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You said, "If anyone comes to the game with a pre-existing character idea that they want to fit into the game as closely as possible, chances are Trick Arrow wont be it.", and I disagree with that assessment because you base it on your lack of concepts for TA or Archery characters, not on data mining, polling other players, simple observation of new players or anything else.
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Yeah, I have to admit I was incorrectly coming from a Western "classic" superhero point of view with that comment.
Its not so much about my own creations - I have a couple of Trick Archers as it happens.
Marvel and DC have a very small percentage of bow-wielders, pretty much one big name each (Hawkeye and Green Arrow) and a number of spin-offs and minor characters (Speedy, Arsenal, Arrowette, "I, Spyder" etc.). Taking that as a base, bow and arrow users are pretty rare compared to "gesture and make things glow" supers.
But, you're right, add in the mythological and high fantasy heroes which this game also caters to, and the numbers shoot up considerably in favour of the bow users.
My opinion there was coloured heavily by my own comics reading habits.
And you are correct that most of the blast sets aren't open to much interpretation. Fire is fire, electricity is electricity. Sonic Blast can double up as TK force blasts or psychic blasts if needs be, preferably without Shout - that power does sound very "Sonic". Radiation Blast doubles up as general light blasts as well as hard radiation.
I'd still assert that some powersets are more concept-tied than others.
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I can see it. You can get away with calling almost every one of the Controller secondaries whatever you want from magic auras to fancy mutant powers to...whatever, but Trick Arrow is just a person with a bow who shoots out arrows that are either scientific gadgets or enchanted or something. Makes the concept hard to figure out.
I made my Plant/TA based on the story of the blind Norse god Hud being tricked into killing his brother Baldur with an arrow made from mistletoe by Locke (google Mistletoe, Locke, and Baldur if you're confused and actually care enough to look it up). My character supposedly wears a bracelet made from the mistletoe that killed a god and the bow that fired the arrow, giving his magic arrows and plant manipulation. It was a stretch, but I hate leaving the description blank.
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Yeah, exactly.
Nice origin for your Plant/TA. I do know that story! Thats how Ragnarok starts, isn't it?
It also makes an appearance in Alan Moore's "Top Ten" - the cops investigate the murder of Baldur in a bar for Gods, only to discover that it happens every day.
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I can see it. You can get away with calling almost every one of the Controller secondaries whatever you want from magic auras to fancy mutant powers to...whatever, but Trick Arrow is just a person with a bow who shoots out arrows that are either scientific gadgets or enchanted or something. Makes the concept hard to figure out.
I made my Plant/TA based on the story of the blind Norse god Hud being tricked into killing his brother Baldur with an arrow made from mistletoe by Locke (google Mistletoe, Locke, and Baldur if you're confused and actually care enough to look it up). My character supposedly wears a bracelet made from the mistletoe that killed a god and the bow that fired the arrow, giving his magic arrows and plant manipulation. It was a stretch, but I hate leaving the description blank.
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Vali
Vali is usually depicted as an archer and is known as the God of Vengeance and Rebirth.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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I'd disagree that the same can be said for every powerset, Luminara.
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Well, if I have a concept that calls for shooting fire from my hands, Ice Blast isn't going to fit, is it. Nor would Elec, or Energy, or Sonic, or Psi...
What if I want to shoot glass from my hands? Is Rad Blast going to fit? Or Dark Blast? No? Well, I guess I'm limited to Ice Blast, then.
I can come to this game, fresh and new, and have to deal with limitations imposed by different powerset graphical effects, a situation not exclusive to TA or Archery (or any other weapon set). Right?
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Trick Archery looks like you are unequivocally using a Bow and Arrow to fire arrows with unusual devices attached.
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Um... yeah, that was the point. It's the option for those who do have a concept that calls for a bow and arrows.
You said, "If anyone comes to the game with a pre-existing character idea that they want to fit into the game as closely as possible, chances are Trick Arrow wont be it.", and I disagree with that assessment because you base it on your lack of concepts for TA or Archery characters, not on data mining, polling other players, simple observation of new players or anything else.
Seriously, I'm not trying to get under your skin or be a jerk, but whether or not you've been able to come up with a TA or Archery concept has no bearing, at all, on whether or not other players (new or old) have, can or will. As many players as there are who start playing because they want to shoot fire, or electricity, or "frozen time shards", or pretend to be constipated old men who emanate green gas from their nether regions, or whatever, there are just as many who start playing because they're excited about being able to make a character with a bow and arrows, or an assault rifle, or a shield, or a sword, or any other weapon-based set. For goodness' sake, five years on we've still got people, including brand new players, asking for wands and staves and whips and chains and... all kinds of conceptually limited powersets which use specific graphical effects!
