ClawsandEffect

Dark Armor laughs at her.

"Is this supposed to hurt?"

Don't know if anyone else has mentioned it, but I noticed Manticore and Sister Psyche are conspicuously absent from the pic.

I suspect the devs are doing this as a means of trimming down the Freedom Phalanx to match the numbers of Recluse and his LTs. Probably ending up with one character representing each of the orginal hero ATs. Positron = Defender, Synapse = Blaster, Citadel = Tank, Numina = Controller, Ms. Liberty = Scrapper. Plus whatever AT the player created character ends up being.

It would not surprise me in the slightest to see Sister Psyche and Manticore both out of the Phalanx as well, they're both Defenders, or a Defender and Controller, which are covered by other characters.

BaBs will likely take over as the Atlas Park trainer, since it is a major point in his backstory that he spends most of his time training new heroes now.

Ms. Liberty will take over the STF, and I have no idea who will take over Manticore and Sister Psyche's TFs, but it shouldn't be too hard to find someone.

You can't put them in storage because, as far as I'm aware, there is no way for a storage container to know that only one account is allowed to take those items from it.

I'll echo Faultline, and I enjoyed the Hollows after the revamp quite a bit as well.

I still like the Freaklympics, just because it strikes me as something the Freakshow would definitely do.

Croatoa, for as old as it is, is still a good storyline. I like how they make the point that all these mythological beings popping up is a little unusual, rather than the norm. There are a few annoying as hell individual missions in it though.

More recently, I liked pretty much all of the added story arcs in the 20s. (Nance, Adair, Cooling, MacArthur, Ross, etc.)

I enjoyed the Praetorian storylines immensely. Mostly I liked the fact that there is no clear cut "good guys" or "bad guys" in the entire storyline. Any person in any of the arcs could be viewed as heroic or villainous depending on the viewpoint you're looking at them from.

And yes, I actually DID like the majority of the writing in the SSAs. Admittedly, there WERE a few "Buh-wha?!" moments, but I enjoyed how the Phalanx fell apart after decades of being steadfast heroes (and really it was only a few characters that did). You saw the nasty side of some of the characters that you didn't see much of before.

Sister Psyche is willing to kill, Manticore is an arrogant, selfish jerk, and Statesman had a huge case of complete disconnect with the people he was supposed to be protecting. None of that was especially discordant with what I knew of the characters.

Oh, and Manticore pretty much caused the whole mess with his selfishness, which fit perfectly with my impression of the character. He's a spoiled rich boy who is only a hero because he wanted revenge on the guy who killed his father. I would not be surprised in the slightest to see him get booted out of the Phalanx and turn into a true vigilante or outright villain after all this. If his wife ends up dying or pulling a Dark Phoenix, it's virtually guaranteed.

I don't want to derail the thread with discussion of it, but the biggest reason Wade's plan succeeded was because of Manticore's arrogance.

I'm considering a StJ/Regen brute.

My main is a Claws/Regen scrapper, and over the years I've done a few things Regens aren't supposed to be able to do, so I'd like to see what a brute can do.

Plus, Quick Recovery at level 4 will be really nice for offsetting Street Justice's early level end problems. (It recharges and activates so fast you end up burning through endurance really fast prior to having Stamina slotted well.)

Also, I haven't played it that high yet, but it seems as though (on paper at least) Abyssal Gaze would be one of the best holds in the game. A full mag 3 hold put into one of the strongest attacks in the set? Yes please.

Shield tanks can hit the soft cap just through powers and a single Steadfast Res/Def. SR tanks can hit it through power choice alone, with no IOs necessary at all. That's because they get higher base values on their defense powers.

Also, the reason typed and positional defense don't stack is kind of thematic. With positional defense it is assumed you are dodging the attack, while with typed defense it is assumed you are deflecting it somehow. That's why Super Reflexes and Ninjitsu are positional defense, and Ice Armor and Energy Aura are typed defense. SR and Ninjitsu let you dodge the attack, while Ice and Energy have the attacks bouncing off a barrier you've placed around yourself.

