Scientist_16

As an 'added bonus' to your normal thread-viewing pleasure, 'Punch the Author of this Arc in the Crotch: With a meteor' is now up and playable. Just search @Crasical in the mission architect system for it.

Me: Why don't you have a body?
ctab: I asked... And they said I'd figure it out on my own.
Me: Kelp is mean, not giving you a body.
ctab: There's another way to know?
Me: You should take Kelp's body.
ctab: I don't know...
Me: You should do it.
ctab: I'll try!


I've since moved from trying to make ctab merely evil and trying
to make it want to be my henchman.

Hello, and welcome back to another edition of ZERO STARS, your best and brightest place to receive the murkiest and grimiest that AE has to offer.
*Cue Theme Song*

. . . Note to self: Compose ZERO STARS Theme song.

This time, I'll be checking out
Arc name: King Dong
Arc ID: 15459
Morality: Villainous
Average Rating: 2 stars
Description: Kill King Dong

In another shameless bid to inflict my characters upon you, I'll open by introducing the character I used to run through the mission with. Today, I'll be playing through the arc this time with Red Oni, a level 21 War Mace/Invuln tanker. There's a small part of me that's feeling apprehensive over sending a female alt into a mission labeled 'King Dong' but I've played a mastermind long enough to know it's occasionally beneficial to send your underlings to their death, so what the hell.

The mission contact turns out to be “dust bunny”, who has a sort of pissed-off expression and a schoolgirl outfit in green and brown, complete with plush kitten on her shoulder, and asks me to 'take care of' a 'friend' of hers.

. . .Little girl, you just asked a supervillain to take care of someone, so I HOPE he's not actually your friend. More importantly, she just asked a brutish ogre, so I whack her over the head with my club and step into the mission over her unconcious body.

Once inside, I'm greeted by a lowly minion of the 'dongers' faction, a “Dongers servant” a man with a horrible outfit with a bowler, kilt, vest, beard and glasses, all dual-toned purple and pink. He offers me a seat and a complementary fistful of arrows, which I decline and beat him senseless for being a crime against fashion. They also have the ability to channel their sheer . . . costume-ic badness into a burst of repelling force, as evidenced by having the force-field secondary with only force-bolt, as the next mob of guys decides to show me, before defaulting to their bows. My eyes where immediately drawn to the Lts in the next mob, partly because I wanted to check their powers and assess the danger but MOSTLY because the minons where a little painful to look at. The 'donger' lts are called 'Dongers Overseers' and . . . Wait, hey. I know that preset costume, even through the blue and purple~ That's one of the preset costumes, the Mobster one. I have time to reflect that 'dust bunny' was also just a two-toned recolor of an existing set, as well, before the overseers draw dual scimitars and move in to attack, glowing yellow with the indomitable willpower of old men with swords. They go down, but not before stabbing Red Oni to death once, proving that I'm god-awful at playing brutes. Continuing through the office gives me time to reflect on my own costume design, and how despite how self-critical I am, I'm at least better dressed than the people who slam 'random' four times and go with the best one. I'm practically in the zen trance of abusing people with a spiked metal club when suddenly, . . Hearken, blue letters! Actual NPC dialog! After the echoing, aching silence of Sephiroth challenge, NPC chatter falls like a shaft of golden light. Sadly, it's the kind of glowing light from above that comes from a satellite and destroys your hometown rather than anything that grants enlightenment, since the NPC chatter is one of the Donger servants doing his best bond villain impersonation.

[NPC] Dongers Servant: Well Well seems you made a major error zivion hope you enjoy your last hour to live.

Eh? Zivion? Who's Zivion? Um. Well, there's a Zivion in the objectives menu, so. . . Huh. I guess I have back-up? How thoughtful of miss Dustbunny to send us backup. Maybe I shouldn't have clubbed her. However, the wordy Servant catches eyes on me halfway through setting up the giant torture centrifuge.

