tpull

Entry 97

I’ve got a different kind of problem right now that also keeps me from logging on: my computer! It just can’t keep up after all of the updates, so even when I’m solo on indoor missions, it is not performing very well. There are delays, sometimes my character doesn’t even do his animation anymore. I was supposed to be in a new house with a new computer ages ago, but delays have been coming like Murphy’s Law. I’m still at least two weeks away from moving, and even though I’m playing less, I still want to be able to play a little in the next couple weeks! Just had to vent. I’ve been patient for about a year now, I’m finally wearing thin. I was even going to set up my new pc in my old house, but that just would not make much sense, so I bite my tongue and hope there are no more delays. I figure I will do the rest of my missions that don’t have AVs in them, as much as my decrepit, aging old computer will allow.

I hit a Council/Malta mission, and decide to jump a couple red-cons without using Elude, Focused Fighting, Focused Accuracy, or Conserve Power. I take some damage, but it’s not that big a deal. The biggest challenge is finding the fourth blinkie, which makes things feel a little like a time-sink at this point. I beat the final mission from Unai Kemen, which just leaves me with the repeating Shard missions, and the AV missions I’m saving for Issue 5, so I go tackle a Quarry Monster over on Tempest Quay and die real quick, and then run over to take out some monkeys. It’ll still take a while to get that badge! I wonder how many monkeys it takes to work off 110,000 debt...

I can live with Elude the way it is, but I still think the Devs missed the boat. First they changed it so the maximum recharge would still keep it from being perma, but then they changed the Hamidon enhancements and cut their effectiveness later, but they did not adjust the recharge time for Elude, so we ended up with an even longer recharge time from what they originally planned for us. The thing is, if someone wants to use the power, they will simply wait until it’s back up, and play on, doing something else during the downtime, maybe not even playing the game. With MM II, who is not taking Hasten, should I even bother to get it? Eh, I probably will just because I like the power, but that’s going to make my slotting choices harsh.

It just seems like no matter what the Devs do, the players adjust and carry on about as much as they want to. The perma-Elude crowd has built to recharge the power as fast as they can, and some still run around firing it off as often as they can. The power-levelers were quieting down, but the issue update plans have driven them absolutely crazy with activity. I like the concept of Super Reflexes, it’s one of my favorite ideas still, but all of the announced changes have me concerned again. The Elude change that had me interested proved to be not the biggest problem, so I’m hoping that the I5 changes will prove to be no big deal as well. Time will tell.

I’ve heard stories about other MMORGs, where the developers reduced choices and abilities in the game, and caused a lot of chaos that resulted in players leaving. After more than a year, you wouldn’t think these types of drastic revisions would be necessary, so I’m hoping here that I can live with the changes and still enjoy the game, but the fact is, they are reducing our choices and taking away options we used to have, and that doesn’t sit well with me just as an idea in the first place. I would much rather they find a way to beef up the challenges without reducing the powers we already have. I’m hoping that 1) the game stays fun enough to keep my interest, and 2) that the game grows the player base, so I have better luck at finding teammates when I need them!

I may have to increase the difficulty level for MM II at this point. When Martial Master was his “age,” he was late in getting a travel power and Stamina both, so it took forever for me to get places, and I had a lot more downtime. Now that the difficulty slider exists, I’m presented with a new problem. Do I want to have the game a little harder, or do I want to just sort of cruise through and enjoy the content again, because if I go any higher, I’m going to out-level more content again. Right now, I’m leaning towards more difficulty, because even with my computer lagging like it was cool, I’m going through my missions without too much effort.

The very next day I log on, I have the opposite thing happen: very little lag, and the missions are harder! Maybe I had old missions, because these Banished Pantheon missions have yellow- and orange-cons instead of whites and yellows. On a team, my healer bites the dust while I’m in a roomful of Thorns, I must have taken out ten of them before they finally got me. Maybe this level of difficulty is okay after all?

I level up to 24 inside of a mission (yay!), and go grab Focused Senses (FS), and notice that I have END problems now. So a quick trip to a Contact, and I add a defense enhancement to my FS, and fill in two more of my five slots in Stamina. Test time! I have to take out 20 Warriors next, so in a bid to keep from out-leveling content, I take out only Warriors, and end up stringing along about a dozen Freaks trailing after me. Defenses seem to be working fine...

I get another (?) Beat 20 warriors mission, and jump off the cliff, down where I know they’re fighting Thorns all the time. I do the same thing with them, leaving the Thorns in the dust after I beat the Warriors. I jump into a group of ten yellow-con Warriors, and proceed to take them out. Granted, I pump candy when needed, but at the end of it, I’m at full health and full END. Cool! I decide to try my luck and jump after two red-cons and a purple-con boss, with three white-con Thorns also in the neighborhood. I succeed! And then knock out the Thorns anyway, because they were actually hitting me, and started to piss me off. Rassin’ frassin’... They actually got my health down low on that one.

I spot an Elite boss soon after, and figure I’m overdue for a trip to the hospital anyway. Ooh, I almost had him too! 3500 debt. Meh, I did it to myself. I get into a suicidal scrapper-lock sequence and take several trips to the hospital chewing off more than I can handle. Then someone broadcasts that the Ghost Ship is in town, and I go chase down some spectral spirits! And one of Statesman’s Laws strikes, as always. MM II is supposed to go solo for the most part; my other alts are stuck at various points because each one needs to get a good team together and is not having any luck. But in IP and Talos and Striga, everybody and their mother is broadcasting looking for a team. I would have had a field day with any other character!

From the flavor text they drop in the clues for missions, I’m hoping the books that they put out like Web of Arachnos will fill in some of the blanks, like how Cassiopeia died in the 50s fighting off an invading space armada. Who else is out there besides the Rikti? They’ve been here in the past. They could be re-introduced at some point for story content!

Entry 96

I haven’t been playing for a while, at first from being out of town, but the last couple trips out have been mildly disappointing. All I’m trying to do at this point as Martial Master is take out the AVs on Invincible. Putting together teams is getting harder and harder, which makes me long for my solo days again, at precisely the time when I can’t go it solo. I add on team members until we can take out a couple AVs, but people leave quickly, and one of the Blasters suggest we go do something easier. Instead we break for dinner, but when I log back in, Taenia is the only one around. Ptheh!

We decide to turn the difficulty setting down and just go with the two of us. There are plenty of level 50s online, but they all have their own agendas. Nobody wants to do missions, which I thought was one of the better aspects of the game. There is a ton of power-leveling, bridging, and herding going on, though. I think I’m spotting more of it because I’m receiving more invites to such things since I’m finally at level 50 myself.

So Taenia and I take out a couple of AVs on Heroic, and I’m basically able to whittle them down to low health until Elude wears off, and then pump a couple CABs for the finisher. After we do a couple that way and log off, I call up my buddy and tell him that was kind of boring. “I know!” He says. He was bored too. It’s just no challenge for any of the mission until we reach the AV, but even an even-level AV can be taken down by two people. The excitement happens when you have a tougher challenge, and more people! I’m moving ever-closer to the types that want a greater challenge, that thinks things are a little too easy, but at the high levels only. The first twenty to thirty levels seem fine to me right now, but I’m caught in a paradox at the higher levels.

As much as I read on the boards from people saying the game is too easy, I can never find people willing to tackle the hard stuff in the game. Whether it’s setting Respecs or Task Forces on a higher setting, or tackling AVs at Invincible, I keep running across people who gripe about how it’s too hard, or they die too much. When everything hits the fan, most of the players do tend to take the easy road out. I’m more interested in seeing where my limits are, but I’ve always been that way. I also think the people afraid of death are a little short-sighted, because I’ve got plenty of missions left where I’m not gaining experience anymore, and I only power-leveled two bars around level 44 or so by accident, when someone invited me to a team and wanted me to bridge. Now I’m in an uncomfortable situation of playing my favorite character, earning no xp, unable to get teams to do my missions that I can’t solo, or run through them bored with Taenia.

As I think about the changes from when I first started the game, I’m still liking things, but the ability to get a team together is still a big problem at times. The problems with the AV missions at level 50 are a large reason why my playing has fallen off dramatically, and I can’t help but think a little that if the Issue 5 Update wasn’t full of power reductions, I might have a bigger pool of potential teammates to choose from. Instead, some have left, others are on test, others are sitting out waiting for City of Villains, and the rest are pl-ing and stuff. All I wanted was to “finish” Martial Master before the Issue Update, but now I’m thinking I’ll save the AV missions and test the remainder of them after I5 comes out, that way I can see with MM II how the lower levels play with the power changes, and still be able to comment on the higher levels as well.

Entry 95

It’s time to rock! We don’t want Taenia to out-level the Numina TF, so we log on Diamond Cut and CRM, and assemble a team to take on the first Portal mission AV. Violet Healer (guess her powers), SMokenONE, a level 38 Tank, and MourningSnow, a level 41 Controller, join us. We take down the AV fairly easily, but when we go to do the mission for a second team member, DC gets dropped in what looks like one hit, unless I blinked. It seems a little harder the second time, for some reason. Violet Healer has to leave after that, but we sidekick a cool Blaster, StarChild., and another one I call NL, because the actual name is named after a celebrity, and I don’t want to potentially see her get in trouble.

We actually have a fair number of deaths in the group, but it’s still a lot of fun. We’re on Invincible, and going after a ton of purple-cons and red-cons. I bite the bullet once trying to rez a Blaster when I’m low on Endurance. I stay locked for too long waiting, and the power goes off, but not before a Paragon Protector has seen me and drops me, but at least the blaster got away okay. The group mostly has deaths when the group is split up, which is easy to do on some of these maps, but DC thinks his Taunt might be messing up SMoken’s aggro, so he starts following the Tank. I think he had to make a small adjustment for that, because he has been basically tanking everything the whole time himself.

We lose both our Tank and DC in a big room, but I ask DC if he wants me to try to rez him. I can’t really do this with squishies, but DC is made of tough stuff. Even though he’s lying right at the feet of a group of red-cons, I queue up Resurrect and fiddle with my Super Speed a little, so I jam in, rez him, and have moved out to safety before the bad guys can react. Then I’m healing and buffing DC for all I’m worth, because he’s suddenly in a very bad neighborhood! We pull it off, and I grin to myself, then we go get the goons off the Tank’s corpse. They both die once more later on, they are both so fast on the maps! They were dead before I even got to the stairs, whereas they had gone on up and beyond that point. And us with no Teleport. I gotta find some way to blame this on DC...

The deaths didn’t matter too much at all, nobody complained, and even though I think we could have avoided them if we went a teensy bit slower, it’s no big deal, the group was really fun. It dissolves after a mission, as practically all of us have to go eat or do something else in real life. It’s funny how that happens, sometimes it’s a bad team that people are making up excuses to leave, but other times a good group gets into a kind of gestalt, and they zone through a ton of missions together, and then there is a group sense that we’ve reached a good stopping point.

