The City Scoop! ~ Front Page ~June 23, 2009
By
Niviene,
Posted on: 2009-06-23 08:57 in Announcements
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EventsJune 24Sister Airlia's Cimeroran Arcs Server: Freedom Date: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 Time: 10:30 pm Eastern / 7:30 pm Pacific Host: MrEMan Details: Villains levels 35-50; two arcs with 11 total missions; check the link for details. June 27 Villain Hamidon Raid Server: Protector Date: Saturday, June 27, 2009 Time: 5 pm Eastern / 2 pm Pacific Host: kidengineer Details: Check the link for details. June 27-28Task Force Commander Weekend Server: Liberty Date: Saturday & Sunday, June 27 & 28, 2009 Time: Noon Eastern / 9 am Pacific, Saturday; TBD Sunday Host: MattMiracle Details: All six signature TFs; meet at Positron 30 minutes early; check the link for details.  Die Kuche Von BarronBaby Back RibsIngredients: 1-2 Full racks of pork back ribs (all 13 ribs) Dry BBQ seasoning Pepper Brown Sugar (I prefer the dark) 1-2 cans of sliced pineapple Jack Daniel's Whiskey (21 and older only!) Chili powder Prep: Start up your charcoal BBQ, use plenty of briquettes, for this will take some slow love on the grill. | Unwrap your ribs, and turn them meat side down. On the back of the ribs, you will find a membrane covering the whole backside, use a pair of pliers to grab and remove, or have the grocery store meat cutter remove it for you. After that is removed, combine the brown sugar, pepper, and chili powder in a bowl, and use the mixture to "dry rub" the ribs, applying liberally. You want the entire surface of the ribs coated and smothered in this mixture, set aside in a pan to allow soaking up the flavor. Open the cans of sliced pineapple and set the rings onto the ribs. Drain the juice from the cans into a spray bottle and pour 2-3 shots of Jack Daniel's into it. Shake to mix and set aside. Make sure the rack on the grill is far enough away from the coals to avoid burning, Once the coals are nice and hot, set the ribs down and place the pineapple rings back on top and let the ribs cook. As the ribs cook, turn them often with tongs! Never use a meat fork on meat. I know it seems counter-intuitive, but stabbing the meat will allow juices to escape, and no one likes dry meat Spray the ribs with the mixture in the spray bottle, liberally, about every 7-10 minutes. This allows for more moisture to reside in the meat; it also tenderizes and flavors the meat at the same time. Once the coals begin to die down some, bring the rack down to maintain a low, slow heat. After about 30-45 minutes, the ribs will be just about ready. At this point, you may let them finish cooking just as they are, or you can throw some wood chips on the coals to add one last layer of flavor. If you do decide to use wood chips, I suggest using some mesquite ones soaked in a bit of water and apple juice. Make sure they aren't sopping wet when you put them on the coals, because that would kill the heat altogether. The chips should be moist, but not dripping. This is achieved by soaking them a few hours before and allowing them to dry out a bit. Also, I suggest closing the lid for this, if no lid; use a baking pan upside down over the meat. Serve with some deviled-egg potato salad, and maybe a stuffed bell pepper, and you're golden. Happy scarfin!  |
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Fan Fiction SpotlightThe City of Comic Creators Compendium 2 The City of Comic Creators has cobbled together another set of stories for the City of Heroes community. They're clever tales, some in their own way, others in a more generally accepted way. First up, is J-Man's Manticore Task Force. An unusual task force in which Manticore hires J-Man, not to investigate the Crey Corp. like we players usually do, but to engage in a number of practical jokes against Manticore's fellow Freedom Phalanx members. It's hard to determine J-Man's humor in this. On the surface, the comic is a number of memes and crude cynical humor that one is likely to find in forum discussions about canonical behavior in this game. I'm normally ready to dismiss J-Man's comic from the outset because of the narration and J-Man's dialogue, which is horribly misspelled. However, then I see the dialogue of other characters. Aside from a few complex words that a lot of people get wrong on a regular basis, the dialogue of the other characters tends to actually be really fleshed out and proper. The implications of this, that J-Man's actually got a lot more thought going on behind this comic than just a few vulgar jokes and rehashed memes, is a little bit to take in, and should probably be saved for another review, so I'll move on. Though I will say this: the particular comic in this CCC Compendium is clearly