A (Brutish) soloist's guide to 40-45 in CoV
By
EarthWyrm,
Posted on: 2006-07-28 15:31 in Player Guides
Topic I: Teaming
I can already hear you saying it: Wyrm, the title of this guide has the word soloist in it. Why even talk about teams? In fact, theres no reason whatsoever to team up if you really dont want to. Some people will say things like, Its an MMO, its designed for teaming. Whatever. Its a game, and its designed for you to have fun with. If you have no desire to ever team, you can skip this section. Otherwise, Ive got a couple of things to say.
I did not go from 40-45 without teaming. However, I would estimate that I spent less than 3 hours total of the time it took me to gain those levels in teams. I dont have anything philosophically against teams; heck, I wish I could find a great supergroup and get some regular teammates! But Ive had mixed luck with pick-up groups, and while Im usually happy to sign on to help take down a Hero, Ive never seen as many faceplants as I did when I rode a pick-up group into somebodys relentless Mayhem Mission. Before the timer expired, I had used my tier-9 uber-power twice, the Demonic accolade once, and had only managed to avoid getting any debt myself because when my endurance zeroed out the second time Overload crashed and all my toggles dropped, some kind Longbow dropped a grenade that stuck me in a wall.
Conventional wisdom says this: If you want to level quickly, get on large teams set to a high difficulty. Conventional wisdom is fine to a point. But how large a team do you want to be on? Some people go for 8 members on Relentless and never look back. When a group is used to working together, thats fine. Many (not most, and certainly not all) pick-up groups have trouble coordinating. You may also be lacking something vital like, say, a debuffer if you plan on taking eight people into a Mayhem Mission that WILL spawn a Hero-class enemy in the end. Because, well, pick-up groups are exactly that. Pick-up.
Ive made good friends through pick-up groups. But if Im being honest, what Ive seen out of a lot of PuGs in CoV is debt. And Ive got to say that if you want to avoid doing the newspaper grind, one of the key rules is this:
Rule 1: Avoid debt.
It sounds easier than it is, Im sure. You may be saying, But Wyrm, I need to get Deathless (the achievement badge for paying off 1.2 million debt) for the High Pain Threshold accolade!
If thats important to you, okay. I suggest that starting around level 38 or 39, you set aside one play session a week where you wander your happy self into Sirens Call, get as far up in the air as you can, and fall into a spawn of Longbow. Repeatedly. Then, when youre debt-capped, go run some newspaper missions until the debt is gone.
If youre grinding a badge, expect to grind for it. Theres no way around that. But if you dont want to run out of content, DO NOT grind while youre doing the content itself. Keep those goals separate.
The other thing about teaming is, sometimes its fun to not play the game by yourself. A little interaction isnt a bad thing, and there are some cool people out there. A lot of them, even. So every once in a while, put up your LFT flag and see what happens. As long as you arent running your missions, this is another way to advance your XP total without running yourself out of contacts. As long as you get more XP than debt, and as long as youre doing someone elses missions, you will decrease the likelihood that you will run out of content prior to reaching the plateau that is 45.
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
Topic II: Difficulty
This one is almost self-evident, but even so . . . If you want to maximize the xp return per mission (and doing this will make it take fewer missions to get from one level to the next, which will in turn make it less likely that youll run out of content), you need to be running on a higher difficulty than Villainous. I generally dont recommend going all the way up to Relentless, simply because you will then spawn Hero and AV-class enemies solo, who will hand you your head. This leads to debt, which violates Rule 1 (above).
How high is a matter of preference. With my Brute, I was kind of all over the place for 40-42. I ran some on Relentless, but every time a contact said, Make sure to bring help, I got all pansified and dropped back down to Villainous. (It took me a little while playing to remember that I did, in fact, have Overload, and that aside from Biff, +1 Elite Bosses just werent that scary.) Then I tried running some on the second difficulty setting and the third, before finally settling on the fourth. Ive stuck with Ruthless (I think thats the name) all the way through late 42-45, and its been fine for me.
The thing to keep in mind is that difficulty is kind of a misnomer for what youre doing. Raising your reputation affects one or two things; it affects the level at which your enemies spawn, and/or the number of them who spawn for you.
