Sakura_EU

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Episode Two[/url] is up, and, I have to say, I had a real laugh making this. There are so many cuts in it, just because I couldn't stop laughing at myself. For some old school cheesiness..enjoy.

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Well, that sure brightened the start of my working day! Full marks FG, plus some extra stars for the bit of topical chat at the end. Also, Chiefette would seem to be "In there", methinks [img]/uk/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Hehe, I like! Two thumbs up!

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And surely a duck is more useful in a combat situation?

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You've got me there. Ducks FTQ!

Welcome back, excellent as usual FG!

Surely chickens have the advantage of global domination though, albeit in a cooped-up, restricted freedom, kind of way?

Excellent! Well done!

Sakura, you mean? She's been around for 18 months, so clearly the name is mine by rights

Thanks for the thumbs and toes up!

((Finally got around to reposting this fiction based on my Illusion/Kinetics Controller and her DM/Regen Scrapper brother, which was lost in the forum wipe of last year. I've tweaked a bit here or there in the meantime. The other parts will follow when I get a chance, and maybe something new after that.))

Elisha Hunter leaned casually against the balcony railing of her fifth floor apartment, absent-mindedly chewing at the ends of her long flame-red hair. She had always loved soaking up the dying rays of the sun as it set slowly behind the trees of Perez Park, and this evening was no different. Perez had been Elisha’s home for as long as she could remember, and no amount of trouble on the streets below could take away the contented memories of her child-hood.

Back then, she liked nothing better than resting against the cherry blossom in the park, enthusiastically racing through whichever book had caught her eye in the library that day. Elisha loved to read, much to the mock-irritation of her Mother; “Why must you always have your nose stuck in a book?”, she would ask, before embracing Elisha warmly. “You know, you should really be out with friends instead of sitting there in the park all evening”, her Mother had said softly whilst stroking her brow. They both knew deep down that was unlikely to happen; Elisha didn’t make friends easily, and she had been unlucky that the few she did make, had ended up leaving Paragon City for one reason or another.

And so it was that Elisha had to make do with her younger brother, Aaron. They had a somewhat fractious relationship, albeit one that some would consider the norm for teenage siblings, and rarely a day went by without their Mother having to split them up over some petty squabble. The arguments had, however, turned uglier by the time Aaron had reached mid-teens. They were both very tall for their age – taking after their Father, their Mother would often tell them – but the proclamation by the midwife of “What a big, strapping, boy!” had turned out to be literally correct. However, despite his hulking physique and his ability to land stunning blows on Elisha’s arms and legs, Aaron didn’t possess his sister’s more exotic talents.

It had happened quite by accident, of course. There had been the usual fracas in the hallway - an argument, a shove here, a punch or two there – when Elisha suddenly felt a surge of will that she had never experienced before. As she struggled to comprehend her feelings of confusion mixed with anger, Aaron continued to land punches on her arms. Elisha began to feel almost detached from herself, as her eyes simultaneously seemed to become on fire. Aaron pulled his arm back in what she knew, from past experience, would be an especially painful blow. And then, just as she exhaled deeply, Elisha felt her will release. There was a surge of heat through her eyes – more peculiar than painful - and a flash engulfed her vision, whilst a noise like a thunderclap rang in her ears. A fraction of a second later, she heard Aaron shriek in anguish “My eyes! I can’t see!” As Elisha’s senses slowly returned to her, she was horrified to find Aaron’s head completely surrounded by a luminous mass of light that was accompanied by a staccato grinding, like metal repeatedly rubbing together. Aaron gripped his head tightly between both hands and was, by now, wailing uncontrollably. Elisha was stunned “What have I done!” she cried, and grasped Aaron in a tight hug as the intangible light gradually started to subside. Aaron’s wails slowly began to reduce to a sob, as they both slumped to the floor.

