Winterminal

Glad someone is interested! To answer your questions/concerns:

-I would prefer to keep it light. That way, if certain people want to be heavier on the RP, they are welcome to, but no one feels required to be.

-As for starting, we can start wherever and however. I think it might be easiest to start from scratch on any given server (especially now that we can email ourselves jump-start supplies), that way we won't have to worry about character transfers, but again that's something we can all decide on once we have a group.

-I, too, am a concept driven player, so I hear ya on that front. Once we have a set number of interested people, we can choose how to approach this. Example: If we end up with only 5 people, then we can get really detailed, maybe all take an archetype, form a superteam. If we end up with numbers in the double digits, obviously the approach would be different.

-I hate "required attendance" so there will be none of that. I would prefer to be on the side of "Hey, we're all running the Synapse TF around 7pm CST on Wednesday. Whoever can make it should be there!" And I agree, deleting a character because they were defeated, while I respect one's commitment who is willing to do that, is not something I want to do.

As you can see, I am not looking to get too extreme with this, just creative.

Very glad to hear you're on-board, Maestro. If you know anyone else who might be interested, refer them here. Once we can get a core group of people (say around 5-7) we can start discussing what to do, and actually make some decisions. That way, should it get to be large scale, we already have some things in place and are not dealing with 40 different opinions.

Hello to you, the resident saviors of Paragon City.

["Too long; Did not read" version]

I am looking for people who would be interested in building "something" from the ground up. That "something" would be decided upon by everyone in the group, based on how many people we had, what server we wanted to start on, what people want to get out of it, what kind of time we want to/would be able to devote to it, etc. I have plenty of ideas, but most importantly, I would like this be a collaboration. If you are interested, please say so on this topic, or contact me in-game via global tell or email (@Winterminal).

[Full Explanation]

There are two things that I love about comic-book universes, and their characters: being part of something bigger than yourself (and the responsibility that comes with that), and the high stakes situations into which these characters are thrust. This game provides opportunities for both, without making them a requirement (in order to appease the largest variety of people). These are the only two criteria I am adamant about fulfilling, and they are quite general in nature, so finding a happy compromise within the group should be relatively simple.

Usually, the most compelling stories are those where multiple people band together to accomplish a common goal. That's one thing I would like to incorporate into this "something" that will (hopefully) be created. Whether it is forming a tight-knit SG, doing task forces together, coming up with a common name/costume (as simple as a common chest emblem, or as intricate as fully matching uniforms and colors with everyone having "Vortex" as the prefix to their name). I don't know! The possibilities are numerous, and it would be a great way to get the creative process flowing.

The flip side to this group would be incorporating something that this game (being an MMORPG), otherwise, does not enforce a whole lot: stakes and consequences to our actions. Again, we can make this whatever we want, as long as something happens as a reaction to our actions. A range of examples:

What happens when one of us is defeated in battle?
Should task forces be one-time opportunities (do or die)?
If we fail a mission...?
Do we decide not to fight any more Lost after gaining sympathy for them in the Midnighter Arc?

The answers to these and other questions (even the more ridiculous ones, haha) can be whatever we want! As with most things, the existence of stakes makes something thrilling, and the higher the stakes, the more of a thrill it can be.

Essentially, this group would take one step further into the world of the character. The size of the step is up to us. If you would like to get involved, as I said above, post here, and/or contact me in-game via global tell or email (@Winterminal).

Whether you are interested or not, happy hunting.

-Winter

I'm hoping to err on "less-restrictive" with this project, and by posting here I was hoping to appeal to a population of players who perhaps want to dabble in fiction. In my experience, the RP forum usually attracts more involved RP'ers. But in retrospect, you are probably right. I had previously checked out that forum, but it looked like mostly in-context posts, and I didn't want to be attacked by the hard-core RP'ers.

Though, I suppose by posting here I am opening myself up for noob-based ridicule by the rest of the population, amirite? :P

*sigh* I'll move it. Thanks Aggelakis.

*Moved topic to here in the Roleplaying forum. Sorry for the clutter.*

I am, actually, glad that the two new trials do not require incarnate-status. As has been said, they do not seem to be on the scale that would require incarnate-type power, and I am overjoyed to see that the devs are continuing to release content for characters who choose not to dabble in the Well.

