Ex_Libris

The Beginning--Part I

Dr. Evans had finally done it, he thought to himself. He had found the ideal pupil. Isabelle Dubois was the perfect candidate, and he had nearly discredited her after the accident…the loss of her family. Evans thought to himself, I must find a way to make sure I can keep Izzy enrolled at Moorecrest. If they try and place her somewhere else I will have to start all over again. Or that might just be the key to keeping her post elementary school.

Evans knew that his ideas were radical and after leaving ‘the institute’ he took a fellowship offer at the local University hoping he would find an apt student to assist him develop his ideas. After working with the fellowship program nearly two years he realized that these students had already passed the point of execution for his ideas. They were too far into adulthood to grasp anything so mind blowing as his radical ‘Theory of Possibility.’ Certainly there were some brilliant candidates but most of them had grasped too many of the hard lined laws of nature and the universe to even see Dr. Evan’s ideas as anything more than fantastical and foolish.

Evans recalled one of his favorite quotes from Albert Einstein.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

Dr. Elliot Evans knew that he would have to find another way. Elliot knew that his disease was terminal, he was only 67 and most would consider that to be young but time was of the essence now and he had to find someone that could carry on his life’s work. The sheer number of technological advances that could be made if his proofs held up to scrutiny would be astounding. If only I could make it work he thought. Then he could truly be deemed as a great thinker, instead of the quack that most held him up to be.

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Izzy lay there shivering and curled up rocking back and forth with every movement of the deep black ocean. She was wet from head to toe, and could only feel some sense of warmth inside her green vest life jacket.

The life jacket had been her birthday present when she turned 8 a few months before. She was so happy about the gift that she wore it for nearly a week around the house. Her mother finally was able to convince her to stow it away under her bed until they had brought the boat out from winter storage.

Izzy pulled her arms inside the vest and curled up tighter, she was so cold that she couldn’t stop her jaw from chattering and knocking her teeth together. She couldn’t remember ever being this cold before. She wondered where her family was and why they hadn’t come to find her. Izzy wasn’t quite sure what had happened, she knew her head hurt terribly and that she was floating on the large cushion that was backed by a plywood board. It was the one that covered the engine on the back of the boat. But where was the boat? Where was her family? Where was Izzy?

Izzy slowly moved around the cushion as to not disrupt the balance that had up to this point kept her safe. Nothing! She couldn’t see anything but a void of darkness. Then she saw a beam of light pass by, but it was quickly gone again. Izzy was so tired but she knew that she shouldn’t fall asleep, she knew that she had been hit on the head and had read recently in one of her “Hardy Boy’s” mysteries that it was not a good idea to fall asleep if you had a head injury. Izzy couldn’t help thinking if she did fall asleep that she would miss finding her family.

The light beamed over head again. Maybe that is them looking for me, Izzy thought. Certainly it must be she tried to raise her head up to see if she could hear a boat engine but she could hear nothing but the ocean, and again she could see nothing but darkness. Where was that light coming from?

Again the beam crossed over the wide expansion of the sky. Izzy could only tell the difference between the darkness of the ocean and the sky by looking at the horizon. The light crossing over was too static to be a rescue boat, Izzy thought, it must be something else, but she couldn’t quite figure it out. Then again it crossed over.

“29, 28, 27, 26, 25,” Izzy started to count. She got to 15 when the light crossed over again. “15, 14, 13, 12, 11,” and on down to 1 and there the beam flashed across the sky. It was a lighthouse! Izzy kept counting; it took 15 seconds for the light to go full circle around its circumference. Izzy figured that if she continued to count she would be able to tell if she was getting closer or drifting further away from where the lighthouse was stationed.

“10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1,” and SNAP! Izzy was wide awake. She looked confusedly around Dr. Waters’s office and then her eyes narrowed in on Hanna. She remembered now, she was at her scheduled psychiatric appointment.

“How do you feel Izzy?” Dr. Waters asked.

Izzy hated that question. “I feel sleepy.” She responded.
“Did you learn anything new about what happened to me?” Izzy asked with anticipation.

