Bright

I have to chuckle at the person up-thread who said that this conversation read like his character list... I'm in the same boat, it seems.

I have a sonic/sonic defender, an empath, a whole flock of assorted stalkers, a lot of Dual Blade characters, a war mace tank, a "double dark" blaster, two Trick Arrow characters, several KinMelee types, a Psi blaster, both a FF defender and a ninja/FF mastermind, and a trio of Peacebringers.

That said, it's true that some of them don't come out to play very often. Suzume and Kephren, my FF and Sonic defenders, honestly feel pretty useless on most teams and trial leagues with all the Barriers and other buffs flying around these days. My Trick Arrow defender and corruptor generally seem to be regarded as an underpowered waste of a team slot, and we all know what "players at large" tend to think of stalkers and peacebringers... Though mine have all done pretty well for themselves running iTrials.

The oddest bird in my crew isn't any of those guys, though... It's Tamlin, the Archery/Ice blaster I have over on Exalted. I've never seen another character with that combination, and I seem to get a lot of comments on how unusual he is whenever I play him.

Otherwise, I can count on one hand the number of Assault Rifle players I've seen in the last couple of years... I rarely see Ax tanks, either. (Even though, again, I have one myself- )

I ran it on my rogue, Grey Kestrel, who went into it with the (In-character. I knew better, of course-) assumption that Statesman was gonna absolutely pound Darrin flat... Something she was very much looking forward to seeing, after he tried to double-cross her.

I'm afraid she just sort of looked at States afterwards, shook her head and said something on the order of, "Marcus, you really are an idiot sometimes, you know that? I mean, seriously... What part of that DIDN'T look like a total set-up to you? ... I thought you were smarter than that, man... And now *I'm* going to have to go clean up this whole stupid mess myself, instead of getting to sit back and watch YOU turn that pip-squeek Wade into a greasy smear on the ground like you were supposed to!... You have no idea how much that's going to suck... And you'd better hope Recluse doesn't pop a freakin' valve over this, buster, because damned if I'm going to deal with his drama on top of everything else... 'For Justice and Kittens', my ***... *kicks a rock* Slacker."

I wouldn't exactly have called States one of her friends... She's never really forgiven him for punching her boss into next week, after all... but she did tend to think of him with a certain amount of good humor, and seeing some trumped-up nobody like Wade do that to him would have upset her more than she'd ever admit.

I'll confirm it for sure next time we run through, but having taken Grey Kestrel on a couple of UGTs now, the spore damage in the hall doesn't seem to break Hide. It might well interupt AS, though. You'd have to be careful with the timing, or open with something else.

That said, even with her build-up and an uninterupted attack there's no way Kes could even come close to one-shotting those bombs. Granted, as ludicrously well-equipped as she is, Kes was built for Recharge and not Damage... and those bombs (Like pretty much everything else in the game-) are probably resistant to Lethal attacks.

I'd be curious to see what a non-Lethal, high-end Damage-build Stalker could do to them...

The closest to that I have is a moderately well-equipped KM, so not an ideal candidate.

Spines... Tried it. Hated it. A lot.

Illusion... It just bored me to tears.

KM on a Scrapper... I love my KM stalker dearly and have no complaints about my KM tank, but getting a KM scrap to 50 was enough of a pain to make me say "Never again!"

Plant control... I don't care how effective it is. It's a butt-ugly set with some of the least attractive powers and pets in the game.

Dark Armor... Another "tried it and hated it". I deleted that version of Ke'khali at 38.

Titan Weapons... Very cool idea, but the momentum mechanics and the resulting jerky, stop-and-go attack animations drove me absolutely crazy.

Warshades... I love my Peacebringers, but never really "got" my 'Shade. I found playing her to be pretty much the opposite of fun.

I don't often play with strangers, and I'm so rarely on "regular"-sized teams anymore that I can't really claim to have any strongly defined standards for PUGing. (I tend to play either solo/duo or on big, multi-team leagues that involve the same group of people.) So, it's mostly just a matter of 'whatever my friends bring'.

They're all decent players, though, who can roll with almost anything and who don't hold it against me when I'm quiet. (They know I'm not coordinated enough to both play my character and type in chat at the same time. )

That's good enough for me.

Flight. 'No question at all about that.

Sadness...
But given the way things have gone lately, it's understandable.

As always, thanks for cat-herding them, Ukase. I've had a lot of fun with them, win or lose.

Maybe Karasu will be 50 by then... and less likely to get her face eaten.

I've been soloing these missions on the villain side with Grey Kestrel, my rogue DB/WP Stalker, who has a certain connection to Darrin's little project...

Things Kestrel has learned thus far:

1) Style does not guarantee victory...
Jean was awfully foxy, but that didn't stop him from getting brain-smacked into next week. Being cute will only get you so far in the bad-guy business.

2) Know thy allies as well as thy enemies...
If your plan involves empowering and giving the forces of, say, Rularuu a stronger presence and connection to the Primal world, it MIGHT really be a bad idea to bring in a partner who... well... turned out to be one of those those Rularuu things herself. With Rularuu pets. Who were all about chomping your head off at a really inopportune moment. Better to avoid the issue by doing a little research before you pick (and then piss off-) your flunkies.

I ended up unsubbing from all of the Exalted channels because of that silliness. If Liberty ever goes that way, I'm going to threaten people with more than The Sound of Music. <_<

We're talking the Brady Bunch and the Care Bear movie, people.

Guys... Raven, Cinder... You two are among the better players I know in this game. I'm fond of both of you and I like having you around in the trials. You're part of what makes them the often-insane, typically-crazy incredible fun that they are, even if you don't always see eye to eye.

Don't make me send you both to the Harmony Hut.

Because if that's what it takes to get us all back to happily bashing the crap out of those pixel Praetorians who so richly deserve it, I will.