It had felt to him like hours, but actually had been only minutes, as Aaron slowly opened his eyes. The pain had largely gone now, although his vision was still very blurred. As Aaron stared ahead blankly, he slowly became aware of a face looking back at him, surrounded by flame-red hair. “Eli?” he called out, tentatively. “Just rest for now, Aaron”, his sister replied. As the blurriness started to disappear, he could see Elisha was crying. “I’m so sorry Aaron, I don’t know what happened”, she said quietly as Aaron wearily rubbed the side of his head. “It’s OK Eli, I’ll be fine… I think. I guess I should stick to punch-bags in future…” And then, the front door swung open, and their Mother walked in. She stopped suddenly and critically regarded the pair of them as they sat on the hall floor. An eyebrow rose sharply. “And what precisely has been going on here?”, she demanded. Elisha and Aaron looked at each other and considered the question for a few moments; “Nothing, Mother” they replied in unison, whilst rolling their eyes, as they both started to laugh.

Having made a few mistakes here or there with previous freespecs (like picking Assault with a view to picking Tactics, but not actually having a spare slot to pick it from 28 onwards, duh), I've now dropped both Deceive and Flash on the basis the former didn't suit my playstyle (so I never used it) and the latter is so slow to recharge and was fairly innacurate too (so I never used it).

So now have picked Tactics and Hasten in their place. With the tactics I'm now able to solo +5 Mins/Lts (with a bit of care), whereas without tactics I was struggling to do that with +3. Hasten is just a god-send. In the past 17 months I have read literally hundreds of posts where someone mentioned how great it was. Then it was 'Meh, it's not perma' after ED, so never gave it more thought.

But! In conjunction with the uber-goodness that is Siphon Speed, it is absolutely crazy... I just never appreciated the difference to be had in having a power that increases all recharge rates itself being recharge buffed by SS. Am loving it totally. And Transference too, it rocks.

To add some comments from others, have always had Group Invis, I love it, it's almost perma with 3 x Rchg SOs and it's a very 'heroey' power to use in a team situation (well, except for the moaney tank who can't herd because of it ).

The only powers in the /Kin set that I've skipped are Repel (does ANYONE pick this on a PvE build?), Increase Density and Inertial Redux. On my current build, I'm missing Deceive, Flash and Superior Invis from the Ill set.

Just thinking to myself if Flash would now be great with Hasten and Tactics, hmm.....

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Eh. A million a year really isn't all that much. I would have preferred Nick Tate, myself, but any of the top five American VO artists would have done the job.

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Great link, when it downloaded, that's the fella, yeah! From your earlier work however, I'd say you could tackle the job yourself, bringing grace, humility and a certain 'I don't know what' to the voiceover.

BTW, a million maybe isn't all that much to an artiste such as yourself, but what about us mere mortals lower down the food chain?

Anyway, shouldn't you be working on AAB Season 2 or something? Get back to work, you!

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I thought this second trailer captured the feeling of Ask A Ben a bit more than the first...

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Excellent! I only recently 'discovered' your stuff and it's bloody great! I'm donning my +5 cloak of patience until August

BTW, you surely missed a trick in not having that American trailer voiceover guy with the incredibly deep voice reading out the text? After a quick Wiki trip, I discovered I mean Don LaFontaine. IIRC, he's supposed to earn 1 Million dollars a year doing that job!

Question: Why is the sky blue? with a bonus q: of Why is the sky blue, black, then blue again really quickly in Paragon City?

Just to comment with the benefit of a couple of days practical experience, I forgot I still had the last freespec kicking around on Atom Splitter (as I'd created him ages ago) so specced in Mutation and got my level 50 friend to exemp down and graciously sacrifice himself for the benefit of science

He noticed a big difference post rez and I was watching him close by and attack rate etc was clearly up, lasted about 90 seconds or so and didn't appear to have any debuff at all, so was great. Recharge wasn't too scarey either. "Would work a treat in combat" was the quote, as per mentioned earlier in the thread...

We then tested a mish with his Warshade, which proceeded to knockback EVERYTHING going. He reckoned he's popular with tanks with that... I suggested that Rad defenders might get irritated too

Thanks again guys for valuable tips, much appreciated!

