InfamousBrad

A nice undocumented bug fix, one I'd missed on test: Snaptooth's lair no longer has minimap errors. Oddly, part of the fix seems to have involved rotating that whole sub-map 45 degrees clockwise. But thanks!

Somehow it never feels like time to get my Christmas shopping done until I've ice-skated out to a malevolent snowman, sighted in my red and green targeting lasers on it, and watched an arsonist blow it away after it returns fire.

One request, for next year: even if it means turning Father Time and the Candy Keeper off, and turning off Mysterious Gift spawns, please unlock the Ski Chalet right after (American) Thanksgiving. It's a gorgeous set, it's part of the holiday tradition for me now, and I've been missing it.

[ QUOTE ]
yeah, but how's your dark defense?

[/ QUOTE ]
I'd have to re-crunch the numbers to be sure, but I think it's around 25%, maybe a smidgen more. But I'm serious here: six lucks. That should have floored the attack chance on anything that isn't auto-hit. In fact, I came out of that concluding that it was auto-hit, bug reported it accordingly. One of the main things that's unbalanced about this EB, as I also bug reported early in closed beta, is that his accuracy is through the roof period. His dark melee attacks shouldn't have been landing that consistently, either. That's why the early consensus on the beta tester's forum was to load up on orange inspirations, not purple ones, for him, and I suspect why that bio nuke turned the tables for me and the 'bots.

That damage aura of his was hitting me through six lucks, every tick. His melee attacks were hitting about 50% of the time through six lucks. And that's on a character with a native roughly 44% def(smash,lethal). I don't think you can +def your way out of this one. What finally did do it for me was using all three nukes plus a Shivan.

One thing I debated telling people up-front, but held off until the spoiler section, is that every single Ouroboros story arc has at least one EB in it. Other than Pilgrim's, most of them have multiples. But the only one out of all of them that's massively unusually overpowered, that's any tougher than any other random Elite Boss, is Nosferatu in "Rise of the Council."

"A Spider Spins Its Web" has six EBs in it. You fight them one at a time, although two of them are back to back. Worse case, bring a Shivan.

"Trading Places" is pretty straightforward, for both sides, until you get to the last mission. When that last mission kicks off, if you're soloing, you're going to be fighting anywhere from one to three EBs at a time. But you're at least supposed to get two (or more, if you're a hero) bosses or EBs for helpers, too. If you've got anyway to help those helpers stay alive, it's not even all that hard. If not, you may face-plant a few times. But most people doing this arc will be level 50, and what's debt to a level 50?

Hmm. I haven't tried it myself, but I'm pretty sure I copied that straight out of a post by Positron. Bug report it?

I have only one comment about the process itself, and that's this: when you add new weapon models, it would be really nice if you handed out one costume token per slot, not just one costume token. If somebody's weapon is part of their superpowers, they're going to want it to be consistent across all of their costumes. For my level 37 character, if I hadn't had enough veteran costume change tokens, changing my weapon would have cost me half a million infamy, which is one heck of a charge.

Oh, I will say one more thing: I actually really like the idea of costume recipes to unlock weapons instead of badges, especially for some of the ones where most players can't possibly get the badge until you're in your 40s. Just because (for example) Crey or Malta are the primary NPCs to use a weapon doesn't mean that killing hundreds of their harder bosses should be the only way to get a weapon that looks sort of like theirs.

I'm one Arcane Essence short of testing this on the Arcane level 3 empowerment station, but I can tell you already that he's flatly wrong about the Tech tier 3 empowerment station. It refines to all component salvage, including component salvage that it can't even use.

Welcome to Ouroboros (version 1.0)

I'd suggest adding it to section XIII, with a bullet point added to the summary for "Ouroboros and Flashbacks."

SPECIAL SPOILER SECTION FOR OUROBOROS STORY ARC AND TASK/STRIKE FORCES

Here's what the heck is going on here: Mender Silos, who is clearly Lord Nemesis in disguise, claims to have come back from one million years in the future because someone else is meddling in the time stream. He claims that because of that meddling, Earth will not be ready for a future (issue 12?) cataclysm, having something to do with the Shiva Strike meteors and the race that launched them, that he will only call "The Coming Storm." No, we do not know who the Coming Storm are, although leading speculation is that it's The Battalion, the same species that almost defeated Rikti Earth before the first Rikti War. No, we do not know yet who the other side that's meddling in the time stream are, although it's strongly hinted by clues inside these missions that it's the Lord Nemesis from our time and timeline.

THE PILGRIM: OUROBOROS INITIATION

Mission one sends you to talk to Mender Lazarus, who sends you back a few years to retrieve some information from a 5th Column computer. This is a trivial click-glowie mission, versus the 5th Column on a 5th Column cave-base map. There is a glowie in this mission that gives a clue that points towards issue 12, a personal letter to you from whoever the other person that's tinkering in the timeline is, telling you not to trust Ouroboros.

Mission two sends you to talk to Mender Tesseract, but she gives different missions to heroes and villains. Heroes get sent back to the Outbreak zone, where the other side has destroyed the police drones that were controlling the riot. Warning: This mission auto-exemplars you to level 1. You have to defeat 33 Contaminated, free 6 hostages (the contacts from the original tutorial), and find the same computer that you got the Outbreak formula from the first time. You do not have to defeat every Contaminated on the map. They do not respawn, but there are enough of them to get the Isolator badge if you want.

Villains get sent back to the Ziggurat, instead, right before their own escape. Someone has tipped off Longbow to send in extra troops and to arrest the contacts who helped the Destined Ones reach the Rogue Isles. Warning: This mission auto-malefactors you to level 1. You have to defeat 33 Longbow, free 6 hostages, and defeat two named bosses/lieutenants and their minions at the very far end of the prison yard where the Arachnos Pilot was originally. You do not need to defeat every Longbow on the map, and Corrections Officers and Prisoners do not give infamy if defeated.

Mission three sends you to Twilight's Son who sends you to a Rikti base in our own time to defeat a named Rikti boss and to rescue Mender Lazarus from another named Rikti boss. Mission four sends you to Mender Silos, who sends you forward into the future to the beginning of the Coming Storm: a Shiva Strike meteor has crashed into Atlas Park just east of Paragon City Hall, no heroes are there to be seen, and it's up to you to rescue Mender Lazarus from a Shivan Decimator elite boss, and then destroy the meteor. Warning: You will be auto-exemplared or auto-malefactored to level 25 for this mission. In both missions 3 and 4, once you rescue Mender Lazarus, he fights alongside you as a Boss.

TWILIGHT'S SON: SMOKE AND MIRRORS

This is an adaption of the Top Cow comic book series City of Heroes, issues 4 to 6, that assumes that somehow the other side prevented MAGI from alerting Freedom Phalanx to the Circle of Thorns' attempt to summon a demon powerful enough to conquer the world. As in the comic book, there are four missions: Three unsuccessful attempts to rescue the sacrifice victims, then the big fight versus Baron Zoria, the head of the Circle of Thorns, at the end.

