Danton

Shade's entry is one step away from being properly finalised (a link to another entry I'm yet to write up yet).

It now has a link to his final story, and to a minor essay on what heroism is I wrote up for fun.

MAJOR updated to the Shade Wield page.

New label added to him, 'deceased'.

I'd be willing to bet if someone gave Virtue a corkboard to hang notices on we'd somehow find a way to turn it into Drama.

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Brute Secondary: Regeneration - Ice/SR are defense, in beta the defense sets didn't work well with brutes.


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As best as I know, not true. The Ice powers interfered with Fury building up because a heavy part of them uses -recharge. Defense doesn't affect Fury at all, since Fury is about ATTEMPTED attacks, rather then hits landing (you get as much fury missing with an attack as you do hitting, and as much from someone missing you then hitting you). After all, /EA's a defense set and one of the few accusations NOT leveled at it is slow fury build up.

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Perhaps, but once again you are taking an assumption on his meaning based on "reading between the lines." If you wish to find out if he thought the set as useless, then ask him for clarification on whether or not he does feel the set useless. If he answers positively to that, then you can make such a claim. Otherwise, you're reading into a conclusion that is not presented.

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I don't need to ask him that. The very fact that so many people have, in fact, read it between the lines is sufficent to the point.

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Just because a majority believe A, doesn't mean A is the case.

If I put a message on the boards saying "Reiraku wears women's clothing!", and everyone interprets that as me attempting to insult Reiraku, that doesn't mean it's the case. I could just be implying that Reiraku is a woman.

Just because X number of people believe the OP was trying to say something, doesn't mean that's what he was trying to say, and living in a Democracy doesn't make that any more the case.

Additionally: Reiraku is right to attempt to pull away the strawman arguement being attributed to the OP. I have no experience with /DA, so I don't know if his arguements are correct or incorrect, but one of the most common (and most flawed) attempts to disprove someone's arguement are to attribute things to them that they didn't say and then disprove them.

If you wish to disprove the OPs statements, the easiest way is to find the logical links (A leads to B, and if B's the case therefore C) and disprove vital links in them (E.G. A does NOT lead to B, backed up with evidence D).

Edit: Additional: I don't know Reiraku, so I hope they don't mind my accusation of lady-clothes wearing.

Although they do. They say they like the breeziness.

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And the parts Arcanaville highlighted in yellow clearly say "don't ever play this." If no one should ever play it it's pretty useless, no?

Try less hard.

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The goal is to prevent anyone from ever considering playing the set for any reason than concept, or the fact they -want- the game to be difficult.

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Aside from that one, which I'll focus on.

There are two ways to play this game.

1. Efficient. Getting the best results you can within a character, top bang-for-buck and the like. THIS is what the OP is saying /DA doesn't play too well at. But at the same time the above quote allows for...

2. Characterful. Playing the game how YOU like and YOU enjoy. Play that FF/Energy Offender, just have fun.

The OP isn't saying "NEVER PLAY /DA! Delete it from the game!" He's saying that you can play it if you want, but don't expect it to be FOTM any time soon.

Additional:

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So just look at the OP title:

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Why you should never play a Dark Armor Brute.

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That sounds like someone saying something is useless to me.

You fail.

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Dude, that's not saying something is useless at all.

I buy a car. Not a great car, but it works at getting me from A to B. Someone else buys a BETTER car for the same price, it gets him from A to B quicker and safer. My car still has a use (the A->B mentioned above), but if the option is available for the better car, it makes sense to get it if I'm after the best car I can get.

So, because there are better cars then my own for the same price, does that make my car useless? Not at all. It's just not as good.

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Lois Watson, who is usually saved by her super hero boyfriend (and who exclaims when you rescue her "well, not who I was expecting..."), is an obvious tribute to Lois Lane and Superman.

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Small point, but it's a tribute to both Lois Lane (Superman's lady-friend who gets in trouble and needs to be rescued alot by Superman) and Mary Jane Watson (Spiderman's lady-friend who gets in trouble and ne-... you know the rest).

And ye, I walked into the heart of darkness, with the foe of all that is good upon both my left and right, front and back, and I knew I was surrounded. See that I did not turn back, I did not flee, for I was a scrapper, and there were no more then fifty of them.