designed for quick, cheap laughs. Don't feel bad if you do laugh, it got me to chuckle a couple times, too. Following J-Man's comic is Dr, Midnight's Neighborhood Watch, which has an adventure dealing with a group called the Black Hats; apparently a group of cyberspace masterminds. Dr. Midnight finds himself facing a group of hired assassins in order to finally arrest the physically outmatched hackers. Finally, there's Angelfish, or Dr. Lore as she would prefer to be called, from GoldenMasquerade. Golden's a great writer and someone I've had the privilege of roleplaying with on our forums off and on. Angelfish is a great display of the kind of humor this author is capable of. Poor Lore - she tries so hard for Mako. All-in-all, it's another great work from the CCC. I'm sure you will find plenty within to entertain. | Exploring the Architect#5: Custom Standard GroupsGreetings, and welcome to another edition of Exploring the Architect. Today, I will look at making a custom group from standard critters. I will include features that will be in Issue 15 like color tinting, renaming and custom bios. Even though complete custom critters will take up less space come Issue 15, using standard enemies uses even less space, and can be helpful if you are less creatively inclined. Also, standard enemies don't have the difficulty problems that custom critters can run into. Now my first step was to have some sort of unifying theme for my custom standard group. For my test, I chose to create an army of female soldiers. My next step was to decide what level range I wanted. I decided to go with a range close to 25-54. This is a good range to go with for a group of complete custom enemies as it is in SO range. Now my next step was to search through the various enemy groups and pick and choose the enemies that I want. My first stop was Arachnos to pick up a couple Blood Widows. Then I moved on to Crey and picked some of their female agents. I also went to Longbow and picked up a lot of female models. It's important to watch the level ranges and pick multiples for multiple level ranges. For example, I picked several from the 30-39 range for Longbow, but I also had to pick the same ones in the 40-54 range. Next, using a new Issue 15 feature, I go through each enemy I picked for my custom standard group and hit the new "edit standard character" button. This takes me to a screen similar to the costume editor, just with fewer options. Also, some options are a little counter-intuitive. For example, I chose a Longbow Eagle, and the color choices for her jetpack are under Eye options. And for the Crey suits, the primary color is the tie, and the secondary color is the jacket. Also, with non-human enemies the color changes often have much more subtle effects. This is where the custom model has a baked in color and the custom color you choose is actually only changing the secondary color, similar to how the secondary hair color only subtly affects the hair color. Also, some models can't be color tinted at all, like Shivans. But you can still rename them. For my test, I wanted to give all my women a red and black color theme. The change in appearance of Longbow is especially striking just by changing their colors, especially if you make a solid color to hide the pattern on their clothes. You can also change their names and give them a custom bio, making them fit in much closer to your own custom standard group and farther away from the standard group they originally came from. You can't do anything about what powers they have of course, but there are often multiple versions of enemies with different powers. Choose only the ones you want to have, or choose as many as you want for more variety. The most important part about choosing to go with a custom standard group is that you can have a very large selection of enemies. I haven't counted, but I imagine you can have upwards of forty standard characters and still have plenty of room for text in other places. Of course, this is slightly diminished if you are writing a long custom bio for every mob. That's about all there is to it. Now it's time for you to go out and make your own. Just remember to keep in mind these three things when making your new custom standard group: 1. Remember your level range! There are many mobs that have small level ranges, and there are also some mobs that seem exactly the same, but one has a small level range, and one has a larger level range. Pick the ones most important to your own story arc. 2. Variety - variety - variety! Remember to have a large mix of minions, lieutenants, and bosses. Minions are the most important to have a large supply of to keep things from being repetitive for soloers. And even on teams, bosses are much less plentiful than minions. A good ratio of minions:lieutenants:bosses is 5:3:1. 3. Keep it together! It doesn't matter what theme you go with, but make sure your enemies make sense together and don't seem like a random hodgepodge that you just threw together. Creating a unified color scheme and naming scheme will help. That's all I have for you this week. Next week, check back for another round of Architect Entertainment Horoscopes. If you haven't yet, stop by the submission thread and add yours in. Horoscope format is not required, but not prohibited either. |