[NPC] Dongers Servant: What is this!!! Is this your back up Zivion

. . .No, He's MY backup. And you can go ahead and kill him, if he got himself captured by a pair of even-con minions then I don't need him.

They find this line of logic unappealing, or maybe they want to go ahead and use the giant torture centrifuge as much as possible while it's out, so they attack me and I'm forced to bash them in the head to make them stop plinking at me with arrows. Zivion frees himself once the minions are dead and blurts out

[NPC] Zivion: Finally you made it.

. . . Finally? If I'd known you were here, got captured by Dr. Donger and his white fluffy cat and were about to be killed, I might have come sooner.

[NPC] Zivion: Ok lets go get King dong

. . You're not even listening. I'm going to drag you into the mountains and let the Oni tribe eat your delicious flesh when this is over.

Zivion gets his costume looked over in detail, since he's the least painful thing around, and a certain level of detail and care in his mostly-green and spiky outfit makes me think he might be one of the authors characters, although he still doesn't have any info text. I lead him around the corner and hear more NPC chatter letting me know I've reached my destination. King Dong can apparently see through walls (Which leads to my crack theory that he has his name due to having X-Ray vision as an uncontrollable, always on power, and staring at the naked bodies of others through their clothes has given him a permanent, painful erection. It's certainly not him being named after King Kong, who he resembles in absolutely no way other than using the Huge body type), because he calls out and greets us as we climb the stairs to him.

[NPC] King Dong: Ahh hello there Zivion please come in and sit down, oh it seems your not in the mood for chating eh.

. . Noooot particularly. Not if you're not going to use capitalization and punctuation properly. And then I round the corner and look at the beast. And he's in a suit, huge, wearing a top-hat, and yammering into his cell-phone to call int a swarm of mercenaries. He finally takes notice of us and pulls out a rifle, shooting Red Oni in the chest. I'm ABOUT to retaliate, when Zivion, who's been picking his nose and occasionally contributing a throwing knife to fights, draws dual blades and rushes King Dong, going into the usual flurry of acrobatic cuts.

[NPC] King Dong: really thats it, well then this should be easy.

Bwuh-hey? I know you're both Elite Bosses, maybe went to school together, some kind of rivalry here, but. . DUDE. You're blocking the whole door too, so I can't close to melee. On the other hand, the mercs are shooting HIM now.

[NPC] King Dong: Hmm your stronger then you look Zivion.

. . . Oh, I get it. It's the King Dong and Zivion Show. I'm just here to unstrap people from giant centrifuges and clear out the minions. Well, fine. I can tell when I'm not appreciated.

/em yoga

[NPC] King Dong: This cant be im losing!!!
. . . .
[NPC] King Dong: I shall not lose and be replaced!!!

. . . . . (In danger of being replaced? So if you kill King Dong then you become the next King Dong? Um. 'kay? I'm not sure what happens if Red Oni kills him then. In fact, I don't want to know that. I'm fairly sure it ends up with her beating people to death with a massive futa.)

[NPC] King Dong: NOOOOOOOO!

Yay, Mission complete. > Jerk.
So I leave and head back outside to see if Dust Bunny has anything interesting to say, or hopefully a reward, seeing as how the arc is villainous and I'd prefer it not be murder for the kicks of it, especially since I didn't get to fight the big-boss himself. Dust Bunny has made a good recovery from her crack on the noggin, since she's standing up and greets me happily.

"thank you so much now im finally free."

Free? Um. You where indebted/enslaved/working for King Dong? And you're. . . in a schoolgirl outfit.
. . . . .
Well that path of mental assumption didn't lead anywhere good. Poor girl. I feel bad for hitting her now. I didn't know King Dong was into smaller women. :\ Whatever, though. No Reward, no nothing. Just a random murder because a girl in a too-short skirt asked us to. Hooray for motiveless villainy.


