyalist, you can kill off (guy who I cant remeber) at level 9ish... and bam thats it. It seriously affected the rest of the possible mishs. Since I was going with (responsibility?) instead of curbstomping, it did not bother me much. But up until then I had somewhat been trying to do both sides of Loyalist. My char blue side is still 100% Loyalist, and frequently tries to convert others to the right side.

I'm a new player, I've played redside until level 30, and blueside until level 20.

My highest level is a Preatorian Resistance at level 37 though. Street Justice/Regeneration Brute. I've done the Praetorian missions, and was level 21 when I finished, then continued with First Ward, with a few side missions in the Rogue Isles. This got me to level 29.

It's the character I've had most fun with, I find level 1-20 in Praetoria more engaging than in Paragon City or the Rogue Isles. After that the First Ward stuff is great on it's own and even better continuation for a Praetorian. You end up playing an unfolding storyline that spans nearly from level 1 to 30.

I found the Praetorian missions very well written and emotionally engaging. The only thing that comes close is the Seer Marino arc and to a lesser extent the Dean McArthur story. But both only last a level, maybe two.

I played mostly the Warden Resistance path, and that alone got me to level 21. I would recommend doing just one path, as it means following a continuous story, I did a few of the Crusader ones, and those had a very different feel, very dark and corrupt. I've also did some loyalist stuff on another character, that gives another feel again.

I also like Praetoria's city design, especially the zone transitions without having to use transport.

I have not clue why you shouldn't play a /regen, it worked fine for me.

The main problems I can see with a /Regen is all the Psi users in Praetoria flooring your recharge, and Praetorian Clockwork having a fair amount of -regen. That said, I've gotten a Kin/Regen all the way through Praetoria. She had Hasten and the Winter's Gift unique to help with the -recharge, though.

I dunno...I ran thru praet content with a stone/wp brute and didn't have too much trouble...started out loyalist then flipped to resistance after a certain mission...which i won't reveal for the sake of avoiding possible spoilers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe ::looks at RaikenX's signature:: Something funny.