tpull

Entry 28

A Carnie mission now. Those clown girls are so freaking cute, I think I have a collective crush on them. I'd rather take them out for a drink than hit them. I better not tell my girlfriend that, women can get jealous over the weirdest things sometimes. I've got a ton of green respites, so I stop using Elude, and switch to Focused Fighting. Then I stop using FF. I'm on Unyielding, going up against yellow- and orange-conning bad guys, and not even breaking a sweat. I frown for a second, thinking something's wrong. Then I realize my character is high enough, and I know how to handle myself, that I have slightly improved my skills, even as I thought there was no room for improvement. I'm back to tossing in the use of Cobra Strike each time, but it's like riding a bike, and it lets me use another game animation, rather than the same old attacks. Ah, Cobra Strike, old friend, welcome back!

One other weird thing I haven't mentioned yet. When people are looking for a team, often they don't really want to team after all. I always start with the LFG menu first, and often when I send a private tell to someone who isn't LFG, they join anyway. But this time, for example, someone was invited, he was LFG, but when I say we're doing a timed Board Train mission, he quits the group. Maybe he was about to quit and didn't have the time? Maybe he was hoping for a pl or a farming mission? I don't know, but if I turn on the LFG menu, you can bet I'm looking for people around my level who want to do missions or task forces, or even grind in a fun place (man, that sounds kinky).

It's a timed mish, so I go do it myself. Rikti! The CoH people have changed things a bit, so instead of rescuing all the hostages and adjusting the portal devices, you complete the mission with an either/or. So I adjust all the portals with over an hour to spare, and bum around looking for the hostages anyway. I do this for several reasons. One is that on occasion, I'll get lucky and have a group of a dozen Rikti surrounding me, and there is nothing more beautiful than watching a dozen aliens get thrown on their butts because of a Dragon's Tail kick. Also, if I rescue a hostage, I might get a clue which will give me more flavor text and story background, which I don't want to miss. My alts can skip it next time, but my main char needs to see as much as he can. There's a glitch in the system, and I have a red-conning Rikti Chief Mentalist following me around. Whenever I don't have Elude up, I get pelted for a couple hundred points. I'm assuming he's red, but he might be orange, because I can't actually see him. I've had this glitch before, but it's usually all or nothing. Either every villain is invisible, and I have to run outside and reset the mission, or I can see them all. I pour on the super speed and lose him, wondering if I'm in long enough, maybe it will correct itself. I also stay because I get plenty of inspirations and enhancements, and I can fight Rikti in my sleep now. I still have to pay attention, but I know how to take them down. I start a personal race to see how many groups I can take out before Elude wears off and my toggles drop. And last but not least, there are Monkeys in the mission, and I can never pass up an opportunity to spank the monkeys. I may have shared too much information at this point.

One thing that would be useful is a "Back Tab" feature. I have my ‘g' key configured to follow the nearest enemy, but often I want to tab through all the bad guys until I get to the toughest, and target him. Too often, I Tab him, and accidentally Tab once more. Is there a way to go backwards in the Tabbing order? That would be very useful.

Gasp! Does that mean they've nerfed the board rating system? Please Devs fix this immediately! More important than anything else!

Actually, that's fine, 4 happens to be my favorite number.

Thanks! We've gotten to the point where I started writing my adventures as I played them, or shortly after. I can post more often now, as much of the initial writing of my thoughts is already done. So,

Entry 27

If I can earn one bubble of xp a day, I can make level 50 in sixty days. I figure I'll have to "make up bubbles" on weekends for those days when I just don't have the time to log on. It seems to be working fine. I finally found more than one 40+ hero looking for a team at one time, so I click on everybody at the appropriate level in rapid succession, and let them know we're hunting AVs. I finally clear Anti-Matter and Madame of Mystery! Talk about carrying missions around with you forever! Anti-Matter one-shots me near the end, so I get to take a dirt nap right in front of him as my team finishes him off. I should have taken a snapshot of that... I click on the Mission Complete and appear back in the Portal building, where half a dozen other heroes are loitering. I step out... and fall flat on my face, as I'm still knocked out. Plop! Priceless.

I die once going after Madame of Mystery as well, but it was my mistake. Only one of my other teammates was in the mission, ahead of me, and she starts using censored language. I run in a jump into a pile of villains, trying to give her room. She yells, "Run, Martial Master!" See, she was a new addition to the team, and I hadn't noticed that she has Phase shift. Gah! Too late, I'm caught in an Eagle's Claw animation, and I'm dead before I complete it.

I log on the next night and immediately get an invite to farm wolves. I've never done it before, so I agree, just to do it once. I've never agreed to farm anything before, not even to try to get a badge. Turns out I am to be used as a bridge, just stand around and collect xp. Oh wow, is it boring. My attempt to strike up witty conversation among the five others present is met with stone-cold silence. Even the crickets have abandoned me. I'm guessing for the most part, they are AFK. Is this what happens when you are a newbie who cares only about getting to 50? When you have just one more alt to pl? The lowest level person levels, and nobody even bothers to say grats. There is no conversation, there is no intellectual discussion, there is only the wind. I try to be nice and hold my tongue, and just be a good neighbor and help these people with their stuff for a little bit.
I've gained one bubble at level 44. How much longer am I supposed to do this? I'm a scrapper! Since when in any strange, alternate universe even, is a scrapper supposed to stand around and do nothing? The leader, a tank, says rest, and someone teleports everyone back to Peregrine Island. I take that opportunity to bail, thanking the tank for the xp (only one bar max, thank heaven), and wish them a good night. Nobody says a word. I think I'd rather go through the level 10-20 grind a dozen more times than do that again. Oh wow is that sort of thing not for me, I had no idea. I don't think I've ever felt less like a superhero in my life. I don't have a major problem with these guys doing it, I can certainly understand wanting to avoid a grind for yet another alt, and I can also understand wanting to get your friends closer to your level, so you can play together more often. But it is just plain not my style.

It's been a lot of missions and no sign of the Circle of Thorns. Ten levels is a lot to go without a good source of enhancements. I'm wondering if each archetype goes through this dry spell at a certain stage of the game. I've heard that Science enhancement drops are relatively scarce compared to others. I have a ton of influence, so it's not that big a concern. But just when I'm feeling nostalgic and "missing" the CoT, Tina Macintyre gives me a CoT mission! Save 12 hostages in a humongous Oranbegan map. No, I'm not rusty at tackling these at all... Okay, I am rusty. But it's still fun! As complicated as they can be to navigate, they are some of the best tile sets in the game, in my opinion.

I'm starting to really like the idea of letting us plan and design our own missions. Even if it's simple, there are times when I simply have to log on and play, but I have 30 minutes or less. I get a two-hour timed mission, or something that's close to that. It's not so bad anymore, because they've gotten better at identifying those ahead of time, but if I could select a mission type (save hostages, find blinkies, etc.), a map setting, a villain option, and a difficulty level, I could pop in and have some fun for 15 minutes, but avoid the lag-filled street sweeping. I hope we can do that in the future. The people who genuinely want to solo alone forever can go /hide and do these types of missions endlessly to their heart's content. No more whining about making the whole game more solo-friendly, and maybe reduced pleas to power-level, even.

In the meantime, I have found only two players on the boards who have taken Crippling Axe Kick, and none in the game itself. I would love to have a different power that either increases the chances of a Critical Hit, or ensures the next hit will be a Crit (although there is no guarantee you would actually land the blow). I have no idea how long the recharge time should be, maybe similar to Focus Chi, but it strikes me as a "fun" power, while CAK is just gathering dust. Is it too much to hope the devs might actually revisit the power sets some day? It would be neat to have them present us with choices after datamining to find the five fewest-taken powers, and solicit us for replacement power ideas. The old powers could be thrown into some miscellaneous power pool section, so the rare players who love them could still take them. I am increasingly open to ideas of improving the game from a fun aspect, especially ones that involve the opinions of the players themselves. This is a marked contrast to the old way of buying and playing games. Granted, you could always change the rules of any board game and have house rules, but the prospect of a continually-changing game environment where players can have a voice heard like this is a relatively new development, and my impression is that the CoH Devs are more responsive to the community of heroes than other games. It may be because we're a smaller segment of the gaming population, which is fine with me. It does leave me wondering why CoH is so far down on the subscription numbers by comparison, and if it's because of the child-stigma that is to this day still associated with the super-hero genre. I hope the CoH sales department finds a way to increase sales of the game, because I want this game to be around forever, to have a chance to grow, and to have more teammates available when I need a team! Which is more like a "want" than a "need," but I am continually growing more towards group play than solo play, like a line on a graph pointed diagonally upwards.

P.S. Present Day: Diamond Cut is angry that this post has fallen to "only" four stars. Somebody please help fix this, he's already close to going postal, being without a computer, not able to play the game for more than a week. I don't want him testing out his Scrapper moves on me in real life. In real life, I'm like a squishy Controller...

You see? It's certainly a good thing I admitted my own penchant for misspelling, or I'd have even more egg on my face!

Entry 26

It took me forever to realize that I should be submitting spelling and grammar collections not through their regular support choices, but by hitting the File Bug Report. I've submitted so many, I got discouraged and quit for a while. But I think of all the younger people who might be playing, and I really think good spelling and grammar is so essential everywhere you go in real life, I just can't ignore it. Really, I've lost count of how many times people were impressed by the simple ability to read, write, and speak in a clear and correct fashion. I felt full of sadistic glee when I spotted a typo in Marvel's revised complaint against CoH. Here they have lawyers getting paid millions per year. These attorneys are at home on the toilet, charging $175 an hour, saying, "Hey, while I was doing Number 2, I was thinking about their case!" and charging Marvel for billing time. They can't even file a legal document without running a spell check or a grammar check! Embarrassing...

I'm not perfect either, and I may misspell something as I write here (I always mess up the word "misspell" the first time I type it, for example), but it is not mentioned enough how vital the ability to communicate well serves people. So I dedicate myself to reading every flavor text, both because I love a good story (and hope they give me one), and because I want to help them correct any errors. My hands are full, because I find a spelling error approximately every fifth or sixth text box. I'll find out if they have corrected them when I switch to an alt and go through them again. Plus, I have to check the new zones like Striga Isle for the first time. If CoH has a text editor, he or she really fell down on this job in a major way. One of Tina Macintyre's missions has two errors in a row, one text box after the other (during a timed mish, ‘natch, so I gotta spend my time typing instead of going to the rescue. Ah, what the hey, I never run out of time anyway) I know it's a game, but come on, how many times can you mix up "its" and "it's?" I consider it my act of charity to the devs, and I wish I could earn a badge for submitting the most bug reports helping them out with spelling and grammar.

Entry 25

I decide to pull up Debt Leader on Victory server and give my level 10 Red/Dark Blast controller a whirl. I turn on Seek Team instantly. I've got a lame mission in King's Row, an impossible-to-solo CoT mish in Perez, and a mish deep in the heart of the Hollows. Even though I know better, I trot towards the Hollows. I know better than to go near those white rocks! Which doesn't help when they materialize right around me. Umm, pie in the hospital!

Switch tactics. I run to Steel Canyon to talk to the security chief, but there's no way I can handle them. So it's off to Skyway City to tackle Ogres. Yay! I start taking groups of two and three, white and yellow cons, which are pesky because they run away so much. Big, tough, green monsters. That's right, run away! Other higher levels keep running by, upping the cons a little too much, so I run up a wall to a neighboring territory and hunt there every time that happens.

I finally get a team invite for a group of 8 in Hollows, and one person has TP. It's all purple to me, even when I'm sidekicked. I try it anyway. I cast Accelerate Metabolism on everyone, and they all just stand there. I get just into view of one purple Caliban, take a boulder for the team, and back up. This stirs them to action, but no coordination. Someone asks, "Who do we assist?" There's only one scrap, no tank. "Assist the scrapper," I say. A blaster had just been boasting about how he's been playing since beta. Why isn't he telling the team this? Or the team leader? We pull through our first encounter okay, but for some reason a blaster decides to pull a massive mob that outnumbers us right down on top of us. I go out of my way to follow the "beta tester" around a little bit to heal him with my Radiant aura, but nobody ever talks. 6 of us bite the dust. They all lay there dead, while I goto hospy. I thank them for the team, and wish them luck, citing the purples as slightly above my head. I leave them all grousing about how close they are to travel powers and complaining about their massive debt levels.

I'm in the hospy in Skyway. Back to Troll hunting! I use my free respec to get rid of the embarrassing extra slot I put in Rest, and pick up Radiant Infection (RI) over Dark Pit. I use RI to take on a group of nine yellows at once. Nearly have it done, but I mix up which one I put the RI on and knock him out accidentally (pesky Trolls all look alike!). I launch RI on another one, get his last remaining neighbor down to one more sliver of health, and my luck gives out. I wake up in the hospy, while a hero who jumped right over me while I was still alive takes out the remaining two in the two seconds it takes for me to wake up in the hospy. Thanks a lot, buddy. I level up to 11 while I work off my debt, solo again. Sigh. Alone again, naturally. Sometimes it really is for the best.

Thanks, Hellscorp!

Entry 24

"Oh, no! What have I done?"

I was feeling nostalgic for my Blaster, so I dug out Ultra Meltdown (UM) and used his free Respec. The consensus on the message boards was that the Hasten/Stamina combo was the way to go, so I did that, plus got rid of Fly for a 4-slotted Hover and Air Superiority for the first time. The trouble started at the store, when I realized there are no Fly Speed Enhancements to buy. I experimented first on the Training Server with things like Lightning Field and Havoc Punch. Lightning Field looks awesome, but I couldn't really justify having it, and Havoc Punch didn't feel right either. As a result, I have only the default power from my secondary, and I've lost Power burst and Power Push from my primary.

The good news is I like Air Superiority, but I can't find any contacts that can give me Fly Speed, so I've got four useless slots sitting in Hover until I can find a good contact at this level. I finally buy SOs, and that means my Sniper Blast can drop white-cons, but that's a mixed blessing. I head into a warehouse in Striga, and it's a little boring at first. I snipe, wait for recharge, snipe again, and just move on slowly. But just when I'm thinking I should change my mission difficulty slider, I run into an orange-con who puts me in the hospital. Power Push, although heavily discounted by people, was actually instrumental in helping me dispatch orange-cons with a little less risk. It's a lot harder, now that I've lost something like four different attacks to get the Hasten/Stamina thing going. I like Super Speed, so I probably would have gotten Hasten eventually anyway, but compared to how I was able to handle myself before, I feel so gimped now. I end up putting some DOs in Hover, and set Hasten on auto.

Stamina has DOs as well, so after a little experimentation, I'm not too impressed with my overall END consumption still. I can tackle blue-cons to my heart's content, but I think I'd rather go back to being able to take on an orange-con without candy and settle for the extra downtime. This is all in the context of soloing, as almost everything Ultra Meltdown has done has been solo. After racking up 10,000 debt, I put him on the shelf for a while, then go back to test him out some more. I've shifted around all of his powers from where they were to get a better handle on how to use him. I even start to use the Hover-shoot method a little bit that I recalled seeing so many Blasters doing in Steel Canyon. I start to wonder if that's how I'm going to have to be just to stay alive. Oh man, let me get to 24 soon so I can do another Respec!

I decide to press my luck a few months later and tackle a yellow-con Tsoo Sorceror and a white-con Ink Man, knowing full well how even a blue-conning Ink Man can put me to sleep. Aim+Snipe almost takes out the Sorceror, but he Teleports. I'm on auto-follow, but I run into an information booth. Do they plan that or something? I take him out, and the Ink Man gets a few punches in, but nothing serious. I may be able to stick with this configuration after all, so I decide to at least try it longer before I Respec out of it. The biggest drawback is each time I take a power now, it won't be a new one to get excited about, but rather an old one I can breath a sigh of relief for being able to stick it back into my bag of tricks. Oh, how I miss Build Up...