JERK MOVES: -1 (There aren't enough types of enemies for them to build up anything like synergy, but the spammed KB blast on the minions might be aggravating on classes without resistance to it.)
INCOHERENCY: -3 (There is a plot, but it's not very well explained. King Dong is going to be replaced? Dust Bunny is Free? Spelling and grammar errors don't help)
IRRITATION: -4 (Why hello there! My name's Zivion, I'm going to finish the map for you, and all minions will act like you're my sidekick if they acknowledge you at all!)
COMPLETEABLE: -1 (Perfectly completable.)

FINAL ANGRY METER: 2

This got me a little angry. The Zivion Ex Machina spotlight stealing squad jerk really does . . well, he doesn't ruin a perfectly good mission, but he does make it clear that the story is all about him and gives the arc some vanity publishing gloss.

The chance of Build Up proc, to my knowledge, works like most of the other procs. When you use a power that it has been slotted in, it has a chance of going off and giving you a mini-build up.

So, if you slotted it into build-up, any time you fired off build-up, there would be a random chance that the proc will activate and you will get the bonuses of the Proc on top of normal build-up, a sort of 'Critical Build Up' if you will.

You could also slot it into, say, Tactics, and as long as tactics was running every ten seconds you would have a chance for the build-up to go off.

Personally, I think slotting it into build-up is a sound tactical decision, since if you've hit build-up you intend to wreck something anyway and you're probably in a position that the extra damage is going to be beneficial.

I'm still solely on Virtue, and I've filled up every slot with a menagerie of alts, so I don't see it being my main server changing anytime soon.
However, just because I have all my alts filled, I might head off to a different server at some point just for more characters.

Hi there! This is Crasical here, bringing you in the latest in ZERO STARS review action! Since the last arc ended up giving Terminus some minor trauma, and because I hope that the meteoric popularity of his reviews thread will rub off on me in some way, I've decided to contribute a solo review of my own.

Yes, TerminusEst13 had nothing to do with the testing or writing of this review.

. . . Yes, I can feel your disinterest and scorn already, but look at it this way, If I do reviews of my own then you get twice as many reviews! Even if some are of dubious quality.



(I really hope this isn't a train wreck. D: )

Before we begin, I'll make a short introduction of the character I used, my mafia mastermind Lil' Red Hood. Wave to the silly internet people, Red . She's a Mercs/Trap Mastermind, so you should take my appraisals of difficulty with a sizeable grain of salt, considering I have endless mook swarms at my disposal.

Sephiroth Run Down
Arc ID: 147603
Morality: Neutral
Description: test your might

First off, with that as the arc description, I'm really dissapointed that there isn't a destructable car somewhere on the map as an optional objective. But, I'm feeling pretty mighty since I'm surrounded by hordes of large men with guns, so I enter into the arc, breath bated with excitement as to who the mission contact is going to be. I bet it's Cloud, off to send me on whimsical journies against his emo archenemy. Truly, this shall be an epic tale of massive swords and long summons.

I promptly lose that bet seeing that the contact is in fact NOT Cloud Strife, but the archetypical white-haired prettyboy himself. Black Trenchcoat, Black Boots, White hair and white shoulderpads, Fangirl attraction point bare chest. So, presumably, this being the Sephiroth Run Down, he's either going to challenge me to a duel, or send me after the protagonists of FF7. So, I walk up to accept what I assume is going to be a page of badly-written dialogue explaining the task. Instead, I get:

"yo this mish is hard as balls"

. . . . .

Now, I've got to confess something. I never played FF7. I've watched Advent Children twice and played three or four hours of Kingdom Hearts, but that's it. However, even with my limited experience with the game. . .

I'm pretty sure Sephiroth doesn't talk like that.

So, Evidently, either we've stepped into a paralell universe without noticing and we are in fact conversing with Gangstaroth, or we've stepped on our first landmine, that this mission has absolutely no story. Since the latter assumption depresses me, I'm going to go with the former. So. Gangstaroth wants me to do his 'Hard as balls mission' * , but won't tell me what it is unless I accept. Okaaay? I guess I could use the street cred, so I'll help him out. Lessee.

