Thunder Knight

Seems that the big comics companies are quick to "reboot" their cartoon franchises these days, with little time between them. This is right in line with canceling Batman: Brave and the Bold to make room for Beware the Batman, and canceling Spectacular Spider-Man only to immediately announce Amazing Spider-Man.

Note that the map is re-sizable, so you can shrink it and stick it in a disused corner of the window and refer to it at any time, rather than having to open it every time you need it and then close it again afterwards.

(... which is what I did when I first started playing, before someone told me that it was re-sizable. We were all newbies once. I still feel like a newbie most of the time)

It was buffed in Issue 21, last September. There's a full list of the changes in the Patch notes for that issue: http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/news/p..._2011_live.php

The set was also ported to Scrappers in the same issue (along with a lot of other power proliferation; the list is on that page as well).

I have an EnM/EnM Brute on Triumph, and the set performs really well now, though you still have to watch out for Psionic attacks. Her primary is actually the weak part of her powers (due to slow animations), but she's still quite playable, even on IOs. (She was my main character during the long lean Premium months)

(As for Fiery Aura, it's deliberately designed to be a weaker set defensively; instead, it's designed as an offensive set, with four damaging powers - including the self-rez - and a damage buff)

That's why I'm more looking forward to the leaked power pools (which can presumably be added to any character), than I am to more full powersets (and having to create a character from scratch to use them).

(... though I'm tempted to make a Staff Melee character after seeing them all over Night Ward and Dark Astoria. CURSE YOU MARKETING)

Anyway, I have suggested in the past that if they were to allow full-powerset respecs (which I know darn well they won't), they should reduce the character to level 1 in the process (but otherwise keeping all their badges, unlocks, and even possibly completed mission arcs intact). They get to re-level the character, but they don't have to go badge-hunting all over again.

For my melee characters, primary on Tray 1 and secondary on Tray 2 mostly works (except for Tankers), but for my other characters - forget it.

I generally put attacks and heals on Tray 1, defensive toggles and long-cooldown click-buffs on tray 2, and travel powers (Fly, Ouro portal, possibly a Market teleport power, etc) and other miscellaneous stuff on tray 3, regardless of what pools they're from. (The exact layout varies from character to character, of course)

When I'm doing respecs, I tend to just open Notepad and make a few quick notes (a list of powers, how many slots in each, and name of IO set if any in each) before I start.

Aang must be dead, because otherwise the next Avatar wouldn't have been born to begin with.

On the YJ revelation - yeah, I actually did call it, but only during this episode itself. It seemed like everything was going wrong with Aqualad's plan, but in a way that Aqualad himself couldn't be blamed for. (Also, I was suspicious about the lack of any sort of wound in Artemis' chest, not even a tear in the outfit)

Yeah, I just saw in another topic that this was the last week for the Pilot program, and hurried back to this one to edit my post, but... too late.

Edit: I edited it anyway, just to make the whole topic that much more confusing.

... kinda weird that you say you couldn't log in until 10 or 11 pm, but (if I'm doing my Time Zone Math correctly), this topic was created at 8 pm, and you created this topic after you tried to get the freebie. (Which means you would have missed it by less than a half-hour, since it ends at 7:30 pm EDT)

But, in any event, you can log in at 10 or 11 pm EST Thursday, and get it then. Make a note of it for ... whenever Freebie Friday starts up for real.

(Before you ask - the reason that it ends when it does is that, since it's still in its trial phase, someone has to turn it on and off manually, and they don't want to force people to go in on the weekend just to turn it off. So it starts at the end of their work day on Thursday, and ends at the end of their work day on Friday)

I suspect it's a storyline thing. They want to get the whole Pretorian story finally over and done with. If that is the case, but I can understand why they did it - to make sure that everyone "finishes" the storyline. It's a bit of railroading for the sake of what little storyline the game has.

Mind you, I don't think that makes it a good idea in the long run, but still understandable where they're coming from.

If it's not the case, then I don't know what they're thinking.