Mission one sends you to an instanced outdoor subset of Skyway City centered around the Green Line subway station. It's too late to rescue Breakneck, so all you have to do is defeat the named boss and the minions immediately nearest him. Mission two sends you to a standard warehouse map to rescue the little kid, who disappears as soon as you hit the trigger point for the cut scene; you have to defeat the named boss and all Circle of Thorns in the last room. Mission three sends you to a very funny and very cool looking map, a fashion show under the statue of Atlas in an instanced outdoor subset of Atlas Park. I'm not sure if you have to defeat the named boss and his minions, you do have to defeat the individual spawns that are holding the fashion models hostage. Only afterwards do you find out that the specific fashion model you were supposed to rescue was gone before you got there, because she'd already been kidnapped. (Mission 3 also contains yet another glowie with a letter to you from the other side, more dire warnings about Ouroboros.)

The fourth and final mission is an Oranbega cave map with a smallish custom decorated room at the end. As soon as you hit cut-scene range of that final room, you find out that (surprise) you were too late, and you won't be able to stop the ritual in time, so Breakneck uses his powers to break free and punches Baron Zoria (and then dies), causing him to have to restart the ritual. You have to defeat the spawns that are guarding the other two hostages, and defeat Baron Zoria, a grav/dark controller elite boss/archvillain.

MENDER TESSERACT: A SPIDER SPINS HIS WEB

The other side has gone back to 1964 and given President Marchand of the Etoile Islands a battlesuit of his own, beefed up all of his civilian staff to minor superhero levels, and (you'll find out) tipped Miss Liberty (back in 1964) that Lord Recluse has sent for an assassin to defeat Marchand for him. That assassin either failed or never showed up, so it's your job to step in and defeat President Marchand.

Mission one sends you to a cave where Tess thinks that Marchand is; she's wrong. For no explicable reason, it is full of Snakes, plus a smattering of Marchand Loyalists including the decoys who fooled Tess, plus Miss Liberty who's waiting for you; like her daughter, she's a martial arts/invulnerability scrapper elite boss/signature hero. Once you defeat her there's a brief cutscene, and Ms. Liberty 'ports back from 2007 to defend her mom. She is also, as I said, a martial arts/invulnerability scrapper elite boss/signature hero and (fortunately) she does not have the benefit of the Liberty Belt, so you don't need the Orestes Rifle from the LRSF to take her down.

In mission two, Lord Recluse sends you to a map that's a cross between a sewer and one of the Arachnos outdoor tunnels from Faultline to be punished for having failed. You must defeat three consecutive elite bosses: an EB Bane Spider Commando, an EB Arachnos Blaster, and an EB Mu Mystic. The first one is waiting for you. The 2nd one spawns after the defeat of the 1st, and the 3rd one after the 2nd.

In the third and final mission, having re-earned Recluse's respect, you get sent to an office building in St. Martial. The first two floors of this map are full of a special class of NPC, one you saw a few of in the first mission. I call them "munchkins." A munchkin was based on an ordinary minion, lieutenant, or boss, including normal hit points and resistances. But they only have one or two attacks, and those attacks are scaled in damage (and I think accuracy) to underling levels, like a Clockwork gear or a Devouring Earth swarm or a Rikti monkey. Like underlings, they "con" one level below their nominal rank. Like underlings, they give almost no XP or infamy. Unlike underlings, they take as long to kill as normal minions, lieutenants, and bosses. And they spawn in huge numbers. That being said, the art department went all out on making them look like 1964 office workers and political campaign volunteers; now you know why Sexy Jay gave us all those retro hairstyles. On the first floor, there are two glowing file cabinets, one mandatory and one optional. The mandatory one gives the key to the 2nd floor, and the optional one is yet another clue towards issue 12, another letter from the other side to you. On the second to last floor, there is a named boss; defeating him (and his immediate room full of minions?) gives you the key to the last floor. The last floor is absolutely gorgeous: an executive office with 3 glass-windowed walls on the top level of an office building in St. Martial. There's a door that takes you out onto the roof, where President Marchand, an energy/energy blaster elite boss/signature hero, is hiding from you. Once you hurt him badly enough, he will fly all the heck over a two block area of St. Martial. Defeat him to complete the strike force.

MENDER LAZARUS: RISE OF THE COUNCIL

(Note: In some of the patch notes, this mission is also referred to as Overthrow.)

Mender Lazarus claims that the only way to prevent a timeline in which the 5th Column overthrows America and does all kinds of awful things (among other things, losing the battle against The Coming Storm) is to go back and make sure that the hold-outs among the 5th Column are bullied into changing their minds and join their forces with Center to form The Council. That's right, he says that his analysis of the timeline is that merging their forces with the Nictus actually weakens the 5th Column; don't ask me how that works.

The first mission is easy enough. Once again, it's a click-glowie mission on a 5th Column cave-base map. However, clicking on the last glowie summons a boss level ambush (lieutenant on the lowest difficulty) targeted on the player who clicked the computer, this ambush must be defeated.

The second mission is the killer one. This mission is why this task force comes with a prominently displayed in-game warning that this task force/strike force is not meant to be soloed. It starts out simple enough: defeat all 5th Column on a 5th Column cave-base map and click one glowie to send a recruiting email to Nosferatu. Now the bad news. Nosferatu immediately shows up in person to kick your backside, and he almost certainly will succeed. He is a gravity/dark dominator. He has at least four powers set to insanely high values: a version of Crush that will reduce almost anybody to below half health, a version of Smite that will do even more damage than that, an auto-hit damage aura, and a version of Siphon Life that will knock about a quarter of your health off and bring him back up to nearly 100% health, even as an elite boss, let alone as an archvillain. Worse luck, you cannot shake him off until he has killed whoever clicked on that computer at least once. Even if you leave the map and come back, as soon as you get within perception range of him, he will re-aggro on whoever that was unless he has killed them at least once. Nor will any amount of Taunt pull him off, apparently. A few people have reported defeating him solo, but it typically involves maxed-out level 50 characters with full sets of Hami-Os, a Shivan elite boss pet, and at least one Warburg nuke. No, really, this mission is a debt fest; almost everybody so far who has tried to solo it has given up.

After that, though, it's a cakewalk. The third mission sends you to do the same thing to Archon Burkholder, who (in this task force/strike force) is an energy/energy blapper. However, as soon as you enter and fight off one 5th Column boss (and minions) who are holding Nosferatu, you get Nosferatu as an elite boss pet, and Burkholder is no match for him. Neither, for that matter, is the entire rest of the map herded at once. The fourth mission sends you to a heavily customized 5th Column cave-base that you're told is on Striga Isle. The last room has a gazillion -2 5th Column and three elite bosses/archvillains: Maestro, Vandal, and Requiem. Maestro is still a sonic/sonic defender (or corruptor, not sure which). I think Vandal is an invulnerability/energy melee tanker. I think Requiem might be a mind control/dark miasma controller, but I didn't get a good look at him. Defeat roughly as many 5th Column as are in that room plus all three of those named EBs/AVs to finish the task/strike force. This is easier than it sounds, even though Burkholder is a moron with the exact same powers and same stupid tactics as Fusionette. I know this is easier than it sounds because I made a stupid mistake and died, and while I was laying there, Nosferatu soloed everybody in the room and all 3 EBs by himself.