How do you balance a comic book universe with an MMORPG comic-book-based universe? In comic books, the writers/artists create an event, regardless of magnitude. The protagonist of the story experiences this event one time. Then the story moves on, often the following week with the next issue. It's different in the MMORPG universe: the creation of an event takes considerably longer for the writers/artists. Once the event is created, it needs to be available for (I'm estimating) hundreds of thousands of "protagonists" to experience multiple times. Finally, odds are it will be a good few months before the story moves on further.

It comes down to stakes/consequences. In a comic-book, whether the protagonist succeeds or fails in his "event" will determine what happens in the next issue. That's virtually impossible to do in an MMORPG. No matter how many characters take on Lambda Sector / Marauder, whether they burn the place to the ground or come back bruised and beaten, Lambda Sector and Marauder will still be there. (And that goes for nearly the entire game, I'm just using this example since it is the subject of debate.)

Frankly, this is where I think the game could benefit from fewer new things and more changing-of-old-things. (i.e. Zone-changing events such as the hollowing of the Hollows, what happened in Faultline and 'Boomtown', etc.) But that's off-topic...

To conclude, no OP, you are not alone. These two events feel episodic in nature, and more-or-less inconsequential in the general scheme of things. But after all, what is a comic book universe if not a series of episodes in multiple characters' lives, some more epic than others, leading up to a major event that often requires the attention of most of those characters?

I am always in favor of my favorite AT getting more power sets (especially secondary sets, for the love of all things super-powered!). Animation wise, I think these sets could look amazing. Water attacks could be of a constant-stream-like design, visually similar to Electric Blast in that the animation stretches from the character to the enemy (also differentiating it from Energy Blast). Earth attacks are pretty unique in their own right, and wind attack animations could easily be based off of the Kinetic Melee animations. I think the problem, though, is finding unique secondary effects for the powers.

Water, IMO, would do better as a control set. In blast form, you are really looking at Energy Blast in terms of secondary effects, with maybe a hold and/or stun opportunity thrown in. In control form, you have drowning, slippery-when-wet effects, disorients, etc. and you can't give as much of that to a blaster.

Wind would have a hard time appeasing the masses. Some would want wind that blows them away (i.e. Tornado/Hurricane strength stuff), and others would want wind that "cuts" right through you (i.e. Anyone who has been outside on a windy winter night knows what this means). So a mix of smashing and lethal damage attacks combined with some unconventional animations would be the best thing for a set like this.

Earthen animations already exist in abundance, I bet they would only need to tweak a couple and design a couple more. That being said, I do wonder if this set might get repetitive. I think it might be tough to make this a strictly blast set, and not end up feeling like your Earth controller suddenly got a power boost but lost his/her mez abilities.

But that's enough 'Devil's Advocate.' I think Leo G's sets are a step in the right direction, and I am all for getting these sets in the game.

Your title made me laugh,

Dante is right. It is a good opening move as it helps mitigate an alpha strike. But the key word there is "mitigate." This power hits a target, then knocks most targets in the blast radius on their behinds. For someone who could use some mitigation to avoid an alpha strike, it is a good power. But since you said you are looking for an AoE attack to suppliment your the attack chain, I would say this one is not for you.

It sounds like concept is something that is important to you, and I feel ya. It still irks me when my elec^3 blaster is shooting yellow-white blasts, but has lavender Charged Armor. I just keep reminding myself that the devs have said that they want, at some point, to make every power customizable. It is just a matter of when.

I'd say Knight's suggestion is best for what you want the powers to do. But if color is a huge deal for you (and there is no judging on this end, I totally get it) you can stick with Force Mastery. Personal Force Field, Temp Invulnerability, and Force of Nature all make the set worthwhile, so you won't gimp yourself that much, it's just that Repulsion Bomb probably won't do what you are hoping for.

*Looks out for James Cameron* heh

I can /sign this. I am very much in favor of:

-Only being able to play an avatar at the level of the "driving" character (to prevent new generation of AE babies).
-Rewards being only for the avatar, with minimal, if any, inexploitable rewards for the character.

That second part would really help someone like me suffering from alt-oholism. All those concept characters that, in actuality, I just want to take through this one story... that would be possible. Design the 5 missions in the arc, throw together the character, play through the arc, and bam! I've gotten my fix for that character.

Of course, having written that out, therein lies the downside. Some characters, that people would normally spend more time playing in order to get to a level where they could play through their designed arc, would not be played, nor even created for that matter. I suppose that is the exploit: Someone gets one level 50, and all of a sudden they can play whatever archetype and respective powerset combo they want.

Hmmm, how can we work around that?

