Journal of a first-time MMORG player
By
187nut,
Posted on: 2005-01-20 01:10 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Back! Anybody miss me?
Entry 75
Another night, another patrol of Paragon City to keep everything safe! Bice joins us, as he does every third night or so, and that's always extra fun for me, because Diamond Cut's defenses are so good, half the time he doesn't even need me anymore. The new Knockback feature causes one death for the whole night, as Bice and I are both thrown on our backs at the same time, and he dies while I'm still getting up. A Resurrection puts him right back in the game, and I think at this point, anyone who does not take that power is foolish. Even as good as we are, and as well as we mesh as a team, we still have an occasional death. We were in Crey's Folly, and a rez saves a considerable amount of time for the person who went down. I'm curious now as to how many hours I have "spent" on CRM, compared to Martial Master. My constant teaming should mean fewer hours on CRM for sure, but by how much?
Instead of just leveling, I'm announcing each time I gain a bubble. I've actually got about four SOs that I'm carrying around with me for when I get to level 38. This is the sort of thing that makes me want a storage area for enhancements, and I wonder if the Devs want us to have that ability with sg bases. I'm guessing they don't want to develop the game into one of those types where people put things for bid on Ebay, but they also would like for more of an in-game market. I'm not sure how they will configure things to develop one aspect and keep the Ebay aspect out.
After my Respec, my Neutrino Bolt and X-Ray Beam aren't very good anymore, at least not at the levels we're fighting at. My fully-slotted powers are great though, Proton Volley, Neutron Bomb, and Cosmic Burst. The Rikti Drones are the bane of my existence. That's probably at least partly personal, since their defenses are high, and I have a particular dislike for missing.
Task Force Time! We visit Numina and take Boogie Monster along with us, and a level 35 Blaster, Ice D. I'm asking DC to let me set the difficulty higher, but he insists we go to the lowest setting. After the first mission, he says, "I should have let you set it higher." Heh. Weird thing is, as easy as the early parts were, I end up dying more in this TF than any other. Once from a Devouring earth ambush from behind out in the streets. In another mission, the Nemesis are conning blue and green, so I jump in. I die. What? To my left, there are ten(!) white- and yellow-cons that have decided to join the party, and I'm the guest of honor. I notice when I go into the red nobody ever comes to my rescue, and I remember another time when DC was playing Red Haven he didn't know I died, because he didn't have his team menu up. I wonder if I should talk to him about that... Again on the last mission, as I fall to the bottom of the map. I should hotkey the phrase, "I hate caves," I type it in so much. Ice D is right there with me, with the cave hating. Anyway, I hit Fly and follow the others, right at the point that they stumble across Jurassik. He's behind me, and I don't see squat, but I'm looking at nothing but dirt a second later. Finally, after we beat everything and exit the map to Eden, I follow DC, figuring he knows the best way through all these Lesser Devoured's around us, but he seems to wade right through the bulk of them. I chase after, healing him as I go, but no good. We both take the faster way out of Eden, via the hospital!
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
Of course we missed you! I must have checked this thread at least once a day just in case I missed an entry, even though it wasn't saying any new entries. 
Keep up the great work as always!
(Personally I can't wait for the level 50 Martial Master entry...)
Entry 76
The next night , we get a mission to take out 40 Rikti in the Abandoned Sewers. I've designed my third super-suit, a white metal configuration with a healing cross on the front, but Diamond Cut thinks it's ugly. If you see CRM running around, let me know if you agree. I "retire" my mid-life crisis super-suit, the one with the backwards-baseball hat and beard, which looked like a 40-year old with a beer gut. I switch my costume-changing bind to my original costume and my new one, bonded to Recovery Aura.