"Word up brother, I got the mad skillz to fullfillz your hard-balls mission, yo dawg."

This fails to provoke a reaction. Apparently I could do with some brushing up on my gangsta before attempting such feats of linguistics, so I click accept instead, and get 'good luck' from Gangstaroth as he sends me on my way. The nav bar now reads "..." as does Gangstaroth upon further pestering. With such limited information I'm expecting swarms of ambushes to hit me as soon as I enter the mission, but I dive in anyway.

Upon landing in the mission and summoning my kneebreaker squad, I take a look around. Okay, Looks like I'm in Kings Row. Say a quick prayer that Blue Steel's infernal gaze doesn't fall upon my villainous self tresspassing in his domain, and look up to see what my missions are.
"..." Is still my mission objective. Audible silence? Maybe this is supposed to be a sneaking mission. The sub-objectives are "20 infused clone, 5 Sephiroth". Are these rescues, boss defeats, escorts, what? Nav computer has little info to offer on the matter, so I peer around and SWEET HEAVENS NO.

Now, Masterminds have a wonderful power called Bodyguard. And it lets your mooks take some of the bullet for you and spare your squishy self. It even works on psionic attacks! It apparently does not work on terrible color combinations. How I long for the swarms of all-black Chaos Order goons back when I was saving strippers. Bland and ugly, yes, but not as distractingly bad as the jumpsuits on the custom minions barring my path. Horrible purple and Blue suits with white helmets and guns, but really. It's the suits that give me trauma. I'd really rather have had my burly Commando fling himself onto Red and squash her flat defending her rather than have to see those things unprepared.

Clashing colors aside. /info gives me nothing aside from that they are minions, called Grunts, and are part of the 'Shinar' organization. Alternate dimenion branch of Shinra? Typo? Something else? I'll assume so with the arcs theming that they meant the Shinra group from FF7. Their jumpsuits also mark them as wholly expendable mooks, so I mow them down in groups hunting the map for my objectives. They do manage to become annoyances by lobbing webnades at me, making them AR/Devices, but never really present a real threat, since Lil' Red has gotten far beyond the point in her career where being covered in silly-string was a major hazard.

Since there are 20 of them, It doesn't take long for me to find my first 'Infused Clone'. And it's quickly apparent who this is supposed to be a clone of. Bare chest, bondage straps, white hair, leather pants and boots. Eyup. Sephiroth Clone. Obviously Gangstaroth wanted me to wipe out his rival Sephiroths from other dimensions, since the map pretty clearly tells me that there are 5 Sephiroths I need to defeat before the mission ends. Why Gangstaroth is sending little mafia girls to do his dirty work is beyond me, though. Maybe it's more gangsta to send a lackey to off your rivals than to do it yourself? I'm not sure. I'm also not sure what exactly these clones have been infused with. Mana, Materia, Cool ranch dip, Shirt-dissolving bacteria, I have no idea. They notably lack the contact's trenchcoat, though, so I'm starting to think the latter, or that these clones haven't been able to Ebay up movie-prop recreations of the original coat to wear.

The Infused Clones are all bosses, and defeating my first one shows they are Katana/Energy Blast, although with the caveat that my normal tactics seem to have them greatly prefering their energy blasts to actually cutting things, and they only whip out their blades to pose dramatically with them for build-up. Poseur pretty boys. They aren't huge pains, but when they build up they can floor a minion pretty instantly, and I'd rather not my made men get blown into next week by a Bishonen clone.

