Justaris

We already do have police NPCs in several places througout the city. Check out a Skyway City troll rave sometime, or wander near the police station in Kings Row or any of the police stations that house the various Detectives.

As for having player characters, there's nothing stopping people from making police characters now complete with police costumes. I don't think adding huge rewards is going to do anything other than encourage people to exploit and ruin the newly created police system.

In short, I think we're fine with what we've got.

Not to mention that it'd rapidly transform into a lawsuit.

It does also give a badge, you know. People were fighting Giant Monsters (or ignoring them) long before they gave Merit rewards, although their xp and influence rewards have been subpar ever since people abused the Winter Lords and caused a global reduction in Giant Monster rewards as a result.

I agree that Lusca is funtionally multiple GMs in one though, and while two Merits per tentacle might be a bit much, I think something like six or seven Merits for defeating the whole shebang wouldn't be out of line.

Even if nothing changes, however, I wouldn't go so far as to suggest that no one ever do it.

I'd encourage you to start by reading the guides, particularly this one, to answer many of your basic questions.

As for the differences between Warshades and Peacebringers, there are many. <ul type="square">
[*]As you already know, Warshades begin the game with teleport and get a version of recall at level 10 (in addition to whatever power you choose at 10 - this power is given 'free'). Neither Warshades nor Peacebringers can access the Flight or Teleportation pools, meaning that Hover, Fly and Air Superiority are not available.

Warshades have a number of powers that give conditional buffs based on the number of targets hit, such as Sunless Mire and Eclipse. Warshades also have several powers which require defeated foes to work, such as Stygian Circle, Unchain Essence and Dark Extraction. Many other Warshade powers may be familiar to those familiar with Dark powersets as several powers like Inky Aspect and Sunless Mire are near-direct clones of some of those powers (Oppressive Gloom and Soul Drain, respectively).

Generally speaking, Warshades are capable of greater extremes in damage output and survivability than are Peacebrigners, but require more effort to sustain these peaks and generally have a 'peaks and valleys' performance curve. A well-built Warshade at the top of his/her game excels at large-scale PvE. The more mobs, the better.
[*]As you already know, Peacebringers begin the game with flight and get a version of hover at level 10 (in addition to whatever power you choose at 10 - this power is given 'free'). Neither Warshades nor Peacebringers can access the Flight or Teleportation pools, meaning that Recall Friend, Teleport Foe and Air Superiority are not available.

Peacebringers have a number of powers which may be familiar to many players such as Build Up, Conserve Energy and Essence Boost (a Dull Pain clone). Peacebringers also have many self-heals and stronger melee attacks than their dark cousins, which makes them stronger in tough one on one boss fights. Also, the tier nine Peacebringer power Light Form locks the player in human form for its duration (essentially it's a clone of Unstoppable, complete with crash). This makes PBs a more natural choice for human-centric or Human Only builds than Warshades, although this should not be taken as an absolute as Human Only Warshades and Tri-Form Peacebringers do exist and are quite viable.

Generally speaking, Peacebringers are very stable in their performance as their buffs are all self-contained, not reaching quite the heights of Warshades but requiring far less effort to attain and sustain. A well-built Peacebringer is a match for just about anything and excels at taking down hard targets and surviving inordinate amounts of punishment.
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Obsidian_Farmer is correct, it's not a defeat all, but sometimes a Porter will get himself out of aggro range and forget to come back. Typically heading back down the hallway will locate the errant Porter but if you haven't cleared then you might have trouble telling which is the runner from the reactor room and which were mobs you skipped (and hence you just defeat them all to be sure).

Absolutely. Give me eight alert, reasonably competent players who can listen to a simple plan any day over eight solo artists with tricked-out FOTM builds. Amazing (and a bit depressing) how hard it can be to find that sometimes.

Cold/Ice is quite viable all the way through and, due mostly to the slows, makes a pretty decent soloing Defender as well since it gives you some room to kite the tougher foes. Enjoy!

Generally speaking there's no such thing as a 'bad character in the long run' in this game, there's no powerset or AT that turns into a dud later in the game. Some bloom earlier than others, of course, but they all bring something to the table.

Probably the only thing I can think of that actually becomes increasingly useless is people who build their Defenders exclusively to heal, as buffs and debuffs take on an increasingly prominent role as you move further into the game.

