Demetrios Vasilikos

Personally I have always loved the shard because it did force the vast majority of players to fly or TP. As far as I can recall back to when the shard first started that you had to have typically both SS and SJ to use the jump points, and those who hadnt mastered them tended to carry hover to just to have a safety net. Cloud Kicking as we called it back then in reference to an old cartoon show. It was an art form like tightrope walking.

I myself recall being into it with my perma elude SR character back then, only character in first year I never needed a proper travel power for to feel quick. To be honest sam I think like me your probably just to rusty to do it these days. I try now and then but the skills are just to rusty, the memory to foggy about which ones its better to hit slow or fast.

Now that doesnt mean I dont think changes need to be made, and frankly I look forward to a shadow shard revamp one of these days. Id have thought it woulf of made more sense then DA for an Incarnate Revamp, but perhaps like alot of us suspect its next on the list with the build up to Rularuu and the cult of the Dark making a clear reappearance with Wade and the fall of Statesman.

Ah good times, I love the hostility that a lack of understanding breeds within others.

Im pretty sure I prefaced this with it just being an RP idea froma specific server I thought maybe, with all the hoopla on the forums about States death, and no few offering up ideas on how to bring him back Id toss in mine. Since it wasnt an open RP forum story or anything I figured general discussion was as viable a spot to place it as the RP section. Pardon me if that is just so offensive to the non RPers.

The contempt some feel for Lore Based RP is nothing new, nor is Lore RPing. Just about all the good names and concepts where scooped up in year one, least those connected with early content from Dauntless to Atlas with an i for the L. The desire for myself and the vast majority who choose to run characters like this is simply to be more integrated into the games plots. Why some take such offence to this I never really do understand.

Maybe we are arrogent though in that we do hope that Devs really do play this game as fellow players often, we hope they may be among us on occasion and take note of the affection thier players have for the story of the world they have created. Maybe we even hope some of what we do is taken notice enough to inspire the Devs in turn and give them story ideas easy to weave into the current game world.

Sure BB is my character on virtue, I know from attempts others must have used the name on a few other servers at least so its not like its a magically difficult name to get an idea for a character from. I mean he is one of the few immortals in COX lore and a magician who helped to found the midnighters. Outside of a few very old story arcs where he is used as a npc hostage he is a forgotten and oft unsung hero imo. My only intent when running him has ever been to help other newer players to understand simple ways to improve the quality of thier play time or run quick TFs where all are welcomed if of the min lvl range and up for a smooth painless run.

And ofcourse my rp is my little world still I mean is that news that pretty much every RPer has a unique view of how they explain the world. Nothing at all wrong with tieing yourself to an occasional bit of content. Most I know rarely get into an argument about a given moment, most just stay flexible and let whoever mentions one first in a given topic rights to it.

Sure we dont all need to be the guy who ran the posi, or the lgtf etc but some of us had to, if your chatting with a stranger who maybe for the first time ever ran a tf and it was fun and he is just itching to talk about it from an IC perspective, are you going to shout them down for talking like it was them who helped synapse stop the clockwork king?

As always nowhere did I ever attempt to imply I was some end all be all, nor did I only include names of concept characters I run. I simply offered up a view using game lore fueled ideas and characters. Characters that would in the lore be among the most logical to be the actual canon heroes confronting wade. Even the Lord of Demons fused with a human and exiled to primal earth would have great reason and power to intercede on humanities behalf just as he did to save earth from Tielekku so long ago.

If you can look past your needless hate for a fellow fan of the game we all play for a moment just follow the basic plot outline.

A group of midnighters lead by Bentley Berkeley thier oldest living member and almost certainly the teacher to people like Wade, confronts him. Wade is after all clearly following the Path of The Dark, the cult of Rularuu, and in lore the group Berkeley has been keeping earth safe from for who know's how long.

They are allied with one of the most mysterious and shadowy figures of coh lore where magic is concerned to gather the means and knowledge to attempt to stop Wade, but are to late to save statesman.