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Base ShowcaseDreamsInterview with: @Sayaki Q) What is the name of your group and what made you choose it? A) The SG is named Dreams. The character who founded the SG is described as a dream of a comatose girl, manifested in reality. It seemed an appropriate name for her SG at the time, although it quickly became more descriptive to the motto: Ours is the Dream that Guides. Ours, the Dream that Grows. Q) What is your base designer(s) name A) Alice - Sleepwalker (@Sayaki) Q) What server is your base on? A) Virtue Server Q) When was your super/villain group established? A) That is a very good question - I wish I could answer it honestly. I want to say 2-3 years ago, but I can not remember for sure. All I remember for sure is that it was when the ski chalet opened for the first time in pocket D. Alice was fresh and still level 5 while she sat in there chatting about the SG she was going to make with her friends. It never takes much time to level to 10, and Dreams was founded the moment she got there. Q) What is the approximate value of your base? A) I'm guestimating 3.5 - 4 million. I know we I'd have to sell everything off to be 100% sure though. I now over the years we acquired 900k through sg-mode play, and then a significant amount from the winter prestige boosts. Q) How much time have you/your designer(s) invested in your base since you started building? A) Been working on it since day one. The current incarnation is a total revamp done in the past 48 hours. I sold everything I had except for a single telepad that I liked in a 2x2 room (that took about an hour and a half to build), and a Ley-Tap energy device I didn't want to rebuild. For this incarnation, I spent a straight 28 hours of work time on it. Q) What is your/your designer(s) favorite base item? Least favorite? A) Since it's item, not room, I can't really say my favorite's the library, but it is my favorite room. If you mean pre-made part, it's the slow-fields, for the water effects. If it's me-made, definitely the water fountains in the common room off the tele-pad chamber. Sure, it's mostly light fixtures, but that illusion of falling water is to die for. Least favorite item is much easier. That is the rubble overlaid flooring that I chose to use. While it makes the place feel like a mystic lair, it is a little graphically glitchy as different parts try to show up on the screen. It's the one thing that everyone seems to worry about. A couple people were actually afraid they had set their settings too high, and that detracts from the design, because it brings the viewer's attention back to the reality of the game, instead of the absorption in their character. Q) What is your/your designer(s) favorite thing about base editing? Least favorite? A) My favorite thing is when I walk in to tweak some area or other and I find a friend giving a tour of the place to a group of strangers. They often ask the same questions about how X, Y, or Z was accomplished, but the amazement and wonder that seeps through the system always makes me smile. My least favorite thing would have to be the time it takes to do the job right. There's just no getting around it. To make the base requires the willingness to sit down and test things, see what works and what doesn't, change any plans and tweak it a bit more, until you get something you can be proud to say is your own. You have to be willing to put in the time, and sometimes, I just don't want to do that. That's when I say heck with it, leave a warning on the MotD that I'm mid-project and Go. Hunt. Kill Skulls. Q) Did you get your inspiration from anyone specific or was it right from your imagination? A) It's a mixture of these things. Originally, Snow Globe introduced me to base editing, and although our overall styles differed, there was some real similarity for a while. I like organic/greenery, he always made more techie stuff. Then I started getting to see bases with floating things in them, and was lost as can be trying to figure that out. A month ago, a friend named Taryn showed me the Feline Fellowship base, made by Love Goddess, and I learned just what the base designing can be like. That taught me basic fountain