Doctor_Bolt

Gator, as wasn't unexpected, carried himself with an air of thuggish overconfidence as he strode closely behind Bill and to his right. He whistled tunelessly; or tried to whistle, at least, seeing as the shape of his mouth didn't really accommodate it. It ended up producing a high-pitched hissing noise more than anything else. The silver chain in his hands kept swinging and swinging until they ran into the next moron in between them and their objective. So far he'd bludgeoned several zombies into their second death with it and used it to strangle an unfortunate lone werewolf who tried pouncing their strike force.

Nobody was too surprised he didn't seem to be taking the whole thing seriously, but this was about as close to seriousness as he could get without roaring and screaming incomprehensibly.

Something seemed to shake the very foundations of the castle as they walked - a scream, apparently - and while Gator could hear it quite clearly it didn't do him any harm, or anyone in the team as far as he could tell. This only bolstered his feeling of invincibility. He knew exactly where they were going (somehow) and there was nothing that was going to stop him or the rest of the Corporation.

"Depends what kinda game it is, boss man."

His chest and arms marked with vicious slashes of red paint, the lumbering form of Iron Alligator paced up to Bill and the Flier he was standing on. With a solid silver chain wrapped around his torso and a pair of high-tech fighting gauntlets complimenting his usual mundane look of a tatty trenchcoat and cargo pants, the reptilian mutant exposed his fearsome array of teeth in an eager grin as he spoke.

"How many creepy psycho-goth jackasses I get ta put in their place if I play?"

Gator knew the answer already. This was going to be fun.

The Oni could be some sort of cyborg in that case.

Guten tag, boys and girls. I've decided now's a better time than ever to return from my year-and-a-half hiatus from City of Heroes and have recently renewed my account. I uninstalled the game way back, and because the disc drive on this beautiful laptop is faulty, I couldn't use my CDs. But fortunately, I discovered the joys of downloading the client off of my Game Account page on NCSoft! Success!

However - the problem I'm faced with is that after I've downloaded and installed the game, applied the updates, wet my pants with glee and excitement a few times, etc. - it fails to recognise my password. I've attempted to change it several times and yes, it's valid, as evidenced by the fact I'm posting this thread :P But the game itself refuses to let me in. I've determined it's something to do with the client I've downloaded by logging in at a friend's place without a fault and him trying to log in on my laptop to no avail. I've also uninstalled and redownloaded the client several times, but it still ain't working. It gets a bit annoying when I set out for the day having left it to install while I was out, then coming home feeling giddy to find I can't play the game I love. It's happened three days in a row now, by the way. :P

So has anyone else experienced problems when using the downloadable client to install the game? If so, how did you resolve them? Thank you very much, and enjoy the rest of your day.

Mucho amo,
Bolty

Behind the group, there was a sudden woosh, a thud, a crack, a grunt and a stream of colourful profanities, all originating from a man wearing red-tinted wraparound sunglasses, sitting awkwardly on the grass and apparently nursing a rapidly healing broken leg. "Need to co-ordinate my jumps better," he muttered to himself, annoyed, but seemingly not in pain. After a few seconds, the leg rather abruptly cracked back into place before the man got to his feet and offered a brief wave. He turned to face Shadowcrash and spoke.

"... Selina, what the hell did ya think you're doing on a god damn police radio?" Boneblade asked with a faint grin.

In Brickstown, the hero response was noticeably less enthusiastic than that in other areas of the city. There was a distinct lack of four-colour spandex and the like - although, admittedly, there was what looked like a hulking red-and-grey robot running towards a group of Freakshow at ridiculous speeds for a being of that size. Automobilised was on the scene.

Auto didn't sleep. No, disabling one's systems was pointless and unproductive as it left you unprepared for any incoming attacks. He'd entertained himself by browsing various Internet message boards for MMORPGs for the past few hours (he had nothing better to do, it had been a quiet night!) and had derived amusement from trying to decipher shorthand and "1337-speak" into English. When he'd witnessed Mechano's broadcast, he'd determined that the Freaks posed more danger to the city at this hour and had immediately made his way towards Brickstown. "This Mechano character is indeed persistent," he'd acknowledged along the way, recalling the Uber-Troll riots weeks before.