Concept limitation is something that we, human beings, impose. Not the game. And for every player with a specific concept that doesn't fit a weapon-based set, there's another player with a specific concept that won't be met by anything but a weapon-based set. That includes TA and Archery. The fact that they use bows and arrows for graphics doesn't make then any more or less popular than any other powerset, or any more or less likely to be selected for concepts. Truth is, you don't know what Random Player 164,330's concept is, so how can you postulate that TA or Archery won't fit it?
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I just want to point out that...
if there is bow and arrows, it's because enough players actually wanted it when they asked what kind of hero was missing from the game. The other idea at the time is shields.
The only ground you hold is that shields can be argued to be something different. I mean, the visual contradiction of a plant/TA controller is controversial at best. "I'm a greenie throwing oil spills on my plant pet." Not very PC right???
My Points:
1. TA was a set wanted by the crowd. Don't have a concept... skip it.
2. Oil Spill, Glue, and Entangling don't fit the magic bill. So non-enthusiasts will only accept gadgets as a viable reason.
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Talionis, Milady's Knight, and Local Man - those are cool backstories.
However, if I may ask, did you come up with the backstories first, or decide that you wanted to create a Trick Archer of a certain kind and then fit the backstory to it?
I'm not trying to knock this powerset in anyway, just pointing out one of the reasons people may not play it. If anyone comes to the game with a pre-existing character idea that they want to fit into the game as closely as possible, chances are Trick Arrow wont be it.
My first Controller, for example, Anemone, was a superstrong telepathic mermaid from a Freedom Force game mod I made. She ended up being Mind Control/Kinetics because it didn't burst my bubble much to see blue and green waves emanating from her as she gestured every now and then, whereas carrying a bow would have looked out of place.
Same for every other Aquaman/Jean Grey/Magneto/Doc Strange/Jonn Jonn'z wannabe or analogue out there.
Nothing wrong with making a character either way, backstory first or powerset first, but this particular set will be a turn-off to the backstory first crowd.
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I read Luminara's guide. Before that, I'd never thought about Trick Arrow.
I always liked the idea of only Debuffing enemies. Debuff works better for soloing, since its not got any powers built to buff teammates that don't work on me.
Trick Arrow/Dark seemed like a very strong combonation, that I could solo well. It also seemed like it would be a challenge to play, but could significantly help teams, especially with difficult content, and it hasn't disappointed.
I had to come up with a Back Story after the combonation, but I'd say most of my characters are done that way. I've got a whole roster of characters, that don't fit character archetypes, but I've been able to come up with Back Stories for just about any combonation if I think hard enough. And the more I think about them, the more complete they become.
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Concept limitation is something that we, human beings, impose. Not the game. And for every player with a specific concept that doesn't fit a weapon-based set, there's another player with a specific concept that won't be met by anything but a weapon-based set. That includes TA and Archery. The fact that they use bows and arrows for graphics doesn't make then any more or less popular than any other powerset, or any more or less likely to be selected for concepts. Truth is, you don't know what Random Player 164,330's concept is, so how can you postulate that TA or Archery won't fit it?
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^ the truth.
One of my current mains is a Grav/TA controller at 40 named Immobo Hobo. He has been fun to play, pretty easy set with minimal skill/concentration needed. Lots of slots to go around.
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Lots of slots to go around
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That's what I loved about my /TA.
@Mental Maden @Maden Mental
"....you are now tackle free for life."-ShoNuff
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I know it doesn't NEED a team, but you can't affect huge groups of enemies when you're solo.
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Try hazzard zones. That's where I take my Plant/TA/Fire when there isn't much teaming going on.
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Or AE missions with plenty of ambushes etc.
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Ive never rolled a Trick Arrow Controller, or even considered rolling one, because its probably the hardest set to come up with a concept for.
Or to put it another way, the most visually obtrusive secondary.
Rad Emission, for example, looks like you're, well, doing something. Could be light control, could be magical, or probablity control or whatever. The glowing effects could be no more real than the way your head glows different colours when you experience a moment of Inspiration.
The same can be said for Sonic Resonance or Kinetics.
But Trick Arrow you're unquestionably pulling out a bow and firing off an arrow with a gadget on the end. And never firing a normal pointy arrow.
I've always found that a bit hard to reconcile - if you can control the very earth or flame, or gravity, why are you carrying some gimmicks-on-a-stick around?
I have seen a few good bio's: Like a stage magician's assistant with Illusion/TA powers, but they're few and far between.
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Illusion/TA actually is fairly easy to come up with a story for. I wanted a combination of an entertainer (Illusion) with something for Bow and Arrow . . .
So my character became the official entertainer for the French Foreign Legion, named "Beau Jester" (Some of you youngsters may have never heard of "Beau Geste" . . . read a book or two!)
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Read a book or two... in Britain you mean! 
