AzureSkyCiel

I would like to point you guys in the direction of my old thread here...

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=217886

Having suggested this on the General Forum already, I shall /sign it, not matter how ridiculous it looks.

Rularuu invades, the dead rise, hell comes to earth, and heroes and villains join forces to fend them off. The theme is surprisingly determined and hopeful.
In otherwords, mass scale Bolivian Army ending with strong hints that the heroes and villains CAN come out of this on top of this situation, while still giving the feeling of "the battle never truly ends, there are only moments when you both run out of ammo."

Clearly she plays Venessa DeVore.

Actually, you do encounter Spark Blade and Rose Star in the Faultline Mayhem Missions as the protecting Heroes.

Just like you can fight Blue Steel in the Galaxy City Mayhem.

P.S. As you can imagine, these Mayhems are hardly ever done because they're so freaking tough that no one has beaten them.

My three big ones would be the group I call the "Japan Trio":

Takezo "Akuma Ryu" Himura: A time displaced Samurai who fought an alternate (or possibly the future of this) Lord Recluse in his village of Shiki, Japan in 1776.

Kaede "Tenshi Ryu": A mystical miko born with an innate gift for healing magic and from the same time and village as Takezo, the two were childhood friends and young lovers until a painful affair she had with a ronin. She was with Takezo during a fateful duel against Lord Recluse and the two barely stood a chance, bleeding and dying, they both dragged themselves through the time portal and wound up in Paragon.

Sakura "Tenshi" Sakuraba (She's annoyed with her parents for giving her such an unimaginative name): A magical girl from modern Japan who's been in the business too long. She knows the ins and outs and has seen that just because Japan might be like anime, doesn't mean real world rules don't apply (one of her most painful memories was watching a six year old magical girl get crushed to death by a careless mecha pilot). She's friends with Takezo and somewhat rivals with Kaede, though her friendship with Takezo is because she's the direct blood descendant of his sister from 1770's, also her reincarnation.

But, being the Japanophile I am, I actually have a lot of Asian characters despite my attempts to avoid it:

Kohaku Kousaka: Is a Yuki Onna of JUSTICE! and the wife of Sakura's magical girl mascot, Ebisu (who is secretly a Nekomata, or "Corpse Dancing Cat"). She keeps a circle of bodyguards to help her deliver JUSTICE! on the Rogue Isles at its source.
But be warned, she's not all Tokusatsu fangirling, she has a brilliant mind and once was wickedly cruel, and can still be if you cross her loved ones the wrong way.
Though Vibhishana, her court's Medicine man, is actually Indian, as you might imagine.

One the flip side there's my Tsoo Green Inkman Ardent Viridian, whom I explicitly avoid giving a an actual nation of origin. Like Sulu or Kato, he is just ambiguously Asian.

You know, just for the hell of it, I would now really like it if you could unlock the 1960's Arachnos Uniform pieces for VEATs, and yes, that would mean a 1960's Widow and Fortunata outfit would need to be made, though the older Widow outfit might only just by closer to what Ghost Widow wears (You know, with the sleeves thing).

In addition to many stated, here are a few of my own:

Heroes of the Old World: West
Costume sets: Renaissance (Poofy, flowing shirts, floppy hats, though woman's options might end up limited with current game tech), Gothic Knight (Something a bit better detailed and cognitized than the current Medieval), Crusader (Chainmail and a special coat to go over it), Privateer (More Pirate options!), Da Vician (Lots and lots of clockpunk gear)

Weapons: Basket Hilt Rapier (Broadsword and Dual Blades), Claymore (Katana* and Broadsword), Hand-and-a-half sword (Katana, dual blades, Broad Sword.), Wheel lock (Assault Rifle**), Blunderbuss (Assault rifle).

emotes: Sword Salute (summon a longsword and salute with it), Fencing Salute (Summon a Rapier and do a salute), Roman Salute (Okay, just kidding), And probably some kind of Renaissance style dance.

*Because I would like to have a Two handed Western sword, dammit!
**Try not to think too hard about how singleshot guns are firing like that.

And probably quite a few based on this theme of WAY old school heroes, I know I would love a Shinsengumi haori with robes from my katana scrapper. Or just haori in general.

Actually, OP, this has been on my mind for a while too... Hell, there's even a mission where one of the items is a superdyne lab that gives you a recovery BUFF for inhaling the fumes (standing near it) and it's a low level one too. So seriously, what's up with that?

But on this note, it also depends on my characters. Most of them are fairly pragmatic, though cautious. If they got their powers through an accident of science, magic, something like that, they're not dumb enough to try again and would try to prevent people from attempting to replicate it.
The closest exceptions being my katana scrapper (natural), my archery blaster (Magic(al girl)), and my DB brute (also natural) who all believe much more strongly in skill, training, teamwork, and strategy are the better and best solutions over magical elixirs, super serums, or even high tech gadgets, though even they're not the kind to shy from putting such options to good use.

So, as shameless self bump/case thread necromancy, here's basically a list of alternate power selection ideas for Assault rifle set based on working with themes of the different aspects of Assault Rifle: Machine Gunner, Rifleman, Demolitionist, and Shotgunner.

