McNum

Isn't one of the RWZ arcs one long reference to Oban Star Racers? With all the named bosses using the name and personality of the characters from the cartoon. I think it's the Rogue Vanguard one. There's also the Wacky Races references in Faultline as well, Penelope's arc if I remember right. (Who might be named after Penelope Pitstop from the series.) Someone on the dev team likes their racing cartoons.

The map got an update. Some more genres have been added. Like Folk Metal, Symphonic Metal and Djern. Gotta love the name of that last one. Named for the sound the guitar makes.

As far as I know, there is no way of knowing if the devs know of a bug, and if they do, how highly prioritized it is. Except if they volunteer that information, of course, but that happens rarely.

All we can do as players is /bug it and/or PM it to... I'd say theOcho, he's the community guy, he'll likely forward it to who needs to know. Make sure you describe your bug well and preferably in a way that allows them to easily reproduce it.

Reminds me of another dirty DM rat trick to pull: Awakened Rats.

High level Druids get a spell called Awakening. It grants sentience to a non-sentient creature. Like a rat. Suddenly you're looking at a rat that's quite possibly smarter than some of the player characters. And can take class levels. Rats make nasty Rogues, and, of course, everything Wizard, Cleric or Druid is just plain wrong.

Of course, it's much more fun to spring Rat Paladins on the players. Lawful Good Holy Knight rats riding holy roaches out to avenge their fallen comrades. Or, pull a Tucker's Kobolds* only using sentient rats. "Clear out the rats from the basement" becomes "Enter the rats' heavily trapped and fortified basement stronghold full of rat-sized passages that allows the rats to move freely around while you have to take the long way". You only need one or two awakened rats to coordinate the rest for something like that.

I miss playing D&D some times, especially being a DM. It's a lot of preparation, but the reactions you can get from the players are well worth it, even if they go wildly off course compared to what you thought. Then it pays to have dirty tricks like these ready.

*Tucker's Kobolds, a demonstration on how to play by the book Kobolds in a way that scares even midlevel player characters. To quote the article: "NOOOOOO!!! It's THEM! Run!!!" If the reaction you get from your players when doing a Kobold encounter is any less than that, you're playing them wrong.

While I have been a D&D 3.5 DM, I never got around to using rats as I took over a campaign already in progress and the characters were too high level for rats. At least that was what I thought at the time. However, the common rat has two things going for it that evil DMs should consider:

1. They're small enough to come in swarms.
2. They are common animals, and can be augmented with templates.

Those that know 3.5 D&D will know what I'm getting at there, but I'll just explain anyway. A swarm is a group of tiny creatyres that occupy a 5" by 5" square. They are significant in two ways as they are pretty hard to kill and if you stand in their square, you get hit, no matter how good you are at dodging. For a normal rat, it's not so bad. Plus a Fireball can wipe a swarm out pretty fast. Which is where the templates come in. A template is more or less adding half of another creature or converting the creature into one of a different type. Like Half-dragon, Fire Elemental, Incorporeal, Pseudonatural*, Angelic and so on. Get creative.

This makes it possible to create rats of practically any challenge rating, if you're mad enough you could make some Epic Rats, and have the player characters not just fight rats at level 1, but all the way through their careers. And no one feels safe when there's a swarm of angelic, incorporeal rats heading your way with 5-30 points of damage per turn.

*Pseudonatural is particularly fun trait to give the rats. It basically means "wrong". Like "Oh god, that's not supposed to have tentacles and teeth there!" wrong. Imagine a rat turning itself inside out, revealing a scary amount of internal teeth and tentacles then latching on to the Rogue's face. That's a Pseudonatural rat. Now imagine 20 of them in a swarm.

Sounds like I might have to look into Melodic Power Metal some more. I like what I'm hearing there.

Hmm, and here I've been going by an "I know what I hate, and I don't hate that." approach to various kinds of metal. Kind of neat to see it all laid out like that, even if there are a few errors.

Speaking from my own characters, my most fastpaced character has got to be my Electric/Electric/Electric Blaster. She's a melee focused Blaster with plenty of single target controls and a nasty Endurance Drain. In other words, not your average Blaster. Playing a melee focused Blaster is a high risk/reward situation as 10 seconds after the fight starts, someone is dead. Usually the enemies. Usually. The trick is to use Short Circuit and Power Sink to bottom out the enemy's Endurance and then pound them to pieces with /Electric's powerful melee attacks. Havoc Punch is awesome. Against tougher targets, you drain them and stack Holds on them until they're not a problem anymore.

I wouldn't recommend playing this one lightly, though, it is a very difficult style of Blasting. But when you get it down, you'll more often than not hear a "How the heck did you DO that?!" from your teammates. And some times you get unlucky and get to eat floor instantly. Still, for fast paced thinking character, it's a rush. But to say it again: This style is not for the sane. If a normal Blaster toes the line between victory and defeat, this one cartwheels along it. You're either totally awesome or dead.