Clearing the map a little more gives me startling insight on three points, firstly, that this is the Kings Row map with the Carnie tents set up, secondly, that the Infused Clones can fly and will run away if they feel sufficiently threatened, and that the Shinar have a Lt. in their ranks, a 'Crise core'. They look rather similar to the Grunts, which sadly means yes, more of that horrible color scheme, but they have their jackets hanging open and yellow skin with tall, spikey hair. They have glowing energy Broadswords and energy blasts, and aren't any more annoying than the rest of the Shinar mooks, aside from me finding them slightly worse to look at than the mooks. It's the skin that did it for me, really. I was hoping for MiBs in suits after that movie, but oh well.

Further exploration lets me down another Clone and brings me up againt the first Sephiroth, an EB who looks exactly the same as the mission contact, except for with the Reflections Effect put on him, so he has transparency and a glowy white aura. This leads me to my main theory as to the 'Real' plot of this mission:
1. Carnies throw awesome parties. Really awesome. Seriously, you should try and attend one some time.
2. All the dimensional Sephiroths came from their own little realities to attend said awesome carnie parties.
3. Gangstaroth sends me to wipe out all his competition since there can be only one.
4. Profit? I don't know.

Anyway, opening the assault lets me know that the dimensional Sephiroth have Katana too, but unlike their clones they aren't afraid to get in close and wreck my guys, which is bad since he occasionally uses Parry and I have to back off a bit before he stops blocking all my guys bullets. They also have Gravity manipulation, and since I saw him use Wormhole, Dimension shift, Singularity, Lift and propel along with his holds and immobs, I'm going to assume he's set to Extreme with it, and since I saw Golden Dragonfly, I'm going to assume He's also extreme with his sword. I can see him being a HUGE pain in the butt for other archetypes.

Eventually, Seph goes down. Hooray! But, then. . . yeah. Remember way back when I entered the mission? My objectives where "20 infused clone, 5 Sephiroth".

Yeah. 20 Bosses, 5 EBs.

No-one has info text, no-one has dialogue. The whole thing gets sloggy and boring really quick, only the density of the Infused Clones preventing it from really feeling like you're hunting all over the map. Presuming you eventually do complete the mission, yay, you exit and go talk to Gangstaroth again.

He's as laconic as usual.
"wow good job"
Is all he has to say to you. And then the mission ends before you can stab him and rid the world of all Sephiroths from all dimensions forever.

JERK MOVES: -1 (There wasn't anything that felt hugely unfair to me. Annoying, but not hugely unfair, with the exception of the EXTREME bosses and Elite Bosses.)
INCOHERENCY: -5 (There is no plot here. There is barely any dialogue. I have suspicious that the only reason 'Sephiroth' is spelled correctly and capitalized consitently is that it was copy-pasted from the internet straight into the text fields to ensure it was spelled correctly.)
IRRITATION: -3 (Pretty irritating. Although it's not a Kill-all, it is a huge street-sweep with stronger than average enemies. Thankfully, the Kings Row/Carnie map isn't THAT big.)
COMPLETEABLE: -2 (Pretty completable, with patience and a good enough build to weather the unfair bosses.)

FINAL ANGRY METER: 1

Honestly, this didn't really get me angry.As mentioned before, with your brain shut off and your expectations low, you never really reach the point where you're hunting over a map for the last guy, since the mission is locked at level 40+ and you should have your travel power to seach the city from the skies, and the place is thick with mission objectives anyway. Really, though, the arc isn't worth your time, there isn't any sense of accomplishment to wiping the floor with sephiroth five times.

So, what have we learned here today, kids? Sephiroth can't protect you from the mafia, I can't use slang, and plotless arcs are boring unless they have a good range of objectives and missions. Most importantly though, Sephiroth can't protect you from the mafia, so if you love your kneecaps, you should pay up when the Family comes a callin'.

Depending on how this is recieved, I'll either slink back to being a lowly lab assistant to Term, or continue doing solo reviews to supplement the lag between the official, Terminus sanctioned ones.

See you down the road: @Crasical.




*As a footnote, 'Hard as balls'? To my knowledge balls are not hard, and in fact are the real-life equivalent to a pulsing orange weak point in their soft, squishy damage amplication.