DC leads us to the plaque about Dark Watcher down in the sewers, and I'm wondering what city employee drew the short straw to go nail that one up. And if anybody ever heard from him again. There are groups of multiple Death Mages, purple-con even to DC, and I get to be a lot busier healing him than usual. I also get mezzed a lot more than usual. But nobody dies! Well, until we complete the mission and get bored, and don't want to trudge back up to the surface. We both jump into the middle of a group of Death Mages and commit hari kari. I keep blasting away, trying to get them to turn their attention to me so I die first, but they keep pummeling on him anyway. I should have healed him once! After the couple minutes of wailing on him to knock him out, they get me in about two hits. I run around fake pouting, because DC got his arresting-Mages-badge, and I haven't yet. He laughs at me.
After our trip to the sewers, we log off to eat, and log on later for a couple hours. We're getting Council missions, and we're going through them so fast it's amazing. Maybe we got used to the Death Mage difficulty. We even stop in a Rikti lab and let DC herd them all to a point at the top of the stairs, and even that goes flawlessly. Debt-free! On the way to our next mission, I spot Clintonian loitering outside Dark Astoria, and send him a teasing tell: "You're actually playing for a change instead of lurking on the boards?" He did a good job on his costume.
DC is handling himself well, having leveled up to 39. He put some slots in his Katana AoE attack, and his damage is really getting up there now. I leave him alone near the end and wander off to pick on some guys myself. I take out three red-cons by myself, and still have full health at the end of it. Hmm. I'd have gone for the remaining two, but by that time DC was done with his mob and came running over and dispatched of the remaining two in, like, four hits. Darn kill-stealer! I can't count the number of times I start a snipe, and he runs over and knocks my guy out before it even goes off. I feel like Manticore getting upstaged by Statesman again. Go pick on some purple-cons! Heh.
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
Entry 77
I take MM II out of the stall to put him through some more paces. Upon level 15, I decide to truly make an effort to live without Stamina. I put a new slot with an END reducer in Storm Kick and in Crane Kick to keep company with the ones in Thunder Kick and Focused Fighting. Testing it out against two yellow-cons, I still run out of END. Not good. Okay, so I'm level 15 and hunting some Vahz in Steel Canyon. A Cadaver is level 10, and I'm about to jump in, but I scan his friends. He's keeping company with three level 18s! I think I'll pass... To top off all of my concerns, I take the mission that gives me the Vahz wasting disease, so my END drops from 100 to 80. I've got flies buzzing around me! Ewww! Hey, if I want a real challenge, maybe I should go try to do the Positron Task Force like this. I'd like to see an eight-person group do the Positron TF on Invincible, all of them with the wasting disease. Then I might believe the game is too easy. I turn to run when my health is low, and hit Super Jump instead of Combat Jump by mistake. I get shot in the back, and sent to the hospital. On my second attempt, I actually defeat one guy and have to turn and run to the elevator. I'm at full health, but almost no Endurance. It could be worse. They could have given me an ACC debuff...
I'm a little burnt out on the game for a change, but it's mostly because my allergies are killing me. I spent most of the day in bed, and then played computer games lie Stratego, Risk, and Slay! Games that don't require me to have to converse with humans. Diamond Cut calls me up, his second alternate character, Taenia, needs help with Maestro. Taenia is level 26, so I log on Ultra Meltdown, who is at 24, to help him out real quick. My first report on my friend as a Defender is not the best.
As I go in on the map, his Accelerated Metabolism (AM) goes off, and I'm not even close to him. I tell him to announce when he hits it. A couple minutes later I'm ahead of him, and he announces his AM [note:I say he even though the character is a she, because no way do I want people getting confused about Red Haven/Diamond Cut/Taenia and the real gender - that could get weird!]. I'm in the middle of a fight, and he knows, if he remembers, that I don't have speed or Stealth, I only have Fly. His AM goes off, and I'm still fighting bad guys. Then he tells me his AM is on auto! Not Hasten, but AM, which can help his teammates. Sigh.