If you raise your difficulty to the second level, you will get the same level enemies you would have had on Villainous, but there will be more of them. (By way of example, running solo on the second setting gives you exactly the same spawns as if you were running a team of two on Villainous, in my experience.) In addition, things that are supposed to be Boss-class will actually spawn as bosses, where on Villainous, they spawn as Lieutenants. Elite Bosses, as near as I can tell, will always be Elite Bosses. But with respect to difficulty, are you okay with bigger spawns, but dont want them to be a lot bigger than you, and would like to face the occasional boss? This might be the place to try.
Difficulty level three gives you the same number of enemies as on Villainous, but they are one level higher. A little more challenging, since they hit harder, but if youd rather keep the number of things youre fighting relatively low while still increasing your xp, this is a good place to be.
Difficulty level four (Ruthless) has the same number of enemies as level two, but one level higher. Youre probably seeing the progression by now. And the top difficulty, Relentless, has everything spawning at +2 to you, but the same spawn sizes as you got on Villainous.
(By the by, Dwimble has a great guide on the difficulty stuff, which can be found here: Dwimble's Guide)
It will take some playing around to figure out the difficulty where youre comfortable, but Im assuming youve probably already tried it out some, on the way to 40. If not, give it a whirl. My wife and I kept our main heroes on the first difficulty setting for around 35 levels before realizing that we were bored stupid, and running at the third or fourth difficulty setting was just fine for us. Dont let the idea of it being more difficult throw you. Try it out and see what works. Trust me its not that bad. Which leads me to the second rule.
Rule 2: Find the difficulty that both maximizes your fun and minimizes the likelihood that you will be stuck running repetitive content
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
Topic III: Newspapers and Warburg (and Mayhem, oh my!)
It may seem odd to you, for me to devote a section of the guide to these missions when Ive said this is what youre trying to avoid having to do. The reality, however, is that there is not currently enough content to get you from 40-45 without doing at least some of these. If we dont count Arbiter Rein (and we shouldnt, since all he does is have you read plaques and introduce you to your patron), you have a total of six normal contacts, two unlockable contacts, and potentially one patron from whom you can receive missions in this range. Ill go into the contacts in more detail shortly, but for now, lets talk about what I think of as filling the gaps.
Ideally and I think this is hard-coded, though the patron arcs may be exempt you can only have two active story arcs going at a time. This means, by extension, you should probably only be working on two contacts at a time. This has a number of benefits, including (but not limited to) making sure that you do everything they have to offer before moving on. The drawback is that youve got this spiffy mission drop-down menu that can hold three things, so what are you to do?
I advise always having either a newspaper mission in your queue, or the ability to call Warburg to pick up a mission there. Ill deal with Warburg first, because if youre like me and didnt get into this game for the PvP, your stomach may curdle a bit when you think about entering a PvP zone.
One of the rules I set for myself, when I decided that I was absolutely NOT going to run out of regular content before 45, was that if I had an open slot and a reason to go to St. Martial, Id call ahead and get a Warburg mission. These have a number of plus-sides.
First, theyre all Longbow. Yes, that means dealing with Spec-Ops, but since they usually only come one to a spawn, you kill them first, then move along to whoever is the next most-threatening individual. Nobodys as bad as Spec-Ops, to me, but hey its just because I like endurance.
Longbow are nice because theyre worth 10% more xp than other spawns. And since you cant get a mission in Warburg, as far as I know, that isnt a Defeat all Longbow in some form (aside from the patrol mission, which gives you a hyperphase temp power that is worth having), theyre pretty good for moving your bar. You also get a bigger mission completion bonus for running missions in a PvP zone, even solo.
Getting to and from the missions can be a little hair-raising, since as youre probably aware, Warburg is a free-for-all zone. That means that youre fair game for Stalkers. Not as big a deal if youre a Brute with lots of hit points, but a bigger deal for our squishier kin. The nice thing is, even when I have a somewhat slow load into the zone, I usually have 25 or so seconds to get to the mission door, and about the same to get from the mission door back to the zone entrance. I typically run out of time somewhere in there, but by the time I do, I (a) know that Im clear, (b) have identified any potential threats and activated appropriate defenses, or (c) am already dead. However, I have NEVER been killed going to or from a mission in Warburg (or any other PvP zone, for that matter) when I didnt elect to stop and fight. Make sure you have a handful of break frees available, and if youre really worried, munch one before you head for the mission and another as soon as you step out the door. And if youre really paranoid, then run the patrol mission first, get the hyperphase, and use it for the time that youre going to and from the mission. Being intangible makes it hard for assassin strikes to connect.