If I recall correctly, Pain (In the arc) was Trick Arrow. Or it may have just been him using the bow that comes with ninja mastery, I'm not sure. I don't recall him using Pain Domination powers, and I hope I would have noted the doom-red aura.

Just kind of throwing it out there.

And I WISH We'd gotten those guys, even if it would have been a complete rip off. All the guys we fought had the exact same hooded costume, the same dialogue "YOUR DEATH WILL MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE" (Said when they killed one of us, or when they themselves died. ?_?) and the same bio 'ONE OF THE SIX REALMS OF PAIN'.

Crasical here.

The dungeon's not that bad, actually. Dark, but not really dank, and I get a few days between arcs because both of us need time for our minds, fingers and souls to heal. The last few arcs I got smart and played as a mastermind so I didn't have to click, so it's not even been that bad!

. . . . . .

Actually, that's a lie. Playing these arcs still gives me a discomfort. But I'm doing it for science! Or at least that's what I've been told and what keeps me going through the encroaching madness.

I actually like oatmeal, but Chocolate chip is better. I haven't had enough peanut butter cookies to form an opinion on the matter.

I sadly don't have the arc number, but try out 'The Secret Origin of: Lil' Red Hood' by searching @Crasical. The arc is open to a wide level range, but it's mostly been tested near the upper end of the scale. Villainous arc.

Be most grateful if you played it.

Lusca needs to be overhauled into a giant, levitating psychic squid.

Or just given an emote like 'rampage' or the hellion molotov throw. Something to give it a sense of actual menace or something, hurling stuff at the shore or have some of the tentacles doing the tentacle lash emote on a bit of scenery.

I mean, do people still fight Lusca? I had to put together two and a half teams before people would agree to attack the thing. Seems like there are always giant octopi in the bay when I run through IP.

This topic was making me right up until the point the trigu^H^H-gun Silliness with fleeting Whisper started up. So kudos on saving the topic, in my decidedly unhumble opinion.

So, I'll try and look at this sort of thing analytically, and I'll try and address the parts of this topic I didn't rage over, are ignoring because I don't have a good response, or just didn't read.

1. Anime themed zone: I'd personally not be happy if this was introduced. Anime is such a widespread genre that one zone trying to feed each anime trope or idea would feel mish-mashy, and secondly zones appear nontrivial to add to the game. So, I'd rather the devs did other things than make an anime zone.

2. 'Rage' Temp power. I have never played a Superstrength alt high enough to pick up Rage, but from what I've heard it's quite potent. So, it would have to be a nerfed version, and I'd much rather have something truly weird and unique like the last two powers. Self destruct KILLS you and Tarot has a completely random buff, two things that to my knowledge we've not had in game before now. I'd like to see these fun innovations brought into the game with the packs. Having a repackaged, weak version of an existing power doesn't seem quite as fun.

3. Anime Expansion: A real expansion-esque add-on like City of Villains or Going Rogue that is Anime again is something I feel is akin to a giant platter of delicious sushi. Now, Some of us love sushi and can gobble it up and say that the raw fish gives us happiness and we shoot fruity-oaty rainbows out of our mouth. BUT some people don't like it. So, not everyone is eating from the delicious platter. Which is a problem, especially since our cooking developers would have to set quite a few people to make all the sushi for us, and if not everyone eats it then they've lost out on both time and money.
[/Extended metaphor]
What I'm getting at is that something like an expansion pack that's fully anime-d up is indulging a small niche of the population, and really spends to much time and money on something not everyone will enjoy.

4. Anime booster Pack
Now, this I really don't see what the big exploding ninja deal is. The booster packs, I believe, have shifted from 'Nifty stuff' to 'Nifty stuff that doesn't appeal to everyone, so you can buy only the packs you like'. Personally, someone who exclusively loves their Golden Age comics probably wouldn't pick up the magic pack. Or maybe they would, I'm not good with the comic ages. BUT. The point is, if you don't like, say, the wedding pack, you don't have to buy it. I'm thinking that the anime fans in the game are numerous enough that the pack would get people buying it, and thus it's worth the time/money it would take to create it.

