Dr Harmony

Cool.

I'll post my ultra-expensive build tonight - permadom and good defence bonuses. The defence is mostly irreleavnt, but good for opening fights more safely or dealing with AVs, or even tricky bosses who've just killed me.

Some basic info:

I slotted Earthquake with just the Achilles proc. Its got a long activation time, and isnt part of my bread and butter fighting style.

Quicksand never got more than one Recharge off me, and I dropped it in my last respec, partly for the 3.1 second cast time.

Stalgmites got the whole Stupefy set, for Recharge and Defence bonuses. This does add knockback, so drop the proc if you aren't chasing defence.

Fossilize and Volcanic Gasses got 4 slots of Basilisk's Gaze. I have also had the Lockdown proc in VG and its very nice, if you can handle the visual of electric balls emerging from the gas. I couldn't, being a fussy roleplayer.

I skipped the single immobilise, and picked up Stone Cages much later. It got 5 slotted for Trap of the Hunter and eventually a purple set, with the hold proc.

The much-maligned Salt Crystals is a decent panic button because it activates very fast. I 5-slotted that as a recharge mule - Call of the Sandman and eventually the purple set.

Animate Stone got all six Expedient Reinforcment (+rech and +Def, but only 80% damage in the power). I compensated for this with Musculature Alpha.

I think originality is a pretty poor yardstick for what makes a good character.
A good character in a game like this should be recognisable to some degree, and be able to be summed up in a few lines of dialog and a short bio if you intend to share them through the game. To be able to do this, it probably helps to have them not be too original or obscure.

If you can you sum up your character in a sentence like "They're like X but Y" thats a very compact way to deliver information about who they are.

"Hes the glam-rock Hulk from Brooklyn!"
"A neurotic robot Spiderman with ice powers!"
"She's a Plant-bender with a pet cat!"

All these give you a fairly concise but dense picture of a character by referencing common sources and adding your own twist.

eg my Tanker, Tantalya, is like a female Colossus (Russian mutant who turns to metal) but a foul-mouthed urban punk obsessed with clothes shopping and materialism (as opposed to a gentle good-hearted farmer).

I just saved several lines of boring waffle about nationality, powers and origin by being unoriginal.

How much influence do you have?
Do you have any preferred travel power?
Do you want perma-domination through high recharge, or high personal defence, or a bit of both?
Any preference for or against melee combat?

I dont use Mids, but I can give you the rough outline of my build when I get home, and why I made the decisions I did.

I really dont like the idea that the Well has to be involved. Its like making every character in the Marvel universe above a certain power level have to have links with Asgard. I prefer it that Hulk, Jean Grey and Thanos, to pick some examples, have their own stories, thank you.

But, I tend to play fast and loose with game lore. If I made a Peacebringer, chances are they wouldn't be strictly Kheldian.

My powers are Firestorm-style transmutation rather than "Earth Control" per se. My incarnate powers are just extensions of that - liquid nitrogen spray, ionised gas clouds, and so on.

I spent my first 20 levels in Singapore, fighting beserk cleaning robots, gangsters with katanas and pistols in sharp looking motorbike gear, all in a very clean high tech city setting. I ddin't go to Praetoria till much later, around level 50. But, I didn't force this mindset down anyone's throats at the time.

I certainly wouldn't mind some more Judgement powers, or even device based alternate animations for the non-powered crowd.

I took a break for a few months to play another superhero MMO, and then came back here.
Since returning I've tried out a wheol bunch of new stuff like Task Forces and Incarnate Trials and really got into teaming and SG activities this time. (I used to solo a lot)

I can't say I'll never take a break again, but I'm pretty sure I'll keep coming back if I do. And while I play, I'll stay VIP. 50c per day is such good value for the entertainment I get.

Name: Hero League International

Currently Recruiting: Currently recruiting

RP Level: Most interaction happens in character. We spend more time doing missions (and chatting IC) than just standing around chatting IC. We're drama free and easy going with differing levels of participation.

PvP Level: None

Theme/Concept: Hero League International has one member per represented country. The heroes are typically government-sanctioned spandex types banding together to protect Paragon City and the planet, but we accomodate many different origins and power levels within our theme.

Activity: Each player has one character, membership is around 40 currently.

Requirements for Membership: Characters must be national icons witrh one costume devoted to their country's flag if high enough level.

Leadership: Screaming Patriot (US representative), Dr. Harmony (Singapore representative), Ellada (Greek representative)

In-Game Contact(s): @Carla Simone

Out-of-Game Contact(s): Dr. Harmony on the forums

URL: hli.guildportal.com - a list of represented nations is kept up to date ehre.

