Tangler

So does best EU arc mean all authors residing on the EU servers, or just non-english arcs? And what about arcs that can fit across several categories?

I had a choice between reviewing this or Death to Disco. Both had a pretty interesting premise, but I went with this arc because it had the lowest plays.

Have a Blap, Blap, Blappy Day Kids!
ID: 2019
Author: Wrong Number
Tags: Hero, Humour, Origin Story

Have a Blap, Blap, Blappy Day Kids! Is an origin story that covers several of what are presumably the author’s alts within a single storyline. It starts off with your hero turning on the TV in the middle of breaking news coverage that the titular Blappy, beloved children’s TV presenter has gone missing in the most suspect of circumstances. It is at this point that the news anchor addresses you directly and- wait, what? So yeah, apparently Television has managed to leak its way out of the Rogue Isles airwaves and into Paragon’s. It’s not really clear how Television came to Paragon, or why it cares if Blappy went missing, though I’m more worried about how my hero is so easily ready to listen to the infernal tube. Back to the story, Television tips you off that you could squeeze some information about Blappy’s disappearance from some shady TV executive, and so off you go on your quest to save Blappy. On the advice of a news anchor… that spoke to you… directly… from the TV… But hey, I guess your hero wouldn’t’ bat an eyelash if he happens to be Malkavian.

In your adventures you’ll meet Bright Angel, a former major children’s TV star herself who now resentfully plays second fiddle as Blappy’s sidekick, and is at tipping point from doing a Sideshow Bob, the Nemesis group, who only play a bit part though the author lampshades the dreaded possibly of yet another Nemesis Plot, The Injustice Legion, who are the real major villains that drives the story along by kicking Blappy into another castle, and finally the elusive and children’s nightmare fuel inducing Blappy herself, who may or may not be the lovable children's TV presenter everyone thought she was.


Ruh-roh...


Yeah you're absolutely right. I can't see what could possibly-

'Danger! Danger!'


I'm not sure if her appearance is part of her descent into villainy, or if she always sang songs about sunshine and rainbows through blood-drenched fangs. I really hope it's the latter.

As an origin arc it works out pretty well, as it doesn’t fall into the trap of making your hero second to the author’s characters, and the author’s villains are distinct and varied enough so it feel like you are fighting an actual super villain team, something that the vanilla game so desperately needs instead of all the grunt bashing we end up doing. Though I do think the author should have made completely new bios for her villains instead of just copy-pasting her normal ones, as I found it jarring having examined a villain only to get their complete life story.


Damn.

There are a few problems I found with the arc though, notably some of the minions possessed mez protection, and some of the bosses had additional mez protection on top of their boss level protection, which proved to be tricky for my Dom even under domination, though thankfully I had Hotfeet to fallback on.


Yeah that's right! Run like the dog you erm... are.

There were a few inconsistencies in the writing, such as one point in the arc where Television informs your hero that their next task is in a warehouse located in the Rogue Isles, and then in the debriefing it reports that you raided a warehouse in Paragon, or at another point where your hero recalls Bright Angel mentioning something that she never did. Things that were once relevant to the arc are later never mentioned again. Nemesis who were the driving force at the beginning roll over halfway through and just fade away, the initial urgency of saving Blappy in time for her next show proves to be completely pointless and is not even mentioned in the debriefing even if you succeeded, and even Television doesn’t seem all that bothered about Blappy by the end.

Ultimately, this arc is an origin story and doesn’t try too hard to be anything but, which makes it somewhat tricky to rate. It serves its purpose as to explain the origin of the author’s characters, but unless you were really, really into the author’s characters (you creepy stalker you) there’s no strong hook to play this arc.


Aww yeah, so you were in the bubble bath and then wha- uh, erm... >.>

Final Verdict: Serves its purpose. Nothing less, but nothing more either.

2.5/5 Stars

Edited to resize one of the images.

Pretty much everything I wanted ported now has. I would have liked to see SS for scrappers too, but with GR over the horizon I'll be pretty satisfied just porting a SS brute over to blueside.

Oh and just to clarify, I don't dislike chained objectives, I just thought there were too many instances in your arc that didn't warrant it or made me think 'oh, now what?' In the ship for example, I know why you made it chained, but as a player I could see no reason why my hero can't just make a beeline towards the boss and bop him if I just wanted to.

I just spent the last 15 minutes trying to search for an old arc I remember playing that did chained objectives in a very neat way, but I suspect the author may have taken it down now (it was about aiding a spirit in a warehouse full of Family iirc).

The Audition
ID: 221240
Author: MrCaptainMan
Tags: Hero, Humour, Non-Canon, Challenging

There’s a certain charm and sympathy to be drawn from beleaguered assistants like Kif Kroker, the otherwise competent worker brought down by their highly incompetent and often obnoxious boss, which is the overarching premise that the player will find themselves in this two part arc. However while we may root for the little guy often seeing ourselves in an all too familiar situation, there is also the danger of producing resentment from the audience, as the assistant’s own actions and attitude lets the abuse happen. This is unfortunately, the overarching problem that the arc finds itself in.


Guest artist Matt Groening's rendition of your hero.

The arc starts off finding your hero being scouted by Synapse to join the prestigious Freedom Phalanx. Synapse’s intro and his… illuminating contact description immediately establish that the player is in for a very non-canon ride. Still, I found Synapse’s voice to be very off, as well as him suddenly fancying himself to be an expert in MacGyvering fantastical devices of super-science into even more fantastical devices. Synapse has hijacked the AE systems to tell your hero that before he can join their ranks, he must first pass 6 trials that all heroes must face at some point in their career, and with the magic of technobabble he rigs the AE portal to act as a teleporter to send you to your first and next consecutive trials. Why Synapse didn’t just super-speed up to the player to scout him, instead of camping the AE systems in the hopes that you may use one, or why Positron who is smart enough to override and change the very core of the AE system, isn’t the one doing the scouting is never explained.

Moving on, your first trial is to defeat a hundred villains that are rampaging all over Skyway, and you jump into the teleporter to get your initiation rolling. Something goes terribly wrong however, and your hero finds himself on a far off planet somewhere.



The choice of map and scarcity of enemies was a good choice for portraying a distant alien world, though the map size was far too big. What inhabitants this world does have however are a collection of blue skinned creatures called ‘Destiny’ that all speak as one hive-mind. The choice of them all being Empaths was a good choice on reinforcing the idea of a hive-mind I thought both thematically and combat-wise, though having them all being Gravity was just a killer for chars with no mez protection and just made fights annoying for those that do have. The Destinies all eerily speak of you as if they know you and as their lover which reminded me fond memories of Deionarra. Unfortunately nothing ever develops from this subplot, and after going through some tedious chained objectives that really shouldn’t be chained (how on the blue-bottomed blazes does my hero miss THOSE objects), followed by a rather epic and satisfying fight (squishies need not apply, though the arc does warn this from the very beginning) out you come to be berated by Synapse for not showing up at Skyway.

The first mission is pretty representative of what to expect from the entire arc. Synapse will teleport you to your next trial, you’ll find yourself in completely the wrong place that invariably gives you the opportunity to complete your trial anyway, you’ll have to run through a series of bafflingly chained objectives across a longer than necessary map, and before any interesting plot can be developed you’re pulled straight out to be berated by Synapse. It’s like being handed a novel, and just when you get to the point where things are picking up someone yanks the book out of your hands and tosses it into a fire, at which point Synapse super-speeds up to you to remind you how incompetent you are and that he needs you to do his laundry and by-gods-man you better add more starch this time. All this time, you’re banging your head screaming at your hero that this time, use the freakin’ trams to go wherever Synapse wants you to go instead of passively resigning to their fate.

On the plus side, heroes will encounter a true abomination of a custom enemy group in mission 3, and the fights can indeed get pretty darn badass:


Our hero proves to have some intimacy issues.


Restraint... to not reference Highlander... waning...


Ha! Let's see if you can beat-


all my-


is it too late to repent?

A Special Note: The Director’s Commentry

This arc is accompanied by a director’s commentary. As a player, it is interesting to see the thought process that goes behind a creative work and to fully appreciate the nuances of a piece. However as a critic, it also doubles as a yardstick to gauge how well the author is able to convey those very ideas into the work itself. There were too many cases that the author felt were ‘obvious’ that I thought went by too fast in actual play and required re-reading (I still have no idea why casual-dress in Praetorian Earth means Matador outfits and jammies).


Why??

Final Verdict: Confusing, underdeveloped, and not all that funny. Missions are just loosely connected at best, and would have been better served as complete arcs themselves.

2.5/5 Stars

Edit: In retrospective, I have bumped this arc by half a star from its original 2/5 rating. While all my qualms with this arc still stand, I nonetheless cannot deny the obvious effort put into this arc, even if the execution falls short.

Assuming you haven't outleveled the range already:

Mercytown: The One With All The Fish Arc ID: 6017
lvl 1-10

I would say check out my Might Makes Right arc located in my sig. It's a relatively fast to complete action arc featuring the Malta, so you know you're in for a slight bit of a challenge.

• 5th Elemental (Focus on Custom Characters in arcs)
• Airhead
• Aisynia (QPQ)
• Beach Lifeguard
• Bubbawheat (In Character, Time Travel themed)
• Citizen Razor
• GlaziusF (Read first post for details)
• JadKni
• LaserJesus
• Lazarus (semi-QPQ)
• Master Zaprobo (In Character)
• MrCaptainMan
• OzzieArcane
• PoliceWoman (QPQ)
• Red Warlock (Focus on CoH neighborhood stories)
• Tangler
• Talen Lee
• TerminusEst13 (Focuses on BAD arcs)
• Venture

Review sites

• City of Guides - Mission Architect
• CoH Mission Review
• Mission Architect Advanced Search Site
• Choosing the right reviewer: This lists most of the currently active reviewers and gives a short synopsis on their style of reviewing in order to help you choose who you want to review your arc.

Note: QPQ = quid pro quo: Play and rate/give feedback to the reviewer first in order to get a review on your arc, some are more lenient on this than others. Also, tends to have a shorter queue.

Also, some non-QPQ have more than one reviewer with some not accepting new submissions, check the most recent page for up-to-date information.

Semi-QPQ means that the reviewer only requires it for longer, in depth reviews and not for short, quick reviews.

Update - copy/pasted from my latest post

$name doesn't seem to work when the player is too far from the speak btw, so it's best not to use that in the 'when X is inactive' text box.

I'd just like to add, Mesmerize is a great mez in that it will effect bosses in 1 application without domination, so it's a good 'ohcrap' power in the early stages when Dominate still needs some nurturing.

Total Domination is useful in that it can be staggered with Mass Confusion, so you will always have one good aoe mez for the next mob.

While ElA is not really an aoe strong set, Static Discharge still does good damage, and more aoe is always welcomed on teams. It's also a much wider cone than most, put in 2-3 range SOs into it and watch the numbers fly.

Will miss you ML, hopefully I'll see you again.

You know, the worst part of it is that it's not like we're demanding some mad skillz from our more lagging behind teammates, but just to use their powersets in a semi-competent fashion.

How many times have you found yourself in a team that's struggling through a TF, and yet the buffer still refuses to cast shields/sb unless he's prompted several times, or that scrapper still insists on soloing that mob that looked at him funny, when everyone else is trying to beat the AV's regen?

Despite what the MA text implies on what is 'good' or 'excellent', the current system means any author who wants a shot at HoF (and thus be rewarded with some distinction for their efforts) will need to almost always get 5 stars. As such I rate it as:

5 stars: I think this arc deserves HoF status.
4 stars: I don't think this arc is worthy of HoF, but I would not object if it did wind up there.
3 stars: Needs more work.
2 and below: Everything else.

Hi Fringe, not sure if I'm too late with my 2c:

I've got a 50 Mind/Thorns myself.

Mind is a great set. Mesmerise/Dominate/Confuse will mean you can solo effectively at a very early level. You may find yourself lacking in effective aoe controls, but once you get Mass Confusion you can just alternate between that with Total Domination and Terrify for each new group while you're in a team.


I found Thorns to be ultimately lacking unfortunately. The dmg buff in Aim is low, and the +tohit is overkill on a set that already inflicts -def. Thorn Burst takes so long, most teams will have destroyed the entire group bar any bosses by the time you can get in position and wait for the incredibly long activation time.
The main killer I've found though is the constant redraw animations, which if youre pairing with Mind, you are going to see a lot, and that your strongest ranged attack Thorn Barrage, will cause guaranteed kb on foes, which is just shooting yourself in the foot with such a melee orientated assault set.
Are there any positives about Thorny Assault? Sure in that it's one of the most badass looking sets, and that it was Skewer's animation and high damage which was what originally sold me to Thorns in the first place, and Fling Thorns' wide and shallow cone is also one of the best aoes you can ask for a melee focused set.


If you're not set on Thorny Assault, I'd recommend going Ele or even NRG Assault now if you're in need of a melee focused set, or just fire for general badassery.

I notice that the AR Longbow Wardens are particularly mez resistant too.