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!)