For the old timers in the game: Remember when....

[Blondeshell]

I remember the time Frostfire defeated me after I defeated him, courtesy of DoT. Check the sequence in the chat box:

[Safehouse]

I remember the time Frostfire defeated me after I defeated him, courtesy of DoT. Check the sequence in the chat box:

OMG that would make me sooo mad! I started to hate the phrase "iced ya," and would say certain choice things back to him.

Did you at least have it considered a completed mission, or did you have to go back?

[TimtheEnchanter]

Do you have a demofile of that by any chance?

I just love Frosty's pose there. Get rid of the bodies and FX and he'd look hung over.

[Everfreefire]

OMG that would make me sooo mad! I started to hate the phrase "iced ya," and would say certain choice things back to him.

Did you at least have it considered a completed mission, or did you have to go back?

One would assume it was completed, since it does have the 'Mission Completed; Exit" showing in the navbar.

[Ashen Fury]

Frostfire was easy to solo (hint: bury him under a hail of inspirations), I never failed to solo him on anything I tried using this method.

This part...is one of the things I'll miss most. No other game gave you an oddly gamebreaking yet balanced tool like inspirations to overtake those enemies you just couldnt take out alone.

[Tenzhi]

This part...is one of the things I'll miss most. No other game gave you an oddly gamebreaking yet balanced tool like inspirations to overtake those enemies you just couldnt take out alone.

I hated 'em.  I tend to dislike consumables as a matter of course, but the way everyone swore by them combined with how unreliable they were in my experience pushed mere dislike to hatred.  Popping Lucks before a big fight meant I was going to effectively get one-shotted, and popping those yellows was a guarantee that that powerful attack with a long recharge was gonna miss.

[Golden Ace]

This part...is one of the things I'll miss most. No other game gave you an oddly gamebreaking yet balanced tool like inspirations to overtake those enemies you just couldnt take out alone.

Always made sure I had several break frees handy before I went after frostfire.  if i could, I would take out as many minions as possible without alerting frost fire, then i would go after him with everything I had ignoring all other minions.  usually worked pretty well.   

Had tons of inspirations stored in my base storage upward of 800.  including all the holiday inspirations separated by category.

[TimtheEnchanter]

I hated 'em.  I tend to dislike consumables as a matter of course, but the way everyone swore by them combined with how unreliable they were in my experience pushed mere dislike to hatred.  Popping Lucks before a big fight meant I was going to effectively get one-shotted, and popping those yellows was a guarantee that that powerful attack with a long recharge was gonna miss.

My use of inspirations tended to rely on the scenario.

Against a big boss: Purples and reds. A couple of blues to keep me swinging. A couple greens for emergency heals. 4 Purples could easily double or triple your survival time, no matter how big the monster.

Against a sudden unexpected horde of minions, that's the only time I usually favored the red/yellow offensive combo.

I never figured out what orange was good for though. They never seemed to give me any protection at all.

[MaidMercury]

I never figured out what orange was good for though. They never seemed to give me any protection at all.

they were great in warding off Colds. 

[Triplash]

I never figured out what orange was good for though. They never seemed to give me any protection at all.

Oranges protect you from scurvy. Yarr.

[Reiraku]

Oranges were great if you already had really good defense, but wanted an extra layer of protection.

[jandrsn]

I was feeling nostaglic, found this site and wow did it bring back great memories.  I used to log in at perez park, then later at the hollows, so I could randomly buff and heal while I waited for a team invite.  Having a hard time getting to 50 because team leaders would rather have an emp controller in the 40's, and I was a lowly emp def.  Running around like a maniac when I finally got candystriper to 50.  Being told I was a broken regen scrapper because I not only had moment of glory, I used it!  Making an energy energy blapper and being told I was a lucky maniac after missions all the time.  Standing up for non-emp defenders when teams only wanted the 'healz'.  Going badge hunting after they finally came out.  Having ten toons on every server, but always liking Infinity the best.  Sigh, after a few years I started taking breaks, but always came back sooner or later.  Great game, better community.  Sorry for the text wall, but writing on a cheesy tablet :p

[Absolute]

but the way everyone swore by them combined with how unreliable they were in my experience pushed mere dislike to hatred.

Well, you did list the only 2 inspirations that increased your 'luck' on hitting them or dodging shots.

I often grabbed Oranges and Greens against hard-targets. That way, you get hit often, but you can heal yourself up slowly with the greens as well. It was never a BOOM-dead. I think a dislike for reliability in inspirations is closer to dislike in the dodge and accuracy mechanics in general. I can understand that a bit. I prefered Invul/Ele to SR/Ice.

But inspirations? Aside from purples and yellows, they were 100% reliable.

The only inspiration I hated were awakens. If you're going through a mission quickly with a team, you usually just pop every inspiration you have in between fights because you're earning so many of them. After a couple of mobs you would have the bottom of your tray filled with awakens you must manually combine or delete. In hindsight, I could have created a bind to use everything but awakens; I'm sure it couldn't have been more keys than F1-F5.

I would have strongly disliked inspirations if they were much more rare.

In fact: Does anybody have the percentage tables for inspiration drops? That would be interesting to learn after all these years.

[Minotaur]

One didn't always get the Insp bonus at level up.