design and water effects. Then I started pouring over forums to learn how to do everything I saw there. I can't say where inspiration ends and my own designs begin, but I know that there are areas I adapted from others, concepts I asked permission to use, others I developed way beyond what I originally saw, and still more that just popped right out of my head in an effort to create a beautiful base that our members would be even half as proud to show off as some of what I've seen. It honestly is a mishmash of where it came from. I just can point to the parts with a basic idea. For the hidden teleporter, I saw the posts for a tech one on a forum and added in fountains and shrubbery and changed to an arcane one. I love it, but it's only half my design. The Park is 100% me. I wanted to make a place for the couples in our group to enjoy hanging out together. As for the bridge and front door, I saw a castle gate on a forum and remember thinking, there's no drawbridge or moat - It should have those. I would be up to designing a different version entirely that was far smaller in scale, but I took care of those nagging things that were missing on a castle. While the teleporter room is 100% my imagination, it's 50% Taryn and Snow Globe's fault. Taryn once said my original teleporter room was beautiful. I felt the one I made after that was technically perfect as ruins, but not beautiful. I had to remodel it, because the fact that someone thought the old one was beautiful kept nagging at me to fix it. Snowie was working on a base, but was dealing with the problem that floor tiles are invisible from below. I remember telling him he should layer it with something, maybe the rubble parts, so that it would be visible from below. He didn't seem inclined to try it at the time, but I decided I wanted to. The library is inspired from the movie "What Dreams May Come." In it, there were people floating across a large pool of water in a flying library, and I always wanted a library like that of my own. So I made one in the base. Now I just got to figure out how to make one IRL. The common room is 100% my imagination. I wanted a room full of fountains, and it kind of evolved into what it is as I built it. Med-bay and storage/workshop areas were the same, just building as they went. Q) If you/your designer(s) could give just one piece of advice to a new base editor, what would it be and why? A) Be patient as you learn to do this. There are a lot of ideas floating out there, and you aren't ever going to see or hear them all. You are going to have to look though, and try to learn from what others have done. Then you are going to have to think through your own ideas and figure out what you can and can't do with what you've learned. There isn't going to be an instant gratification thing in your design, but once it's done, and you know you've made something wonderful/terrible/special to you, then you will feel good about what you've worked for. Just be patient and work for the knowledge that will soon be yours. Although the images provided give some a nice quick tour, I think the slide show version does it a lot better, especially with the Park area. Slideshow link: Dream's base      |
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In the ScoopJust a little thank you from me to all of you artists that have permitted me to feature you in this column. You all totally rock! Here is a little recap of the artists we have seen thus far In The Scoop: 1. Reyne Maker: Life In Heck  . 2. Powerforge: Saint October  . 3. Thornster: Point By Graver  . 4. Imagesbyalex: Sketchy Girl  . 5. Electagonist: The Skull  | 6. Juggertha: Easymask  . 7. Darkjedi: Light Speed  . 8. Wassy: Moonlight and Feathers  . 9. The Foo: Wolverine OCL  . 10. Tartarsause: Dead TA  . 11. Lousy Day: There's An Eye In Me Soup  . "Bring me your visions" - VexXxa  |
The Hecktic Life |
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EnnVee - Bases Mr_Grey - Fan Fiction Spotlight Reyne_Maker - The Hecktic Life VexXxa - In the Scoop Neuronia - PvP Correspondent Hostile_V - Humor TopDoc - Under the hood - Behind the Walls | |
Barron_ - Barron's Kitchen | |
Teldon - Behind the Mask HumanMiracle - The People On | |
Fleeting_Whisper - MArc reviews Bubbawheat - MArc Guides | |
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Needed! | |
More Welcomed. (Need HTML skills.) | |
More Welcomed. | |
Art Correspondents Event reporters HTML Layout Puzzles Writers | |
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Vol. 3, Issue 5
June 23rd, 2009
The City Scoop a publication for Supers by Supers!
Read the latest publication and then join in on the community discussion!
If you have concerns regarding the content of the Scoop please direct your comments via PM to Niviene.