Coalition(s): Hero League Infinity is our alt group for non-national icon characters

Other Details: We try to maintain a presence across all time zones. I'm currently spearheading a push in the Oceanic time zone. If maintenance disrupts your play, that means you!
We have an awesome base full of split-level rooms with full teleport facilities, as long as you don't get lost!

My melee-centric Blaster uses Kinetic Combat (for smashing/lethal) and Thunderstrike and Eradication (for energy/negative) to compound with the Scorpion Shield epic power (which requires a trip villainside to get).

Kinetic Combat isn't cheap, but you can skip the triple piece, buy the Knockdown, Acc/Dam and Dam/Rech off the market, buy the Dam/End with Hero merits and then use some other Acc/Dam for the fifth slot in a melee power.

I also took Tough (for early placement of the Steadfast IO) and Weave, which get me to the Smashing/Lethal softcap.

I'd aim to make your Blasters as different as possible in how they play.

For example:

Sonic/Mental gives you an almost continuous cone attack chain. Rely on team support and your own mezzes to stay alive.

Rad/EM gives you lost of Stuns. I play mine as a Kryptonian type with compromised invulnerability, mostly in melee with Heat Vision (XRay Eyes) for the odd runner. My aim there is control, then defeat single hard targets. I love taking on Paragon Protectors for example. I used S/L defence to stay alive.

Elec/Elec can play a bit like a Dominator, control then move into melee and unleash the damage on selected targets.

maybe add in..

Dark/Fire: combine melee defence or S/L defence from IOs with -To Hit to give you the best survivability while you cook everything. You're a minion mincer.

Energy/Devices - a dedicated solo artist. No defence IO bonuses allowed, use procs in your attacks and play tactically.

Ice/Ice? I dont know /Ice too well. And you like Ice.


This way its like you're giving each one a slightly different team or solo role.

As an Australian resident, I'm really not shedding a tear for any loss of special items being attached to convention attendance, since the conventions are typically in the US.

And I've never been fond of the idea of any costume items being used for bragging rights over character concept. For example, I'd rather see wicthes hats being worn by characters who are actually witches rather than by robots or spandex heroes who've completed a task force.

Nice to see a few more Electric/Martial Arts tanks in the works. It's a combination that really works on tanks, with the high resistances and the defence boost from Storm Kick. And the damage aura standing in for the lack of area damage when you can happily pile 20 orange minions around you without even considering your health bar. And Power Sink to help with martial Arts endurance heavy attacks. I'm really enjoying this combination, I cant recommned it enough.
A Martial Arts/Elec Scrapper just wouldn't be the same.

My next "tank" will probably be a Street Justice/Regen Brute. I know it's not a real Tank, but I want to try something new, and Regeneration just sounds like it would suit Brutes really well. Lots of endurance to feed Fury, the most HP you can get (so far) on a Regenerator. That, and I've never got a Brute to 50.

I find Power Thrust to be far more useful than a ranged immobilise.
Early levels: toss that boss, then knock him out before he gets up!
Later levels: toss that boss and then stun him before he gets up!

It is annoying to get held or immobilised and not be able to use it (although being stunned and using it is a lot of fun, doing the drunk walk..) but the increased protection of knockback over immobilise more than makes up for it.

I wouldn't mind Martial Arts getting something similar for its Tier 1 power as a point of difference. But then again, with Energy Manipulation as the current stand in for unarmed combat, it would be nice to have options.
So, yeah, I guess bolas or web grenade works.

Poison's a bit lacklustre from what I hear. It ceratinly was back when I played it on a Mastermind, and the recent boosts have maybe not been enough.

You could use green coloured Radiation instead, but the spitting animation would be hard to give up for a snake voodoo character.

Dark Blast would probably help out Poison a lot by adding extra To hit debuffs.

Like Geko says, support in CoX is not just healing, but buffs to make your allies tougher and debuffs to weaken the enemy.

Defenders do support and ranged damage.

Corrupters do the same, but with more emphasis on the damage.

Controllers do crowd control and support, and are the best archetype for offering "pure" support, ie not doing damage directly.

Good healing oriented sets are:
Empathy for Defenders and Controllers.
Pain Domination for Corrupters.
Thermal Radiation for all three.

All these sets do more than heal, so make sure you take other powers like Fortitude in Empathy and the fire shields in Thermal. Also, take and slot your attacks and controls, they're valuable to your team as well as your support powers.

