So You Want To Respec…

So You Want To Respec…
Written by Sherry “Trai” Carty, 09/18/2004
Updated: 09/20/2004

One quick note, I’ve only done the level 24-34 range Respec mission so there may be differences in what I’ve written below and what you experience if you are level 35 or higher. Please report those differences so I can make corrections to the guide!

Step One
Starting the Mission, Levels 24 to 34

Gather a group of 4 people. Make sure all the members of the group have stocked up on Inspirations because, unless you make arrangements with non-group members, once this mission gets started you cannot buy any more inspiration til the mission is finished.

Talk to Jane Hallaway of Independence Port. She is located on the North End of Valor Bridge. (Right where the big dot is.) Once the Team Leader has spoken to Jane, the team will be locked into a Task Force.

Jane will send you to speak with Jason Serano of Terra Volta.

Step Two
Speaking to Jason, Levels 24 to 34.

Hopefully, you’ll have a super-jumping or teleporting hero among your group who can wait on the Independence Port side of the Terra Volta gate for this first task to be assigned.

Regardless, someone in the team needs to go speak to Jason Serano. Anyone may speak to him. Jason will assign the Task Force a kill mission of 25 Sky Raiders.

Step Three
Killing 24 Sky Raiders, Levels 24 to 34

Sky Raiders can be found all over Terra Volta, they’re quite often lined up battling Freakshow on various skywalks and on blacktop. Level 30 blasters and scrappers will rip through this portion of the mission quickly. Upon the completion of this mission, the Team Leader should return to Jane Hallaway for the next stage of the Task Force to be assigned: Defeating Sgt. Clayton and his men.

Step Four
“Defeat Sgt. Clayton and his men”, Levels 24 to 34.

This is an indoor mission and is filled with Sky Raiders. The Sky Raiders are at maximum, two levels higher than the highest level person in the group.

At this point, I have to assume the mission location is at least moderately random as I was in one group which had the mission in Steel Canyon (server troubles resulted in this team not finishing the task) and with another group which had this mission in Independence Port.

Kill all the Sky Raiders you see until the Mission is completed. To make this process a bit faster, be sure to kill the Raider Engineers first. The Engineers are the Sky Raiders which construct the Force Field Generator.. which will slow your group down considerably.

Once the mission is complete, the Team Leader should return to Jane Hallaway for the next team assignment, “Save Terra Volta Reactor”.

Step Five
“Save Terra Volta Reactor”, Part 1, Levels 24 to 34.

The entire group needs to get to the Terra Volta mission location. Again this mission is populated with Sky Raiders which are +2 and +3 levels higher than the higheset level members of your group.

As usual, kill the Engineers first. Once they’re dead, move on to Force Field Generators. After the Force Field Generators are dead, get rid of the Sky Skiffs. These things not only look impressive but they can also kill your more fragile team members in one to two Area of Effect hits.

Once you arrive inside the mission, you will see that you need to save scientists and find a key. Scientists are placed throughout the first few rooms. Rescue all of the scientist that you see, and eventually, one of the scientists should give someone a key. (In all cases that I went through the mission, and there were a few attempts in the server problems last n ight, the scientists gave the key. But there were glowing boxes of clues around the place that may contain the key instead.)

A few notes regarding the first large room at the front of the mission.

• This room has many closed doors around the edges. Those doors do open. They also tend to open up on many very unhappy Sky Raiders who don’t want you interfering with their plans. So be careful opening the doors.
• Next point, the door at a far side of the room a Proximity Bomb in front of it. If you step too close to a Proximity Bomb, it will explode. Further, I’ve seen one take out a Tanker at full health (though not fully buffed) so get a blaster to hit it from a distance!
• There are two doors at the top level of the room, near the entrance. Four on the bottom of the room. And the one door on the far end of the room with the Bomb mentioned above.
• Below is a screenshot of the big room with the mission loaded for just one person, me. The screenshot was taken while I was facing towards the door your team will use when initially entering the room. (I teleported to the far corner of the room to get the shot while the servers were Yo-Yo-ing last night.)

While you don’t have to kill all the Sky Raiders in this section, you do need to kill enough to rescue scientists and retrieve the key.

Once you get they key, proceed to the Bombed door. Explode the Bomb from a safe distance!

This will bring you to a long tunnel which curves around the reactor room. As you move down this tunnel, you need to remain careful and alert for any indication of Proximity Bombs. (Do yourself a huge favor by blowing up Bombs that are placed near Sky Raiders whenever possible.) Kill all Sky Raiders in your path and until you come to the locked door to the Reactor room… which should open automatically if someone in your group obtained the key!

