SerialBeggar

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Hello all

I've been playing a Mastermind for a few days now, and have gotten him to the verge of lvl 12. I've run into a bit of a problem though. I finsihed the missions for Angelo Vendetii, and after killing the Vampyre all he says to me know is that the Council is on to him and he has to lay low. He won't offer me any new contacts to continue on with. The contact Mongoose also is done with me, and he will only say to visit Mikey the ear or Drea the hook. I've already done the quest line for Drea the Hook so I assume the quest lines for Mikey is done as well. Did I miss something along the way or is the life of a villain one that I should just find my own mischief now?

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Just in case you weren't aware, Port Oakes has 2 Ferries. The one you used to come from Mercy and another one to take you to Cap Au Diable. Check your Map.

Note: Cap Au Diable will also have a second Ferry. That one will have the destination menu of (the rest of) the high level zones.

Thus began the reign of Obviousman! No Duh!

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One thing to watch for is the "Wait, didn't anyone refill the inspiration chest?" problem. If you have two or more people in the SG, there's a good chance it'll get emptied and not refilled, and then you have to have the "Roommate talk" with each other.

[/ QUOTE ] With the introduction to a Base Portal in PocketD, it makes it very easy to refill the bins on a lowB character.

Smack that roommate when he gets home, or take away his Fridge-Pass. haha

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You can buy the medium insps from the Market pretty easily. The rezzes, greens and blues are pretty pricey at times. However, you can buy the yellows, reds and oranges fairly cheaply, then convert them to what you'd rather stock.

If you're not seeing the "Pets" link at the top border of your Team window, you need to enable it in Options.

Go to: Menu-->Options-->General (scroll down)-->Window (last one) --> 'Show Pet Window Option = Enabled'

Open your Badges window. From the drop down menu, select Veteran. Note: make sure you're looking at the Personal badges, not the Supergroup set.

The costume sets rewards are automatically available at the tailor shop or at character creation. There's a button to claim costume change tokens, ie to waive the tailor shop costs. Note: you've probably got dozens of free tokens already from the grants over the years.

For the Vet attack powers, you need to click the button to claim them. Note: once you click the button for the power selection pop up, you MUST select something. There's a "select nothing", but I think it means you're giving up the option to take any. Once the selection is done, it's permanent for that character. You can't change your mind about it.

For the Respecs, there's a button to claim it. Note: if you don't have need to use the respec, don't claim it. Save it until you really, really need it, but you've run out of the Free Respecs that are granted pretty often and the Earned Respecs from running the Respec Trial.

In the SG colors screen, if you scroll down the screen to the bottom, there's a check off button to disable showing the SG Emblem.

Back when farming Rikti Portals was a viable way for me to rack up Prestige, I briefly thought about trying to get on to the SG rank list with my personal SG. However, after the accidental double Prestige grant, there was no way. It gave the SGs with large memberships too much of of a lead that the gap pretty much insurmountable.

In addition to the plain emotes, how about having another version as a targeted buff similar to the ones that came with the Magic booster. For a short period, you get either

- a straight +% to inf gained
- a portion of the buffer's infl gained
- a slightly better chance for drops

The SG Colors screen, at least on my monitor, I need to scroll down to see the little check-off dot to disable the Chest Emblem.

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Looks good. The only things I can think of offhand that you might add is the "Man Build" players. One that take very few powers from their primary and secondary, and try to gimp themselves by picking less than optimal pool powers. Closely related to the Challenging Build players who try to pick unpopular Primaries and Secondaries, hopefully ones with little or negative synergy.

[/ QUOTE ]Help me out with a name for them, something that hopefully describes the mindset and approach to the game. "Natural" is out because it's an Origin, and I don't want to reinforce the "Natural = Powerless" stereotype.

And "try to gimp themselves"? Are they really trying to build as WEAK a character as they can?

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I vaguely recall that it was originally to emulate a mundane "human", ie a non-super/extraterrestial/mutant/robot/magical or technologicially enhanced earthling. As such, power selection is based on any that are not "super" in nature, which essentially just left the Pool powers. If you're at a level up where the only choices are from your primary or secondary, you pick something, but you don't use it. You're supposed to remove the power button from your Tray to avoid temptation. In addition, since you're a mundane human, it was suggested that you pick a low HP archetype. Overtime, the "human" build name got bastardized to being the "Man" build.

Also note, for regualr TFs, the enemy will spawn at the high end of the TF's stated range. So for example on Synapse, while you could start it with a team full of level 15 players, all the Clockwork will be level 21 (on Heroic difficulty).

Someone give him the page to the acronyms, abbreviations and game slang.

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so I pondered grabbing a couple of IOs from each set.


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On this forum, the slang for mixing and matching IO pieces from different sets to maximize attribute boost without regard to Set Bonuses is "frankenslotting". So, yeah, it's acceptable and encouraged.

Diminishing returns from Enhancement Diversification is always around, but don't worry about it.

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This isn't the first time I've left the game for an extended period of time, and he's never done anything with the base. I don't think he even uses the base teleporters.
I was out for 69 days, and his last logon with that toon was 8 days ago, so, even when he is logging on, he's not following "optimal" payment schedule, nor even earning prestige at this point, as far as I can tell.