MENDER SILOS: TRADING PLACES

Depending on which side you're on, hero or villain, Mender Silos (eventually) sends you to fight for your own side in Siren's Call in the Battle of the Jade Spider. Heroes get sent to defend the current timeline; villains get sent to attempt to create an alternate timeline in which Arachnos rules the world. No, it doesn't make any sense. Go figure. This task force and this strike force are adapted loosely from issues 10-12 of the Top Cow comic book series City of Heroes.

Hero: In missions one through three, you're sent to fight alongside Manticore (as an Elite Boss assistant) as he fights Arachnos raids in instanced outdoor versions of King's Row, Striga Isle, and Croatoa. Each mission has between two and four Raid Leaders who must be defeated, and there may be various ambushes. Manticore will sometimes fight alongside you, sometimes run off on his own. At the end of the third mission, Statesman shows up briefly to criticize Manticore for using excessive force, and revokes his hero license.

In mission four, you meet up with Ms. Liberty, Mynx, and Swan in an instanced outdoor version of Siren's Call. They explain to you that Manticore is defecting to Arachnos; you and they are being sent to arrest him. (This mission is more or less the same as mission 1 of the villain version, from the other side.) Then comes the final mission, where you find out that Freedom Phalanx and the Vindicators just fought Arachnos in Siren's Call ... and lost. You are sent back to the instanced version of Siren's Call with two objectives. You must defeat 13 Arachnos groups, each one of which is guarding one member of Freedom Phalanx or the Vindicators; most of these groups contain one elite boss or archvillain. Manticore is one of the captives, not one of the captors, and he explains (when you get close enough) that it was all a trick, that he was working undercover. Any of the Phalanx or the Vindicators who survive will join you in freeing the others. Then you (or they) must defeat the roaming elite boss/archvillain Jade Spider, an immense spider-shaped battlemech, to save the day.

Villain: In mission one, you are sent into an instanced outdoor subset of Siren's Call to pick up Manticore, who is defecting to Arachnos. You are given the Fortunata Kalinda as an assistant. First you have to defeat Ms. Liberty (again, fortunately without her Liberty Belt), then escort him across the map to the Arachnos helicopter in the same villain base as normal Siren's Call. In mission two, Mender Silos "proves" Manticore's loyalty to you. Unlike in the comic book, we don't get to kidnap Sister Psyche out of her bathtub, naked. Instead, Manticore tips us off to an attack by her on an Arachnos base; you go in, meet up with Manticore, and defeat her and any Longbow that are with her. The Arachnos base's personnel are all mind-controlled by Sister Psyche and are hostile to both you and Manticore. (The third and final letter to you from Mender Silos's enemy is hidden in this mission.)

In mission three, you are given Ghost Widow and Black Scorpion as assistants, and are sent back to the same instanced outdoor Siren's Call map as mission one. Start defeating Longbow. Eventually, you will trigger a huge series of elite boss/signature hero ambushes: defeat all of the signature heroes/elite bosses to win. Some of these ambushes get pretty rough, attacking in waves of up to 3 at once. Note that if you (and everybody on your team) all die and exit the map simultaneously, this breaks the ambush coding; the remaining EBs/heroes will spawn at random spots around the map and stay there waiting for you. When you get back, Mender Silos tells you that you won't see the change in your own timeline until it "propagates" forward, and even then won't see the change if anybody else (say, player character heroes also working for Mender Silos, see above) goes back and changes history back.

SPOILERS END HERE

WHAT IS OUROBOROS?

Ouroboros is a pair of identical level 25-50 zones, one for heroes and one for villains. Each zone has one regular mission contact, three task/strike force contacts, a teleporter that takes you to five city zones, an NPC who buys any loot and who sells small inspirations, and the Pillars of Ice and Flame that make up the Flashback system.

HOW DO YOU GET TO OUROBOROS?

To get to Ouroboros on your own you must be level 25 and "Entrusted with the Secret." "Entrusted with the Secret" is a badge that you get whenever you find out that time travel is possible, usually by traveling in time yourself, by fighting some villain who is trying to change the timeline, or interacting in some other way with a non-player-character time traveler.

Heroes will receive the badge automatically if they have completed any of the following story arcs, either solo, or with a team that selected your missions.
<ul type="square">[*]"I lost my daddy!," hero level 15-20, contact Penelope Yin, souvenir name "Yin's Market super-saver card."[*]"A Faultline in the Sands of Time," hero level 20-24, contact Agent G, souvenir name "The PsychoChronoMetron."[*]"Ubelmann the Unknown," hero level 25-30, contact Ashwin Lannister or Laurie Pennington, souvenir name "Letter from Requiem."[*]"A Path into Darkness," hero level 35-40, contact Colleen Nelson, souvenir name "A shattered Shadow Seed."[*]"The Praetorian War," hero level 40-45, contact Tina Macintyre, souvenir name "Blue Clockwork piece."[/list]Villains earn it automatically by completing either of the following story arcs, either solo or with a team that has selected their missions:<ul type="square">[*]"Echo Down the Aeons," villain level 15-20, contact Marshall Brass, souvenir name "An old drawing of you."[*]The final story arc from any one of the four patrons, villain level 45-50, souvenir name "Lord Recluse's helmet."[/list]Other than via your own story arcs, you can also earn the "Entrusted with the Secret" badge in any of the following ways:<ul type="square">[*]Use somebody else's Ouroboros Portal to enter Ouroboros base, and earn the exploration badge "Chrononaut" hidden at the very top of the citadel.[*]Earn any exploration or achievement badge from Recluse's Victory.[*]Earn the accomplishment badge for being on a team that completes either Statesman's Task Force or Lord Recluse's Strike Force.[*]Have the 5th Column Gladiator gladiator badge. Note that this is not currently earnable. This gladiator was awarded to all characters on during the 2nd anniversary event who already had the 1st anniversary badge. Why this grants time travel, I have no idea, unless there's a currently planned or unknown new way to earn this badge that does include time travel.[*]Unlock Holsten Armitage's store, in Brickstown, by completing his (hero) level 30-40 mission "Rescue Senator Dybalski."[/list]The "Entrusted with the Secret" badge comes with a permanent "temporary power" called Ouroboros Portal. It summons an immobile pet called an Ouroboros Portal (or, as most players call it, the "O-portal"). Clicking on the circle on the ground takes you to Ouroboros base. This power may be used every five minutes. The portal disappears when you leave the zone (including logging out or using the portal yourself) or after at most five minutes. Yes, you may use the Ouroboros portal anywhere, including in PvP zones, arena matches, cooperative zones, and Pocket D. Yes, villains may use heroes' O-portals and vice versa; however, this takes them to their own Ouroboros base, not the other side's.

LEAVING OUROBOROS BASE

The hero version of Ouroboros base has a permanent portal that will take you to your choice of Atlas Park, Talos Island, Independence Port, Founder's Falls, or Peregrine Island. The villain version of Ouroboros base has the same portal, only it takes you to your choice of Cap au Diable, Sharkhead Isle, the Nerva Archipelago, St. Martial, or Grandville.