My friend’s son wants someone to play with, so he logs on Krytin, a level 11 Peacebringer, and I bring out Balthraz, my Fire/Fire Tank. I still have a purple Discipline in the inspiration tray on Balthraz! I help him ding to 12 before I have to go eat, and then my friend who owns a comic store comes by. I show off the game to him, and let him design a character. He thinks it’s really neat, but a little too complicated for him to get into it. He says he has fun just watching people play, but that stuff isn’t for him, he doesn’t have the patience for it. He’s really impressed with the graphics and all the choices people are given, though.

Entry 94

Lousy night next, it seems, must be because of the good night before. I’m doing a mission when Martial Master gets a tell inviting him to a 44 Respec. I figure why not, it’s of the few trials I haven’t done yet, and abandon my current mission. After a mission, one of the team of four has to leave, but I reassure the leader we can still finish it with just the three of us. I notice the healer has not even been casting Recovery Aura, so I let her know that I will follow her when she announces it. Later on at the final mission, I also ask for Adrenalin Boost, and she gets snarky with me, actually tells me to shut up later, which is new to me.

Cowgerl, the team leader, asks me to let it drop until the mission is complete in a tell. I figure I might as well get the badge since I’ve come this far, but the attitude was very unwelcome. The healer goes ahead through the corridor to teleport us to the end, while I let myself die. I had a bunch of Respites, and Elude was ready, but I’d been debt-free for too long, so I wanted something to work off, maybe that makes me weird.

The healer, who hasn’t been very good at doing much of anything, in my opinion, starts trying to count the waves of villains. “Was that three? Or four?” My friend’s son is watching me play, and he says, “I think she has trouble counting.” Heh. She goes on about how well this is going, and how easy it is. Duh. Cowgerl has two Phantasms out, drawing all the aggro from one group, while I go teleport to the second group as soon as they appear and handle them. There’s nothing higher than an orange-con to me. I even run over and give the healer a Break Free when she gets mezzed once. I basically sleep-walk through the mission, glad to get the badge, but eager to shed the team. Cowgerl was fairly cool, but if I never see that healer again, it will be too soon! I have no idea how people can get to that level, with the attitude and the lousy play. Luckily encounters like this are still few and far between for me.

Entry 93

Did you ever have a perfect night? I mean in real life, when you’ve had a good day at work, and then you have three hours to play online? And you get a good team? The next night I link up with Taenia again to start rockin’. My old friends Kisume and jaggwar are online, and I quickly snap them up into my team. Kisume is a healing Defender, and jaggwar is a Claws/SR Scrapper, and long-time readers may remember me mentioning them. We are joined by a nameless Blaster, not to be confused by a previous Nameless Blaster that readers may also remember! The Blaster says no to an sk, which means at level 41 versus level 53 bad guys, he’s going to be like a gnat. Kisume tries to give him a hint even, and tells him if he can’t do damage, he does not belong on this team. She knows how jaggwar and I operate, and she has the same philosophy.

We go after Marauder, the Praetorian version of the Back Alley Brawler. I jump into battle head-first without Elude, and die fairly quickly. I’m not sure why the team didn’t bail, but they tough it out, and we have a group wipe, except for the Blaster who was hanging back. He says to get a Tank right as I am typing in to tell the team I will look for a Tank. Coming out of the hospital, the Blaster starts tossing out names of Tanks to invite, but with the names not quite right. I don’t take his word for it, even though he speaks as if they’re his friends, but I send a tell to confirm it with one. I get a positive response from front line., and a level 49 Tank joins us!

Back into the mission, the Blaster is talking about great xp and won’t stop telling me what to do, and Taenia sends me a tell to kick him. That launches me into my process, and I send a tell to each member, except for the new Tank, to state that I have received a request to kick a team member, identify who it is, and ask for their vote. Surprise, surprise, it’s unanimous. I announce that a vote has been taken, for his obnoxious behavior, pushiness, refusal to accept sk, etc., and ask the Blaster to quit or he will be kicked. He says, “No! Please!” I kick. I’d like to think my process is fair, and I know I’m more patient than most others, but I haven’t had to do that in so long, I’ve forgotten the last time. Kicking someone from the team is actually fairly rare for me. I’m a little dumbfounded that he could have gotten to level 41 teaming with others with his attitude.

We defeat the AV, not much trouble, and head for another mission. As we play, my team members ask me to invite others, so BlazingStar13 joins us, a Controller, and we also have Soul Tech, a good Blaster, and later Golden Phoenix, a level 28 Defender, join the team. We have a very efficient, fun team. Kisume and jaggwar have a great sense of humor, and I know Kis won’t get offended by anything I say, ‘cause she knows I’m joking. I flirt like it’s cool, and everyone joins in the fun, mostly the three of us and Taenia exchanging barbs, but all of us joking. I think front line. (Note the period at the end of his name! Don’t get him confused with a different front line) was the quietest, but that was because he was busy tanking!

We take out Chimera, the Praetorian version of Manticore, and I change to my other remaining contact to rescue a hostage. His name is Dr. Naples, and it sounds very similar to another word that the language filter allows. I lost track of how many jokes we had and how many times I typed in that word. Upon entry, I tell the team to let me die, and jump into a group of the Council. Taenia calls off one of the team who automatically jumped in to give me a hand.

When the dust settles, I type in, “That sucks, I didn’t even pop Elude!’ Ta tells me to keep going, so I jump immediately into the next mob, and they kill me. It feels good to have some debt to work off, since I can’t earn any more xp. Maybe I’m weird, but I wanted us to need a million more xp to get to level 50, so I could still enjoy a sense of earning xp with all this content left to go still. Kisume tries to find the hostage for the longest time, until Taenia locates him, and he’s actually the boss (that’s a minor spoiler, don’t worry, you’ll probably forget if you’re a low-level reader, or be glad to have that knowledge by the time you get to him). We then go back to the AV missions. Somewhere in here, BlazingStar13 had to leave.

Our final mission for the night is a timed one for Shadowhunter, the Praetorian version of the Woodsman. We jump in, and twenty minutes into it, front line. has to log off for twenty minutes. Another person quits without notice, but I smell something fishy. That was a cool person, not a coward or a rude one! My suspicions are confirmed, as it was the game crashing, and I re-invite. I type in, “I knew you weren’t quitting, cuz this whole team is cool!” Without our Tank, jaggwar and I take turns popping Elude and handling the aggro, and I tease him, calling him a battle hog as he skips my turn once, and heads in the lead again. “Save some for me!” I tell him. He’s typing in “Bowling for doggies” as he cuts loose with his Claw AoE attacks.

We reach Shadowhunter, and I lead off until my toggles drop. Jaggwar jumps right in, and gets nailed in one punch. He’s still level 49, and I guess that makes all the difference. I activate Elude as soon as it is up again, and Jaggwar is back when my toggles drop again. I don’t wait to re-engage, I pop a blue and head back in, so jaggwar isn’t exposed for more than a couple seconds. I’m not waiting for heals from my Defenders, I’m punching a Respite as soon as I get hit, and then their heals kick in, but my actions prevent me from taking an immediate dirt nap at least once. All I’ve got is Focused Fighting and my passives, but I manage until Elude has recharged again, glad to survive, and glad that jaggwar didn’t have to try to handle the heat again. We beat the AV... and our Tank logs back in about thirty seconds later, no joke. We mop up the missing, hunting down stray doggies, and we all decide that was awesome fun, and the Tank missed it, and it’s a great group. I can tell because I’ve still got a stack of new comics I haven’t stopped to read, and I’ve pushed back dinner. Red Haven can attest to how much I complain when I haven’t eaten. I can’t afford to do that, I’m so skinny I lose too much weight if I don’t get food regular! I’m about forty minutes overdo when the group has all pretty much decided to call it a night. Weird how right when I decided I had to log, the others were all announcing it was night for them too.

In real life, I head to Wendy’s order a larger burger than usual with my fries, and reach into my change compartment in the dark for some change. I pull out a dime and four pennies, the exact amount of change I needed. See what I mean? A perfect night!

Gil, I know you'll do well in the new place. Thanks for all your hard work here, I enjoyed every bit of it. Best wishes

-TP

Entry 92

Today is the day, I can feel it in my bones. I am going to take Martial Master to 50. Taenia logs in at level 37, and becomes my sidekick. He keeps saying we can do the missions ourselves on Heroic, but I want my main and favorite character to take the toughest the game can dish out. We get a Tank, and Fujiko Murakuma joins! You know those good and fun players that you wish were online at the same time as you more often? That’s Fujiko. I’ve got a good feeling about this. Purity Goddess, a Defender, Empathy, joins. We rock through to the Portal for Infernal, and Fujiko asks if we’re really set on Invincible, heh. I post on the boards what I’m doing, and when I’m on bubble 8 towards 50, a fan from the boards sends me a tell to congratulate me. Cool!

Our Tank distracts Infernal, and Purity tries to keep him alive, while I go after the Portal alone. I get it down to about 9200 health, but my group is dropping one by one. Purity tells me to run, so I beat feet a little ways, and see we’re all that’s left. I block a doorway and take out about six demons, to let her get clear, and then she teleports me. We’re not far enough to lose aggro, so I tell her to go farther back, and take out a couple more, asking her to TP me when she’s clear. She gets me right when my toggles drop from the Elude crash. I love it when a plan comes together! Our Tank has crashed, and Taenia crashes, but he gets back on fairly quickly.

We grab Thunder Alley, a level 41 Tank, and head back in, joined by gundam, level 50 Blaster, who plays very well, by the way. This time we handle it smoothly, no deaths. As the Scrapper, half the time I’m the one who deals the killing blow to an AV, so when it happens, I type in, “I killed him1 Me! Bwah-ha-ha-ha-hah-HAH!!!” The six of us rock through a few more missions, and...

Ding! Level 50! I feel good. Hey! I’m not getting any more xp! Fujiko laughs and tells me I got 10 more experience points, look up at my xp bar. Fujiko has to leave, so we do another mission, and switch sidekicks, so gundam has Taenia, and I have Thunder Alley. For some reason, on an outside map the others don’t follow the Tank. I see them both drop, but if I had left Thunder’s side, he would have been in trouble. They also die one more time when we stumble across the AV, but they get back from the hospital in time to help us put the finishing touches on him! We do a couple more, and then break for lunch. In real life, I get in my car and zoom to pick up food for Taenia and me, using my Super Reflexes to avoid traffic and trouble. Okay, maybe I’m blending realities, but I’m pretty sure people can tell there’s something different about me now. I think about buying a bumper sticker for my car that says, “My other char is a level 50."

So I go to Red Haven/ Diamond Cut/ Taenia and we sit and watch a Batman cartoon, and then head back for more action. The others are offline, and gundam is in a mission as soon as he logs on, so it’s just Taenia and me. We do a couple missions, and I finally go train up, putting a sixth slot in two of my passives, and a To-Hit buff in Focused Accuracy. I am complete. Except for enhancements. Back to the grind!