Part of this is from playing Martial Master for so long, it's hard to remember how fragile my Blaster is. Fewer Hit Points, no status effects protection, and I am SO used to not being hit! Hmm, I wonder if the Blasters will ever get any kind of Super Reflexes powers? Kang had an awesome Force Field, it seems weird that Blasters wouldn't have at least one option like that built into the set somewhere. Or at least some type of armor mesh protection. No matter how they tried to develop it, the first thing that came to my mind when I read the Blaster description was Iron Man, and he is definitely more durable than I am. I also have trouble remembering to incorporate Air Superiority. I have no clue if it's worth slotting up or not, so I put one Accuracy in it. Sniper Blast can drop white-cons with one Acc and four Damage Enhancements. Stamina is five-slotted, Hasten six, and Hover four, so my poor Power Bolt and Power Blast are feeling neglected.

It's too bad I can't have Sniper Blast on auto-attack, it's what I use most now for these wide-open Striga warehouse missions. I think on my second outing with UM, I've already learned how to survive better, but this constant sniping whites just to get to the end for someone who might dispatch me easily is a little boring in the repetitious sense. The cure might be to just go get a team and have more to do at once than set position, snipe. Set position, snipe. I decide to mix it up a bit, and snipe once, then use Aim with my other attacks, close in for the kill and start getting into the habit of hitting Air Superiority. Hey, that's a little more fun. I'm intrigued by the idea of a blapper, a combo of Blaster and Scrapper, so I think I'll try one of those sometime, maybe for CoV. They don't seem to be too popular on the boards, and that's actually a little strange to me. You'd think people would offer gratz for finding ways of breaking the traditional molds that the game has created for us, as the players creatively find ways around the game-designed limitations. Some of the complaints sound like codgy old people instead of young computer gamers, protesting that Blasters should follow their roles like good little dogs. I'm used to using Super Reflexes to gamble it all, all the time, so I tend to think if a player is willing to risk the debt from being a blapper, let ‘em rip. I'll have to reserve final judgement until I get to that point myself after test-driving a blapper build.

I'm also wondering if there is some kind of dichotomy with having Energy as my primary set and Electric Manipulation for my second. Energy has all this Knockback in it, and my Electric Fence is designed to root them to one place. Is there a good way to slot up Electric Fence so I can get more use out of it? Right now I use it for grins and giggles, or to slow down opponents when I retreat. Also, is Air Superiority a bad mix with Energy for the same Knockback reasons? My Charged Brawl seemed to work better, with its built-in chance to send the bad guy into convulsions for a couple seconds. I'm definitely getting hit a lot more often, so I have to take more downtime to heal up. Two yellow-cons give me trouble. The first is a Sky Raider Porter, so the teleporter of the group always goes down first. That's not a problem, but the second yellow-con starts whomping on me, and I have to use Hover finally, to stop getting knocked down. The range attacks he has are still putting a dent in me, though, and I have to use two green candies to keep me alive. I'm still not sure how much I like using Hover in combat, but I have it hot-keyed now, and that seems to help. Since I'm typing my adventures as I go now, the downtime doesn't wear on me either, but it probably would if I were playing only.

In the Striga warehouse, I knock a Council goon in-between the wall and a crate, and he's stuck there with his legs spread, he looks ridiculous, like Daffy Duck after one of his wild ideas backfired on him. I miss on an Energy Torrent, and two other white-cons whittle me down into the red, but I take them out and snipe a Galaxy. He's dead, but I still manage to fire my follow-up Power Bolt at him before he drops to the ground from my snipe. I wonder if the medical examiners ever comment about my over-kill. I figure I'll be able to handle the next two yellow-cons better, but they get me down to about the same red place, even though I use Hover from the get-go. I note that I did not have to use any Inspirations that time, though, so there is an improvement. I simply have to work on building in some Defense. Should I be looking at Tough and Weave, or Acrobatics? Ugh, leaping does not fit my character concept. Character concept was one of the most important elements of this character in particular, I'm not so choosy with most of my alts. Achieving a proper feeling of balance with this character may be the most challenging aspect so far, in relation to my other characters. Fun!

[ QUOTE ]
Thank you from a first time MMORPGer, who never thought he would ever get into these types of games.

As a long time comic book fan, it was like a dream come true the moment I hit 14 with my first character, and I was able to FLY.

[/ QUOTE ]
What coh_pepsiman said!

Entry 23

Level 41 allows Martial Master to slot Elude with four Recharge and two Defense Enhancements. I think I became a perma-Eluder before I even fully knew what the term meant. I dub myself... Permaluder! That'll be my villain name when I make an arch-nemesis for myself over on CoV. Sounds much better than Elude-a-Perm. That sounds like an escapee from a prison beauty shop. I test my newly-tricked-out power on the hapless bad guys in peregrine Island, barreling over Nemesis on the docks, and working my way up the island until I see a level 50 Behemoth. Hmm... I survive one hit and walk away. Well, all right, I ran away. This round to you, demon, but I'm drinking milk, and someday I'll be bigger than you!

When my Scrapper had hit level 39, he ran to all these new contacts, up and down Founder's Falls and such. They won't give me anything until I hit level 40! But I came all the way up this cliff! Grr. With no missions, here is one area that actually feels like a grind for a little bit. I hunt in Founder's Falls for the lower southeast corner, where it looks like the best odds of finding good xp with an acceptable degree of risk. No luck finding teams for days on end. After 40, you have the opposite problem, because you gain tremendous amounts of xp helping others out with AV missions. It can be difficult to squeeze in all the content. I've been trying to get an Eden trial going for forever now, and I finally have success. Of a sort.

The Curse of the Task Force continues (notice the ‘c' in Curse is in caps now, right?). My first attempt ends in failure, as the group wants to pass up all the Devouring Earth (DE) in the caves and head straight for one of the monsters. We manage to take him out, but it's really the blind leading the blind, and we can't make it past the first Wall. I go do some reading on the Internet, and come to find we really need a Controller to lock down the spawns around the Wall, so the Cairn-drops don't stop us from taking the Wall down. My second, different group fares little better. I suggest we tackle a group or two to learn how to mesh together, and everyone agrees it's a good idea... and proceed to jump down the holes to the Wall anyway. As I try to communicate what we need to do, somebody engages the mobs and everyone follows. A lesson in futility ensues. I'm a Scrapper with a big ol' wall to take down, so my best bet is to pound away as hard and fast as I can. I leave the spawns to everyone else, but it's not working. I find I have to stop and take out a Cairn to have any effect on the Wall, but another Cairn pops up to take its place, and now I have aggro. Fighting the mob does no good, they're endless. Failure again.

A Controller and I regroup with a couple new people to tackle it again, and I'm stressing the need to lock down the Sentries. We actually manage to get the Wall down in health enough that the Monster pops up. The rest of the team takes a dirt nap, and the big guy follows me around trying to land a punch past my Elude. The rest of the team just... lay there, dead, talking a little about what to do next. The Monster has perma-aggro on my butt, and a couple minutes later, I've used up all my green candy and am in permanent Super-Speed-backwards mode. No movement from the team, so even though I'm not the leader this time, I advise them to trade Awakens until our healer has one, and Resurrect the others to regroup. Not sure why it took five minutes and me to suggest this, but needless to say, the group cannot get it together enough to get through the first Wall. As I'm trying to figure out a new way to ask for a "lockdown" on the spawns that lay the Cairns, I level up to 42. Gah! That's it, I have to move on. I resolve to hit all of these things I'm missing with an alt, because they look neat, but my luck is only good for Elude, it seems, not for groups that work well together right this moment.

Luckily, I have run into Kisume around this time, a healer of great skill. She is quickly added to my friends list, and we become auto-invite buddies almost every time we are logged on at the same time. Between her, Magic Kisses, and ElectraKittie, I have become a Recovery Aura addict. It almost completely negates my END drop-off from Elude. Add in Fortitude and other perks, and I become a one-man wrecking crew. Tanks are few and far between for some reason, so I become the de facto Tank for most of our teams. If I take a little long at the end of the missions, it's because I'm actually reading the text. It's part of the reason I went solo for as much as I could at the start, I ran across a large number of people who were always go-go-go! I'm enjoying reading about the Revenant hero project, and the discoveries about the nature of the Rikti.

Note: I try not to give too much detail here to spoil the higher-level content. Lower-level players who would still like to read the Journal, please let me know if I give away too much, and I'll scale back content descriptions. I'm a story-teller, not a spoiler!

Outside the Journal Commentary

Thanks, Dragonbane. Anyone who has the mission, please PM me, I actually have some debt I can work off for a change! (4/5/2005)

I just saw the new Voting area, and I think that's a great community builder, I know I have tons of new websites to check out now, after just scanning some of the topics. Now if only there was a best Journal or RP Poll. And a prize! Do the prize winners get a unique Badge, or a discount for a month, or to be beta-testers for CoV? Everyone loves prizes...

Let me do a flashback (these will have to suffice until the Devs give us Flashback in the game), but just to level 38.

Entry 22

Martial Master has been going into Eden for a few missions, and noticing that there's always one high-level villain amongst the mobs. I'm curious to see how far Elude will take me, and I jump into a group of Granites and such. One of the Devouring Earth (DE) must have dropped a Quartz, because I'm out in a couple of hits. I'm taking an overhead snapshot of the villains doing a victory dance on my head, and I get an invite to join a team! I'm thinking, okay, but I'm not exactly up and around at the moment...

The curse of the Task Force continues. Trials are included for these purposes. Martial Master had already leveled too far when they introduced the Hollows, and my one attempt to help out Red Haven do the Cavern of Transcendence ended with us nearly finished, and all thrown off by a server failure. I spend hours finding badges and exploring, just kind of loitering around the zones, trying not to out-level Numina. I get the Crey Pistol Accolade! Cool! The only time I ever get invites to do it is after midnight on weekends when I'm about to log. I finally manage to get some success, and put together a group of five Scrappers. Everyone notices and starts cracking jokes about all the other Archetypes, but it's all in good fun. I see another Scrapper with the same power sets as mine, and we start a gag about complimenting each other on "your fine choice of powers!" "Why, thank you! And may I say..." Since Scrappers are unto themselves each a one-man army, doing the missions is like having three armies at least being thrown up against the villains. They don't stand a chance. Half the time we're all spread out chasing down villains on the streets, and I don't think a single person died until the final mission.

We're up against the DE, and there are several comments about the eminators and all the stuff they drop that can be bad for us. I go face-down once in the middle of a corridor, as I'm able to take out one Quartz, but it turns out there are two of them. A couple others get taken out too, but I think Niptuck stayed alive through it all. I put him on my friends list. Now, I tend to shorten everyone's name as I type, but the game won't let me call him Nip, so I have to type it out in full. Sometimes I think the censor mechanism goes overboard, but I also find it mildly amusing. I Teleport to safety, and TP the others to the Eden entrance, much to their appreciation, since Eden is a lousy place to navigate. Just when I had started to think of Respecing out of it, too. Think I'll keep it after all. Everybody gushes about how fluid and flawless the Task Force ran, and I invite them all to my Supergroup. Nobody takes me up on it, because they're all in an sg, but they thank me for the offer. Ah, well. I guess you've got to get ‘em early and get ‘em young if you want sg mates.

I'm looking to do the Sewer Trial now, and after I'm in a good group, someone suggests it. This is only the second time I've been in the Abandoned Sewers, and it's kind of neat. When we all get down to the center, I find out part of why it's been hard to find groups lately. Everybody and their dog is hanging around outside the Trial entrance! Somehow I've ended up as leader again, don't ask me how this time. I was hoping to sit back and observe, since I have not done the Trial even once, even though at this point everyone is farming it daily. I invite Niptuck along, and we have one healer and one tank. The Controller, however, really messes everything up.

Before we go in, I impart as much information as I can to the team, and make sure everyone knows we want to complete it, not farm it for Krakens. The reason we decided to do this is because three of us wanted to do it to the end. Even though a couple on the team have done this before, I'm the one who ends up explaining the difference in the types of blasters we can pick up, based on info I've gleaned from the ‘net. We head in and have a few deaths, but make it down to the bottom and start to work on a plan for the generators. The entire time, the Controller has ad Fire Imps out, and he won't put them away. I'm contemplating putting him up for a Kick, which I do by asking each of the team by a tell if anyone has a problem, but there's not enough time to do it. His imps start damaging a generator, he draws aggro on a Kraken, and knocks out our healer before we're even ready. Niptuck sends me a tell, "This isn't going well, dude." ‘I know!"

The Controller is unrepentant throughout the whole thing, talking about how can you invite a Controller and ask not to use the pets? He just does not understand aggro, nor the need to take out the generators simultaneously. I've been using TP to get all our dead to the healer to resurrect, but now our healer is down and nobody has an Awaken left. I apologize to the healer as he quits, but he says it's not my fault. We all quit in disappointment, and I go work off my debt.

It's a while later before I'm able to do clear my mission slots, but I go do the first part, take out 150 Rikti in the sewers. Oh, no! I level up in the sewers! I'm hoping I can still get the second mission, but the contact won't give me anything. I had tried to get it ages ago when I wasn't even level 38 yet, and she said, "Hey, Martial Master. I totally admire your blind bravery, but you're going to get stomped." That made me laugh. I gather a team of four, thinking I can get the trial if I have a minimum number of people. I forget what level I was at by this point, but someone on my team points out that dinging in the sewers didn't matter. I was two levels too high to get the mission! Drat! I resign myself to the idea that Martial Master will not experience everything first-hand, and I'll have to get the Sewer experience with an alt. Gasp! This means I won't be able to get every badge for Martial Master either! Ah, I can't get the Isolator badge no matter what, so I'll just have to learn to live with it. Unless the Devs give us a Portal mission where nobody ever found a cure for the disease...

I accidentally get the Freedom Phalanx Reserve Accolade. I say accidentally, because I've been trying to track my Hit Points at each level as I train up, and now I have to break out the calculator each time to figure out what my HP would be without the accolade. Ah, my life is so hard, to have to deal with these types of problems...

I've been stalling on a title for my character, but after soliciting a few opinions from my coworkers and my best friend and his wife after giving them my top three choices, I settle on the Legendary Occult Martial Master. I set my Badge Title to Untouchable. Even though it's for something else, I take it because I'm Super Reflexes!

Arcanaville hit the nail on the head for me. The passives can't be de-toggled, which is always a pain, but that dovetails quite nicely with the Elude END crash. After hearing some tankers complain about END crash and toggle-drop, I figured I didn't want to hassle with it. With MA/SR being such an END hog already, it made me more partial to passives.

The trade-offs involved make me think that SR is actually one of the more balanced power sets to choose from these days; either build is viable, but it doesn't let you have your cake and eat it too.

Roger, I see you went END reduc instead of ACC on your attacks. I know my Eagles Claw is the only attack without an ACC, and I whiff on that one more than the others. Did you have any ACC Enhancements slotted before you were able to take Focused Accuracy? If not, it looks like the recharges in Focus Chi may have helped make up for more misses in general.

I want to say your comments have been great. I encourage you to post your builds here if you wish, to show the diversity of build styles. I wanted to show every newcomer to the game and people who have not played SR the advantages of it being more "free" to variant builds than other power sets. My personal build experience is targeted specifically to proving that you don't have to slot toggles and then Respec out of them later, not for max dps, not for AV efficiency, nor anything else (unless you want to count my personal enjoyment).

Your comments have shown already how the build could be more defensive, more efficient, or both, which helps to emphasize how different the build paths can be and still be successful. I definitely went the way of offense over defense.

I still want to hear from all CAK-ers (those who specialize their build to include the Disorient effects of Crippling Axe Kick), and I would still like to see a build that has somehow managed to fully slot five attacks, the toggles, passives, and Elude. I'm guessing that build would not have Hasten in it, which would reduce the attack rate, though.

And hey, I read guides were rated often, who do I have to Thunder Kick around here to get at least a couple stars? Maybe if I kick myself I'll start seeing stars...

Roger, your build is another way to go, and it definitely works. My increased tempo did not allow me the patience to activate three separate animations each time I wanted to battle (more if you didn't have Combat Jumping, Tough and Weave up already). Prior to Conserve Power, though, could you still run all of those toggles constantly, or did you have a lot of downtime, even with the END Enhancements? Or did you have to pick and choose which ones to run at one time prior to level 41?

I wouldn't call the passives a waste at all. They aren't taken until later, and there are other SR guides that also show Dodge and Lucky taken at levels 28 and 30. Maybe you mean more that slotting them with the huge number of slots is a waste? To be fair, did you have to put those other 12 slots into your other defensive powers, the Tough, Weave, and Combat Jumping, because then we're still both devoting the same number of slots to defensive powers (although the benefits are definitely different). From my perspective, slotting toggles earlier would have meant trade-offs in my offensive slotting. With selecting passives instead, I did not have to agonize over those choices. By skipping the toggles, I reduced many possible END problems, had more slots for offense, and reduced the time it took for me to jump into battle by at least four seconds per battle, since running around with them all activated all the time is an unecessary drain and often delays you even more with computer lag, in my experience.

I'm assuming when you say two slots each, you are including the one given for default for each power, for a total of two slots per each toggle. That does save you on slots in the long run, but since I never slotted Agile anyway, my build allowed me to go from level 1 to 28 without worrying about slotting choices like that. By the time I was willing and able to slot them up, I could spare the slots. MA has five attacks, mine are fully slotted, as are Hasten, Stamina, Elude, and Conserve Power. I still found room to fully slot the passives, get a recharge rate on Focus Chi that works best for me personally, and still spare a range Enhancement for Teleport. For the marginal improvement for the sixth slot in the passives, you could easily move those around to Cobra Strike, Focus Chi, or Focused Accuracy, depending on your tastes.

If I was willing to skip Eagles Claw for the sake of better dps, I would have five more slots to toss around as well, but that one is just too fun for me to skip! Those slots might go to FF, but I don't really need something like that unless I want to be an AV killer, in which case my build would be totally different anyway.

One other thing worthy of note, contrary to what I read on the boards of most SR players, I did not have a large problem with AoE attacks prior to getting Lucky. I have no clue why my experience was so much better in that regard, but with Practiced Brawler on auto-fire, it's not like I would get knocked down or anything anyway.

(edited for spelling)

I have to agree, Arcanaville, the 20s was tough to go solo in Talos, and that's part of why I had to mention right at the start that this was definitely not an uber-build or a solo AV-killer machine or anything like that, that this was my build done for fun. I think the other SR guides already in existence have adequately covered the regular builds.

I suppose the standard reply is just to group more often, but at that point if I was not in a group, I would just pick my battles based on what I had tested out that I was capable of handling. Of course, it took a couple of trips to the hospital before I determined what those upper limits were at that level...

A smarter choice for me at that level, actually was to hunt in IP, and skip Talos for a while. I found for SR, the 5th and the Family were easier to handle than phase-shifting Ancestor Spirits and Tsoo teleporting-Sorcerors, in terms of time taken to defeat them (plus, I like beating up nazi-lookin' thugs).

My original, worse build I was telling Dark One about had Agile much earlier, but that delayed things like Super Speed and Stamina. The marginal increased defense did not outweigh the better benefits of reduced downtime by traveling faster and recovering END faster to get back to the xp earning, in my mind. I'm not sure if there's a way to quantify the tradeoff and measure the extra trips I took to the hospital by sacrificing defense for speed and offense.

For all the other Scrapper secondaries for which I have alts, I definitely take more of my defensive secondary earlier, but SR's defense addition just didn't seem to stack up enough to make it a priority to add them. Especially when I was in groups, and did not have all the aggro.

Depending on what your build was, Arcanaville, my above-average reliance on Cobra Strike may be what enabled me to survive this route. I had it slotted with two Accuracy Enhancements in the beginning, with 2 Disorient Enhancements. Perhaps I should have mentioned that earlier, since this latest version is a result of Respec in that one sense involving CS. Even when I had Agile earlier, I did not slot it.

Crane Kick also gave me ample time to switch from one opponent to another, so I could jump into a group of +3s, stun one with CS, kick another on his butt, and pound the other one with Focus Chi activated. Dragon's Tail only helped that more, and I could even handle a group of eight white-conning Tsoo Ink Men that were stealing my super speed in IP.

Another good point you have is, Endurance use is very troublesome for much of the build, so I used every CAB I had, and often alternated between having an END Reducer and a Defense Enhancement in my FF slot.

I'm not sure if I have mentioned this enough or stressed this, but part of my thinking (maybe natural, since I'm from Las Vegas) is a gambler's excitement. This build is actually designed not necessarily to have the easiest time of going solo, but to see how much damage you could do fast, and see if you could take down a particular group before they did you in. Many players do not have the temperament to try going through the game without beefing up their defenses more, so this build might not be for you if it looks too daunting to be fun. But it is doable, and definitely different from the majority of the AV-killer builds that are commonly made.

Dark_One, let me describe my state of mind with my character, and it might tell you why my build is the way it is. Smersh is wrong in the sense that this cannot be a pre-Respec build, one of my main points in posting a build guide was to show the versatility of the SR set.

By that I mean this: you can go toggles or Elude, or a combination of both, but there was this wide-spread perception that you had to go toggles first before Elude, and then Respec, which has resulted in a ton of cookie-cutter SR builds, precisely when SR should have the largest variation of builds, compared with most other power sets.

I wanted to stress that there has been no FS, no Evasion, and only one slot in FF, and the MA/SR Scrapper could still excel, so as to encourage non-cookie-cutter builds, and promote a greater variation with experimenting with the build.

For my philosophy, MA is still the Primary power set, which is stronger, which means you should focus on building your primary first; this was the sense I got from day one when I first read the power set descriptions.

Also, damage is king at the lower levels. If I have a choice between doing more damage to a minion and taking him out one punch sooner, that's one more of the mob out of commission earlier, which means fewer attacks on me, which means fewer hits trying to get past my defenses. Add that in with the normal Scrapper role of doing the most damage in melee, my build is meant to be a fun, blaster-like attack dog kind of thing.

Martial Master Build-Specific Notes:

1. A key part of this strategy includes a larger role for Cobra Strike, which many MA builds skip. I led off with the attack constantly, allowing me to pummel one baddie, while the other was stunned. A stunned opponent means he's not pummeling you, which means my attacks are more useful if they are slotted up, as opposed to my defenses, which are not getting tested nearly as much while my opponents are stunned.

2. If things do start to over-power my defenses, Super Speed allows me to get to safety most of the time, and once you break the habit of scrapperlock, a speedy withdrawal can save you from tons of debt. Many of us forget to do this sometimes, but if you can remove yourself from danger so quickly, this also gives you a small reason to focus on attacks more, and still allow you to run relatively lesser defenses, since retreat is usually a viable option (especially in real life. Here in the game, though, many players swear to jump in and stay in, no matter the consequences!). The increased movement speed also drastically cuts down the time needed to move to the next ranged opponent gunning for you and take him down. Those seconds saved in battle add up, just by reducing the time you're taking damage, as opposed to normal running speed, and the additional hits you'll be taking in a more protracted battle.

