Yes, the only things that have to be the same between builds are primary and secondary pools. You can pick different regular pools (so, for instance, one build flies and the other teleports), different epic pools, and in the case of the Villain Epic Archetypes (which free players don't have access to) different paths. My first Arachnos Soldier has a Crab Spider build and a Bane Spider build, for instance. And now that my Widow is high enough level to pick a path (Night Widow), I might give him a Fortunata build later on.

---Dave

Phoey.... I'm still on the fence about giving mor a more true-to-mystic powerset.... even if she'd become a spawn ripoff....

Ehh, she might get stuck with exploding shurikens over summoning black demon power.

Hey.... what's the Deal with Dark Astoria? I was running a mission, actually earning some enhancements I can save for later, and when I get there it's locked up and an NPC says it's on lockdown. It's tag has even been removed from the map.

They remodeling the joint or something?

Yep. It's now an Incarnate zone as of issue 22.

So where does that leave the rest of us non-paying shlubs who have buisness within? If their going to close it they could at least go through to make sure no free missions lead into it.

I assume they've removed DA from the of possible mission locations.

Considering how I just got a mission to go in there to clean-up 30 Pantheon corpses.... that would be a definate negatory.

Huh. Weird. Well, you can get to the old one via Ouroborous, I'd expect.

How though? I ran through the initiation and the space-squids mission, and I still can't do any time warping.

Inside by the big pillar, IIRC. Talk to the smaller pillars to set your zone, then the big one to go there. I've not done much, so I don't remember exactly.

There should be a transporter to "Echo of Dark Astoria" around the back of the Oro temple. The random street monsters will still be there, and presumably still work for completing your mission.

You can always use the Complete option on that mission, of course. I'm not sure how much access you have to the support tab as a free player, but if you can't get into a DA echo and don't want to burn your completion for the three day span, you can try bug-reporting it and get a GM to mark it complete for you.

---Dave

Finished running the DA arc on Zoot last night... The last few missions had me go "This must be the sound of my brain imploding" from all the stuff in it. I don't know if anyone ever ran a Developper's Favorite arc from Architect called "Saul Rubenstein's Discount Task Force"? That actually made me think of that.

Why? That arc is basically a light-hearted comedy architect arc. There's a mission in it where the mission briefing tells you there's a mother of all fights involving multiple factions, among others, Hamidon and a Kronos Titan. The briefing urges you to enter, and when you do you spawn in a devastated zone. The mission start popup tells you that you got here after the smackdown ended, and how "awesome the fight must have been, if only you could have seen it!!!". Well the last mission felt like that, but you ARE in the fight. I mean Dream Doctor telling me "we even got Malta sending a Kronos Titan to support you" had me thinking of the arc in question, but entering the battlefield and SEEING the Kronos (Conning as a friendly!!!) open fire on a huge mob of BPs... AND FALLING to them while nearby the Vindicators were fighting more, helping Arachnos troops (also conning friendlty) had me do a mental Blue Screen induced by the awesomeness of that mission.

LOVE the new DA stuff. I'll probably run the trial tonight.

So I reinstalled the game tonight, been feeling the super powered itch. Didn't realize I'd actually filled up all my VIP character slots (Rampantm Altaholism.) and decided to start fresh.

Night Raider's been a fun character, don't get me wrong, but ultimately he's not what I'd call "Big Leagues" Material. He's better suited to beating up the Family then tussling with Dark Gods. So, I decided to revive an old favorite of mine (Ironically one that I *didn't* have on my character slots but the name is still available):



Mister Astonishing is back, baby! Decided to revamp his costume while I was at it, all in all I actually rather dig it.

Villain wise, Grinmace has just lost his appeal as time goes on. So I've decided to start over on the Villain front. Unfortunately, I've come to the sad conclusion after a hour and a half of playing with concepts that I *suck* at coming up with good villains. Or at least ones that aren't just blatant knock offs of Batman's gallery *Eyes Grinmace, Hyper Borean, Plant Gal, and Professor of Panic*.

So I have no idea if I'm going to keep this guy, but here he is anyway:



Doctor Giger, a Rad/Fire Blaster. The Radiation Blast power pool has always interested me, I just can never come up with a viable concept.

Yeah... though now that I know how to use the time warp I can just go back and run the actual missions....

Thing is I ran around up there and didn't see a new transporter for Astoria... unless they've opened it back up and re-purpoused the transporter....

oh the confusion!

It's the same secondary Oro port in back for both. Now you can swap between Oro, Galaxy and DA.

Pinkemina spawned in the echo.

---Dave

Ahhh... ok.

BTW... know anywhere else a hero can go kill some Snakes other than alignment missions... Mor is 4 away from getting the damn Mongoose badge, and like... 3 kills away from reaching lvl 30.

Not that I know of.

But you can disable xp, if you want: open up the options tab, and if memory serves it's in "miscellaneous".Checking this will prevent you from getting any xp, so you can run missions without worrying about levelling up.