“No, not really.” Dr. Waters replied.
“Izzy are you still having trouble sleeping at night?” Dr. Waters asked, to which Hanna replied.
“She wakes up with nightmares at least 3 or 4 times a week, and half the time when I go in to check on her to see if she is sleeping she’s awake and reading.”

“Well I can write her a prescription to help her sleep.” Dr. Waters stated.

Izzy sat quietly while decisions were made in her behalf, she didn’t quite care that this was happening because most people treated her like this, hardly anyone ever asked her what she thought or what she wanted. She felt more like she was a problem than a person.

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Isabelle sat quietly meditating with her eyes closed she then took in a deep breath and inhaled the steamy air. The eucalyptus seemed to sting open the alveoli of her lungs. Isabelle had always been susceptible to infections after that summer so long ago. Her best defense was regular exercise and a rigid diet. It was amazing to her how good she felt after a hardcore work out, and sitting in the steam room had proved to be the most therapeutic practice she had come across in her adult life. Adult, Izzy could hardly wrap around the idea that she was nearly 25. This had been a rough winter and she missed the camaraderie of her old mentor Elliot, she could hardly believe that three years had past since his death and her inheritance.

Isabelle had long given up the idea that she would ever have a family. Hanna and Dr. Evans were the closest thing she could think of to familial relations. Hanna had since married and started her own family and kept in touch at the usual social conjectures, birthdays and holidays. And Dr Evans had finally passed on, he went quietly and peacefully. It seemed to Izzy that he had long prepared himself for the event. Isabelle however, was hardly prepared, she was 21 years old and technically an adult in fact far more mature than most adults were but she took Dr. Evans death very poorly.

There were problems that Isabelle despite her best attempts to find a solution just couldn’t tackle and it would be good to bounce ideas past Dr. Evans like she had so easily done in her past. She kept a daily journal, which helped, but it was times like this that she relied on meditation, hoping to channel the good Doctor.

Oddly in her hopes to channel him she brought up images from a distant past, there were still pieces missing in the puzzle that created her. Pieces that Izzy knew she would need to find in order for her to unlock the pieces to a bigger puzzle.

Possibilities!?!

Jump to Part III


~Ex Libris ~The Story part II by Jill Henderson

Ok there have been some design questions posed to me so let me take a moment and grant some insight to part of what ID (Izzy Dubois) is all about.

I don't want to spoil much of the story content so more will come as I have some of the finer details taken care of, but on a professional level I see Izzy (Ex Libris) Dubois as a Librarian or Archivist by day, which allows her to study documents and books that others may not have access to, and by night a bounty hunter/crime fighter.

She is neutral in that she is neither hero or villain but more for hire at her own discretion. I don't really see her as a flashy super type but more mysterious and shadowed, I do like the comments made on the Mercurial lineage, that was very interesting to me and hits like quicksilver to my veins.

Don't forget here we are dealing with a major nerd, doesn't mean she can't have a bit o style to her but all the same she is a nerd to the core.

She doesn't seem too concerned that her finger nails match her chapstick.

If any of you want more details feel free to PM, I have started a folder for art submissions so please if you do submit something sign it in the submission so I know what belongs to whom.

Thanks,

Ex Libris

Knowledge is power!

Thanks all, I am really looking forward to developing the story line a bit as I enjoy content writing.

You can see the introduction to me professionally in the announcement forums and I have also asked for art submissions.

And FYI I am only me, today!

~Ex Libris~

Hello all, please see the following posts for the introduction of Ex Libris your new Community Relations Coordinator.

Introduction

Background story

I am accepting art submissions to help me develop Ex Libris on the forums and in game.

I am looking forward to see what will turn up!

~Ex Libris~

“That’s it, kid, get out of my classroom. I have had enough of your smart aleck comments.”
“Where do you expect me to go?” The girl retorted.
“I don’t care, just leave my sight. Go to the principal’s office. I expect that he will work out the transfer details.”