QR
I don't mind that it's a bow and arrow -- like all weapons sets, it is what it is, and if you don't like it, you don't choose it. I guess by biggest problem is that it's a very tech-oriented set, so it makes it hard to wrap my head around giving it to magic characters. Sure, you can choose one of the more natural/archaic bow choices, but the power animations and sounds stay techie regardless.
I have the same problem with the medicine power pool, but even more so -- it's so specifically "techie" that I can't bring myself to give it to my magical menagerie. At least with TA, there are a few, but not many, arrows I feel can be used by a more primative archer.
So I take Trick Arrow when my controller concept calls for an archer, but because I'm usually making fairies and elves, I really only choose from a small handful of the powers (and not the good ones, at that 
). For the types of characters I personally make, TA is a frustratingly "close, but no cigar."
Of course, YMMV.
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My earth/ta imbues the arrows with the power they have.
Though my TA/Archery defender was tech all the way.
Addition of some more varied and inventive Bow Weapon options would be VERY useful. Can't we get some people who think beyond the basic bow? How bout something techie (but not Talsorian), with the sort of the sort energy string effect that the guy for the D&D cartoon had. Heck, why not a magical fantasy bow? How bout we transport some of the Shield effects over to the bow -- or to other Weapons. Mmm, smoking blades -- but I digress.
I'd even love to see something more outside the box
How bout a bow that's made from a curved snake? A bow that's unrealistically square. I realize that you can't change the pose of the character enough to make the character fire a crossbow, but surely you could come up with something more outlandish and fun?
A stone bow?
A bow made from bone? How bout from two enormous elephant tusks (similar to the Tribal Shield option).
Give us something other than Normal, Mongolian, or with a dumb laser scope.
At least then my Undead Dark/TA Mastermind would have something which matches his character. Right now, he looks like he found a bow in a grave or something.
Trick Arrow will probably never be a mainstream powerset because:
* None of the things it does have a direct, obvious benefit to the other team-mates own characters in the form of big, visible buffs or giant green numbers.
* It doesn't heal, and other MMOs have trained people that healing > all.
Most players suffer from some degree of scrapper-lock - even when they aren't scrappers. So all the enemies are falling over, or moving slowly, or dealing much less damage? There's no big in-your-face obvious -message- stating this is the case, so TA isn't doing anything... right?
If debuffs on enemies were visible on the target window, I expect sets like TA would see a surge in popularity.
[QR]
I'd take a /TA controller over a /Kin every time, no matter the primary, no matter the game content. It's been literally a week of daily TFs with /Kin controllers that will not use their secondary beyond SBing their pets (why?) and tossing out the odd FS. Useful things like Transfusion and Transference, never used at all. It's sad.
Actually I'd take a /TA controller over any other secondary just because I have a soft spot for TA 
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I'd disagree that the same can be said for every powerset, Luminara.
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Well, if I have a concept that calls for shooting fire from my hands, Ice Blast isn't going to fit, is it. Nor would Elec, or Energy, or Sonic, or Psi...
What if I want to shoot glass from my hands? Is Rad Blast going to fit? Or Dark Blast? No? Well, I guess I'm limited to Ice Blast, then.
I can come to this game, fresh and new, and have to deal with limitations imposed by different powerset graphical effects, a situation not exclusive to TA or Archery (or any other weapon set). Right?
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Trick Archery looks like you are unequivocally using a Bow and Arrow to fire arrows with unusual devices attached.
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Um... yeah, that was the point. It's the option for those who do have a concept that calls for a bow and arrows.
You said, "If anyone comes to the game with a pre-existing character idea that they want to fit into the game as closely as possible, chances are Trick Arrow wont be it.", and I disagree with that assessment because you base it on your lack of concepts for TA or Archery characters, not on data mining, polling other players, simple observation of new players or anything else.
Seriously, I'm not trying to get under your skin or be a jerk, but whether or not you've been able to come up with a TA or Archery concept has no bearing, at all, on whether or not other players (new or old) have, can or will. As many players as there are who start playing because they want to shoot fire, or electricity, or "frozen time shards", or pretend to be constipated old men who emanate green gas from their nether regions, or whatever, there are just as many who start playing because they're excited about being able to make a character with a bow and arrows, or an assault rifle, or a shield, or a sword, or any other weapon-based set. For goodness' sake, five years on we've still got people, including brand new players, asking for wands and staves and whips and chains and... all kinds of conceptually limited powersets which use specific graphical effects!
Concept limitation is something that we, human beings, impose. Not the game. And for every player with a specific concept that doesn't fit a weapon-based set, there's another player with a specific concept that won't be met by anything but a weapon-based set. That includes TA and Archery. The fact that they use bows and arrows for graphics doesn't make then any more or less popular than any other powerset, or any more or less likely to be selected for concepts. Truth is, you don't know what Random Player 164,330's concept is, so how can you postulate that TA or Archery won't fit it?