What I Did With My I12

So, I12 is buggy. Let's get that out of the way first. I crashed twice today, just switching characters and once yesterday, and once the night before. Normally, I run into my game crashing once or twice a month. I'm not very worried about that, though. New issues tend to do things like that. If it continues over the next couple of weeks, then I'll get concerned.

Other than that minor annoyance (and of course the icon bug), I like i12 so far. Best issue ever? Maybe not, but it's pretty good. The first thing I did, like a lot of people, was make a VEAT. Well, no. Actually, the very first thing I did was claim my 5 free character slots, all on Virtue. (More slots!! YAY!) Then, I made my VEAT. I chose to take the Bane Spider route, even though I've heard Banes are less awesome than others. I wanted to save the name, Karma Noir. No, she doesn't have much of a story yet. I haven't even played her past level 1 yet, either.

The next thing I did was make my psi blaster. You may recognize her from Team 3.0. I kept the same name, since Team 3.0 was over on Guardian, so the new psi/mind blaster is Lunatrix. And, yes, I did have to log into Guardian to look up her real name. Miranda Lancaster. Her introduction from Team 3.0 here in the blog says "Elise," but I changed it, like, the next day. Other than that, she hasn't changed much. Things in the Rogue Isles didn't go so well for her. Con-artistry was one thing, but she wasn't ready for outright villainy. She hid out for awhile, and then decided to turn herself in for her past crimes. She was able to work out a deal where she remains free as long as she continues to work for the city of Paragon as a hero and doesn't get into anymore trouble.

On the other hand, there's my fire/fire scrapper, Ashleigh Burns. I used the name Ashley Burns back when the servers were flooded with Supergroup fillers for the prestige bonus. I think she was a fire/fire controller. (There was also her brother/cousin/something, Scorch Burns, a fire/fire tank. I don't think he'll do anything but continue to live on the SG roster as a level 2 in nonexistent space.) Ashleigh just graduated high school and moved to Paragon to start college in the fall. She started working as a hero without informing her very normal parents, who never quite understood their mutant daughter. She's eighteen, because I don't think Paragon is any kind of place for children to run free. She'll be mostly PuGs, probably, but when I RP her, expect a lot of "Ohmigawd!" type comments. I don't plan on making her annoyingly cheerful, but she'll be my anti-angst character. Until/unless she gets deleted.

I'm not overly impressed with the fire/fire scrapper, so far. She is only level 13 at the moment. Assuming I continue, she'll probably skip her passive Temperature Protection. She'll need the normal Swift/Health/Stamina, as well as Combat Jumping/Super Jump. From there, she'll have to pick up Acrobatics, as there's no KB protection in her shields. Except for the 25 million influence +KB protection IO that Fyre just bought her. That IO is +4 points of protection. Acrobatics is +9 points, now. I think she'll be workable with just the IO until I get the free power choice for Acrobatics. She NEEDS Stamina a lot more right now. If I can fit it in, I'd like to try for Tough and Weave. I think she's going to need the extra defense, although Healing Flames does seem to recharge rather quickly. Of course, with a 25 million influence investment already, she's probably going to stick around for awhile.

I have to say, the psi/mind blaster isn't especially impressive. She's only level 10, though. She burns endurance quick. The damage seems kind of meh. Of course, the blaster I play the most is level 50 and has considerable IO bonuses, so I may be just stuck comparing the two. I'm trying not to judge too quickly. Generally, I try to reserve judgement until level 20, with a couple of notable exceptions. (Harmony Hex: Sonic/sonic defender who played only on PuGs, AKA "Die, I don't care, I'm not buffing you again because you're a moron." And, poor Hex Raven who would have lost a battle to a kitten because a) the kitten did more damage and b) the kitten had better endurance management. I just didn't have the patience to wait for her late-bloomer build to bloom. Too bad, because I liked the character.)

I tried an ITF on Fyre, after Keen and I ran the Midnighter arc with Fyre and Stronghold. (Fyre is now wondering how in the heck Stronghold and Havoc could possibly be the same person, by the way.) The Midnighter arc is a lot of fun. I still love the new maps, both the Midnighter caves (also used in Cimerora and the ITF), and the Cimerora zone. The ITF was PHAIL, though. Not because death happened, because it did and it will in the three missions that lead up to the finale. It was phail because the last mission is... well, I won't say impossible. It CAN be done. I was on a team that did it on Test, and did the whole TF in one hour and twenty-nine minutes. I was also on a team that took four hours to decide it was phail, and another that took almost that long only to fail. The team the other day on Live took about 3 hours to decide it was phail. It's difficult, let's say.

Some of the other little QoL are fun, too. There's a lot of talk about how much easier it is to get a global name from a local name, or vice versa. (In fact, this is a pretty interesting read, if only for the RP points.) I don't care either way, myself. But I am enjoying the notes feature, if only to one-star the idiots I run into on PuGs. I'm getting used chat boxes full of color. Now, it seems easier to read with the separation. I'm constantly combining inspirations. I love being able to click someone's name in chat and getting options that include sending them a tell or inviting them to a team. How much easier is that? The separation on the contacts tab is excellent for my 50s especially.

I12's been fun so far. I even took Mo out for a bit late one night to fly through the sewers and help out the newb, and I ran into two other people randomly doing the same thing. And best of all, I still have 2 free character slots. I did want to use that new Arctic pattern, though. Hm...