Grey Pilgrim

It's somewhat tight if you want all of the attacks and combos, but if you don't want to have to take all of the powers in both sets, you can drop some from DB and do okay. I personally have all the attacks and like that setup (it's good to have options for combos and for when you exemp), and have had very few issues with my Tanker that's WP/DB. It's ST damage doesn't bloom as early as Mace or Super Strength, but it's still nice. I particularly love doing an AV followed by a Sweep combo... lot's of orange numbers that drops quite a few opponents.

As for the combos, I think Weaken probably isn't as useful for a Scrapper (but it might be nice solo), but it's great as a tanker. Debuffs your foes, gets their attention, and makes them easier for all your buddies to hit. I notice when it's debuffing as opposed to when it's not (my one death in the Psyche TF Saturday came after the debuff from Weaken dropped and I missed one attack in reapplying the combo).

I wish I could make the TF tonight, but can't. I usually am playing Tuesday, Wednesday, and some weekend night.

Oy... I try to get some enjoyment out of this game, and now I'm just getting nightmares. GG, you two!

I can't recall if you have Hover or not, but when possible, you can Hover or your targets and knock them into the ground and turn your KB into KD instead. It's handy, and I thought I saw you hovering at some points, but maybe I'm wrong.

We also had some splits that made things interesting, not to mention that I had exemped below the level I took Taunt on this Tanker, which made it more difficult when we split (because I can usually keep in Taunt aura range of one mob while taunting another that's further away, etc.). Made it difficult to always have the more squishy types "covered by the Tanker" as you put it earlier in the thread, heh.

Good time all around, though. I wouldn't want things to be not challenging when I tank... that's why I like Tankers in general more than most other ATs.

Yeah, Calysta sent me a tell right after you crashed again. Sorry to hear about that, Sarrate. Computer problems are always so frustrating to fix. Hope it isn't too difficult or costly for you to fix.

Run went okay, I think we were just a little over 2 hours. Probably would have been under that if Sarrate hadn't had issues (no worries though, Sarrate!), since missions were a tad slower after his computer issues. Heh, Des and Snake tried their best to die all throughout the TF... it was enough to give a conscientious Tanker gray hairs!

50 merits for Sister Psyche is quite nice, too. It's a lot easier (and more fun) to run than Posi and Synapse. Synapse has the fun of CK and gang, but it goes even longer than Psyche in some ways.

[ QUOTE ]
This isn't accurate. My Gaussians has ticked twice in a row on occasion in less then 10 seconds in the past (at least according to my power meters) on three different characters.


[/ QUOTE ]

I have understood that procs like this check every 10 seconds. I have heard that Gaussian's proc works this way from more than one person, so if it's not working that way, that's going to be news to more than a few people.

Yeah, I used to think putting it in the toggle was a no brainer, but I'm thinking of putting the Guassian's proc in my click powers now so I can be sure it's helping me when I'm actually fighting, not moving between mobs. Especially since the build-up only lasts about 5 seconds or so.

Yeah, it's nice blasting around a tank (though you want to make sure he's grabbed the aggro first, of course), as you can really go all out and, well, blast. Though you do want to take care if you have a lot of KB powers (if you don't want your melee types getting annoyed, anyway).

I'll do my best to lock down that aggro for you, though WP has a harder time with that when you don't have Taunt (couldn't grab it until 26 with this guy), but we'll be fine if I go in first and get a few slices and dices in.

Des, I forgot to answer you last night. You can really bring whatever you want to this. I wouldn't mind going a little faster, since this Tanker is doing it for the merits and to work towards his Task Force Commander Accolade, but it's not that big a deal. We can maybe strike a balance between speed and getting any of our lowbies some more xp.

Viv, I hope work isn't too boring. Though you are lucky: I didn't get to teach a summer session course at my university, so I'm hoping to get a little bit of temping so I'm at least bringing some money in. May even submit some writing if I can wrap up some stories I've been working on forever.