For Burst- Single Shot: Straight out of the Arachnos soldier Primary, it seems like a bit of a better alternative to Burst (given it's shorter activation time) but considering burst does have better range and a longer debuff duration, it seemed like a equal trade off to me, besides these three factors, the powers are effectively the same.
Concept: Rifleman
Effects: Ranged, Minor Damage (Lethal), Foe: -Defense, Rech: fast

For Slug- Sabot Round: Sabot round would be less damaging than Slug and at a shorter range in exchange for being the fastest recharging (Perhaps 2.5 ot 3 seconds) power in the assault rifle set as well as packing a nice debuff to defenses. This was a bit of a toughie really, and I'm honestly not too sure about it.
Concept: Shotgun (Part of the problem being that Slug also still works, but in my mind it's range makes me think of rifles)
Effects: Ranged, Moderate Damage (Lethal), Foe -Defense, Rech: very fast

For Buckshot- Heavy Burst: Another one taken out of the Arachnos Soldier Primary, this one might need some numbers modification since HB has slightly higher average damage, a debuff to Buckshot's chance for KB, and a longer range. But buckshot does have the advantage of having faster recharge by a third (8 secs to 12 secs), and having less than half the cast time of Heavy burst.
Concept: Machine Gun
Effects: Ranged (Cone), High Damage over Time (Lethal), Foe: -Defense, Rech: moderate

For M30 Grenade- Armor Piercing Round: The basic idea is that it would work basically like DP's Piercing Rounds with a reduction of damage into into Minor in exchange for a -res debuff effect and an added defense debuff (Maybe about 12.% from blaster?), a faster recharge, shorter cast time, longer range, and able to hit more targets in its path (maybe? Maybe up to 5?). This was originally going to replace the Beanbag until I came up with the EMP Grenade, While overall lacking compared to Piercing round, hopefully, getting this earlier, the extra defense debuff, longer range, and shorter cast time and recharge for greater debuff stacking would hopefully make it appealing enough and at the same time not overshadow the m30 grenade.
Concept: Rifleman
Effects: Narrow Ranged (Cone), Minor DMG(Lethal), Foes -Res(All)/-Def (All), Rech: moderate

For Beanbag- EMP Grenade: The EMP grenade will do minor energy/smash damage to all foes in the area of effect while at the same time take a nasty hit to their Endurance as well as suffer from a Recovery debuff. Most robots and machines will also suffer from short Hold period from this attack while they reboot. This was very tough one to figure out since a lot of other options seemed like a no brainer of a trader off to a single target stun, hopefully, this is both appealing, and still keeps beanbag looking valid as a choice.
Concept: Demolitionist
Effects: Ranged (Targeted AoE), Minor DMG (Energy/Smash), Foe: -End, -Recovery, Special Vs. Robots (Hold), Rech: Slow

For Sniper Rifle- Suppression Fire: A locational AoE attack (about 10 radius) with an animation and cast time much like (and a little shorter than) Full Auto. This would deal high end moderate damage, but it's selling point would be a strong speed, jump, and fly debuffs as well as good (60%) chance for Knockback as your opponents are forced away. This was an old idea in my mind from a Heavy machine gun set, and well, it kind of just made its way in, and it seems like an interesting idea to add a bit of Area Denial to this set.
Concept: Machine Gunner
Effect: Ranged (Location AoE), high DMG (lethal), Foe: -SPD, Knockback, Rech: Slow

For Flamethrower- Incendiary Grenade: This would basically work like the power Incendiary Missile Swarm or Carnie Spitfire power, but with a grenade instead of rockets (and spit), complete with leaving a burning patch for additional fire DoT. This one was actually an old idea for a flatout change to the set to allow it to keep in theme and not need to change IO set slotting on the power, but instead worked into something else.
Concept: Demolitionist
Effect: Ranged (Targeted AoE), Moderate DMG (Fire), Special: Creates Fire for additional Moderate Fire DoT on location of effect. Rech: Slow

For Ignite- Mini-turrets: The mini-turret would be a summon power that fires a grenade which would deploy into a stationary mini gun turret that would occasionally fire on sighted foes with the Burst power that would possess and added taunt component. Mini-turrets can keep aggro off of you this was for a short time, but with limited HP and defenses (See below for ideas on stats) it can still be easily destroyed by enemies, but when it is destroyed, it will explode for moderate smashing/lethal damage. After 45 seconds (both it's duration and initial recharge rate) it will become inert and fade away after another 15 seconds, during the 15 seconds, you yourself will be able to destroy the turret to detonate it and damage your enemies. You will only be able to have 2 mini-turrets deployed at a time, mini-turrets are stationary.
I had trouble figuring out what could help continue a theme of using grenades and this idea came up after Remembering them mini-turrets in Bioshock 2 and a moment of embracing a less conventional possibility for them in the City of universe.
Concept: Demolitionist
Effects: Build Mini-Turret, Ranged, Minor Damage (lethal), Rech: Slow
Mini-Turret Stats- Resistances: 321.3 HP (@ lvl 50), 10% Res (All), 5% Def (All), Mez immunity (All except Hold and Immob), Self: Immobilize (Mag: 10000). Power: Burst- Ranged, minor (lethal), Foe: -Def

For Full Auto- Riot Gun: This would basically be (low) superior damaging, fast recharging Shotgun style power, what it would lack for in raw damage, it would make up for with quick animation time, and faster recharge. Compared to buckshot, it would have a narrower cone (20 degrees) but a much better range (60 feet).
All in all, this idea is for those who want to have more of a riot cop shotgun use of assault rifle.
Concept: Shotgunner
Effects: Ranged (Cone), Superior DMG (Lethal), Foe: Knockdown, Rech: Slow

Well, real numbers would obviously need to be put in, but otherwise this would hopefully allow enough alternate options for a player to mix and match between the default powers and the alternatives so the horror of Frankengun can be significantly reduced.
And this is just an example as to the idea of Alternative Power Selections.
If you'd like, please feel free to contribute your own or point out glaring flaws with mine.

I will always /sign this suggestion until we are granted it by the devs.
Let me have my roman armor for my angelic characters!