Lipe82

Omg.

Ok, ok. First of, I didnt end the whole thing yet because my day was weird (in an excellent way at least), but I keep retouching this and that.

Now this thread originally had like 3 replies, and in 1 day it rocketed to 4 pages, most of really, really interesting point of views, either about techniques or encouragement. Heck, even that troll made me lulz.

To reply to a few of the things that were mentioned on this thread:

I not only draw near a bed, I usually draw while lying down there. As much as I love music to retarded extents, I discovered that listening to it during drawing sometimes does NOT works and really slows me down (i sometimes get myself singing or humming some song that comes to my mind, but I did not tell you this...).

This tracing over thing might work, in my opinion, to draw things you either dont like or arent satisfied. But I say that just trying to reproduce it by looking is better, except if its something way too hard for you. I learned to draw comics around the time Jim Lee was doing the X-Men. By then, EVERYTHING in the world had a crapload of traces of shadow, and biceps. Old people, cats, the random guy in the background. My walls had biceps. Took some time to polish it off. So my two cents is - copying is training wheels. Do it once then do based on that by yourself, or at least its how it works for me.

Thanks everyone that commented, encouraged, discussed, licked Ji- er. Well, thank to you all. Oh and btw - any of you know of a cool program to colour a b/w piece? The simplier the better. I might however just pust the BW when Im done, but I should get familiar to these things too I guess.

Slightly feeling silly (by posting on a board with some real good artists), but feeling proud of this re-start. By tomorrow I might be posting my Widow.

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I hope you're happy with the piece!

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Well obviously not completely, I do notice the lack of a few things that come more naturaly when you're on a spin. Besides, its a very "movable", comic book-ish piece, a Widow doing a backflip thing... but the traces are kinda "still" too much.

But then there is the whole "first after 7 years break" so I'm glad. You have no idea. I hope I dont mess it terribly with the inking. Maybe I can try some photoshop for colors, I dunno.

Enough rant; after work I'll conclude and see how it goes.

Glad to announce I'm nearly finishing my first drawing in around 7 years Thanks to CoH/V, its Fanart Community, and its great artist inspiring me back into it.

Adding some ink and will post here shortly.

Exactly.

To illustrate: City of Heroes PVP should be more like this video; not so much the subtitles.

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2. lolsiren's. i like my epics and i dont get emo over other people using theirs, tyvm.

[/ QUOTE ] Is it emo to like Siren's over whichever? Its a zone dude. Nothing wrong about epics, just nothing wrong about SC as well... "tyvm".

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if zone pvp was about fotms, you wouldn't see the 20 retarded tanks running around RV getting destroyed by corruptor duos just because they refuse to roll blasters.

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The guys not rolling the "right choice" get destroyed. Doesnt that only confirms that it IS about fotm?

In the end of the day, I guess everyone agrees that PvP experience in this game could be like A LOT more interesting than it is, thats all, and thats what I often rant about. In my opinion the way PvP seems to focus on some "match-ups" of ATs (to combat X use Y) and favoring certain Powersets over the other majority of any given AT, is a downer. Thats what I meant to emphasize on the other's guy post.

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Spines/WP

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When someone new to PvP comes into Siren's Call with the intention of trying PvP and seeing what it's all about, damage-spiking them over and over and not giving them a chance to even play is likely to leave a bad taste in their mouth, and they will leave with the view that PvP sucks.

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And yet, you think that its fault of the players? Thats how our PvP was tailored, dude.

If the aforementioned newcomer enters PvP he might experience the same thing some older PvPers do: you're up against a FotM that you dont really stand a chance against, except with that other toon of yours.

What i13 made was making things worse; because if the aforementioned newcomer plays a Controller or a Defender, or is used to see Flurry as a silly chain filler (to name a few things), he will realize that on PvP there are completely different rules altogether without any kind of warning.

Heck, his pretty decent and IO'd PvE character might be just rendered useless due to his powerset choice. Do you find your Dual Blades stylish? Is AT/Arch/AR what made your character so interesting? Well they dont want these sets to be able to pvp, suck on it.

These, while not a complete list, is a decent overview of why no, sir, the PvP is not fine. Wasnt that great before, and now its weird.

As mentioned above. Blapping is such a frustrating experience PvPwise that you shouldnt really waste time (or influence) trying to go for good sets.

I think the usual ones should apply, such as Mako's Bite. And Devastation on your ranged attacks for the bonuses... but honestly, its a waste of resources in my opinion.

What, you disagree that PvP, specially low-level zones like Siren's Call, is all about FotM management?

Nny_the_Mad really described PvP in a nutshell.

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I just finished my first night of PvP since [u]I got back from Iraq[u]

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Well, seems that you're familiar with unbalanced "PvP".

Well, at least in SC, blasters are kings yeah. The Spines/WP with the impale blasting rules there.

Oh wait.

PVP: PROGRAMMERS Vs. PLAYERS

PvP - extra content for 7 toons (Spines/Regen, Spines/Nin, Fire/Dev, Fire/Mental, SS/WP, widows and WP/SS); frustration to everyone else.

Now honestly, it's been like this for what, 3 years now? If Devs didnt notice whats wrong with it yet, they either don't want or aren't able to do squat.

Hello there, welcome to CoV PvP.

By "caster" you mean range-combat characters? Well, here are a few Villain ATs and powersets that often perform well (suggested by active PvP Forumite macskull):
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*Corruptor - Sonic, Fire, somewhat Elec, paired with Cold, Storm, or Thermal
* Dominator - Mind, Fire, and somewhat Earth, paired with Elec or Fire
* Mastermind - Ninjas or Necro, paired with Pain, Storm, or Poison

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Ice/Traps for a corruptor, I doubt it would be a good combination for PvP due to the sheer lack of raw damage. You'll notice that some people stack into one out of 2 forms of survival: high resistance/HP regeneration (survive through attacks mentality) or High damage (kill before getting killed mentality). I dont think Ice/Traps could fit or compete with these categories.