Note: Going through the Bombed door sets of the Reactor timer, so you need to move through this hallway quickly.

Step Six
“Save Terra Volta Reactor”, Part 2, Levels 24 to 34.

The locked door will, of course, open up onto a mob of unhappy Sky Raiders. Deal with them and now you get to move on to the fun part!

This room is the Reactor prep-room. In here, you’ll find Machine which will provide you with protection from the very dangerous Terra Volta Reactor. Step into the machine and you’ll see the protection as a Red Bubble around your character. Occasionally, while defending the Reactor, you will need to leave the Reactor and return to this machine for a fresh suit of protection. Optimally, only one person in the team should get their bubble at any given time.

On the wall opposite the Machine you step for the bubble into is a rack of Reactor Coolants. Step up to the Rack and click a coolant to get a temporary power “Coolant”. Whenever you need to heal the Reactor, select the Reactor and click your new “Coolant” power. One note, rumor has it that the Coolant has a limited number of uses, so don’t use the Coolant unless the Reactor is actually injured.

You’ll find the Coolant in a rack like the one below. Just click it to pick a Coolant up.

Now to the Reactor Room!

If you look around the room (which is round), you will see that there is a walkway around the top and doors on that walkway. Your group should be watching this walkway and the doors around the room for oncoming attackers at all times.

There will be ten waves of Sky Raider attacks upon the Reactor which you will need to defend against as you keep the Reactor alive. Each of these waves will come from one of those doors. During these attacks, your group will not only need to defeat all the Sky Raiders, your group will also need to use the Coolant on the Reactor to keep it’s health up.

Between battles, all members of the group should take turns getting their reactor-protection bubbles back up.

Since this is a prolonged battle, you should be aware that there will be times in which members of your group has to leave the Reactor room to rest or heal during battles. Be mindful and patient of the fact that more fragile members of the team who constantly attract aggro of Sky Raiders (Blasters or Controllers) may need to leave the room more frequently than Defenders, Tankers or Scrappers. Those who are playing more fragile characters should remember to leave themselves with enough room to deal with the teleporting tendencies of Sky Raiders that will be very persistent at times. Sometimes a group member may be able to help you with a persistent Sky Raider, but you cannot always count upon their ability to do so.

At this point, I assuming that given the design of the Task Force that it is very important that all members of the group be alive and in the Mission when the Mission is completed. So whenever possible, teleport people out of the reactor area and into the prep-room for resurrection or to give them an awaken. It’s very important to realize that a person who has fallen in the Reactor will be at a significant risk of dying again if they use an awaken there. The room itself will damage the awakened team member. Possibly too quickly for them to wobble out to the Bubble Machine.

Once you’ve successfully defeated 10 waves of attacks upon the Reactor and kept the Reactor alive, a big window will pop up. The FIRST option is the one for Respecialization, choose it and press the accept button at the bottom.

The mission is now complete and your group should return to Jane Hallaway for the Task Force to be disbanded.

(Editorial comment: As frustrated as I am, personally, with this patch because of the way missions are scaling now, I must say that I love this stage of the Mission. It’s so very clever. Other game designers need to pay attention to what the City of Hero developers are doing here!)

Step Seven
Respecializing, levels 24-34.

Go to Galaxy City and visit the Freedom Corps behind the Backalley Brawler. There, you will find Jack Wolfe.

Talk with Jack and he’ll lead you through the steps of respecialization.

First, you will choose the skills you want. (If you intend to exemplar a lot, the order may be important.) Everytime you choose a skill and you’re certain, press the Next button in the lower right corner.
Second, you will choose the slots you want in all of your freshly respec’d skills. Everytime you place two slots, you will need to press the Next button in the lower right corner.
Third, you will be allowed to re-place all your old Enhancements into your newly slotted, freshly chosen skills. If you have any enhancements that are not appropriate for your current skill/slots, you can move the enhancements into an inventory management field. (For this reason, you should likely sell any extra enhancements before coming to talk to Jack.)

Thanks to the following Pinnacle players for all the assistance with this write-up, Jumping Jesus, Kegaru, Beau, C- Ben Wallace, Chronic Blast for the team and to Uliet for dealing with my ranting, as always. I really love grouping with people who’ll stick things out so long and with all the server troubles last night, it was very long indeed. And thanks to all those people who have given feedback on our forums and through email, especially XP and Wrecklass!