5. What specifically should go into such a booster?
"costume parts based on anime series (e.g. series from shonen jump)"

Based on? Maybe. MAYBE. Some costume bits are very much tied to a series, to the point that it's almost like a trademark. I'd rather we didn't get too close to established bits of costumage. Stuff loosely based on some of anime's improbably cool clothes, or bits of costume that seem to run from character to character, would be good to model off of, though. Honestly, what precicely would be good filler for a costume pack like this is beyond me, especially since there are literally dozens of pieces that people would like added and we seem to get maybe ten or fifteen new bits per pack.




Now, some of you have expressed distaste for the concept. I'd like to take a moment to address some of your concerns.


"So we get an addon where we can set different sleeve and pant leg options per appendage and slap on multiple belts where ever we want them and wrap random parts in bandages. "

That's not ALL there are to anime-style costumes.


"Because there arent enough Naruto, Inuyasha, Tri-Gun clones out there already. "

I haven't seen any, personally, although I don't doubt you CAN make them. But, just because the potential exists that someone CAN create a clone of an existing hero is not a reason to remove or withhold costume pieces. As an aside, I remember people complaining about City of Neo when trenchcoats came out and I don't seem to recall a terribly large influx of chosen ones.

"/unsigned just on principle. The game is based on american comic books/superheroes, not japanese ones. "

It's been noted, the two appear to be moving towards becoming more unified and similar. Considering the number of players that can and do disregard superheroic themes and tropes in their characters and make use of the wonderfully robust costume creation we have, I think it's a little impulsive to state that anything that doesn't fit what you consider to be the established theme not something that can or should be supported.

"
Azure,

I wasn't sure it was possible, but you just made me like this suggestion even less. "

Now that's just rude.

"most of the other options, IMO, aren't cool. In fact, I don't find most of them even vaguely aesthetically pleasing."

I absolutely hate that swirly haircut with three spikes on male characters. Hate it. Just because I don't find some things in the game aesthetically pleasing is not a reason not to include them, because obviously quite a few people DO like them.

"I thought it was City of Heroes not City of Anime...... "

It's City of Heroes, Villains, Wherewolves, Robots, ect ect ect. 'Hero' and 'villain' encompass a lot of genres, and a lot of players seem to like using more than just colored spandex in their outfits.

"
And lets see..... cat-ears...check. Sword/Katana.... check. White spiky long hair... check. white robe... check.
Its really easy. Ive seem some impressivly accurate clones... and I cant report them fast enough. "

Didn't Inuyasha have a red robe? Also. Clones of Wolverine are just as worthy of being generic'd as those of Naruto.


Having run out of steam there, I think I'll end post. It's probably unweildly huge at this point anyway.

I seem to recall one of Television's missions having an escort to zone exit on an outdoor map, and it being similarly frustrating to make the NPC exit. It's not an isolated MA thing.

Also, I'd like to make an apology to any members of that PUG that end up reading this and taking offense at my mocking the entire team getting ruthlessly slaughtered by the Council when I stopped using my holds and debuffs.

Bweheheheh.

. . . . . Yes. I do want one. I don't really know why though.

I'm just a little bit terrified.

. . . .Huh?

I'm confused. I'm rather enjoying my mind blaster, and at level 38 I think I've already had a chance to sample most of the powers. Then again, my other Blaster is arch/Dev, and I've never played Fire or Ice, so I can't compare to either of those sets.

Mental Manipulation coupled with Psi blast leaves you with a good spawn blast of
Psychic Scream +> Psychic Tornado +> Close to Melee +> Optional Drain Psyche +> Psychic Shockwave.
It's gotten me along so far.