And at the end of the day, the controller had naught left to control. The Defender's buffs were not needed. The Blaster had nothing to blast. The Tank needed to absorb no damage.

For lay around me the remains of the foe. Their bosses were no challenge. Their lieutenants could not stop me. The endless numbers of their minions were not enough. And did the Tanker then speak, and voice his thoughts:
"Holy <censored>"

- Extract from the holy book of Scrap

Has anyone else really wanted to do a storyline inspired by those "EARTH FOR HUMANS" billboards Vanguard put up around the place? I've vaguely started one for a low level scrapper, but for me they just seem like the perfect start for a "Intolerance is bad, m'kay?" story.

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Yes but you don't want a situation that allows people to spam high powered attacks or buffs that are game breaking while at the same time we also don't want 10-25 minute timers on powers as has been suggested, how much longer the added recharge time would be is debatable since if you take Energy Melee for example, both Total Focus and Energy Transfer even without Recharge Reduction Enhancements in them are up relatively quickly for their power.

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That all depends on the extremes. If someone dedicates half their points (at level 50) to recharge timing (resulting in a power that's not especially strong) it should be somewhere within one minute, I'd say. Conversely someone who has put NO recharge points into the attack should only have it every 20 minutes or so. It's a fine balancing act, but I think it can be managed with the right amount of testing.

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The easiest thing to do is this, the more points spent in a power also makes the recharge time longer, that way a power with no points or little points spent in it can be "spammed" but will have limited effect whereas a power that has a good few points spent in it will take longer to become available.

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I was under the impression from the opening post that players could spend points on the recharge time. This would mean that 'less' powerful abilities (an overall lower number of points available to spend, if you've put more into recharge) would be available more often. As opposed to powers with recharge being a 'dump spendature', which would recharge VERY slowly, but at the same time be alot more powerful.

Increasing recharge time with the more points spent just means that higher level characters (who have access to more points) would be using their ability less.

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Maybe I wasn't clear enough when I suggested the negative effects. The negatives would probably be fairly severe, such that you wouldn't want a -Def effect on your SR because Defense is all that Reflexes has going for it.

Or maybe the drawbacks idea was a bad one. I threw it out here to get the general opinion of it, and to see what holes people might be able to find in the setup.

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I'm not at all saying it's a bad idea to have negatives, it just needs to be very carefully balanced so it's not seriously exploited.

And I'm in favour of the timer being long, but an hourly thing? That just seems too long to me. Considering we can't slot these things (per the original post) the recharge needs to be made reasonable with points-spendature. Especially if the Signature move is just an attack as opposed to a click of some kind, as I can imagine several of my characters having.

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Negatives to powers does sound like it could be good, but it's also quite exploitable, really. After all, give an SR scrapper a -def and end-crash penalty to their +dam, +acc click, and all they have to do is turn it on at the same time as Elude. Hey presto, their defense is still sky-high, and they don't have to worry about the end-crash since that's coming already.

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By that logic, having Blues and Lucks already counter-acts the weakness.

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True but that has a negative already, in that it takes up precious inspiration slots that could be used for other things. The above quoted example essentially means there are no negatives at ALL to the power, aside from a end crash at the end which would be coming anyway with Elude. It opens up 'power points' and allows players to make their signature ability a bit stronger for essentially no cost.

My point is that negatives are quite open for exploitation.

Negatives to powers does sound like it could be good, but it's also quite exploitable, really. After all, give an SR scrapper a -def and end-crash penalty to their +dam, +acc click, and all they have to do is turn it on at the same time as Elude. Hey presto, their defense is still sky-high, and they don't have to worry about the end-crash since that's coming already.

Stephan Wielder brought the mug of hot chocolate to his lips as he leaned back in the reclining seat and flicked out the paper with his free hand. Though it was early morning, he liked to get a bit of a headstart on the day by waking early, unless of course the previous night had been a bit of a blinder, then he was known to miss out on a day or two in his coma-like-nap.