Forgot to add earlier - Thanks all for your comments, itching to try some stuff out tonight

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learning to live with that is part of the 'Zen of Rad'.
First there is no anchor. Then there is an anchor. Then there's none.

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Hehe, I noticed that already, there seems to be usually about a 5 second gap between the 2nd and 3rd part of that

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The version of CoH Planner you're using is severely out of date. Mutation is indeed a Rez power. It provides a really substantial buff to the rezzed character, but there hasn't been any kind of penalty associated with it since the launch of I3. Quite a useful power, although there are plenty of other Rad powers I'd normally take ahead of it.

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I might try it, maybe in the I7 freespec. BTW, rechecked my CoH Planner and it's the version that has the Villain ATs, so guess his description is just out of date.

About strategies for Radiation Infection and Enerverating Field - I see that both are AoE, but I'm assuming that the most impact of both RI and EF is seen on the anchor itself? So if, as I was last night, I'm up against large troll mobs with a couple of red conning Gardvards at either side of the mob, will I be more effective for my team (in both direct and AoE terms) if I apply both RI and EF to a single Gardvard, or if I apply RI to one and EF to the other?

Also, is there a good way to keep other team members off the anchor in a firefight? I can see a bind like /team "My anchor is $target, kill him last!" being OK, but guess that's not great if there's more than one of the same target in the mob.

Finally, I skipped Mutation on the basis of the description in CoH Planner that the ally is left severely weakened afterwards. Is this actually worth taking - it sounds like a Rad version of Resurrect, but the severely weakened bit puts me off.

Quite enjoying Rad/Rad I must say, a nice change from a Controller

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Just a quick tip for the Illusion powerset, for my travel power I decided on Flight, so instead of taking hover at lvl 6 I took air superiority instead. I have found this attack works great as a filler while waiting for spectral wounds to recharge, and when used with Blind for instance it does double damage.

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You know, although Hover has the +DEF, I've rarely used it since about level 10, but I still kept it during my last respec. This sounds like a great way to get some extra damage, and your use of it while spectral recharges sounds ideal.

As for general 'troller tips, I'd recommend expanding the active power display on the team window, so you can keep a close eye on your secondary buffs running out. I never used it until I got Speed Boost, but now find it invaluable.

Just planning for Level 28 and wondered if Inertial Reduction is worth picking, and if so in what circumstances is it useful?

Is this another Siphon Speed i.e. on first glance it appears to just do a single trick (jumping really high in this case), but actually has some really useful elements/side-benefit to it?

Any opinions most welcome.

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So u can have an almost premanent 40% recharge if u like without hasten. The -recharge and -speed (speedbuff is unsupressed in contrary to ss :-) debuff i like a lot too as tactical tool.

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Would agree with this. In my early days (i.e. for about my first four months of play ) I totally ignored Siphon Speed on the basis that CoH Planner describes the power as FOE -Speed, Self +Speed.
On the basis of that slightly "Meh" sounding description, I skipped it until I reached 24 (on my first incarnation of Sakura over on Defiant). I also made the mistake of making this build top heavy in favour of the Illusion set and took stuff like all the TP powers and very few of the Kinetics set. However, there's a subtlety to Siphon Speed (and the whole set in fact) that I just didn't grasp initially (Jeez, I didn't even twig on that it would also increase my RCHG rate!)

On this basis, when I re-created her on Union, I took SSpd as soon as I could and have taken most of the Kin power set as they unlock. Never looked back, never felt I was missing out by not having Hasten (although I've not run a build with both on test yet so can't comment with authority on that).

Bit of a pain if it misses at the wrong moment though, hence the ACC SO's (still running on a single ACC for it just now).

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This needs a second issue like William Shatner needs to release another album

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/em searches his HDD for that Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds MP3

Q - this is the best comic strip yet created in these hallowed forums, but your production values are way too high man. Less colours for teh win!!1!1!!

(seriously, #1 is pretty funny, gj!)