Mikka

Katana/Willpower. Because I don't really have to pay attention while fighting them, and sometimes that's nice after dealing with Archanos throwing everything at me at once.

Robots/Dark. Because they're in my way. As is everything, actually. Seriously, nothing is bothersome for the Robots/Dark.


Everyone else?

Because between Carnies and Knives, I choose Carnies. I always, always, always, choose Carnies.

...I hate that moat so much. I think my characters spend almost as much time in the moat as they do fighting crime.

Okay, it's not quite that bad, but only because fighting crime tends to involve multiple hospital trips after the ghoul ambushes eat their soul. So.

This was awesome! Two thumbs up, and some twelve robot fists in the air. Made me giggle. Well done!

There are three face tattoos, if I remember correctly, and one back of the head tattoo if you're playing a bald girl or with the topknot style.

Then there are forearm tattoos under 'gloves / smooth', IIRC. They can't be used with any other sort of glove or bracer, disappointingly

That's it.

Yeah, I'm trying to remember, but I'm pretty sure Nosferatu is an Archvillian, not an Elite Boss. It's a taskforce, so he can't be 'reduced'.

I find Nosferatu one of the more difficult AV's in the game. Everyone has their own, but he constantly gives me trouble (even as an elite boss). I think the big things are to reduce his regeneration and his accuracy. If you can do that, then just keep eating purples (and greens), and you'll make it. You as a /dark tanker should have plenty of -To Hit, so it's his regen you need to worry about. What secondaries are your blaster friends? If they're not already, ask them to concentrate on tossing on their secondary debuffs (if they have) for a try or two and doing backup blasting rather then concentrating on the primary. You guys are damage heavy. If that's no good, then the key is that you can almost definitely out damage him even if you can't out last... but it sounds like you've been trying that strategy and it hasn't worked yet. =/

I don't even remember how the Ourb taskforces work... can you add people to the team? Depending on their build, a Defender or Controller could help quite a bit.

I did this taskforce recently, on the other side of the curtain- bots/forcefield, plant/thorn dom, and then myself as a bots/dark. The dark miasma was key: our survival was pretty good, but our damage wasn't, and me spamming Twilight Gasp over and over like a healbot was the only way we could finally get him down. Also was the three of us (most paticularly the dominator) managing to pin him down a few times, then we kept away and just shot at him. Nosferatu is much more dangerous meleeing then he is at range.

Good luck! Bright side: I find that to be the hardest part of the taskforce. If you can get past him, you can probably do the final battle as well.

Can I agree and disagree?

I have nothing against zoning in to discover that the team has started on the first three or so groups. Yes, if I zone in and they're a floor away, it's a problem, but I don't really expect sir blaster and miss scrapper to just hang around making faces at the mobs... especially as it can take some people five minutes to zone in (or, back in the old days, it could take a mastermind three minutes or so to get all her pets up- aggh, masterminds that refused to summon on the run and insisted on waiting to summon their six ninjas annoyed me horribly).

I know the maps pretty well by now. Particularly on default-alls, a character popping down what's likely a one-way hall to catch the three lurkers, or even going left when most go right in one of those standard squares, doesn't bug me. Same for defeat boss missions that we want to do fast but don't have a true stealther. If they're intending on fully splitting (hey, you go right, I go left, we'll see where we end up), I really prefer if they say 'Hey, I'm going to check down this route, k?', but honestly, as long as they don't faceplant and expect help and wouldn't be more useful elsewhere, I don't care.

(People who split, die, then whine for someone to come give them a rez or a Wakie should be kicked. Quickly. Especially if they do offer something to the team.)

My two mains are a katana/wp scrapper and a bots/dark. Both can generally do pretty good at soloing a whole mission and I run them at +2/+8 (...although I avoid archvillians). If the team has a lot of ranged DPS and a tanker on his feet, the first is generally just as good wandering off random corridors as she is staying with the group- and hey, she can self-rez from two different sources, she has wakies and breakfrees, so if she dies, it's her own dumb fault. Well, mine. It isn't always true, but say- particularly when you're leveled down to do an old taskforce with it's gazillion kill-alls in the same map over and over again... well, helping out the group doesn't mean standing on my heal.

On the other hand, my MM, even though she's even a better soloer, she's also support. I stick with the group. I've been known to try and get people going faster if there's loligaggling (Mastank! charge!), but I don't split her off save for in really unique circumstances. If a random stalker wants to wander off down a corridor and prove the awesomeness of his assassin-strikes, though, he can go have fun with that. Again, though, if he dies I'm not going to chase after him to rez him (...although I may recall him for venge-bait).

