Eveningstar2

That's a gorgeous costume set, but I don't understand...

You want me to buy random packs of stuff and hope that I get my money's worth? I would honestly have preferred the entire Elemental Order costume set at a steeper price than the chance of discovering one in a random Super Pack. Along with unslotters, boosters and inspirations that I don't want.

Or am I misunderstanding?

About time.

Disappointing, but not unexpected. With Titan Weapons on the horizon, I expected a week or two of uninspired deals.

The sad part is, I rather like the concept, but can't imagine this selling too well. 400 points is a lot to spend on temporary items of dubious value.

Oh well. Next week.

Never mind!

Hey Silas. I just wanted to let you know I absolutely love your guides. I'm recommending them to a friend of mine who's playing Support for the first time. You've really done a fine job here.

Hey Heroid. I remember seeing your work around the forums when I first joined back in 2007. I just got back for i21 this month and saw your thread, and I have to say I'm impressed. You've really improved.

Good job.

This is something I debate all the time, owing to my fixation with both Scrappers and melee weapons.

Broadsword has a few things going for it. It does hit harder, power for power, if we ignore DPA. There is an admittedly satisfying feeling of strength behind each swing. Broadsword also has a broader (*ducks*) selection of weapon models, some of which are downright gorgeous. It also works with Shield.

Unfortunately, BS has relatively lower recharge and longer animations. Unless the math has changed since the last time I checked, Katana tends to perform significantly better on paper (particularly because of Gambler's Cut, which has something like a 0.57 animation speed). The animations are also relatively ugly and ponderous, illusion of strength notwithstanding.

Katana, on the other hand, has a certain understated elegance, an economy of movement I find appealing. Gambler's Cut is powerful right out of the box, and a faster recharge and faster animations contribute to a much smoother experience. On paper, it's also more damaging.

However, Katana really does not ramp up until between L34 and 37. Power choice is pretty abysmal until Soaring Dragon at 26, which requires at least 3-4 slots to start looking good. It only comes into its own once Golden Dragonfly is properly slotted, and by then you've left half the game behind you.

Katana is a late bloomer, and I often spend most of my early and middle levels over-dependent on Gambler's Cut (potent but lacking in big numbers) and Flashing Steel (likewise). I usually skip Sting of the Wasp because it's absent from my final build, but its presence would certainly alleviate the problem of Katana feeling anemic all the way until 26, and then suddenly becoming awesome in two successively larger leaps.

Also, Lightsaber and Legacy Model aside, its weapon selection sucks (unless you grind out the Rulaaruu sword).

Just my 0.02. Not a terribly experienced player, so take it as you will.

"Who Will Die?" The answer: My team and I.

Here's some feedback from my performance last night. I'm going to try to separate what I hope is objective feedback from what I know to be complicating factors independent of mission design. First, the situation:

A team of eight, relatively support-heavy (two corruptors, a defender, a controller, a tanker, a scrapper (me), a warshade and a blaster) ran the Theoden TF last night (and I was both disappointed and pleased that no one made a reference to Lord of the Rings). We ran the TF at +2, which turned out to be a mistake.

I was overconfident in our ability to handle +2 Circle of Thorns and, to a lesser extent, Lost. CoT Ghosts, -To Hit Debuffs and stacked Ruin Mages all but crippled us. At level 20, few of us had the requisite abilities to support one another and stay alive. I didn't even have access to my mainstay combos. This is, I admit, my fault. I should've run it at +0 or *maybe* +1.

The mission in Oranbega was relatively smooth until the end. This content was brand new to most of us, so when the system told us that we had exactly two minutes to get out, we rushed heedlessly for the entrance. This was a mistake for two reasons:

1. We had no idea that killing the Igneous Minions on our way back actually gave us more time. The mission objectives did not make this clear. The objectives say something like "The minions of Igneous are causing the area to collapse! Find an escape!" In retrospect, we could deduce that if the minions are causing the place to collapse, then killing the minions should slow it down. However, the presence of a ticking clock made our team prioritize trying to run away.