Have a look at the guides in the forums for these archetypes. And if you ask questions in the Defender forum, be wary of using the word "healer" and say "Support" instead. Some people have a knee-jerk reaction against that word, because Defenders do more than heal.

I agree. That is very cool!

I think knockback is generally under-rated, or at least the case against it is overstated.

Teammates can do a number of things to unintentionally ruin your day.
Area Immobilises that leave enemies spread out, as mentioned earlier.
Overconfident melee artists who run in before everyones loaded, and then die, leaving aggro'd enemies at the missions door.
Scaredy-tanks who need a personal "ready" off everyone befroe engaging a spawn.
Empaths who only buff the tank.
Its the price of playing with other people instead of AIs, I guess.

I love knockback, use it well, and rarely see it causing trouble from other teammates.

Remember that whatever primary you take, Martial Arts will give you an extra 10% defence during combat via Storm Kick, which can up your survivability considerably.
I've found this and Kinetic Combats to work very well on my Electric/MA tank - let the powerset provide resistance and get Defence from elsewhere. (Although on the downside I have no +HP boost)

Depends if Martial Arts fits your concept, of course, but the set can be made fairly non-kicky these days via alternate animations.

I'm very unimpressed by Nerve.

The first character I looked at incarnating was my FF/Sonic Defender, thinking that the +Def slotting would drastically improve my team protection abilities. Once I'd figured out that it would add a few percent (maybe 5% or 6% ?) at Tier 4, I promptly dropped the idea and started working on new characters instead.

The chances of doing incarnate content without another buffer of some kind on the league (even a Shield user or Storm Defender), plus the kind of self-defence that most Incarnated characters are likely to have, make me think that this 6% will rarely make any noticeable difference.

Musculature sounds like a very good idea. The fewer damage buffs you already have the more difference it makes - you'll be packing +30% if you solo and +50% from Aim, so that isn't a whole lot.

And with the Partrial Radial Revamp you get bonus Endurance Drain to all your electrical attacks.

Spiritual isn't that useful for you - no long recharge powers and no heals.
Cardiac is only good if you need extra endurance, and the effective extra slot in Stamina from the Tier 3 Musculature radial covers that.

I've played Sonic Resonance several times and never used Sonic Repulsion. Never even considered taking it. I too like odd powers, and I have used Repulsion Field in Force Fields very effectively.

Was this question prompted by the fact it got an update in I21 - so that its now useable on any League-mate instead of just team-mates?

I think Super Reflexes has that concept very well covered already.

Adding World of Confusion and Drain Psyche make the set feel more "Psychic" in game terms (pink FX and psychic words in the power names), but when you look at what they're actually doing, they're not really very precognitive at all.

How does seeing into the future allow you to boost your regeneration rate based on the number of enemies around you? (For that matter, what exactly are Psi Dominators and Blasters doing with this power conceptually..)

I do agree that some new armor sets would be nice, and some sort of psychic set is a good conceptual hole, but Im at a bit of a loss as to what game mechanics they could use.

Another conceptual hole that would be interesting to try and replicate in agme would be Intangibility. Think Vision/Kitty Pryde/Phantom Girl. How would you go about doing that?

Yeah, dont let one bad experience get you down.

The people who ignored you could have been in tell-hell or processing other conversations in channels you couldn't see. Or they could have been rude and clique-ish.

Keep on looking - if one in ten random interaction turns into a friends-list member or supergroup contact or whatever you're doing well, and it more than makes up for the 9 people who dont get what youre doing.

I sort of brushed someone off last night (Australia time) whilst talking in Atlas.
Maintenance was coming, I'd just met a potential supergroup member, and had 15-20 minutes to give him the base tour before the universe temporarily collapsed. If you were the radioactive pirate who approached us, then I apologise for not having the time to join you. I tried to talk, but was processing a few different conversations already, and I was on something of a schedule at the time.

Normally, I try to talk in local in character to allow others to get drawn in, but this was a case of bad timing.

How about a character who is a living liquid, and needs a containment suit to prevent them from dispersing? This could fit with Poison, or Energy Blast (colored like a high pressure jet).

How much can the head be scaled? What can you do with a large jar-head on a small body or vice versa?

Are there any chest emblems that look like a face or eyes to give the effect of Jack Kirby's Arnim Zola design? I dont think so.

The Aegis one was bugged for click powers back when I played my Sonic Defender, I don't know if it still is.

In one of the ally shields, it grante me the Psi protection at all times, but the Status Resistance lasted for 10 seconds after casting the shield.

So I'd check that it may do the same in Eclipse - last for 10 seconds after clicking the power.