The newspaper missions are another bag entirely. My advice is to try to mix it up a little. Yes, you could do nothing but the Defeat [boss] and Steal the [glowie] missions. You could even stealth to the end and just clear the last room, since thats all you have to do to complete the mish.
I advise against this, at least as your standard course of action. Stealthing/superspeeding/jumping/skateboarding through the mission will get you done, but it wont get you a lot of xp. And xp is what you need, from non-contact missions, to keep you from running out of content.
The added bonus to running newspaper missions is that you get to run MAYHEM MISSIONS. (I capitalize them because they are, in my opinion, the best thing to be added to the game since I started playing. I (heart) mayhem.) Do five paper missions and head for Founders Falls, where the Devouring Earth wait with the keys to glory.
Heres the short form of my advice on mayhem: Destroy everything that will give you time bonuses, kill everything you find, and try not to spawn more than one longbow ambush at a time. Do all the side missions, because single origins are good and temp powers are cool, or if thats all you really want, just go straight to the raiding and smash and grab side missions. The kidnap one can be a pain (especially in FF, where the idiot can decide to stand in the middle of the canal and never move again), but by and large, mayhem missions are a great way to have fun, break stuff, and get xp.
I had been pretty impressed when I realized that my little 15-minute mayhem missions averaged about an hour to complete, and gave me about a bars worth of experience. However, I did some comparing and saw that in that same time, running standard missions, I would tend to complete around three-four, and get in the neighborhood of 1.2 bars of experience. So mayhem missions dont offer you the same xp/minute as normal missions, but thats not what makes me say, Do Mayhem whenever you can! What makes me say that is that they give you more xp per MISSION. Again, the way to make it from 40-45 without having to do long stretches of nothing but newspaper/mayhem/Warburg missions is to not run yourself out of contacts. Which leads me to my next two rules.
Rule 3: Always have three missions in your queue.
Rule 3a: Never have more than two missions from actual contacts in your queue.
Those of you who are astute will notice that what Im describing as a way to keep from running out of content is, in fact, exactly what happens when you run out of content. If you want to run solo, though, theres no way around it. My philosophy is simply that if youre going to end up doing the repetitive missions anyway, space them out. Make it something that you do when YOU feel like it, between other missions, or to help build dramatic tension before you go into a big boss fight. And hey, the newspaper missions arent nearly as repetitive as they were any more, since in addition to the Council and Circle of Thorns, youve now got Freakshow, Carnies, and Malta who pop up in the papers and the classic bank jobs. So you can actually use this content, which people complain so much about, to spice up the contacts.
It works surprisingly well.
Around the start of level 44, I ended up abandoning rule 3a. I hadnt finished off Westin Phipps (I was waiting for the knockback bug to be fixed), hadnt started the Mage Hunter, still had missions from Arbiter Daos, and may have had something else going on as well. Plus, I had less than a third of a bar for the toxic tarantula badge (Venomous) that you need to unlock Number 204. So while I kept three missions in my queue, I dont know that I did any Mayhem after I hit 44. Ive had Wiggy waiting for me, and now Im hoping that I get to go to PI and tangle with Knives and Kheldian cops.
So use your judgment. If you get a ways into the leveling process and decide that youve got a lot of content left to see, go ahead and see if you can get three contacts going at once, and when youre ready, go back to interspersing the paper missions and Warburg fun.
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
Topic IV: Contacts
WARNING: There is information in this section that might be considered "spoilers". I stayed away from talking about actual story stuff, for the most part, but if you want to know nothing about the contacts going in, you're probably better off not reading this portion of the guide.
