Too Many Pictures

It's been awhile since I posted pictures. Forgive the out-of-order and the out-of-date.

Will in his winter camo, the "boys," and the imps, Stop and Drop. Roll is either running off randomly or dead. Also, the Ugliest Baby in the World, preparing to bite Will's ankle.

TaskForce DidNotEndWell. Blaze, Masonry, and Vagz arranged in a pinwheel at the feet of Captain Mako, and poor Citadel.

Keen Stronghold checking his list during the last group STF. "Crazy scrappers... check. Empath who speaks in lolcats.... check."

Evangeline, Li Hwon, and Butcher of the Pit scaring the n00bs at the Black Market in Mercy.

Evangeline. Probably hiding from Butch.

Any other purported similarities will be denied.

Or maybe Callie's just a trendsetter. No, I don't remember the other one's name.

And if the real thing don't do the trick

You better make up something quick

You gonna burn, burn, burn, burn, burn it to the wick

Ooooh, Barracuda!

Uh, okay. Moving right along, then...

I've played this game almost 3 years now. Two weeks ago, I realized the green ritual glow-clouds (whatever you want to call them) have a BIG FREAKIN' FACE in them.

How did I miss that for 3 years? Yeah, no idea.

Whatever.

Creepy, foggy Dark Astoria scenery. But, I swear I've seen this picture in the mall, with little lights worked in where the streetlights are. I know you know which one I mean.

Talos Island, somewhere near the Dark Astoria gate.

Croatoa Scenery.

Ur doin it wrong!

Will. Glowing pink. That's it.

PUT IT BACK ON!!!

Inappropriate touching!

Unneccessary LOLCats

Because I keep threatening to share, and before I forget:
The LOLCat Bible Translation Project

Double XP: The Aftermath

The aftermath is, I have video game injuries. I have actual pain in my wrist from mouse usage, and general stiffness from sitting too long. I think that's definately a sign that I played waaayyy too much.

Lorelei is less than half a bubble to 41, even after a disasterous run at an Invincible Eden Trial. I could have continued to 41 easily, but 41 is the first choice for Epic Powers. I don't know if I want to go into the Epics for her, or continue with her /rad secondary with Fallout, which would probably necessitate grabbing the TP Friend power. Also, I never took Flash on her. I took it on an ill/emp on another server, and was less than happy with it. Now, however, I can see potential usefulness with it. It's bound to be more effective at 41 than it was at 12.

Callie is 35, nearing 36. We could have "power-gamed" that and gotten more levels than just 29-35, but we didn't, and I'm perfectly happy with that. It's still a game, not a job, and it's supposed to be fun, not work.

Getting Lorelei her levels was maybe a little bit of "work," because I'm not as much a controller fan as I might be, but there's still something else there, too. As she gains level, I'm really getting a chance to see how powerful the ill/rad combo is. On a team of eight, applications of Lorelei's powers can TOTALLY change the way a fight goes. Unfortunately (for the team) I saw a very concrete example of this while lagging behind by trying too do too many things at once. I did re-join the fight before everyone died, but a Spectral Terror, an application of AM, and throwing the decoys in gets a team of eight from yellow/orange health to green in about 3 seconds, and keeps them there.

Scarlette Blade, my katana/regen, even got from 36 to 37 (even though I was too tired and didn't trust myself to assign her slots with any sort of logic, so she's untrained but 3 bubbles into 37) at 3:30am Sunday night.

It's pretty obvious I like blasters. And I really like the fire/fire combo. But elec/elec is a near second, if not equal, in entertainment value, if only for Thunderous Blast alone. Thunderous Blast is electric's "nuke." Inferno, fire's nuke, and energy's Nova, is a PBAoE, which means you first have to run into the group you want to nuke. Thunderous Blast, however, is like Rain of Arrows, Archery's nuke, and Assualt Rifle's Full Auto (notable for their lack of endurance drains) and is ranged. Inferno, which I'm way more familar with than the others, gets part of it's damage from DoT damage, which means mobs will burn a few seconds before they fall. Thunderous Blast, though having an enemy endurance drain component as a handy secondary effect for those mobs that don't full-out die, is pretty much instant death, at least for minions. There's definate enjoyment in watching ten mobs similtaneously drop to their knees and fall on their faces.

That brings up a point, too, though. Callie and Fyre are both blasters. Callie is elec/elec, Fyre is fire/fire/fire. (Callie will be getting the Electric Epic, or at least two powers from it, possibly three.) There are similarities. The damage factor, and endurance management. Blasters are sprinters, generally not in it for the long haul, like scrappers or tanks might be. A blaster's most effective fight is quick. Kill them before they kill you, because you're squishy, and if they get more than a couple hits in, you're dead. As they're not meant for long fights, their endurance usage is more than a scrapper or tanker would be. With things like Stamina and slotting, you can get around that, a little, but the general theory holds. Becaue of this, accuracy is important for both, as well. However, there are differences, and play style has to adapt to accomodate the differences. Callie, because of both primary and secondary power sets, is much more melee than Fyre, and even more melee that I ever planned to play for a blaster. She's a border-line blapper. There are several, very good, powers in both the primary and the secondary that are PBAoE, melee, or short-range. The way the powers are, with the combination of both the electric primary and the electric secondary, you're forced to be in melee range on and off. Or, you could stand at range and fire off less-than-optimal powers with a pause while those few ranged attacks recycle.