Using the alignment arcs BB confronts his evil future self, then going red side aquires the flames of prometheus, well known to be able to rekindle power. Combined with a variant of our newly learned ritual of ressurection, and fueled by the selfless sacrifice of an immortal long weary of watching those he has known grow old and die, he gives life to the young icon that is marcus cole, now free of the will of the well, to be the hero the world needs.

Hell ill go delete my characters named that IOs and all if it will chill you sour pusses out and take it for the light hearted fun it was intended to be.

I guess its true what they say, cox is really going to the wowtards these days who can only see numbers, cookie cutter builds, and spew hate on anyone who actually likes the game enough to be a part of it.

Although this is technically RP limited to Virtue I thought Id share it with the whole community.

With the death of the Icon of Paragon City many have cried out it cant be so. That there must be some way to return him to us all.

Ofcourse none of us know what happened that day on the mountaintop. Only those of the Midnighter's Club who were there to stop the upstart member bore witness to the end of Statesman.

Those among the witnesses included http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Montague_Castanella
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Sigil
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Percy_Winkley
Duncan Silver aka Doctor Darkvine son of the late:http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Ross_Coldwell
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Ashley_McKnight
Bentley Berkeley
Monolith Man son of The Monolith

And the most controversial ally in thier quest to stop Wade, T'Keron Valmaz, the Unholy Lord of Demons himself.

It was he who captured the last breath of Marcus Cole. He crystalized it and gave it as a pendant to Numina in his constant effort to win her affections.

Berkeley set out on the quest to aquire the Ritual he would need when the demon lord revealed such magic existed and knowledge of it could be found among the library of Orenbega.

Within him for thousands of years he had carried knowledge of a prophecy, that in time a new hero like Imperious would come to pass, and through treachery be brought low while his fated foe would be left unchecked.

The immortal also knew he would have to do something seemingly mad and delve into his own darkness to create a new future he could travel to and confront an evil version of himself. Slaying the false god he was now bound to inevitably become he aquired the Flames of Prometheus he himself would in time have stolen to amplify his power.

Traveling back into the present Berkeley prepared the rare components his friends had sought out.

The remains of a dead god, the coins placed upon the eyes of Imperious during his burial, combined with those things he had gathered where prepared, and the Ritual was cast.

He payed a coin and summoned the ferryman, slit both wrists and consencrated the divine remains, and sighed the final breath of an immortal life. You see that Old Fool Berkeley was keeping the dark of it to himself and knew that to bring back someone like cole was going to take alot more oomph then a typical final breath.

Ol Berkeley let loose with a psychic tornado that left Zeus in a whirl and yanked Cole by the collar heading for the ferry. He put the mortal soul on the ferry and payed the last coin and sent his old friend back on his way to the waking world.

Now rumors abound that a mortal and nearly powerless Marcus Cole stalks the streets of Paragon. A changed man, barely like the arrogent tyrant state that ruled through intimidation for so long.

And now many a student of the arcane and history of Paragon mourns the loss of thier oldest teacher, the humble Bentley Berkeley.

I am truly and completely amazed that ANYONE had issue figuring this out.

My first time through I gleaned all I needed to know from the clues. the step your meant to improvise is clearly mentioned. The option for that step is blatantly obvious if you accept lore as valid, and dont be making ASSumptions that your little character concept tidbits are supposed to be recognized by the game. Despite what YOU want to call yourself, in the end the game only recognizes us as all humans, with the exception of the kheldians and thier contacts.

So the step to improvise and the logical conclusion to use your blood should be blatantly obvious to ALL! Why? because its well documented in game lore that all magic in the current generation comes from the blood, specifically Mu Bloodlines of the survivors spared by the ancient Circle of Thorns who showed mercy at the end of the war to those who had attacked them for not worshipping thier goddess Tielekku.

Sorry if that offends anyone that the story writers created a perfectly reasonable origin concept no worse then Stan Lee's mutants.

Even if your character isnt magical, its perfectly logical to assume its blood( an extremely commonly depicted ingrediant in occult ritual in fiction and real life occult practices) and NO MATTER WHAT YOU WANT TO CALL YOURSELF in the end in the eyes of the game your just another human, you know this, its not news, they are not any time soon going to add a special extra layer of origin to let you pick race, because it shouldnt matter to even the hard core RPer if the occasional bit of content in an MMO is designed to be rather generic and geared towards the general mainstream standard they clearly set with the icon characters.