If you have a Flashback mission selected (see Pillars of Ice and Flame, below), there is one other exit available to you. Clicking on the same pillar that gave you the mission, or the big pillar in the middle of the room, will teleport you directly to the the contact that gives you the mission, whatever zone that contact is in.

HERO CONTACTS IN OUROBOROS (No Spoilers):

<ul type="square">[*]The Pilgrim gives a normal level 25-50 story arc, called "Ouroboros Initiation," consisting of four missions. Warning: You will be auto-exemplared to below your current level for at least one of these missions, and there is no NPC in Ouroboros base to adjust your difficulty.[*]Twilight's Son sends you back to the recent past to prevent the Circle of Thorns from destroying the world, in "Smoke and Mirrors." This is a level 25-34 task force with a minimum team size of one.[*]Mender Lazarus sends you a little further back in time to make sure that the 5th Column is defeated by The Council, in "Rise of The Council." This is a level 30-39 task force with a minimum team size of one. Warning: This task force was not designed to be soloed. You can try, but you will almost certainly fail in the 2nd mission.[*]Mender Silos sends you back to fight alongside Freedom Phalanx and the Vindicators against Lord Recluse and his minions in Siren's Call, in "Trading Places." This is a level 46-50 task force with a minimum team size of one.[/list]VILLAIN CONTACTS IN OUROBOROS (No Spoilers):

<ul type="square">[*]The Pilgrim gives a normal level 25-50 story arc, called "Ouroboros Initiation," consisting of four missions. Warning: You will be auto-malefactored to below your current level for at least one of these missions, and there is no NPC in Ouroboros base to adjust your difficulty.[*]Mender Tesseract sends you back to 1964 to assassinate President Marchand of the Etoile Islands for Lord Recluse, in "A Spider Spins His Web." This is a level 25-34 strike force with a minimum team size of one.[*]Mender Lazarus sends you a few years back in time to make sure that the 5th Column is defeated by The Council, in "Rise of The Council." This is a level 30-39 strike force with a minimum team size of one. Warning: This task force was not designed to be soloed. You can try, but you will almost certainly fail in the 2nd mission.[*]Mender Silos sends you back a couple of years to fight alongside Lord Recluse's minions against Freedom Phalanx and the Vindicators in Siren's Call, in "Trading Places." This is a level 46-50 strike force with a minimum team size of one.[/list]PILLARS OF ICE AND FLAME (FLASHBACKS)

Inside Ouroboros Base there is a ring of small pillars made out of ice with a magical flame inside called, unsurprisingly, the Pillars of Ice and Flame. Clicking on any one of them once will bring up a menu of all of the story arcs that give souvenirs, and all of the missions that give accomplishment badges. However, unless you are level 50, you will not be offered all of them. Which ones you are offered is a little complicated to explain, please bear with me.

Each flashback mission or story arc is assigned a single level, the highest level that that mission can be assigned by a regular contact. For example, if a mission is available at level 10 but no longer offered if you're level 15 or above, the flashback version of that mission is assigned a level of 14. On the Pillars of Ice and Flame, missions are then clustered into various level ranges: 1-15, 16-19, 20-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44, and 45-50. In order to be offered a flashback to a mission, you must be at or above the highest of those two numbers. Another example: Buck Salinger's story arc in Croatoa is offered at level 30, and no longer offered if you are level 36. This means that for the flashback, if you are level 36 or above, you are auto-exemplared down to 35. Level 35 is in the "35-39" range of flashbacks. The "35-39" menu will not appear until you are level 39 or above. Therefore, in order to flashback to this mission, you must be level 39-50, and once you begin, you will be auto-exemplared to 35.

As a general rule of thumb, this means that almost none of the flashback missions can be done for XP. They do, however, give influence or infamy normally, give normal amounts of prestige if you're in supergroup mode, and will pay down experience point debt. As with all auto-exemplar or auto-malefactor situations, defeated NPCs in these missions will drop salvage and recipes at their own level, not yours. Defeated NPCs in flashbacks do not drop enhancements as loot.

Flashbacks are implemented as task force versions of the regular missions, which means that you also will not have access to any of your other contacts. (However, you can still buy inspirations from Wentworth's, the Black Market, Arena stores, the bartenders in Pocket D, and Mender Roebuck in Ouroboros.) Nor will you be able to add people to your team until you are finished with (or quit) the entire story arc. Also, because these are considered task/strike forces, everybody on your team must be in the same zone as you in order to start the mission/story arc. The only differences between flashbacks and regular task/strike forces are that the minimum team size is "one" and that they give regular story arc rewards, not task force or strike force rewards, by which I specifically mean, "No 'pool C' recipes."

I say that your team mates must be in "the same zone as you" rather than explicitly saying "in Ouroboros" because there is an alternative to meeting in Ouroboros: the Pillar of Ice and Flame can be purchased as a Control Aux item for supergroup/villain group bases: costs 50,000 prestige, uses 15 control and no power, does not have to be attached to a control item, does count against the room's limit for number of control-aux items. With one of those, anybody in your supergroup or anybody in the same coalition with your supergroup can join you, as long as they're in the base when you start the mission and sidekicked or lackeyed up to the minimum level of the story arc or mission.

Once you pick the story arc or mission you want from a Pillar of Ice and Flame, it will pop up a "difficulty" dialog box. You do not need to pick any of these options, unless you want to make life more difficult for yourself in hopes of earning special badges. (See "Flashback Badges," below.) Once you fill out or dismiss this dialog box, you can click on the Pillar of Ice and Flame again and it will offer you the option of being teleported directly to the contact who gives out the story arc's first mission.

Should you decide to quit the story arc short of finishing it, open your Team window and click "Quit Task Force" (heroes) or "Quit Strike Force" (villains). Yes, you can use this to "permanently" keep any temp powers that are normally removed at the end of a mission or the end of a story arc, although most of them also have expiration timers. Warning to heroes: Do not quit out of The Vahzilok Plague, level 19, before the end! The "Vazhilok Wasting Disease" temp power cannot be removed except by completing this story arc, even by game masters in response to a petition. You will be stuck with it permanently until you go back into The Vahzilok Plague and finish the whole story arc all the way to the end, only this time you'll have the Plague even in mission 1.

FLASHBACK AND LOCKED CONTENT

City of Heroes: Three of the Trial/Task Force contacts will only talk to you after you've done a specific story arc. All three of those story arcs are listed on the Pillar of Ice and Flame, and yes, completing these story arcs via Flashback will unlock Karsis, Ernesto Hess, and Katie Hannon "in the real world," that is to say, as regular contacts. You will hear a rumor that this doesn't work, because at the beginning of the beta test, this feature was broken. It has since been fixed.

The other locked content in City of Heroes, the story arcs that are only offered to Peacebringers and Warshades, remain locked on the Pillars of Ice and Flame, and only Kheldians can initiate flashbacks of those story arcs. This is working as intended.

City of Villains: There are about a dozen contacts who will only offer you missions "in the real world" if you have certain badges before you talk to them, like the Bling badge to unlock Doc Buzzsaw and so forth. You may only Flashback these story arcs if you have the necessary badge. It doesn't matter what level you were when you got the badge. So long as you have the badge and you have out-leveled the contact, you can Flashback the story arcs via any Pillar of Ice and Flame.