The Sound of Music, guys.
Think about the horror of that.

{monty burns} Exxxxcellent... {/monty burns}

I'll be there with one of my stabby types. *WHICH* of my stabby types, I don't know... But somebody will be there to help make a mess.

'Sounds like I made the right choice to spend last night getting Nem and his Bride to 38 instead of trialing...

People got nasty over a newbie-night trial failing? Seriously?

There's an awful lot going on in Keyes, and the effects aren't always easy to see or sort out if you're new to them. If a good portion of the group wasn't as familiar with the trial's mechanics as we Usual Suspects tend to be, it shouldn't be a shock that mistakes happened... even dumb ones... and it can be very hard to keep up with league chat when you're having a tough time just staying alive.

Heck, with a high enough number of unshifted and/or inexperinced people, it shouldn't be unexpected for even a BAF or Lambda to fail. Remember what those trials were like when they were new? Back before any of us had +3s? It's like that all over again when you go in with a low- or no-shift league, and failure isn't uncommon under those circumstances.

So, yeah. Anyone who goes into a trial like that and still expects perfection? I hate to be harsh, but they're not being reasonable or realistic. We've gotten used to the idea that some of the trials are cake-walks, but for a less-shifted and less experienced group, they really aren't.

'Gotta have something for all those mice....

I'm not big on the whole Girl Gamer/Guy Gamer thing, either, to be honest. We're all just Gamers and that's the only thing that ought to matter... But given the spirit of the OP's intentions, I also don't see a reason not to satisfy her curiosity about her fellow female City-dwellers.

What side do you pick more than others?
The last time I looked at City Tracker, it told me I had something on the order of 45 different characters. All but ten of them were listed as Heroes.

That's a little misleading, though. See, of those ten "villains", six are actually Rogues, and one isn't a red-sider at all. He's a Praetorian Loyalist... My only two real villains are Mei'jen, a Nemesis operative, and Cholula, my Night Widow.

What play style do you prefer?
I like to be right in the middle of things. I don't play to hang back and let someone else have all the fun... Given that, it's no surprise that the majority of my crew are melee types of one sort or another. (I'm a fan of scraps and stalkers, and I absolutley adore my "up close and personal" human/dwarf Peacebringer-) My support characters tend to stay closer to the action than most. My Masterminds in particular are prone to jumping right into the fight beside their minions, but even my defenders are fearless.

The only two of mine who ever really keep their distance are my Archery blaster and my "blaster-build" human/nova Peacebringer, who were both designed specificly to attack from orbital range.

I don't PvP in City. That's what Aion was for.

Team-wise, I spend most of my City time at the two extremes of the game. I play almost entirely either solo/duo or on large, multi-team leagues... I'm one of those weirdos who actually enjoys most of the iTrials, I love Mothership raids and I find beating up on poor Hami to be great fun. But I also love soloing certain of my characters, and running duo with FCM. For some reason I've never really gotten into the "normal"-sized team-of-eight thing.

What power set(s) do you favor?
Willpower is defensive Love. Dual Blades is stabby Love. Dark is inky-black sinister Love... And Peacebringers have a look and sound that appeals to me very strongly, for completely aesthetic reasons.

What zones do you like the most?
I like Striga and Croatoa, Saint Martial, Cimerora, Nerva, the new Dark Astoria, and Imperial City... I also absolutely love the look, the creatures and the over-all other-worldly oddness of the Shadow Shard zones. I've spent a lot of time out there, just flying around looking at things.

Do you usually play as a male or female (word of hatred) ''toon''?
My list is almost exactly 50/50 male-to-female. I'm aggressively devoted to gender parity among my crew, and my favorites tend to be an even mix of both. Palrah, my blue-side main, for instance, is male while Grey Kestrel, my red-side main, is female.

Views on Role Playing?
I'm an old-school tabletop role-player, so you'd think I would be into that in City, right? I'm not, really. At least not the "public role-playing" that goes on with some SGs and in the usual gathering spots on Union and Virtue. Some of that comes from an inablity to both type out a conversation and play the game at the same time, but mostly it's a matter of disinterest.

Instead, I'm what I'd call an "internal" role-player. My crew are all unique characters, with personalites and back-stories of their own. Most belong to a species of (utterly non-canon, though canon-related) Rularuu, that I've put a fair bit of thought into. I write for a few of them occasionally, but by-and-large I'm the only one who ever knows their personal details, what they might think of something, or how they would react to it beyond the game-play on the screen. I typically don't share that kind of thing with my fellow players, and I don't feel any particular need to... I guess it's always been enough that *I* knew Pally has a crush on Lady Grey, or that Kestrel and Cardinal are an item, or that Shade really does consider Sky Dragon a friend. Even when she gripes about having to bail his goofy butt out of trouble. Again.

Servers?
Liberty is my "home server", but I also play a bit on Exalted, Union and Virtue. I have one single scrapper, Solace of Silence, in exile on Freedom.

As I've probably said a few too many times before, I've always felt like not bringing one of my own +3s (preferably with a T3 or 4 Clarion-) on Underground was slacking. I don't hold doing so against anyone else, but for myself, it's a little too much like being a burden that the rest of the league is expected to carry.

So, yeah, no protest from me re: the level requirements...

That aside, with the general lack of lower-level trials being run during Pacific hours, it really has become a bit of a slog for FCM and I to get new characters incarnated, and I know we're not the only ones in that boat... It's just the reality of living in our new "End Game"-world, I guess. If you get behind the curve or come in late, it's a lot harder to catch up. (And for what it's worth, I hear a lot of grouching and grumping from some of my 500-pound-gorilla-playing friends about similar raid-progression issues over there, so at least it's not a situation particular to the City... It seems like a problem that's just the nature of the beast.)