Heraclea

Heraclea, the character, predates my first session of the game by a good seven or eight years. She was a character I made for drawings.

Her basic story was sort of a mix between the Wonder Woman myth and a female version of a strongman character from an Italian sword and sandal movie, rather in the Maciste/Goliath/Ursus vein. The name "Heraclea" is of course Heracles, or Hercules, given a feminine ending.

The character seemed a natural for the game. Being the first character I made, she became my global handle and my forum handle as well.

Right now, I prefer my Spines/WP to my Electric/Shield for farming. I usually farm the Roman wall or AEs. The Spines/WP can farm the Roman wall non-stop, and defense crashes do not faze her. The Electric/Shield still needs a tad more recharge before her nukes and Build Up are going to be up for every spawn; working on that now.

I have a Fire/Regen. I rolled her when Fire was ported to scrappers and I wanted to check it out. I came to like the concept, and eventually levelled her.

This is my character of choice for exemping down for running anything beneath Manticore, highly useful on speed Positrons --- but probably my least favorite scrapper to actually play at level 50. Regen, I find busy and nervous; if MoG is available to take an alpha strike she does fine, but when it is down she relies mostly on buffs and inspirations - in other words, relies on things that are not really reliable.

Willpower is harder to get to 22, but when you get there you won't look back. It is much less busy and nervous. If you want a scrapper that focuses on actual regeneration, rather than click heals that animation lag can postpone until too late, that's what I would go with.

Great idea, this.

I'm working on a new story, finally, re-using my Satyrs group, only this time the Satyrs are working with high level "Warriors".

I had level non-overlap issues with standard Warriors, so I chose instead to make my Elite Warriors out of recolored Battle Maiden and Marauder mobs.

Other useful mobs are Nemesis Automatons, who get turned into friendly patrols of "Concerned Citizens".

Friendly Boss encounters are a good way to add flavor texts. You can set a character to perform a repeating animation and say a flavor text when approached. I have a mixture of those texts and single hostage rescues to add non-combat flavor text; there is only one combat in the first mission.

Nothing in the game has changed to make scranking on a tanker unviable. On the other hand, the way defense bonuses now work, and the partial merger of positional and typed defense bonuses, mean that it may be technically easier (if expensive) to build a high survival scrapper than to build a damage based tanker.

This is not what I used to believe. I can tank for a team easily on an electric/shield or a spines/willpower scrapper. I have tanked Reichsman and Romulus on those characters. The Spines scrapper is also a favorite to tank Lady Grey TF with. They are my characters of choice to run Kahn, because that TF needs an offtank even if a tanker is there, A shield scrapper can hold aggro from any character without a taunt aura. My Spines scrapper doesn't need the Willpower aura to hold aggro.

Other scrappers like my Dark/Reflex scrapper can be quite hard to kill, but have no aggro management abilities. You want a mixed defense based set with an aura, and you can make a scrapper that tanks.

I personally am probably best characterized as Chaotic Neutral.

(Yep)

Chaotic Neutral
70%
Chaotic Good
65%
Lawful Evil
65%
Neutral Good
60%
Chaotic Evil
60%
Lawful Good
55%
Lawful Neutral
55%
True Neutral
45%
Neutral Evil
40%

Heraclea is Neutral Good, with chaotic tendencies. She wants to help. She specifically doesn't want to see anyone whom she has chosen to protect be hurt, by anything. She is generally unimpressed with all power structures and hierarchies, and sees them as variations on the same theme.

Toxotes is Lawful Neutral. Give her an order, point her at a target, and stand back; she will do what she can to obliterate it without much philosophical musing about the why and the wherefore. "I shoot an arrow in the air, and where it falls, I do not care."

Androphonissa is Neutral Evil. She sees her mission as restoring the natural order of female supremacy. Paragon City is a place where men live, and she can get away with beating some of them up. Those who pretend to have authority above her? Their time will come soon enough.

Betsy Ross is Lawful Good. She is fighting for the flag, and the republic for which it stands.

Baroness Munchhausen is chaotic neutral. She's in the game for the thrills, and to get attention.

William Shakespeare is true neutral. Observing the human race is all just grist for the mill.

Anactoria is chaotic good. She doesn't really want to hurt anybody; she has a mother bear instinct similar to Heraclea's. She found herself on the wrong side of the law as a result of a wanderlust she could not keep in check.

Beata Beatrix is chaotic evil. She likes the sensation of blood on her fists, It feels like winning.

Madame Nhu is lawful evil. She sees herself as having been wronged by the world, and specifically by the American government. She became a soldier of Arachnos to exact the revenge that is her due.

Crocodiles - Echo and the Bunnymen.

I don't feel particularly stressed out on my rad/archery defender. My heal is nothing to write home about. On a strong team I don't have to do much specifically until an AV appears, and you know when that is happening. The only time I have to act fast is when somebody dies to make sure I get Fallout off before I rez them or they rez themselves.

Alas, I spaced the Triumph Tanker Tuesday, having already committed to helping someone else. Will surely be there next time on Champion.

Discimur exemplo. When the tutorials stop handing out damage enhancements, new players may prioritize other things than damage in their attacks.

Endurance remains the game's largest mechanical problem. The solutions are not obvious to new players, and are not available soon enough to save much of the content. The mechanic makes the game seem much duller than it turns out to be to a new player on a first character. It needs to be said, and repeated at every opportunity.

Conserve power lasts for 90 seconds. Its base recharge is 10 minutes; with three recharges you can get that down to just over 4 minutes. Hasten can cut the downtime to under 3 minutes. While active, it cuts all endurance costs across the board by 70%.

I used to rely on it. Since IO sets came out, and any non-Willpower character I get interested enough in will eventually have the Numina's and Miracle uniques, and the Performance Shifter proc, it has a lot lower priority. Heraclea's main/old build still has it, mostly out of conservative instinct; it is useful in endurance drain situations. I no longer rely on it like I used to, and have considered respeccing it away; I just don't know what I'd put in its place. (Unstoppable? LOL. Medicine pool? Give me a break. TP Foe? Maybe.) My fire/EM tanker still has it and still needs it; she is retired, and doesn't get out much.

Focused Accuracy is something I've never even given half a glance to. I thought it was a PvP thing; and at any rate I have Rage.

No experience with Physical Perfection. My understanding is that it is 1/2 Health plus 1/2 Stamina. In other words, it gives you a bonus roughly comparable to having the Miracle and Regenerative Tissue uniques. It's also a place to slot a second (or third, if you're Willpower) Performance Shifter proc.

Endurance remains the game's largest mechanical problem: the solutions are not obvious to new players, and are not available soon enough to save much of the content, and the mechanic makes the game seem much duller than it turns out to be to a new player on a first character. It needs to be said, and repeated at every opportunity.

I want something I've decided to work on to have an introductory mission that features character interaction and texts.

I've made the series of NPCs I want to do the talking, and set them as hostage releases with Single (i.e. none) enemy spawns, and put them on an Empty map that also spawns friendly patrols. I want the "hostages" to say a series of alarming speeches when approached by the player or party. I also made a glowie on the map so there'd be something to click and the mission would not simply complete without the player finding or seeing the "hostages."

The problem - the hostages say their Inactive speeches often before being in sight of the players. I tried chaining them; but that doesn't work with autocompleting "rescues" well, and raises the possibility that you'd have to backtrack to see all the text: that is not progress. "Clues" attached to the hostages are of course immediately awarded, and without the texts that makes little sense either.

Anybody figure out a better way?