In City of Heroes, players develop their superhero characters by adding powers and boosting their enhancements. Sometimes, a player chooses poorly, getting a power that down the road no longer works, loses effectiveness, or wasn't properly enhanced. In such times, the hero has a choice: He can work a Respec Trial with a team of heroes, and with the Respec change his/her powers for the betterment of all humanity.

Heroes get three Respecs upon which to take their chances: from Levels 24 to 34 an Independence Port Respec Trial to rescue the Terra Volta nuclear reactor from Sky Raiders; from Levels 34 to 44 in Founders Falls to rescue the Terra Volta reactor from Freakshow; and from Level 44 and up to rescue...well, I haven't played it yet...

This is a tale of a fateful trip, not as long as a three-hour tour, but with a painful ending nonetheless. By the end of my telling, you have every right to call me an idiot. You see, there's a reason for doing a Respec, and even though I had greatly fixed Blue Arc with the Respec won from the IP trial, there were now new reasons to fix Blue Arc: new, more powerful attacks that needed the enhancement slots I had placed in weaker, no-longer-used powers.

NOTE: at the time I was running this Respec, the game went into Issue 3, which is supposed to grant current players a free Respec anyway. But there were reasons to do this, despite the incoming free gift: there's also a nice badge you get when you win the trial...:)

Forming a Respec is difficult: it takes time, almost half and hour on average, to get a minimum of four players to run the Respec trial with you. Given the nature of the Respec, of the fighting involved, you need a few things:

1) Awakens and rezzes: expect to die at least once.
2) Tankers, more than one if you're lucky, to aggro/draw the wrath of Freakshow bosses.
3) Defenders or Controllers that can heal; Defenders with force field to buffer you and the reactor; Controllers to hold multiple groups of villains.
4) Did I mention Awakens already?

Meeting the contact at the north end of the Gaspee neighborhood, I bumped into 4thDegreeBurns, a fire tanker seeking a respec team. About two minutes later, another fire tanker, Death Haze, arrived. This is now the tricky part: sitting there for a half-hour getting a fourth so we could start. Major Justice showed up, so now we had 2 fire tankers, arguably one of the best char designs the game could offer, and one scrapper along with a rather average blaster (me). Like it or not, we needed a healer/defender type, and we got him with Ego, a Controller with Force Field ability. Thusly and so, we started:

1) Defeat Mad Maartin and his crew

Our battle was with Freakshow, a highly colorful band of villains with a multitude of attack types: mostly melee/scrapper types, with some flight/blaster types and bosses in the Invulnerable Tank range. Our first mission stayed in FF, a sewer mission wherein we slosh about the murky waters of the sewer tunnels to kill our prey.

This mission had a specific goal: Kill the boss and the bad guys within his range (his guards). There was a subgoal: rescue a woman hostage. The beauty of this type of mission is that all you need is one character with both Recall Friend and Stealth/Invisibility to sneak through to the end, to where the Boss would be and where the hostage would be. In Stealth, the bad guys waiting along the pathway there won't attack you, and then you can teleport your teammates to where you need to be. No risk in getting killed or wasting powers on unneeded battles.

I was that hero. I flew through, fast enough in stealth mode to avoid detection, and then teleported my teammates to a safe spot where we could charge in and attack Mad Maartin. The Boss was hiding on an upper platform of this room, and both fire tankers went right at him. Death Haze in particular was perhaps one of the best tanker types in the game: Fiery Aura (damage and lots of it) combined with Ice Melee (slow/knockback). You can see him in the photo using an ice slick to keep Maartin from standing to fight. The rest of the team pitched in, and then we finished off the minions sitting with him. The hostage was in a corner at the far end, and that was short work.

2) Defeat Big Marcus and his crew

Again, another FF mission. This time, the battle went into an office space. And again, there was only one primary goal: get the Boss and his surrounding bads. The subgoal this mission was to check at least one glowing box.