If it weren't for alignment missions, heroes couldn't kill Snakes at all, as far as I know. They're almost exclusively a villain enemy group...Mercy Island and Port Oakes, plus some Elder Snakes missions at L45-50 in Grandville. According to the wiki, the hypothermal lab mission is the ONLY heroside snake source.

---Dave

My Little Banespawn: Banished Pantheon were never so adorable!



---Dave

Yeah, got the whole 'dark astoria' mess fixed up, got my mongoose badge, and move on up to the big 30...

now I can't figgure out what to pick up for my new power.

Resiliance.... Instant healing.... or Flurry (I did get that 'sands of tembo' or whatever... and realize I forgot how I love flurry).

Resilience. It's your set's protection from status effects (Holds, etc), and that becomes VERY important at higher levels, especially when soloing without backup.

Sands of Mu is one of the things you get as a veteran's reward fairly early on (used to be 12 months, now I think you can grab it after three paid months, maybe four), but having the mission-based version is nice when you're starting out. Keep in mind it's a mix of Smashing and Negative, so it won't be so effective on ghost types. Maneuvering so as to catch an entire trio of minions in it is a good exercise in positional awareness, though.

---Dave

Funny thing though... I haven't really had to deal with any holds for Moritori. Dunno if it's the Integration & Combat Jumping combo, but when I was taking on that mage in Oroboros... I could just walk my way out of his holds.

So.... it's something I'd have to pay for... man.

Yeah, I have already figgured out how to finnagle that. Boost up damage and you can easily kill, if not severely whittle down, everybodies health. Although, I have found it DOES work pretty good on thoes damn circle daemons.

Derp. Integration is your mez protect, not Resilience, my mistake.

ETA: Resilience gives some Damage Resistance and a resistance to Disorient, with the bonus of being an always-on power. Even if your endurance goes away, you still have some mez defense. That said, since soloing lets you wait between fights for long-recharge powers if you want, Instant Healing is probably a better choice.

---Dave

Game fall down, go boom. All servers, as far as I can tell, even the Eurozone.

---Dave

So.... additional toughness, or another method of boosting the ole health bar. Both good options.

Man why did I have to get stuck at the point where there are no easy answers?

Eh, you can grab the other one in a couple levels.

So... this last weekend was Double-XP weekend. Huh. Well, makes sense with Geiger going up the ladder to get her Nuking ability. Despite being left completely helpless afterwards (unless you have the right insp) I'm loving it. Boost that sucker up and you can REALLY clean house!

I wonder if I can enhance it to less of my energy. It's suggested, but would they really be dickish enough to make it compatable and for it not to do any good?

Yeah... Less Energy and boost def de-buffs NEXT lvl

*UPDATE* ... y'know, I forgot what I grabbed for Mori. I've had her chilling in Estoria's cemetary for that badge.

I had a good DXP too. Got an old tanker on Virtue up to 46 (Mothership raid, Imperious Taskforce, Moonfire Taskforce, total of 6 levels) and transferred him to a server where I lacked anything high level. And last night I capped it by getting Solar Max, my first Peacebringer, up to L50.

---Dave

I was never a fan of levelling too quickly, so I tend to use my 50s on DXP. Hey, Double XP also meanss Double Inf, so I don't lose much.

I did use it to get my scrapper up a level, and half a level on Stella Obscura - but that may have been wasted effort as I'm thinking of "killing her off" (i.e. transfered to another server to free up a slot, but not deleting her because I can't justify deleting a level 30 character)

I originally made Stella as a counterpart/rival for Star-Fall, but Caligno Nova fills that role so much better that she feels redundant now.

It depends on the level range, and the character.

Someone I can solo at high levels, I'm more likely to take it slow and work through the story arcs, and by this time I've done most of the 40-49 content on some character or other. I haven't done much in the Shadow Shard, but almost no one goes there anymore (sadly).

But on a solo-unfriendly character, I'd rather work on getting at least to the alpha shift so if I want to go back and do the 45-50 mission arcs I can survive the experience.

I certainly don't want to start a new character on DXP, as it's easy enough normally to level up into the teens and there's some important waypoints along the way I don't want to miss (which reminds me, I need to take a few characters through the Fortuneteller mission via Oro soon, they did Moonfire this weekend and earned the defeat badges needed for Atlas Medallion). So, except for the supergroup stuff last night (we ran both of the new Steel Canyon arcs), I stuck with L40+ toons for DXP. They level slowly enough as it is.

---Dave

Oh I know all about levleling too quickly.... GG got shoved up past 20 doing only 'death from below'.

But yeah, Nuke is fun.... but you gotta be careful or your dead. Shot it off too quick on a gaggle of Council, so I had to run screaming past freaks, crey, ect... before finding a decent place to hide and heal.

New toon:



---Dave

Was there even an announcement about 2XP weekend? I did not even know about it until now.... Kinda late....

Usually I get an email at least.