We go into a lab and I jump into battle like usual, but unknown to me, Taenia has been knocked back. I’ve been running without Elude, and I hit it too late. No heal comes, and I bite the big one. Taenia teleports me to safety and I res, but as I take stock and activate my toggles, he’s run back to the enemy, and his sidekick drops, and he takes an immediate dirt nap. Does he not see the message that he’s getting out of range of me? That’s what I call a brain fart. I TP him, and give him an Awaken, and we don’t have any of that nonsense happen again.

For our final mission for this stretch, we take on Neuron, the Praetorian version of Psynapse. I’ve faced him before, helping others out with their AV missions, and he is no pushover. For once, I’m actually not sure if we can handle it, but we’re willing to try. The lab equipment inside gives us disorient and lethargy, and we both call out, “Boo!" The third one gives us health regen, “Yay!” Neutron is by the fourth lab, and he sees us as we knock out his minions. I pop Elude as he comes around the corner and go to town. For three solid minutes I drop the beat-down on this sucker, and my toggles drop. I backpedal and pop some purples and a couple blues. Turn on Focused Fighting and F. Accuracy and jump right back in. Taenia heals me twice for the two times he does bad damage to me. He’s down! We took down a level 52 AV with just the two of us! That feels pretty good. We call for a break, since we’ve been playing for the better part of seven hours today.

What’s next? Well, I have to take a look at what badges I still need, I am going to complete the last two people that can give me missions, and then I might go on Kora missions looking for level 53 enhancements. I’ve got to exemplar to do the Positron TF still, and I’m also planning to spend a little time as a taxibot, and exemplaring for others who want help, on an occasional “give back to the community” day. I’m even going to hold a costume contest one of these days! Ooh, and I need to spank 10,000 monkeys still! That never gets old.

My initial thoughts are that it should have taken another million xp to get to 50, but maybe I’ve beaten the curve by running on Invincible all the time. I had thought by dying often in the early part of the game, like by not taking Practiced Brawler originally until level 16 or so, that I might be able to get through all the major content and get to 50 at the end of the AV story arc, but no biggie. Ooh, and Khelds! I need to roll a couple of Kheldians. All of these plans I have for Martial Master will probably take a back seat, as I will be teaming with DC as CRM most likely. The Issue 5 update will come soon, and then I will trot him out for more experimentation, to see for myself how the changes affect everything. I’m not sure the process the Devs use for tweaking powers is the best way, it seems to upset a lot of people, but one thing is for sure, with as often as things change, I’m not getting bored yet! Woot!

Soliciting for teams is still an effort, but I almost don’t think about it anymore. Even if someone is marked “looking for team,” I still send them a tell first anyway. More often than not they aren’t available, but many of them thank me for asking. I have gotten the sense that people are really really really sick of blind invites, so much that they appreciate the people who send them tells.


It’s a new night for hunting AVs, and Taenia sidekicks to Martial Master. We end up going after Nightstar, the Praetorian version of Luminary. She flies around like nobody’s business! Our Tank dies and quits without saying anything. That is kind of disappointing, actually, because he played relatively well, but he bolted at the first sign of trouble. We recruit a new Tank, and surround Nightstar on a roof. We’re whomping on her somewhat well, when someone uses an AoE and pushes her right off the roof. Great, she’s flying again. I type in to the others to tell them to stay back, let her lose aggro and go land on a rooftop again before we re-engage.

My Elude is up, so I have no worries, but Taenia comes right up next to me, and Nightstar one-shots her. Someone else lands right next to us, and also gets one-shot. I feel like C3PO: “Why doesn’t anyone listen to me?” But it is slightly amusing. A few members ask to reset the mission to Heroic, and I grumble to myself, but I go do it. I like to keep my team members happy. Nightstar is now level 50 instead of level 53, and we cut through everything like Swiss cheese. I resolve to come back with a different character and try her again on Invincible, I’m convinced as long as we don’t shove her off the roof with AoE, we can whittle away at her enough. I kept silent about asking Taenia to log Red Haven in to tank, I thought he wanted Ta to get the xp and the Portal Jockey Accolade early for that character, but later he tells me he just plumb forgot about switching to Red. Heh.

We log for dinner, and I’m solo for an hour later on, as I decide to roll my first Kheldian. What to call him? Brane. A brane is what quantum physicists like to call a boundary between dimensions. It’s not commonly known, and a spell-checker will single it out as a mis-spelling. I think it fits a Warshade concept, and I go into the tutorial. I complete my mission and then head out to get the Isolator badge, issuing a Broadcast invite for anyone who wants to join for it. ScarletSting is the only one to take me up on it, but we have a good time, and I tell her to do her mission and catch up with me in Galax City. We do missions for a while, with her leveling up about thirty seconds after I do each time. I tease her, alternating between calling her a slacker and a copycat. We play until we’re at level 5, and I make a new global friend. See how easy that is?

Entry 91

No Red Haven with Martial Master tonight. Instead, he wants to log Taenia on and see how well that character does sidekicked. I finally get to go after Vanessa DeVore. My settings are on Invincible, so she’s level 51. We breeze through the opposition to get to her, and Taenia tells me to run in. As soon as I do, Taenia is held, and we both take a dirt nap. Regrouping, I jump in with Elude already on and pump some candy, and manage to whittle her health away until she bolts. I use all my candy and still get knocked out! We run back again and hit her as hard as we can, and running doesn’t help her this time. Not bad for just the two of us, I’m thinking.

Taenia dies once on another map as I jump down into an open warehouse area. He was not following his mentor, tsk tsk. I’ve got auto-follow on hotkey for engaging enemies, so as soon as I can lock onto one I engage. I change it a little and just auto-follow my teammate, so that way I don’t get too far ahead, and I don’t go off engaging groups while he engages a different group. I want to try herding, since we won’t be able to do it much after Issue 5 hits, but he has an uncanny knack for using his EM Pulse in the big areas, freezing all the people I want to herd. I need them awake and around me if I’m going to knock them down with my Dragon Tail attack.

I’m so used to my buddy being a high-level unstoppable Scrapper, I leave him behind once on an outdoor map, and the lone remaining Carnie turns into a big old purple-con that he can’t touch. I come back at his yell, since I had forgotten he was sidekicked. It’s a little different for me with Martial Master, because in the “old” days, before the Elude change, I ended up as the team tank, with everyone following me automatically. If I noticed anyone get in the red for health, I’d head back to help them out with Super Speed. All the other times, as Red haven or Diamond Cut, he could always take care of himself, so I have to adjust a little bit for the difference. I was just having so much fun playing my favorite character again, I got a little carried away. Taenia is acting like one of those jerks who tell you how to Respec your build. Ptheh! If I wanted to be cookie-cutter, I know where to go and how to build it. They’re changing all the powers soon enough, let me enjoy this character the way I like him, for whatever short amount of time I have left. Who knows what will be playable after this? I don’t think he understands that I’m keeping him this way specifically to show that a player with a non-maxed build can still hold his own on the higher settings. Everyone already knows what the min/maxers can do, I’m showing that the casual players and the concept characters can still play the game and enjoy it, even if there is one or two things that could be done to make the build better. Besides, MM II will be toggles, and I just can’t fathom building two characters to be completely identical in every aspect. Taenia levels up to 40, and logs off for the night. I clear out all of my normal missions, until all I have left is Infernal and the timed Requiem mission. Hmm, I’m pretty sure I can’t solo those.

The next day, I log in to wait for Taenia to get free, and notice I’ve been getting blind invites and invitations to mentor and be a bridge and all that stuff, like it was going out of style soon. I must have gotten more of all that in these two days than any two months combined of playing. People are really afraid of losing out if the Issue 5 changes go live, and they’re kind of panicking. I decline each one. I don’t care what the Devs do, I’m playing the game my way, to make it as much fun for me personally as I can, and I just happen to find power-leveling and bridging and all that related stuff boring. Speaking of having fun, the only other place for adventures and missions now is the Shadow Shard!

It’s about time I tested the Elude changes against the Rularuu anyway. There are a couple of villains that chew through SR’s defenses like it was tissue paper. I pop Elude a little early, taking on some grunts, but it lasts me all the way through to the boss and an orange-con Watcher. No problem. I take out the last mob without Elude, and I’m down to about half health, but the mission is over. Another test taken care of, and no worries so far. Perma-Elude was more convenient, but this way is slightly more challenging after all. And my build is passives, with only one slot in Focused Fighting. I figure if I can take care of myself on Invincible, then all of the crying on the boards was exaggeration. The only place I need help is with an AV, and it’s always been that way.

I explore the Shard for a little while, specifically the Chantry, since I haven’t been there before. I don’t have too bad a time timing the jumps, but if I mess up just once, I start back at square one. I can see how I might Respec just to get Fly if I want to hang out here. I manage to get by with Teleport, and go on my first Kora Fruit mission. Not really all that hard. I go call Dr. Boyd next, and do a monument mission. I take out the level 51 boss and get hit down to just a couple of health points, literally. I look down. No wonder, I did that without Elude on! If I can mange that without even hitting Elude, then why were so many of the toggle players saying they were gimped? I’m starting to think a lot of the doom on the boards was out of fear, and not out of actual testing. Time to see what missions I can get from Lt. Volkov. Oh man, a hunt 50? Save me! I can’t even get xp for those here.

Next up from Volkov is a timed Nemesis mission, and with Teleport, it only takes about one minute to get to the mission. Was this a trick? It’s all Rularuu in here, until a group of Nemesis stumble upon me. I jump into a group of about ten to twelve Rularuu and my health goes down fast, so I pop Elude. Somebody sends me a tell asking to join my team in the middle of it. It’s one of the same people who asked me to pl him earlier. Sigh. The biggest drawback to these missions is that I actually have to use Elude to survive the red-con Watchers, so I have a little downtime. As I type up my adventures, a three-man group of Nemesis finds me again, and I have to stop typing and go back to the game to dispatch them. Good thing I kept the sound on! All in all, with Elude downtime and typing, it takes about fifteen minutes to find all eight hostages. Elude goes down in the middle of a fight with a bunch of orange-cons, including Watchers, so I take a beating, but keep on going anyway. I pop Elude once more for the level 51 Warhulk boss, and there goes another successful Shadow Shard test, doing pretty much all of the missions you can get there. Maybe I’ll try them with a team just to try to make it more interesting next time. Not that this was boring, I was lower on health for these missions than all my others in Paragon City. Ooh, got my 7th bubble of xp towards 50, too!

After dinner, I log back on to do a 45 minute timed mission from Volkov. 15 minutes and... done! I drop off the edge of a cliff and take the zone entrance to the Cascade Archipelago from Firebase Zulu, and then head back to Lt. Volkov from there, it’s about the same amount of time. But I can’t teleport right into the wormhole. Ptheh! Okay, I’ve run through all of the shard missions without dying, the only thing left is my AV missions, and the last two Task Forces for the Shard. I want big teams, think we need big teams for each TF anyway, but they are still hit-and-miss in getting them together. Less than a million influence left to go!