By the pounding of metal against the pavement, the Mad Freak Gunner who was currently loading a selection of various toasters into a car boot assumed that a Tank had arrived to help. Alas, this was not the case. Auto landed a quick pair of one-two punches for the cybernetic criminal's face, knocking him to the ground as soon as he turned around.

"Haxx!" The Freakshow protested.

"Negative," Auto explained. "I merely possess leet skillz."

It was at this point that the Freak's comrades opened fire...

Doctor Bolt Simple enough, Elec/Elec blaster. A former lab technician who robbed a powersuit he unwittingly assisted in building from a rather shady robotics corporation he worked for who intended to sell it to rather shady people. The name comes from... can you guess?

Boneblade - A reformed Skull ganger who was diagnosed with cancer in his bones and then exposed to strange energies as the disease became terminal, which gave him incredible regenerative abilities and his bones the unusual tendency to grow rapidly and burst out of his skin, forming strange "bone-blades". Spines/Regen scrapper.

Iron Alligator Super-thug, a mutant with incredible strength the appearance of an anthropomorphic grey alligator. The "Iron" comes from the toughness of his hide.

Grimface A man in a super-powered mask which generally looks rather grim. Bleh.

I'll probably put my other characters up later.

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No, it'd look like something retarded out of Final Fantasy or Bleach or something, where gigantic swords are weightless.

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big swords in one hand isn't good, but knocking someone a mile away is perfectly reasonable.....riiight.

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Sorry, but what are you on about? o_O

... Anyway, yeah. /signed, I suppose.

You've got to consider that, quite often, the boss at the end of most Arachnos kill-all missions uses the title "Operative", like "Defeat Operative Blargenheimer and Guards". I reckon that Operative is just a title any Arachnos troop can use, seperate from rank.

Apart from that, nice ideas. Not sure about "Colonel" as a Bane rank underneath "Captain", though.

((Blargh, sorry for the 4-page absense. I'll assume that Grim got dragged to the hospital and all. >_&gt)

Grimface opened his eyes. It took him a few seconds to realise he wasn't wearing his mask. Hurriedly, he reached out to his side, felt something metallic and without thinking grabbed it and clamped it over his face, taking a few deep breaths before sitting up. The optics lit up their usual icy blue and his HUD started bringing up data about his surroundings - the white walls, the doctors, the machinery, the table he'd picked his mask up off and the hospital bed he was lying on.

"Five more minutes, mum," he muttered sarcastically as he peered around the room. Gradually, he became aware of what had happened - he'd been knocked out by a few Drones blowing up in in his face. He sighed and slid off his bed.

Grimface was astounded to see a Rikti Conscript flying towards the Assault Suit. He gave a rare but nonetheless brief laugh as he watched the creature's lifeless form smash into the side of the Suit. A loud crack could be heard as most of the dead Rikti's bones were crushed instantly, and he noted that the impact had left a massive dent in the side of the suit. After a moment, he turned in the direction the Conscript had came from and saw a rather mad-looking woman.

By the expression on her face and the fact she'd thrown a large, armoured creature a good twenty feet, he decided it'd be best not to get in her way. He made his way towards the Suit and started slashing away at it with fast, light strikes, hoping that either the Rikti-launching lunatic or the other heroes would come to his aid.

"... Oh dear." Grimface murmered as Incendiary Arrow fell. He rushed towards the unconscious heroine, scooped her up in his arms and carried her away at blinding speeds, leaning her against the wall at a shop entrance. He'd deduced that her wounds were superficial and she'd survive for a while - hell, maybe if she was lucky, the people hiding inside the shop would take her inside and give her medical aid - so he returned to the fight.

He took a moment to examine the Heavy Assault Suit that had appeared moments before. He'd heard of these things, but had never actually had to fight one. What he had heard, though, was that they were powerful, nigh-unstoppable and required a continous effort from multiple heroes to take down. He hoped and prayed that the heroes currently present were enough to handle it...

