I was considering going through and updating this in light of the freespec about to be issued, but the only thing that really needs changing is to mention that you can now get dropped or buy from the Consignment Markets respec recipes that will recharge your freespec if you have already used it up. You should be sure not to craft them until you are certain you have used your freespec.
R_M'S GUIDE TO USING RESPECS [I8]
Even with all the excellent guides and good character-building advice in the world, you will probably make a mistake in building your character sooner or lateror maybe you already have. But never fearthat's what character respecification, or respecs, are for. A respec gives you the chance to rebuild your character from the ground up, correcting any mistakes you might have made along the way.
You will have access to three "normal" or "earned" respecs over the life of your character, from doing the Terra Volta Reactor or Nerva Archipelago Thorn Tree Task or Strike Forces, one respec from choosing a Patron if you are a villain, one "freebie" respec (often referred to as a "freespec") that comes along at irregular intervals (such as at major holidays or some new Issue releases), and possibly one or more bonus respecs that come from the new Veteran Rewards system introduced in Issue 8. If you have used your previous freebie, it will be refreshed when the next freebie is issued. However, if you have not used it by then, you will lose it; you can only have one freebie respec at a time and the new one will replace the old one. Likewise, you should only "claim" (i.e. redeem by pressing the "claim" button in the Veteran Rewards badge screen) one Veteran Reward respec at a time, as it appears that claiming a second will cause the first one to be lost if it has not been used. The Patron respec does stack with the earned respecs, and is used in the same way. Note that it is not possible to use a respec of any kind before your character reaches level 3.
If you have obtained or been given at least one respec, you may be wondering just what to do with it now that you have it. That's where this guide comes in.
This guide will be divided into three sections:
<ul type="square">[*]Considering the Respec will cover things you should consider before you ever begin the respec procedure.[*]Performing the Respec will cover planning, testing, and then committing your new build.[*]The Respec Interface will cover things you should be aware of while actually using the respec system.[/list]CONSIDERING THE RESPEC
Before the question of how to respec, there are a few things to think about in regard to setting up for the procedure.
<ul type="square">[*]Always use your "freebie" respec, if you have one, before using one of the ones you earned from a Task Force, Strike Force, Patron, or Veteran Reward. Your freebie will eventually be replaced, but the others will notand it's always possible you might need them someday if you make a mistake in choosing a new power, or a change to a power important to you comes with no freebie granted.
To find out if you have a freebie, as well as to use it if you do have it, type /respec into the chat box. If you have a free respec available to you, the respec screen will appear (and you can simply click "Cancel" to exit from it until you are ready to use it for real); otherwise you will receive an error message and will have to visit your respec contact (Jack Wolfe inside the Freedom Corps HQ in Galaxy City for heroes; Arbiter Lupin standing just east of the trainer in Nerva for villains) to respec. Note that if you have a freebie available shortly before you know another one will be issued, you may wish to go ahead and use it even if you do not wish to make any extensive changes (for example, to unslot and sell back slotted enhancements, as explained below).[*]Before you begin the respec procedure, you may want to take a screenshot with the user-interface windows enabled. (If you do not already have a macro set up for this, type /screenshotui 1 and then hit print-screen and then type /screenshotui 0 to set it back to no-GUI again.) After you respec, the order of the powers and macros and so forth in your trays will be scrambled up, and having a screenshot handy will help you remember what powers went where.[*]Some people are very careful to plan their respecs to come only when they have reached levels that end in 2 or 7. (22, 27, 32, etc.) This way, they can sell off all the white or yellow Enhancements they currently have slotted and buy completely new green ones of the next rank up after the respec. This has the benefit of "recycling" all the otherwise wasted slotted Enhancements for a much-needed monetary infusion. (Some people will do this even if they do not otherwise need a respec at all, to recover the cash that would otherwise be lostespecially if they have a freebie available and know another one will soon be replacing it.)
