Scientist_16

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Whatever happened to those barcode guys? I remember some chatter on the forums but I never saw one in the D.

Do non damaging attacks like Twighlight Grasp or the temp extinguisher power make her submerge? Squirting her with a giant water hose seems to be fairly humane.

>.O

I'm male, and play female alts quite a bit. So This gives me a confusion. I do usually go with the Civie Spandex route of 'normal' clothes rather than spandex, a trend I've been mostly trying to invert lately.

I've never balked. . . no, that's a lie. I do occasionally balk at having characters exposing too much skin. One of my characters is based on the Yuki-Onna legend, part of which is the ice-spirits being basically naked in the snow. So one of her costumes has glowing blue eyes and a 'naked' body covered in frigid mist. It looks nice, but I'm usually very hesitant to click over to it despite the fact that it looks really neat, just based on how people will perceive me.

. . . I don't even remember what this conversation was about anymore. :\

Lunchtime now, so I can focus better.

I recently got a rather nice band brought to my attention, and one of their songs in particular caught my attention.

Click on 'The Watchmaker's apprentice'

And take a listen. The sheer amount of vindictiveness and schadenfreude in the song is staggering, it would make an absolutely stellar villain song.

So, as much as I don't condone those who just put lyrics in their bio, I've got to ask, what sort of villain would you roll with this song as your inspiration?

. . . . .What?

I don't get it.

>_>

<.<

Fine.

Awwwww Yeaaaaah!!!!

. . .I'm not really a car guy, but a quick google makes me say that that new challenger actually looks pretty awesome.

Can't actually say if it's GOOD or not, but. Awesome looking.

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I don't think references to how thick Desdemona is were meant to be negative...

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Holy. . . Oh no.

NO.

. . . Is this going to make Desdemona the new alternative to Ghost Widow?

BIAS NOTE: All information comes from a Kat/Will scrapper

1. Willpower is fairly survivable
2. Willpower works well 'out of the box'
3. Unknown, although I assume willpower can be turned into something truly frightening with IOs.
4. I personally have it off as often as I have it turned on.
5. You have a good mix of defensive types, but none of them are in themselves overwhelming. Overestimating your abilities leads to death.
6. I have no idea.
7. I have no idea.
8. No.

I read speculation elsewhere that the two are related. Melee was under psionic assault by mayhem and her seers. Either he was in enough psychic distress he couldn't maintain focus on his defensive abilities (Got toggle-dropped) or we can assume that Maelstrom killing Melee wasn't a spur-of-the-moment thing, and he'd been planning ways to kill his partner for a good time, and had acquired some special armor-piercing impervium-kryptonite bullets.

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I want a demon-summoning blaster!

1: Squirt Imp
2: Shoot Hordling
3: Behemoth Blast
4: Behemoth Master Catapult (Snipe)
5: Swing Behemoth Lord (PBAoE)
6: Drop Behemoth Overlord (AoE)
7: Whirling Hellfrost Melee
8: Lillitu Lashing
9: Envoy of Shadows Chestburster (Auto-Hit, ST, insta-death)

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. . . .
. . . .

*looks over at the midnight club*


The objects concealed behind the glass have all been taken from the Circle of Thorns Each description reads more bizarre than the last:
[...]
Lilitu's Corset
inappropriately acquired by Alistair McKnight


So, we've stolen her Corset and apparently her whip now? >_>

It's been incorporated for a while, insofar as that electricity is red villainside.

I'm highly expectant for dual pistols, as I've had a character I've wanted to make with that set for a while. Sadly, I'd slated to release him as Dual Pistols/Poison corruptor, so I have to hope for proliferation of that set first, and then be accepting that I'm going to dissapear into a horde of characters with similar powersets.

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If they are implanted that could lead to so many awkward situations on shore leave o.@

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You think that's bad? Consider Crab Spiders. Far worse, in my opinion, although that also leads the question of that's just a backpack or cyberneticly fused to the spine. I tend to believe the latter, if only because they're nonremovable, but that may be just a game limitation rather than reflecting the canon.

Intimate situations are complicated by eighty-odd pounds of fusion cannon and impervium claws.

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Irrelevant. There was never an official press release saying "Hey ya'll! We're doing bases!" If they had then they'd have been proper screwed had they not done it.

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Above post at least 12% funnier if you read the opening sentence as Yoshimitsu from Soul Calibur II.

Regardless, I'm curious as to speculation as to the heroic contacts in Praetoria. Who do we know is still alive and rebelling against Emperor Cole in that dimension, aside from the Carnival of Light? Will the 'villainous' contacts be working at oppressing the masses for Tyrant's side, or some other group we're unaware of?