At least the first few times, you might want to run it with experienced players until you get the hang of how the STF goes. It's more than possible to win through with a variety of builds, but more so than most of the rest of the content in the game you need a group of people that are good players and can work well as a team. There's not quite as much leeway for mistakes, flaking out, etc.

For an inexperienced team you'll probably want the old standbys of a Stone/* Tanker and an Empath or Sonic to stack mez protection until Soul Storm can be weathered.

Since you mentioned having trouble with Ghost Widow and Lord Recluse, make sure you keep your distance from GW so you don't fuel her heal and make sure you're careful of the Flier as you take down the towers for Lord Recluse. Good luck on your next run!

Also "Fanboi", "brown-noser", "forum cartel" (not there yet!) and "never plays the game".

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Okay, I stand corrected...this might the silliest thing I've ever read yet....on these forums.

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Takes the cake for me.

Points for creativity, though, I can honestly say I haven't seen this suggestion before. It's that ridiculous.

Anytime - if you have any more trouble or any questions, feel free to ask.

The problem's addressed in that thread if you read all of it, but I'll give you the answer here as well. It's the smart quotes. Retype the bind rather than copy/pasting it and you'll be fine.

Microsoft Word 'helped' me by automatically changing the quotes and I wasn't able to fix the problem before the edit window closed on the guide. The rest of the guide thread discusses this issue, as I mentioned, but you're not the first person who didn't read that far.

Also, make sure you use the correct commands. /powexec_toggle_on is a valid command, while /powerexec_toggle_on is not (and is another common mistake).

Always forget about him.

It's also worth noting that, once claimed from the Veteran badge window as described above, you'll need to visit the respec contact to actually use the respec. This would be Jack Wolfe in Galaxy City heroside or Arbiter Lupin in Nerva Archipelago villainside.

With your friend playing Illusion/Rad I'd still lean towards a Storm/Psy since you'll be able to supplement the somewhat weak control in Illusion with your own slows, debuffs and KB.

If it's just the two of you then any convenient geometry will do to keep enemies chain-KB'd and thus effectively held, but in larger teams with you'll want to learn the approximate distance your KB does and get good at positioning yourself so that you use KB to consolidate rather than scatter groups (you might also consider flight as a travel power, since it's much easier to work out the angles when all the angles are "down"). Of course, if the proverbial excrement hits the fan you can always cut loose and just create chaos to give the team a chance to rally, but that shouldn't always be your go-to move.

Probably the most commonly abused power is Gale. Great if used well, will make teammates want to murder you if used poorly. Hurricane's also one that takes a little getting used to until you learn where to stand to get the most out of it without causing issues for the melee folks.

Kin/Psy also has a lot to offer this pairing, so there's not really a wrong choice - Kin doesn't supplement the control as well, but it will get Phantom Army up a lot more often with Speed Boost and will greatly boost your damage. So in general terms a Kin wouldn't be as safe as Storm but ultimately might pack more punch. At the end of the day choose the one that sounds more fun to you.

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Why is it that the pro-PL people always seem to try to make this argument? "Everyone does it" or "All of you have done it at one time or another" or "You people who don't do it are just jealous and wish you could be doing it". Very presumptuous, very arrogant and completely wrong.


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That's not the main argument pro-PL people have. Their main argument is that stop imposing a "self righteous holier than thou" attitude that anti-Farm folks have regarding farming.

If they exploit, so what? They'll get caught. If they get more 50s in their account, so what? They're paying for their way of gaming. The Devs will do what is necessary to limit that, but to think that everyone SHOULD "slow" down as opposed to just zerging everything because slowing down is HOW the game is supposed to be played is stupid.

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I don't think I said it was the main argument for PL and I'm sorry if my post was unclear. I've seen far more rational arguments for PL, mostly to bypass level ranges that an experienced player finds tiresome or to create high-level characters specifically for purposes of PvP.

However, I do see that argument coming from PLers quite a bit and it seems no less self righteous to assume that absolutely everyone secretly agrees with you and is being a hypocrite to disagree. Of course, not all PLers feel that way, any more than 99% of players PL. I suppose I'm just tired of being told that I'm lying and that I really agree with a practice I detest. 'Cause I don't.

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Anyone who thinks that CO and DCUO will not have a significant effect on the # of subscribers to this game does not understand economics. Im not trying to get into a COHvsCOvsDCUO and which one is going to be better(because no one knows definitively). Just pointing out that people will leave this game and after COH being around for 5 years chances are it will be in greater numbers than new subscribers are coming in. Its all about the product life cycle.