FLASHBACK BADGES

The difficulty dialog box for Flashback missions is not the standard difficulty slider, but a series of handicaps that you can take voluntarily to earn special badges. Limiting the team to 0 deaths grants the "All For One, One For All" badge; 1, "Divided Mastery"; 3, "Proportional Supremacy"; 5, "Shared Victory." Limiting the entire story arc to 30 minutes grants the "Gold Medal" badge; 60, "Silver Medal"; 120, "Bronze Medal." If you are defeated more times than you've allowed yourself (or yourselves) or if you take longer than you've allowed yourself, you can still go on and complete the story arc, you just won't earn the special badge.

Constant Debuff puts a hefty damage and damage resistance debuff on every team member. Enemies Buffed has been reported to buff all minions and lieutenants to boss level accuracy, damage, resistances, and hit points. Primary and Secondary Sets Only turns off all temp powers, pool powers, epic powers, and patron powers. Alternatively, you can turn off just travel powers, just temp powers, or just epic/patron powers. Finally, the No Enhancements setting does just that, turns off all bonuses to your powers from enhancements, as if your powers were completely unslotted. Each of these settings grants its own separate badge for each of the following level ranges:

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre> TEAM ENEMIES PRIM/SEC NO
LEVEL DEBUFFED BUFFED ONLY TRAVEL
1-14 Venturous Audacious Contributor Refrained
15-19 Headstrong Courageous Vocational Shut Down
20-24 Daredevil Bold Professional Desisted
25-29 Adventurous Valorious All Business Barred
30-34 Rash Valiant Archetypical Still
35-39 Venturesome Stalwart Obligated Stalled
40-44 Reckless Lionhearted Missionary Stemmed
45-50 Temerarious Intrepid Undertaker Suspended

NO NO NO EPIC/
LEVEL TEMPS ENHANCEMENTS PATRON
1-14 Diminished Lessened --
15-19 Curtailed Debilitated --
20-24 Capped Anemic --
25-29 Inhibited Weakened --
30-34 Hindered Deflated --
35-39 Bound Decreased --
40-44 Limited Devalued Cut-Off
45-50 Demarcated Unenhanced Marginalized</pre><hr />
Irrespective of the difficulty settings, there are also badges to be earned for the number of Flashback story arcs you have completed: "Troubleshooter" at 5, "Adjuster" at 10, "Calibrator" at 15, "Alterist" at 20, "Balancer" at 25, "Correctionist" at 30, "Repairman" or "Repairwoman" at 35, "Overhauler" at 40, "Time Fixer" at 45, and "Ouroboros Mender" at 50. (Thanks, eviella, for compiling this list!)

None of the badges listed above can be earned by doing single-mission, non-souvenir Accomplishment badge-granting missions. Only the longer, regular, souvenir-granting missions count towards these badges.

And, of course, you can earn any badges that are granted normally by these story arcs or missions.

One final note that has nothing to do with Flashbacks, but I'll include it here in case anybody looks here for it: The Pilgrim's story arc sends you back to a modified version of your own side's tutorial zone, Outbreak for heroes and Breakout for villains. This story arc does allow heroes who previously skipped it to earn the Isolator badge for defeating 100 Contaminated, and allows villains who missed it to pick up the Jail Bird exploration badge in jail cell 15 on the third level of the cell block.

FLASHBACK AND TEMP POWER RECHARGING

Any mission on the Flashback list that grants what are called "persistent" temporary powers can be repeated, and repeating this mission or story arc will grant you the temporary power again. Let me repeat that. You can recharge any temporary power from the following list an infinite number of times by using Flashback. However, see the note about "Echo" powers after the lists.

City of Heroes:
<ul type="square">[*]Clockwork Connection: Summon Gears, 5 charges. "I Lost My Daddy!," level 20.[*]Arachnos Disguise: Toggle: Self Stealth vs Arachnos, level 24, expires after 60 minutes of in-game time. "A Faultline in the Sands of Time," level 24.[*]Wedding Band (Echo): Toggle: Self +Res(All), expires after ?? minutes of use. "Ring of Peebles," level 24.[*]Confiscated Beanbag: Ranged, Minor DMG(Smash), Foe Disorient, 50 charges. "Retrieve the Stolen Weapons from the Freakshow," level 24.[*]Empowered Piece of the Wheel: Ranged, Moderate DMG(Fire), expires after 30 minutes of in-game time. "The Wheel of Destruction," level 24. Note that you must Quit Task Force to keep this power.[*]Empowered Center of the Wheel: Melee, Moderate DMG(Fire/Lethal), expires after 30 minutes of in-game time. "The Wheel of Destruction," level 24. Note that you must Quit Task Force to keep this power.[*]Empowered Linchpin of the Wheel: Toggle: Self +Res(Smash,Lethal,Energy,Negative), expires after 30 minutes of in-game time. "The Wheel of Destruction," level 24. Note that you must Quit Task Force to keep this power.[*]Empowered Shard of the Wheel: Melee, Minor DMG(Fire), expires after 30 minutes of in-game time. "The Wheel of Destruction," level 24. Note that you must Quit Task Force to keep this power.[*]Undead Slaying Axe: Melee, Moderate DMG(Lethal), Special vs True Undead, 75 charges. "Rescue the Mystics," level 29.[*]Divining Rod: Ranged, Minor DMG(Energy)/Special vs. Ghosts, 20 charges. "Piercing the Veil," level 29.[*]Rune of Warding: Ranged, Minor DMG(Energy)/Special vs. Fey, expires after 72 hours of in-game time. "War of the Fir Bolg," level 29.[*]Holy Shotgun Shells, Ranged (Cone), Moderate DMG(Lethal)/Special vs Pantheon, Foe Knockback, 75 charges. "Return to Vampyr Mountain," level 30.[*]Warwolf Whistle (Echo): Summon War Wolf, 3 charges, limited duration. "Return to Vampyr Mountain," level 30.[*]Electromagnetic Grenades: Ranged (Targeted AoE), Minor DMG(Energy)/Special vs. Robots, 30 charges. "A Madman's Council," level 30.[*]Bow and Arrow: Ranged, Moderate DMG(Lethal), 75 charges. "Hatred's Hungry Heart," level 34.[*]Iron Blade: Melee, Moderate DMG(Lethal), expires after 72 hours of in-game time. "Crossing Over," level 35.[/list]City of Villains:
<ul type="square">[*]Loa Bone: Summon Zombie, 5 charges. "Retrieve the Loa Bone," level 10.[*]Summoning Amulet: Summon Imp, 5 charges. "Give 'em Hellion!," level 10.[*]Ghostslayer Rifle: Ranged, Moderate DMG(Lethal)/Special vs. Ghosts, 50 charges. "An Arachnos Ghost Story," level 15.[*]Ghostslayer Bomb: Targeted AoE, Minor DMG(Lethal/Smash)/Special vs. Ghosts, 6 charges. "An Arachnos Ghost Story," level 15.[*]Sky Raider Flight Pack: Self Fly, expires after 90 minutes of use. "Kings of the Sky," level 25.[*]Nullifier Gun Mk I (Echo): Ranged, -50% End, -Rech, Detoggle, 5 charges. "Trust and Betrayal," level 30.[*]Blackwand: Ranged, High DMG(Negative), 10 charges. "Forging the Blackwand," level 30.[*]Void Hunter Rifle: Ranged, Moderate DMG(Negative), -Rech, -Spd, 10 charges. "Nictus Dissection," level 35.[*]Psionic Activator: Melee, Minor DMG(Psi) vs Science origin heroes, Stun, 20 charges. "Psymon Sez," level 35.[*]Arachnoid Gas: Ranged (AoE), Minor DMG(Toxic)/Special vs. Arachnoids, Hold vs Arachnoids, 10 charges. "Building a Better Vermin," level 45.[*]Rikti Rifle: Ranged, Moderate DMG(Energy), Knockback, Stun, 30 charges. "Kuhr'Rekt Diplomacy," level 45.[*]Rikti Drone: Summon Rikti Drone, 3 charges. "Kuhr'Rekt Diplomacy," level 45.[*]Soul Trap: Ranged, Moderate DMG(Energy), -End, Special vs. Undead, 10 charges. "Shucking Souls" or "The Hunt" or "The Circle's Plot," all level 45.[*]Arachnos Power Shield: Toggle: Self +Res(All), expires after 10 minutes of use. "Breaking Knives," level 45.[*]Arachnos Shotgun Blast: Ranged (Cone), Moderate DMG(Lethal), Knockback, 15 charges. "The Hunt," level 45.[*]Creeper Seed (Echo): Summon Plant Beast, 3? charges, limited duration. "Von Grun's Lament" or "Von Grun's Redemption," both level 50.[*]Vial of Bees (Echo): Summon Bees, 3? charges, limited duration. "The Great Grun Gathering" or "Von Grun's Redemption," both level 50.[*]Tranquilizer Dart (Echo): -Spd, -Rech, -Recovery, ? charges. "Von Grun's Science" or "Von Grun's Redemption," both level 50.[*]Force of the Earth: Ranged (AoE), Confused vs Devouring Earth (only), 5 charges. "Von Grun's Redemption," level 50.[/list]Note that some of the powers listed above are marked as "(Echo)" versions of the original powers. That's because, in the developers' opinion, these powers were too powerful to allow players to continue to re-load over and over again. So nerfed versions of these powers were created, specifically for the flashback versions of the missions. Although exact stats are not known for almost any of them at this time, in general they have less effect, fewer charges, and/or more sharply limited duration. This only applies to the Flashback versions of the story arcs; if you do them normally, from the regular contact(s) while you are the appropriate level, you will get the pre-nerfed original versions of these powers.