Does it really matter, though? Above all, if the person leading wants us to stick together, I stick together. If the person leading wants it done quick and split, I split to where I need to be. Communicate with the group, and things go right.

Also, anyone who splits during a mayhem deserves blacklisting. That is all.

I didn't mind the HEAT arcs. Admittedly, it's sort of 'okay, play once, then done for good'- I probably wouldn't go out of my way to repeat them. But simply playing them wasn't bad.

The VEAT arcs, on the other hand, made my character, the character's contacts, Arachnos and really everyone involved look stupid... but I fear I was the most foolish for playing them. You definitely didn't feel like a Blood Widow/Crab Spider... but I don't feel you really felt like much of anything. You were just there. I find the majority of the arcs Villain-side well-written. They weren't always fun, I didn't like a few contacts, so on so forth, but I at least felt like I knew what I was doing and why.

The final mission really is 'go troll Statesman', but the whole thing is just 'go troll Arachnos. only really boringly'.

Suggestion: try advertising in Archie Comics.

I know, I know, they're not superman comics- but you would be surprised how much it overlaps. Archie comics are almost everywhere- you can even find them in grocery stores these days. They're read by a wide range of people, similar to those who play CoX: from what I have been told, CoX has a wider percentage of both younger and older players then the medium average (as well as a good amount of female players: with all this Desi stuff, I just need to add on that the two W.I.S.D.O.M heroes have quite a resemblance to the boy band posters that I used to hang on my walls as a teenager and I'm sure teenage girls still do). More importantly, I point that an ad for Sony's micro-transaction Free Realms game is on the back of every other Archie digest, and that game's just growing and growing.

T-shirts for your female players would be great, too. Although I think you could use more t-shirt designs, even just babydoll or another 'girl cut' option of the plain blue/red cox ones you have would be lovely. As it is, I know I'd never buy the plain . You might also want to consider long-sleeved shirts, sweaters, bumper stickers, pins, baseball caps, more posters, and zippo lighters: those are big 'most stores have them'.

Try and get some ads even around the internet! The only MMOs who's ads I see are WoW and DDO, but I see them on every free game, facebook page, webcomic, and gaming forum I pop over to.

Obviously, it's that the Dev's hate villains.

...Whaaat? >.>

Being serious, I have to go with repetitive content. Red-side, great stories but it doesn't change the fact that I've done that one story arc eight times so far. Blue-side, I still stumble across 'new' missions, but just because 'go hunt 15 lost' is worded slightly different doesn't mean that I haven't went and hunted fifteen lost before. Over and over and over, before. I'd love to see more story arcs for both sides, spread across all levels: and I'd especially love if these story arcs had some new maps (or less common maps used again) or some neat new decisions put in them (branching story lines, please?).

MA does help with this, a lot, once you weed through the blragh. But still the same missions and same mechanics.

I think, honestly, there are so many different kinds of vampires that it's easy to go different ways (I know we're starting to move off the subject, but I just figured I'd step on it). Showing off my geek creds, I tend to divide them how a certain roleplaying game does: you have your commanding aristocratic vampires (Stroker's Dracula), your charming deceitful vampires (Rice's Lestat), your disfigured monstrous vampires (see: Nosferatu), the scruffy feral vampires (like Blade, which you guys mentioned), and then the more manipulative shadow vampires (which take, I believe, a bit more inspiration from anime and JRPGs then anything else).

So, due to this inspiration: if I made an aristocratic vampire, it would likely be very different then Samuel's. (Not to mention that as a gal, I just like making female characters.) She'd be a mastermind (likely necromancy, although I could take an argument for a few others- with a bit of Japanese flavor, a vampire who controls ninjas could probably be done pretty well, and you could certainly go mercs- I just don't want that weapon), definitely with /dark miasma as a secondary. For me, what sticks out the most about such vampires is their influence on others, and such proud stately arrogance: she is above you, and thus, has no need to dirty her hands on you. Queen of the Night, a goddess in her own mind: 'you' (ala, random enemy mob 003 over there, not anyone in this thread) should be *honored* that she turns her gaze on you and traps you in fear, that she designs to send her minions after you, that she takes your vitality to make it her own.

I also think Bloodlines was a great game for representing VtM, while Redemption was incredibly poor for it- it would be much better if it had nothing to do with VtM at all. As it is, it felt like a basic hack and slash without the atmosphere and horror (gah, the hotel! the hotel!) that VtM needs. However, I do remember Christof, and if he's part of the inspiration...