Another teacher down, the young girl thought as she walked the long corridor of classrooms. This was the third time she had been removed from class by a teacher. Her outbursts weren’t intentional; they were driven more out of the desire to fit in, or perhaps it was because she knew she never would fit in. But that didn’t have to mean going unnoticed.

Izzy waited at the receptionist’s desk with obvious chagrin. Ms.Bailey always felt sorry for her. The kindly woman couldn’t imagine losing both parents and siblings in a freak boating accident. To be the sole survivor of such a catastrophe was beyond anything she could remotely relate to.
Ms. Bailey recalled the newspaper article outlining the morbid details of the Dubois family, lost to the darkness of the ocean over the long 4th of July weekend. And the eight year old girl found alone, drifting amid the wreckage.

“Principal Dewalt, Isabelle is here. She was sent by Mr. Drake.”
“Send her in Ms. Bailey.”
Principal Dewalt was no stranger to Izzy’s file. Recently an orphan she suffered from violent nightmares. Socially disturbed, but overwhelmingly bright for her age. This was the third placement for Isabelle Dubois, and he was running out of options. At what point, he thought is the limit to what we can do? The case was perplexing at best.

Izzy walked into Principal Dewalts office with trepidation.
“Well Izzy, what happened this time?”
“Nothing,” Izzy shrugged.
“Nothing huh, well I don’t think Mr. Drake would kick you out of his class for nothing. Isabelle you are a smart girl, I just don’t know what I am going to do in this situation.”

Honestly, Izzy had no idea either. It was only November and this was the last teacher available in her grade. Mrs. Olsen was fed up with her lack of follow-through. Ms. Pritchert had found her curled up in the coat closet and felt that Izzy needed more attention than she could provide. And Mr. Drake was tired of the disorder caused by Izzy’s verbal outbursts.

Principal Dewalt had just finished a phone call with Izzy’s foster care provider Hanna Bert. Izzy liked living with Hanna and didn’t want to cause problems for her or be forced to live somewhere else.

“Hanna says you like it here at this school, Izzy, so I would like to try and make this work for everyone. I think you know that my job is to make sure that every child who attends Moorecrest Elementary has the chance to reach their potential as a student. That includes you Izzy, but that means I have 347 other students to think about as well.”
Izzy fidgeted in the oversized chair. She knew what he was driving at, and knew that her behavior was going to get her in some real trouble if she didn’t “shape up,” as Hanna put it to her the last time this happened.
“So Izzy, what do you suggest that we do? We can’t send you home. Hanna has to work and you cannot be left unsupervised. And you can’t just stay here in the office.”
“I don’t know, sir. I guess you could just send me to the library.”
The library was Izzy’s refuge. She could escape into a quiet corner and jump into a book that would take her away from all the cares and concerns of this confusing world that was now Izzy’s life.
Principal Dewalt picked up the phone.
“Dr. Evans, I have Isabelle Dubois here in my office. We have had an issue arise which has led us, temporarily, to seek another placement for her where she will be able to able to keep up with her studies.”
There was a muffled response that Izzy couldn’t quite understand.
Dr Evans was a retired physicist who used to teach at a local University. God only knows why he would take a job in an elementary school library, but Izzy liked him a great deal. He always spoke to her as if she was an adult and could understand much more than other people gave her credit.
Izzy had always been a book worm, and if the elementary school had enough of a budget to computerize their circulation desk, it would easily show that Isabelle Dubois was the most well read child the elementary school had seen in the last fifteen years. Starting at the first grade Izzy quickly read through most of the books that Mrs. Larsen had recommended from the junior section. So Izzy was introduced into the Dewey section in the second grade, two years before most children were taught it as part of the school curriculum.
Principal Dewalt hung up the telephone.
“Ok, Izzy. Dr. Evans has agreed to supervise you until we can find a suitable situation. I will arrange with Mr. Drake to have your school packets delivered each day. I expect you to keep up with your studies, and Dr. Evans has agreed to assist you with this. Now I don’t want to hear that you are giving Dr. Evans any trouble. Do you understand?”
Izzy nodded, trying to hold back her enthusiasm; perhaps this was what she wanted all along: freedom from the mundane routine and social anxieties that others referred to as the fourth grade.