If you have a level 50 Trick Archer that hasn't done the Incarnate arc, I recommend you at least run the first mission. Then try out Oil Slick Arrow on the AVs. Wow. Just wow. I don't think I've seen an AV die that fast before.

The last week I've run an ITF, a KhanTF, and an STF. For the rest of 2010, I've run one single ITF.

There's something about this system that encourages me to run more TFs. I mean, I just finished an STF all for the sake of getting that Essence of the Incarnate. 8 more Shards and my FF/Energy Defender has her Nerve Radial Boost, and will regain an ability she didn't have since Issue 5. The ability to buff her teammates all the way to the defense cap on her own. And that's just the start of the system, I can't wait to see what Omega level Aegis Rose can do in the end. That's going to be fun.

So, so far, I'm all for it, as my previous post said, it's pretty fun and for now you progress at a fairly good pace.

So far, I'm happy with it. It's not as grindy as I had feared, and what we've seen so far looks interesting. Plus, I get to advance some 50s that were more or less put in storage. I look forward to seeing what the future abilities are. I hope for a pet of some kind in one of them.

Ah, right. I saw a level 50 build and assumed you had a level 50 Defender. Well at level 41, there are some interesting opportunities as well. You already have Conserve Power, I assume? Don't put it on auto, fire it off together with Hasten so the increased End use from using your attacks faster is countered by Conserve Power. Then there's Force of Nature. If I remember right, it has a Recovery boost as well so if it gets bad, you can alternate these two.

Really, get to level 42 and slot up CP (Three Recharge SOs/IOs) and use it with Hasten, or if your End begins getting low. And when you get Force of Nature, use that for boss fights so you can recover End and have high resistance.

Rose's survivability does not depend solely on Defense numbers, although they help.

Her solo defensive strength comes from an unlikely source: Mass Hypnosis. Her usual minion/lieutenant battle plan goes like this: Mass Hypnosis on everyone. Dominate the first target. Burst, Blast, Bolt. Down. Repeat for the rest. Use Aim when it's up, or the enemy has high Defense. Since I'm mostly using single target blasts, the enemies don't wake up. When fighting strong bosses or Elite Bosses my very first line of defense is Hover. Took out Protean solo with that, for instance. If it can't reach me, it needs to use ranged attacks. If it CAN reach me, it gets Force Bolted.

The dirty secret here, of course, is inspirations. With 20%-ish Defense already, I just need two small Lucks to get close to capped. If I get hit, I use Aid Self for well over 400HP healed. That goes a long way towards staying alive. And if all else fails, Personal Forcefield is my safe place. So yeah, I'll happily admit that by the numbers, Rose might seem a bit under-defended, but the numbers aren't the full story. Aid Self and Mass Hypnosis make up for a large part of it. That and a lot of purple inspirations. My EB fight tray is usually 12-16 Defense and 3-4 Endurance. Lets me fight at almost softcapped defense for up to 8 minutes. Healing is handled with Aid Self and since the target is just one enemy, I keep clear of Repulsion Bomb and Energy Torrent since they're not worth it against just one enemy.

As I said, that build is battle tested. It works pretty well. You could most likely make both a more defensive or a more offensive FF/Energy build, I'm sure, but I don't think you can make one much more balanced between that than what Rose is now. Does she meet enemies or missions that she can't handle without Temp powers? Yeah. So I use them. She's an Incarnate thanks to a Vanguard HVAS she bought for that exact purpose, for instance.

I'm not sure if this warrants this much attention or not, but here's a battle tested FF/Energy build exactly as my Defender is at this very moment in the game as exported by the Titan Sentinel.