He wants to barrel through the mission to the end, which I always hate. Even the grey-cons are taking shots at me. I try to fly through some of it, but a group corners me. I take down four of them as my health bar goes down halfway, and look over to see a whole nother group closing in. Where is my partner while I've been knocking out four villains? Finally, as I'm more dead than alive, he offers me a Teleport. Phew!
As he leaves me behind and shoots up to another floor, I call out for a TP, and we find Maestro, conning orange to me. It's an old mission, but I'm not sure if he could have taken him solo. I make a note to mention tactics ahead of time if my blaster goes to help him again.
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
[ QUOTE ]
I make a note to mention tactics ahead of time if my blaster goes to help him again.
[/ QUOTE ]
Tactics? We don't need no stinkin' tactics!
"Goodbye, Jean-Luc. I'm gonna miss you... you had such potential. But then again, all good things must come to an end..." -- Q
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.
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
[ QUOTE ]
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 *
[/ QUOTE ]
A question, if I may: How do you get the status effects to appear on the left side of the window? I have several Defenders and would love to be able to do this effect as well.
Love the journal, tpull. I've been reader from day one. Keep up the good work.
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...
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
Very cool! I'll check it out when I log back into the game. Thanks!
And, yes, those toggle heavy players DO make it hard to keep track of the status effects that have been laid on them. I feel your pain. But we knew it was a difficult job when we took it. 
/bump for a very fun thread. This is my 5th MMO and I love reading this journal - keep it up please.
When you see yourself in a crowded room / do your fingers itch,are you pistol-whipped
Will you step in line or release the glitch / can you fall asleep with a panic switch
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 have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
Glad to see you're still doing this, tpull 
Noticed you're on Freedom as am I, maybe we can team some time? Send me a tell on my global at @TheConvict.
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.
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
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.
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
Holy crap. I just spent the past 3 or 4 or something hours reading this post from start to finish. How in the name of Heaven did I miss this all this time? tpull, it's great reading. As another craptastic writer, I wish I could write this well. Maybe someday.
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.
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
Ummmm, tpull? Are you still there? O_o
Some of us are waiting for our next fix of MMORPG Theater.
If you don't want to keep going that's fine, kinda your time so you should decide how to use it, but I'm sure that all your rabid fans (and I guess the non-rabid fans too) would really like to know what happens next. 
**Cue ominous music now**
As always, thanks a lot for all the fun reads, and I hope you keep it up!
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!
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
Maybe the Red Caps got him? <(O.o)>
* The Red Cap moving company * 
"Goodbye, Jean-Luc. I'm gonna miss you... you had such potential. But then again, all good things must come to an end..." -- Q
Good to hear that you're still around, sorry to hear that your title companies, sewer drains, and delivery men were all nerfed. You've always been so good saying when you're going to be away that the prolonged silence was kinda scary. Like you deserted us for, oh, say the CoV beta or something like that.
Anyways, hope everything works out for ya and as always I look forward to your continueing adventures.
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 Im 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. Im dying less than Martial Master did, partly because I know what Im doing now! In my days of ignorant bliss, I ignored the Fitness line for Cobra Strike, Focus Chi, and Hasten, and Im 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 Ive 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 didnt help me one iota, but sometimes thats the way the cookie crumbles. Some fights youre the pigeon... other fights, youre the statue.
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
Last entry was a little short, so lemme make up for it:
Entry 84
Its 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 Cuts 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 well 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 Im gone, and when I come back, its me, Piper Down, and a Blaster. The Blaster is a bit of a grouch, and was constantly asking the exemplar for a teleport. When hes 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, Im wondering if I should skip Tough on this character, and use a Respec to go get Hasten. As much as Im 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. Ive 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 dont need it, or when Im 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 its not perma. But I wouldnt 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. Im falling just the slightest bit short when I try to go from rooftop to rooftop in Skyway!
