Dreamkatcher

Kudos Scourge, for provoking a mostly interesting and valid string of posts. I came originally from EQ. First MMO I ever tried, and I can attest to the "desired class" clique. If you played a ranger, as I did, you stood a slightly better chance of getting a group than Satan does of getting a white xmas. EQ quickly became a formula. X+Y=Z. Add up all the essential ingredients, and, assuming the players knew what they were doing after 50 levels of practise, the raid was pretty much a done deal.

I have 3 friends who I constantly team with. Between us all we have played every powerset in CoX at least once each. Some of us have favored classes, but no matter who we choose to play, we absolutely rule as a team. The message here? Try different things. Get different perspectives. See how the tank does his job, how the defender keeps your team unharmed, how a blaster can nuke and immediately get back in the fight with the right preparation. Learn how to combine AT's for effect. Let the TA def fire oil slick and the fire blaster follow up with fireball. It's a beautiful thing. Most of all, learn that a team is the sum of it's parts. You no more NEED a healer than you NEED a tank. A good team, whether they know each other beforehand or not, can overcome the lack of any one class. Sure, a healer may speed things up. So can a kinetic. Speaking as someone who recently discovered the joys of broadsword scrapping (the carnage! the mayhem!), a little common sense goes a long way to keeping you in the green. Unless you have a misplaced sense of chivalry. That female psi? She's a guy. He doesn't expect you to die for him. He'll tell you so after you're already faceplanted and he's made his way out the mission door.

In short, please, please think before you go screaming for a h34l0r. A moment's pause will keep you from insulting a competent player, and demonstrating your leadership skills in keeping your team alive without a walking band-aid will raise thier opinion of you highly.

And above all....no blind invites. please. I like to have an idea who I'm gonna be dying with beforehand.

980. No matter how cool it might be, the GM may not attempt to turn the thief into the blindfolded ninja from the GI Joe movie.

Don't THINK I saw this above, so if I repeat something, forgive me. One thing that I LOVE about TP foe is that you can port some targetable explosives. I know people skip the hallway in the Terra Volta trial, but try this next time. Target the bombs, and port them next to, or into, the mob groups. Now have a blaster snipe the bomb. Big laffs, and a few less enemies to fight.

VERY nice posting. I love my kin/rad def like no other character, and this is pretty much the way I play him. The only thing I took any exception to is that I routinely ask at the beginning who wants speed, and I have no problem keeping track of the ones that don't. May just be my OCD kicking in, but as long as I have the icons there to blink for me, it's rare that it wears off on anyone.

Also, THANK YOU for explaining FS so well. I usually try very hard not to tell other people how to play their characters, but it kills me to see people wasting the potential of this power. It's also frustrating to be in a group who simply will not stay in range for the buff. Usually I wind up buffing the tank(s), the scrapper(s), and me. I just hate to see the majority of the team lose out on this :-).

I also tend to use repel as my emergency button, especially on 8-man teams when a wipe threatens and I need to get out RIGHT NOW. A quick heal and then hit repel has saved me several times. I rarely use it in any other circumstance though.

Again, overall, a great guide.

From the writings of the great teacher O Cumon:

"Debt, or as I prefer to think of it, Karma, is the simplest form of re-incarnation most of us will ever see. After falling in battle, we wake to find ourselves whole and ready to fight again, but with a heavy weight on our soul. Some of us are more capable of bearing this weight than others, and some of us are so weighted down that we rapidly accrue even more karma.

Therefore, my pupils, remember this, in times when you feel the weight of your karma pressing down on you with a heavy hand. Karma is the universe's way of reminding you that you are alive, with the chance to correct your past errors, and a second chance to prove that you are mightier than your personal demons. In other words, the more karma you have shouldered, the more alive you are......

Now go, my students, and fall in battle, that you might learn the humility and strength of character that karma teaches us all...."