So, the point there is, powersets within ATs differ, and require different playstyles. Duh, right? We can hope so. I've been watching spines/dark scrappers, and my own dark/dark scrapper, both of which look to play a LOT different from my MA/Invuln and katana/regen AND my DB/WP scrappers, and I've been thinking.... I have too many scrappers. But also about how differently powersets within an AT play. I expected it from that in scrappers. I didn't expect it so much in blasters, but there it is.

Snow Blaise (level 15, ice/thermal) is more than likely getting deleted. She was/is a member of Team Evil, ver 2.whatever. However, that team looks dead. Characters didn't mesh and players seemed disinterested. Part of the reason, I suspect, is that "evil" is hard to RP. It can be cartoonish and one dimensional. Playing it can be an unpleasant feeling, and playing with it can be distasteful. People don't like to think of themselves at the bad guy, and villains don't have many friends. Anti-heros are popular. Evil geniuses/pyschopaths are not. The powersets and ATs, on paper, got together well enough. Somehow, they didn't in our case. Or maybe we all just enjoy CoH too much for a CoV team to garner much interest. I know that's probably part of it for me, as I lean heavily toward CoH play.

That wasn't my point, though. My point is that I'm thinking of making a tank. Specifically, WP/SS. I don't want a team for her, I'm not asking anyone to join me in altitis. I've never played a tank past level 8 or so. It's going to be a struggle. And I don't want pointers or criticism until I've had some experience. I learn best by doing, not by reading(though I have read about the powers and powersets) and certainly not by "listening." Criticism and even "helpful pointers" at the early levels will probably just add to whatever frustration I may run into and curb my desire to attempt what I see as a potenially difficult mode of play. Some of the reason I never played a tank sooner was... I get lost. Dyslexia, mental spacial disparity, whatever you want to call it, the maps confuse me sometimes. I'm MUCH better about that than I used to be, and have been for quite awhile, though I still find that office map where the halls and floors cross over and around each other a puzzle on occasion. I feel okay about leading a team through a map. However, I do lack patience with people who don't listen to instructions. I'm certain I'll be longing for open PvP after a few newbie blasters obliviously draw extra large aggro and kill the whole freakin' team six or seven times.... So, yeah, I'm still thinking about it. I'll probably run it out of Freedom to test the waters at least sometime this week.

Now, I'm going to continue to do something that doesn't involve the computer for the rest of the day, like I started to do before I was drawn to the blogs.

(Edit: The spell-checker application of Blogger hasn't worked for me for the past three posts I've made. I don't know why. But, enjoy the typos and creative spelling!)

OMG! Double XP Weekend!

Yes, I know, it doesn't start until tomorrow. But like I'm going to waste playtime by blogging?

Let me say that this is one the times that I appreciate the CoH/V forums. It lets me know that I'm not strangely obsessed. Or at least, I'm not the ony one. Back in "real life," I've been asked, "You do know it's only a game, right?" and "You are going to stop to eat, aren't you?"

So, here's the plan. *Subject to change.

Friday during the day, I'm going to spend the whole time on Lorelei. Maybe she'll hit 40 this year yet. I'm guessing Friday night and most of Saturday will be devoted to Callie and Controller Vagz. (Guest stars are, of course, welcome.) Vagz wants his fire imps, and I can't blame him, especially since he knows how obsessed I was about getting red-side Fyre her imps. Sunday's still pretty open, depending on what the group concensus is for Altitis/TF Sunday.

Now, I think I'm going to take blaster Fyre out for awhile, since I'll probably ignore her all weekend as she doesn't need the craaazzzzy XPs.

Updates

I'm forcing myself to actually type something here instead of clicking the little City of Heroes icon on my desk top and just playing the game. It's been awhile since there were actual words here instead of pretty pictures or random YouTubeness.

So, what have I been doing?

I've made and spent about 100 million influence on Fyre. I bought another purple or two since I've posted her enhancements. Also, I added the Performance Shifter unique to slot into Stamina, which I'll recommend for others and plan to duplicate for other characters. It adds 10 points of endurance every twenty seconds. I've sat there and watched my combat log, because I wasn't entirely sure how it would work, and that's what it does. Fyre's recharge rate went up another 10% due to her last purple, and her HP is over 1500. I put Build-Up on auto for a recent mission, and I'm amazed by how often I hear that noise when it goes off. I stood her still for a few minutes so I could watch, to prove to myself how quickly it recycles. Let's just say it's fast.