Meet Aegis Rose, veteran FF/Energy Defender.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1,90
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Aegis Rose: Level 50 Magic Defender
Primary Power Set: Force Field
Secondary Power Set: Energy Blast
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Medicine
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Psychic Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Deflection Shield -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(3), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(3), RedFtn-Def(5)
Level 1: Power Bolt -- Acc-I(A), Dmg(5), Dmg(7), Dmg-I(7)
Level 2: Power Blast -- Acc-I(A), Dmg-I(9), Dmg(11), Dmg(11)
Level 4: Force Bolt -- Acc(A)
Level 6: Fly -- Flight(A)
Level 8: Insulation Shield -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(9), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(13), RedFtn-Def(13)
Level 10: Personal Force Field -- DefBuff(A)
Level 12: Dispersion Bubble -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(17), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(17), RedFtn-Def(19), RedFtn-EndRdx(19)
Level 14: Detention Field -- Acc(A), RechRdx(15), RechRdx(15), RechRdx(50)
Level 16: Hover -- Flight(A)
Level 18: Aid Other -- Heal(A), Heal(21), Heal(21), RechRdx(31), RechRdx(33), RechRdx(33)
Level 20: Aid Self -- Heal(A), Heal(23), Heal(23), RechRdx(34), RechRdx(34), RechRdx(34)
Level 22: Power Burst -- Acc-I(A), HO:Centri(25), HO:Centri(25), HO:Centri(27), RechRdx(27), EndRdx(29)
Level 24: Maneuvers -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(29), RedFtn-Def(31), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(31)
Level 26: Resuscitate -- RechRdx(A)
Level 28: Repulsion Bomb -- Acc(A), Dmg-I(36), Dmg(36), Dmg(36), RechRdx-I(37), RechRdx(37)
Level 30: Tactics -- AdjTgt-ToHit(A), AdjTgt-ToHit/Rchg(40), AdjTgt-ToHit/EndRdx/Rchg(40), AdjTgt-ToHit/EndRdx(42)
Level 32: Energy Torrent -- Acc-I(A), Dmg(37), Dmg(39), Dmg-I(39), RechRdx(39), EndRdx(40)
Level 35: Force Bubble -- EndRdx(A), EndRdx(42), EndRdx(42)
Level 38: Vengeance -- DefBuff(A)
Level 41: Dominate -- Acc(A), HO:Perox(43), HO:Perox(43), HO:Perox(45), Lock-Acc/Rchg(45), Lock-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(45)
Level 44: Mind Over Body -- EndRdx(A), ResDam(46), ResDam(46), ResDam(46)
Level 47: Mass Hypnosis -- CSndmn-Heal%(A), CSndmn-Acc/Sleep/Rchg(48), CSndmn-Sleep/Rng(48), CSndmn-Acc/EndRdx(48), CSndmn-EndRdx/Sleep(50), CSndmn-Acc/Rchg(50)
Level 49: Aim -- RechRdx(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Acc(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- EndRdx(A)
Level 2: Rest -- RechRdx(A)
Level 1: Vigilance
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Flight-I(A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- Heal-I(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- EndMod(A), EndMod(33), EndMod-I(43)

This one has little to no Endurance trouble. She doesn't have infinite End, blasting for a minute straight will have her needing a refill, or at least slowing down the attack rate a bit. This is okay, as most enemies are down before that. I know the HOs and some of the inventions give her an edge, yes, but I'd say the biggest difference is the choice of defense. Rose is mixed, both active and passive. Running Hover, Dispersion Bubble, Mind Over Body and Dispersion Bubble when she's solo. This isn't a perfect defense, but when something gets through, she uses Aid Self to patch up. Or Personal Forcefield to take a break and patch up with Aid Self. PFF and Aid Self is an awesome combo.

Then, of course, there's the choice of Epic Pool, Rose went Psychic for a couple of reasons. With Mass Hypnosis and Dominate, she's equipped to neutralize a lot of foes outright. Most bosses fall for Dominate on auto, with the various single target blasts for damage. As long as the boss is held, it doesn't matter if I turn off my toggle defenses since it can't do anything to me. I'd never take Tough and Weave on Rose, mind you. She's at her limit at the amount of toggles she can run and still fight. So I went with Aid Self and Dominate for personal defense. And Force Bolt, of course. Cheap, accurate, and "Get away from me!" all in one package, and for a single slot. Gotta love it. Detention Field is my last resort power. If something dangerous is getting a little too close for comfort, it gets a 30 second time out. Mind Over Body is all I need for resistance toggles, and I mainly got it for patching up the Psi hole in Dispersion Bubble before it got positional defenses added.

So... I know it's possible to create an FF/Energy Defender that can fight tough enemies solo without gasping for End all the time. She's right there. She'll never solo an AV, but most EBs are fair game. Bosses are, I wouldn't say speedbumps, but not really something I worry about with her either. It's just something that takes a little longer to die. I'd never call Rose the perfect Forcefielder, but she is pretty good. A couple of Thunderstrike, Detonation, and Miracle sets are pretty high on her wishlist, mind you. I'd go for the Aegis set for MoB, you know, for the name, but I'm not sure it's the best set for Rose. I've gone for Damage Buffs in her IOs until now, in case you wonder about the IO choices.

I'm not quite sure why I posted this, to be honest, but if there's anything anyone wants to take from Rose's build, feel free. It's no secret and I can guarantee that it works pretty well as it is. Also: She can provide a whopping 44.6% Defense buff to all except Psionic type to bubbled allies within Maneuvers range. Just thought I'd mention that. 15 more Incarnate Shards and that number is a little over 46%.

It is a pretty tough mission solo, I had a few issues with it on my FF/Energy Defender. Luckily I also had 250 Vanguard Merits lying around. Did you know a defense capped Vanguard HVAS can take on that entire room and win? It's quite fascinating to watch, really. Both EBs and all the Rikti.

Cheap? Maybe. My power is to make something really unkillable, so I phoned a friend. A big mechanical friend with laser guns for arms. That helped a lot. I'm sure that a lesser pet would have been enough, but I was in a mood for overkill.

That one thing I'd rather avoid to find.

So the press conference is over. Interesting find, for sure. What a lovely weird microbe they've go. Arsenic-based life. Who knew something like that could work?

So, good for NASA, they found something neat this time. All current books on biology just got outdated. Fun.