Past and Present

So, sometimes I start things and get side-tracked and never get back to them. Yeah, I was ADD before it was cool.

But I went back in my e-mail to search for my forum ID and password. Do I even have one? Yes! I registered for the boards during CoV Beta, and the registration for the beta boards carried over. I even have a 3 post history! Probably all three are from CoV Beta, but I couldn't prove it, and I sure can't remember what they were. I only wanted the ID so I could avoid starting over with threads that I read that get to 20+ pages. In searching for that ID, though, I found all sort of old e-mails... and got lost for four hours. I'll spare you all the non-CoH related stuff.

I started CoH with a friend from another game, who left shortly after CoV came out. Blaze Noir, my first 50 and my first "real" character, hit 50 on September 19, 2005. Not long after that, I almost the left the game for... WoW. Yeah, really. My friend never really got into CoH like I did, and was campaigning very hard for us both to switch games. He did. I didn't. But, in searching through those e-mail, I was forcibly reminded of what it was like to start the game. Gale-ing mobs into walls and trying to heal a tank with O2 Boost. My friend took Teleport Friend on his tank in the very early levels because I got lost CONSTANTLY. That character never made it past 25. Someday, maybe, I'll try storm/electric again. I'd like to think I learned a bit in two and a half years. At least, as far as the game is concerned.

In other news, I've gone respec happy. In the past few weeks I've done several respecs. Lunatrix back on Team Evil-whatever-the-heck-we-called-it got a respec, and the new and improved version really makes me love mind/psi doms. I ditched her Stealth and Grant Invisibilty-- she's never freakin' chasing freakin' Bomber to make him freakin' invisible again. (Aside from the fact he's on a different server now.)

Related, I respeced Angel Noir, who needed it badly. She was my first post-beta villain, and she hit the then-level-cap of 40 in about a month. I had no idea what I was doing. She needed the respec badly. But after my now-infamous LGSF with her, I wouldn't be surprised if she gets deleted, anyway, even if she is level 44 now. I do NOT like being buff/shield/heal bot. It's not fun. It's nothing like fun. Some people enjoy it. Some people at least tolerate it. I don't think I can. I'm letting that bad experience wear off a bit more before I come to any irreversible decisions, but that's the way I'm leaning.

Lorelei also got a respec. She's also up to 44. I made a couple of questionable decisions with her: I dropped Blind, because it didn't work at all as well as I'd hoped/heard. Maybe it got better with different/more slotting. For me, it seemed like a waste. I also dropped Group Invisibility. I got sick of hearing, "Don't make me invisible. I can't get aggro/can't see my costume/have to be able to see my character or I get headaches/am allergic to transparent things," and then having to wait until the perfect team alignment occurred before I could fire it off. I took Superior Invisibility and Teleport Friend instead, so she's now able to stealth whatever all the way back to level 12. I also took Fallout. Which may be a mistake. I just *wait* for PuG members to die, now, and laugh maniacally while I blow up their corpse. This is probably not a good trait for someone with a heal power. I ditched EM Pulse, not because it didn't work. As a hold and an endurance drain, it's not bad, and it has decent damage. But. It doesn't hold everything, and certainly doesn't do enough damage to kill everything. So everything that isn't held or dead runs straight to me. On PuGs, this is instant death. Lorelei runs PuGs or solo, and solo, the groups aren't big enough to really justify its usage. I also respeced out of Choking Cloud. It's supposed to be a PBAoE hold. It doesn't hold. I tried. It doesn't work, or at least, it doesn't work well enough.

I respeced dom-Fyre. No real big changes, except I got rid of Bonfire (FUN, but too situational to keep when there were other powers I could make better use of) and picked up HotFoot. Still somewhat situational, as it's a considerable endurance drain, but much more useful.

The big news, though, is I respeced Blaster Fyre. I'm not even going to go into it, because that's going to be it's own post... if I don't get side-tracked first.