Lorelei hit 38 last week. She'd been running with Vagz's gravity/storm controller, Jack Royale, a bit, and also soloing and running with PuGs. She's efficent, but boring. I'm just not into controllers. I like my orange numbers too much. Granted, with the phantasm and the decoy, there is damage being done, but... it's just not the same. With the ill/rad combo, though, she's going to be incredibly useful when AVs start appearing more often. So, I plan to continue the slog to 50. Or at least 40 something. I'll probably be working with her most of Double XP Friday.

For some reason, not long ago, I developed a scrapper aversion. I don't know how it came up, I don't know what caused it, and I don't know exactly when it started. Maybe I was playing blasters/corruptors too much. Either way, I just couldn't bring myself to log in one of my scrappers and run around chasing mobs. Inevitably, especially since I have 3 on Virtue alone, I logged one in. I logged poor, neglected Cass (level 47, MA/Invul) in for awhile. Invulnerability. *sigh* You know what, though? She's not so bad. If I start funneling some cash her way, and add some IOs, she'll be a little less bad. Invulnerability will never been Regen or Willpower, but I don't necessarily feel the urge to delete her in frustration anymore.

Speaking of Regen, though, I also logged in Scarlette (level 36, Katana/Regen), and I logged her in right after I logged out Cass. Scarlette is slow. Katana is slow, compared to MA. Since she's Regen, she doesn't have the Fitness pool. Yes, I know, a lot of people still take Fitness with Regen. I didn't. Move on. But, anyway, she doesn't have Swift. To chase mobs, which scrappers often have to do, I have to turn on Sprint. *sigh* Maybe I should respec her. I hate doing respecs. Really, really hate it. I've been contemplating a respec on Fyre, to add Flares and remove Bonfire and/or Blazing Aura. Flares would give me a good spot to throw in more IOs for set bonuses, and add to the Defuryiance bonus. But, I really, really hate doing respecs, if I forgot to mention that. So, it's a possibility, but definately not a written-in-stone plan.

Elektra Callie, who I was concerned with getting to twenty last week, is now level 28. She's elec/elec. Just a few months ago, I deleted a level 20-something elec/elec blaster, because I was bored with her. I haven't been bored with Callie for a minute. She leveled up pretty quick, mostly on PuGs, a little solo. And then she slowed down. Why?

RP, of course!

(Virtue should have RP levels, along with security/threat levels. They get awarded by time spent standing in one spot, without the AFK warning appearing over your head, similar to the Firebase Zulu Security badge, and the Trolls Task Force badge. Bonus points if that time is spent in Pocket D, because you have to RP and avoid the crazy people.)

Callie's been working Vagabond Magus, Vagz's controller-Vagz, fire/force fields. The bubbles are the excuse-- uh, the reason I'm giving for Callie's blapper-ish turn. Well, that and that the electric secondary, like most of the blaster secondaries, lends itself to melee, a.k.a. blapping. She doesn't have her snipe yet, because electric has some good range, and because, at this point, the melee powers are just more useful for her. The RP's been interesting, too. Callie and Vagz get along well. Their powers mesh, and Vagz even picked up the medicine pool. They were both security level 25 when they started running together, and they even seemed to be about the same age. Then Callie found out that Vagz has three Hero IDs, one at the highest level possible, and another that may as well be. Oh, and he's a couple thousand years old. They're still getting along well enough, but Callie's intimidated, to say the least. I'm trying to keep her relatively angst-free and upbeat, but not obnoxiously, unbelievablely, or incomprehensively so. She's a little bit of a smart-ass, mostly because I can't stop myself, but I'm trying to keep the sarcasm to a minimum. She has little to be bitter about, but she also has a relatively low-level of worldliness and self-possession. She's a little bit of a babbler, mostly because I'm trying to keep her from lapsing into the brooding silences that Fyre seems to fall into.



I have little to say about yesterday's TF, mostly because the thought makes me want to drown my betta fish. (Yes, I know. But I have issues with even the idea of violence against animals, even as a jokingly semi-clever way of expressing my total frustration and hatred of Captain Freakin' Mako, whom I have no issues with the idea or the action of violence against.) I would like to try it again, with a different and larger team composition. I generally like to take Fyre on things like that. She is, probably pretty obviously, my Big Gun. But the team composition required some sort of support class, and also, since there was going to be RP involved, she cannot be anywhere near Masonry, both by her and my preference. If we'd have had one more either debuffer type or another damage dealer, I think we'd have been okay. However, we didn't, so we had... issues. And I have a serious hate on for Mender Silos, and I hope the "Coming Storm" of Issue 13 reveals him to be the evil-Nemesis, who we get to kill, a lot, and not the seeing-the-error-of-his-ways Nemesis, intending to inspire compassion.