For ST destruction primaries, you really can't go wrong picking Energy, Sonic, Fire, or Ice. And they all have their advantages:

• Ice has fantastic mitigation, including the ability to lockdown a boss, and Bitter Ice Blast is deceptively powerful.
• Sonic gets its full ST attack chain by level 8, and then arguably the best mass-lockdown tool available to blasters pre-Ancillaries (Siren's Song).
• Energy gets its full ST attack chain by level 6(!), and with Sniper Blast and Power Push, I find this set gives you that non-stop shooting feeling that you want with a ST-based blaster.
• Fire has the strongest ST blast available (Blaze), and between opening with Blazing Bolt and abusing fast-recharging Flares, you will quickly be putting mobs down.

The downsides:

• Ice will require help in the recharge department, either globally (through set bonuses or the Spiritual Alpha once you reach 50) or slotting for recharge. Although, with inherent fitness, slotting for recharge probably won't be such a bad idea.
• Sonic's secondary effects take longer to get going (in comparison). Make good use of your secondary powerset.
• Energy's "problem" is also its greatest strength, in my opinion: The knockback. You and your low amount of health and defense will love it, but just make sure you know how to control it in case you team up with melee characters that dislike it (some do, some don't).
• Fire has virtually know mitigation. Its mitigation is fast and large amounts of damage. Early levels might be tougher.

For secondaries, I suggest Energy or Electric.

I'd say by now you are inundated with opinions, and just try whatever appeals to you. Play it through the first couple levels, see if you like the feel of it.

I work in the theatre, I peform improv in Chicago, I love breaking the fourth wall...

But I have no idea what you are talking about.

So.. it is powersets that work as if they are bugged / create bugs / don't work at all?

First, I agree that Defenders are much like Corruptors. While I think Corruptors are their own unique archetype, I would sooner call them "a better-damaging-weaker-buffing defender" before I would call them "a weaker blaster."

I like that there are still some unique archetypes and/or powerset types to both the sides. And while I am completely in favor of exploring ways to create new archetypes that would be completely unique in their own right, I don't think "trying to balace side A with side B" is the way to go about it.

That all being said...

I like the idea, though I would implement it differently. I would make it 1 pet, which is your Tier 1 power, and rather than a henchman, it is a partner. Nearly all of your attacks work with your pet-partner. Different powersets would have different varieties of power-types (i.e. some may be more AoE oriented than others). Naturally, power pools would have to go through some extensive balancing, so that your pet-partner could fly/jump/run/stealth with you, but could not necessarily enable you to stack things like Leadership buffs. *Note: I'm not taking the time to flesh out this idea and all of its loopholes, just saying that I think that would be the way I would do it to keep it further from a Mastermind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OLoL0vLOJ0

The first 20 seconds of that is why I prefer ST characters.

I'm not concerned with fast rewards, I prefer to take things down one at a time, but quickly (i.e. why I mostly play blasters). Sure, for my Energy blaster, Explosive Blast makes for a great opener, but then I let loose with Power Bolt, -Blast, and -Burst, and most things are dead before they can get up off the ground. On my Ice blaster, forget it, Frost Breath is used almost exclusively on a team.

To answer the title question, is simply comes down to what you are aiming for and how you want to play.

The scales seem to be saved within the costume files. If you are looking to replicate the same scales on multiple characters, you could just save a sort of "Blank Slate" costume that is just the default tights, then load that costume when creating a character and go from there. But I know I could be building a 7' tall muscular costume, then go to the load screen and load a completely different (but same skeleton) costume and have the scales automatically adjust.

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Alpha_Slot

The "Examples" section toward the beginning should clarify how ED effects the Alpha Slot abilities in relation to other powers.

• If what you love doing is messing around in the character creator, save your costumes and powerset combos and come back to them in a couple days. Similar to impulse buys in the real world, by coming back to it a day or two later I can usually determine if it was something I actually wanted to play, or just a concept that sounded really cool to me in the moment.
• Try to think up a journey for your character. How/why does your character start out the way they do? What are they working for? Researching contacts via ParagonWiki can help this (i.e. your character has a vendetta against Longbow, you can research which contacts will pit you against the most Longbow enemies).
• Conversely, think up the end-game for your character. Can you truly make your character all you want it to be? My example: I have a Psychic blaster character that I want to make, but after looking at the powersets, there are certain powers I would want to skip, but with no psychic APP, I would run out of powers that I wanted to take. So I simply haven't made the character because I know that, while fun in the early levels, it will not be exactly what I want.
• Make a pair of characters that you always want to be close in level. So if one gets higher, you have to play the other one to raise its level too.
• Separate your characters into "solo/team only" categories. This satiates altism nicely. You do a couple missions with your easy-to-solo Stalker, but then a teaming opportunity comes along, so you switch to your corruptor because it has trouble gaining levels while solo. You feed your altism by playing multiple characters, but you also gain progress on both characters. Win/win.
• Final suggestion: take a break from the game. It is possible that you have become overstimulized, taking the excitement and spontanaeity out of everything you try, leading you to compulsively try out more things, making for a vicious cycle. (If this is the case, be thankful it is just a game, some people get this with FAR worse things...) A hiatus of anywhere from a few days to a month may be just the thing you need to put some new sparks into your gameplay.