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/signed
It just....works. Afaik, theres no exploits you could get here. After all, the Prestige has been earned by someone anyway. -shrug- Its late, if anyone can see a flaw, stick it up.

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Theoretically you could make loads of different SGs on different characters, get the first fifteen people to join (you get 20000 prestige or something per member, right?) then merge one with the other. Rinse and repeat, you get loads of prestige for free.

But that'd take ages and you'd need to find the people/make the alts, so most people wouldn't bother I'd imagine.

"My pleasure." Grimface responded as he fought a Conscript. He aimed a kick for the hand which gripped its plasma pistol - and missed. He cursed his own incompetence as the invader discharged the weapon at point-blank range, exposing Grimface's torso to searing heat. His heatproof shirt was singed, but his combat harness had caught fire. With a grunt he angrilly sliced open the Conscript's throat and quickly pulled off his harness, silently bidding farewell to the expensive equipment it contained and throwing it at a nearby Rikti Monkey. The harness quickly became tangled with the creature's flailing limbs and the monkey caught fire, wailing as it leapt helplessly at a nearby Mentalist's face.

Grimface watched the amusing spectacle for a moment before moving towards the distracted Mentalist almost casually. He made short work of it as he dispatched it from behind before turning his attention back to Incendiary Arrow.

"So, miss Samantha, why do you use a bow anyway?" He inquired, peering around the battlefield, noting the other heroes silently.

"Grimface. Pleased to meet you, Samantha." He had set his sights on a group of Conscripts a few metres away when he realised that this woman was in trouble. He quickly adjusted something on the side of his faceplate as his nanomachine feed increased, momentarilly enhancing his speed and strength immensely. He stepped forward, grunted, kicked the Rikti soldier in the chest to knock it back and quite simply cleaved the its left arm off. It gave a distorted scream of anguish as it fell to its knees. Grimface kicked it down before offering Incendiary Arrow a hand up.

"Alright down there, Sammy?"

Definately /signed from me.

Grimface was now going toe-to-toe with a Mentalist, whose attempts at attacking his mind failed miserably thanks to the psionic wave-deflecting properties of the substance coating his mask. The Mentalist was getting mildly irritated by this and resorted to slinging its warblade around clumsilly, having been trained in the use of its mental powers rather than weaponry. The masked man elbowed it in the face, then cleaved open its chest armour and the flesh underneath. Grimface watched it collapse as a female hero wielding a bow greeted him.

"Good evening, miss. Wonderful weather we're having, don't you think?" He observed, glancing skywards momentarilly. A raid wasn't the best time or place for idle chatter, but the comment was, presumably, sarcastic. He leapt upwards towards a hovering Drone and brought his blade down on it, smashing it to the ground and carving into its armour. It struggled to get airborne again for a moment, but a further few quick slashes caused it to cease moving. He then turned back to the woman, half-paying attention while his HUD determined and reccomended his ideal next target.

"So, what do they call you?"

Grimface continued relentlessly battling the Chief Soldier while other heroes arrived at the scene. He was about to finish his foe off when his faceplate alerted him to the trampling of many metal boots against tarmac behind him. He gave the trooper a solid kick to the helmet, enough to daze him for a few minutes, before turning around to face four Rikti Infantry and a Headman Gunman, each brandishing plasma rifles. He sighed, span his energy blade in his hand before beginning to analyse the Headman.

"Surrender: Now: and Painless: Demise: Ensured." The Headman informed the masked hero. Grimface wasn't listening. His respirator immediately adjusted the amount of nanomachines being pumped into his system in order to properly cope with the reinforcements, and after a moment of standing completely still, he rushed forward, catching the Headman off-guard and immediately cleaving off its head, the heat of his blade instantly cauterising the stump atop its neck as it crumpled lifelessly to the ground.

The four Infantry formerly under its command reacted quickly, discharging their plasma rifles. Grimface managed to dodge all but one of the blasts, which burnt his left arm badly. He didn't even feel it. His nanomachines worked to repair the wound as he made short work of the trooper who'd fired the shot, and then his three comrades.

