Smeester

I got to try this power out last night, and I've enjoyed it. I found the soft control as people have mentioned here, very handy for buying time for a heal to come of cooldown.

It's also quite fun for when that surprise ambush appears... they're all running at you in a line, hit the front target and laugh as they all go down like dominoes. A precious couple of seconds bought.

At L7 I made the silly mistake of slotting in a knockback range - only for it to hit the first target, throw them back and therefore miss anyone else - not so pro or good for the tank. Quite funny though the one time when the knockback actually threw them into more targets to helping its propagation.

In case it helps, I couldn't help noticing the list of -regen powers is missing Thermal's Heat Exhaustion power, adding more possibilties to the mix.

Happy Hunting

I be back too - someone out there may recognise me!

Good to see some few names I recognise too.

Ouch that sig is rather out of date, but apparently if I try to edit it, the limits are currently a lot smaller!

The damage side of things is pet heavy, so in most situations you can throw in your pets to help the team and then focus on healing/buffing with your emp powers without really losing much. You've effectively an invisible healer, so can really get away a lot, and unless you're overly blatant, or stand in the middle of aoe, then you'll almost never get hit by mobs.

If the team has a fair few healers, or not taking much damage, then you're free to play with your ill powers a bit more. Take advantage of invisibility and deceive to mess with the minds of upcoming packs.

A fun combination.

Plant/Thermal is one I want to try I think.

I have a ice (cold, whatever)/thermal corruptor who I enjoy. Think I'll enjoy plant/therm as a controller even more.

I made an Ill/emp for the Omega Task Force challenge. He's now 32.

It is definately a fun combination. And the invisibility is very effective.

Well he's now (as of last night), L45. Pretty much the home straight now, nothing too exciting in the way of powers left to get. He has all the attacks and plenty of self heals/protection.

The range of sweeping strike isn't great, which makes the weaken combo hard to pull off effectively (on several mobs). But atleast it's a combo that doesn't start with BU. It does sit quite nicely with Vital strike.

I'll be back at 50 with a final conclusion of the sets, but I wouldn't have made it this far if I didn't enjoy it. He will be my ticket to the VEATs

I'm not very far in to the set, but I have a L20 Merc/FF MM, who is my toon for a challenge to get to 50 undefeated (if we die, then we have to start again with a new character).

I'm playing in a duo with a friend, and unfortunately he's suffered a couple of deaths. Whilst he levels up to the same level as my Merc, I've rolled other MM's to keep him company.

Compared to the sheer iritation of the ninja's I love the mercs. The mercs do as they're told. The ninjas spend half their time throwing ninja stars when they should be kicking the hell out of something.

Sure, liberal use of GoTo commands will get the ninjas into melee for a pretty awesome alpha. But it's 50:50 at best. Usually one will always stand there throwing stars and refusing to melee.

The Mercs might be lesser damage, but when I tell them to attack, they all open up and attack.

Thugs seem to be good, but every man and his dog has thugs. So far, I've not found Mercs to be a problem. Perhaps not the best, but adequate, and they don't stomp around with the annoying mechanical noise of bots.

Haha, grats GG.

I'm on the point of getting annoyed with villain side grouping too.

But it doesn't seem to be caused by people not wanting to team. It's more that people perhaps don't want to run teams?

After an hour on my 43 stalker lft, and then another hour on my 17 dom lft, I finally got annoyed and made a team of my own on my dom. It had 7 people in it in minutes.

I don't know why this is the case, but it sure is annoying**

Happy Playing

**annoying, beaten only by the irritation caused by those miserable people who can't find the 2.4 seconds it takes to whack backspace and type 'sorry full', or 'sorry no', or 'ask <name>' to a request for invite to the team. Don't give me 'I was in combat' excuses. Somewhere within a 30 sec window of being sent the request, it is always... ALWAYS possible to reply unless you're afk or simply a miserable human being.

[ QUOTE ]
Well, if you are using examples that are out of the frame of cooperation I've set, yes, things can't always be conciled.

[/ QUOTE ]

To be fair his examples didn't seem to be like that.

Yes they are clearly contradictory, because he's making a point. But it is entirely plausible that 4 good, friendly, happy RP'ers could each, individually have those views for their characters. Along with well thought out backgrounds that explains their views.

Is sticking to their characters story, when they've worked hard to make it fit, god-modding or otherwise an undesirable attribute. No.

Are their stories reconcilable, even with friendly, willing people. Still no.

The only way there can be reconciliation is if most of the people present accept their beliefs are probably wrong, whether they've been 'misled', 'tricked' or just 'misunderstood'. Hardly a great solution.

However, if these 4 great people had just followed canon in the first place - they could have spent that time enjoying some RP rather than deciding how to limit damage done to their characters backstory.

EDIT : Seen 'Retcon' a couple of times now... it means?

Interesting discussion, touching on a number of points.

(advanced apologies for getting a little carried away with the fudge metaphor)

First a quickie on the warshade vampire... as a new RP'er, keen to not tread on toes and generally stir waters, had the same person told me there were a Kheld, I'd have likely just rolled with it. It's their char. If, after the event, I realised I didn't enjoy 'rp'ing' with them, then I wouldn't initiate anything with them in the future.

But getting to the main area of debate, the Canon vs Fudge ratio, I am surprised that so far no one has made mention as to what a barrier to entry Canon is for new roleplayers... both in this particular game or new to RP'ing in general.