I think they announced it over a month ago, I've known about it for a good while

I have so many information streams that I can't recall if it was emailed out or not.

In other news, I'm not going to be buying Beast Mastery yet, although I might if it goes on sale in the future. I just don't really get on well with the Mastermind archetype, even with the help of keybinds. Too much like running a tower defense game within the game, or something.

---Dave

Ok... GG is going up against the Devouring Earth to stop them from invading an Alternate reality.

So... am I going to need backup on this one? I don't want to get there and find a overpowered devoured that will kill me with 2 loogies.

You can always check paragonwiki.com for the details of an arc, at least the older arcs.

---Dave

yeah.... not looking like it. Was araid it'd be the super-powered one. Still, whatever the level them devoured are a pain.

Part 7 of 'Who will Die' is up! Starting it now. Will edit the post with (spoilered) thoughts when over.
EDIT: Aaaaaand Real Life creeps in, can't right now just as I started it. Will play through later.

Ooh. I'll run that after work.

Hmmm, who to play it on the first time? Probably K-Type for the blueside version, he's just all around badass even if incarnate level shifts are turned off. But I only have three villainous 50s, do I go for the fully kitted out Corruptor and hope the Lore pets make up for his fragility (assuming he'll be running as 51 rather than 53), or one of the two Brutes who only have alpha and one or two higher slots filled? Hmmm. Given that I soloed part 6 with Server Wench (Rogue Brute), though, I'll probably go with her.

---Dave, raising an eyebrow at the fact there's no other featured items in the store, not even "not on sale, but lookee here!" old stuff.

ETA: Okay, they fixed the featured items post to add some sale stuff. Coyote's down to 450 points, Beast Run to 375 (a much better value if you lack a purchased travel power yet, since it doesn't toggle off all your other powers), and a few costume sets are marked down.

Okay, ran through it.

Before my thoughts, I must post a screenshot, sort-of spoilerish...



ZOOTY... IN.... SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!!!



Ahem.

HIGHLIGHT to view:
Definitely something you want to bring a powerful character to, but still soloable. Longer than the other episodes of the SSA, and I'll admit for a moment I expected a "fake finale" like the Dream Doctor arc - while there WAS an epilogue, it wasn't really another set of missions after the "final fight" - which WAS final.

I didn't expect Wade to survive, and the revelation that Lady Grey is now picking his brain apart to find out all she can about Rularuu is interesting - I especially see ties into the Coming Storm, as Mender Silos said he intends to use Rularuu to fight it off at the end of Dream Doctor's arc. I see the 2 stories crossing eventually.

I was a bit surprised that Psyche DIDN't make her comeback. I truly expected her to return, especially since she's a NPC in the Dillemma Diabolique trial. And with Penny Yin officially instated as a member of the Phalanx now, all signs point to her taking over the Sister Task Force.

Loved the little "what happened to" montage at the end, and again a bit disapointed that no mention of Manticore was made there.

The Press Conference - I expected a curveball there, like say an ambush from Lord Recluse (to make up for the fact that he DOESN't turn on you, despite several warnings that he will) and I was ready to pop my full tray of reds and purples to fight it off... didn't happen. I answered the questions like I feel Zoot would have (or close aproximation, given that this is a dialogue tree) and I think I maaaaaay attack the press conference when I do this with Pinstripe. Just to see what happens.

All in all, a good capper... but still I expected a resolution to Manticore's story. So I can't give it a perfect grade.

SPOILERY EDIT FOR THE REDSIDE VERSION!

HIGHLIGHT to view:
actually, nothing's really changed. Mostly dialogue here and there to reflect your bad guy nature. Only real change is after the press conference, instead of rows of Vanguard soldiers saluting, you have Manticore intercepting you as you leave to attack you out of revenge for your involvement in the affair.

I'm in spaaaaaaaaace! (more spoilery screen shots of the WWD stuff)

---Dave

OK... how the hell do you guys get in space anyways?

It's part of the Who Will Die? Part 7 arc. So you have to be L40+ and either VIP or buy the specific access.

---Dave

How hard would it be for a Level 50 without any Incarnate stuff? Might take Night-Raider for a spin around the story since I'm back at VIP status.

VERY hard to solo. Lots of Elite Bosses and large mobs. Even on a pimped out L50+3 (effectively L51, but with Lore pets and Destiny buffs) I got in trouble once or twice. You might be able to manage it if Night-Raider is a good solo-archetype, though.

---Dave

ETA: Oh, and the scariest phrase in the entire WWD7 arc had nothing to do with Rularuu. It was: HIGHLIGHT to view:
"Tanks with Sapper technology."

Yeah, that got a "oh crap" from me. And amazingly enough, I was disappointed when those were just destroyable objects and not actual enemies.

Well, exploding destroyable objects. One took out my NPC ally.

---Dave

GG is inching her way to lvl 35 status.... now actually able to safely fly through Founders Falls without being outright murdered.

Though thoes crey juggernaughts and the bastards with the sniper rifles still piss me off.