My villain wants to kill Wade because he was used by him, and is currently threatening his survival.

He couldn't give a crap less if that makes him a hero in the eyes of society, he just wants him dead.

If the goody two shoes heroes want to think that means there is something redeemable in me, fine. That will just make it easier to kill them later when they hesitate to kill me first.

I might save the world, but you better believe my reasons had nothing to do with "doing the right thing".

A couple things being overlooked in the whole "They're incompetent!" crusade:

Point 1:

Have any of you played through the villain side arcs? Manticore was defeated in SSA3 by the villain PC. The villain side arcs are designed to make you feel just as powerful as the Freedom Phalanx too, in the form of beating them up. Since the arcs are designed to be soloable, sending the entire Freedom Phalanx to protect her is kind of ridiculous, unless you expect the average player to be able to take on 7 Elite Bosses simultaneously, while solo.

I'm assuming that several of the people posting here have NOT played through them, otherwise SlickRiptide would not be under the impression that it was Blitz who killed Alexis. It was not Blitz at all, in fact he had no idea she was going to be killed. The culprit was either A) the villain PC, or B) Darrin Wade (he shoots her in the head).

The arcs are designed to be played from both sides with the same end results. If the Freedom Phalanx didn't screw anything up, it ruins things from the villain perspective because the Phalanx would have won.

Point 2:

Why do police officers get bereavement leave when a loved one dies, instead of being told to get back out on the street immediately?

Easy answer: It's because they would be distracted by grieving for their loved one and won't have their full attention on their job. Same goes for soldiers, if they recieve word that a loved one dies they are not immediately sent into combat if it is at all avoidable.

Yes, even though both the police officer and soldier are consummate professionals, grieving for a loved one WILL have an adverse affect on the performance of their job. They will not be as competent as they would normally be until they have had time to get through their grief and focus on things again. Both the cop and the soldier would stand a VERY good chance of getting themselves or someone else killed because their mind wasn't on the task at hand.

Now, with that said, look at the timeline of arcs 3 through 5. We experienced them over the course of 3 months. For the characters in the game, no more than 2 days had passed. Statesman died within 48 hours of his daughters death. Arcs 3 and 4 probably took place in teh saem 24 hour period.

Since Alexis was known and apparently well liked by everyone in the Phalanx, it is reasonable that her death would hurt all of them. She was mother to one, and daughter to another, and probably a close friend to all of the others, at the very least. The only one I would expect to not be affected by her death is Citadel. Everyone else was distracted by grieving for their daughter/mother/friend and didn't have their mind fully on what they were doing.

That's part of what I meant by "They're still human beings". Any other professional who routinely has the lives of others in their hands is given the opportunity to get through their grief before they are asked to resume their duties. The Freedom Phalanx had no such opportunity before they had to deal with the next threat.

It is perfectly reasonable for anyone in that situation, professional as they may be, superhero or not, to not be at the top of their game. It defies human nature to expect otherwise.

Yes, the Freedom Phalanx are superheroes, and consummate professionals at what they do. But I don't care how professional you are, if someone that close to you dies, it is GOING to affect how well you do your job if you are not allowed to get past it first.

You want to give them crap for bickering and being incompetent? Lets have someone YOU care about brutally murdered and see how well YOU function over the next couple days. I'd be willing to bet you wouldn't be a very good police officer or soldier....or superhero, until you've had time to ge past it.

Killing Alexis was the linchpin of Wade's plan, and he had to act on the rest of his plan immediately, while the Phalanx was still trying to cope with what just happened. With everyone distracted and not at the top of their game, they were much easier to deal with.

See, the point of your argument is that the Freedom Phalanx are incompetent.

I disagree. I think they got caught with their pants down by an enemy they woefully underestimated.

Look at what Wade did, arc by arc.

1) Trapped Synapse, for the sole purpose of testing his relic to ensure that it would work like it's supposed to. Synapse being rescued was completely irrelevant, it would not have mattered in the slightest if he'd lived or died. He also got to remain in the shadows by using the Lost as patsies.

