Tyger

Tyran crouched and jumped, avoiding the blades with grace and agility more likely seen on an Olympic gymnast roughly half his size than his seven foot, two-hundred and fifty pound frame. The strikes he attempted were met with the charged armour, his fists clenching tight as his muscles were forced to contract. He landed, fur singed and flesh exposed briefly as his healing kicked in and restored the charred patches.

He held his swords out and they changed shape, from the machete shape they were to a more streamlined katana. The blades were now Impervium katanas, slender and sharp. Tyran took flight and struck at the machine, one blade at a time, focusing on the joints where he believed it was vulnerable. In his haste he had failed o notice the strong attack from his allies of the time and...

Tyran was caught off-guard and blasted into the undergrowth.. or at least what remained, shrapnel piercing his body in several places. He lay there, motionless and silent.

Tyran let out a single breath.

"Such is the impatience of youth"

Tyran looked over the Court's members, his face hiding his desire to simply kill them while no-one could bare witness. For now, the agreement stood until the opportunity presented itself again. He face suddenly turned pensive, head turning to the east wall, ears twitching slightly.

"GET DOWN!"

Tyran dropped down to the floor an instant before...
Tyran brushed off the rubble now covering him and looked out at the monstrosity heading to the building. He picked himself up, drew out his swords and charged at the enitity with a feral roar.

Tyran waited till the Priest was out of earshot and looked to his cohorts.

"If they step out of line shoot them... and try to make it a flesh wound."

One of them made a cheeky two-thumbs-up and Tyran flew casually after Pious, the other brought the grenade up. Both shook their heads with a 'too easy' posture before setting to their task of guarding the sub.


Tyran landed into a slow jog entering the building not long after Pious. He looked over the Court members and took position behind Pious.

As Pious answered, Tyran looked to his comrades with a palm open after clicking his fingers. They looked bemused for a second.

"Grenade"

A look of glee came from behind the mask as the 'grenade' disc got pulled out. It was short-lived as he handed it over to Tyran with a grumble of disatisfaction.

"They won't give up answers easily. No doubt loyal to her either through desire or brainwashing. But there's other ways to get information."

"How about we go see how talkative they are?"

Actually there is someone at the EU office now. Met him last month, nice chap, short on hair, forced Dante to do this because of it.

As I said on URP - Bow-chicka-bow-wow

"No"

He let the denial hang in the air for a moment.

"A few centuries ago, I came across a village of farmers. Proud and relatively carefree, they seemed to want for nothing. They worked hard, celebrated life and watched as their children played in the forests. Then one night; they came for me, bearing their pitchforks and scythes as weapons of war and I slaughtered them all. You see they had all died centuries before, their bodies possessed by demons who kept up the pretense in order to lure more souls to their master.

The point I'm getting at it is that sometimes the cover is just that. It may look innocent, it may even take the form of innocence but sometimes it is only used by the darkness to hide their true face."

Tyran swished his swords round.

"But I guess we'll see when we see her."

Tyran sighed slightly, drawing his blades, one of his mercs pulled out a circular device. Tyran shook his head.

"No grenades"

A muffled 'aw' came from behind the faceguard before they brought out a machete each and started slashing at the field, Tyran drew his swords and began rapidly cutting at it, faster than they could keep up with.

Tyran and the others made their way to the cave, slowly making their way in. The two soldiers followed Tyran slipping on some nightvision goggles as he strode in carefully avoiding the natural features of the cave. Eventually his party came to the barrier where the Priest was awaiting. They all stared at it, one of them approaching it and trying his luck with a punch, letting a grumble slip out as let his gun fall on its strap, clenching his hand as it hurt, a lot.

"Hmm, strange. Definitely a barrier but what kind?"

Tyran stroked over it gently, brushing against the surface tension of the field.

Tyran sliced through the plants with his swords as the two men followed. He stopped and looked to Priest as his fellows took a defensive stance, expecting trouble.

"Of course Pious. Show me the way and I'll follow you."

Tyran gestured to his comrades to get up and they relaxed.. slightly.

This is exactly what i19 will bring for me too but on all my builds (when I get round to respecc'ing all 90+ of them that have fitness already).

My main gave up a lot of primaries and secondaries to become viable and I've experimented with his build the most over the course of his six years+ of life. I've gone without travel powers, tried using phase shift, had and gave up trying to maintain leadership and then balanced myself around it. The last respec I did was when energy mastery got the extra move added.

I have a empath and a mastermind who both went without fitness, mainly because of their powers (Empathy's reg/rec auras and thugs/dark). Now they'll get it as a bonus to their existing 'classic' builds.

My regen/willpower scrappers and brutes now get to triple stack fitness (fast healing and quick recovery with Physical perfection) and have extra powers to choose from like the fighting pool.

And my widow will love getting the extra jump boost with hurdle and I can take more of those great Night Widow and Fortunata powers. She's currently a hand-to-claws specialist with softcapped defense on basic IOs so being able to take some of the powers I've had to sideline towards her goal. Now I can add in the odd ranged attack for those annoying runaways too.

It also means more power picks at lower levels too. Right now I tend to pick powers up to 10, travel power and pre-requisite at 12 and 14 and then fitness afterwards. Now it can be straight picks all the way up to 20.

Actually what I'd do is use 2 merits to buy a level 30 healing proc like Miracle +Recovery or the Numina's RegRec. Worth at least 100 mill and guaranteed to sell high. Couple of good sales and you can buy a purple for the equivalent of 4 merits (and the inf to list it at 100mill+).

Nice to know. Is it a particularly long arc to cover the whole range from 20-29 or more like a Kheldian/SoA extra?

Yep but since it's about NPC conversions I thought it would bear re-iteration since the character I used to 'wear' them on was an average height male build.

For me; only signature heroes deserve their signature pieces (Statesman's helm, Maelstrom's heart, Recluse's backpack and helm, etc.). Everything else should be fair game.

For one; the Vanguard set was supposed to be 'for everyone' and we have missed out on the second belt with thigh guards and the backpack. Having had the opportunity to actually wear them during the server transfer testing they were perfectly wearable on my PC.

For two; one of the most consistent themes is people making characters that used to belong to enemy groups, most obvious being the Crey Revenant Hero Project. It's slightly galling that we CAN'T make their outfits exactly like they should be.

For three; people have gotten very close to making NPC outfits already, thanks to their creative nature and the robust creator. I have already been 'confused' when one friend made a Longbow character and we teamed up in a mission against Longbow. I was wondering how my MM could've missed one and it was actually my friend.

On the same point we have often been fobbed off with 'clipping issues' which was rendered mute by the releasing of the Magic Booster and 'the cape which clips with every shoulder detail' so please don't use 'It doesn't fit well with other parts'.

Then we have Kheldians who can shapeshift and Soldiers of Arachnos who can look exactly like NPC counterparts. 'Confuse other players' just comes across as the latest buzzword(s) for why we can't get these pieces and yet, as said, the plan is to release new NPC parts designed with players in mind and we already have the above epic ATs as well as Vanguard, Resistence, PraetorPD, PraetorClockwork and soon the new IDF outfit.

I have seen that some NPC pieces are built together in a block so the best way to show people is to actually show them. I had a bizarre Ghost Pirate ParagonPD Vanguard which looked horrendous as a mix-and-match. But try to avoid using buzzwords like 'clipping issues' or 'doesn't fit' because they quickly turn into a rather unfunny running joke.



My personal choices would be:
Vanguard backpack and belt w/thighguards (used to be Vanguard Belt 1)
Paragon Protector outfit (it's really a tights outfit and a short cape, nothing clippy there).
Ouroboros parts.
Longbow/Hero Corps emblems and patterns.

I imagine it's something to do with the way it's unlocked and/or keeping with the theme of 'exposure to temporal energy'.

Since it unlocks via multiple souveneirs, exploration badges and even a single mission via flashback (I have several level 10 characters with the portal power) I imagine that it's easier to setup a condition in the game mechanics just like how each origin gets a specific temp power when you create a new character.

This way it fits those who have been exposed and those that (choose to) avoid time-travel.

If you only play redside for the VEATs then you can keep at least one at 20+ and it will unlock the VEATs if it 'forgets' since you only need one alt of the right alignment for the epic of each side which includes the Epics themselves.

Actually it would be nice if it could go further and include all unlockable parts that you would have to badgehunt for. As mentioned the Croatoa Witch's Hat and the Epaulets that are locked into heroside content could be unlocked for pure villains via alignment merits. Same goes for the elusive Rularuu weaponary. Allow every costume part to be unlocked via the merits. If you want them now or don't want to badgehunt then you can make use of the GR system to simply buy them as an alternative option.