Im 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. Theres 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 hes 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 cant get off the same number of attacks as we can. I dont 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! Im hoping in Issue 7 or 8, he will return. I cant 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? Im 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 doesnt stand over me and hover, and retreat to plan again. Thatll teach me to let my mind wander. It doesnt 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, Im 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 its because I failed to defeat him in my AV mission, and hes 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 Im 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 its a bad pun. Theyre 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 dont 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. Its 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 Kuais Goblet for Swift, and Nectanebos Phylactery (sounds nasty, doesnt 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, its 11:30 p.m. and Im 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 Im sorry. If I dont log now, I know Ill spend another hour or two online!
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
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 theyre 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 Im 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, Im going to bug it, theres no way this is my keyboard, all of my other binds work perfectly.
I cant believe how many people are running around town with names like Darkity Dark Dark. Ive got one alt called Ebon Specter, and I think thats the closest to Dark-anything in my heroes. There wont 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 theyre a retarded secret society? Maybe a bunch of inbred rednecks that dont understand what the word secret means? Meh, Ill 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. Its like Ive 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 hes 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. Ive got a Lethargy Inducer, a temp power for use against the Tsoo that debuffs their recharge and speed, and I think thats 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, Im 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 havent 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 its set up, its too bad theyre changing it to make it easier. I wonder if theres 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. Im still on Heroic! Its like my defenses arent 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. Im 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 doesnt 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 Ive got less than 80 health left. Yuck! Taking Tough wouldnt 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 dont need. Ive got seven or eight of them. I get a timed mission in Steel, and Ive 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).
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
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 Im at level 19. Im near Synapse already, and theres a small group clustering around the guy. As I figure out whos in charge and ask for an invite, I tell a Tank, Melted, that the TF is for levels 15-21. HE says, I know, Im no newb! He still reads as a level 14 though, and he realizes he hasnt 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 groups 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. Im thinking, what the heck kind of trouble do these guys think were 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. Hes busy holding our enemies, theres no time for him to type as well. I tell him thats 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 Ive gotten a couple of invites to be global friends, everyone is having such a blast. Im 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? Its Ultraman Alpha, hes been nerfed while online! I explain someone must have petitioned him. Even though he made an Ultraman homage character that didnt 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 dont know whats going on, but reassure him hell 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 well have to wait and see how the dust settles on the lawsuit.
Were on a lab map, the complicated one with corridors running through the middle to different levels, one that doesnt show you easily on the Map view how everything goes. I find the next mob and pull up short, telling people weve 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 hes dropping. I punch up three purple candies, turn on my defenses, and jump in after him, Crane-Kicking people off him and moving fast. Im like a whirling dervish, pumping all my candy thats 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 couldnt keep up with him, and didnt 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 were getting so close to the end, the group is really good. Everyone has been put on the friends list, and that doesnt usually happen. Ultraman says he has to leave, and we talk about resuming tomorrow, but Im one who only has a chance to play tonight. Ultra stays anyway, and as I chat, he says, Whos Ultra? That guy has a good sense of humor. I cant resist. Last one to next mish is a GenericHero!
I make some jokes about taking pictures, and Ultraman says as long as its not when hes dead on the ground. But thats the whole point! I explain. After expecting Babbage for three missions, he finally shows up, and its a close call. We use all our candy, except for our blaster, who mentions later he hasnt been using any of his (!), but Im 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 Im the only one who hasnt died yet. Then Psi Key starts in on using her Invis and Teleport. I type in immediately, Id 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 isnt here yet to hold anything, and were under attack! Im 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 Im a little frustrated at it. It was a bonehead TP with no warning, and no healing from him, and it just didnt 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 dont 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 friends list!
We take out the Clockwork King, and hes 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
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
Going away for a few days, so this will be the last post for about a week.