Entry 90

Back from the Comicon, and Diamond Cut says I’m not ever allowed to go away for a full week again! We look with some confusion on the test server list of all the changes to the power sets, and decide to play as much as we can with our existing characters and abilities. We play for just a couple of missions, as we work the kinks out, since he’s been playing Taenia up to 35 while I’ve been gone. He has to get used to DC’s hotkeys and such again.

The next night, he’s not rusty at all. DC likes to herd sometimes, but we don’t usually do it except for some big rooms. We suspect herding will be greatly curtailed soon, so we spend the night herding everything. I’ve been holding my Atomic Blast in reserve for a while, so I wait until DC herds an indoor lab room, one of the big ones, and then I cut loose with my Blast after an Aim and a Neutron Bomb. Almost all of the baddies go down, and DC is almost speechless. I’m dancing at how cool that looked! We start herding everything in sight when we can, just to do it while it’s still possible.

On a Nemesis mission, I forget that the Jaegers explode, and Atomic Blast myself into the ground. Heh. I work off the debt in that mission, and level up to 40 on the mission complete bonus! Two final slots to Atomic Blast, and one to Regeneration aura. Then it’s off to Peregrine Island on a hunt 50 Nemesis mission, and we like the xp from purple-conning Fake Nemesis! A week away from the game, and we pick up right where we left off. Excellent herding all evening.

Entry 89

Storylines are popping into my head as I play the game now. That Tech store is deep in “enemy” territory in Independence Port. They have to be playing both sides, supporting the villains, too, to stay in business. The Lost are the perfect group for Crey to be kidnaping off the streets for experiments. The ads by Crey all around town could have a subliminal compulsion element to them. There are so many potentially cool stories to tell here, I’m hoping the Devs see the same potential.

On the way to Perez Park, MM II spots a Lead Brick and takes him out, obtaining another villain defeat badge, the Weatherman. It’s one of the easiest to get, since they are so prevalent in Steel Canyon, the transit way-station between the inner circle of the city and the outer ring. I must finally be getting the hang of this game: a mission in Perez was at the end of a winding path, and I navigated it without stopping or running into a bush. The mission takes all of three minutes, as I find the hostage to rescue and complete the mission, getting a temp power, the Idol of Lughebu, to boot. I take out the boss real quick before I exit, since he’s standing right across from me. I hate caves.

I have a Lost mission, and I want them to be at the same level as me, so I want to go to Atlas and get the cape mission. Providence provides for me, as I get a courier mission to take something to Azuria. Must be my lucky day, the kind where all the traffic lights are green for you. To top it off, I Super Jump over Paragon City Hall and get the Freedom badge, I totally forgot that was there. Huzzah! The good luck continues as I clear up a mission contact, and he gives me a mission in skyway next. The cape mission is in the Hollows, right next door. The Warrior mission is actually a little boring, almost all white-cons. I may have to visit one of those reputation-mongers, and up my difficulty setting. I change it to Tenacious before I try the Cape mission. Most of my time here has still been traveling from mission to mission. I’ve gotta head back to Striga as soon as I can, I hope the new zone is like that, with most of the missions close by in the same zone.

Jackpot! Orange-con Pariah prelate bosses. That’s more like it. I use up almost all my END taking out two of them. I’ve got my genetic Restabilizer, my confiscated Beanbags, and the Idol of Lughebu. These guys don’t stand a chance! As a matter of fact, there are depressingly few of them, and I handle them way easy. Did I just wait too long to get this? I didn’t even fulfill my arrest 20 Lost mission! I log off for dinner and come back later, headed for Striga. The Heracles mission is the one where the contact suggests you take help. Meh, not needed at this point. I’m feeling uber, most likely because of the SOs. That’s not a complaint, it feels good to one-hit a white-con finally. After 20 levels, a little feeling of power doesn’t hurt one bit. I’m moving through them so fast, I’m burning out of END. I turn off Sprint and Combat Jumping, just leaving Focused Fighting on. Maybe I should go to Rugged instead...

I finally die when I enter a mission with 20 Tsoo clustered near the entrance. I take out about five, but miss on an Idol of Lughebu. I turn around and do the slow-motion Baywatch run of death, as they kill me from behind. I see TUBS is online, and he joins me. He’s level 25 already! Quoklain from an earlier team is 29, is everyone playing this game non-stop while I’m at work? Sheesh! He helps me finish the mission, then we get one from his contacts. Purple Sorcerors and Ancestor Spirits, oh my! I do pretty well, despite whiffing whenever the Sorceror brings up his big bag ‘o wind. I level up when we hit the final bad guy and complete the mission. 23! Two more slots for Stamina. I have time for one more board train mission with him before I have to log off for the night.

I’m going on vacation for a week, so I had to play as much as I could these last few days. Who knows when I’ll be back online!

Entry 88

I can’t sleep, so I log on to clear out an old mission. I’m mindlessly jamming through a bunch of green- and blue-cons when I notice I’m getting hammered. I turn on Focused Fighting, and get pegged three times in a row, one a Critical Hit. A fourth knocks me out before I can hit a Respite. The Ancestor Spirit was a white-con, but they were all hitting me non-stop. Man, when SR’s luck runs out, it really runs out! So much for playing while half-asleep.

I wonder who all these civilians are in the Tsoo drug lab. How did they get to be here? I’m pretty sure they were helping with the stuff, even though they’re running around scared like always. Gets me suspicious. Gah! I find 11 of the blinkies, but have to go back through the map to find the 12. I go back through all four levels, and it turns out it’s back on the fourth level after all. Ptheh! I’m really still not fully awake yet, but I know I can’t go back to sleep anyway. I press on, and head to Talos Island for a brace of new missions!

Meh, the first mission sends me back to King’s Row. Halfway through, I turn the corner in the warehouse and run into six yellow-con Tsoo. Okay, but I’m pumping candy for this many! I must admit, I’m kind of missing the helpfulness of Cobra Strike and Focus Chi by now, as opposed to Martial Master’s build at the time, but those were taken in lieu of the Fitness line at the time, and I’m moving faster through things by getting Stamina at 20.

As I pass by steak houses and comic stores, I can’t wait for the opportunity to actually go inside them some day. Super Jump is great for getting around Talos. I take the mission to go to Striga, where Super Jump is also great. I land smack dab in the middle of five Council goons in front of my contact, but they’re all blue-cons, and are easily arrested by my quick hands and feet. The hunt 10 Council mission, I head for a goon for the last two I need, and he’s in the middle of twelve (I counted!) Other Council and Warriors. I figure, why not? Time for a test. I take a little candy every now and them just to use them up, because my tray is full. I only need to pop one blue to keep going. Yup, even a baker’s dozen blue-cons give me no problem. Cool.

Jumping is a little problematic in Striga if I don’t pay close attention. Right now, my relatively low level can get me killed if I get too close to an Underboss. I avoid scrapperlock on him and run away. Inside a timed mission, I’m thinking, “You know, they can give me just one Critical Hit any time today, that would be great.” I think I’ve gotten three in the past couple hours. Just after I think it, it happens. Cool as well! As if to reassure me the game is not broken, I suddenly get four more Crits on the next ten bad guys. I had an hour to rescue the guy, I get him in ten minutes. I want timed missions that are a little shorter on time, myself. I stay in the mission anyway to beat up some more Council. If the 5th are gone, these are the closest to ratzi jack-booted thugs for me to whomp on. I go find the boss and knock him out before I leave.

It’s funny to watch Mek Men, which are machines, get all dizzy from a Thunder Kick. I like their skates, though, I hope we get those for CoV. Lots of Mek Men here, am I stopping the shipment from being delivered, or am I basically destroying the whole shipment as I go along? On the next Council mission, I’m supposed to rescue four researchers and look for a crate. I do all that, knock out the bosses, and then it changes to an arrest all mission. Really? After all that I did, and now you want me to get all the rest of them. Sigh. I don’t mind really, I just wish you had a better sense of when that was going to happen in a mission. These guys are like cockroaches, though...


I level up on the next mission! Level 22, and now I definitely want those level 25 SOs. I’m tired of them having a sliver of life left, or using Kick and they still have a sliver. We’re gonna go get some damage! I choose Quickness without hesitation at this point. Without Hasten, I need the recharge without question. Also, since I don’t have Super Speed like Martial Master, being able to close in on my opponents fast will be an advantage.

I’m getting tons of lag now, but I have to test out how I work at the new level. I’m hunting Freaks, but all I’m running across are Warriors. I take out two orange-con lieutenants without breaking a sweat, and immediately jump into a group of eight Tsoo and Warriors. I think I get hit twice. Ooh, lookee, I’m a super hero!

I try to take on a red-con Warrior Elite, but he runs away from me the whole time, it didn’t seem like a fair test. I do better against a slew of yellow- and orange-cons as I run through Talos. When I finally find some Freaks, they’re mostly blue- and green-cons. A speeding level 29 scrapper comes along and gets to several mobs before I do. Hey, he’s MA/SR as well! He must be slumming. My final Freak for the hunt 20 mission is an orange-con Tank Smasher. I take him out! While I’m looking over my enhancements, he rezzes right under my feet. I Crane Kick him over the railing into the water. That’s almost five straight hours of playing, that’s enough for now.

Entry 87

Waiting for Red Haven to call me, I log on MM II just to putz around solo for a mission or two. He logs on as Taenia for a couple minutes to “play around with his enhancements.” If you know what I mean. I accidentally level MM II after getting xp for a courier mission, and knocking out a 2nd Tsoo after getting immediately ambushed for the next mission the contact gave me. Since my three main attacks are six-slotted, and I see no need to slot Inherent powers or my Jumps, I add them to Stamina. Diamond Cut logs on, so CRM and he go to work off some debt from the Eden Trial. I’m guessing it will be easier if we try it when we’re both one level higher. After a couple missions, I’m debt-free!

DC wants to try his hand at the first AV in our portal missions (not naming him to avoid spoilers for lower-level reader), thinking I can heal him. My only experience is with Martial Master and perma-Elude, and I tanked him that way, so we go ahead. DC sees the AV’s at level 42, and runs out to change his difficulty setting, while I razz him, saying I’m going to get his name changed to Diamond Chicken, or Chicken Cut. We go back in, I give him some buffs, hand him a damage inspiration, and send him into the fray, after he feels the need to remind me to leave the minions alone for his Invincibility. No duh. It’s no good, as he immediately drops to a sliver of health. I interrupt my snipe attack and auto-follow on Super Speed to heal him, but a second attack takes him out as my animation hits him. The AV hits me once as I fall back, but I’m moving to fast to keep the aggro, and get to a safe place. I type in, “You almost had him... rofl” He grouses about getting all that debt back. And he calls me a whiner! He’s not upset about debt per se, he just doesn’t like losing at anything. I stopped worrying about debt at any level a while ago. I’m having fun with all my characters, so while I don’t invite the debt with suicide charges, I also don’t run away like a pansy from my teammates if they get in trouble. I’ve known I-don’t-know-how-many Defenders and Blasters who turn tail and run (and one or two Scrappers and Tanks!). I usually choose the moment things get dicey to jump in the middle with my heals and any buffs I can call up. True, I end up in the hospital as often as not when that happens, but the times I pull a rabbit out of my hat and keep people in the game is when things get fun and exciting. DC has to work tomorrow, so he logs, as we realize we’re gonna need at least one more helping hand with the AV. I do just a couple more missions with MM II before I also get tired. I do enough to land all of my new contacts for levels 20-25, on my way earning the Healing Node Badge, and with it the Collector Badge.