Okay, original list updated... I didn't think Peterbilt or Viv were wanting in from what they said, but correct me if I'm wrong. Room for more, obviously, so come one, come all!

Snake, blasters are obviously squishy, but the different powersets can play pretty different. My Archery Blaster plays significantly different than my AR blaster, for instance. They usually follow the code of "get them before you get you" and went for high ranged defense, but other than that, it's pretty different (went for "Knockback Defense" with my AR Blaster).

I have found that target selection is essential as a blaster while soloing, being cautious (you want to go all out when you attack, but you have to know when you can attack and survive), and also making good use of your mezzes that are offered. My Arch/Dev was frustrating to solo for a bit until I found a good combo to take care of bosses easily (Stunning Shot + Taser).

Okay, I'm going to try for a Sister Psyche TF this weekend starting at 7:30 PM Central, 8:30 Eastern. Slowly trying to pick up all the TFs for one of my tanks, so we're all set there... I'm hoping to start up with a solid crew from the forums and I'll pick up whatever else is needed Saturday evening.

1. Grey Pilgrim (WP/DB Tanker)
2. Snake Rogers (Blaster)
3. Des (something, heh)

QR

Good run last night, though we seemed determined to split from time to time. Poor Chumly dropped a few times when he got out of LOS with me. Crazy Brutes getting in over their head and thinking they're Tankers!

I rather wish the attacks for Masterminds had a bit more 'oomph.' Dual Wield is an okay addition, but Empty Clips is rather all looks and far too weak. I probably should dump it, but it's fun to watch.

I'm trying to put my third Western outfit together... tried modeling it on Charles Bronson's from Once Upon a Time in the West, but CoX doesn't have very good shades of yellow, it's hard to match his coat and such without it looking rather lurid.

Hmph, Philistine.

Heh.

Thanks for organizing with this, MP. Little contests like this are fun.

Wrapping up mine, here, I'll throw it up when I've tweaked a couple of things.

*added*

Here it is. I'll e-mail it to you as well, MP, just in case that helps things.

I know what she wants. She is tired of the failure of her plots and underlings, their continuous losses to the heroes of this city. But no more- I have been made to change that. She has had me modeled after her most faithful lieutenant and stolen the most advanced android technology the corporations of this world can offer: all to make me. She has made me powerful. She—the Countess—has made me to care for her and only her. She has made me care for her absolutely. And I do. She has so many burdens and concerns, how could I not care for her?

She has also programmed me with the most advanced combat abilities. I can move like a grand master of Kung Fu, but I can kick through armor made of solid Impervium metal. I can regenerate damage done to my gears, servos, and synthetic skin. I am powerful. I can shoot energy beams from my eyes. I can fly.

Oh, can I fly. Just now, she told me she wanted me to fly. I accessed the correct subroutine to activate my anti-gravity thrusters. To understand the process I downloaded information the Crey Corporation’s databanks, and watched avians of the subfamily Accipitrnae—hawks—in flight. They moved with… I did not know what at first. I had to access Crey’s databanks again and find the word. They flew with… grace. They were large, but they flew. I processed this information for a long time—for me—but then I was ready. In 0.4 seconds, I knew what I had to do. I stretch out my arms like those hawks and I flew.

“Where’d he learn to put his arms like that?” I hear the Countess ask a technician, which worries him. The technician wants me to work perfectly. He is afraid of what she will do if I do not work as she wants.

I do not care, for I am flying. The anti-gravity thrusters hum gently, setting off a vibration in my synthetic skin that I find—I access the databases again—pleasing, not unlike the wind fluttering the feathers of a hawk in flight. It is a sensation similar to when I look at the Countess. With the thrusters running, I no longer notice the bulk of my android body: the power requirements of the thrusters are less than when I have to run, jump, or kick.