Alot of the paper was the usual stuff. 'Drugs that will bring about the end of our civilisation', 'Which baby-products will turn your child into the next Unbelievable-man' and a reprint of their article from two months ago 'Radioactivity, super-power-giving energy, or dangerous cancer-causing death-stuff'. It wasn't until he'd turned a few pages he stumbled upon 'Uncommon Valor', the title attracting his attention.
"Huh... Heard a little about her. She must've got that job I applied for. Well, good for her." Finishing his quick monologue he was about to turn the page, before his attention caught on some of the words, and he found himself chuckling, and adding 'read Uncommon Valor column as often as possible' to his mental to-do list.

I think signature needs to step the thin line between making characters even more personalised, and making characters more powerful for no reason. I would love something I can use to make my character more unique.
"Sure, I may be a DM/SR scrapper, but can other DM/SR scrappers do... this?" *Sounds of awe from the audience... that's awe, not awww.*

Bumpage once more, my friends.

Bumpage once more.

Oh, and something aiming for (but not quite achieving) constructive thought: Would 'Auto' or even toggle powers be possible with this sort of thing?
For example, would it be possible to make +def vs all with this system? It seems to make some sense (it is a power, and it'd be very easy to design) but at the same time it almost seems to go against the feel of signature powers. A signature power is meant to be something flashy and recognisable and all that, but making it a click, an auto or a toggle doesn't seem to have much flash about it.

Well thought out and, if coded right, doesn't look unbalancing.

Very nice, bud. And it doesn't require respecing into it, as the power's given automatically at 30 (if I read this right) and doesn't accept slots. Nice one.

Thank you all greatly for the help, I'll keep it all in mind when drawing another figure. And I'll come back and bug you all for advice again when -that- one is done as well.

First things first: If you've come to the Art forum to look at some of the (let's face it) INCREDIBLE talent on show, this is the wrong thread for you. Sorry to waste your time.

I've been teaching myself to draw over the period of the last month or so, with some limited results. The past few days I inked a sketch a VG-mate graciously let me do of his character, and scanned it to get his opinion.
I figured "What the hey", might as well get the opinion of people who know what they're doing

The advice I've had so far on drawing, and on this drawing in particular:
Get my hands on an anatomy book so I can get a better idea of human anatomy and the detailed particulars
Head's too small

And yes, I did rush the feet somewhat, hence the lines are pretty poor.

[image]http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k123/DantonCOX/StarcrossedWIP.jpg[/image]

Thank you greatly for your feedback.

"Oh come on!" Shade Wield's outburst was rather out of place from his usual devil-may-care attitude, especially since the Bureaucrat across the desk thought it was a rather trivial point.
"You've been assigned to a super group, named the Vengeance Bureau. Is there a problem with that." The suited man removed his glasses and began wiping them down with a handy tissue, before returning them to where they sat and resting his hands upon the large oaken table that dominated his office.
"Yeah, pretty much. I'm going for the 'loner against the evil of the world' look with the media. Being part of a group crimps my style." The Bureaucrat's skeptical look prompted Shade Wield to continue his tirade of somewhat flawed logic.
"Come on, you know what I mean. Everyone loves the image of one man against an army. How can I do that with half a dozen people standing behind me? Even worse, how can I get off my witty quips about the Hellion's getting 'burned', or the Trolls having IQs dwarfed by their shoe-size?" A grin burst out over his features, for once not hidden by his ninja-like mask.
"You've got to hear the rippers I've got planned for the Council next time I bump into them. I'm going to be questioning them about why they're not considering taking on other political ideals as a name, like 'the democracy', or even 'the federation'." Still the bureaucrat was unimpressed.
"Mister Wielder-"
"Please, call me Shade Wield. Or Shade, if you're lazy."
"... Mister Wielder, I'm not requesting this of you. It's an order. The Psyche evaluation we made of you suggests you've got more anger in you then most, all directed towards the Circle of Thorns. Seeing how you've already had a... 'holiday', as you put it... out on the Rogue Isles, we simply cannot risk you turning Rogue in order to pursue your own agenda. The Vengeance Bureau was designed for Heros with Vendetta's to pursue, to help restrain you, and give you support from other members, and we feel it may help you."
"And if I refuse...?"
"We revoke your hero license and force you to wear a suppression bracelet that inhibits all use of your powers, for the safety of those around you."
"... Where do I sign?"