Why, what's the matter, don't you like tackling big mobs?

I'm going to reserve judgement until I test this out, my main interest is PvE. I may dangle my left foot in the Arena finally to see if it gets shot off or not.

Are the examples of SR vs. Ice supposed to be for PvP only now? Because for PvE I'm used to running on Invincible, fighting non-stop, and only hitting Elude when I need to. Hit Conserve Power before it drops, and one CAB after it drops, and I just keep fighting on my merry way. The idea of only fighting half the time in the game does not apply to PvE one bit. Just seeking clarification.

Entry 86

This next TF group was fun! I look up the level requirements for the Synapse Task Force and figure I might as well knock it out now while I’m at level 19. I’m near Synapse already, and there’s a small group clustering around the guy. As I figure out who’s in charge and ask for an invite, I tell a Tank, Melted, that the TF is for levels 15-21. HE says, “I know, I’m no newb!” He still reads as a level 14 though, and he realizes he hasn’t trained up yet, and starts laughing. Melted and I are the last to join a group of eight, and the normal question pops out: How long is this going to take? The leader is a Controller, Psi Key. Two hours, according to her. Closer to three, I offer.

Melted gets a sidekick from Neurosurgent, another Controller with awesome holds, and we head to the mission. Someone makes a comment about being glad one of them is a healer, as one healer for a group of eight is tough. I point out Psi Key has Empathy too before I realize these guys have already tried this once before the Kid, Melted and I got here, obviously to no success. I monitor the group’s chatter about how hard this will be, and looking around, and I see two healers and a Force Fielder, which if I remember right is JC Kid. We all agree on a love of bubbles. I’m thinking, what the heck kind of trouble do these guys think we’re going to run into?!?

We have a couple deaths on the first missions like usual, but with a bubble on me, I end up turning off Focused Fighting. Melted has two Tanks for a front line, TUBS and Vulcann, and Ultraman Alpha brings up the rear as our Blaster. This group is fun and funny! I start talking trash and cracking jokes and everyone joins right in, except for Neurosurgent. He’s busy holding our enemies, there’s no time for him to type as well. I tell him that’s okay, we prefer he hold things instead! Most of the group is around level 19 or the last part of 18, and several people level up as we go along. Before too long I’ve gotten a couple of invites to be global friends, everyone is having such a blast. I’m shouting out my normal, “Last one to the next mish is a TUBS!” When Ultraman Alpha dies, I tell him, “Hey! Everyone on the team has a job to play, why do you think we invited you?” Everyone laughs. Neurosurgent is the last one to the mission. “Neurosurgent is a TUBS!” I say in mock horror. “Yes I am,” he says.

In the middle of a fight, someone called GenericHero0572 shouts out, “Hey! What happened to my costume? “ Melted is like, “Who the heck are you?” It’s Ultraman Alpha, he’s been nerfed while online! I explain someone must have petitioned him. Even though he made an Ultraman homage character that didn’t exist in the actual TV series, the company is playing it safe because of the Marvel lawsuit against them. I explain this to some of the group who don’t know what’s going on, but reassure him he’ll have an e-mail allowing him to change his name and design a new costume (for free! I think.). We all agree it sucks, but he takes it well, overall. Satire and parody and homages should be allowed, but we’ll have to wait and see how the dust settles on the lawsuit.

We’re on a lab map, the complicated one with corridors running through the middle to different levels, one that doesn’t show you easily on the Map view how everything goes. I find the next mob and pull up short, telling people we’ve got some here. Melted comes flying past me and lands smack dab into the middle of them. “Retreat, Melted,” I tell him. Nobody else is close, and he’s dropping. I punch up three purple candies, turn on my defenses, and jump in after him, Crane-Kicking people off him and moving fast. I’m like a whirling dervish, pumping all my candy that’s left, determined to save him. I end up impressing even myself with being able to survive and take these guys out. The others arrive one by one, but Melted falls. Gah! So close! We mop up the few remaining enemies, and Melted moans about his mentor getting too far away form him so fast. Turns out he lost the benefit of his sidekick when Neurosurgent couldn’t keep up with him, and didn’t have too much of a chance.

After hour three comes and goes, we finally start to have some dropoff. JC Kid has to work tomorrow, and Vulcann and Melted, I think, have to head out too. It stinks to lose guys when we’re getting so close to the end, the group is really good. Everyone has been put on the friends list, and that doesn’t usually happen. Ultraman says he has to leave, and we talk about resuming tomorrow, but I’m one who only has a chance to play tonight. Ultra stays anyway, and as I chat, he says, “Who’s Ultra?” That guy has a good sense of humor. I can’t resist. “Last one to next mish is a GenericHero!”

I make some jokes about taking pictures, and Ultraman says as long as it’s not when he’s dead on the ground. “But that’s the whole point!” I explain. After expecting Babbage for three missions, he finally shows up, and it’s a close call. We use all our candy, except for our blaster, who mentions later he hasn’t been using any of his (!), but I’m almost permanently in the red and out of END, running in for three or four attacks and then dashing out, still being targeted by him sometimes. We pull it off with no deaths! I level up to 20 sometime after this, and man is Stamina needed! Perfect timing. I was trying to do a different build other than ye olde Stamina/Hasten, but I detest the downtime. Just an un-slotted Stamina makes a world of difference for the rest of the TF. Ahhh, to have energy...

We make it to the last missions, and I think I’m the only one who hasn’t died yet. Then Psi Key starts in on using her Invis and Teleport. I type in immediately, “I’d prefer to fight our way through to the boss, myself,” but it does no good. She TPs everyone, but when she does it, I end up smack dab in the middle of a mob, Neurosurgent isn’t here yet to hold anything, and we’re under attack! I’m taking out an orange-con, with half a dozen ad guys in front of me, while getting pounded for 100 points of damage at a time from something behind me. I use all my candy, wait for help, wait for a TP, wait for a heal form Psi Key. Nothing. I eat dirt. That struck me as a needless death, and I must admit I’m a little frustrated at it. It was a bonehead TP with no warning, and no healing from him, and it just didn’t need to happen. I almost never find someone who wants to use Invis to skip to the end who knows how to do things so the teammates don’t die. Most of the deaths on the TF happened whenever we were split up as a group. So, not the best healer in the world, but still on my friend’s list!

We take out the Clockwork King, and he’s easy compared to Babbage, he goes down relatively fast. We split up to clean up the rest of the mobs, and of course, we might as well have just worked our way there to clear the building. Neurosurgent gets in the red and I chase after him, switching to Super Jump to close the distance between us on the map. He runs toward me with three or four baddies on his tail, and I type in, “Off our Neuro!” and jump in kicking, taking the aggro off of him. He gets clear and comes back to hold the last couple as I finish them off. Phew! Five hours.

As soon as the TF is complete and everyone leaves, an ambush of eight (!) Tsoo comes after me. I must have a mission open to deliver something to a contact. Eight is a lot, the computer must have registered me being in a group when it sent them my way. TUBS is still standing nearby, and I see him swinging at three of them while I dispatch of the rest. When I turn around, TUBS is gone, and I take out the others, who are coming back after me. A little dicey, but I handle all eight of them rather well, despite two of them being Sorcerors. Time to get some rest, before something else decides to attack me!

Here are some pictures, let me know if you would like to see more in the future:
Task Force Speed
MM II faces Babbage
TUBS lying down on the job
Ultraman lying down on the job
Kicking Babbage in his unmentionables

Entry 85

MM II makes a ton of mistakes today. Going after a Troll boss and a Tsoo boss on an indoor mission, I stop to read what they’re saying before I attack, and they send me to the hospital, despite all the candy I use. Then, on my way to hunt some Council in steel, I spot a Lead Scorcher beside a Lead Brick, and decide to add to my badge collection. I take out one, but the other hits me every time through my Focused Fighting and my Combat Jump. This is the only time I get frustrated with the game, when my SR, whose specialty is avoiding getting hit, just gets belted left and right several times in a row. Ptheh! He nails me just as I’m running away with my Super Jump. The bind is still a little weird, many times I will pres the hotkey to stop, and I will continue to jump in place. If it keeps happening, I’m going to bug it, there’s no way this is my keyboard, all of my other binds work perfectly.

I can’t believe how many people are running around town with names like Darkity Dark Dark. I’ve got one alt called Ebon Specter, and I think that’s the closest to Dark-anything in my heroes. There won’t be any names available for CoV! I go hunt the Council now, wondering why in the world a secret organization is standing on soap boxes on the street corners like evangelical preachers. The idea made a little more sense when they were the 5th. That ratzi type of mentality has no shame, as well as the fanatical sense of devotion to their idea of a just cause. The Council is supposed to be... secretive. Maybe they’re a retarded secret society? Maybe a bunch of inbred rednecks that don’t understand what the word ‘secret’ means? Meh, I’ll beat ‘em up anyway. Disturbing the peace. Assembling parades without a license. Offensive speech and fighting words. Carrying without a license. Littering. Whatever. I bite off more than I can chew with a group of yellow- and orange-con Council, and go to the hospital for the third time. Maybe my head is just not in the game today. It’s like I’ve got a permanent case of Scrapperlock. But the debt gets worked off almost without me noticing. I head back to see how tough Dr. Vahz is now.

I level up after just a couple mobs to 18. Yay! I also notice for the first time all the flies buzzing around near the ceiling lamps in the sewers in the big areas. Nice detail! The Vahz are actually a pretty cool enemy to fight. Their attack sequences look cool, the vomit sounds menacing, and the Eidolons make things really interesting. Dr. Vahz is orange-con now, and he’s got 3920 hit points. And 800 endurance? What doe he need 800 Endurance for? I can use 800 endurance, sheesh! I clear his minions and get him down to 3310 before I run out of candy. I retreat, rest up, and come back but just manage to keep him at about that same level each time before I run out of END. I’ve got a Lethargy Inducer, a temp power for use against the Tsoo that debuffs their recharge and speed, and I think that’s helping slightly. I recruit a couple people at the end to help me finish him off, Theron Ironhand and I-F.

We stay as a team for a little bit, and when they leave, I’m with three other Scrappers we picked up along the way. By the end of the day, there are three of us, me and two Regens. We go up against some Vahz, and I die three times. I am now officially convinced that SR just cannot keep up with Regen, no matter the level. I popped three purple defense Inspirations, and still got my head handed to me. I also kept missing up a storm. The constant being hit and whiffing is starting to get on my nerves, I haven’t had this poor a streak in a year! And I just took Health to help me out with that too. I make it back to the last mission and am zoning in when I hear the mission complete sound. Phew! Barely made it back inside for that bonus xp. I have to admit, I still like the debt system the way it’s set up, it’s too bad they’re changing it to make it easier. I wonder if there’s any proof it will really make the game more attractive for paying customers.