The library always seemed a peaceful place to Izzy. Even more than church had been, and she hadn’t stepped foot inside a church since the funeral. In fact she couldn’t even see one or it reminded her of all she had lost. But the library was a neutral setting. Sometimes she thought of her family because a book she was reading reminded her of times they had shared, but memories like that made her feel good, like she was part of something -- not like church where she felt like a part of her was missing.
“Welcome, Isabelle,” Dr. Evans said as she sauntered into the library.

“What is the question?” Dr. Evans quipped.
“To be or not to be,” Izzy answered.

Dr. Evans was a great fan of the literary giants and had as of late started to introduce Izzy to the works of Shakespeare. Izzy was commonly drawn to her particular fascination of fantasy fiction, weapons, and encyclopedias. But she seemed to take to the classics with ease most of what Izzy read were abridged versions or somewhat watered down bits of Olde English, but she didn’t seem to have any trouble picking up on the intended meanings or rhyme and meter of the Bard of Avon.
“Well I guess we are waiting on these supposed learning packets of yours. How about for today you give me a hand re-shelving these books, and then perhaps we can start on cataloging some new media that has just arrived?”
Izzy took the cart that Dr. Evans was referring to and pushed it towards the large, oak card catalog towards the non-fiction section. This was her favorite spot in the library, the catalog filled with thousands of book references it seemed to represent endless possibilities and plot twists. On the wall above the catalog printed in large block letters were the words, Ex Libris. Something about those words seemed so powerful that it always captured her attention. She paused there for a second trying to figure out the meaning.
“From the books,” Dr. Evans said as he came up behind her with the fiction returns. “Ex Libris means from the books.”
Izzy smiled and thought to herself, ‘my real education begins now, here, in the library.’

Jump to Part II

~Ex Libris~The Story part I by Jill Henderson

Hello fellow heroes and villains, allow me to introduce myself as your new Community Coordinator for the ‘city of’ franchise. My name is Jill Henderson and I am grateful to be joining such a wonderful product and team.

My professional career in the online gaming industry started in ‘99 when I joined the customer support team of the industry hit “Everquest.” I came online as GM Djembe of the Bertoxxulous server and later when SOE entered the arena I stepped into the Lead GM position over several servers. I stayed with SOE through the release of “Shadows of Luclin,” in 2001.

After leaving SOE I followed up with my academic career and attended Utah State University where I enrolled in the Social Work program. I enjoy working with people on an individual level and in larger community groups. I finished my studies last May.

The job market brought me back to southern California to Sigil Games, Inc. where I worked on the beta project of “Vanguard, Saga of Heroes” through the recent release of the game. I love being back in the industry and working with the many talented individuals.

When I heard about the community position on the ‘city of’ franchise I was really excited as I have always enjoyed working with the community in my CS positions but I would really get the chance to work in some of my skills attained with my Social Work background.

A bit about me:

I am a gamer, and have been ever since childhood. I love all sorts of board games, online games, puzzles, pen & paper, etc. In fact it is one of the best ways that my family has been able to interact with each other as we have grown into adults. I was properly introduced to D & D when I was about 8 years old, and I played religiously (haha) much to my parents chagrin until I was in my early teens.

Video games were not only a part of my childhood but also my family’s income. Back in the early forties when the WWII was just breaking out my grandfather was working in a steel factory as a chemist. When he noticed on his breaks all his co-workers surrounding a pin ball machine he calculated the investment/return. Later he pawned my grandmother’s wedding ring and bought his first machine, later buying kiddy rides, and jukeboxes. It was often joked about that he became a millionaire one nickel at a time. The family business expanded from Utah, Idaho, Montana, Washington, Arizona, and New Mexico and carried over through the decades, I remember the first day that I saw a free standing game sometime during the late 70’s and it was Pong. During the eighties with Pac Man fever our garage was constantly filled with neighbor kids who would come by to play the games we had set aside for rotation.