This is very true, in the old days I used to team for FF as it was a good way of levelling up several times and you could almost always find somebody else wanting to do it. If I had to solo, I'd have 6 lucks, 2 BFs (or the ones that came before that you had to pre-pop, insights ?) and 2 heals and that would normally do me, 2 cycles of 3 lucks and a BF would normally do the job.

Once more alternatives to the hollows arrived and you couldn't get a team as often, the level up trick was available.

[BadWolf]

Man, I had my inspiration try down to a science by the end. Column 1-2 were always greens, column 3-4 were always purples, column 5 was always 1 awaken at the bottom and break-frees the rest of the way up (until 40, when I usually used that top right slot for a yellow.) Always used my weakest ones first, and always used any reds, yellows and oranges as soon as I got 'em. (Fed them to pets, if I was an MM.) Meant that whenever I was in a bad situation, I had at least 4 lucks and 4 respites to pop, plus a break-free if needed. (Unless, you know, I got into several bad situations in a row. Which sometimes happened. )

[Tenzhi]

I would have strongly disliked inspirations if they were much more rare.

That's the other bit of unreliability.  When I used them they didn't always get replaced expediently, which is why I would end up hoarding them for the big fights.  I've cleared an entire mission and only gotten one or two Insps before.

And then there was the first time I ever used a Breakfree to get rid of a status effect...  and it didn't get rid of it.  I hate Blinded.  Between that status and the various annoying To Hit debuffs the main Insp I kept around were yellows.  I think blues would be second.

[Ultraamann]

Never carried awakens, and would delete them as soon as they popped up in my tray.  Just considered them bad luck.

[Sugoi]

YES. The tendency for groups to behave like a pack of dogs in a park full of squirrels, prompted me to choose Superspeed for my Empath (to run around healing at 3 different locations in a matter of seconds). She also then ended up getting Recall Ally for the one idiot who always ran the wrong way and would be within an inch of death long before I could get to him.

Heh, that brings back many, many, many memories....  SS and Recall Ally saved a lot of butts.

There's a reason I made my Healers' F10 Battlecry "Out of Sight, Out of Heals, Out of Luck"
and a Macro which let me get another important message out to the team:
"I don't chase after Stragglers... You'll be on your own."

But as long as the team stayed in sight, they stayed alive... Of course my habit of figuring out who needed buffs to stay alive on a team (usually someone SK'd to a higher level team) made a lot of em feel real frisky when they realized they weren't being pulverized.  But if they strayed outside the Saftey Zone, all of a sudden it was my fault that they died.. grin.

[Sugoi]

I guess you were just lucky or teamed with smart people. I had made 3 defenders that were not empathy and always had a hard time getting teams. Once I made an Illus / Empath controller - the invites poured in.

One of my most popular Defs was made when the Dual Pistol/Trickshot sets came out.  Sooo many people were building DP/TS Blasters... Me, I made a DP/Emp named Shooting Emp, who got invited to all-DP teams almost constantly during that time.  She made it to 50 quite quickly.. grin.  Her Battlecry was "Ok Boys, it's time for your shots!"

[Hazzard_County]

This is a great thread, COH was my first computer game ever, so I have a lot of nostalgia moments with it. This game took me from total noob and actually hating it, to an advanced player with GM soloing builds..

I remember not understanding enemy levels (purple, red, orange) and running into groups of purples with my blaster and not understanding why I was 1 hit. I'd run back to the group seeking revenge, only to be KO'd again. Finally someone asked me why I was fighting things too high of a level for me, doh.

I remember not getting the whole slotting enhancement thing. My blaster would run out of End quickly in battle, I was constantly resting. Apparently I missed the memo on health/endurance, and 6 slotted fly. Words can't describe how pissed I was when I realized I screwed up my build.

I remember getting physically nervous, when I got a mission the required going across the gultch. I knew what that meant, going all the way back to atlas hospital and having to attempt again on foot.

I remember my first kill 10 tr0lls mission, being a blaster, and they were all in groups of red. I didn't know what AOE was and hit fireball. As I was about to die, some miracle happened. I was healed, the buffs kept coming. I fought and fought and killed that group, and turned around to thank a lvl 50 empath that kept me alive. It was like turning around to see a messiah ha ha ha. I vowed that day I would one day return the favor and join the generous healers that wouldsit on the police cars offering rez's and buffs to the lowbies.

I remember trying to go into a pvp zone the first time, as a blaster lol. As soon as I left the safe compound, literally on the border, some invisible jerk would massacre me in 2 hits. I was so pissed. It happened over and over again, I still remember his name "DOS". I thought he was using some kind of hack, I didn't know what a stalker was then lol.

I remember when random people in zones would gratz you on 50. At one time it was a feat, and being a blaster that hit 50 was a special feat because there weren't many and were notorious for dying.

But after years and years of trial and error, this noob graduated from COH university with a PHD. I ended the game with 2 prized possessions, an elec/shield scrapper farm build that could flatten mobs to high noon, and my ill/rad troller that could solo GMs like child's play.

I then went on to speed ITF's (record was 19 minutes), and when speed lost it's luster, duoing the ITF.

So I'll end my 'remember when' reply with my favorite moment, the ITF duo...I consider that my graduation cap.