Dashing through several spawns of Igneous only to find the door locked left us baffled. Some of us assumed that the hidden entrance was actually back at the boss room. This turned out to be false. Once we all hospital'd out, we were doubly confused because the mission hadn't ended. The mission required we leave the map. We left the map. Should we not have succeeded?

The secret door is, of course, located just to the left of the original entrance, but it is difficult to see and does not become immediately evident unless--as intended--the party fights its way back to the entrance--which we did not do, owing to the sense of panic and urgency of a ticking clock.

2. Mission two was relatively problematic. We had three separate objectives to keep track of, and without knowing any better, tried to fulfill all three at the same time: Deal with Igneous spawns every 30 seconds, search for and sift through three rock-debris, and locate the boss. While we were being timed. This lead to confusion and a little more panic as we scurried to find each objective, all while having Igneous minions drop on us with all the grace expected of COH's scripted ambushes.

It was only after we died that we realized the timer is immaterial, and once the clock runs out, enemies stop spawning. Hence, the ideal situation *would* have been to defend one room, fight out the spawns and slowly advance, keeping our guard up so we don't get swarmed. This was only evident to us after we'd all wiped and the timer ran dry anyway.

3. Mission three was fine except for the +2 difficulty, which made the post-boss "ambush" particularly cruel (having several ghosts dump -to hit debuffs on our entire group while three ruin mages protect each other with forcefields and set about crushing our more vulnerable party members because, at level 20, a Tanker can't get a hold on all three.

4. The ending was very cool and almost made the agony of running through this arc at +2 worth it. The reward, however (one Hero merit for my 34 Scrapper) did make it worth it.


Conclusion:

I made the mistake of running this at +2 with a full team. That was my indiscretion and I attribute much of the difficulty of individual spawns to that flaw. This story arc comes with some fine storytelling, a great ending and a lovely reward. It's short, sweet, but the design team needs to do a better job alleviating confusion.

None of us knew that killing Minions of Igneous would stop the timer and that we were expected to fight our way back. None of us knew that we could just hold a room or two in Mission Two and fight spawns until the timer stopped or we'd found all three objectives. This was obviously the intended, expected strategy of the missions. However, if you've done any DMing in a tabletop game, you'll know that the route you expect the players to go is rarely the route they do go.

If this Story arc is going to be on sale for non-VIP players, it needs improvement. If the team doesn't understand the mission until after they've wiped, there's a flaw in communication somewhere. In this case, I sincerely believe that overloading us with objectives made us nervous and prone to mistakes. The timers are unnecessary and just add an element of panic to the team.

<3 No problem. It's actually a remarkably fun tutorial.

The tutorial is a pretty good introduction to the destruction of Galaxy City. Remember that the loading screen to the Tutorial features a comic book with several pages that you can browse. Subsequent contact missions in the early levels shed light on the situation and illustrate a few personal stories.

Paragon Wiki doesn't have the updated article up, it seems. But it's being worked on.

I haven't really decided who'd play Arcaness or Aingale. However, Nightdance was modeled specifically after Michelle Ryan.

Congrats on 50. =)

Throwing in another mention of Green Ronin's Mutants and Masterminds. The system is an adapted version of d20, so the rules should be familiar to anyone who's played mainstream d20. The book itself covers a lot of topics, from the superhero 'tradition' in American comics to a breakdown of heroes by archetype. Its power system is pretty modular and probably covers just about all the major superhero concepts.

When I was much younger, I remember enjoying Heroes Unlimited 2nd Edition by Palladium Books. I'm not a huge fan of Palladium systems (curse you, Mega Damage Capacity), but Heroes Unlimited was fun and well-written. I don't think it's in print anymore though.

If nothing else, the books are fun to read and can provide interesting ideas and insights into creating CoH characters, too.

Those costumes look fantastic. Congratulations, guys.

Wow...I'm floored. Thanks a lot, Deebs. Give Silverdawn's regards to Shia.

I've been giving some thought to buying this booster pack. How often does the transformation "backfire"?

Amir Suleiman, Danger. Not a song, but the Resistance culture seems more suited to angry shouting than melody.

Awesome costumes, Clobbertime.