I would agree with people saying Stalker over Brute (although if you were going blueside, I think Scrapper would be fine, too). Brute just doesn't fit well for an aristocratic vampire: vampires should seem two steps ahead, having the ability to play with their food/toys and then rip them to shreds as they will before casually flittering off to next play. Vampire's shouldn't have to rush to keep a fury bar up.

I think the Dark powers are hard to turn down- be it Dark Armor, or Dark Miasma, or Dark Blast, depending on the class chosen. Although all have different, they all have appropriate 'vampire powers'- freezing others in place, draining foes to make oneself more powerful, fog summoning, stealth by darkness fluffy, protecting oneself with mist... yadda yadda. I think for a primary, if you're looking a weapon set, katana, broadsword, or mace are some of the best (although dual blades could also work). I actually almost suggest katana: it's very powerful looking (those are hard swings!), while at the same time seeming a bit more elegant than broadsword does, and a few of the blades honestly look nothing like katanas so it doesn't have to be related (Rularuu weapons, in particular, look very over the top and somewhat dark and vampirish to me, despite the fact that I usually don't like it, and the same for the fantasy blade katana- that is so very much not a katana). I've also read a lot of vampire stories with claws, but I sheepishly admit that I have no idea how claws work- I have yet to make a character with it.

As for the costume, I think the lighter skin works better- looking at the first one, I'd think the first to be a vampire while I'd think of the second simply as a warlock/occulist. On the other hand, I think the high shoulders on the white haired one looks cooler. I don't have the Magic Pack (I really want it, now!), but how has a very dark purple looked for detailing? Purple = royalty connection sticks out as working, and if it's dark enough, it may sort of blend a in to the black while still sticking out as some color.

I think the costume is cool, no matter what, though. Purty. I really want to get the Magic Pack and see how it looks on the gals, now. /g

(Ooops, posted before I read your last post. Foo.)

So here's a new one for me, sort of. I logged in my Katana/Willpower Scrapper, which I had logged off on a corner somewhere on PI. I assume I thought the corner was free of spawns, or maybe I was just annoyed when I logged out and didn't feel like finding somewhere safe (usually I look for a Day Job location, at least). I logged back in to find a Malta Sapper standing next to me. He was alone.

I stared at him. He stared at me (well, my character, anyway).

The smart thing would have been to run. But I just sort of shrugged and said 'eh', and he looked at me and... SAPP STICK! Usually, I stick my tongue out and laugh in the face of Malta, but- oh, huh. I hadn't gotten Indomitable Will up yet! Oh, no! The evil malta will finally make a victim of my heroine! Horror!

Well, no, not really.

I think it tried to punch me (well, the character) a few times. I cringed and covered my eyes for a moment, waiting for the character's doom. And... um... it tried to punch me a few more times. And maybe a few more.

Hold wore off- I backed up a step.

SAPP STICK!

It continued to try and punch me. I continued cringing, but my auto's and fitness pool were regenerating fast enough that he was doing no damage. Hold wore off, and I quickly did two Katana slashes on him- SAPP STICK. I glared dubiously at my screen, and my character stood around holding her head for a few moments. The Gunslinger tried to hit me a few more times. I thought 'screw this', and as soon as hold wore off, activated Superjump but alas, he SAPP STICKed me again.

At this point, I started to wonder if I had set up a hold farm. Accidentally.

Hold wore off, and I desperately clicked towards Indomitable Will- unfortunately, he got another hold off on me before I got it activated it. I said something rude, and finally got around to hitting a Break Free that I usually keep for rez sickness, and I glowered at him. 'He won't be able to hold me again for a minute or so, though', I told myself. 'So I'll just finish him real quick with a good old KATANA SLASH (or Golden Dragonfly, if you prefer)-'

But no, as soon as he manages to pull his grungly minion self off of the floor, SAPP STICK.

The heroine has done, if you will permit my bragging, some amazing things. Starting from back when she was little and saved Dams for Posi to how she recently helped the Woodsmen for Numina, or from how she helped good ol Jim find out about his father and survived the Valh Plague as youngin' to how she had recently defeated the Envoy for Caledo and then locked up Nemesis for Max (or, more likely, a robot that looked like Nemesis, but that's how things work with Max and Nemesis). She was in the middle of helping Angus with some Rikti problems that they had almost got figured out, and had just started off helping Havey look in the Carnival of Shadows.

But that Malta Sapper? That Malta Sapper?

As soon as that last SAPP STICK wore off, she turned and jump/ran in to the night, fleeing to the train-station in order to go hide in Steel Canyon (and it's University) for a while. The whole 'battle' had taken over ten minutes- more then I spend fighting AV-to-EB's solo (save for that awful KKill and evil evil Nosferatu).

