Musings
09/02/2005
I've seen 2 Lusca appear (practically) simultaneously on live a couple of months ago. I came out of the Bricks entrance just in time to see the heroes beating down Lusca-1's last tentacle. Since I had the badge already, I just spectated while they finished the head. Then I went on my way to IP's Tech shop. And Lo! what do I see, Lusca-2 twittling it's tentacles with noone around to play with. I broadcast it's location and after some coaxing, heroes came over to deal with it.
09/01/2005
Everytime I've gone up against Dr. Vahz over the past year+, the mission door was deep in Boomtown. Today, I'm sent to a sewer entrance in Steel.
09/01/2005
Ever since issue 4, my ID card portrait and all my contact's portraits in their windows were silhouetted. It was said that I need to wipe my drivers and get new ones. Well, I was too lazy to do all of that and just lived with darkness.
But hey! The portraits are not blacked out anymore with issue 5. So, it wasn't my problem after all.
09/01/2005
My level 25, perma-debted Rad/Rad is back in action. I've done all of the first Croatoa contact's missions in one sitting already. And I have a level 23, perma-debted Dark/Dark almost ready to step in.
08/29/2005
Dragonessa wrote:
I think the game would be downright cruel if they denied a completion to the others simply because one team mate decided to clear the majority of the last mission, especially when the entire team is needed to hope to take down the AV.
Nope. This happened to one of my alts with the Sister Psyche TF. It was very late and we all agreed to meet the next day. So next day, I log on and only see the scrapper and FF defender. The scrapper tells me that he's playing both characters (2 machines, 2nd character set to follow). He's made his way to the AV mission and has cleared most of it. Noboby else came back, so I join him. We beat the Clamor, the TF ends and I told that I haven't been in the mission long enough for the reward - neither mission bonus nor TF reward. So, several hours for nothing.
Now, on my recent Synapse TF with another alt, one scrapper leaves after the first mission (he was an "I'm not getting any exp" complainer anyway - even after a 15 minute pre-TF discussion about the autoexemplar). Second scrapper leaves after the 2nd mission (he was low, but he was in the thick of things). So that left us 4 defenders, a tank and a very low controller. We push on. 5 hours later, both scrappers reappear within a half hour of each other. And as it happenned, we were just getting to the Babbage mission. So they do that and the Clockwork King with us, and both got both badges for minimal work.
08/29/2005
I just did Synapse recently with an alt.
I'll note that when the team dropped to 5 members, we had no clockwork Princes. Once the 6th member came back, the Princes started to show. Note: you need Princes to produce Gears if you want the Gears badge.
The clocks were levels 20-21. I personally suggest that most of you should be on 18+. Note, that you can get 2.5-3 levels out of the TF so there is a good possibility of capping out at the autoexemplaring on 21. At which point you'll get no experience anymore and no SO bonus at the end.
Ever wonder why level 20 clockwork would harrass the lowbies hanging out at Positron? Well, they are the ambush coming for you on one of the 'talk to Positron' errands. So keep an eye out.
And as was mentioned, just before you go meet the Clockwork King at the last mission, you will be sent to Positron to pick up a temp power. This temp power is the only Hold that can hold the King and it only works once. Don't blow it. You can defeat the King without it, but you'll save some time using it properly.
Of course, all spoilers at cityofheroesonline.com
08/27/2005
I've been soloing a fire/rad since iss 2. It was tough, but my turning point was realizing that the immobolizing powers were getting me killed. I respecced and ditched them all. I kept my holds and disorient, and picked up Air Superiority for the "heavy" damage.
It was extremely tedious soloing by relying only on AS and Char for my damage. Even though I had to melee, I found that it was a whole lot safer than any of my other alts at the time, except for my ice blaster.
