Pain, Thermal, and i13

So, I'm finally patching up the Test Server to take a look at the new stuff. Or at least, the new stuff I can look at before Open Beta. Shields don't interest me at all. Not even a little bit. Honestly, *yawn.* (Sorry, Keen and Vagz.) But I'm interested enough in Pain Domination to take a look.

I'll probably remake (NOT "reroll." There's no freakin' rolling involved!!) Angel Noir, my level 44 fire/thermal corrupter as... something/Pain Domination. Not fire. Maybe Dark. Not fire because nothing Fire Blast is ever going to compare favorably to Fyre's Fire Blast. Several hundred million influence later, yes, but the result is the same. And I hate Thermal. Why? Because with a corrupter, I want to blow sh*t up, not buff and heal, and heal and buff, and buff, and buff. Thermal's a mix of Forcefield or Sonic and Empathy. There's shields, AoE heals, single-target heals, Thaw (which is similar to Clarity or Clear Mind), and a couple of debuffs. Imagine playing an empath, a rad, and a force field defender ALL AT THE SAME TIME, AND trying to do damage, on a PuG with 7 other crazy people. It's not fun.

I played her until level 44, though, for several reasons. First, I reserved the name before CoV was launched. I played the character in CoV closed Beta, and rushed with make the character on Live with the headstart. In the early days of CoV, there were plenty of teams, rushing to make 40 (that was the level cap for CoV then) as quick as possible. No one knew what they were doing. Just racking up XP. I'd only been playing CoH for a couple of months then, too, and I barely knew what I was doing there. I hit 40 fairly quickly, withing maybe 2 months of the CoV launch. I had NO idea what I was doing. Over the new two years or so, Angel gained 4 levels, and racked up several respecs. And I was never happy with her. Even less when I compared her to Fyre. But, I didn't delete her, because I was attached the name, because I did have 40+ levels invested in her (even if the time committment wasn't much), and because she got the Ghost Widow patron hold which is the coolest looking power EVER.

But, I don't play her. Soloing is disappointing because she doesn't do the damage I want. Teaming is painful, because teams want a Thermal corrupter to buff, heal, buff, buff, heal. I don't expect Pain Domination to be any less buff/heal heavy. But, if I'm aware of that, and build the character to buff and heal, and do it well, then maybe it won't be so painful (no pun intended). Maybe. Since it'll be new and shiny, though, I'll play it, and be able to justify using a character slot just to save a name.


Let's see, what else... The patcher's not done yet.

I'm so over zombies. I loved the idea, and the implementation. The early start was amazingly awesome. E and Scarlette were standing outside a mission entrance in Dark Astoria, when there was the sudden loud sound of something that may have been music, a long puzzeled silence, and the groan of the undead as they started clawing their way out of the ground. It was freakin' awesome. Seriously. I've hunted GMs a few times, and Fyre's spent some time ToTing, earning more costume salvage, influence, salvage, and recipes. Including a purple Armageddon proc, Chance for Fire Damage, which I love the irony of. I'm over the Halloween event as a whole, though. Which is probably good since there's only a few days left. I still love the red sky, though, and I think Dark Astoria should have year-round random Zombie Invasions.

The DB scrappers hit 47 last night. They're interesting right now. The RP is good and involving, but not at melodrama levels, and of all my scrappers, I don't have one at 50 yet, so that's one of my goals. Cass is still 48, but I'm waiting until the i13 Invulnerability changes to resume playing her.

Speaking of Thermal, though-- yeah, I know, delayed reaction-- I did make my lowbie controller, Andromeda Balan, mind/thermal. But she was meant to duo with a fire scrapper, which meant she could focus on the controller part, and not the thermal part. In fact, she won't even pick up shields until after level 20 and Stamina. Even with the special guest stars (whoever Keen and/or Mason decide to bring along), she's still been just fine. A small team of the 4 of us is a heck of a lot different than a full team of clueless PuGers. RP-wise, Andy has a few secrets, including one big one. She--

Patcher's done! Gotta go!