My favorite games are Galaga and an obscure game called Crazy Climber. With the initiation of console games the arcade game routes took a huge hit, so most of the family left or sold their business along with their inventory, /cry. Along with these games I have enjoyed console gaming and computer gaming of various types, but my favorites tend to be fantasy and strategy based. As far as board games my favorite currently is “Settlers of Catan,” (1996) and the game play with family and friends gets heated.

I’m a social creature, so I love dancing, and going out. I also love being outdoors, and spend a great deal of time with my two labs Frank Black and Mazzy Star. I enjoy reading when I can get hooked into something good, and I am known to write a bit, although I’m a little shy in that department. On the horizon I would love to learn tap dancing, sailing, and I think I’m old enough now for a motor cycle… we’ll see. I’m a known Gypsy so I hope to do some traveling as well.

I am really excited to be part of such a successful venture. I look forward to meeting with you here on the boards, and hopefully in game.

I have posted the first bit of background on my avatar Ex Libris, feel free to help mold me into the most unlikely but deadly crime fighter you might find…in the library? ?

Also I would love some art submissions and any helpful bits to assist me in creating a visual reference for Ex Libris.

As always the pleasure is mine!

~Ex Libris~

What do I need to make a music video? Trying to make one while tanking Deathsurge or a HARD AV....help!

lol PLEASE!

Also....abnyone know of any REAL good sites that have tons of PVP PVE vidz for villains? I mean aside from the Guru Slyfe...

awsome job cant wait to see mine

lol thse are awsome more please

You can take a crack at mine I dont expect you to do them all but if you want to it would be cool my main one is mysterious flame

Mysterious flame fire/Elec blaster

side view http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ryu/mfside.jpg

Front view
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...u/59b46a01.jpg

Close front view
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ryu/mfface.jpg


Purple Storme physcic/storm control controler

side view
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ryu/psside.jpg

front view

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...yu/psfront.jpg

Now my villian mysterious flames evil brother so they are arch enemies or what not physcic/ice controler

front view
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...pharyu/amf.jpg

side view

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...lpharyu/am.jpg

If you are offering free art hehe here are my 3 characters

Mysterious flame fire/Elec blaster

side view http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ryu/mfside.jpg

Front view
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...u/59b46a01.jpg

Close front view
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ryu/mfface.jpg


Purple Storme physcic/storm control controler

side view
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ryu/psside.jpg

front view

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...yu/psfront.jpg

Now my villian mysterious flames evil brother so they are arch enemies or what not physcic/ice controler

front view
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...pharyu/amf.jpg

side view

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...lpharyu/am.jpg


I dont expect you to do all of them if you dont want my main request is myterious flame

hey, i posted my character picture earlier I forgot to mention that he was a fire/elc blaster lol.

Nice work also

well here is mine if you want to give it a shot

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...u/59b46a01.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ryu/mfface.jpg

[ QUOTE ]
As I said before, choose between your VG or your own needs. Supers do this all the time in comics. The game mimics comics.

[/ QUOTE ]

When "true to source material" is at odds with "fun", I would argue that fun must take precidence.

Hey, believe me, I play this game for the story. Knowing Shane from previous games he's worked on, I had a lot of fun picking out which storylines I knew had to be his. I build a lot of my heros and villains around a background from the character's POV, rather than just picking whatever powers and slot combinations are "best". I try to do storylines on my characters even when I've done those storylines many times before with other characters, because I like reading them.

That said, this is just terrible design. Simply put, you should not have to forsake helping your supergroup advance in order to open up a storyline. The two should not be mutually exclusive, as this is unfair to SGs in a game where things are already stacked against SG advancement. I have no problem with some solo content being mutually exclusive of other solo content, or making it so that it is very hard (or even impossible) for a player to visit all solo content with a single character. THAT is where the tradeoff should be. The TV forces you to either be unfair to yourself, limiting what content you can see for the benefit of your friends, or being unfair to your friends so you can run a couple more missions and get a widget.

Roleplay should always be something you CAN do to add fun to an existing system. However, getting this badge doesn't involve "roleplaying" in any sense of the word, though it can potentially be the result of an avenue of roleplay. Please don't insuiate that this somehow encourages roleplaying, because it really doesn't.