I head into a timed Vahz mission solo, and nearly get a hospital trip again on the first mob. I head for the entrance and double-check my difficulty settings. I’m still on Heroic! It’s like my defenses aren’t working at all today. I just combined a couple DOs for my Agile, and an accuracy DO for my Thunder Kick. They are still cutting through my defenses like Swiss cheese. I rest up and then head back in for more punishment, glutton that I am. I’m starting to take the position that the passive and/or toggle defenses need to be upped a couple percentage points to help us be able to stay in the middle of melee like Invul or Regen. It doesn’t seem to matter whether the villains con white, yellow, or orange, they are all tearing me up pretty good.

MM II tries again, jumping into a group of four yellow-cons, something I can do fairly easily with other villain types. I go into red health and have to jump away, with only one of them down for the count. Maybe 18 is just an awkward level? It may also be a mistake for me to try this again without Hasten. I am also unsatisfied with the low number of Critical Hits I score. I go back again and take out all three remaining, but I’ve got less than 80 health left. Yuck! Taking Tough wouldn’t have helped me any against Vahz vomit, either. At least I get to kick them off balconies with Crane Kick. That still never gets old!

Then, just because the Devs hate me and are personally targeting my character today to mess with me, they keep giving me blue inspirations that I don’t need. I’ve got seven or eight of them. I get a timed mission in Steel, and I’ve used almost all my blues for the heck of it. Now I need blues, as I get into a fight with six yellow-cons. I keep getting green Respites instead. Guess what? My defenses have finally decided to show up for the day. I take out all 6, am down to 1 Endurance point, and I have four greens on me, and I took almost no damage whatsoever. I almost felt like my beloved Martial Master doing that! I do a couple more missions, level up to 19, and get my final six slots each for all three of my attacks (Crane Kick was six-slotted the last time).

Last entry was a little short, so lemme make up for it:

Entry 84

It’s Task Force time for MM II! Positron, here we come. I start a group with a total of five people, one an exemplared Blaster. The Defender quits without saying anything after his first death. What is it with Defenders and quitting first all the time? Diamond Cut’s relative is coming to the airport sooner than expected, so I actually have to leave to pick him up. The group is cool about it, they agree to log back on in two hours and we’ll continue. Almost the same thing happens to the exemplar that happened when Martial Master was an exemplar, though. He logs in before his reverse mentor, and is kicked from the TF. The next mission of the TF is in Perez Park (named after George Perez, one of my favorite artists). I love being able to jump over the walls in Perez. I also look pretty cool using Super Jump to cut up through the foresty green of the park, as I then jump on the canopy to the next mission.

The remaining group does a couple missions while I’m gone, and when I come back, it’s me, Piper Down, and a Blaster. The Blaster is a bit of a grouch, and was constantly asking the exemplar for a teleport. When he’s gone, the Blaster still asks for a tp! He also tended to rush ahead and aggro a whole other group before we were recovered from our last mob, but we have almost no deaths anyway. Have I broken the Task Force curse? Even with a two-hour delay, I got Positron done. Woo hoo!

I leveled up to 17 in the third-to-last mission, so I took a break to get some higher level Enhancements. I put a slot in Practiced Brawler for recharge, and add a damage slot to Crane Kick. I keep the Endurance reductions in my three major attacks, and it seems to work well. There is still an irritating sliver of health in many opponents that Kick will not take care of, and I am missing Hasten a little bit at this point. Even though my deaths are few, I’m wondering if I should skip Tough on this character, and use a Respec to go get Hasten. As much as I’m trying to experiment with a different build this time around with an MA/SR, there are a few key elements that drive me to pursue a build that has as little downtime as possible. I’ve already changed my attack pattern to lead off with Crane Kick each time, since it has the longest recharge.

Practiced Brawler is finicky. I have it set on auto, but it seems to fire just when I don’t need it, or when I’m already low on endurance, or in the middle of a super jump, or just after a fight is over... And sometimes I still get caught, since it’s not perma. But I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I love how neat it looks when I get caught in Tenebrous Tentacles, and I can still run around. I also notice I need to find a DO enhancement for Super Jump. I’m falling just the slightest bit short when I try to go from rooftop to rooftop in Skyway!

I’m pretty sure this is a bug, but I defeat all the Tsoo in a parlor, get the mission bonus, and no sooner am I outside than I have the same mission again, at the exact same place in the Hollows. Same map layout inside as well. Meh, whatever. More Tsoo gonna get beat up. Or maybe the same ones all over again? Is there some master villain playing around with time control in this game? Hey, that could explain all the times you start over from the same location after some lag...

The Tsoo are actually one of the more “irritating” opponents in the game. That also in a way makes them more interesting to fight, because you have to stay on your toes. The Ancestor Spirits (man they look cool!) will phase out on you, stun you, and knock you down. There’s actually an art to fighting them, almost like a ballet. The Sorcerors will teleport away or heal your opponents, while also having a couple powers that debuff your accuracy. But I can handle all that, there are ways of timing things to catch the Spirit before he phases, and to take down the Sorceror at precisely the right time. My main irritant is the caltrops. Yuck!

I take on four yellow-con Tsoo, and although they are connecting a lot, I manage okay. The last one flees, and I turn on Sprint and Super Jump and follow him. One jump and a Thunder Kick later, and he’s toast! Super Jump makes for a superior follow power as well, since that glitch is back where you sometimes slow down when following a fleeing villain. I hope they fix that again. One thing they could consider doing is giving us a new villain type that has a killer attack rate, I mean on a par with ours. For the most part, the villains can’t get off the same number of attacks as we can. I don’t want all of them to be that way, but one scrapper-type bad guy in a new villain group that attacks at the same speed as a white-con might be interesting. In one of my final mobs, I run and jump with a well-timed Storm Kick that knocks out my opponent. The camera automatically zooms out to catch me, and it looks like a scene from a movie.

I also want to see the resurgence of the villain Faultline. No way is he dead! I’m hoping in Issue 7 or 8, he will return. I can’t wait to see what that AV looks like. I jump into an attack on some Vahz in Faultline, and eat dirt, distracted as I realize the Luminous Eidolon has Focused Fighting. When did that happen? I’m daydreaming about the different power combinations we could have if we could pick and choose form different power sets. I get to use an Awaken finally, as this group doesn’t stand over me and hover, and retreat to plan again. That’ll teach me to let my mind wander. It doesn’t help. I leap back into battle and get low on health, turn to jump away, and get caught in the previously-mentioned Tenebrous Tentacles, and my PB is not active. Hospital this time, I’m out of Inspirations! What was supposed to be so great about SR? Oh, yeah, defense...

I massage my ego by taking on a red-conning level 19 Headman Blaster and a couple orange minions. Figures, one of the biggest things to fear in this game is not a particular high level, but Vahz vomit! I tell myself it’s because I failed to defeat him in my AV mission, and he’s got all his minions after me with a mad-on. I got 15 Vahz, anyway. Next is a hunt 20 Tsoo in steel Canyon. The northwest part of Steel is still in dark on the map to me, so I head there. Sometimes I take out some low-level perps real quick, since it lets me give in to me urge to stop every crime I run across, even the grey-con stuff, but I’m in the mood for tackling something tougher. Those Vahz sending me to the hospital makes me feel like putting my frustrations fighting them out on someone else. I pity the Tsoo who messes with me! (I know it’s a bad pun. They’re all bad with me!)

I have a suspicion the population has dropped off a bit. I remember there was hardly a time when you could run around Steel without running into a team or two street-sweeping. If you don’t want to run all over town for missions, street-sweeping can still be a fun way to pass the time every once in a while. It’s more like a ghost town, really. It suits me fine for this character, as I want to solo most of the way as I recalculate how SR performs without perma-Elude. I finish whomping on the poor Tsoo, and head back to Virginia Hoffman. Yes! I unlock her Enhancement store and grab Li Tieh Kuai’s Goblet for Swift, and Nectanebo’s Phylactery (sounds nasty, doesn’t it?) for my Super Jump. As much as Statesman likes ancient Greek stuff, Nectanebo is Egyptian. I make a note to search through the boards for that old thread on mythology and historical easter eggs hidden in Paragon City. And, as always happens, it’s 11:30 p.m. and I’m logging off for the night. After an evening of blind invites, someone actually sends me a tell. I would join him for that alone, but I have to say I’m sorry. If I don’t log now, I know I’ll spend another hour or two online!

Entry 83

MM II comes out again during the Fourth of July weekend, when America celebrates its independence. This is one of my favorite holidays. I leave the Dr. Vahz mission alone and go get Swift for my level 16 power. I was trying so hard to avoid Stamina, but END reducers are not enough for MA/SR, and stocking enough CABs is like a bad girlfriend: high maintenance and a pain in the neck. I know it can be done, but it takes more patience than I have. I get Swift so I can more easily turn Sprint off for battles, and save the small ergs of END that I’m going to need before each fight is over.

I hit my first Circle of Thorns mission with Sorcerors, and find myself missing Cobra Strike. I change my style and switch to another opponent when the Sorceror teleports away, as opposed to chasing him down with my Super Speed, as Martial Master did. I’m dying less than Martial Master did, partly because I know what I’m doing now! In my days of ignorant bliss, I ignored the Fitness line for Cobra Strike, Focus Chi, and Hasten, and I’m not willing to go as slowly the second time around. This time, though, I took Practiced Brawler much earlier, and that has saved me from sleeping on the job, so to speak, with all the mezzers you start to encounter, beginning with Eidolons and getting worse from there.

I make it to the end of the mission and take out the boss, and go to click on the last blinkie. A villain sees me and runs over to hit me. I dispatch him, and his two friends show up. My luck has run out! My Focused Fighting is on, but I’ve run out of Respites, and they keep connecting. I pop a purple defense inspiration, but no go. Instead, I have to make my way back from the hospital. I feel a little cheated in that FF plus a purple Inspiration didn’t help me one iota, but sometimes that’s the way the cookie crumbles. Some fights you’re the pigeon... other fights, you’re the statue.

Sorry, LaFollet, I'm around, but moving to a new house. All the journal entries I wrote are on my old computer, waiting to be transferred to my new computer that I have for internet access. I just have to fix all the real life stuff that (of course) has gone disastrously wrong during my seamlessly-planned move.

Stay tuned, I plan to start posting my continuing adventures this weekend. It's definitely more fun than title companies and sewer drains and delivery men that don't show up. Give me a good super-villain I can bash any day!

Ahem! Prattz (may I call you Prattz?), I prefer to refer to my writing as "suckatastic," thankyouverymuch!