Again I flew through the maps, this time going through the first and second floors. On the third floor I had problems clearing past a group of minions, who took notice and flew after me. Forced to stop and fight, I proceeded to teleport in the players between attacks, and then we fought in a main room to clear some space. From there, we checked the surrounding hallways and found Big Marcus, another Freakshow Tank, hiding in a corner. Once again the fight was on and our tankers made short work of him.

This is/was one of the shortest trials yet to run. It was good, it was fun, we were on a roll. And now:

3) Save the Terra Volta Reactor from the Freakshow

The most annoying thing about the Reactor trials is that it's so damn far away from everything. Worse, travel from Founders to IP requires passing through Talos (FF has no tram, a grave oversight given the amount of travel involved to get there), then through IP to Terra Volta, then through TV to the reactor.

We took a side trip to find the Meltdown exploration badge (one of the toughest explore badges to find, and wouldn't you like to know where it is...heh), and then from there we proceeded in to the first part of the Reactor trial.

Anyone else feeling a sense of deja vu? We've been here before: this is a rehash of the IP Reactor trial, only with Freakshow instead of Sky Raiders. And for some reason this was more preferable: I hated the Sky Skiffs bosses, while the Freakshow Tanks were more...avoidable, easier to kill.

Mission here was the same as before: rescue the scientists until you find a key for the door. Blow up the bomb in front of the door before you get close to it. Avoid the bad guys in the tunnels and any additional bombs aligning the hallway walls. And then for the second part of the Reactor trial.

We stormed into the antechamber to the reactor, clearing out the bad guys and gaining access to the reactor buffer machine (the one that red bubbles you for protection). We quickly bubbled, with Ego (as controller/healer) grabbing a belt for coolant repair on the reactor core.

Again, same thing: eight waves of bad guys come storming down on top of you. By the third wave they are coming in two directions. The sixth wave, by the feel of it, was mostly Freakshow Tanks (bosses! Oy!). We fought. We strove. We forgot to bubble at inopportune times. We survived up until the eighth wave, at which point I did something you would expect me to do: I got killed getting too close to a Melee Boss. Damn Bosses!

But wouldn't you know it, just as I died we finished! We won! The trial had ended and we were all getting our prizes! Elated, thrilled beyond all recourse...

I SCREWED UP. I forgot that, among all the Single Origin enhancements being offered up for surviving the Respec trial, there was a Respec option that I HAD to choose. I wasn't getting it automatically along with an SO: I HAD TO CHOOSE IT. AND I FORGOT TO DO IT, TAKING A STUPID SO ENHANCEMENT! Go ahead, say it along with me: IDIOT!!!

I immediately recognized my mistake. After moaning and griping about it for about an hour, and asking for bad guys to just come up and kill me on the street because the religious concept of self-flagellation for penance was impossible in-game, I went back to Founders Falls and tried again...

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This time it took longer to get a team going. Hell's Satan, a Blaster, was willing, along with a higher-level Blaster LORD WARTON who wanted to exemp down. It took a long time before Heft, an Invulnerable Tanker, showed up. I was about ready to quit out and run with ElectroNinja, whom I hadn't seen in months online, when we got a Defender in I am Mental, and then another Invuln Tanker HYPERION X. Darth Dragon, a Defender, was brought on for comic relief, which wasn't much because he quit out about five steps into the first mission.

First three missions were the same. Suffice to say we did a good job getting through the first two without problems. The reactor was a tougher time, though: with six players it felt like we had gotten larger groups charging at us. This time, too, something else was wrong, at least for me: the Freakshow Tank bosses were charging me more than ever, even as I was focusing on clearing out the minions and lieutenants and leaving the Bosses for our Tankers. As a result, I died in the reactor: three times. Worse yet, our defender Mental got killed too, and at the worst times possible. We suddenly had problems keeping healthy, and in keeping the reactor core safe. As I tried to Revive from my third death, the room's floor glowed white, like a cloud of bright death. That meant one thing: The Reactor Was Destroyed. We Failed. And just before the game automatically kicked me out of the reactor room, I got killed one more time.