I'd never had a difficulty with Malta before. Oh, on my other main, a Mastermind, a Malta Gunslinger that aimed at the character even with her robots around could do quite a bit of damage to all involved- but that was easy to recover from- Malta aren't the only ones that can hold, after all. Both hero and villain had defeated the Kronos Class Titan before, laughing mockingly in its face, and although certainly neither of them would go 'OH YAY LET'S GO BEAT UP MALTA! ', picking up a Malta mission in the newspaper was nothing to worry about.

Now, though? I... I... think I'm going to avoid that Crimson guy who keeps trying to dump missions on me. And maybe I should dump Havey while I'm ahead, at that. Go hang out with Unai and Maria, maybe go back to the Rikti Warzone and see what's happening over there...

Evil, evil, evil malta. How do those without any sort of hold defense/resist do it? Lots of Breakies? Or maybe more sanity?

There's only one sort of mob that has made throw my hands up, swear I quit, and avoid missions with them for forever more, and that's the stupid Demolitionists (and the Scrapyarder's in general). For some horrid reason, I ended up doing Vince Dubrowski's missions on my poor Mastermind. I imagine that now, despite being level 50 and having defeated Recluse, screwed up the plans of practically everyone in the world, and having plotted and helped the doom of the earth (and, okay, maybe saved it once or twice but she'd blame the Rikti), on the times that she does have nightmare's it's full of dreams of dynamite and miners.

Scrapyarder and Family bosses (odd, as the Family is generally easy as anything) also gave her lots of trouble. On the other hand, she laughed at Archanos and their Mu (and Widows), and even the Circle ghosts only gave her a bit of trouble in the early levels. Carnies and Malta aren't a problem either, although KoA can be annoying.

On the other hand, my /Willpower Scrapper seems to do even better. There are mobs that are annoying (Paragon Protectors, Fake Nemesis's, flying Master Illusionists or Circle Ghosts), but none of them bad enough to be worst. Tsoo Sorcerers were pretty bad, though... I guess they can go on the 'worst mobs' lists. Scrapyarder Demolitionists and Tsoo Sorcerers are my votes.

Also, Kadabra Kill and Nosferatu are evil, evil, evil. The second amuses me, as I will gladly dance with Requiem and Arakhn a hundred times before wanting to touch Nosferatu. The first is just a scary, scary, scary enemy.

I tend to prefer Magic, followed by Natural. Almost all my characters are one or the other.

...Save for my main, which is Science. I'm still not quite sure how that happened.

I don't think I have any Mutant or Tech characters anymore, actually, which is something of a shame. And besides my main, I don't have any other Sciences, either.

I was running around like a crazy person on Justice Saturday looking for Jack, blue side. It took seven Eco kills (we didn't drone it, but we had three full teams and I think one fourth one that was around half full by the last few, so... we were doing pretty well, even when the zombies decided to invade while we were hunting) the first time to get him up in Talos. Then went to Crey's Folly, where we got him after one downed Eco, and then four (or maybe five?) kills to get him in Founders.

(I wanted him on various toons, but I got bored of the scenery. )

I know he also spawned in Sharkhead while I was goofing around blue side. He's rare, but if you have a dedicated team (or even more luckily, two of em), he'll appear soon or a later. Weekends are good for it.

* I haven't gotten a Hero to 50 yet (one's close, though, at 46), which means I haven't tried Kheds, either.
* Never stepped in the Shadow Shard, nor done any of the Shadow Shard TF's
* Actually, there's quite a few TF's I haven't done- any of the ones in Oub, Lady Gray, Katie's, Doctor Kahn's, State's, and Calvin Scott's
* As for SF's, I'm missing Tarikoss and Barracuda
* Have yet to kill Caleb- in fact, I've only seen him once (he looked angry =/)
* Have yet to take down Lusca, the Paladin, or the Kraken, too
* Haven't yet run Viridian's Conference Meeting, although it sounds hysterical... I think he's unlocked, just haven't done it yet
* Haven't been able to finish the TV, because... RADIOOOOOO! Free Opportunity! I mean, how could I turn against that?
* Haven't done a Villian Respec that hasn't made me want to stab my eyes in and then pry them out with the same stabby-tool
* Never got up the nerve to publish an AE arc- too shy
* Haven't gotten all (possible for that faction) Day Job badges on a single toon (although I think I have all of them just spread out)
* Haven't done any Trials but both side respects and a failed Sewer attempt
* Haven't done much of St Martial- did Hard Luck and Basse, but I don't think I did any of the others... I want to do at least Johnny and the Slot Machine, one day
* Haven't done Socc or Ghost Widow's patron arcs yet; wanted to leave my favorites for last
* Haven't done a few 'essential' Hero arcs... Freaklympics, any of the Tsoo ones, the Library of Souls, Indigo's, and all the 45+ hero arcs (save for Vanguard ones)
* Haven't finished either the Stiga Isle or Crotea storylines- maybe on my next hero

I'm sure there's more, too... which is a good thing. Lots more to see and do.