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So just because CoX is five years old it's automatically going to die when new games come out? You might want to look up a little thing called Everquest. An understanding of 'economics', aside from being largely irrelevant to what you said, doesn't mean that competetion equals DOOM.

As a matter of fact, the release of CO and DCUO may even provide some benefit to our game, as their advertising dollars may bring new gamers into the MMO market in general and the superhero niche in particular. While it's a given that some of our players will try out these games, either playing both or leaving this one for one of the others, I suspect we're also going to see people jumping ship in the other direction. This game has an established community, a wealth of content, an amazing ability to customize the look of your character that continues to get better and impressive graphics which (IMO) look much better than cell shading. We'll be fine.

Pretty much what Aett said. There's far too many factors involved such as team size vs solo, ATs used and slotting to give any other answer to this vague question.

Why is it that the pro-PL people always seem to try to make this argument? "Everyone does it" or "All of you have done it at one time or another" or "You people who don't do it are just jealous and wish you could be doing it". Very presumptuous, very arrogant and completely wrong.

I'm glad to see you apologized for that crack, as it was very much out of line. Everything else you said kind of pales next to that, though you insulted several other people whose only provocation was disagreeing with you and providing you with information. If someone implies (or outright states) that you're wrong, then reply back with the facts that show you're right - and consider that possibility that you may in fact be wrong. Referring to your own ideas as "brilliant" also comes off a touch egotistical.

I'd also suggest you really take a long look at the difference between posts which disagree with you and posts which are attacking you - several times in this thread you've mistaken the former for the latter and gone on the attack, which just causes things to degenerate.

Best of luck to you.

On the theory that this is a genuine attempt to be civil on Ares' part, I'm going to give my two cents on the matter. I actually disagree with changing your forum name and lying low. Chances are that would just further blemish your forum reputation since it would appear you were trying to escape the fallout of your actions.

I think it'll be a lot more powerful if you just accept that you made some mistakes, make a few apologies for the worst offenses, and then move on. If you comport yourself in a civil and mature manner from here on out, you'll live this thread down eventually.

As for advice on teaming, as others have said, just take your /ignores off and read the thread, it's all here.

The ship raid is easily the best way. You need to be on the ship after the shields go down, fighting Rikti, and you should be getting tons of Merits so long as you're on a full team. It's far and away faster than anything else you might do.

I'm not sure what exactly you were doing wrong in the raid you describe, but raids are the way to go. As for "is 100 a lot?", not really. You're probably going to want several hundred depending on what you want to buy/unlock and what you don't care about.

Pretty much what Bill said.

Voids/Quantums aren't a serious problem for an even average Kheldian player anymore. They've already been nerfed, hard. Though badges for them wouldn't be unwelcome. And ditto to the Cysts comment, they aren't that bad, though that doesn't stop people freaking out about them or mishandling them.

Also, it's not clear from the OP whether you know this or not, but there are two Kheldian ATs: Peacebringer and Warshade, so "counterbalancing the two VEATs" doesn't make sense really since there are already two HEATs.

Okay, well, the "several 50s and two years" thing still doesn't tell me whether you feel comfortable using KB or not, but given the tone of your remarks I'll assume that you do or think you do. Do you have any experience playing Force Fields, Storm Summoning or Energy Blast? How comfortable do you feel with your ability to more or less precisely control your KB?

To be clear, I wasn't trying to insult you, but you have a low post count and I didn't want to assume experience you may or may not have had and your OP didn't provide that info. Sorry if you took offense.

It's probably more important to be aware of the potential problems than to actually have the skill anyway, so you're ahead of the eight ball there - you may or may not be able to use it to the fullest, but at least you know enough not to make people angry. If it were me, I'd probably go Storm/Psy given this choice, but I'm very comfortable with Storm.

If the aim is to complement your friend's build, then what is he/she playing?
That may be the more important question here. Or is he/she going to make something to complement you?

It would help to know more about how you're planning to play this character? Do you have a regular team? Will you be soloing a great deal? Things like that.

Storm/Psy is probably going to solo with considerably greater ease, while Kin may be more in demand for teams. Both can solo, of course, and both do provide great team support when played well, it's just a matter of what's the easiest fit for each activity. Also, if you're a newer player, you may have some trouble using Storm to its full potential in teams as poorly controlled KB often irritates melee artists.