If my name wasn't obvious enough, Cold-based powersets are my favorite in the game. And I HAVE to recommend the Blaster over the Dominator.

In terms of control an Ice/Ice/Cold blaster gets:

• 1 ranged ST immobilize
• 2 ranged ST holds
• 1 melee ST hold
• 1 melee PBAoE sleep
• 1 ranged Targeted AoE sleep
• Shiver, Chilling Embrace, and Snow Storm
• Slow secondary effects on nearly every one of your powers

That amount of control should be illegal for blasters. But thankfully, it is not. This combo excels at stopping the enemy in its tracks, and then putting them down fast. Ice Bolt, Ice Blast, and Bitter Ice Blast provide an ideal ST attack chain, one that is much more useful if you have it from 18 onward, rather than 38. You get some decent AoEs in Frost Breath and Ice Storm, and the best "nuke" in the game (considering that, with Shiver and/or Snow Storm, you will be able to keep them within Blizzard's area of effect for the duration).

With Ice Control being low on damage to begin with, and the amount of control you get from an Ice/Ice blaster, I would go with the latter if I were you.

I don't know if we'll ever get a Kinetic Blast set. First, I think it would be very difficult to make unique animations for all the powers. Second, I think it would be difficult to make it different than any other existing set out there (and Ranged blast sets are not exactly in short supply). Third, the fact that they already have 2 ranged attacks and a larger-range PBAoE in the Kinetic Melee set makes this even less of a possibility. However, having said all that, I love entertaining new ideas, so here's how I would build it. I'm not making power names, just types of powers and what they do.

1. Ranged Minor DMG(Smash/Energy), 80 ft., Foe -DMG

2. Ranged Moderate DoT (Smash/Energy)(fast, like Scream from Sonic Attack), 80 ft. range, Foe -DMG

3. Ranged (Cone), Moderate DMG(Smash/Energy), 40 ft., 60% chance to Knockdown (aka Repulsing Torrent)

4. PBAoE Melee, Moderate DMG(Smash/Energy), Knockdown, Foe -DMG (aka Burst)

5. Aim (standard)

6. Ranged, Minor DMG(Smash/Energy), Foe Disorient, Foe -DMG

7. Ranged, High DMG(Smash/Energy), 60% chance to Knockdown, Foe -DMG

8. Sniper, Extreme DMG(Smash/Energy), Foe -DMG (might as well call it KA-ME-HA-ME-HA!)

9. Ranged (90 ft. 30 degree Cone), Extreme DMG(Smash/Energy), Foe -DMG, Self -Recovery

/signed. While it is a bug, I enjoy thinking, "Hey, I just 'phased' into a mission!" haha.

I think this may be relatively close, as well. When I see how the PPD 'ports in to help out a Seer, or how Maelstrom 'ports away from battle in the "Unstable Trigger" hero tip mission... Some new animations are being put in the game, I gotta imagine/hope it is only a matter of time before we see those options.

I would be happy to bring my lvl 38 ice tank, except that it is on Friday, at 6 (CST for me). Gotta leave that time open for dinner. And later on Friday I'll be out for the evening. If this happened more middle of the week, I would probably be available.

Wow. I have had the urge to make a Sonic/Sonic character for a few days now, and was just wondering this same thing today, so thank you for asking, Soulwind!

I'm slightly surprised to hear that a Defender wins out, but in the end it makes sense. (Although, after playing Sonic Attack as a blaster primary, I wonder if I can be satisfied with the trade for less damage but greater debuffs...)

Typically, there is a raid every Monday at 10pm EST, sometimes Sundays as well. I know last night we filled the zone, six full teams and then some.

However, as DarkGob said, during "peak hours" you could probably get 3 teams together for a raid, as long as you gave everyone, say, a half hour's notice, so that they could wrap up whatever they were doing.