2) Sent his cronies into the Midnighter club to steal the skull of Numina's father. Then showed up himself as a gesture of "goodwill", ostensibly to help the Midnighters. His reason for doing all this? Twofold: A) There was something in the Midnigter Club he needed to further his plan, and he couldn't just walk in and take it, and B) Numina was a threat to his plan, and he wanted her distracted by trying to figure out what the Rulu-Shin wanted with her father's skull. he also wanted to find out if he could steal her powers to, but discovered he couldn't.

3) Killing Alexis Cole-Duncan served one singular purpose: Pissing Statesman off enough for him to ignore any trap Wade set for him in teh assumption that he could just shrug it off.

4) Taking Sister Psyche out of the picture by any means necessary was CRUCIAL to his plan succeeding. Why? She's a frigging mind reader, if she'd been with Statesman she could have warned him exactly what Wade had planned, and he wouldn't have walked right into it.

5) He planted a bunch of red herrings to keep the player character occupied while he set up his trap for Statesman.

As far as the Phalanx's reactions go:

1) No particular reaction in the first arc. Because the Phalanx thought they won.

2) The Phalanx was focused on figuring out what the Rulu Shin wanted with Tommy Arcanus' skull, and hadn't even deduced that they were connected yet.

3) Manticore's reaction is the hardest to explain, but it fits the character. Alexis got kidnapped on his watch. Manticore has a chip on his shoulder about proving that he belongs in the Phalanx, because he is the only member without real superpowers of his own. Everything he does is to prove that he really belongs where he is. As rich as he is, he has a HUGE inferiority complex when you bring metahuman ability into the discussion. That right there explains why he decided to try and recover Alexis on his own, rather than let the other Phalanx members know that he failed at something when they might not have. The kicker there is, after Alexis was kidnapped, nothing he or anyone else could have done would have saved her, because killing her was the entire point. Darrin Wade was very well aware of that inferiority complex of Manticore's, and was counting on him to try and do it on his own.

4) Sister Psyche and Aurora underestimated Malaise, simple as that. They figured that there was no way he could overpower both of them, because they had both been inside his mind and knew exactly how powerful he was. The Dirge was unexpected, and Psyche needed to divert some of her power to keep her, Aurora, and you clearheaded enough to function. Manticore, on the other hand, simply wanted to kill Malaise. He didn't rush to his wife's assistance for one simple fact: She can take care of herself, and has proven that many times. He didn't try to rescue her because he didn't think she was faced with anything she couldn't handle. Once that was proven to be a mistake, there was nothing he could really do about it.

5) I've already covered why Statesman walked into an obvious trap: he didn't know the nature of the trap, and figured he could shrug off whatever it was. And he didn't fly off and leave a bunch of helpless people to fend for themselves, he flew off and left a bunch of people he knew could handle things without him. Which would speak better of the Phalanx: That Statesman is confident enough in his teammates' abilities that he doesn't feel the need to babysit them? -or- Statesman feels like he can't go anywhere because his teammates need him there to hold their hands at all times?

Really, the only person who dropped the ball here is Manticore. His stubborn insistence on proving that he is worthy to be a member of the Phalanx by guarding and rescuing Alexis on his own directly led to her getting killed.

The point of all this is that, unlike what you seem to expect, underneath all their powers the Freedom Phalanx are still human beings and capable of making mistakes. Superhuman powers do not automatically confer an inability to ever make a mistake.

In my opinion, this series of arcs humanized the Phalanx more than anything previously written. They're not omnipotent beings who are so superhumanly competent at everything the do that making a mistake is impossible. They're human beings, with all the flaws inherent in being one.

Got a purple a couple weeks ago. But, then again, I've been spending most of my time leveling lowbies instead of playing at a level they will drop at, so my experience isn't very helpful.

Wait! My level 10 character has never gotten a purple drop! DROP RATES HAVE BEEN NERFED!! DOOOOOOOOM!!!