3. The utility of MA with SR means your knockback ability can often give MA/SR Scrappers more of a "rest" from attacks than other primary Scrapper sets. The knockdown from Dragon's Tail, the knockback from Crane Kick, and the Disorient from Thunder Kick, Cobra Strike and Eagles Claw all help to reduce the time your enemy is attacking you, so again it helps to have them slotted well; the more often your enemies are dizzy or on their backs, the less you have to pay attention to your defenses. Builds with other primaries may find it more necessary to focus on their defenses earlier.

I have the old saying in mind, "the best defense is a good offense." In almost every game I pay, whether it's Starcraft, Risk, Chess, Stratego, Enterprise Encounter, Monopoly, whatever, fortune almost always favors the bold who strike first, often, and hardest. I approached this game with the same thoughts.

One of the big things to remember with SR is that although the point is not to get hit, these abilities take a long time to really shine. Elude is what really makes one of the biggest differences, which does not come until level 38. The other defensive powers build in strength as you go, but your attacks are actually more effective in the early stages. I front-loaded my offense, and as I reached the higher levels I focused on filling out my secondary, at the time when I was a high enough level, and the SOs would really contribute, in my opinion.

So that's the major thinking in this specific build, and hopefully I have proven by virtue of actually doing it that you can get to a perma-Elude mode without going the all-toggle route first. It's one of the few unique places I think I have managed to contribute to the SR discussions.

That said, since the SR set is still fairly robust, you have many choices on what to do next:

You may focus on your passives into perma-Elude, as I did.

You may still decide to go all-toggles first, then Respec into Elude.

You may get Elude for situational use, fully-slot your toggles, and put your passives on the backburner, comparatively.

There are several ways to go. If I do MA again, I will probably skip Storm Kick and try the Crippling Axe Kick/Disorient-oriented build, to see how well it performs. My next SR is probably going to focus on toggles, just to do a different build myself. Let me know which way you decide to go, which way is more fun for you.

One gap in my knowledge is the efficiency of Quickness, and if there is merit to getting it sooner, that maybe it should be placed earlier on the build over another power. I'd be interested to hear opinions on that. Let me know if you have more questions.

Thanks,

-TP

Good comments and good questions, guys.

Dark_One, this build does happen to be post-Respec, hence the Advanced title of the thread, but my original build was actually worse. I originally did not take Super Speed until much later, taking me tons of time to get places. Since I had taken Warrior's Challenge, I did not get Stamina until later as well. Yet I was able to get along just fine with my original 'horrible' build, even before I Respeced into the normal method of getting Stamina at 20, and a travel power earlier.

So the short answer is yes, you can do well with this build starting out, and you can even do well with a 'worse' build.

Smersh, this is actually about the time I took Practiced Brawler in my original build, I totally did not understand the benefits of status protection when I first started. If I were to change anything, though, I agree, it would be to take PB sooner, but my preference in powers would be to actually push back the Fitness Pool, and end up with Stamina at 22. For those who insist on Stamina at 20, you'll have to make the choice on whether to postpone Crane Kick, Focus Chi, or skip a travel power like Recall Friend, or whatever you may have had in its place.

This is why I like that these are "Guides," not people pretending to be the ultimate arbiters or rulers of what works and what doesn't. Looking at the PB placement some more, I already want to change my guide!

I would probably keep both Recall Friend and Super Speed where they are for the time-saving aspects myself, which can actually help you to level faster than an additional attack power or something, just by reducing the time you are not in combat, earning xp.

Crane Kick is really handy to get that attack at level 8, so I wouldn't want to move that. And being able to use Focus Chi the very next power enables you to double your damage output at times, which is great, so I wouldn't put PB ahead of it there. I would put it at 16. With being able to use CABs anytime, the beneficial effects of PB really help more than getting Stamina at 20, IMO.

Tulzar, you certainly can. Thanks for the compliment.

Jade_Dragon, I could usually tell when Warrior's Challenge landed, but it didn't seem to 'stick' with them long enough for me to reach them, prior to getting Super Speed. They would stop for a second, look at me, and then still jump over the edge of the freeway and run away! I saw my buddy Red Haven use his Taunt so much more effectively, I threw mine in the trash with disgust at the first Respec.

(Note: Entry 19 was a little short, so here's some extra to make up for it.)

Entry 21

It's a good time in the game for Martial Master. He's found a good friend in ElectraKittie, who also has a partner that is online at the same time as she is. It's been just long enough that I can't remember his name, and that's gonna bug me. Because we partner up every other time I'm online. If not them, then it's me and Magic Kisses. Whether it's street hunting or indoor missions, we have fun, we die rarely, and we definitely leave good looking corpses! They are also willing to follow my lead, so when I ask if they want to leave a mission upon completion or clear the rest of the map, they leave it up to me. Uber-Scrapper chooses to clear everything, of course! On a better night than most, Magic and I are joined by ElectraKittie and her partner. I make all the proper introductions, and the next few weeks blend into a big fog of lovely teaming with people who you know have your back.

One night, with ElectraKittie and partner, someone clicks on the final blinkie in the Baphomet mission just as I'm typing not to. Now we have to tackle Baphomet, but he's too much for the three of us. I get knocked out, and we can't re-enter the mission. ElectraKittie's partner says he'll let me know when he gets it, but the two of them disappear inside a couple weeks. More victims of World of Warcraft? I don't know, but fast forward to today at level 48, and I still need the Baphomet badge. Send a PM to me if you have the mission, I'd love to Exemplar down and help get it. I'm such a completist...

Real life intrudes upon my blissful fantasy. It's about this time that Marvel introduces its lawsuit against the companies that make City of Heroes. I find the official post, I read all of it. I go into the display preferences and change the number of threads on one page, so I can view more of them at once. This is a loooong thread. I find the actual complaint and read it, and everything is fairly ridiculous. I've met lawyers who don't want to get on a judge's bad side, I've met real estate people who tell me they've been in the business for 30 years, and they somehow make a mistake on my offer for a home. I'm the one who has to catch these things, because it's my life. There are a ton of flaws in Marvel's complaint, and they aren't that hard to catch. I don't have all the details, of course, since I'm not on the inside, but I get the sense Marvel did not try very hard to resolve this before launching a lawsuit.

I start a boycott. Not of the comics, the comics make less than a third of their profit, and even less a percentage of their overall revenue. Plus, I like and respect many of the writers and artists and the rest of the creative hard-working people that pout out the comics, and I don't want to punish them for the company's bad behavior. Most of the money comes from merchandising these days. I skip Blade 3, I refuse to by any product from Marvel other than a comic book itself. I tell all my friends and family, who always buy me Marvel stuff for Christmas, not to get me anything from them. It does no good. My mom, my girlfriend, my best friend, they all get me Marvel stuff anyway. My dad makes the comment that I'm tilting at windmills, and I am aghast that my nephew does not recognize the Don Quixote reference. Just what are they teaching kids in public school these days, anyway? I can only feel better at the observation that most of the gifts are really cheap merchandise. Hey! All of my family and friends were cheapskates this year! Mutter, mumble, grumble, gripe...

I create a protest character in the game. It's a purple Tank, and ever-so-slightly reminiscent of the Hulk. I go into Atlas and spam my Battle Cry for a couple minutes, it's the character's name as well: Marvel Co Sucks! I am greeted by one person who responds, telling me it won't do any good. I cite the First Amendment, and affirm the justness of my cause! He says, "Hey, I didn't say to stop doing it, I just said it won't do any good."

The next day or two, there is an e-mail from City of Heroes. Some of you may find it familiar:
" In an effort to limit the interruption of your game play as much as possible, a temporary name was assigned to the character(s) listed below." Well, I know they're enforcing the EULA, all right. That didn't take them long at all.

Marvel Co Sucks is now generichero510. ColonRectal Man has been changed to generichero512. It's too bad, I always dug the way the contact would say my full name each time I got a mission. There is another change in-between, but no new character name of generichero511 is listed, it's blank instead. Puzzling. I read the terms of agreement, and figure ColonRectal Man must be considered vulgar or otherwise offending, or part of their taboo about using names of body parts. I wonder if I could change the name to Vulgar Man...