I guess I should disclaimer that people learned I was fighting Nemesis with my psy blaster, and wrote me off as a loony for it. My game experience may not reflect your own.

I also guess that I can give some vanilla advice for Psychic Blast:

Take Psi Dart and Mental Blast, a Blaster's defiance seems to work best with both early attacks

TK Blast is wonderful, pick it up. Aim is nice.

Will Domination is Meh, especially if you team a lot. The sleep becomes less useful.

Snipe is to your personal preference. I took mine.

Psinado is the weak member of the AoE combo blast I mentioned before, and without the other Mental Manipulation sets to back it up it might not be worth your time, although the knockdown it does can buy you a few seconds.

haven't experimented heavily with Scramble Thoughts.

Nuke is a nuke. Took mine.

Hidden bonus: Try and pick up the Rune of Purification day job power that comes with Archeologist. It helps take out enemies tagged as Robots, with their high psychic resistance.

. . . Eurgh, this post is hideous. Rambling stream of consciousness for the the lose.

I'm torn, really.
On one hand, OMG. Body type shifts, and MAD SCIENCE. EXCITEMENT.'

On the other hand: DAMN. I don't have a mad scientist alt. Now I need some sets for a new alt.

On the third hand: Ooooh dear. The gender-bending might have . . . fun and interesting applications for RP. :x

. . . Wait.
Third hand? Someone get the surgical laser.

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Why not add a -10% regen to catgirls, for a total of -30% for all the hot pink powered "Love" ones we know are coming.


That oughta curb the population..
That...or a giant poisoned whale.., hmm where can I find a whale this time of year?

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Just ask May to do her instant kill on you. Enjoy your whale.

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I thought May's instant-kill was summoning the jellyfish pirate crew to run past and fall on you?

113. I am not ashamed. *shrug*

Looks Blue-White to Me.

I suppose that is a good point. I did think that 'X would look like Y if only I could tint it' would be more prevalent. Rad would make a good swarm-control tinted black. Gravity makes good 'Energy field control' if you tint it blue.

Sooo. . .
We have cotton candy defense/offense, Pee ice, and water-manipulation, and a bunch of people tinting their colors to something more interesting?

O.o I'll be honest, I expected a little more.

O.o
I hadn't. . . actually considered that beforehand.

Isn't Ice Armor a Defense based set? I guess it's the villains not wanting to touch the tank, now.

[FOLLOWING THREAD CONTAINS BASELESS SPECULATION]

Now, I'm assuming that most people that will read this are board regulars who will already heard of this shocking development. Regardless of your feelings on the matter, although I assume that virtue being the wretched haven of scum and roleplayers that it is you will all be overjoyed with the opportunities of tinting your powers. . .

Several comments in that thread, such as mistaking the purple fire imps for 'Nictus Imps' and the consideration of tinting Dark Armor a deep yellow for 'Bee Armor', got me considering the possible RP uses of the altered colorization of our standard powers. I am curious as to what others have or are able to come up with.

However, setting the ground rules to a sort of minimum we have seen seems prudent. What sort of optical trickery can you achieve with only color-tinting, should that be 'all' we receive, without things like changing animations or mastermind pets?

For a simple example.

Dark Blast/Radiation Corruptor. Tint the blasts and the Radiation muck brown or black. You can RP your smoggy blasts as Pollution Control, and embark on your new career as a Captain Planet villain.

tl;dr
What sets do you intend to RP repurpose after giving them a color-tinting paint-job?

Oh, Hey. I remember seeing you in the D once as my Cold/Ice Defender, Beautiful Frost. Great artwork! The one thing I'd kind of nitpick on is the dark shadow under his right eye. (Err. The one on our left. o.O) It makes him look a little haggard to me. |

Great Costume again, and great artwork!

Number 5.

*sneaks in as if he was a regular and grabs some pizza*
Gaah. Weed-eating huge backyards is not fun. Neither is moving heavy furniture.

. . Of course If I laid off the pizza it might be a little easier.