Either way, I hope they add a solo path (or, really, ANY options) to get AIXP outside of that one trial in the near future. (I expect they will. After all, the last two issues added Dark Astoria and Night Ward respectively, which both had solo IXP story arcs) Hopefully it'll even be a half-issue so we don't have to wait until the next full issue.

Edited to add: Of course, I might just be blasé about the whole thing because I just unlocked my Alpha slot on one character late last week (and on a second character earlier today), and don't have any other slots open (let alone filled), so I'm not in any rush to get Hybrid.

To be fair, though... judging by their powersets on Tomax, Dillo's an Invulnerability/Super-Strength Tanker, while Manticore is a Trick Arrow/Archery Defender with a couple of pool powers (Stealth and Maneuvers), so I'd expect Dillo to be much stronger and tougher than Manticore any sort of straight-up fight. In fact, I'd expect Dillo to be physically the toughest of the whole Shining Stars team.

(For comparison, Grym looks like a BS/Regen Scrapper, Flambeau a Fire/Fire Blaster, Proton a Rad/Rad Defender, and Twinshot a DP/Devices Blaster. Proton and Twinshot could be Corruptors, and Dillo and Grym Brutes, but I'm assigning them the old-school "Heroic" Archetypes since that's what they seem to be based around)

So I'd expect Manticore to be much better at sneaking around where you can't see him and putting an arrow (or twenty) in your back from a hundred yards away, but physically tougher? Nope. A rich guy with a bow and arrow being tougher than an invulnerable super-strong alien, that's where the Writer Godmode comes in.

On the topic of the Pretorian trials, though... I think, nitpicking of the exact order aside, that GG is correct (yeah, I know, I know), and that their "timeline" is based on their release date, not your level shifts.

In fact, that's why I've always thought "we'll just remove Statesman entirely!" was a strange idea given the way the game handles time. Now that you can defeat Tyrant and take down Pretoria, it hasn't affected the early game. Cole is still running Pretoria from level 1 to level 50, until you complete the Magisterium, and even then you can go back and see the "earlier" parts and Tyrant is still right there.

But for Statesman, the SSA overrides everything else about the character. An arc you can't even complete until your character is at least level 40 somehow means that Statesman died back when your character was level 1 (with the entire SSA story taking place the instant you leave the tutorial, before you even run a single mission).

And that's just weird.

How odd. When I've been taunted, it changed my target to the taunter automatically when I tried to attack. I didn't have to tab around or look for a red box at all.

Superman is certainly great at offense, but the role he serves in the team is often - by his own admission - the guy who takes the big hits because he knows he can take them better than his squishier comrades.

That, to me, is what makes Superman a Tanker. Not that he can't dish out the damage, because he can, but because he considers it his job to take the abuse that his teammates can't.

The thing is, though, in CoX, those teammates often can take the abuse (especially when those teammates are any of the other melee classes, or the EATs, but even "squishies" can softcap their defense with a little work), and that's even more the case when you're dealing with Incarnate powers. That wasn't how it originally was, but it's how the game stands now.

So the problem should be attacked from the point of view of "what is a Tanker's role in a game where almost everyone can take the big hits?" rather than oversimplifying it to "why don't Tankers do more damage?"

That's why I think the focus should be on better aggro management tools (and better endurance management to make sure their defenses stay up), not just more damage.

My wife (a long-time comic geek herself, as well as a graphic designer) took one look at Bloodstrike there and said "That's Deadpool's head on Cable's body, with Shatterstar's swords."

Then we spent a while making fun of how combining three of the 1990-est of the 1990s characters does not a "modern" character make. (And a little more time mocking that Deadshattercable there has a grand total of zero feet)

Um... too little too late, I guess, but I always thought the lists were funny. (I'm sure most people did. It's just that the vocal people, the ones more likely to reply, tend to be jerks)

Anyway, I guess one could argue that the Nukes have a crash because they're weaker than Judgement blasts.