It's actually a medical reference, but I'm not going to push it. I ask for that to be changed to CRM, and I delete the Marvel Co Sucks protest character. The middle hero was interesting, it was my Natural Scrapper, Gamesmaster, over on the Champion server. According to them, "Please note the above name was too close to "Game Master" which could cause confusion of being City of Heroes employee." That makes sense to me, I hadn't thought of that. I change his name to Counterbalance, which I actually like a lot better. I was really surprised at this point to find such a good name that wasn't already taken by someone else. And one I felt fit the character, no less! I start writing down good names for CoV, and trying to match them up with the power sets I want to try out, combinations that none of my other 16 characters have yet. This helps me resist my urge to create more alts, because I need to be able to try new powers when CoV comes out.

I log back in a few days later as CRM. I'm standing around in Atlas, and the NPCs start talking. They tell of my exploits, as they always do... but they are saying my full name, ColonRectal Man! Somehow, the original name was still coded in, even though everywhere else, I was listed as CRM. I start breaking out laughing, and send a tell to Red Haven to let him know my name is still being mentioned! I think this has been changed by now, but it felt gloriously anarchical at the time to have all these civilians praising my good deeds in his true name. Psst! Don't tell anyone kiddies, but CRM is still really ColonRectal Man! Read my origin when you see me. His battle cry has remained the same: "Looks bad, I'm gonna have to operate!"

I feel fairly good overall about the notification and renaming process, and the replies from CoH were courteous even in their admonishment. I feel good about the game, and the people behind it, and I am confident they can hire better lawyers than the ones who filed the ludicrous complaint over at Marvel.

Martial Master hits level 39 and slots Elude with three more Recharge Reductions. Game on!

Entry 20

Elude is here! That level-up music is sweet to my ears, now I will finally get the chance to find out what all the excitement is. I test the power out in Peregrine Island. Nemesis fall like dominos, as I test out yellow-, orange-, and red-conning baddies. Purples are doable as well, but I eat dirt a couple times as I learn exactly how many levels higher I can handle when they show up purple. There are purples, and then there are purples!

Martial Master is virtually unstoppable. After 38 levels, finally something that truly makes you feel like a super hero. Flying is great, and various attacks are fun, but Elude takes things to a whole new level. With Focused Fighting, Martial Master was used to being hit quite often, but unstoppable is really the wrong word. Untouchable is more like it. There is a massive END dropoff when Elude wears off, but CABs are so easy to come by, it's hard to see this as a big deal, unless you're in-between two purple bosses right when it wears off (which does happen once or twice, as I figure how long it lasts, and how long the recharge takes). I'm more willing than ever before to jump into overwhelming odds, and see if I can come out on top.

The Nemesis Colonels can usually tag me better than any others, so an opening Cobra Strike puts them on the sidelines while I take out all the minions. I save every Colonel until last, since their Vengeance effect makes me whiff way too much. I make a game out of alternating damage between two Colonels, whittling them down until I can take them both out at once with a final Dragon's Tail, so neither manages to get the benefit of a Vengeance. Nyah nyah! Cobra Strike is turning out to be useful more often than players give it credit for on the board. The stun it gives opponents reduces the damage I take, and keeps me closer to full health, and on the move. Btter dps and all that.

I start making lightning-fast hunting loops in Bricks and Founder's, using Super Speed to take out the honking huge purple Behemoth Lords before moving on to see how many Thorns I can take out in the next group before Elude wears off. Bricks is just plain fun, since Crey or the 5th usually has seven or eight guys standing around in one place. Set ‘em up, knock ‘em down. Along the way I spot other heroes testing out their new uber-power, as flaming imps decimate entire ranks of enemies, while a Nova downs ten guys at once. PI along the docks gets crowded on occasion, as different hunting parties run into each other constantly. As soon as that happens, I shout out, "to the next dock!" and gleefully jump into the water. The fire imps can have the one dock, me and my group will take the other.

It's around this time that I end up side-kicking a lower-level player, Magic Kisses, who has almost as many alts as I do. We go into the sewers, and she laughs as she watches me jump into a large group, and observes that they can't lay a finger on me. She buffs me with Fortitude and other stuff, and I quickly learn that Recovery Aura is an Eluder's best friend. We mash through missions at an even faster pace than before, and I even stop using Elude after a while, just to give Magic something to do. She's an excellent healer, it turns out, so I have no reservations about the risk. We die very rarely when teamed up. It gets so whenever I log on, she's there, sending me a tell, "Hey, sexy." I can't get excited about that, she calls everyone sexy!

I understand now how Red Haven accelerated his leveling, whereas I had guessed he wold slow down. The ramping of xp rewards and your new powers enable you to tackle ever-tougher odds, with commensurate rewards. It's here that I remember Statesman's oft-quoted rule that CoH would be working towards a game balance of three white-cons being a challenge for one player. I conclude I detest that idea. I want to have the feeling that Spider-Man or an equivalent hero does. Let's face it, the Wrecking Crew might con white to him, but he still manages to handle them without much of a sweat. The balance of the game allows you to have more fun when you beat down higher-level opponents. Part of this is purely psychological, but it is there, nonetheless. Who wants to have a more accurate ranking, and then the only time you can take on ten guys at once is when they're all that pathetic-looking green color? That doesn't feel super! Super is being able to take out the occasional purple dude. This may seem a little like grade inflation in the schools, which I find distasteful, but this is a game, and my abilities as they are make this fun. Three-to-one white cons might be more "realistic," but at this stage, I have to say realism should take a backseat to fun every time. If the Devs want to change a power here and there in the mix, that's one thing, but I think the mix for villains is perfect the way it is. The only debate that's really left is the idea of leaving bosses out of some missions, so the casual players can have a better chance to solo.

Entry 19

The fighting mix changes as you level up. For the first ten levels or so, most heroes, even in the Scrapper archetype, will wind up as mud in an attempt to tackle a purple-conning enemy. At first it's only in groups that you can tackle these more powerful foes. Martial Master can handle almost any number of white-con minions, or even groups of three yellow-cons, and an occasional orange. My blaster can handle about the same, but with considerably more backpedaling, if not out-and-out running away (with sounds of Monty Python ringing in my ears every time). But here I am in my 30s (level, but yeah, my age is in the 30s too!), and I see all these reds and purples running around in Founder's Falls. Why did they put them right next to the freeway like that...? I take on two red-conning CoT thorn throwers, and manage to put them down. Not as hard as I thought. Suddenly, I'm running my own mental calculations as I jump into what used to be impossible odds, trying different enemies that are red and even purple. Most of the time I have to run away, but I've broken whatever mental conditioning the game had settled me into for avoiding them. I may have to take more downtime to heal now, but Martial Master runs up and down the streets, settling into a nice groove of tackling yellow and orange CoT enemies, and walking away almost all the time without a large hospital bill. I'm getting rich off of the higher-level enhancements I earn, and since I'm Magic-based, it matches the small amount of role-playing I do with this character, since the CoT are (secretly) involved in a certain way with the origin of MM.

I also head over to Peregrine Island and scout out the area, just to become familiar with things. I end up merging my team with another that is hunting Fake Nemesis for the badge. Here I turn over leadership to Blue Astrid upon request. Finally, someone who likes to be leader and is good at it! Blue is on several times at the same time as I am over the next couple months, and we team up often, most times linking up as soon as the other logs on, alternating leadership. It doesn't matter too much, since we're both good. Whoever is already leader of a group stays on. When Blue doesn't feel like it, the reins are handed to me, but more often I get to tag along as just a Scrapper who busts heads for a change. Which is fun! I don't have to spend as much concentration on keeping track of everyone, I just check to make sure the group is ready, and jump headfirst into whatever we're going after. Ah, to cut loose without thinking... Blue Astrid disappears after a while, maybe kept away by real life. Maybe just hit the /hide for all I know. All I know is, I meet cool people, but they seem to disappear after a few months, sometimes never to return. It makes maintaining an active Friends list difficult, because you want to keep good eggs like Blue on the list, but after six months, you kinda need the room for someone who's actually on and playing.