There are lots of questions left unanswered. However, on topic, Desdemona and Maelstrom are very cool, and I rather like Desdemona's name.

Doesn't mean I'm not gonna make fun of the short-shorts.

Doom.

On the flipside, there are still some servers up, so I can noodle with the costume creator in the meantime.

Do Frost Breath and Bile Spray cause wretching, puke-y sounds when you use them? O.o

Or is it just the cone of green BLEAAARGH that everyone loves so much?

Like dead fish. Dead, spectral fish.

Noodling around on Mids eventually led to the creation of this monstrosity as the alternate build for my huntsman. I think the original goal was to create a pseudo-mastermind build with the spider pets, but when that didn't pan out I just made a blasty build using the mace.

So, while I'm sure someone out there has tried this before, is anyone able to vouch for it as either completely unworkable or a viable (If non-optimized) build?



Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

Beamspam: Level 50 Natural Arachnos Soldier
Primary Power Set: Bane Spider Soldier
Secondary Power Set: Bane Spider Training
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Mace Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Mace Beam -- (A)(3)(9)(15)(23)(25)
Level 1: Bane Spider Armor Upgrade -- (A)
Level 2: Mace Beam Blast -- (A)(3)(9)(15)(23)(25)
Level 4: Combat Training: Defensive -- (A)(5)(5)
Level 6: Build Up -- (A)(7)(7)
Level 8: Combat Jumping -- (A)(19)(46)
Level 10: Tactical Training: Maneuvers -- (A)(11)(11)(17)(37)(40)
Level 12: Poisonous Ray -- (A)(13)(13)(17)(34)(37)
Level 14: Super Jump -- (A)
Level 16: Swift -- (A)
Level 18: Health -- (A)(19)
Level 20: Stamina -- (A)(21)(21)
Level 22: Mental Training -- (A)
Level 24: Mace Beam Volley -- (A)(50)(50)(50)
Level 26: Hasten -- (A)(27)(27)
Level 28: Surveillance -- (A)(29)(29)(43)
Level 30: Tactical Training: Leadership -- (A)(31)(31)(31)(36)(37)
Level 32: Shatter -- (A)(33)(33)(33)(34)(34)
Level 35: Placate -- (A)(36)(36)
Level 38: Call Reinforcements -- (A)(39)(39)(39)(40)(40)
Level 41: Mace Blast -- (A)(42)(42)(42)(43)(43)
Level 44: Disruptor Blast -- (A)(45)(45)(45)(46)(46)
Level 47: Summon Blaster -- (A)(48)(48)(48)
Level 49: Tactical Training: Assault -- (A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- (A)
Level 1: Sprint -- (A)
Level 2: Rest -- (A)
Level 1: Conditioning
------------

Interesting, interesting. I'll have to look and see, but this seems promising.

*checking*

Ack, even specifically enhancing the range is nowhere as good. Oh, well. Just something to fire off before entering melee, then.

Thank you for all the advice.

Allright, before my brain COMPLETELY shuts down, I'd like the Brute board's opinion on something. A while back I was looking at the patron sets and noticed that Leviathan brutes get two interesting powers:

Bile Spray 44 Cone Damage over time (Toxic)
Arctic Breath 44 Cone Damage over time (Cold)

Following a logical(?) line of thought from there, I looked up brute primaries and found Fire Melee, which has

Breath of Fire 18 Cone Damage over Time(Fire)

So, the attractive proposition of a character that can breathe fire, ice, and poison has led me to see if this is moderately viable, since the guides I've checked seem to discourage brutes taking fire breath.

Thoughts? Failing breathing death all over people, how well would a fire/reflex brute work?

Lawl Warriors.

. . . . .

Okay, as much as the Warriors really do need some additional love, I seem to recall them being pretty limited in level range. Warriors with shields seems to be the purview of AE concept arcs rather than an overhaul of the current villain group.

Down on shields, yes on more Warrior arcs/backstory/TFs.

Or, actually, increase the level range they can appear at and have some of the upgraded forms use shields. That would work.

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Actually, there was another option: Use a second Scrolls of Icarian Flight on your way down. The scrolls worked exactly the same as Super Jump, except it only lasted for about half the duration of your travel, so on the way down it had worn off

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Really begs the question why he named the scrolls ICARIAN flight if he thought they would really work, as his research notes seemed to indicate. Rule of Funny at work, I suppose.