If this is your first character on a particular server, or you make a habit of playing exclusively in Supergroup mode past level 25, then this money you recover may well be an important consideration for you. Even if not, you might wish to postpone a power-changing respec you are considering until you reach a ?2 or ?7 level to obtain the extra benefit from something you would be doing anyway (not to mention avoiding the tedium of dragging and dropping dozens of Enhancements into place during the respec). It would probably be most worthwhile to do this at levels 27 and up, when the sold-off Enhancements would be SOs.[/list]PERFORMING THE RESPEC
Given the rarity of respecs, you should make utterly certain that you do not make a mistake before you burn one. This can take a bit of effort and thought, but in the end the feeling of utter certainty that you have done it right is worth the extra trouble. You can, of course, skip any of these steps that you want to, and you probably will once you get more experienced building your characters. If this is your first respec, however, you had better take as much care as you can.
<ul type="square">[*]Plan first. Use a character-building program such as Sherk Silver's Character Builder to spec out your prospective new build. While doing this, pay special attention to the order in which you select your powers. Remember that you will probably be exemplaring or malefactoring to lower levels more than once in your careerfor helping friends, adventuring in PVP zones, doing Task/Strike Forces, and so on. Make sure that you take your most important powers as early as possible so you will have them when you exemplar.
Once you have put together your prospective build, use the export function and copy and paste it into a post on the archetype's forum, asking other people to critique the build for possible weaknesses. Make any changes you feel are warranted based on their suggestions, then when you're ready, print out a final version of the build to keep next to your computer for reference when you do the in-game respec.[*]Test next. Copy your character over to the Training Room, and run the respec there. You may wish to copy your character multiple times if you think you will be testing more than one potential build. (If you are using an earned, Patron, or Veteran Reward respec, you may want to position your character on next to Jack Wolfe or Arbiter Lupin on the live server before you copy, so you can start the respec as soon as you load up the Training Room; if you are using a free respec, you might want to position next to your origin's Enhancement store so you can buy what you need after you finish your /respec.)
Slot all your new powers completely, rearrange your power trays, and then go run some missions. This may seem like a great deal of wasted effort, but having the chance to play your build before you commit to it can uncover potential weaknesses you hadn't ever considered. If you find the build doesn't work out as well as you had hoped, return to the first step and try again.[*]Commit last. After running through as many iterations of planning and testing as you feel are necessary, use the respec on the live server. Be very careful to make sure you make no mistakes. After thatyou're done![/list]THE RESPEC INTERFACE
When you start to respec, you will be presented with a power selection screen similar to your training screen. You will get to choose each of your powers first, then where to put each of your Enhancement slots after all powers are selected. Next you will get to slot the powers with the Enhancements that were removed from the powers, then sell off any that remain and you'll be done. Here are some things to remember to make the procedure easier.
<ul type="square">[*]Because the interface doesn't tell you what level's power slot you are selecting, you should select the powers in the order they're printed out on that Character Builder print-out you made earlier. You may also wish to say aloud to yourself what level you are filling as you select it, to help keep from getting confused. Remember that if you do get confused, you can always click the back arrow until you get back to an earlier poweror even until you exit out of the respec entirely.[*]The order in which you add Enhancement slots to the powers does not matter for purposes of exemplaring; a power has all the slots you put on it, though their effectiveness may be reduced proportionately when exemplared lower down. You may nonetheless have to add slots to powers in something reasonably close to the order in which you slotted them on the build sheet, to keep from finding yourself with slots available to place but the place you want to put them not open yet. If you make a mistake, you can click the back arrow to reverse your slotting decisions step by step.[*]When it comes time to slot the Enhancements into the Enhancement slots, be sure and move any Enhancements you want to keep but not slot into the 10-space row that represents your inventory. You should put any unslotted Hami-Os, Hydra-Os, Titan-Os, or Invention Enhancements in there, even if you have outlevelled or do not intend to use them; you won't get any money for them in the buy-back, so you might as well give or trade them to someone else. And, of course, you do not have to re-slot any Enhancements at all; you can simply sell them all back to buy new ones (especially if you have just hit a level ending in 2 or 7).[/list]CONCLUSION
The respec is a great mechanism for straightening out character foul-ups. However, it is a limited resource, so it is important to be sure you get it right the first time. With the advice given in this guide, you will hopefully stand a much better chance of that.
[/ QUOTE ]Changes from prior version: Updated to mention Patron & Veteran Reward respecs, added note about the importance of the order in which you choose powers, minor tweaks here and there for clarity.