First things first: One of the easiest ways to run out of content very quickly in the 40-45 range is to have old story arcs open. Basically, the contact system works like this: Contacts have both story arcs and non-arc missions (for the most part). If you already have two open story arcs and get a new contact, they will give you their non-arc missions . . . and nothing else. You will talk to them, you will do everything they ask, and then they will stop giving you the option to be told about available missions. The annoying thing is, their contact bar wont be full. You wont be to the kindred level yet, youll still be futzing around as a comrade or some such.
If you have this happen if any of the contacts (other than your patron, who will give you two more arcs after you hit 45) stop talking to you before their bar is full then you need to immediately head back to the lower-level zones. Go to each of your old contacts, in person, and talk to them until you find one who will give you missions. You may be able to figure out which contacts are still open by checking your Clues menu to see if you have outstanding clues from anyone, but thats not always the case. One of my greatest annoyances with CoX is that you dont actually have to TAKE a mission to open a story arc. If you look at what a contact has to offer and decide not to do a mission (say, theyre offering you a timed mission, and its late at night and youre ready for bed), but that mission would have started a story arc, you are now stuck with that story arc. It only takes seeing the mission description line, it doesnt take actually beginning the arc.
Even if you do begin an arc, though, not every arc will give you a clue immediately. So youre going to have to go chase through your old contact list until you find whos holding out on you.
Im going to assume, if youre a soloist, that this isnt going to happen very often. I mean, if you want to solo 40-45, you probably wanted to solo 35-40, and if you did that you pretty much had to bleed every contact dry. But if youve done something wacky like moved servers and left your old SG behind, or just decided that you wanted to be able to take your time and read clues and really enjoy the cool end-of-arc maps, that may not be the case.
From here on in, Im just going to figure that youve not got open arcs. Well start with your welcome to Grandville.
There are two contacts you can access without doing any paper missions for your new broker, Wiggy the Brit. These are Arbiter Rein, who will introduce you to your patron, and Ambassador KuhrRekt. Ill deal with KuhrRekt first, since the patrons are a potentially sticky issue.
KuhrRekt is a Rikti ambassador who hangs out inside Grandville city hall. He has some fun missions and some cool temp powers, and gives you the chance to fight a couple of heroic types. Hes technically an unlockable contact, but the requirements for unlocking him are such that unless youve avoided getting any badges for 40 levels, he will probably talk to you. (I think the requirement is the Native badge, according to one site.) My only complaint about KuhrRekt was that he spent so much time sending me to Nerva. I spent most of my early to mid-30s there, and while the zone has an interesting feel to it, nothing is convenient. Traveling in Nerva is a lot like shopping in a Wal-Mart supercenter; everything is there, but nothing is where you think it ought to be.
I finished KuhrRekt first, then started in on paper missions to get my first real contact. I skipped making a decision about a patron at this point; I wasnt sure if I even wanted to have one.
While I did take one (Spiders Kiss ftw!), I realized once I got to 45 that it would have been harder to make it to 45 without spending at least a few bubbles toward the end grinding papers if I hadnt. If youre really interested in the content, theres not much reason not to take a patron; they offer something different (I wasnt wild about some of GWs missions, but thats all right) and, depending on the patron, maybe some other random coolness. In addition, depending on your reason for choosing the patron, you may find yourself in some interesting situations, which can help you get inside your characters head. (Ignore that comment if you arent a roleplayer, since it wont make much sense; but I am kind of an old-school roleplayer, and like having my character faced with tough decisions, even when they arent things I can really decide about given the game parameters. That being said, I dont remember having any of those moments from 1-40, but I had at least two from 40-45.)
The second contact I actually took was Terrence Dobbs. I took Phipps on the test server prior to I7s launch, and had this horrendous visceral reaction to his first couple of missions. Which, I suppose, is a testament to the fact that theyre doing what theyre supposed to do. I had almost talked myself into skipping Phipps entirely, but realized how foolish that would be. So while I didnt take Phipps first (or even second), I did take him and run his arcs.
To note: It is possible to not run more newspaper missions and just be introduced to your contacts by other contacts. This is true, I think, even for the first-tier contacts (Dobbs, Phipps, and Korol), so that its theoretically possible to only run 5 paper missions and one Mayhem in Grandville.