Let's see if I can take a crack at rationally addressing some of the problems here, and how I'd envision some of them being solved.

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1. Movement.

Forward and back,even turning - ok. But you can do things that a vehicle can't - such as strafe (direct side to side or angular movement.) It doesn't work with a vehicle. There are also issues such as drift and "realistic" handling. We can go side to side, as mentioned, and make immediate right angle turns. Cars... not so much.

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The main solution I can think of to this is just to cause the car to hairpin-turn and be forced to face the direction that it's moving at all times. This means, yes, you do get vans doing hairpin curves, but it does work somewhat better than removing the ability to strafe. On the note of drift and realistic handling, I'd think that having those not apply to any super-heroic vehicles we happen to use would be a blessing, especially since the only thing we have like that currently is the drift we get with fly and on ice.

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2. Movement, part 2.

Go stand in the road. No, not you personally. Take your character out and stand in the road, if you're heroside. Or even in the path of civilians. What happens? You get pushed. While not as big an issue with a motorcycle, perhaps, a car would have issues. What happens if two cars meet head on - yours and an NPC, or yours and another player's? Do you just pass through each other? Would you be satisfied with that very odd result? Or would you get stuck? How about those NPCs, can they walk and push your car, or are they walking through it? Neither answer is very satisfying, and intelligent, dynamic pathing is too computationally expensive.

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I would, in fact, be fine with being pushed around by cars and civilians. I'm fairly certain some power-armored heroes and villains are on the brutish end of the scale and weigh as much as several cars, and get pushed around by traffic and pedestrians already. It's one bit of immersion-breaking thing that I've already gotten used to in CoX.

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3. Terrain.

Not every place has roads, or even makes sense for "off roading." Go look at Founder's Falls. Go look at Crey's Folley. Or Eden. Try to get to the north islands in Talos. What, do you have a kubelwagen? Look at the Pit in Sharkshead. Try to use your travel power (car) to get up to some of the doorways in high caves. Cars and motorcycles would be more like Superspeed - horizontal movement, period. And look - I'll be blunt - flat out *stupid* tied with, say, Combat Jumping or Superjump.

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No, I don't have a Kubelwagen. I have the amazing JUSTICE MOBILE. And it has rocket thrusters on the bottom for the occasion that I need to hop over insurmountable foot high walls.

You may think that jumping cars are stupid, I think the chiller haircut is stupid, but both are things that some people would readily use in the game where they available. Superspeed is pretty viable as a travel power bar a few zones like Grandville, so either cars aren't ground-locked or players turn off their travel toggle, hop over the impeding object, turn their toggle back on.
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4. Combat.

You get ambushed on the way. How do you fight? Just have your powers blast out of the rolled up windows? How do you buff or debuff? EVERY power would need a new animation. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. Then you want people with motorcycles instead of cars. Redo ALL the animations AGAIN. And they still wouldn't make sense - how do you use Footstomp in a car? Or Stalagmites?


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As hillarious as it would be to see an AR blaster or corruptor doing drive-bys, Redoing animations to work emenating from a vehicle isn't practical. Using the shape-shifting tech from the kheldians to turn off the players powers (And optionally grant new ones, like a rocket and gun attack should they be piloting a skiff) would be the only way I'd see travel being practical with the vehicle.


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5. Customizing.

Yeah, it would come up. Not everyone would want a sports car, or a mid-70s Buick boat, or an exotic, or a minivan, or whatever else.


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We have customizable weapons, hints at customizable powers in the pipeline, and there are already a good amount of car models in the game at present. I don't see this as a huge issue.

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6. Making "sense."

This was touched on in terrain - how do you get across water? How about the Shadow Shard? And if you want downright ridiculous looking, go do the heroside 25-34 Respec. Look at the Sky Skiffs inside of rooms or the reactor room. It makes no sense and looks *ridiculous.* Something that, yes, the devs try to avoid.


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The whole concept of the Sky Raider jetpack troopers indoors makes me giggle occasionally. But the Devs give us lots of opportunity to look ridiculous with our costumes and power selections right now (CHILLER HAIRCUT) that I don't think having cars running through the water. My Elec/ Stalker and /Elec brute are much worse in a fridge-logic sort of way when I need to swim. If the travel-power supresses combat like suggested, people will drive to the next mission, get off, get into the mission, and fight crime. Much like heroes without travel powers in actual comics use them, leaving their car-related superspeed at the door.



Meh, there's probably quite a few holes in that. But I don't think vehicles are hugely insurmountable, but they would definately take work to be a satisfying addition to the game.