And dont give me that crap about the icons being droids and ghosts among other things. For all we know Cit or Lum do have a form of blood that would be recognized as a valid offering by infernal sources. Numina could be able to bleed ecto for all we know.

Instead of saying my bot cant bleed, maybe you should be trying to accept he can and figure out what it is he does bleed.

actually that leads me to this. Make a peacebringer human form. 1 defender worth of support plus thier cosmic ballance buff will make you feel like iron man MKII. ever manage to get a full team of defenders backing you and you will go on Kryptonian.

Id suggest you both read up on some fallen heroes of Paragon. Namely Galaxy Girl and Dauntless.

You see GG was a kin/energy defender. And dauntless was almost certainly a scrapper or tanker. I always imagine him as a SR/SS tank for some reason, real tough scrappy type who in the end cant self heal nor self rez and thus fullfill the destiny of dauntless rather well

A SS/WP brute is a good way to go, alot of DPS and aggro draw and her speed boosting you will be handy.

Your a lucky man I must say as I am a global recharge junke and would kill for a wife who would play my own personal kin.

/ENVY!

1. Disable your ability to see another player characters name above thier heads and resist the urge to target on them. Most immerssion breaking starts with someone walking up and using your name as if they already know you.

2. Check thier bio page. Use it to even see if they might be the kind of RPer whom you want to mix with, its a long time commonality that people use COX to play characters based on various PnP RPG or even anime, if your not into WoD vamps just put those players on ignore and leave them be. Same goes for those drow,naruto ninja,and bleach fanbois. If that stuff is just to non COX for you cut them from your world, wont hurt you or them, and likely leave both happier.

3. Try to learn and use LORE: I cant stress this one enough, once you come to love this game, then part of that love should be the world your playing in, just as if you where playing in a D&D campaign setting and addapting whatever concept for a character you wanted to play in your head to that world's view of things like gods, magic, various mythical creatures and legends the same goes for any MMO world. Its the world we all are playing in, it has certain rules defined by its lore in how things work, they are not evil or wrong in doing this, and in fact like any good game setting, lets us create characters who can interact and avoid the constant one up manship.

4: Become part of the lore: Yes this is really just an expansion on3, which is the aspect I feel is most critical to good random RP and being part of the LRP movement since year one.

Its ofcourse commonly known that making characters even attempting to mimica dev/admin character is insta generic status, same with published cpyrighted names.

However Im sure some of you now and then see players like myself running around with names like Bentley Berkeley, Demetrios Vasilikos( the real one not the dude with the uppercase i for an L), or Alphonse Crey. Occasionally I get rude threatening tells from the ignorant and envious and so do others, saying " Im so going to report you and get you genericed" when there is nothing to report or generic.

You see in my long years here on the game, and constant use of the support feature to have lengthy discussions about the name topic after I did have a long time and beloved one genericed after more then 3 years of playing them, I have come to understand most of the fine lines.

COX devs actually love seeing players using lore based names and concepts in characters, they truly do take it as a compliment. As my own above names used in example display they are names drawn from and used with reverence for the story of the world they are drawn from, and played to portray the continued adventures of oft unsung heroes.

Bentley Berkeley especially loves to spend evenings in the D talking about old friends long gone like Dauntless and Galaxy Girl, or watching little Tommy grow up, teaching him magic, seeing him become a man,hero, and father, and living with the burden that in the end like with most tragic immortals, forced to watch his life long friend eventually pass from this world.

Here are the fine lines to keep in mind when making your own lore based characters.

1: Never even remotely convey you are more then just another player when asked about your character. think of it like dressing up like a doctor at halloween and going to a hospital lounges costume party. It could be easy to be mistaken for something your not and its on you to keep misperceptions from happening.