Sigh. My debt was now 145k plus, roughly 2 full bars of debt for a Level 35 player. As we gathered outside, we waited to Awaken and heal up, while I learned there was one good thing about failing a trial mission. If you do fail, it is possible to retake the trial run when you call the Contact. Unfortunately, by this time of night I was tired, physically and psychologically, and I wanted away from the game. I was angry at myself, mostly. I still am. I get that way a lot, blaming myself for mistakes and then keeping that blame locked up in my gut for 20 years. Even when it's just a game.

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Sigh. I will re-attempt this trial. Just for the badge for it. Just to get the damn thing done.

It took another month to get another Respec for Blue Arc. He leveled up to 38 during all that time, and the need for the Respec was mostly emotional, to reverse the screw-up I made earlier. Groups came and went, and I found myself unable to get into a TF.

Finally, this Saturday (Feb. 19), a team was open, had a spot available, and invited me in. Earlier version of the diary had errors regarding AT (archetype), so this is (hopefully) fixed now. Xantros (Warshade!), madStan (Tanker), Miss Polarity (Controller), Dark Chylde (Defender), Kalma (Warshade!), Boosquito (Controller), and Vylara (Peacebringer!) took pity on my weeping form and let me tag along. I knew madStan, sort of: WittyLibrarian my alt bumped into him once or twice in FF and discussed the episode of a certain TV show where madStan tries to blow up libraries. The conversations went well. Nice guy. :grin:

Most of these characters also had an open spot for an Eden Spire Trial (woo-boy). Diary on that coming soon.

Eager to prove my worth, I volunteered to do what I did the previous times: fly ahead and tp teammates to fight the main bad. This time: I got killed when the Freaks blocked a key doorway in the sewers. Xantros, being a Warshade with tp abilities, as well as Phase Shift to protect from attacks, did the honors and got us into battle range. We took out the bad guys and rescued the hostage, so we were cool.

Second mission, same thing, this time the Warshades did the tping and I just stood there. This time, however, we ran into a problem for the Kheld builds: A Void Hunter was spotted among the minions. Void Hunters are special villains who do the most damage to Khelds no matter what: they are often a higher kill priority than AVs. Against normal blasters like myself, they do regular damage so I could face him down and not get killed as quickly as a Kheld type. After getting Marcus out of the way, we targeted the Void's group, and we cleared them out, with me using Zapp/Sniper to get the Void down ASAFP.

Third mission: Been there. The Reactor Rescue. Here's a group shot going in:

The first part was relatively easy, with the Warshades and Tankers pulling aggro. From there, getting to the Reactor itself was easy.

This team did something a lot different than other teams, so let me elaborate: we were broken into two teams. madStan, Dark Chylde, Kalma and Miss Polarity went into the upper rafters, at the doors where the Freaks emerge; the rest of us circled the Reactor. First Team was responsible for pulling aggro and preventing the mobs from ever reaching the base floor of the reactor. Second Team was responsible for keeping the Reactor healthy in case any of the mobs got close, and finishing off stragglers.

For the most part, the plan works. It works best if you've got enough Tanker types (Khelds are part Tank) to patrol above teamed with a Defender/Controller to work heals and buffs. This only works for large enough groups, with 2 or more Tankers (all above), and 2 or more Defenders/Controllers who can heal (one above for the Tankers, one below for the Second Team). Only 7-8 player groups should try this.

Being a Blaster, I still figured out a way to die early, but only once. :grin:

I also made a lot of noise about being reminded to get the Respec when offered, so when WE SAVED THE REACTOR, madStan came over and bitch-slapped me until I was properly reminded. I got the Respec and the badge and...not much XP. So Blue Arc was still 38...sigh.

Here's the closing salute I obsess over now with TFs and Trials:

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So now?

Now Blue Arc has an unused Respec. I'm tempted to use it but not severely so. Maybe later, when I get higher and to the power set at 41. We'll see.

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