It should be clear based on the previous discussion that I discourage you from doing this. If you blow through all your contacts, you really will have no choice but to grind. I made myself do enough paper missions to open all of my first-tier contacts, then another for good measure. Id have to go and count temp powers to see for sure how many I ended up doing, but since I can think of at least seven times I did the Raiding mission (shotgun, wave scrambler, heavy rock, flame thrower, web grenade, tear gas, and something which I guess was the games way of saying Youve already got the temp power we randomly generated for you, so you dont get anything this time), Im sure I may have run even more.
With Dobbs arc, keep an eye out for Biff; if you dont have a Shivan Shard to help take him down, you may want to recruit a friend. Other than that, its an interesting arc that I never really felt reached any kind of conclusion. Three stars.
Regent Korol is one of my pet peeves from this range. I kind of THOUGHT that I ran three story arcs for her. If I did, she never acknowledged my work, since I never once got an arc completion bonus, nor did she ever give me a single-origin for my trouble. I dont know if shes bugged or if she doesnt actually give story arcs, though I suppose I could check my souvenirs to see if I have any from her. Tech support, when I /bugged this, said that I had gotten the appropriate reward, which I really couldnt interpret. Does that mean I got stealth xp, or does it mean Korol just doesnt give arc completion bonuses? The world may never know.
Then theres Westin Phipps. My character hated this guy. Hated him enough that he failed one story arc on purpose, then shrugged when he failed a second arc. (A pair of +2 bosses you arent supposed to let escape, one room away from the entrance, is a pretty cruddy thing to do to a brute.) Of the three arcs Phipps offered, I only succeeded at the last one. Then he started giving me non-arc missions, and would have kept giving me more if I hadnt gone and hit 45. My Phipps bar is never going to be full. Oh, the horror, that well never be kindred. The man is scum. Hes one who, if youre interested, will really give your character something to chew on. I hate him, and everything he stands for, but his arcs are probably some of the best in the game. (As an added bonus, one of the missions I chose to fail was a map full of Longbow, with a fairly squishy elite boss at the end; rather than just start the mission and let the timer run down, I took advantage of the presence of so many bonus XP types and cleared the map three times by exiting and resetting before the timer ran out. Again, if youre going to be stuck with repetitive content, choose your own.)
Your second-tier contacts in this range include Mage Hunter Zuhkara (three arcs, plus a non-arc badge mission), Arbiter Daos (two arcs and a couple of temp powers), and Dr. Forrester (one arc and a badge mission), so if youre either a badge hunter or a temp power collector, this set of contacts is going to be important to you. Like I said earlier, I only finished Zuhkara after hitting 45. I liked her arcs, and am surprised more people havent objected to her the way others object to Phipps, since shes about as close to racist as youre going to get in the game. Shes got a serious hate-on for magely types, which makes me wonder what its going to be like to play my magic-origin Brute through her content whenever I get there. Im assuming it wont be any different, though it would be kind of cool if it were. The best thing about Zuhkara is the last mission in her last arc; its one of those maps that Ive never seen before, the kind that the devs seem to only roll out for the end of big story arcs and some strike forces. I didnt really understand everything that happened in that last mission (I think theres a bugged NPC in it), but I gleefully smashed my way through it, then settled in to let a couple of Ice Thorn Casters beat on me for a damage badge while I went to work. When I got home, I saw that Id managed to make it all of 15 minutes before I got disconnected from the server. Oh well.
I think the only contact Ive not mentioned so far is Number 204. I saved 204 for last because I had such a hard time unlocking her.
You wouldnt think the Venomous badge would be so hard to get. I know I didnt. But its 200 toxic tarantulas. TWO-HUNDRED. Those are bosses. That do toxic damage. That nobody has great resists against. Being worried that I would outlevel 204, somewhere around the end of 43 or the beginning of 44, I made a new rule for myself: Whenever I was jumping around Grandville on my way to a mission, I would pause on the platforms that are up and right when you exit city hall and kill at least five of the big spiders. By the time I got to the last bubble of 44, I still had almost half the progress bar to fill, and I spent probably the last 2/3 of that bar doing nothing but hunting yellow and white toxics.