2: Never ever use a name directly tied to an admin/dev name. I once tried to make James Temblor SR. who was going to be the original faultline saved by a rogue mender at the last instant. however jim temblor aka faultline is ofcourse a dev character, so even being SR. and a clearly different character in appearance and bio wasnt enough. Just dont do it.

3:look for the name of a dead hero from COX history lore, I run Invisible falcon with multiple variants taking use of all those upper case lower case I L tricks with that name. one of my most beloved characters as I ran him pre Ghost Falcon DEV and was infact very worried he would be genericed after GF came to us. Up until I actually ran into GF once in game with IF and we chatted for abit in the RWZ before he went off and ran an apex tf with some lucky players who won some contest. Ill admit I always was abit sad IF couldnt get the master of ghost falcon task force badge, it would of been a great little personal trophy. Still randomly running into my praetorian self and discussing the coming battle with his home dimension was an in game experiance that will leave COX my most beloved MMO as far into the future as I can imagine.

I also know a player who has run Dauntless for a long time. He even claims he used the name before the history around a character with that name was added. Might be true he has been around since month one and possibly even beta.

4: Make the lore your own. What that means is, just because it might appear one way doesnt mean you cant take a concept and adapt it. For example I play count alphonse crey, I rp it was sister psyche who put me into a coma at statesmans orders for fear of me stopping his inevitable turn to something like tyrant. Countess crey is the descendents of the delphi oracles and used all her power to preserve and eventually reconnect my mind to my body. Since I play IF as well and RP it was statesman who tried to kill him and crey who saved him, this further adds to my total RP story around my characters. It is also really easy to just start chatting about those things that interest me with other players casual at the D for example, and they know what I am talking about and can respond and get into it. Ive been complmented and creeped others out with how ardent I can defend crey in RP and even using lore make crey seem very much the hero I want them to be seen as.

This set of tips was brought to you by Crey Global Enterprises. We make the Night Light that keeps the Darkness at bay and your child safe while they dream. Optional Psi Scrambler or mobile laser armed sentry upgrades available.

Crey. Because we care!

Id just like to point out how invalid the entire argument in this thread actually is.

We have ALWAYS had viable casual/solo friendly options to persue incarnate powers.

I dont know about you but by the time we even had incarnate threads, I had so many inc shards stock piled I was able to instantly have all my level shifts when they added them on my main 50s. Doing the trials for those characters was always about the fun of testing oneself while helping out the many un shifted bodies that where taking up space. I recall no few early BAFs that did fail because most of the team just couldnt bring enough power to bare in the final phase. Or recklessly kept getting a lock down.

It really does astound me when I hear people complain about drop rates for shards which I frequently conver to threads on my casual 50s. I am no farmer, and rarely solo much above 2 or 3 man spawn sizes. I run alot of exemp mid lvl tfs for fun. All my casual characters have tier 3s and thier level shifts. All they do for materials are convert shards and run the wst if its one I enjoy.

There is no good reason you NEED to build up incarnate power faster then that but if you really want to that is what the Itrials are for. To be honest I am really sad about the changes coming to DA and wished the revamp had left it at the original lvl range just done like faultline was.

Now I could have gotten behind a shadow shard revamp for incarnates. as that zone is and always has been a place meant to test your best builds.

Although I do want to start by saying that many viable builds do exist that do not depend on IO sets, IO sets do admittedly help restore a large amount of the power lost to us by the heavy handed ED nerf by the Tyrant State.

Ill try and help as I can still recall much of my own early process in understanding IOs.

First before you start investing in them, look at them in the AH. Most sets can fall into one of a few categories generally defined by thier 4th-6th part set bonuses. For example most of my builds favor global recharge, so any set that gives a heavy bonus for its number of pieces is ideal.

Examples would be for dark using characters the 4 part to hit debuff sets that give 5% or 6.25% global for them. The reason I mention both is the rule of 5.

Let me clarify the rule of 5, something I myself and I think alot in thier first IO builds often slip on. The rule of 5 is simple. No bonus that is exactly the same can be stack more then 5 times, even if from completely different sets.

So with my above example and a dark/dark blaster or defender, youd likely have more then 5 attacks with to hit debuffs and want to mix and match a touch.

there are cheaper sets that will help fill a set bonus themes needs if your short on funding.

