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.

Double XP Weekend

For those of you who don't read the forums, don't read the right part of the forums, and/or don't talk to anyone who does, Double XP weekend is scheduled to start Friday, February 8 and last until the 10th. Fair warning to cancel whatever plans you have for that weekend and camp out in front of the computer.

You Know...

I don't feel like making a real post. I'd rather go get Callie (Elektra Callie [if you don't get it, I'm not going to explain it. Just say it out loud couple of times or something], level 20, elec/elec blaster) up to SO range. So, how about I just tack up another YouTube video and we'll call it a post?






Edit: Bonus!

The Way Things Were

When I bought the game, I bought the Prima guide at the same time. I was unfamiliar with "real" MMORPGs (The Sims Online so doesn't count), and I figured I'd probably need the extra help. The copyright on the book is 2004. It was published a couple of months before I bought the game. The Fifth Column is even in the book, and they were gone before I started playing. The level cap was still 40. The numbers in the book are completely worthless now, but I still pick it up occasionally for some odd reason... say, to get a vague idea of a power I'm not too familiar with. I picked it up tonight because I can never remember what level what power becomes available, and I wanted to know if I could get Inertial Reduction at level 26. So I didn't find that, but I found this on the Fire Blast primary:

"You are able to dish out damage, granted. In the long run, however, it is
not massive damage. You will have access to very few direct damage powers, which
means you will have a tough time soloing groups at the higher levels.... Since
you are not able to heal yourself, it can get time-consuming to stay in solo
combat. If you want to go head to head with villains and be able to take out
large groups with reasonable ease, then Fire Blast is not for you.
Nine times out of ten, you will not deal the most damage in large
groups."

lulz

Hey, Y'all, Watch This! Here, Hold My Beer*.

In general, I play cautiously. I don't like death. Not because of debt. I barely notice the debt. Anymore. It's the frustration of being stopped, and sometimes having to start over again. With Fyre's self-rez, that's not such a big deal. Click, get back up. And, the mobs are handily stunned at the same time. Whee. Yeah, sometimes she just gets dropped right away again. Case in point, the RWZ debt-farm I was on last week, with a team of 6 blasters, a clueless side-kicked tank, and a mostly-afk defender, all fighting Vanguard. Purple Vanguard. Yeah, this is one of those PuGs that you should run from and never look back. But some morbid curiosity kept me in for two missions. Oddly, we did complete the rescue-Lady-Grey mission, without getting Lady Grey killed. Either they've made that mission easier, or it was an honest-to-goodness miracle.

Fyre's pretty tough, though, and I've noticed my cautiousness has slowly diminished. I've caught myself playing "blapper" on occasion. (Clarification: Fyre's still nowhere near being classified as a blapper. Promise! It's only short application of Fire Sword to finish off a mob, or using Combustion and then running back to a safer, more sane and less annoying distance.) It's still been a cautious, steady, yet relatively quick play style.

Until yesterday.

I had a spare hour, so I set myself to the red search flag, cranked up the mp3 player, and logged in to blow some sh-- er, stuff up. Two random-whatever-they-were missions, and the only thing up for scanner missions was Council (bleh), and a random kidnap-- er, rescue mission. Kidnap/rescues bore me. Hostages stop following for no known reason, they get stuck in elevators, they refuse to jump off ledges, whatever. So, the other option was Arachnos. Not my favorite. Half-tech salvage, and worse at high levels, Bane Spiders.

Bane Spider: Assassin Strike!
All but ten of my hit points go away.
Me: ...huh? Ow!
Bane Spider: Placate!
Me: ...son of a--
Two and a half minutes of
pointless clicking and swearing commence while the Bane Spider points and
laughs, then disappears and runs away just as placate wears off, which is
another two and a half minutes of waiting for him to come sauntering back with
the decaff soy latte he wandered off to buy while I hit tab 7,000 times trying
to find him.

So, not my favorite. And the first room there's a Bane Spider minion, and a Bane Spider lieutenant in the same group, and another similar group on the far side of the room, with a Fortunata or two for added fun. They're all yellow and orange, by the way. Fyre runs at Rugged solo. (I probably ought to up that. Except for the odd Illusionist or Bane Spider lieutenant, she never breaks a sweat, or sometimes doesn't even stop forward momentum.) And this is when the evil little light bulb goes off above my head. This room would be perfect to herd, and then Inferno, I think. But, I'm not a tank, I say to me. So?

So, I pop a purple, a yellow, and a red, and run through both groups and back around the corner. They take a shot or two, but no one follows me. Huh. Another little light bulb. I throw on Blazing Aura, and they all follow me back though the room. I duck around the corner, wait for them to pack in, hit Build-Up, Inferno... and the room is clear, and I'm nowhere near dead.

I herded with my blaster.

It was a fluke, right? Halfway through the mission, I did the exact same thing. Same results.

Yeah, I'm probably not the first person to think of this. I'm more than likely not the first person to do this. There are probably some people who can do it with a 8-person-team-size-set-at-Invincible spawn. Whatever. It was fun, it was out of character, and I'm probably gonna do it again.



* Much more likely to be wine, cognac, or a margarita. At the time, Sobe Life Water.

Fyre's Enhancements, as of 12-28-07

Okay, so I did try to do this last week, but Blogger was being a jerk about uploading pictures, and I gave up.

I listed Fyre's set bonuses once before, mostly to help me keep track, but that was a couple of months ago, and there have been several notable changes since.

This is what she had when I made this post in September:

Positron's Blast
+2.5% recovery
+1.58% fire and cold resistance
+9% Accuracy (in all powers)
-6.25% recharge time (in all powers)
+3.13% toxic resistance
Devastation (1)
+12% regeneration
+2.25% maximum health
Devastation (2)
+12% regeneration
+2.25% maximum health
+3% damage (in all powers)
-3.3% duration of hold time
Sting of the Manticore
+12% regeneration
+.95% energy and negative defense
+3% damage (in all powers)
+7.5 recharge (of all powers)
+3.13% toxic resistance
Scirrocco's Dervish
+10% regeneration
+3.15% negative energy resistance
+9% accuracy (to all powers)
Ghost Widow's Embrace
+5% run speed
+1.88% maximum health
+2.25% maximum endurance
+2.5% hold duration
+3.13% psi resistance.

This is now:



You can see that since, I've finished my second Devastation set, adding 3% damage to all powers, and lessening hold time by 3.3%.

In the week since I took those screenshots, there's been only one addition, an additional Ragnarok IO, Damage/recharge/Accuracy. That's 3 set bonuses now from that set:
4% Recovery
2.52% Fire and Cold Resistance
15% Accuracy
This includes the Chance for Knockdown Procedure IO, that provides a 20% chance to knockdown targets.

I added four of the six Aegis: Resist Damage set, giving her:
5% Run Speed
1.58% Fire and Cold Defense
2.5% debt protection
Most importantly from this set, though, is the set's Unique enhancement with is a Psionic/Status resistance, which provides a 3.0% bonus to Psionic Resistance. In addition, status effect resistance is increased by 20%.

I added the Chance to Heal Self from the Entropic Chaos set in her Ring of Fire. When it hits, it only gives a +60 HP. BUT. With the new Defiance, that's one of the powers I still use when she's held, slept, mezzed, whatever. In those cases, that little boost to her HP is pretty helpful.

In Hover, there's a Luck of the Gambler, Defense/Increase Recharge. That gives a +15.9 Defense increase, and a 7.5% recharge time boost to all powers. There's also a Karma: Knockback Protection, that provides 4 points of knockback protection. Now, I don't know how "points" are assigned to knockback powers. But I know that she's had two of those CoT Earthquake things stacked on her, and stayed standing. I'm happy with that.

In Health, I slotted a Miracle: Recovery, which increases endurance recovery by 15% for 120 seconds. Since Health is a passive, (I'm pretty sure) that's 120 seconds off, and 120 seconds on.

Prestige Power Rush (the Veteran Reward Spring power I use) has a Celerity +Stealth slotted in it.

There's still room for some partial sets, namely in Combustion. I plan on finishing my purple set, but each of those recipes cost somewhere between 20 and 30 million, on average, and take another 8 million for ingredients. Which is why I should be playing, and not posting.