Mind if I interject here for a sec?

[ QUOTE ]

If you don’t agree with any of this you must agree with:
<ul type="square">[*] You want that special power and don’t believe you should work for it OR you don’t want that special powers, and won’t work for it.[*] There is something earned for free (I can’t think of anything, can you?)[*] When you earn a badge, you don’t feel really good. (I don’t know how you feel, but not really good.)[*] You want that special accolade, but don’t expect to work for it OR you don’t want that special accolade.[*] The Devs reasons are not sound, either both in and out of game, or both.[*] You should not be thankful for getting powers above and beyond those you normally get.[/list]
I can’t see any other options if you don’t agree with the above paragraph. And if you do believe the above, that’s fine. Your opinion is just as valid as my opinion.


[/ QUOTE ]

This is a strawman argument. There can be middle ground between getting something for free and an utterly unreasonable effort required to obtain something that is far from game-breaking. And yes, completely forgoing gaining prestige your supergroup for your entire level 25+ career (or being expected to locate somebody else who does and tag along with them, or spending some unholy amount of time as a malefactor) is NOT reasonable in the face of what heros are required to do to get an equivalent reward.

I agree that some of the better rewards (either in terms of effect on gameplay or in terms of "Look at what I can do!") should require some effort on the part of the player to obtain. The problem is that some of us are prepared to work, but feel that what is required for this contact is not reasonable. While you may think that what is needed to unlock the TV is a fair price to pay for the payoff, I'd wager that a lot of folks do not, including some badge collectors like myself.

For the TV contact:

If it is a 45-50 contact, can you still receive missions from the TV if you have never talked to it prior to hitting level 50? If you CAN, there is no problem here since you could always get the infamy badge later. If you CAN'T, because hitting level 50 turns off the contact, then this is a big, big problem for all the reasons already expressed in this thread.

You ARE killing Family bosses with "Marcone" in their name, right?

[ QUOTE ]

Let's start off by haphazard badge awarding again. The long-overdue "defeat signature heroes" badges are finally in, but despite the fact that my villainous main has offed Back Alley Brawler and Black Scorpion, I've received the badges for neither of them. Apparently, they only count if they happen in an alternate timestream, despite no mention of that requirement anywhere in-game. This is especially aggrivating, since people will need to have confusion on them repeatedly to take out "their" side's characters for these badges.


[/ QUOTE ]

You don't get a badge for each signature hero defeated. Considering I now have a progress bar, I'm guessing that its similar to Dimensional Warder in that you only get the badge once you have defeated ALL of the signature heros. I doubt Black Scorpion is meant to award a badge, as you already got one from doing his previous arc.

The exception to individual badges is, of course, beating the main heros and villains that spawn as reinforcements in Recluse's Victory. Those appear to be separate from the count for Freedom Phalanx heros defeated in missions.

The other nice thing about Ice Mistral's SF is the interesting temp power that the leader gets upon completion of the last mission. By the time everybody in the group has it, you'd probably all have more than enough debt to have Deathless for you other accolade!

[ QUOTE ]

Out of curiosity, what is your main Villain's Archetype?

I believe that certain AT's will have a harder time achieving this badge than others for some obvious reasons.

[/ QUOTE ]

My villain main is an Energy/Thermal Corrupter. Squishy, moderately resisted attacks for middling damage, and no ability to self buff, though I can heal myself pretty nicely and my debuffs are excellent against strong enemies.

In response to Living_Viking, the Deathless badge is FAR, FAR more than 2 million debt paid off. If that was all it took, my hero main would have had a very long time ago.

[ QUOTE ]

That's fine. The rest of my post still holds. Defeats in the game are supposed to occur as is the debt that comes with it. To not expect to have any defeats is unrealistic and the tying of a +Health Accolade to an Epic Debt Badge to ensure that it is earned by the 40+ crowd makes sense and is perfectly acceptable IMHO.