This is one where, if you get a chance to team up, you should do it. Teams for this make things go much more quickly, and while you get okay experience for the toxics, it was almost as boring of a grind for me as the endless paper missions in St. Martial. Plus, even with as careful as Id been, I still managed to level about 3 toxic tarantulas before I got the badge. Thankfully, 204 still gave me missions (Ive run one so far, and have another sitting and waiting for me); Id been worried she was actually a 40-44 contact, rather than the 40-45 she was advertised as being. Color me relieved.
Rule 4: Manage your contacts carefully. If you have to unlock contacts, know what the requirements are and do what you can to fulfill them. If youre worried youre going to not have enough to do based on a given contacts missions, dont be ashamed to farm a mission or two. And dont trust the contacts to introduce you to each other; earn them. Youll be glad you did.
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
Topic V: Badges
Another thing Ive found that helps me pass the time and earn a little experience is badge-hunting. Im not saying that you ought to become a full-on badge lover if you arent already, but with exploration badges now giving a little XP, and with a couple of fairly challenging kill badges being required by contacts, you have the chance to engage in yet another set of activities that will keep your contacts live.
Ive already mentioned the Venomous badge, required by Number 204. Theres another badge much more painful required by one of the 45-50 contacts, which you can do some work on in the 40-45 range. This is the Infiltrator badge, for which you must defeat 200 of Creys Paragon Protectors. (The contact Viridian also requires you to have the Tracer badge (for Tsoo sorcerers) and the Tank Buster badge (for Freakshow bosses); you may already have those, but if not, the Freaks you can at least get from paper missions.) The Paragon Protector badge is a challenge over on the hero side, but the heroes at least have zones where PPs spawn in quantity. There are apparently a few PP Elites that spawn up in the northern part of Grandville, in the Fab, but you arent going to be going after them any time soon; theyre 49-50 range. Fortunately, there are a few missions in the 40-45 range that will help. I can think of one in particular from Dr. Forrester that I kept in my queue for a while because it would give me 2-3 PPs every time I ran it.
But I get bored pretty easily, and I wasnt about to run that mission 70 times to get a badge. I made some progress, though, and I suppose that since Viridians a 45-50 contact, Im not likely to out-level him.
The important thing with badges, in this context, is really just that they break up the grind. The easiest way to run out of content is to do nothing BUT content. Anything you can do to avoid that whether its beach-sweeping in Sharkhead or farming the odd mission for rare spawn-types is going to help you keep from doing the same thing, over and over and over.
There are some good sites out there with information on badges. I won't bother linking to them, since about everyone knows where badge-hunter.com and badge-[censored].com are. Just Google "CoV Badges" and you'll learn everything you need to know.
Rule 5: If the missions start to feel like a "grind," find something else to do, either in the game or out. Badges worked for me, especially once I knew accolade requirements, so if you're into that, find out what badge channels exist on your server and join up!
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
VI. Other thoughts
So, whats left? Not a whole lot. In the end, I managed to milk the 40-45 contacts all the way up to around 45.6 before doing anything else. Now, at 47.5 (with only 7 or so bubbles attributable to double-xp weekend), Ive completed one of my new contacts (I finished off the Patron arc), and have been running missions for Vernon von Grun and the Television (both of whom seem to offer a lot of missions, so I may start going through contacts more quickly in the near future). Ive also run a couple of Peregrine Island mayhem missions, and even teamed up with one of my wifes toons a few times (learning, in the process, that its a bad idea to lackey up a low-level stalker when youre running on Ruthless, since boss spawns in mayhem missions will give you two bosses with two people on Ruthless, and thats a lot harder than one!).
In the end, just remember that the point of this is to have fun. Its a game. Use my advice, or dont. I wont be offended. But I found a way that worked to get me through a set of levels that I have heard a lot of people having trouble with, and thought Id share.
Take care, and happy gaming!
~Wyrm
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
Great Guide! Just one small correction to offer.[ QUOTE ]
Topic IV: Contacts
KuhrRekt is a Rikti ambassador who hangs out inside Grandville city hall. He has some fun missions and some cool temp powers, and gives you the chance to fight a couple of heroic types. Hes technically an unlockable contact, but the requirements for unlocking him are such that unless youve avoided getting any badges for 40 levels, he will probably talk to you. (I think the requirement is the Native badge, according to one site.)