WHAT FLASHBACK CAN'T DO

As of issue 11, here are the things that Flashback can't do for you. These are not features that the developers have promised or even hinted at; I only bring this up because these are frequently asked questions.

<ul type="square">[*]Flashback will not let you do Mayhem or Safeguard missions at this time. The developers say that they're continuing to think about it but have no specific plans to offer this.[*]Flashback will not let you do any mission unless it grants either a souvenir, an accomplishment badge, or both. (Actually, it does include story arcs that are supposed to display souvenirs but don't; the failure to display a souvenir for those story arcs is a pre-existing bug.)[*]Specifically, Flashback does not include any stand-alone single missions that have temp powers in them but that grant no accomplishment badge or souvenir.[*]Flashback also does not include the cape mission, the aura mission, the hero level 30 store missions, the villain "patron" story arcs, any holiday-event missions, or any PvP zone missions.[*]Flashback does not include any existing task forces, strike forces, zone trials, or respec trials. Those could already be repeated; just talk to the contact again.[*]Flashback does not recharge temporary powers under one very specific condition: if the power is awarded before you enter the first mission of the story arc, it is not awarded in the Flashback version. For example, all of Vernor von Grun's story arcs normally issue you one of his "inventions" before the first mission, but not in the Flashback. However, each of those story arcs "recharges" the temp power in one or more of the later missions; those temp powers are awarded normally. (Except that, in Von Grun's case, they're actually not as strong as if you'd done the story arc normally. See "(Echo)" above.)[*]Flashback will not "fill in" the contact bar if you already have the contact, nor will it permanently grant you the contact if you didn't have that contact. Flashback uses a kind of "pseudo-contact" system unrelated to the regular contacts.[*]One accomplishment badge story arc is deliberately not included in Flashback: Efficiency Expert Pither's "Efficiency Expert" badge cannot be earned via Flashback. This is working as intended, to keep you from having multiple attempts if you fail the first time.[/list]

A two-for-one special!

[u]Name[u]: Aeon University Student Union

[u]Currently Recruiting[u]: Yes

[u]RP Level[u]: RP-lite -- in-character comments encouraged, but out-of-character discussion (especially game-related) not in any way discouraged

[u]Theme/Concept[u]: Character must pretend to be taking classes at Aeon University in New Haven, Cap au Diable in the Etoile Islands.

[u]Activity[u]: Between the two groups (see below), three or four very active members, another couple of modestly active members, and a bunch of mostly inactive members.

[u]Requirements for Membership[u]: See "theme," above. Is your character too grown-up, old, mature to pass for a college student? See the Aeon University Faculty Club, below.

[u]Leadership[u]: The current Faculty Club Chairman is Infamous Brad, a tech-origin level 50 robotics/force field mastermind.

[u]In-Game Contact(s)[u]: @InfamousBrad

[u]Out-of-Game Contact(s)[u]: Forum handle InfamousBrad

[u]Coalition(s)[u]: In coalition with the Aeon University Faculty Club, see below. Use of /coalition chat, whether in-character or not, strongly encouraged.

[u]Other Details[u]: Fully-equipped (non-PvP) base decorated as an on-campus "basement bar" with dance floor.

- - - - -

[u]Name[u]: Aeon University Faculty Club

[u]Currently Recruiting[u]: Yes

[u]RP Level[u]: RP-lite -- in-character comments encouraged, but out-of-character discussion (especially game-related) not in any way discouraged

[u]Theme/Concept[u]: Character must pretend to be a faculty member, staff member, guest lecturer, or alumnus of Aeon University in New Haven, Cap au Diable in the Etoile Islands.

[u]Activity[u]: Between the two groups (see above), three or four very active members, another couple of modestly active members, and a bunch of mostly inactive members.

[u]Requirements for Membership[u]: See "theme," above. Is your character too young or immature or silly to plausibly be a faculty member or alumnus of a mad-scientist college? If so, see the Aeon University Student Union, above.

[u]Leadership[u]: The current Student Union President is Misery Chick, a magic-origin level 38 necromancy/dark miasma mastermind.

[u]In-Game Contact(s)[u]: @InfamousBrad

[u]Out-of-Game Contact(s)[u]: Forum handle InfamousBrad

[u]Coalition(s)[u]: In coalition with the Aeon University Student Union, see above. Use of /coalition chat, whether in-character or not, strongly encouraged.