My typical attack sequence against a 3 minion group on Heroic is: jump in, Char foe#1, drop Enervating Field on foe#1, AS bounce foe#2, Char foe#3, AS bounce foe#2, Char foe#2, another 1 or 2 hits on foe#2 to take him out, re-Char foe#1, re-Char foe#3, AS foe#3 until he's out, re-Char foe#1, and AS foe#1 until he's out. Repetitive, but it works. The EF really helps. Unless a high lieutenent, a boss, or multi-pack of spawns are involved, I didn't really need to use Radiation Infectison.
RI is good as a taunt power for pulling. If you're up against a dense bunch of spwans, set RI on the closest wandering foe. Hopefully only the one, or him and his group of buddies will aggro on you. I'd follow up with the typical tank herding tactic of hiding behind a corner and letting them bunch up when they reach me. The RI will thus debuff everyone of them. I'd cast my AOE hold and drop EF on the central guy. AS and Char as necessary for the win.
With the iss 5 double damage after mezzing, I can only imagine that this process would be a lot easier. I'm a bit fuzzy on how I would handle things after the imps arrive (in iss 5). For my present day controller, I had stopped all meleeing and let the imps do the damaging for me. With the imps, my attention was devoted to supporting them by healing, casting RI, EF, and LR. And of course, keeping an eye out on who else they're aggroing. With the fewer imps of iss 5, my damage output will drop severely unless I pitch in. Will I have the time to attack and support the imps?
08/25/2005
I seldom get defeated while soloing. Whereas I'm surprised if I don't get defeated at least once while teamed.
But with my newer alts, as soon as I get out of the Synapse TF (level
21) I begin my perma-debt quota by going to Bricks with a tray full of
Awakens. Did you know that debt cap is only half a level's worth?
08/23/2005
I've played enough of all the ATs to know that I'm a ranged fighter at heart. I have a couple of blasters that are 40+, but there's still a vague feeling of being unfulfilled. Like I need to do more than just blasting.
So with my experience as a */rad controller, I rolled up a Rad/Rad. I've got it on hold waiting for Croatoa at the moment, but I was doing well with it. I've been working up a Dark/Dark in the meantime, but it feels too limiting. The Dark/Dark doesn't have the freedom of movement that the Rad/Rad offers.
So even with a year+ of play, it's still too early to tell for me. I need to try out more characters.
08/23/2005
Well, what ticks me off is that after I send a petition and get no response for a "long time". So after x-number of minutes waiting, I take a moment to go get a drink/snack/take a pee/etc only to come back to the blue GM chat saying "are you there?" "thank you for ..., if you still need help ..."
08/23/2005
There are enough avid players trying to reverse engineer the game. Let them have a go at it on a controlled basis. The first thing that comes to mind that may be simple to implement would be a map generator for instanced missions. This would add variety to the Portal Corp missions. A quick fix for the 40+ crowd. There's already the SG Base creator for COV. Why not take it a step further?
08/19/2005
For each 5 levels, you get 5 contacts in your level appropriate zones - one for each origin. (Plus the Striga's). You must do all their missions up to the 2nd mark on their contact confidence bar for them to start selling enhancements to you. The first mark opens up their williness to sell all types of inspirations.
Cityofheroesonline.com's contact guide lists all the mission contacts and which origin they cater to.
08/04/2005
The one type of broadcast that really ticks me off is:
Hero: "There's a (high level monster/ambush) over here."
Me: "Where's 'here'?"
Hero: "Right in front of me."
08/04/2005
Why do you play COH?
Because I paid $50 bucks for the game at the store only to find that I couldn't play it without opening a subscription. That's $50 bucks, man! And each month it's another $15 bucks, man! I need to play this game every waking moment of my life (except for the forum time) to squeeze out every drop of value for all the money this game costed me.
08/02/2005
I'm a soloist and that's because I want to experience the game on my own. I want to be able to say (for each charcter) that I got to where I am due to my own efforts. Yeah, it was difficult, but I persevered. I developed tricks and fancy moves with my powers. I made it because of my skills.