[/ QUOTE ]He actually unlocks with "Visitor" for 25 badges. A friend of mine discovered this during the RV level-bump event on test as I watched over his shoulder.
Again, a great guide!
It's not how many times you get knocked down that count. It's how many times you get up.
Thanks for the correction! I'd edit it to reflect that, but it appears I've passed the maximum edit time. I didn't know such a beast existed.
Glad you liked the guide.
~Wyrm
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
[ QUOTE ]
Regent Korol is one of my pet peeves from this range. I kind of THOUGHT that I ran three story arcs for her. If I did, she never acknowledged my work, since I never once got an arc completion bonus, nor did she ever give me a single-origin for my trouble. I dont know if shes bugged or if she doesnt actually give story arcs, though I suppose I could check my souvenirs to see if I have any from her. Tech support, when I /bugged this, said that I had gotten the appropriate reward, which I really couldnt interpret. Does that mean I got stealth xp, or does it mean Korol just doesnt give arc completion bonuses? The world may never know.
[/ QUOTE ]
Regent Korol gave me a grand total of seven door missions, plus a Grandville patrol mission. Yes, she was a big disappointment. But she did have one mission I really liked, saving her spiderlings in a map of the big Grandville tower. [Which is fun for my flying brute, but I imagine it could be a pain for super speeders.]
Small added tip to this great guide (I hope I didn't miss this one, I read through it, but work kept interupting, so may have skipped a few paragraphs here and there):
When you are close to finishing a storyarc (you can usually tell by the mission descriptions, or having it done before), make sure you aren't close to level up before accepting the mission.
Reason beeing, the story arc exp is awarded based on the level you took the mission on, not when you finished it. So if you level up during the final mission, and then call the contact to get the souvenir, you get less exp, since the game calculates the exp based on your current level vs. the level you took the mission.
So when you notice the next mission might be the final one, and you are close to level up, run a paper or two quick, finish the level, then finish the story arc and get full exp.
Its hard to log on to the forums and not come across someone saying that theyve reached some point between levels 41 and 43 and run out of content in City of Villains. This is obviously frustrating, since while that doesnt mean you have to resort to street sweeping (thank you, developers, for coming up with an alternative to that!), it does mean that you will end up seeing some amount of repetitive content. Whether this is in the form of newspaper missions or Warburg missions, doing the same thing over and over can get pretty dull. In fact, that grind is the main reason that I felt a need to write this guide. You see, I ran out of content somewhere toward the end of level 38, and did the entirety of level 39 running paper missions in St. Martial. It was mind-numbing stuff, but I was able to complete a mission (not clear, just complete), run to a random contact, pick up 2-3 more purples, head to the next paper mission, run to the end, chew purples, pound BOSS_NAME and guards, and be done in 5-6 minutes. Lather, rinse, repeat.
So having done that, I realized I never, ever, wanted to do it again. When I was able to pick my Brute up again when I7 came out, I resolved to be more careful and not have to go into the paper grind at 43, or even at 44.
This morning, I leveled my Brute my first villain to reach 40, and still my main to 45. As it stands, I still have missions from Westin Phipps and Mage Killer Zuhkara to do, and only opened up one of the unlockable contacts after hitting 45. So Im going to provide some advice, things Ive gleaned from others on the forums, and just general pithy commentary on how you can successfully navigate from 40-45 without running out of content.
Perhaps the biggest disclaimer should be pretty clear: Im writing this from the perspective of someone whose two no, make that three highest-level villains are all Brutes, with the next two being Masterminds. In other words, I tend to gravitate toward solo-friendly classes in CoV. The advice I give may or may not work if you play a Corrupter, and while it may work for a Stalker, itll take a while. As to Dominators . . . well, I dont know. Ive never played one past 14, so its hard for me to say.
The guide is going to cover several topics. These are, in no particular order:
I. Teaming
II. Difficulty
III. Newspapers and Warburg (and Mayhem, oh my!)
IV. Contacts (beware -- spoilers!)
V. Badges
VI. Other Thoughts
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.