I access more records to understand and appreciate flight more. I learn to swoop, loop, and dive. The wind sings in my audio receptors as I complete each maneuver. I look for more data and watch a mother hawk bring food to her offspring’s nest, nurturing her young. I watch this video for its full 19.63 seconds. It is clear that she cares for them like the Countess cares me.

Curious, I access more records to determine how this food is found. The databases show me a small bird flying, also graceful. But then the small bird is flying no more: white wing feathers explode through the air as a hawk pinions its prey . The sight startles me, my flight through the air falters, and I fall several feet before I catch myself.

My visual and audio receptors pick up the Countess narrowing her eyes and asking the technician another question, “Is he supposed to be doing that?”

“Of course,” the technician replies, fidgeting and adjusting the sleeves on his labcoat. “He’s merely practicing evasive tactics that I have programmed in.” He clears his throat roughly.

I decide that I should follow the technician’s instructions more closely, so I limit my flight patterns for the rest of the test. They call me in when the test is complete.

“Everything checks out, Countess” the technician says.

“Excellent,” she replies. The Countess looks at me, reaching her hand out to touch my shoulder gently. “I have a job for you, my Hunter.”

“Yes, Countess?”

“Hunter, there is a superhuman in this city, named Swan. She has allied herself with one who seeks to hurt me, to stop my plans.”

“No!”

She smiles at me. “Yes, my Hunter. And they must be stopped. I want you to eliminate Swan. Watch her closely and destroy her when the time is ripe.”

“As you wish,” I say. I activate my anti-gravity thrusters and leave the Crey facility, seeking my prey. To ensure the success of my mission, I engage my stealth mode so that I may hunt in secret.

I first patrol the air over Independence Port. A v-shaped flight of geese are flying through, and I join their formation. I listen to the beat of their wings as they call out to each other. Minutes pass as we cross the port area and I ignore the calls of my mission programming, telling me to move on. As I follow the geese, I see a superhuman flying below us, so I decide to… practice. I fly at top speed close to him, scaring him and knocking him sideways with the wind of my passing. He shouts, startled, and I hover nearby to by to process the effect I have had.

He looks around, trying to locate whatever startled him. After several minutes, he starts to fly on and I consider buzzing him again. But my mission programming tells me to take more care. I finally decide to fly on to Brickstown, lest I jeopardize my mission further.

As I enter the Brickstown neighborhood, I fly over the Mashu Bridge. Halfway across, I see her, the Swan. She has… white wings and is flying as well. She has an irregular flight pattern, however. She is diving- she will crash and hit the ground! I move in sharply, but then I see her goal. She has caught a person that was pushed off the bridge. Now she is setting them down on the ground. They are… thanking her. She smiles at them and touches their shoulder. She… cares for this person.

I halt my flight over her and process. There is too much data. Too much.

“I want you to eliminate Swan.”

The falling person is leaving. Swan is taking off- she is flying away. I follow.

“I want you to eliminate Swan.”

My flight pattern falters, but then I move. Faster. Faster. I collide with Swan painfully and her white feathers fill my eyes. Swan crashes on to the top of a brick building and I land next to her. I hesitate.

“I want you to eliminate Swan.”

I stand above Swan, android foot poised to crush her throat. She looks at me. I know she wants to live, that she does not want me to kill her. I know what the Countess wants me to do: she wants me to kill Swan. But now I know what I want to do.

I want to fly.

Heh, helps to know Hamlet a bit as well, but I found that movie (based on the play) to be quite entertaining as well. Verbal tennis for the win!

You don't feel like you're bringing enough to your team with Pain Domination? Okay, your call. The damage, healing, and buffs you're bringing with your AR/Pain are probably not all that different (overall, as in how they'll help the team) from what you'll bring with your Widow. But hey, it's about having fun, do what you want.

Meh, just do your best, MG. Switch if you want, of course, but there is no such thing as a healer equaling an invincible team. Like I said in my previous post, we had some people almost insta-dying, and there were two or three of us with Pain Domination on the team. Normally people were getting healed really fast and sometimes I wasted a heal when I was a half second slower than Kong... but heals are limited by reaction and cast time after all.