He half-expected a momentary peace, but instead got an angry Chief Soldier swinging his warblade towards him. He ducked and sliced into the creature's lightly armoured knee tendon, causing it to collapse. It struggled to get back up for a moment under the weight of its armour, while Grimface booted its helmet off and looked at its grotesque features with contempt, the disabled Rikti silently glowering up at his metal mask with equal hatred. He mumbled a courteous fairwell and with arguable grace, promptly and neatly split its face open with his sword.

((I know it seems overpowered, but yeah... BS/WP really is that awesome! ))

I for one love my Spines/Regen. Solid but rather standard Lethal damage, a few handy AoEs and the Toxic DoTs work wonders against most mobs. The excellent survivability that comes with Regeneration is very, very handy. I'm probably gonna spec out of Revive sooner or later (admittedly I only took it because I couldn't be arsed stocking up on wakies ) but aside from that, it's a wonderful combination. He can't take massive groups at once (might change once I get my level 38 godmode power) but what he can take goes down very quickly.

He's only 37 at the moment (and incomplete slotting-wise), but I'm sure I'll be able to level him when I can actually get a team.

I'm also a big fan of my BS/WP. He has end problems occasionally, but I attribute that to his low level and lack of Quick Recovery/Stamina/whatever. The amazing burst damage more than compensates.

((I'm in! ))

Grimface sat on a air conditioning duct atop a small shop building, a hand holding up his chin and a knee supporting his elbow. The sickly green sky cast a similarly tinted reflection over his metallic mask as its glowing blue optics took in the surroundings, his HUD immediately annotating the various objects and figures he saw with range, energy levels and weakpoints among other interesting statistics. He settled on one particular figure as his HUD brought up more information.

He remained still for a moment, targetting one of the ground troopers. His nigh-meditative state was interrupted as he felt searing heat directed towards him. Instinctively, he slipped off the aircon duct and flattened down on the roof of the building to dodge a plasma blast a Chief Soldier - the one he was examining, no less - had cracked off seconds earlier. He turned over, on his back, and reached into a pouch on his combat harness, procuring what appeared to be a handgun handle with a grappling hook stuck to it.

He shuffled towards the edge of the building as several more plasma blasts burned overhead. He hooked the grappler on the edge and took a deep breath, gripping onto the handle tightly. And then, in one swift motion, pulled the trigger on the handle and launched himself over the edge. The hook loosened and he dropped, a length of tough cord between the handle and the hook lowering him down quite quickly.

He hit the pavement squatted with a barely audible grunt and took a moment to collect himself, but was otherwise unfazed. Immediately afterwards he got up and sprinted towards the Chief Soldier at incredible speeds, taking the collapsed-down energy blade from his back, unfolding it and firing it up while he ran towards his opponent. He took the plasma pistol from the Rikti's hand with a swift scissor kick before slashing into the trooper's armoured abdomen with his sword. The Chief Soldier brought down his massive warblade towards the hero, who saw it coming and retreated a few metres back quickly. Somehow, he could tell the invader was grinning underneath its helmet; or, at least, the Rikti equivilant of such an expression.

"Challenge: Located. Entertainment: Ensues."

"Damn straight," Grimface concured and charged once more.

The PPD AT is brilliant. Really liking the sound of it.

The Anarchist idea is just classic though. A Mace/WP Brute and a Thugs/ MM rolled into one? Awesome!

/Signed, definately.

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Also note how the police is dealing with the super powered beings they must fight. At high threat levels there are no non enhanced policeofficers at work anymore. There is a limit at what flesh and bone can do unenhanced.

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Yeah... you still have to fight Malta at higher levels, which implies that a normal person, with the right gear, can still kick [censored].

Auto gave a brief annoyed groan as he pulled the street sign from his torso, watching as it the hole it made closed up fairly quickly. He ran a brief self-diagnostic; Nothing important damaged. Good. He dropped it to the floor, noted that the hostile who threw it was being dealt with and determined his next target.