Before going any further, I'd like to emphasise, that everyone I have met in my aims to get into RP, has been great, and very encouraging. All my waffle below is merely 'fudge for thought'...

Any new person trying to get involved is faced not only by the mountain of canon held together by a tangled splodge of semi-official fudge-like substances. But this mountain is defended by a veritable army of seasoned RP'ers, exclusive cliques, and social groups, all armed with their own individual fudge shields and canon interpretations.

I joined this game in December, and started looking at the RP side of things early Jan. Since then I have barely stopped reading, everything from guides, paragonwiki, union rp wiki, and of course these forums. Yet still I didn't know that...

[ QUOTE ]
Zortel owns a huge company.
Coile is the biggest perv in paragon ( )
Sword of redemption/Doctor mechano makes the ever popular talkie-toaster
Lunk is big and scary.


[/ QUOTE ]

Well, actually, I did know the last one, but only from reading some story about him beating on Supatrolls whilst some reporter watched. At least I think that was him. But names get confusing after reading so much.

Despite all the reading though, I have had to tell my new RP SG, I was willing to let my L9 alt PB level in the SG to earn prestige, but I'm not comfortable RP'ing with him. I simply haven't yet come across a nice, clear, guide to the fundamentals of these Nictus folk.

Despite having a L50, I haven't seen many of the later level arcs yet, (atleast not from the owner point of view, where I have access to the clues to read) so whilst I read a lot about Nemesis always being behind everything, I know very little about them/him.

Did the Mender Silos TF the other day with the SG, and the final mission we were suddenly rescuing 13-14 of the big canon heroes, and fighting a similar number of canon villains. After Miss Liberty, BaB, Statesman and Positron - all the rest of the names were completely new to me. I hadn't heard of them. Manticore I vaguely knew from the wedding stuff, but I don't know his history. Yet I was in a 8 man group RP'ing all their various little histories with these heroes as we met/rescued each one. And I had to remain silent. I didn't know if my character knew any of these heroes. And I didn't know enough canon about them to make something up on the spot.

Fudge is not only a way for veteran rp'ers to fill in annoying gaps in the canon, or just to provide needed flexibility for originality. It also serves as material for a pair of giant 'platform shoes' for new rp'ers to make a half dozen big steps up that canon mountain so they too can enjoy themselves.

That is, unless some veteran smashes through newbie fudge and watch them slide back down to the bottom of the mountain again. Whether they attempt to carry on or just gives up on CoX RP is down to the individual.

~

I propose that if canon is of any particular importance (and of course it is) then why isn't there a nice fat sticky at the top of this forum with a lovely linked list of places to serenely float through the known canon and the generally accepted (Union) fudge?

At the moment, the stickies, and the union wiki is mainly concerned with meeting the people/characters. But I could do that ingame, if I wasn't concerned about making an [censored] of myself through lack of canon knowledge.

Not only would it be a nice place to point those RP'ers you encounter that aren't doing very well to the detriment of general RP. But also a handy location for those more shy RP'ers who try to learn as much as possible before attempting any RP in the first place.

Just wondering if any regular groups / SG groups are planning to bring down the Motherships shields any time this weekend, as I'd very much like to hop on over to get the exploration badge that is lingering - oh-so-teasingly - beneath the shimmering green?

Besides, the whole event is fun, and I would quite like to join in again, but this time I'll be knowing what the hell is going on.

Scratch that - thought I'd clicked on Union.

Did ya get the last one beneath the shields on the mothership? That's the last one I need, but not spotted a raid there for a while.

And if you're L10, you get powerlevelled for 18 levels

Lovely idea matey, I may well pop down and see if I can't enter my first one of these

Am I going crazy believing this to be a hero's only trial?

38 - as per my sig.

Yup... that'd be good.

[ QUOTE ]
if you still want to do it, ive got a group of friend who'll help blast through it with ya. lemmie noes

[/ QUOTE ]

Hey, yes I would still like to do it. Thursday or Friday evening is good for me.

[ QUOTE ]
The cap is only important in terms of getting xp.

[/ QUOTE ]

Heh, thanks Nine Claws... but it was the XP I wanted, plus I'm not a big fan of being malefactor'd as I don't enjoy having abilities locked out.

However, it's better than missing it out, so thanks Tamuril.

I've bought the pack this morning... as later on I'll need to change my default character to get rid of his aura, and he's the magic type, I thought I'd go the whole hog and get him the new tux.

I think the emotes will be fun, but it's a shame there isn't a /em throwcorn we could do at a fire/fire blaster to get popcorn.

I was interested, just didn't read forums during DXP (other things to do )

However, I would have been going out for a meal at 7, so would have been pushing it anyway. So, let me know when you plan another one.

Targh is my villain, currently 38 stalker. @Smee D'yer is my global.

Awww, that sucks.

Take care... I only knew you, oh so briefly, but it is still a great shame to see you go. I have read much of your past exploits in the wiki and was looking forward to becoming a small part of that history.

All the very best, and hopefully see you around again soon.

Thanks anyway, matey... but looks like a flop. Maybe another day.

Probably something along the lines of... it wouldn't do to show favouritism to any particular player or SG, so in the best interests of everyone it'd be better if you made up your own characters to sponsor the SG.