In other words, the tier-9 Nukes are a last-ditch giving-it-your-all blast from a "mortal", while Judgement is a casual blast by a "god". (I use the terms in quotes loosely, of course)

It's like the Human Torch's Nova Flame vs. Darkseid's Omega Effect. The latter is much more powerful, but performing a Nova Flame leaves Johnny exhausted and on the verge of passing out while the Omega Effect doesn't tire Darkseid out at all.

In fact, I seem to remember reading that the Nova Flame (and similar last-ditch comic superpowers) were the model for the Tier 9 blasts, but I may be mistaken about that.

(That said, I can also see a case for reducing - or even removing - the crash on the "mortal" attacks once you become a "god")

I would love more animation proliferation in general. Not new animations, mind you, just old animations swapped around to other sets. Super Strength, Martial Arts, and now Street Justice attacks would look good in, say, Electric or Energy Melee. (Yes, I'd love to make a character with electric kicks!)

So, yes, consider me /signed and then some.

Marvel Thor looks like a Mace / Invulnerability Brute anyway (with the Lightning powers provided by an APP, though there isn't one in game for Brutes, with the Mu Mastery PPP being the closest thing).

That said, I do remember playing with a Thor-alike a few years back (before the movie). He was an Electric/Mace Tanker (since this was before you could make heroic Brutes), and he wasn't named anything close to Thor. (But the costume and powers made it obvious enough)

I had a point when I started this post, but I've forgotten it along the way while I was reminiscing.

Flambeau also reforms after his first few appearances, becoming a friend (and professional detective himself). Flying Stars is actually his last appearance as a criminal. (It's also a fake name as well - his actual name is Hercule Duroc)

As for Flambeaux, yeah, she didn't start acting villainous (or really get much of a personality at all) until she started appearing in Tip missions, long after she'd already been introduced to the game.

They're both named for the French word for "torch", though Flambeaux is plural for some reason.

I really think it would just be better to expand the APPs for all classes. There's no reason that all ATs shouldn't have access to (at bare minimum) Fire, Ice, Electric, Earth, Psionic, Dark, and Energy-themed power pools (plus possibly a physical-based and/or weapon-themed pool), especially since none of the powers would have to be new, just copied from other powersets.

I'd love to make an Elec/Elec/Elec Brute, for example, but right now it's not possible (outside of Mu Mastery).

Just because you don't like the environment of Redside, that doesn't change what the Epic archetypes represent.

The whole idea behind the Epic archetypes is that their backstory is, to some degree, constrained. If you want your background not to be tied to game lore or an ongoing character arc, then you don't take the Epic ATs.

For example, Arachnos Soldiers and Widows are working for Arachnos right now. That means they're not heroes helping to clean up Atlas Park, and they're certainly not working for Emperor Cole or the Resistance. They're working for Lord Recluse and only Lord Recluse.

Similarly, a new Kheldian is right now just starting his or her heroic journey. Peacebringers are by nature heroic, while the whole point for Warshades is that they're trying to atone for their evil deeds as Nictus. Though they may turn later in their careers (i.e., after level 20), right now they're on the side of the angels.

And note that if you DO use the morality system to change sides, then you lose access to their personal stories, and the "epic" part is done.

So whether you personally consider it "valid" or not, that's the reason, and that's not going to change any time soon.

I really like the idea for reducing End costs and increasing AoE area and caps of Tanker attacks rather than just upping their damage. I have a 50 Stone/Stone Tanker that was difficult going in the 30s and early 40s, mainly because I kept running dangerously low on Endurance in even short fights - without Granite and usually without the elemental armors, mind you. (I wanted to go Stone/Stone/Stone for concept, but had to go Stone/Stone/Energy because I desperately needed Physical Perfection)

... mind you, I certainly wouldn't complain about a straight-up Tanker damage increase, but I don't think it's the answer to the Tanker "problem". All it would do is make them more similar to Brutes, and that line is pretty thin already.

I got the impression that it's so much that they can't automate it, as much as they just want someone to be around in case something goes wrong.