Entry 82

The Task Force Curse strikes again! The next few days go by like a blur as I put in some extra hours at work, and try to play just a little whenever I can. Diamond Cut and CRM assemble a team for the Abandoned Sewer Trial, but we can't get it done in time. We've got six people, and a level 50 Tank exemplared down, but we couldn't quite nail it the first time. I thought we did reasonably well this first try at it, though. The group that Martial Master tried it with was a disaster, mostly from a controller who only wanted to use his pets. The next night, four of us re-assemble, and we have a team of eight.

In my opinion, it's an unmitigated disaster.

We find one person with Recall Friend, and I lead two of our number towards him in the sewers, where he died somehow. DC is ahead of me with the rest of the group, and one of them reaches our teleporter before we do. I turn back and notice my two teammates are in trouble, so I run back to help them. Circle of Thorn Mages, and we're caught! I burn through four Respites and all my Break Frees, trying to retreat as my teammates fall. I'm shouting for a TP, but the guy just kept following his escort to safety. Grr. Later, I go in the red a second time in the sewer, and my heals keep me alive just barely for a while. The TP offer comes after I'm dead. The TP was not very good in this mission.

To add insult to injury, our level 50 Tank does not exemplar down this time. So several of us are dying even with a Tank, nobody is getting any xp at all, because the Tank has been trying to get this done for like 800 hours on his character, and this seems to be one of the last things he needs. I keep quiet, because he's a cool guy, but I really wanted a challenge, and this trial is one of the harder things to do because you need a big team, and you need to be well-coordinated. One thing worthy of note, I'm using Absorb Pain like it's going out of style. I used every single Empathy power at my disposal, as much and as often as I could, and still found time to blast.

The timing is off, as three different people destroy a generator at the wrong time. One Blaster just keeps blasting away, and later our Tank accidentally knocks one out, not realizing how strong his punch was going to be. I'm helping clean out some Rikti one second, and a generator explodes from someone using an area of effect attack. Come on, people! We did better the previous night with only six of us. We get it done in the end, we all get our badges, I get Enhancements that are already lower level than I am, and I still feel I didn't "beat" the Trial. I want to go back with another character and try it again. I've missed out with both Martial Master and CRM now, and I even had my best friend with me this time. The biggest problem is you have to go with willing teammates, and you're stuck with who you can find. We couldn't make do with less, but a couple of them were almost as much of a hindrance as a help. I'm a little frustrated, because they were all willing to see it through to the finish, and they got better as we went along, but at this point I'm used to playing with the best, and you can tell when people are really good, when they are average, and when they are poor. An average team can't beat this Trial, you need a good team. We had an average team.

Next up is the Eden Trial, and Martial Master couldn't get past the first Wall on any of his three or four tries. The teams really sucked, there's no other way to put it. And at this level, there are hardly ever any people on, it's like they power-level past this part or something, to avoid these challenges. We take who we can get, and can't get past the first Wall when our teleporter quits without saying a word. If this keeps up, I'm going to have to take Recall Friend, because it saves tons of time, and most of the people I've teamed up with seem to have to be prompted all the time to use it. Martial Master used it to get everyone lagging to the mission, to pull someone in red health out of the fire before they asked, etc. Every time, I have to ask for it, and I usually don't get it when I need it. I try to communicate and set things up ahead of time to prompt them, and that is only slightly more successful.

DC and I assemble a second time, mostly with the same team and a couple of new people. We take down the Monster Quarry, and have DC tank the mobs while the three Blasters tackle the Wall. We've got two Controllers, and we manage to get through the Wall. Nobody dies. Someone shouts out to all the healers (plural!) about how great the heals are, and I smile silently. I'm the only healer on the team. Then we rock through to the Mold Wall, destroying everything in our path with little effort.

The Mold Wall is a different story. I read the guide online, and there are few hints on how to tackle the mobs, but DC just couldn't handle the aggro by himself, and we all die a couple times. The first time we go in, I notice it's not going well, and I call to fall back, but nobody retreats at all. I'm using Clear Mind, my Break Frees, Absorb Pain, and trying to keep people alive, but one by one they drop. I end up making my own way back from the hospital once from here.

One of the controllers was a level 50 exemplared down, since I couldn't find anyone else willing to join. He was able to keep the aggro while we all reassembled, but he loses it and a Blaster goes down. I'm not too experienced with Controllers yet, but I'm wondering how two of them couldn't control the spawns a little better. Could it be that we just simply need a Tank to handle the aggro to survive? That kind of sucks. Still, we got farther with this team than Martial Master ever could.

The team overall was fairly good, only one had an attitude, but even he was more polite, considering his reputation, from someone sending me tells about his previous behavior. I used Absorb Pain even more often here, but there were more than 60 enemies around the Wall the last time we attacked, with a couple Blasters using their Nova-type powers. DC died so fast I couldn't even resurrect a Controller in time to let him get away, they knocked him out as soon as he got up, and took out DC at the same time, despite more than half their number being knocked out from the Blasters' attacks. Everyone takes a dirt nap, and I barely get away alive. I usually jump in to save everyone, but this time I kept a slightly longer distance, as my Rez power made me more valuable staying alive myself than leaping in at low health to try to save someone else going down.

DC and I won't have much time to try it again anytime soon, so I log on later as MM II. He still has to beat Dr. Vahz. Assembling a team is a big pain, as much as, if not more than(!), the Sewer or Eden Trials. I've gone from trying to solo to enjoying teams, and right now I'm in the mood of trying to go solo from now on, almost. Half the team is full of flakes who aren't very good, bail easily or quit without warning. What's left, although competent, isn't enough to take down Vahz. We go do a few of someone else's missions instead, and I hit level 16 at the same time as I get rid of all my debt, Yay!

The two people I teamed with were cool, and that outweighs the four or five losers that I came across along with them, but man! It's either nobody wants to help, or the ones that come along, no matter whether they're level 15 or level 39, are either incompetent or jerks. Everyone was a ton nicer when I started the game, people would help you out even if the xp wasn't ideal, etc. Now it seems like a town half-full of clueless people. That's actually the worst part of the game. Forget power nerfs, I'm learning the game is like real life: a lot of people you encounter are going to seem like a waste of skin. You have to persevere and not take it to heart, and learn to rejoice with the same gusto at finding a good player and a cool person, as you moaned with disgust at the last idiot who rudely abandoned you to die. I do have to admit that at this point in time, the parts of the game where I NEED to find a bigger team are filled more with cautious dread than the earlier pleasure at all of the great teams I found with Martial Master.

Maybe this is all part of a nefarious plot, to make me change my mind from day one, grow to like teaming, and then throw nothing but sucky teams at me for two weeks to punish me for wanting to go solo when I first started. Because the universe does seem to single you out and plot against you from time to time. But the next night will be another game night, so we'll see what teams are like then. Speaking as someone with limited time who doesn't usually play these games (well, that was how it was when I started this, anyway), one of the most frustrating aspects of the game is a "blockage point" like this, where you really need a team worth its mettle to move forward. Martial Master has AV missions and CRM has Eden, and I've got two blockage points on my two favorite characters. Lucky I have altitis. Maybe MM II? Gah! He still has Dr. Vahz!!!! Tomorrow simply has to be better. I feel like I've got the video game equivalent of clogged arteries, and if I don't clear something up soon, there's gonna be an explosion.

Entry 81

Diamond Cut and CRM haven't had a team-up in ages, due to real life schedules. Our first mission, I notice we're both taking much more damage than normal. "I feel out of step," I type in. "Aye," DC replies. He's not big on words, that one. It takes our first missions for us to get our rhythm back, but after that, we move like creased lightning.

While he goes to eat dinner, I run Martial Master through four Portal missions. The first is a Spirit world, piece of cake. The second is a freak planet, and I find a purple boss relatively quickly. I leap in without Elude, although I do pump some candy for damage and accuracy. After he lands a couple of hits, I resort to Elude once again. He goes down, and the device is found moments later. Next I am led to a Council planet, where an Archon is close to a Portal device. I run in without Elude, and decide not to use it at all this time. I manage to take him down without Elude. Woo-hoo! I think if I want to stretch my normal defenses, I should pop those final slots in defense after all, but it's fun to risk things like this. Fun for my Scrapper, anyway. Alas, my poor Blaster...

MM finds his fourth mission is in a Crey lab, full of nothing but Paragon Protectors (PP). They really should up the requirements for getting that badge, they give you enough missions with them. I halt for a moment when I see a couple red-cons instead of orange-cons, but I dive right in. So far so good. I decide to have fun and herd six or seven of them, and when my health goes down, I finally pop Elude. I finish them all off, then it's up to the next level. Up there, I find the purple boss, and wade in and try to finish him off before Elude drops. I don't quite make it, but I've got six CABs I haven't been using, so I pop one. It may have been my imagination, but I don't think my Focused Fighting toggle dropped on the END crash. Or maybe it did and I just don't remember turning it back on. I'll have to check that again. The PP had already hit his Moment of Glory power, but he keeps missing while I miss more often than not, but I finish him off as well.

Now MM has three missions in the cue, all with an AV. This is my biggest problem with trying to solo, but I'll try to schedule things with DC's main character, Red Haven, and plow through them in one night soon. What's fun about alts is that if one is stuck, you can always go to another one! I log CRM back on to reunite with Diamond Cut, and we cut through a Nemesis story arc. DC chastises me as I get too close to a purple Warhulk, but I'm at full health, and his explosion won't knock me out, so I just do the physician heal thyself bit instead. One fun thing about the longer animation time of Neutron Bomb, I have enough time to fire it at a target, then zip around the corner at super speed to see all of the other guys that get hit with it before it goes off! I start to play around with it, hurling it from the top of a platform, watching all the neat animations you can make happen. I also start turning my camera view, so it looks like my Proton Volley is going off nonchalantly over my shoulder.

Entry 80

On a new night, Martial Master tries the Board Train mission again. Yellow-con foes with no problem, so I check, and sure enough, I'm still on Unyielding. I head back out and get my reputation changed lickety-split! When I go back, my reputation has spread fast! The Clocks are now all level 51, orange-cons. I never go below half-health. I used one Defense Inspiration in the whole thing, and that was just because I enjoy using them. Between Stamina and Conserve Power, I only run low on END when I've been running Focused Fighting (FF), Super Speed, and Focused Accuracy non-stop for several mobs. I turn off one or the other on occasion when I run low on END, and whenever a couple Clocks get in some good hits, I put one or two of them back on. When Conserve Power is back up, I hit it, and heal while the orange-cons miss me. In a couple fights, I'm back up to full health.

I realize I've been ignoring some of my powers because I like to use the keyboard, so all my powers on the top tray I hardly ever bother to use with my mouse. I stop for a couple minutes and bind Focused Fighting, Conserve Power, Focused Accuracy, and Teleport Foe. Now we're cooking with gas! I make mincemeat out of everyone, and I don't hit Elude once on all the minions. A level 51 boss is at the top of the metal platform, and I head in and start whomping on him. He gets through my defenses twice in a row, so I decide to punch Elude once. The fight is over less than a minute after that, and he didn't touch me again! I time the recharge, as I've got perma-Hasten and four recharges in Elude, no Hamidon Enhancements. About a minute and fifty seconds. Not bad, unless I'm in a room full of 51+ monsters for longer than three minutes!