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8 days ago is in May. The guy might have been logging in all of his character to get the 5th Anniversay badge which was only available during the month of May. So, if the SG's Prestige doesn't look like it had gone up appreciably, then your SG mate probably wasn't very active on this character. This makes things simplier.

So, send him an in-game email. Keep your conversation cooperative. Let him know that you're back and will be spending time working to build up the Base. Ask if he has any plans pending regarding the Base and if there's anything he's using that he'd like to keep. Ask him for his schedule so you can arrange a meeting to get repromoted. In addition, to enforce the impression that you're serious about improving the Base, take the opportunity to create a few filler characters and ask him to invite them into the SG to get the Prestige Bonuses.

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(other than never pay base upkeep)

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How long have you been away? Why do you say he hasn't paying the Rent. The recommended pay schedule is at 6 weeks, ie 2 weeks past due, when the power is shut off, to squeeze out the best time/prestige ratio. If you don't need to use the Base Telepads or crafting tables, you can even put it off for 8 weeks, until when the Base is locked up. If you've been away for more than 2 months and can still access the Base, then he has been paying the Rent.

Do you still have full priviledges (regardless of rank)? Do you expect to stay subscribed in the game indefinitely (or at least for the forseeable future)? If so, then send your SG mate an in-game email informing him that you're back. Thank him for keeping the SG alive. If both of you are just going to use the Base for storage and transportation, without any plans for further recruitment, then I don't see the need to cause a fuss for the Super Leader position. Set up a couple of storage bins on the side and let him know that you'll be using those.

If you maintain a blase attitude and do your share of Prestige earning, the other guy will probably be receptive to passing the Super Leader rank back to you--if the topic comes up down the road. Whereas if you immediately start making demands after abandoning the SG and him for a significant period, he's going to be pissed and just see the obvious risk of you intending to kick him off the SG. He'll be concerned for all his stored items and the time spent earning Prestige disappearing.

I've tanked for TFs on my WS Dwarf. It's ok, but personally, I'd feel better with a Tank. My peeves with the WS Dwarf are:

- Not enough attacks for a no-pause attack chain. I even slotted Antagonize with a Proc, but there are times I'm just twittling my thumbs waiting for anything to recharge.

- Antagonize's taunt is weak. I don't have it fully slotted yet (only +40% value boost), but it seems the equivalent of clearing my throat for all the attention I'm holding.

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Massive anger on the forum over game changes

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What did I miss? What changes are coming? I've been ignoring the Issue 15 Beta threads, is it involved?

There're also:
- the */Devices Blaster's Gun Drone
- Elec/* Blaster and */Elec Defender's Voltaic Sentinal
- */Storm Controllers and Storm/* Defenders have psuedo-pets like Lightning Storm and Tornado.
- Illusion/* Controllers have extra pets in Phantom Army and a psuedo-pet in Spectral Terror. In addition, their level 32 Pet Phantasm summons its own pet Decoy.

Then there are the Veteren Award pets:
- the don't do anything by follow you around pets
- the buff and aggro magnet pets

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I would recommend adding a slot. Stamina is most effective with a full three slots of Endurance Modification.

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In addition, you may want to consider swapping out the Common End Mod enhancements for Performance Shifter Set IO pieces to get the Set Bonuses.

Note: when you use the Dual Builds function the first time, after you finish "re-leveling" yourself back to current level, all your slots will be empty. Each build is independent of the other. So the enhancements you have slotted in your first build stays there. You will need to buy or otherwise, get a hold of a batch of new enhancements.

Note: there's a 15 mins wait between changing from one build to the next.

1. Sands of Mu
2. Nemesis Staff *(once I get some +tohit so it is reliable)
3. Assemble Team
4. Buff pet

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I figured it was a lost cause.

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If it was me and I came to this conclusion, I'd be standing way in the back. I'd contribute to the fight, cherry picking my targets, and I'd be ready to bolt.

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probably have a look at the edits they have made on there builds, when other powersets have been nerfed like hell!

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Statesman was some sort of Invuln/SS tanker- and he took Invuln tankers down in strength by a factor of about THIRTY. Yes, they used to be 3000% as hard to kill as they are right now.

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They actually gave it some buffs recently.

Point is, they're not the kind of devs who buff the heck outta their favourite class. By the way, are there any actual examples of that happening in ANY MMO? I just can't imagine anyone would get away with that.

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comic strip

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I dunno, the Mission Teleporter is really damn good, even after you have all your other ways of getting around.

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Isn't the Mission Teleporter from the Mac Edition?

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I also have been gone for about a year and a half. My troller used to be able to run amuck on almost every mish on invincible and I could turn down the difficulty for AV's and get them down. Now I run on Rugged and get by decently, but I can not even down an AV by myself anymore. Just something I am having to get used to.

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A few issues ago, AVs and GMs got a significant HP and +regen boosts. For a period, you were really popular if you were Rad Emissions. The good thing that came out of it was that players learned which other powersets had -regen. They've been tweaked down since, so while a team (or several players working in concert) is still necessary to take down an AV or GM, you don't need to rely on -regen if your team can output enough damage.