Entry 74
Diamond Cut and CRM decide to try Thorns missions after all. With just the two of us, it's not like there will be four of the Mages at one time stacking Quicksand on us. In one warehouse, though, DC falls in battle, while I'm running from two red-con Behemoth Overlords. One I can handle, two at the same time can turn me into crispy critters. I'm running back at super speed to heal DC, and he dies right when I launch my heal. Grr. Later on, as he dispatches a couple of bad guys, I put the final polish on another red-con, who falls just as DC runs up. "Man, you're like the little Defender who could," he types in, making me laugh. I think that means he's impressed a smidgen with my ability to handle myself.
I have time to play solo later, so I log in Martial Master, and I think I set his mission slider to Unyielding, just as a test. It's mostly white-cons, which is fine for starters. I turn on Super Speed, and attack a bunch of Nemesis automated clones. I'm going to test the Elude changes for the Issue 4 Update, the way suppression works now, and how my weak SR defenses can handle things without Elude, since I'm mostly slotted passives with one slot in Focused Fighting.
Suppression will not be a problem for this character. I have swift, Hurdle, and Quickness, all of which increase my speed. I can't even notice Super Speed shutting off. I'm a whirling dervish, scrambling from one mob to another, and my Endurance is holding up fine. There are enough gaps in between me getting hit that I can heal, and on the occasion I do run low on Endurance, I hit Conserve Power. No problem.
I start taking some hits and notice there's finally a yellow-con in the group. I actually use my two Respites to heal up, just to be on the safe side. At the next yellow-con, I take the opportunity to punch Elude and cut loose. Man, against white-cons, three minutes is a long time! I'm looking around for more enemies while it's still up. I have to wait once to get the timing down so I can hit Conserve Power just before Elude drops. I've got the traditional perma-Hasten with four recharges in Elude, no Hami-O's, and missions are a piece of cake, basically. The orange-con Warhulk is brought down in record time, followed swiftly by all of his minions. For the next test, I'll put it on Invincible, and see how it goes. I'm kind of surprised, considering I've never taken Focused Senses or Evasion. The Arena may be doom for me, but I can solo just fine in PvE. So far so good....
The next night DC and I run just enough missions to get him to level 38, since I'm a little tired. While he logs, I Respec my character, ditching Irradiate for now, and taking Regeneration Aura in its place. I fully slot Neutron Bomb along with Proton Volley and Cosmic Burst, just to play around with it a little. I hit the streets of Brickstown, adding a damage enhancement to my Neutron Bomb each time after attacking a pack of green-cons, just to get a feel for the damage and recharge rate (I've got six slots, I start with teh slots all empty). Then I graduate to the white-cons. I snipe a couple of Crey guards out of a group of nine, and the rest come barreling after me. Should I retreat? Never! It's not a true test unless you risk a trip to the hospital! I've got Recovery Aura and Regeneration Aura running, and it gets close simply because they can stun me, but I manage to alternate between heals and damage-dealing to take them all out. Didn't even get to use my Neutron bomb much on that group.
I accelerate to the south, and find white- and yellow-cons grouped together, but between Aim, Proton Volley, and Cosmic Burst, with an N. Bomb for filler alongside my Neutrino Bolt and X-Ray Beam, it's not too hard. The only thing I should have done differently is not bother slotting x-Ray beam until later, the slots would have been more useful to recharge Regeneration Aura. I can't seem to find any red-cons to save my life. I log off, content with my first Respec build on CRM, anxious to use my Neutron Bomb against higher-level opponents while someone else is holding the aggro.
Going solo as a Defender is a little more challenging, but easier than a Blaster, from what I can tell, because of the heals I have as a saving grace. Any Blaster trying to just stand there like I did would run out of Respites! It seems a little weird that Blasters aren't more of a threat to the enemy, which starts me thinking about their ability to deliver damage. My heals let me be almost Scrapper-like in my ability to stand in the middle of a bunch of white- and yellow- cons, something I can rarely accomplish with my Blaster. Of course, my Blaster is already a lower level, so maybe it's not a fair comparison. We seem to be leveling fast.
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp