Gnavitas

My first thought was, "What, did Manticore not take Stunning Arrow?"

Plus, isn't a good thing I had Penny Yin, one of the most powerful psychics in the world with me? Oh, she can't do anything to stop the Psyche-Bomb from going off. Huh. So how about letting Psyche mindride Penny or grabbing her consciousness as she passed away? No? So why was she part of this arc again? Just to get her reintroduced to the players and show off her spiffy custom power set?

Statesman's death had impact. Psyche here felt redundant and a way to kick Manticore again. We already established Wade as dangerous with Statesman; this arc just felt gratuitous.

Also, that last mission was awful. Double escort on Oranbenga, with glowies, multiple areas and backtracking? Blech.

Just for the record, I always pegged Penny in Faultline as 14, with Faultline and Fusionette as 18-19. Maybe its just because they treat her like a little sister, so I just filled in the ages, especially with how bubbly Penny was.

I don't really have a problem with her being older now, but it did shock me a bit that she's supposed to be 18 back then.

As a side note, I thought it funny she refers to Faultline as "Jim" in her dialogue but Fusionette is always Fusionette.

Fat Lemon McGee

I think the McGee part really sells it.

You're older than you've ever been,
And now you're even older.
And now you're even older.
And now you're even older.
You're older than you've ever been,
And now you're even older.
And now you're older still.

I've been in and out of this game for too long, so I don't know DC well, but I still offer my sincerest condolences to everyone affect by this lose. Best wishes to him and his family and friends.

I've also been getting disconnected when zoning. Only started happening today.

Just had this bug out on me too. Quite annoyed.

At least I got a Touch of Death piece for my troubles.

Killari, my Claws/SR brute. I knew going in that /SR could be good, but I was surprised by how silly a soft-capped character gets (she was my first). On top of that, I found how much I love Claws, which I really didn't expect. I find myself wondering what this strange button called Build Up is on my other melee toons; clearly, it should be another attack! Also, delicious, delicious Spin.

She's since become my main character for Incarnate stuff.

I'm back again, after not playing for a year. I blame my roommate entirely.

I'm surprised to see so many of the old guard still around.

My first character was a Kin/Rad defender partnered with my friend's Spines/Invuln scrapper. We worked very well together. Kin provides +Recharge and +Recovery in spades, which helped fill in the scrapper's gaps. Plus Fulcrum Shift + lots of Spines AoE = lots of defeated bad guys.

The best partner is also going to depend on what you want to optimize. If you want your scrapper friend to be unkillable, partner him with something that synergizes with his defenses. If you want to optimize his offense, partner him with a set that helps Spines gaps, which is what I did.

There's also players like me, more casual ones who don't have billions of inf. lying around who can kit out their characters with lots of set IOs. Tough and Weave are significant boosts if all you've got are generic IOs and SOs in your defenses.

Eclipse Adept, my Dark/Dark Defender. I just really hate Dark Blast, I've come to realize. He's even 31, just shy of Fluffy. Haven't deleted him yet because he was one of the original Isolators, a long running Victory Wednesday night group thing, and I haven't needed the space. My Force Field / Psychic Defender is also kinda painful to play.

I'm loving the actual hard moral choices on some of these arcs. Played through once as a Responsibility Loyalist - agonized a bit after the hospital bombing mission (stayed loyal though - the investigator was a bro and would have saved the hospital if he'd known about it), got disgusted with Mother Mayhem missions, let DeVoe go and finally went Resistance at the very end with Kang when my character finally got fed up with the abuses of power. She just wanted to protect everyone!

Regarding the alignments, to borrow from TvTropes and D&D alignments, they actually had a pretty good spread:

Loyalist Responsibility characters are Lawful Good (laws are there to help and protect the most people possible) and Lawful Neutral (I follow orders, even if I don't like them).
Loyalist Power characters are Lawful Evil (Manipulate the laws to my own ends) and Neutral Evil (my own power above all else).
Resistance Warden characters are Neutral Good (help as many people as you can) or Chaotic Good (freedom brings out the best in others).
Resistance Crusader characters are Chaotic Neutral (personal freedom above all else) or Chaotic Evil (My power, my might, burn anything that gets in the way of either).

I want to roll up a Stone Melee brute, but am having trouble picking a secondary to pair with it. This a strictly PvE character, without a lot of infamy to spend on IOs. Probably mostly solo too.

Right now, I'm considering Fiery Aura, Electric Armor and Willpower, but I'll take suggestions too.

Fiery Aura would provide even more damage, and the idea of Seismic Smash stunning a boss then dropping a Burn patch under it is enticing. SM's defenses via Fault, knockdowns, etc, should help FA's overall weaker resists. Enough skippable powers means I should be able to fit in Tough without too much pain. And Consume helps with endurance issues. No psychic defense/resist does frighten me a bit.

Electric Armor I've never played, but I like the idea of resisting endurance drain. Lightning Reflexes helps with SM's slow recharge rates, Power Sink and Conserve Power help with endurance costs. But having to take nearly the entire secondary would make it rough trying to fit in both Tough and Aid Self. Again, SM's knockdowns and such would help the secondary's weaker numbers.

Willpower is... well, Willpower. Excellent all around. Only reason I'm not going for it first is because I've played a bunch of Willpower brutes already and am kinda tired of it. Still, Quick Recovery for endurance, a Fault at the right time would let Rise to the Challenge fill up the health. But I'm still bored with Willpower.

Thanks for any assistance or suggestions.

I've played Axe/WP to 50 so I'll share my thoughts on the Axe part.

I'll start with the positives. Axe comes with a bunch of AoEs: Pendulum, Cleave, Whirling Axe. Just about everything you do causes knockdown or knockup. Combined with the AoEs, and you have a lot of protection. Juggling enemies is very easy. The raw numbers of the set are also high. Finally, the set, to me, just feels brutish; you're smashing your enemies with a big axe. It's brutal.

The set does have some big drawbacks: lethal only, recharge and endurance cost. Large raw damage numbers on the attacks sounds good until you realize everything is resistant to lethal damage. Axe has some of the most (if not THE most) endurance-heavy attacks. Even with Quick Recovery and Stamina, I can eat through my blue bar. Lengthy recharges also hampers the set, though since a lot of the attacks are quite good, you'll usually have something available to swing. Finally, there's the redraw, which never really bothers me.

I've found Axe to be quite good for a brute who has to function as a tank. Teaming gives you some buffs to help out with the set's shortcomings and all the AoEs and knockdowns will keep hold aggro and keep you alive. But solo, without IOs, can get kinda painful, depending on one's patience to let your Endurance and attacks recharge.

Also, War Mace might do more damage than Axe since its Smashing damage is less resisted than Axe's Lethal, I think.

Arc Name: One Ordinary Girl
Arc ID: 76368
Faction: Heroic
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Gnavitas
Difficulty Level: Medium-Hard: 2 EB's in the final two missions.
Synopsis: Help guide a new budding hero along the path to being a true champion of Paragon City! Beat the crap out of lots of despicable Crey and Freakshow along the way.
Estimated Time to Play: 45 min - 1 hour. 5 missions total.

Congrats to all who entered, and a special congrats to the winners! So many of you put in lots of time and effort into this contest, so good on ya! I know I wouldn't have had the patience or skill to paint all those magic designs on my pants.

And yes, we Michiganders need something to do... that's why we play CoH.

The benefits of my college not being in session yet are beginning to show... it means I can play all day when this event hits. Oh yeah!