Ultimo_

Ye gods, I have so many characters... I'll just hit the main ones...

Ultimo - Lawful Good (He's a lawyer...)
Canadian Shield - Lawful Good (He's a mix of Superman and Capt.America)
Lord Dire - Lawful Evil (Based on Dr. Doom)
Stalwart Star - Lawful Good (Based on Capt. America)
Technaught - Lawful Neutral (Based on Iron Man)
Die Grausigkeit - Chaotic Evil (Dark Sorceror)
Dr. Solomon - True Neutral (Based on Dr. Strange)
Thor, Son of Odin - Chaotic Neutral (Based on the Mythological Thor)
Ch'ih Sung Tsu - Lawful Neutral (Based on Chinese Myth)

There are so many others...

I've been asking for years, I thought perhaps I'd put a thread here for us to voice some requests regarding Masterminds. I have a couple. Please add your own!

1) Personal Attacks. It would be nice if every Mastermind had access to at least one good attack that doesn't rely on his pets. I mean, my Bots/FF best shot does around 50 damage when others are doing 200+. I'm not looking for Blaster level damage here, just something with a bit of a punch that doesn't require the use of a vet power. For a genre example, consider Dr. Doom. He uses his bots to fight for him, but he's capable of being a hard hitter himself.

2) Bot Names. It's great that I can rename my bots, but I don't want to have to see the names all the time. Can we get the ability to hide our pet names?

3) Better AI. There are times I want to pull my hair out as I watch ranged attack bots running willy nilly into melee, or watch them running off into multiple mobs, unwilling to follow the order to return. It would also be nice to be able to select a formation for the pets (so they don't all bunch up all the time).

As I've posted before, I've been putting together a team of homage characters based on Marvel heroes. They're not copies, but they do hearken back to the Marvel characters. Most of them are pretty decent, and have the "feel" of the Marvel characters. The one I'm having trouble with is my Thor homage.

Not wanting to just use Thor (since he's mythological, as long as I reference the original and not the Marvel character, there's no IP issues), I originally made a character based on Seigurd (Scrapper, BS/Regen), of Norse Myth. He's pretty powerful, but somehow just doesn't quite capture the "feel" of a godlike character.

Thus, I made a character called "Nordhammer" (Tanker, Inv/Mace) who was supposed to be much like Thor without actually being him. This was even less satisfying as he had no real backstory for me to get into.

When Electric Armor came out, I made a Brute and a Tank with Mace/Elec, each one representing the mythological Thor. In many respects the Brute fits better conceptually (especially since he can take Mu Mastery later on), but I tend to prefer playing Tanks. Either way, I feel like I'm cheating somehow by just making Thor directly.

I did have the thought of transferring my Storm/Elec Defender over to the server, but he's just way too squishy.


What I'm looking for is a character concept that will capture the "feel" of Thor without actually being Thor, and I thought perhaps some of you could offer suggestions. I'm inclined to have a Tank, but I'm open to alternatives.

Any thoughts?

Ah, ok, good.

So, to be clear, it's 0 Def when solo?

I would disagree with one point here. I think you're supposed to be able to handle an EB solo, but not an AV. Granted, some will do better than others, but I think this is the intent (or EBs wouldn't spawn in missions set for solo play).

However they do it, there's got to be a way to introduce the main villain and not have him defeated in the first mission. I like the idea of having a state of invulnerability at a certain percentage of health, and a retreat (either run away or teleport out). That way, the heroes get a sense of how to fight him early on.

Something else that comes to mind...

The ability to name different things with the same name. For example, I wanted a mission in which the players have to defeat a villain named Lord Dire. However, to make it more difficult, I wanted several Lord Dire androids in the mission. The problem was that I had to name them something other than Lord Dire which kind of gave them away.

"I know what you're thinking. Did he fire six shots or five? Well, to tell the truth, in all the excitement, I kind of lost track myself. Now, seeing as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you gotta ask yourself one question. 'Do I feel lucky?'
Well do ya? PUNK?"

~Harry Callahan

Runner up:
"Go ahead, make my day..."


Not a movie, but here's another favourite (and my sig at STO):

"That's why you came to me, isn't it, Captain? Because you knew I could do those things that you weren't capable of doing? Well, it worked. And you'll get what you want: a war between the Romulans and the Dominion. And if your conscience is bothering you, you should soothe it with the knowledge that you may have just saved the entire Alpha Quadrant. And all it cost was the life of one Romulan senator, one criminal, and the self-respect of one Starfleet officer. I don't know about you, but I'd call that a bargain."

~Garak (who has MANY really cool lines - and who was the killer in Dirty Harry, ironically)

I looked for a thread covering this, and didn't see one so here we go.

I'm constantly astonished by players, often high level ones, that just don't know basic tactics. Blasters (anyone really) that don't know how to pull. People that don't know not to bunch up against foes with AOEs and so on. My hope is that people in the know will post tactical advice to this thread for the benefit of those that don't know "how to play."


I'll start.

PULLING:

The idea of a pull is to draw the enemy away from the group or groups he's near so the team isn't overwhelmed. There are a few basic rules to doing it successfully.

1) Fire and GET UNDER COVER. If you don't break line of sight, they won't come to you, they'll just shoot at you from a range.

2) Try to use a lower damage attack. Most people tend to use snipes for their longer range, but I understand this runs a greater risk of aggroing more foes. Haven't seen this first hand, though.

3) If someone on the team is sniping, don't rush in as soon as he fires. Wait for the enemy to come to you. This is the whole point of the pull.

4) If you're planning a pull, announce it. There's nothing worse than having multiple pulls happening.

5) A good trick for pulling is to hide behind an object after targeting a foe. Queue up the attack, then jump. Your attack will fire and you will drop behind the cover before the counter attack can come.

6) Try to know your foes. Some foes are easier to pull than others. For example, shooting a Mortificator will draw most of the group he is with. Shooting a Cadaver will likely only draw that cadaver. Generally, ami for lower ranking targets. Bosses tend to bring their friends.



Please do add more tactical advice as you all see fit!

For me, I'm delighted to have walking in the game. My Rorschach/Question homage is MUCH cooler walking through King's Row than when he jogged. It's better for the secret IDs as well. Now if only we could have a couple of little tweaks...

1) Leave toggles on when Walk is activated. It's fine that you can't turn them on, just don't turn them off.

2) Change the name displayed over your character to a "secret ID". You could keep the hero name in smaller text below (like a title) to prevent anonymous griefing.

I'm at work, so I'm afraid I haven't read the whole thread. Despite this, I wanted to thrw my own little idea in the ring. It's something I suggested before. Leave Gauntlet as it is, but give it an endurance reduction bonus for every foe it affects.

I know, this doesn't affect damage or survivability, but to me, Tanks aren't really suffering in these areas. It's endurance problems that kills them most often in my experience.

Well, I've been enjoying the threads I started on similar topics, so here's another one!


I've been creating and leveling a series of homage characters, as many of you may know. One of the more difficult to make has been one based on Rorschach/the Question. As detective-types, these characters don't really do a lot of fighting, but it seemed Scrapper was an appropriate AT. However, I've gone in a different direction, and I thought it might be interesting to see how others might make it work.

What I did is this: Rorschach/Question are ordinary people, who make use of weapons of opportunity. One of the few power sets that seems to allow this is War Mace. I thought, I'll make several costumes in which the mace will be something different (ie. Baseball Bat on one, Shovel on another, Wrench on another). That way, I can swap to different weapons, making it look like weapons of opportunity. For his defensive set, Willpower was the most appropriate. This combination works for me because I prefer playing Tanks, even though it's technically too "tough" for a Rorschach/Question character. It's easily rationalized though.

The problem I've had, however, has been the build. I originally included the Fighting Pool, since I might want him to fight with his hands periodically. I also included Stamina since I absolutely HATE fighting with endurance rather than the enemies. I also considered putting in Super Leaping, but in the end elected to go with purchasable travel powers (eg. Day Jobs). Finally, an aspect of the character is that he's intimidating, so I considered the Presence pool. The only thing with this is I HATE the animal growls. I can only hope for better animations in the future, but for now, I think I'd rather leave it out.


My question to you all is, how would you build the character? Do you agree with my choice to make him a Tanker? How would you build the Tanker? How would you build him as something else?

Just curious, and just for fun.

I see no hijack, this is exactly the kind of discussion I was hoping would result.

Not wanting to be abused does not make one a "whiny jerkwad." As I keep saying, you do not have the right to force your entertainment on anyone that doesn't want to be part of it.

Since it's obviously very difficult, I'll explain it in detail.


There are people that like to play the rep game, complete with the flaming and antagonism. For them, the way the system was before (with comments appearing on the Control Panel page) was fine as it was. That is how it should be for them.

There are people that did not want anything to do with the rep game. They should have the ability to disable the rep system in its entirety. That means people should not be able to post negative rep OR negative comments on these posts.

Simple. Those that want to play the game can and without the current inconvenience, and those that don't need not be concerned by it in any way.

I'm confused... They removed the ability to leave comments ENTIRELY? Is that what they did?

I'll point out that's NOT what I suggested. All I wanted was to have the comments be turned off if the rep system was turned off. That way, people like me who don't have any interest in the forum "game" would not be forced to put up with it, and those who DID have an interest in it could still take part.

I think I'm seeing another example of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Again, here's how it SHOULD be.

1) Rep is disabled, comments are disabled.
2) Rep is enabled, comments are enabled.


Would that not have satisfied everyone?