[u]Other Details[u]: Fully equipped (non-PvP) base decorated as faculty labs and offices, think Steelcase meets Ikea.

- - - - -

Agreed-upon roleplaying details: because it's funnier that way (and so that the cheerleaders' pom-poms match with Energy Melee), the school colors are Coral and Gold (last row, 4th from the right and yellow, 4th from the right). The athletic department warm-up jacket is the Uniform Jacket (open or not) with Coral body and Gold sleeves and trim, with the letter "A" in Coral outlined in Gold. The school's athletic department official mascot is the Fighting Coralax; all athletic-department characters including cheerleaders, and all college sports fans, are encouraged to have the words "Go, Fighting Coralax!" somewhere in their character bio.

Original article says "...they are not as rare as the new Very Rare Enhancements put into Issue 11...," but that's not my experience. Over the course of a couple of weeks of closed beta, I got 3 purple recipes, and no respec recipes. Bug?

Also, the current design double-taxes high level characters. First, the market for them will be structured around "what a level 50 who is never in supergroup mode can earn" for the initial price, and then second, the price to craft goes up with your level. Does it really need to be both? Does this game really need yet another disincentive to earn prestige for your super group?

[ QUOTE ]
Give us the MOONBASE!!!!

[/ QUOTE ]
How I'm reading her answer is "We were going to, but we decided to do the 2nd Rikti War instead, so now the rocket launch sites are on hold until we decide to do some space-based expansion, which isn't on the schedule. So they'll just sit like this until we do, or until we give up and delete them."

Again, I wish she'd actually said what she meant instead of dancing around it.

[ QUOTE ]
We come up with an 'idea' based on player requests, bang for the buck, cool factor, story advancement, and plausibility given time/tech/scheduling constraints. You've heard it all before. We say it like rote, but it's true. We have a set amount of resources so we need to make them stretch as farrrrrr as they'll go.

The 'blurb' is anything from a paragraph to a page that outlines the basic idea for the zone, plus anything new or signature we want to do. The document is then reviewed by key players and adjustments are made (usually something like time, tech, or scheduling has created a hiccup and the design needs to be revised).

[/ QUOTE ]
The third time I read that, I figured out that what she means by "key players" is "important people within the company," not "selected customers." It took me a while, because honestly, having zone ideas reviewed by selected customers (under NDA) before they invest a bucketload of time and money in them struck me as something that would never have occurred to me, but would make one heck of a lot of sense. I was all fired up to ask, "How do I audition for that job?" Because let's face it; have you seen some of the threads on these forums about dangling plot threads and so forth? I'm not convinced that there's anybody at Cryptic or NCSoft who knows the full game story as well as, say, the most obsessive 2 or 3 fans of the game do. So borrowing a few of us as volunteer "continuity editors" made a lot of sense. But now that I reread it a couple of times, I'm guessing that's not what she meant.

I do want to say that you can spot, in the history of the game, the moment at which War Witch took over zone design. I'm not saying that whoever was doing it before was incompetent, but I will say that before she took over the process, the zones and spawns and so forth in City of Heroes were ordinary, merely as good as any other MMO; nothing any cooler than every MMO out there did, and as many real clunker design choices as any other MMO out there. Before she came along, if it weren't for the reasonably cool powerset choices and the insanely cool costume editor, I'm not sure the game would have survived. Now that she's taken over, the zones that she wrote all but carry the rest of the game on their backs. That she wrote nearly all of the villain zones has an awful lot to do with why I can't stand to play the hero game.

So yeah, even though I almost entirely play villains, I look forward to the day when Kings Row, Steel Canyon, Skyway City, Talos Island, Independence Port, Brickstown, and Founders Falls have their own self-contained storylines, when mob faction distribution across Paragon City doesn't feel so random, when contacts in the zones feel like people who are actually from and in their own neighborhoods. (I also look forward to the day that they give her a few days or a week to repair the horrific mess that is Sharkhead Isle.) I know not to hold my breath, but I do look forward to it.

I thought the answer about the rocket launch site construction areas was a little too evasive, though. If what she wanted to say was, "We changed our mind about doing what we were going to use them for, we're just going to leave them the way they are until we think up a new use for them," which is how I interpreted her answer, then I wish she'd just said it that plainly. That being said, I was disappointed that the last issue hadn't changed those two construction sites at all. (It was, literally, the first thing I checked for when the issue hit public beta, before I even headed to the RWZ.) If you're not going to use them soon, fine. But as much hype as there is in the radio/newspaper missions about rocket construction, and as blatant as those two construction sites are, shouldn't there be at least some progress visible from one issue to another? A few art tweaks, if nothing else?

[ QUOTE ]
The second mission type allows players to travel into their own pasts by going to a place called the "Pillar of Ice and Flame". There, players will be given access to a list of things that happened in their pasts, both missions that they have already completed, and missions that for one reason or another were missed ....

[/ QUOTE ]
1) For XP, or only for debt paydown and inf?

2) Do I have to have unlocked the contacts (via Mayhem missions) when I was in the level range, or will I be able to unlock contacts that I don't have in my list yet from earlier level ranges?

3) Does this include the Mayhem missions themselves for earlier levels?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Any chance that Ouroboros will let villains do the hero missions, and heroes do the villain missions? Or are we still stuck with our own side's content?

[/ QUOTE ]

The first Feature preview usually includes all the *major* updates or additions. Side switching would be a *major* addition. So.. I'm fairly confident that side switching is *not* in I11.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm not asking about side switching, about becoming a hero and getting to team with heroes in all zones. I'm asking about being sent on door missions that duplicate the hero side ones.

I ask this, frankly, because it's the only reason I'd care about Ouroboros, find it anything better than mildly annoying, and that'd be if it unlocked a few dozen more story arcs for villains that they could pretty easily offer us, by having Ouroboros send us to an alternate timeline where our characters were on the other side. So if I'm, say, level 22 and have a team of level 20-24 villains, we can go do a Banished Pantheon arc from Talos Island ... not the same Talos Island that existing level 20+ heroes are in, but an instanced version for our mission.

I guess, now that I think about it, the insanely large number of street sweeping missions in the hero story arcs pretty much rules that out, though, doesn't it? They could link the door missions and train missions to any door in the Ouroboros base they wanted, but there's no way they could really, say, send us to defeat 30 BanPan in Dark Astoria. *sigh* So I guess I'm stuck waiting to see what, if any, new missions or story arcs or strike forces the villains get, especially in the desperately under-served level 20-35 range.

Any chance that Ouroboros will let villains do the hero missions, and heroes do the villain missions? Or are we still stuck with our own side's content?

If Mace is one of the sets that is going to get weapon customization, would you please fix it and port it to Brutes? Because I'm sorry, but while I just can't imagine a superhero hitting someone with a shovel or a pipe wrench, that's absolutely perfect for a Brute villain concept.

Flashback had better include a bucket and a half of new villain missions. In case you've failed to notice, heroes outnumber villains by 3 to 1 in the level 31+ game. There are several reasons for this, some of them inescapable, but one of them that it is entirely within Cryptic's power to do something about is that there's just plain more to do on the hero side. Unless Ouroborous also grants a metric ton of of new missions that are villain specific, we're talking like a dozen or more contacts' worth across the level 20 to 50 range, then this is just another bitter example of the Iron Law of Distribution: "Them that has, gets."