I experiment with /hide for a couple sessions, mostly in reaction to all the pl requests, and partly because I'm in a loner mood on occasion. I learn not to use it anymore, as the pl requests start to die down, and I end up with a small cadre of friends that are on consistently. My loner spells don't last past one night or two, and when you see a friend online, you usually want to say hi at least, even if you're both busy with different missions, and it's not an opportune moment to team. Other times, I've realized that a friend or two might need help, and it doesn't feel right to be running around hiding when I could be of service. I think of the Avengers and the Justice League, and how often they /hide. Doesn't feel too heroic. If I'm having a total loner feeling for the night, I might do it again, but overall I think a week of experimenting with it proves I don't really need to use it for anything.

lol, it is. I had a second hotkeyed statement that said, "Which is really the same thing, when you think about it..."

Entry 18

Badges! I have so many of them now, thank you for Teleport. A quick jaunt into the Abandoned Sewers tells me I should come back for that badge later, though. I am never going to get that stench out of this costume. Phew! Martial Master now has a second costume, and an aura to go with it. Since I had no expectations for new things like capes and auras originally, they really add to my appreciation of the game. I hit 36, then 37. I am really looking forward to Elude now, especially since we have to go up three levels instead of two to get powers after level 32.

The special edition DVD has come out, and I feel the urge to get it, but resist. I'm a comic collector fanboy enough as it is, I don't need to get that kind of obsession with this as well. I can live without the badge or Power Slide (although that does look really cool), but the Heroclix of Statesman almost makes me get it. I used to play Heroclix, but there's no time for that and CoH! My friends got me at first and dragged me into it, and now they have all lost interest, so here I am with a ton of Heroclix and nobody to play with me. Ah well, it was a money pit just like Magic: The Gathering. I couldn't stop buying the packs just to see what I would get next, every day felt like Christmas. CoH is a less expensive habit.

There is a little controversy with the DVD edition, and I supposed I can understand why the existing players don't like it. But I can see things from the other side as well. In order to get a second wave of customers, they had to come out with a revised product, and I can't fault them for trying to offer unique things as a draw. By this time, there were several things that have changed in the game anyway that need to be updated regardless. The DVD also allowed for existing players to reload the game for those who had computer problems, which I don't think anyone mentioned. Also, if you didn't have computer problems but just purchased a brand new computer, this might be a nice way to load it onto the new system. Martial Master can't get the Isolator badge anyway, so it won't stick too hard that I have another one out there I won't obtain. If they offer the stuff at a lower cost later, independent of the DVD, I'd probably get it just to get it, but not for $50. One product I hope they issue in a year or two is a revised Game Manual. I like to take mine with me, so when I'm standing in line somewhere, I can plot out which terrific new power I'm going to take. How am I supposed to plan out my Katana character, when all the power descriptions are out of date? It should come with a new fold-out map to show the new zones, with the reverse side or a second map showing the Shard! I hope when they get their CoH store going in real life, they hold a poll and ask the players which merchandise they would be most likely to buy, that will take a lot of the guesswork out of trying to figure if a product line will have enough support to be profitable.

I'm enjoying the comic book. The art is not the best, but I'm speaking as an adult. It looks like the entire CoH atmosphere is intended to be kid-friendly, and that's what the art is. It also means the storyline is a little simplistic, but with this understanding that I'm not reading a Watchman or Maus, I find it to be a passable read. Seeing as how the average comic book reader is 30 years old, though, I wonder if they really want to go in this direction forever. It's a free subscription, so I won't drop it, but it is not the quality of comic that I would buy from the store. I'm hoping it will improve as the writer and artist continue, and I expect to see a change in the creative team at some point, which always happens with comics, so it's all good (It's not until months later that I'm in the comic store, reading Previews Magazine, and see an ad for the comic. Mark Waid? No way, he's one of my favorite writers! Oh, man was that an awesome move for them to do. I can barely wait.).

They're asking for fan fiction! I haven't exercised my writing muscles in a while, so I make a story about my Kinetics/Physchic Blast guy, Klarion, and submit it. Some of the fan art is really good, I'm so jealous of artists. I can't draw a stick figure without mesing it up. Gasp! They choose someone else's story. I'm never writing again! Just kidding. Anybody who really loves to write is going to end up writing again, even if they get a thousand times a thousand rejections. The story is posted on a fan fiction site instead, those interested can go here to that story: (warning: gratuitous plug for a fan fiction site here!)
Klarion story
I keep meaning to read some of the other stories on there, but there aren't enough hours in the day for me to play the game itself, it's gonna be a few months before I stop to read anything...

Entry 17

Paragon Protectors are the biggest annoyance at this level, with maybe Swarms up there for competition. I still can't consider myself an expert at the game, as I'm still figuring out how to tackle things sometimes. My blaster is used to firing and retreating, but Martial Master is used to diving head-in, and running off to engage the next mob before the nearest body has hit the ground. I learn to pull a strategic retreat just to give a little time for the Protectors' Elude or Moment of Glory to wear off so I can connect with them again.

Level 35. Teleport! I dig this power, it fits in well with my magic background too. Terrible, terrible lag on the computer, though. Not sure if there's a better way to code things so that is reduced. Only thing better would be flying cars. C'mon, they promised us flying cars by now in the real world, surely a city crawling with super heroes like Paragon City is would have them! Hmm, I wonder which Issue Update that will be.

The begging for pl has begun! I don't know what the common level is for this type of begging, but I get tells crawling out of the woodwork asking if I can power level people. I have hesitation on pl'ing my friends, what in the world ever gave people a thought that I would take on a low-level no-nothing partner who basically approached me on the streets?!? At least Jason Todd stole Batman's wheels before he got some attention. I /ignore about five names or so when those come up. It actually does not last for too many levels. I read up about it on the boards, though, and it sounds like an epidemic.

The other big thing that happens a lot now is blind invites, and spam invites. I do things differently than most, I think. If I want a group, I isolate things to the lfg menu first, then go after others only if I need to, and I send a tell each time to explain what the group will be doing. I have no idea why people try to invite you when you are not looking for a team, and you don't know them already. It's like Jehovah's witness knocking on your door, or a telemarketer calling you during dinner. These, unfortunately, never really go away, though I am not bombarded with them constantly.

Spam invites are actually few, but possibly he most irritating. After a third invite, I send a private tell, saying this is a good way to end up on people's ignore list. The guy tries to laugh it off, while at the same time saying I'm going on his ignore list, after admitting he wasn't even paying attention to his invites. I have no idea how many people he was spamming. He also tried to insist my lfg was on, but a Petition helped me make sure that wasn't the case. Once more, sing along... /ignore.

These are fairly rare overall, but they are memorable. It's sort of like driving. You have no incidents with 99.9% of the drivers on the road for a day, but the jerk that cut you off and you almost hit, him you're going to remember at the end of your destination. I'm not sure if this is an American mind-set or not, but we tend to remember negative impacts more than positive ones overall, whether in real life, or even in games like this. When I realized my brain did this almost automatically, I made a concerted effort to change my reaction, so I don't get nearly as pissed off as I used to if someone cuts me off. By the time I'm playing this game, spam invites don't even come close to being truly irritable. I let the negative stuff breeze by like a light wind, and get back to my enjoyment!

I'm still playing rather heavily, and at one point I am either even with Red Haven, or actually one level above him for a change. He is surprised, but he needn't have worried. He is past me the very next day, as real life creeps in. Our team-ups mostly end here, as he starts to actually pick up speed, to my amazement, and breeze through a couple more levels. I do missions, hunt around Brickstown when I can't find teams to finish my missions, and start looking forward to taking Elude as my next power, since I've heard there were some impressive changes to it after the Issue Update.