In fact the main reasons to use Purple 50 IO sets is not thier above average set bonuses, but the fact the set bonuses work even when exemp, making them vital for an edge in exemped down pvp zones for example, or if you enjoy running flashback or lower lvl TFs with friends, purple sets can give you that added bit of oomph you might crave when showing off for new friends.

Some of the most important tips I can think of to getting them are rather simple.

Reward and H/V merits can let you get some of the rarer pricy common IOs quite easily. These include the Luck Of the Gambler : 7.5% global recharge special, a true must for any power with defense slotting options. they are 200 merits or 2 H/V merits. few builds wont benefit from having 5 of those fit in somehow.

In fact they are a very real reason behind the increase in players running the leadership and stealth pools, as both have several useful powers that can take them.

probably the other most useful ones would be the end proc IO from the Performance shifter end mod set, putting it in stamina will give you random surges of 10 endurance. Also in 3 of the heal sets are special procs worth slotting into a power like health.

those are ones that with just merits or the like you can earn fairly quickly through play. I have taught many in game the above tricks and they now are all among the best IOd players in my server.

Purple sets and pvp sets are not nearly the NEED or MUST HAVE some will tell you, certainly if you pvp or exemp alot then yes they will end up worth every penny. but if you mainly want to just get a good capped IOed up 50 for end game action plenty of poor man sets will do you fine.

Oh and dont forget the advantage of IO sets for frankenslotting. Pretty much if you liked the idea of HOs, but didnt want to be one to abuse the known exploits around them, then IO parts with 3 to 4 effects at 20+% can be smashed together into powers to often equal the equiv of 9 normal SOs worth of bonuses give or take a few %. If there isnt a set theme grabbing you, then look for cheap multi aspect boosting IOs that a power can use and try that.

NO to any thing that would make origins impact ones actual combat ability.

What I and no few others I know in game would like to see would be an expansion of the alignment arc system where each origin would have an arc for thier genre. For example a tech character might have arcs involving computer hacking, and a rise of the machines type scenerio.

Science might have one involving comic esque themes like when beast tried to surpress his mutant genes only to compound the issue. This could easily have pushed him to anger and evil, but was actually the reason he chose to join the avengers to gain public recognition as a hero among the well known and beloved heroes, and show the world mutants could be freakish looking but still human and heroic.

magic well we have so much magic in the game it would be easy. But you get the picture, origin tied unique arcs, that do not give any unique combat boosts.

id suggest a BS/ SR or even WP. WP can be built to be very human martial artist feeling. Id say focus on unsurpressable movemet boosts like slotting up sprint,hurdle, combat jumping and swift. Use hover in short burst for the whole running on leaves and twig thin branches effect.

Its interesting to see both old and new players debating SR, and not one of them really using it close to its real potential.

Since year one I have run a Kat/SR on Virtue named T'Keron Valmaz. The road with him has been a long one.

SR in year one with perhaps the exception of dark/SR usually was a real PITA to run. No self heals, no end recovery, no dmg resistance to help lesson the blows that slipped through. What we did have however after the hard climb, was Perma Elude. Of all the sets that suffered when ED came and perma end tier powers where taken away, SR suffered worst of all.

In this thread I see debates about Aid Self from the heal pool. To me any build with even a single throw away power like heal other is a wasteful and sloppy build. Unless it is a team centric/support scrapper build. Typically though I use Regen or WP for such a build as thier heavy end recovery lets running the leadership powers become easy, and with the ability to self rez, being able to res others becomes immensly more useful in avoiding wipes in some dark deep places like in the eden trial. Personally for SR builds I rarely can condone the use of either leadership or the healing pool. Not that it cant be done, but IMO without real experiance such builds prove more a waste then a success.

For a long time my Kat/SR saw regular periods of being shelved as I tried various respecs when changes came to try and get back to what he had lost. You see in the end nothing and i mean NOTHING else can ever help you more as and SR then getting back to Perma Elude. Is it possible? Not exactly at least for me so far. But thanks to Incarnate powers I am as close as I really need to be.