Will the weapon customization apply to other powers if you have one of the customizable powersets? For example, if I have a mercs mastermind with mace mastery for my patron pool, will the mace grenades fire out of my new rifle, or will I still have to drop the rifle, pull my mace over my shoulder, fire the mace, drop the mace, pull another assault rifle over my shoulder, ad infinitum? I'm assuming the latter, but the former would be seriously cool. Especially if it also applied to secondary powers, as in if a mercs/arrows mastermind could use the gun animation to fire the same powers that are in the arrows secondary as well as the mace powers.

Any actual fix to oil slick arrow is going to have to come from the developers. What's more, there's reason to be optimistic that it can be fixed, considering that when I team with defenders and controllers, their oil slick arrows' burn patches don't panic my minions the way my own oil slicks do. The bad news is that they have said that even looking into this is way, way down the list of things to do "because so few people use trick arrows."

The only work-around I can offer you in the meantime, if you took trick arrows on a melee minion set, is to just plain not use it except situationally. If too many of your minions are down and you need enemies to be flopping around more than you need your remaining minions to be attacking, fire oil slick. If you need to buy time to get away and regroup, fire oil slick. You may also consider using it, with your minions on passive, to "soften up" groups before the fight starts, then send the minions in after the oil slick fire burns out and the panic effect disappears, although I'm not sure how you'd light it under those circumstances. *shrug* Or otherwise, despite the fact that it's a set-defining power, just plain skip oil slick arrow and respec into it months or years from now when the developers fix it.

Those are very cool dual blades. And when I imagine them whipping around in fast moving, intricate patterns like a Florentine fencer, I imagine they'll be very cool looking. But ... well, the image I'm seeing in my head comes across as awfully vicious, awfully aggressive looking, for a hero set. The image I'm getting in my head is not "I'm going to disarm and defeat you," it's not even "I'm going to kill you and let the medics at the prison hospital piece you back together," it's more like, "they'll be picking you up with a sponge and a mop." *shrug* But then, this is a game where the heroes use flamethrowers to arrest people, too, so it's not like we haven't been down this path before.

I'm willing to suspend judgment on screenshots 1 and 2 for willpower; if that's how those powers look on activation, but then they tone down to something almost invisible, fine. But screenshot 3 makes me think that that's not how it's going to work. Basically it's super-reflexes tinted an even more garish yellow instead of dark blue. So much for looking subtle, for looking like it's not even really super-powers, for something aimed at natural-origin characters. I'm not even sure that's salvageable, really, but if I were going to try to salvage it? I'd redo all of those effects in a very, very translucent, almost transparent, light gray like the color of the original sonic dispersion bubbles. Not the sonic dispersion shapes, but something like the super reflexes/ninjitsu shapes in that color, or at most the new sonic dispersion shapes in that color. And if screenshot 2 means that once you hit level 16 or whatever you're going to have this intense glowing yellow orb in the middle of your chest all the time, like the green one that all regen characters have, them so much "for subtle," because I find that intense orb of light in the middle of my chest to be deeply annoying, something that just completely takes over the look of the character and renders any concept or costume moot.

But frankly, what I'd prefer is for there to be no visible aura of any kind at all for any of the Willpower powers except for the first few seconds after activation. If I want an aura on my character, I can go to Icon or Facemaker and buy one. This "all powers have to be visible from across the room" concept really doesn't work for me. Truthfully, though, I'm less concerned about the graphics of Willpower than about the numbers. I'm personally of the opinion that all of the stalker secondaries underperform, I'm wondering if this set's going to underperform just as badly or maybe be better at surviving in a fight after the alpha-strike goes off without having to uber-twink your build to absolute maximum efficiency (and expense).

FWIW, I agree with merging the two forums; it's not as if villains don't also use the general forum. Please save my list of broken or poorly designed missions in Sharkhead until the issues in it get addressed. Thanks!

That Dr. Aeon can not possible be that timeline's own Carl Egon. Can't be. He would have been way, way too young when he built Marchand's power armor, and there's nothing in there to explain why he stopped using his real name in that timeline.

I was going to complain about this as a mistake ... and then maybe I figured something out. That almost certainly has to be our Dr. Aeon, Primal Earth's Carl Egon. And I think I even know what his game is. Most of the way through the Statesman's Task Force, the player characters point out to Dr. Aeon that if Lord Recluse succeeds in firing the Grandville Array, Aeon will lose his super-intelligence, too. That's why Aeon panicks and provides them with some of the information they need to disrupt Recluse's plan. And, of course, in Echo Down the Aeons we learned that a future Dr. Aeon, one who's seen the "Agony Hall" future and blames his past self for it, came back in time to try to persuade his old self not to help Recluse.

So my theory is that our timeline's Carl Egon/Dr. Aeon, having failed to come up with a way to outsmart Arachnos in our timeline, is trying to go back further in time and rewrite history by preventing the Arachnos takeover of the Rogue Isles. But somehow, this has changed history for the worse; somehow this prevented heroes from containing the Outbreak Plague. And it does nothing (that we know of) to protect that timeline from Nemesis' machinations aimed at playing "let's you and him fight" between Earth Prime and Rikti Earth; in fact, all it would have taken would have been for the first Rikti War to have gone a little worse for there to have been fewer heroes available to fight the Outbreak Plague. So who knows how the Second Rikti War is going.

Heck, for all we know, Marchand and Aeon are both Nemesis pawns now. The more I look at that teaser wallpaper, the more the filigree work on that brass logo still looks like something Nemesis, or one of his artisan minions, would design. And the name of the costume armor that Marchand is wearing is "steampunk." (Actually, what it looks like to me is a dead ringer for the Iron Widow's power armor.) I had always assumed that Marchand was a Family man, like his predecessor, and we know that Nemesis has his hooks into the Family.

Are we going to Columbia to fight Recluse and Manticore? Hooray! I've been hoping for a jungle war zone. I had assumed it would some day involve going to clean up/make worse the mess in West Libertalia, but Columbia works for me.

Finally, one last huge piece of congratulations and thanks to Cryptic for making at least a token mention of a civilian government in the United States. The US in that timeline at least has a president that occasionally makes the news. Frankly, I'd think that Freedom Phalanx were a lot less scary if they showed any deference at all towards civilian government, the whole Heroes side of the game less creepy if the federal government was ever heard from at all. So this is a step in the right direction.

"In this issue ... a hero dies!"

WTF?

I don't see them in Firefox, but if I look at the revised City of Data using either Opera or Internet Explorer I see Google Ads. Which wouldn't be a problem, if it weren't the same two ads every time. One advertises cheats for sale, the other is an influence seller. Not cool.

Since the 8/23 patch, I'm seeing less lag in invasion events. But I did notice one weird thing about them. Every time the blinking light on top of an unexploded bomb changes color, the bomb despawns for a couple of seconds and respawns, breaking my target lock.

I also noticed an undocumented change: the server selection screen is now sorted in ascending order of number of current logins, not descending like it was before.