I do like to play on pick up teams too. The chaos is fun. However, I work all my contacts first at each 5 level span. Once I'm done or pretty much done, I'm availabe for bigger things like TFs. I will help out with missions on request, but I won't stay for more than a couple because I rack up too much experience. That's also one of the reasons that I don't care about debt any more. Debt lets me group a few more times.
I prefer not to team at the low levels because we're all so weak and inexperienced with our characters. Except for the hunts in the Hazard Zones, the missions are much easier solo.
With the issue 5 changes, I can get by because I am an experienced soloist. I soloed my controller relying on only one Pool attack through the 20s. If I have to, I can do it again through the 40s. I won't like it, but it doesn't scare me. A team expecting me to be effective scares me.
08/01/2005
When my */rad controller was in her early teens, I liked to go to Perez and herd 2 sides of the Park (along the interior wall) all the way to the lake. Nothing herds better than Radiation. I probably trailed along 150-200 Hellions, Clocks, and Losts. Once at the Lake, I would cast my AOE immob on them. One time, there was an Ice controller in the vicinity and he casted his AOE immob too. The mix of red/orange and blue/white in a night time setting was quite pretty.
I also tried it the other way. I was able to herd a bunch of Hydras out to the Atlas Gate. They were difficult though being that they were "fat" and fewer of them would fit within the Infection's radius. I lost a lot on the way to the gate.
Not as much fun now with Perez being almost deserted so I don't have the audience for the finale.
08/01/2005
COH Merchandising Ideas:
What about Crey Cola? Or Rikti Mentalists' Greatest Hits box set?
And hey, what about Phantom Army plushies to throw around? How about a Phantom Army cat toy - dangled on a string from a stick. It's guaranteed to hold your kitty's aggro all day (for at least 4 minutes at a time)!
Speaking of Portal Corp, a little desk top electronic Portal (with Action Swirly Colors and Action Grinding Metal Sounds!) could replace many a lava lamp. It should come with a little blue hand on a stick for pokie goodness.
07/31/2005
I'm the typical low class guy with no fashion sense. I don't pay attention to what others wear. I'm just glad that I could create a costume that is pleasing for ME to look at for countless hours.
As for myself, the only costume piece that I consciously decided to have as a consistent characteristic of all my characters are the Smooth Shoulder Pads. And no capes. And only one costume.
07/26/2005
Have you ever underestimated a villian?
Ah, yes. The swarms. I can truly say that I disregarded them completely in the beginning. I had seen them before while hunting in Talos by the DA gate. They came, got a few ticks of 1 or 2 DOT damage on me, no big deal.
Then one day I had a hunt DE mission in Crey's Folly. One of my first missions there ever. I hadn't even spent any time exploring yet. Anyway, I don't see any big DE around, but plenty of swarms, so hey, they'll do. Well, they're orange, but should be easy kills.
So I start off with a cone AOE. They all go nuts and buzzing around. I'm trying to pick them off, but need several shots each since they keep going out of range. Then I noticed that my health bar was also orange and the damage ticks were 5s and there was a lot of them happening. Holy smokes! I pop a couple respites, but I'm still losing health. Dang, better get out of here. Hey! I can bearly move. I can't fly. I can't run! Pop a few more respites and try to kill them first. Nope.
03/05/2005
I remember when I entered a new zone, it was a white knuckle experience.
I remember trying desperately to get back to the train station from the hospital at Steel using hover.
I remember trying to run back to the train station from the hospital at Steel and came up to the interior corner of that L-shaped building (north of the mutant shop) and was too scared to run around it. I hovered over it.
I remember running around next to the walls at Boomtown to map out the zone perimeter sweating profusely while dodging and wowing at the masses of purple upper-teens foes.
I don't exactly remember how, but once I wound up at IP and was trying to make it back to Steel or anywhere just to get out. Again using hover and being one-shotted like a duck.
I remember finally taking fly, my first travel power, at 28.