Luerim12

In response to the original poster:

When ever I get asked this question by somebody just starting out in CoV, I tell them pretty much the same thing, unless I don't like them: Don't.
Particularly if you expect to solo a lot. Stay away. Far away. If you've got a good bunch of people? Yeah. Go for it. Expect to rely on others for survival, though, much more than every other AT in the game other than Stalkers.

Further corrupting the pool, of course, is that roughly 90% of the teams I'm on never consider adding a dominator, unless the person picking the team is a dominator. Even in those cases, we usually only have that one. It /could/ be that nobody plays dominators, but if nobody's playing them, are they actually any fun to play?

Thing is, they /can/ be fun to play, but it practially requires a harmonic convergance sort of factors to combine into a perfect storm kind of thing.
All-in-all, even brainiacs like brutes more than dominators. Play a dominator only if you're into sadomasochism.

I was going to throw this at you in personal, but it seemed so nifty I decided to toss it out here.

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also agree that Flash Arrow's -Acc component seems weak. They just got BLINDED, they should have serious trouble detecting much of anything. Maybe there's a way to make the -Acc penalty downgrade over time, as they regain their sight?



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I'm going to let you in on a little programming secret. This is REALLY freaking difficult to code.
I'm not a programming prodigy by any stretch of the imagination, but this requires percentage degrading math that is really not easy, no matter what language you're using.

Let's look at a power that does damage over time. We'll call it Dot punch. Dot punch is fairly simple. All you have to do is set a ticker. A ticker is something that activates every X number of "ticks". Seconds, minutes, hours. Damage over time is easy, just assign an amount of damage per "tick".
At initiation: 20 damage
15 secs after initiation: 20 damage
30 secs after initiation: 20 damage
The damage part stays the same, so only one variable is required.

Now, lowering acc over time is much trickier. You essentially double the calculations, and any doubling of calculations almost always more than doubles the lines of code required.

There's the straight linear percentage approach, which requires every moment the acc reduces to be monitored by the system and that moment to be applied to the ticker for the reduction in power which needs barricades of max and min on acc and time it is applied. Gets ugly real quick.

The easier approach is still difficult. You already know the min and max acc, and hard qualify the times involved:
at initiation: 30% reduction in acc
15 secs after initiation: 20 % reduction
30 secs after initiation: 10 % reduction
etc.
More difficult, lot more coding. Typing time costs money.

And while Castle and Positron are probably some of the most personable and interesting coders that I've had the pleasure of reading, there's a point where they have to hand things off to other people.
This might end up sounding like an excuse post, but frankly, I know of 3 people in 33 years of life who can explain programming in a way that most people can understand enough to have a clue as to what's going on. Even then, they can't get people to be able to actually /do/ it.

Luerim

-- When your sensei said, "In order to dodge the bullet, you must become one with the bullet", he did not mean literally.

-- He who goes first, often attracts much aggro.

-- You can please some of the people some of the time, and the harder you try to please those remaining, the longer the thread will be.

-- Though the wise man would let sleeping werewolves lie, it is the rare hero who is wise.

--Early to bed, early to rise means you'll most likely miss the best PUGs.

-- A stitch in time means you'll probably be spending a lot of time at the Tailor.

Luerim

Every character I make has a backstory. It may adapt over time to stuff, but they're all unique.

Name: Sissy Winters

Race(Black, White, Alien): Caucasion

Origin(Mutant, Science): Natural

Hero or Villain: Villain (Anti-hero if you look at it a certain way)

Archetype: Mastermind

Former Job(If Any): Running a lemonade stand protection racket in Beverly Hills

Current Home: A small Pacific Island that Daddy bought ages ago so that he could run away if the IRS came looking for him.

Brief Physical Description: Blonde hair, blue eyes, thin. Young. Determined etched all over her face.

Brief Personality Description: B.I.T.C.H.: Boys, I'm Taking Charge Here.

Goals and motivators: Rule the world. People suck. Because they suck, and I don't, they need a leader. I'm the leader they don't realize they need. They don't want me as a leader, but I'll fix that.

Does your character care about Freedom Corps/Arachnos?:
Yeah. Excellant role models all around. Keep people in the dark, but my angle is slip them subtle hints to promote them overcoming diatrabes and such.

A typical quote from your character:
I like people, when they know their place...

Do Heroes or Villains Recognize your character, if so how:
If they do, it's too late. (Two ways of looking at that, and both are equally dangerous to both sides.)

History: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...part=1#4569596
...
Sissy Winters: 34th level Merc/Dev MM. Natural Origin.
{Edit: Freedom server}