If anything, Pain's buffs can help out a bit... I noticed a big difference when my team and pets have more resists from World of Pain, for instance. It'll be fun to see Painbringer on top of WoP when I get to 38.

Wow, this is tough... there are a lot of good ones in here. Props especially to John Printemps, Lousy Day, The Foo, Projectionist (I notice that the bathroom door looks like the bathroom doors in COH, heh), Toxic, and Tricky. They all had a great look to their piece that was evocative of CoX and the original work.

In the end, I have to pick one.

I'm going to vote for Lousy Day. I think his God figure could stand out from the clouds a little more, but other than that, this is quite impressive. It's evocative of the original in pose, of course, but the lighting, color, and "scratchiness" of the paint makes it look like it's actually on the ceiling of a church in Italy. Very cool, and very reminiscent of the original (and the Nemesis staff is iconic of COH, of course).

It's hard being a healer. Even with a couple Pain villains on the team, we still had a few people get defeated. I usually caught people that were getting banged up badly, but there were a few times where the defeat happened before I could even select the person getting attacked (and that's only a matter of a second or two)! Yikes!

I like having the Bruiser, as he can actually take being in melee (for the most part). Too bad the Arsonist seems to have the exact same AI but can't take being in melee range at all (makes me want to never play Ninja with an MM). One thing with the Bruiser, though... he seemed to run off on his own A LOT, which is annoying if I'm trying to do a lot of healing. All my other pets will keep attacking the target I set for them until it's dead, but he sometimes would hit that target once, then run after another one, which is bad if he decided to run off at a nearby mob that we aren't fighting. Is this typical behavior for him, or what?

Toril... do you care how fast paced or slow this song is? Just because there are a good amount of "bleak" songs that are slow-paced and fast-paced.

I'll second U2's "Exit," and also offer Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven. I'm thinking Zeppelin has some other ones that might work, but I don't have my iPod handy to doublecheck.

Yeah, I think that Regen aura for Pain Dom is better if you're a MM or on a team that is more ranged focused.

However, those last three powers for Pain Dom are a pretty nice combo. +resist and a little damage for World of Pain, resist and defense debuff for Anguishing Cry (PbAOE, but still nice), and Paingbringer is quite the nice buff for a teammate or a pet.

Woah, forgot about this. I will see if I can't create something fantastic for this.

QR

Bummer to see you go, Coz. I had fun on that all Kheld ITF and some other things we did. Hopefully you'll come back, though!

QR

Ah, this makes sense, then. I can see how acting like a villain on the forums would not be well received. I think people take on personas of a sort as the write and post, but completely roleplaying a villain here would be... ouch. Though I think the Victory forum used to be a bit more touchy/difficult than it is nowadays.

Does the anti-Stalker feeling still exist THAT much? I thought their changes helped out with that attitude (I know having four stalkers on the Tarikoss SF this last weekend was nice for dropping difficult bosses). The prevalent attitude on the Stalker forums is that Stalkers should Scrap as much as possible (rather than be annoying and only use Assassin's Strike), which is useful on any team.

Happy Birthday!

QR

I made some adjustments to my arc, so if anyone that has played it before (or not) to let me know how they work, I would appreciate it. I took out the two defeat all missions in the middle a couple weeks ago, but then I have also made those two missions shorter, partially in a hope to get more people to play (you get more tickets for more missions, but everyone wants these arcs to be short for some reason), but also to make sure they don't distract from the main storyline too much. Also made some other minor text adjustments throughout that will hopefully make the story better, etc.

Hehe, I played through it with a team recently and got killed by one of my own ambushes. I was playing a Blaster and completely forgot I should be prepared for one of them (and the mission text even warns you!). Too funny.

And as always, I'm wanting more people to play it- let me know if you do and if you like it, etc.