I am female, and all the characters I create are female. I have a male friend who plays as well, and all of his characters but one are male (and that one is a complete stereotype: breast slider pushed as far as it can, waist as thin as possible, and wearing this horrendous tiger bikini type thing).

(...He always says my costumes are ugly, though, so take that where you will.)

I'll plainly admit that it's partly because of a 'Yay, I get to play a female character!' deal, though. Games over the years have gotten a lot better at it, especially, say, cprgs. They've gone from 'no female lead character, ever' to it being around a 50/50 chance that only a male character is allowed compared to both male and female being an option. Probably has a lot to do with Bioware and Black Isle (and the companies the latter split in to), as well as MMOs, all which deserve cookies and all that.

To clarify: I've played Gothic, the Witcher, Fable, Planescape: Torment might be my favorite video game of all time... and I've played Mario and Zelda and Final Fantasy and Tales of (whatever) and so on so forth. Having only a male character is certainly not a deal breaker.

But having an option to play a female is just *nice*. So when it's available, I use it. Also, in MMO's... people are used to female characters wandering around. It's not like I just stepped in to my local comic/p&p gaming shop (in which 9 times out of 10 (that one tenth time usually only occurring when no one else is in the shop), I get looked at like I just tore down the door with an axe and am wearing a clown suit). In CoX (or really, any MMO), if I'm running around with a female character, I'm going to be invited to teams and talked with totally normally. As a girl who grew up liking video games and pen and paper roleplaying and war games and bad Drizzt novels (...I was young!) and got odd look after odd look, online gaming is lovely. Save for when voice chat comes in and '...woah, you're actually a girl? D: D: D: D: PICZ PLZ OR UR LYING OMGGGG', but that's why I don't use voice chat anymore.

As an aside, though, while I write backstories for all my characters and pick around for story arcs that I think suit them the best, I don't really roleplay. If I did, I'd probably have a more even gender divide.

I usually don't worry about powers on my villains. 60 minute jump pack and 60 minute fly pack from early Mayhem missions will last me to 20, at least. Then there's good ol Lt Chalmers. Skyraiders jetpack, and it's from a story arc, so everytime that one runs out, I can just oub it again. There's also Grandville, of course, but that can be a bit more difficult to navigate then Sharkhead.

On heroes, on the other hand, I tend to find I have to change zones a lot more and I spend more time traveling. So I usually end up slotting it in at 14 for 'looser' builds (Katana/Willpower, for example, had no problem fighting in too powers early on). Tighter ones, it can sometimes be up to 24, but that's the highest I've ever gone.

...This bug (and I do feel it's a bug) drives me nuts. A bio that is perfectly readable and sensible becomes suddenly intolerable when all the lines are squished together, IMO. Walls of text are never fun, paticularly when not intended.

Just be careful about speed task forces. I play on a pretty 'nice' server, I would say, but I got in a speed ITS a week or two ago. One of the people had a travel power- superspeed (but no flight packs)- but that wouldn't let him rush to Rom at the end, and no one had recall friend. That led to a lot of somewhat mean-natured teasing- I had group fly and went back and taxied him to Rom and the towers (oo, finally got a use outta the stupid power!), but that just led to both of us being whinged at for being 'slow'.

I know a lot of speed TS's are run on my server- they're the only way some TSes are done, in fact. Not sure how that is on other servers, but if you don't have some way to get around fast as they run run run from here to there, you may end up dropped for just being 'extra weight'. If you can avoid that, though, I don't see there's any problems in not having them.

...Although I admit it would drive me mad. I never take travel powers CoV, because of how easy it is to get the oub flightpack, but as far as I know, CoH doesn't have an easy gettable fight pack like that. (Does it?) I'm not that coordinated, so I'd find places like the Shadow Shard a pain in the neck... and even just running around the city zones when my contact sends me to do a mission three zones away for no sane reason. Gah. It is definitely possible, I'm sure- but I think it would be more annoying then having to fit those powers in to your build would be. Guess it's one of those YMMV things.