His balance sensors suddenly went berserk. He could sense pressure being applied at two seperate, aligned points on his back. His optical sensors were now facing skywards. It took him a milisecond's calculation and a few moments of gormlessness for common sense to kick in, as he realised he'd been picked up. A sighing noise escaped the vent that acted as his mouth as he flailed his limbs briefly before being launched into a nearby wall...

He detected the wall breaking apart as he hit it. It took him a few moments to get back up again, and the moment he did, the Troll that threw him floored him again with a right hook like a bulldozer...

Not good, he 'thought'.

Auto stopped momentarilly to peer at a random PPD officer who had, by now, unloaded at least a dozen revolver rounds into one of the Trolls, who didn't seem to be paying much notice to it. He then recalled how he'd easilly knocked out one with his fists and put two and two together.

The few seconds of inactivity it took to examine the data and draw a conclusion from it meant that he was open for attack. One of the Trolls immediately took advantage of this, lurching towards the mechanised hero with his meaty fists flailing. The damage inflicted would have been catastrophic if not for the excellent timing of his nano-reconstruction mechanisms kicking in, repairing the dents and ruptures in his chassis over the course of a few seconds while the Troll continued to pound him to no avail. Automobilised simply looked at him before wagging a clunky metal finger chastisingly.

"That is not a very nice course of action, sir. Please cease and desist."

The Troll barked like a disabled seal in response and prepared to strike again. Swiftly, Auto landed a brutal dig to the abdomen to wind his foe, a jab square between the eyes followed by an uppercut to the chin which probably dislodged the green lump's jaw sent him reeling. Auto watched the floored Troll cautiously, anticipating its possible resurgence. He wandered over and gave the Troll a solid boot to the side of the head for good measure.

Automobilised lumbered up behind an overturned car and awkwardly squatted down behind it, his head just about poking out, using it as cover as he surveyed the hostiles. He caught a glimpse of one of these 'Uber-Trolls' and immediately, inside his head, annotated images of the various 'normal' Trolls and Supa-Trolls came into being, along with the ones in front of him. He compared the different Troll variants and tried to calculate a plan of action, determining the best place to strike these new Trolls and--

And then it hit him. Trolls - especially these Trolls - had no obvious weak points.

With a synthesised sighing noise, he stood up from behind the car, targetted one of many Uber-Trolls and made his way towards it, the generators on his fists flaring bright red...

SYSTEMS: ONLINE
CHASSIS STATUS: OPERATIONAL
SUGGESTED COURSE OF ACTION:
...
...
INSUFFICIENT DATA

The dim glass orbs flickered into life then lit up bright yellow, glaring forwards piercing the otherwise pitch black room. The low hum of machinery started up and could just about be made out over the sounds of a riot outside. A hunched, still, humanoid figure jerkilly shifted upright in the darkness.

Automobilised instinctively (if it could be called that) began pulling information from Paragon Police Department radio frequencies, the local television networks, the Internet and his sensory arrays. The events of the past hour or so became clear to him nigh-instantly; The interruption, Dr. Johnson's broadcast, the Omega symbols, the rush, the transformations and the riots. More text flashed before his "eyes".

SUGGESTED COURSE OF ACTION: INVESTIGATE DISTURBANCE
LOCATE: CAUSE OF DISTURBANCE
DISABLE: CAUSE OF DISTURBANCE
ASSIST: ENLIGHTENED FALCON

He decided to take his in-built tactical computer's advice. The low humming was loud enough to resemble a running car engine now. He took a few baby steps forward - his newly reconstructed chassis felt strange, initially - before quickly leaving the apartment, closing and locking the door behind him, and hurrying out of the building. The first thing that came apparent was the swarms of humans scurrying around the streets. They seemed to be reconsidering their pre-determined paths of movement as they spotted the 7'3' crimson and grey robot now standing in front of them.

He activated his cartographical systems, planned out a route towards the nearest riot and made his way towards it.

SEARCH AND DISPATCH: MOBILISED