[/ QUOTE ]

To say I don't expect to die occasionally wouldn't be true, because I do expect to die periodically. Heck, my villain main has died 3 times on test this week just from working on the Black Scorpion arc (darn Malta anyway...). That said, at level 40 the character has only the first two debt badges. At my rate of play, there is simply no way I will get the 4th debt badge unless I intentionally off myself repeatedly. My level 50 hero main that was created on week 1 of CoH live, and who still gets played more than any other character (including quite a few Hamidon raids), STILL does not have the 4th debt badge. I don't say that to gloat, just to point out that there is not realistic way that I'm going to get this thing in the course of normal gameplay.

While it may be true that perma debt has its advantages in the form of amassing more influence/infamy as you level up, it does have the additional major drawback of making it take much longer to reach high level. Also, as a gamer who at least tries to play well and avoid death in the games I play, the idea that I should repeatedly and (in the case of most of my characters, at least) purposefully lose in order to reap a tangible benefit is somewhat insulting.

It has become apparent that Deathless, the 4th debt badge, is required for the High Pain Threshhold accolade.

Please don't do this. Some of us actually try NOT to die in this game

[ QUOTE ]

Also, that would require actually changing the power for stalkers rather than just turning Cloak of Darkness into hide and switching Death Shroud for Shadow Dweller and then transplanting the rest of the set. It'd have to be an entirely different power really.

[/ QUOTE ]

Isn't changing CoD into Hide and adding Shadow Dweller creating entirely new powers?

Anyways, after playing a Ninja Blade/Dark Armor Stalker yesterday up to lvl 8 and trying to plan out the future for that character, I can already see some balance issues:

1.) Resistance based set for a stalker is certainly not ideal. The Defensive sets have an advantage since the longer you can go without being hit, the better chance you have to re-hide and AS again. Now I understand Regen doesn't have defense either, but Regen is just Regen, and it's hard to compare it to Defensive/Resistance sets equally.

2.) Too many powers to take! Looking at the powers to choose from in DA, I would say the first 6 are necessary for any decent build, those being:
- Hide (Duh...)
- Dark Embrace (Res(S/L, Toxic, Neg En.))
- Murky Cloud (Res(Fire, Cold, Energy, Neg En., End Drain))
- Shadow Dweller (Res(Immobile), +Perception, +Def(All), AND it's auto...compliments on this
- Obsidian Shield (Res(Psi dmg, Sleep, Hold, Stun, Fear))
- Dark Regeneration (Your bread-and-butter heal)

In addition to this, and in my opinion, you MUST take Stamina since you're running sooo many toggles, and Acrobatics to fill the knockback protection hole. And since you have low Def, you really need that Knockback protection because you're going to get hit all the time. I myself would also take Boxing/Tough to increase the S/L resists, and Stealth for PvP hiding. So that's 9 pool powers to compliment the set, and 6 from Armor itself. I realize not everyone would go the same route, but for me those are must have powers and they are REALLY hard to fit in, along with the compulsory attacks (AS, Build Up, Placate, and at least 2 more single target attacks).

3.) The lvl 28 and 35 powers are AoE effect toggles (Cloak of Fear and Oppressive Gloom respectively). From what I gather, these powers will DROP YOUR HIDE when you get close to enemies because it hits them...I guess you could use them as purely situational powers to help a battle, but since you're a stalker with low HP, in almost every case you should run instead of standing in a group of guys running an AoE toggle that will draw aggro. The only positive side to this is that you can easily skip these powers (along with the lvl 38 Self-Rez for that matter...).

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The biggest issue for me is probably the number of powers you need to take to make a satisfactory build. And by satisfactory, I mean a build that will keep you with a minimal amount of envy when you team with that EM/Ninjitsu Stalker. I would either like to see some of the powers' abilities combined, or add some more effects to minimize the use of pool powers for filling gaps. Even reducing the number of powers "needed" by one (say adding knockback protection to Dark Embrace or something), and it might work.

The lack of Defense is a little harder to determine until it's played out further. Dark Regen + Resists might be able to keep you alive as well as it does for Scrappers and Brutes, But that leaves you with little chance to re-hide during a fight, especially if you are solo.