I waited until Daddy was on his second single malt 50 year old scotch. “Daddy, I want to take over the world.”
“Good for you, dear,” completely ignoring me.
“You’re not listening to me,” I said.
He turned the page of his Wall Street Journal, and, realizing the next page was going to be only slightly more interesting than my tantrum, asked, “What is your Mission Statement?”
“To better the world through domination under my control.”
“Really? And how do you intend to accomplish this?”
“First step will be to acquire a sizable military force, through financial and political means, and then attack the corporate infrastructure and cripple trade. Then I will–“
He laughed, “Crippling trade would also deny you access to the Winters fortune.”
“Fortune is a lie. What’s happening is a lie, Daddy.”
He blinked. I was really proud when I did that. Making Daddy blink meant I managed to call him on a bluff. It was easier when he was intoxicated, and in that I had an advantage over his corporate rivals. “Sissy... You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course I do. People are mean to each other. I hate that. Even worse, I can walk down Ventura Boulevard and not smell a single person wearing Chanel No. 5. The dichotomy between the rich and the poor is growing so great that there will be no viable angle for reduction of costs over time. This will freeze prices, and inflation, making our own place less comfortable as investors ditch our products and head for other avenues. I’m just giving you ample warning that I’m going to take over the world and nothing you can do will stop me.”
He laughed at me like a jester on a king’s podium.
I was 14. And I was Ophelia with a sharp dagger and a pair of stones.
The patricide that followed is still covered up by the higher ups. I apparently died that night, also, to hear them tell it. Another victim of random violence. The truth gives them nightmares.
I carved up my father. Literally. I needed a smart, and genetically athletic male, with a desire to succeed. I also needed material that was willing to be molded. Daddy was so good at that. Being molded. The politicians pretend to be wrapped around corporate interests, but the truth is that they are so much more in control than they let on. Fifty years of paranoia has produced a culture that thinks that either you don’t matter, or that you have no chance to BE SOMETHING, especially as a woman, if you aren’t willing to play their game. In my view, he was the jester, and I was the King.
And as a game with high stakes, as this was for me, I was determined to BE SOMETHING. When I ran the show. When I called the shots... Equality requires a leveling of the playing field, no matter what. I will reboot society, and then, maybe, I’ll be able to get a new Gucci purse at a decent price.
At least Daddy had the sense to hire all those geneticists and encourage me to learn how to fire an assault rifle.

1. Together --Avril Lavigne
2. Center Stage --Indigo Girls
3. The House Jack Built --Metallica
4. Standing on the Moon --The Grateful Dead
5. Everybody's Fool --Evanescence
6. China --Tori Amos
7. Kiss Off --Violent Femmes
8. Almost Cut My Hair --Crosby, Stills, Nash
9. Boulevard of Broken Dreams --Green Day
10. Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 3 in A major Op. 63, Scherzo. Allegro molto. --Beethoven

Of course my playlist is over 24 hours of continuous music, so there's actually /more/ variety than that.

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Well, we've done a bunch of work and done this. Defense powers will now work equally well against critters, regardless of their rank or level. For instance, your defense powers will work equally well against a Boss or any critter up to 5 levels higher than you, as it does for an equal level minion. This change has no effect on a player who does not have any Defense.

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Good thing you posted this /after/ New Years and far away from any parties I may or may not have been at.
I have been known to kiss the first person I can grab when properly inebriated, and may have inadvertantly tracked you down and planted a wet sloppy one before you realized what happened... Considering my current facial hair growth, you might have suffered some serious beard burn.

Whew! Way to avert a crisis there! Now /that's/ leadership!

Luerim

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That's very clever and well thought out. I just have trouble imagining Manticore setting up a Mercenary group. I always assumed that having your parents killed by a hired assassain (Good old Protean) would have some profond effect on your ideas of guns (bows) for hire.

I suppose he could just be human and say, "They work for me. That makes them alright." But it still strikes me as odd.

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*cough* Well, were they killed with a gun or a bow? Makes a lot of difference. I could refer you at least 2 fictional cultural heroic icons that avoid the specific delivery system of the death of their parental figures, but still employ similar methods to gain a sort of "revenge" or "justice" against the "bad guys" depending on the point of view.
And there's one off the top of my head that employs exactly the same method of revenge as his enemies, but is still considered at the very least an anti-hero.

Sorry, just recalling too many years immersed in the paradigm.

Luerim

Hermiod, I greatly respect your views and opinions, however... I feel that no one is perfect, and that you may have disregarded a simple matter of economics in the possibility that Manticore founded Wyvern Mercenary Corps.

Allow me to humbly place mine own self in Manticore's own cowl: (My opinion is that people really think this way, but don't usually acknowledge it.)

"I am rich. Really, really rich. I got that way by being born into a family of rich people. My family stayed rich for a really long time by being really good with money, and they raised me to be really, really good with money.

I am really good at making sharp pointy things fly through the air and hit where I want them to. These sharp pointy things are enhanced by really cool people in long coats that cost a WHOLE LOT of moola to get pro-active and support. Then there's the "Suits" who manage them, and the "Suits" who run the whole shebang, and the "Suits" who are stock-holders, and the "Suits" whose "constituancy" wants jobs, etc, etc, etc. Hmmm. How can I make my sharp pointy things cost less to produce?

Oh, now that would be smart... I'll just push a bunch of people into wanting sharp pointy things that go bang towards wanting the same sorts of sharp pointy things that go bang that I do! Problem solved!"

Ergo, Wyvern=cheap Manticore arrows. He's still not evil, supports a raging market in spiffy arrows, and saves money in the long run allowing him to donate even more money to worthy charitable causes. If only more RL CEOs thought like he did. *Sigh*

Luerim

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Inspirations
Inspirations can be used on your Henchmen by dragging the Inspiration from your tray onto the name of the Henchman you want to inspire in your Pet Window. You can not use an Awaken Inspiration on your Henchmen, but they will gladly accept all other Inspirations and use them immediately.
You can also drag the Inspiration directly onto the Henchmen you wish to inspire.


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Yeah. I just wanted to say this is pretty gosh darn cool, and to point out how easy this one is to miss. Remember this, and use it occasionally. You'll hate yourself in morning even more if you don't.
Luerim

My understanding was that Defiance was initiated to reduce Blaster deaths. The realization was that Blasters were coming a hair's breath from defeating their enemies before dying. This was particularly obvious in Solo play.
What defiance has done, in my personal gaming experiance, is reward intelliegent play of Blasters in Solo situations with an approximately 50% better chance to survive an encounter that otherwise would have resulted in certain death.
This was not a "Get Out of Debt Free" card. This was just to even the odds a bit and create a more even playing field when compared to the other ATs. That's been my experiance with the ability and I've enjoyed that experiance a lot more than I was before.

Luerim