As you will realize shortly, this game's PvP suffers from a lot of unbalances and weird logics. But still, it IS cool. The reason most PvPers complain about it is that we see the great potential it has if it ever get fully balanced/standarized.

A few more hints for starting on PvP:
-hands down your best bet when it comes to Travel powers is Combat Jump paired with Superspeed. Almost all PvPer use it. Fly suffers for being unable to effectively chase or flee against these, and Teleport it almost useless altogether on PvP. If you can't fit SS+CJ, Having Superjump and altering between it and CJ works as well.

-make sure you understand how the IO Set mechanics work, and build your character aiming to stack bonuses. Mid's Hero Planner is a great tool for that, google if you need.

-There are different PvP Zones, and Arena. Each of these have their particular pros and cons, study them and decide a favorite one (mine is Siren's Call, but just personal opinion).

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A good player makes a good char.

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Maybe. But the point is, in CoV/H, "good" chars (FotMs) take the cake with ape-level skills, even against some good players. Also, a good char almost always means a good ammount of cash spent on IO Sets.

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concept and PvP don't belong in the same sentence.

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Golden Rule right there.

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I'd rather get wrecked by someone who spent a bil or two on purples and other accuracy sets than by someone with one or two powers that can completely negate my entire secondary.

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Then you better stay out of CoH/V PvP, where one or two powers DO negate entire secondaries... and people will invest some fortune on these one or two powers, btw.

I hope the artists out there can give me a hand on this little matter. Any kind of comment is welcome however.

When I was really young, I was interested enough in comics to take a drawing course. That was about 8-9 years ago. I was never awesome as I wanted, but I was satisfied with some fanart, RPG characters, or my own comic heroes. Life happened however; university, work, relationship, all making for a big lack of time and patience. I'd never be any comics professional anyways and I dropped drawing altogether. And trust me, I cant draw a decent smiley nowadays.

BTW, may this be an advice to all of you who are investing your time into any art whatsoever: dont quit, dont give up. You will regret. The more I play CoH/V, the more I want to return to it, even if only to make a few shots of my own characters, and I'm having kind of a block for it, even if now I have enough free time for some practice. And thats my question.

How to restart? Do you guys have any useful website, or book, guidelines, exercises, anything for someone who wants to return into it?

I'll post some scans of my old stuff here later.

Put short, the only scenario where you can safely assume you're not being seen by any enemy is being a stalker with all stacked Stealth you can (Hide, Pool, IO).

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Spines takes less skill to get kills though, I'm guessing that's why it's considered "the best"

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A ranged Immob that deals good damage, and make you sit duck there till he finishes you off. Thats why it is the best.

Well, that, and the fact Dev's dont really care that a powerset make others subpar to the point nobody will play it (on pvp).

Oh and yeah btw, since I'm not a Test Server person - what are these changes to Spines?

I agree with Antigonus a lot, and also would say those ATs are good, at least currently.

About the FoTM issue, the thing is our pvp mechanics lack balance and standards badly. In practice that translates to some powers nearly nulifying a good ammount of the other combinations; OR, being the one that is not nearly useless out of the options you have. FoTMs are somwhat that, the ones that will work against each other and decimate the other (majority) of choices.

An example would be travel powers. Of the choices out there, Superspeed paired with Combat Jump pretty much makes Fly and Teleport useless.

Speaking in general the Devs made it so that you have "x" choices for pvp, but out of them only a few will actually be competitive.

Somehow, sets that everyone likes and that have no reason to be considered less harmful (like Dual Blades, Assaul Rifle, Archery, etc) ARE considered VERY less harmful.

When you are exemped down on some PvP Situations (Siren's Call for example, what happens with bonuses slotted on powers that you take AFTER the level cap for that zone?

Example 1: You get Focused Accuracy, from Mace Mastery, at level 47, and slot a Perception IO there. The IO is level 19.

Example 2: You take a power at level 49 and slot a set which would grant +3% Damage bonus. All the set pieces are level 30.

What would happen with these bonuses if the person enters Siren's Call?

No, you can do good with a melee character for PvP. However, you will want to have good travel powers. For a melee toon aiming at Zone PvP, it would be:

-Super Speed AND Super Jump (switch to CJ when scrapping)
-Super Speed AND Combat Jump
-Super Jump

sort of in that order of usefulness.

IF you want a way to deal with Flying enemies, the regular way would be having Air Superiority (if you can jump high enough to get the flying guy), OR Impale from the Spines set, OR Hurl from Super Strenght, or a temporary Web Grenade (sells in Siren's if your team control the zone). However with SS+SJ you can just flee. It's impossible for a Fly toon to effectively chase either SS or SJ, in most occasions.

Hands down the current "flavor of the month" PVP melee sets are Spines and Super Strenght.

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Not sure why people hate on bunnyhopping

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Personal point here, of course, but as I see it...
-it looks silly (on the already silly non-variation of ATs PvP brings)
-it renders other Travel Powers waaaay subpar
-paired with SuperSpeed (and lets face it, everyone dois it) its a way too effective tool to engage or retreat

But the big point there is the "renders other travel powers subpar", really. I dont see why Fly and SJ are on the same group of power types (travel powers), you get to pick them both at lv 14, but SJ has mobility enough to negate any advantages 3D movement could provide.

My 2 inf.