Nothing left but to mop up the map. I see what I think is the final mob, turn on all my toggles, hit the auto-follow, hit Focus Chi... and fall off the stairs to the bottom. Meh, there's another Clock down here after all. I take out three or four more groups, but can't find the last culprit. I send a petition, and a GM comes on to point out a flying Clock for me. The sucker's on roving patrol, flying around midway up the platform! Even after the GM spots him, he keeps moving, and I lose the target on him. The next fix I hope they work on is the "find the last bad guy automatically" button. Like he knows he's going to jail, and he just shows up to get it over with.

I'm feeling kind of okay with the changes to Elude, if this is how it's going to be. I mean, if I skipped Evasion and Focused Senses, and FF only has one slot, and I can still go through my missions on Invincible - in solo and team missions - do I have a reason to complain? I'm not dying, and to be honest, I'm having fewer END crashes than ever before, even though I had to use Elude more often in a team setting. Even that was because I was jumping into entire mobs without the rest of my team around. I might even have been able to take that boss without resorting to Elude. This is not even counting my Inspirations yet.

I've got one more test to try. I need to find a high-level team on Invincible and see how things go. Actually, if I can do a Respec and/or a Task Force on a harder-than-normal setting, that would be cool. It could be that I've chosen good powers and good slotting to the effect that I don't actually "need" more defense, as almost everyone claims you do on the boards. The Arena may be a different story. And I realize that SR can't handle the same things Regen and Invul can right now, and that strikes me as a little wrong, but I can't gripe too loudly. I'm not dying, I flying through missions even faster, since I've broken my ritual of perma-Elude, and I still haven't put my sixth slot in two of my passives.

The rest of level 49 will be devoted to keeping in mind how well my defenses hold up, and if I can put those final slots in Cobra Strike or Focused Accuracy instead. Ah, for three more Respecs. At this level, we should get some kind of "memory storage" for most of our slots, so we don't have to replace sixty-odd slots at our next Respec. We could have them all sitting as they were in the powers we kept, and they would be in those default positions. Then we could yank out the ones we didn't want, and click Next, and then we would only be shuffling around ten or fifteen slots instead of sixty-seven.

Entry 79

I'm thinking of getting a timer if I can't internalize Elude's new timing pattern. I'll decide after I've played with him constantly for a week. I still want to test him solo on the Invincible setting, so that' s next. Overall, I haven't died unless fighting an AV, so even my little character with one slot in Focused Fighting and no Evasion or Focused Senses can still play in the big leagues. Kinda cool! I still wish I had ten more slots...

MM II goes online next, and I rejoice as I use Super Jump to land on the tram rail precisely, then do it again immediately. It's the simple things that make me happy! I've changed my bind so I press one key which makes me Super Jump and run ahead full speed while constantly jumping. It's working out really well, and I think I'm getting around town faster than ever before. I even like switching to Combat Jumping and going directly into the tram, rather than going up the sides and then into the station. If I can move around this well, I may have to re-think my Respecs on some of my super-speedsters. I make a game out of traveling Skyway City, hitting ever-higher peaks, and vaulting myself into space. I feel a little like Spider-Man!

The powers come in handy inside the mission, too. An Oscillator is clinging to the ceiling and taking pot-shots at me. Why, that's... that's... positively villainous! I turn on Combat jumping, and suddenly I can reach him. Heh. That's another pile of spare parts ready to be turned into a toaster. I go take out a boss and watch as all those cute little Gears come waddling after me. I keep thinking this is a good time for a Dragon Tail attack, but I'm not at that level just yet. They look so precious when they go flying across the sewers from a Crane Kick Critical Hit...

On my way to the next mission, a red-con Tesla Knight fires a shot at me while I'm jumping over his head. I get tagged with an electric cage, but I fall down many yards away from him, and he doesn't follow. After it wears off, I go on my way again, on my last jump landing 43 feet away from my mission. Hmm, I wonder if I could get closer next time. I'm not sure why the power Kick gets such a bad name, the Clockwork look really funny as I use it to kick them off the warehouse boxes. As I finish off two opponents, another Cog drops from the rafters like a cockroach. So I step on him.

I'm only level 15, so I guess I shouldn't be complaining about Stamina yet. I'm seriously considering either not taking Stamina, or putting it off for two or four levels. For this particular character, he's designed to go solo, so I don't have to worry about holding up anybody else. Plus, I can use the downtime to type up my adventures! I'm running toggles of a different kind now. Instead of juggling Practiced Brawler, Hasten, Elude, Conserve Power, etc., I'm turning off Sprint quite often, and when I think I'm on the final hit for a villain, I'll toggle off Focused Fighting and/or Combat Jumping to preserve END. I take on a robot called Crackhammer. Yeah, he's gotta be on crack if he thinks he can take me. I'm supposed to rescue the wife and daughter of Lou for this story arc, and sure enough, I find the daughter. "Where's daddy?" She says. I refrain from asking the obligatory dirty-minded, "Who's your daddy?" But I think it.

On a top part of the warehouse, I kick a Cannon Knight clear off the stairs onto the bottom floor. When he comes back up, I take him out, and his brother comes after me. I hit him, and he goes flying over as well! Meh, just as well, I was running low on END. On the bottom floor, there are cars up on jacks! More new variety to the map tiles, that is cool. I wish they had six or seven tile sets per map, so they would switch randomly. Right now, we've kinda got just the two, one with equipment, and these with the cars. Everyone is always hollering for more variety on the maps. I bet I could make a small fortune if I was a tile set map whiz... I hit mission complete just as my tray of enhancements fills up. Time to go sell!

I run over to Boomtown on a beat-up-council mission, and turn off my Super Jump to land right smack dab in the middle of a group of them. Two groups later, I finish the mission, and leave one solitary grey-con whiffing at the air as I leisurely jump away, leaving him alone. I switch to type while I jump to the far end of Boomtown, and hear things like a Vahz ranged attack hit me while I type. I switch back to the game. Yup, still alive and jumping! Inside the sewers (again!), I turn on all my defenses, which are a must against Abominations and Mortificators and the like. I hear the tell-tale sound of a glowie and run over. Hey, does anybody ever wonder why body bags make noises?

I run into three yellow-cons who provide me with a challenge. At this stage of the game, I think it's fair for three villains to give me a challenge. It's the addition of the SOs later that make a big difference in what we can handle at one time. The map is so dark, it takes me a couple seconds to realize there's a yellow-con Abomination right next to me. Luckily the poor slobs are so dim-witted, he still hasn't realized he has company himself. This turns out to be the mission with Dr. Vahzilock himself, so once I see him, I beat a hasty retreat. All right, I admit it, I tried to tackle him first. But I ran away after the first time he hit me! I'll come back... with friends.

I may have to log on to double-check, Solarexx, but if my memory is correct, I always have my team menu on the mid-upper right side of my screen, and there is a blue arrow to the left of all the names. I can just click on that button, and the arrow will change directions, point to the left, and each teammate's status effects will stream out to the left of their respective name.

Stupid Invul Scrappers and their twenty dozen status icons, there's no good place to see those, mutter mumble grumble gripe...

Entry 78

****Mini-Fanboy Lovefest Alert***
One really cool thing, makes me wonder how deeply the Developers read the boards. I didn't even read about this change in the Updates, but maybe I missed it. When you're on a team, if you want to you can press an arrow that displays all of the status effects active on each team member. When I play my healer, those are handy to help me figure out who gets Fortitude or Adrenalin Boost next. As a left-hander, I posted a request that they change the coding so you could make the status effects read to the left of the team member names, since it was only showing to the right. I have my team menu on the right -hand side of the screen, and I had to drag it more to the center to see my status effects. Stupid Scrappers have 20 other status effects on all the time anyway, mutter mumble grumble, gripe... Anyway, when I posed the question, a reply from a board member said it wasn't likely to change, but lo and behold, I can now switch which side the status effects display! A small quality of life change to the game, but it will come in real handy for me. As irritating as power changes can be some times, it's little things like this that show you the people creating this game pay attention to little details, and really try to give you a good experience. I have no first-hand frame of reference to compare with developers of other games, but this little change makes me think the ones we have here are a cut above the average game developer in caring about the player experience. I'm gonna claim credit for suggesting that change, whether I was really the impetus or not! Heh.
*End Mini-Fanboy Lovefest *

I can't sleep, so Martial Master logs on to test out a mission on the Invincible setting. Before I can even board the train (and it's a board train mission!), I get a tell asking if I'd like to do an AV mission. Sure, why not? There are five other players, and the highest is level 47, but they're running on Invincible, so I figure this will be a good way to test myself against level 50 mobs. Not much talking is going on, it's silent as I go from Atlas to Steel to Talos to Peregrine to mission. The leader is dead on the ground, and the others are all gathered around him. Luckily, I have an awaken on me! He revives, and I sidekick him, and we start engaging spectral Terrors and Wraiths.

I basically run around jumping into the middle of things, and hitting Elude if things go badly for me. Which is only a couple of times. In a team setting, I'm getting hit much more than I'm used to, as a Permaluder, but even though it's a little tougher for me hit-point-wise, I still make it through. One time, separated from the group on this timed mission to find invisible spirit hostages, I engage a group solo, and their point-blank area of effect attacks tend to pile on. I retreat with only a hundred hit points left, Elude on even, and my sidekick runs over to give me a couple Respites. Ya gotta love the mules that carry your drugs... er, I mean, your sidekicks. Ya gotta love your sidekicks. There are a couple of deaths, since we've got levels 34, 36, and 43 running on a 47 Invincible mission, but it gets easier as we recruit a level 50 Kinetics Defender.

We find the AV, and she's got Phase Shift and an area attack that hits me for more than 800 points. Gee, I think I'll activate Elude. I've got tons of lag as we all hit her with everything we've got, but I run some attack combos until she phases, then back off to wait until I've got a good shot again to connect with something solid. We take her down, and everyone is suitably impressed. Probably gawking at the experience they just got!

It takes us forever to find the final bad guy, he was hiding up on top of a building. I think the guy who had the mission had actually quit by the time we found the villain, we were talking about sending a Petition, thinking there was a glitch. Mission complete! And somewhere in there I worked off my debt from trying to tackle AVs all by my lonesome.

My thoughts so far on the Elude changes for Issue 4? I think I'm going to have to look at my final three slots and put them in a place where they can give me some defense! That would probably be the most useful to this particular character. The one thing that throws me off is the timing. I'm used to the old Elude setting, I had that pattern down cold. Now when I finish a mob, Elude is still up, and I'm usually near a full bar of Endurance. But it almost always drops when I'm smack in the middle of another mob, and that's when things really get scary. Other Scrappers, Regen and Invul, have all these other defenses constantly up, but I can only jump in to that same level of intensity if I have this one power up. When it wears off, I can be in for a world of hurt. I want to test it some more, but so far the posts of DOOM! seem to be a little off-base.