My build as far as pools goes focus on personal mobility and speed. Quickness is the true icon power of the SR set and your build should be all about how quickness can help you push your global recharge to an extreme.

My global has reached the point where although I am not perma Elude, I can phase shift for the entire down time of Elude, and although I do have rebirth as well I mainly use the endurance recovery/global recharge power in its stead.

However I actually run two builds on this scrapper. One favors rebirth and uses body mastery for additional regen and recov, it doesnt use any purple IO sets and was mainly created as a cheaper alternatice while I restored him.

His main incarnate build uses fire mastery for some various purple IO sets, and is the one that uses extreme recharge to remove virtually any window of vulnerability. about the only inspirations he does carry are dmg and heals to further allow him to deal speedy death and heal from the occasional lucky shot.

finally this allows him to keep his practice brawler triple stacked and even for short periods of time quad stack, this gives him such protection as to endure almost any number of control effects thrown at him.its not something you can really control but once I even had a quad stack during a rommy rez and although i cant be sure i wasnt just out of range, but I didnt suffer a stun and was not really that far from him. I read his rez stun is only a 32 mag. and quad stacked PB will put you over that.

Just my thoughts on SR and where its true potential exists. BTW easiest way to see if your SR can hold his own. go run a shadow shard tf like sara moore at +4 X8. if your iincarnate crew can get through that ok, then your worthy of the power you wield.

I have to admit it turned out to be a fairly good flick. Plot was solid. Actors put off some good energy. The kid going dark side was way better then anakins in the prequels.

Id say give it a watch and appreciate how diverse telekinesis really is.

before you decide, Id like to offer you the chance to see my blaster Bentley Berkeley in action. He is on Virtue, and even if you have to roll a fresh toon on the server Ill be happy to take you along on something to show you what blasters when well run can do.

If you do have something like a nice high end brute to bring all the better. Can run a fast 4 man 3rd respec jacked up to X8 to have some fast fun. ill be on BB all day just shoot a tell if you want.

The Blaster is as Im sure you know by now a highly aggressive AT. Like scrappers they are destined to become great or fall far shart of the standard created by the best of the breed.

Like any warrior caste AT, they have 3 considerations when building.

Damage: This one is the easy part for blasters, they are at thier core heavy DPS. Virtually any combination of sets can let a blaster do damage. However just doing damage as I am sure your aware by now if it seems like you often struggle, isnt enough to keep you alive,

Damage Mitigation: This has alot of options and factors. Some favor def soft capping, some favor dmg res through various pools and sets. I feel its good to have a mix. Its easy to gain more then a 50% smash/lethal res, this is common dmg and will see ALOT of use helping to reduce the dmg of those hoardes you seek to pit your might against. Ranged Def is my number 1 def concern.

Self Recovery: Its no secret those sets for scrapper/tank types that have self heals and end recovery are typically alot better off then those that are pure defense for example.

Sadly few sets for blasters offer options for self heals, we have one in dark prime, and one in mental 2ndary( Great combo for a modern power set blaster btw) If you have no weapon sets then using the heal pool for self heal isnt out of the question but unless your going for a team centric build then wasting a power on heal other is reall not worth it.

Id suggest a dark/mental if your looking for a serious solo blaster.

Dark can be slotted for one of the strong global recharge to hit debuff sets to 4 parts. leaving 2 slots for procs or the like. powers like drain psyche thrive on global recharge. enough and it is virtually perma.

I dont give hard lines on what you HAVE to have as I feel all should have some chance to add thier own tastes. However I have felt since the age of inherent fitness, the new must have by 20 power, for blasters, is phase shift.

Let me explain simply. Its an ideal Oh **** button, and its far better to phase and be alive to keep aware of the flow of a fight while retreating rather then eating dirt. Stealth and invis give you 2 defense powers to slot LOTG 7.5s, essential boosts for drain psyche.

Follow these simple guidelines while developing a modern age blaster and you will I believe, find the experiance far more satsifying then in the early age when blasters where virtually forced to be glass. Now we can be impervium.