If you would like to do a feature article, or join "The City Scoop" team please PM Snow_Globe.
If you would like to place a classified ad or have an event covered, contact Cende, EnnVee, or Lemur Lad.
If you need some "Advice" contact Lady_Athyna, would like to "Ask The X" contact LiquidX, or need help with fashion, "Ask Arbiter Fabulous."
If you have a base you would like featured, please contact EnnVee.
Finally if you have a Recipe you would like included please contact Barron_.
The City Scoop
Under the Hood:
Fighting AVs
By TopDoc
Using an Illusion/Radiation Controller
This is the first case study in a series of articles about fighting Arch Villains (AVs) and similar class mobs. These are some of the most difficult mobs in the game. They have a HUGE number of Hit Points (HP), and they do a LOT of damage. And yet with the proper build, it is possible to solo them.
Phantom Quark (PQ for short) is my Illusion/Radiation Controller. She was my very first level 50 character, and she's great for soloing AVs and even Giant Monsters (GMs). Her Primary and Secondary powersets have some key powers that work well on VERY hard targets. She has the Speed, Fitness, Leaping, and Leadership pools. She also has Psionic Mastery for the status protection in Indomitable Will, as most AVs have single target or even AoE control attacks. I've sunk a lot of influence into her, including 5 purple IO sets (in Brawl, Deceive, Spectral Wounds, Flash, and Psionic Tornado), and 4 Luck of the Gambler: Increase Recharge IOs. She has Hasten and Accelerate Metabolism which are both permanent, and a total of +215% Global Recharge Reduction.
If you want to defeat AVs quickly, you need a regeneration debuff. AVs normally regenerate about 94 HP/second, but Lingering Radiation reduces that to about 23 HP/second. Even Giant Monsters who regenerate 353 HP/second are brought down to 88 HP/second. Lingering Radiation lasts for 30 seconds and has a base recharge time of 90 seconds, but PQ can get that down to around 23 seconds. She can stack the regeneration debuff for a little while, which will reduce AV and GM regeneration to 0 HP/second. That's a good start.
Vol. 3, Issue 5
June 23rd, 2009
This Issue:
Fighting AVs
Community
Barron's Kitchen
Events
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Fiction / Architect
Fan Fiction Spotlight
Exploring the Architect
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Arts
In the Scoop: Recap
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Base Showcase
Dreams
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Comic
Masthead
You need to stay alive when fighting AVs and GMs, and Phantom Army (PA) from Illusion Control really helps. Mobs consider PA to be VERY dangerous, and will attack it whenever possible. But PA is completely immune to most damage, so it's a perfect way to keep mobs occupied. PA lasts 60 seconds and has a base Recharge of 240 seconds, but PQ can cast a new PA right as the old one is expiring. PA does decent damage too. Illusion Control has a Phantasm as a level 32 pet, and it can also summon a high threat decoy that acts similar to PA. So PQ rarely needs to worry about being personally attacked by an AV. I didn't even bother taking Mind Over Body, the epic armor power from Psionic Mastery. She can concentrate on buffing, debuffing, and damage. And if she does get hit, a few Radiant Aura heals and she's fine.
CCCP by Juggertha
For damage, PQ has her pets. Phantom Army is slotted with four Expedient Reinforcement IOs plus a Damage/Recharge and Build Up proc from the Soulbound Allegiance purple set. They do ED capped damage, though I've never actually tested to see if the Build Up proc really works on them. Her Phantasm is slotted with three Nucleolous Hami-Os for solid Accuracy and Damage with minimal slots. She also has a few personal attacks (Spectral Wounds, Blind, Spectral Wounds, Mental Blast, repeat). Spectral Wounds has the Apocalypse set with the Negative Energy proc, as it's used the most. Blind and Mental Blast both have Decimations, with one including the unique Build Up proc.
Her debuffs also help with damage. She has Enervating Field (EF), which is a 22.5% Damage Resistance debuff toggle. And she has an Achilles Heal: Chance for Res Debuff IO in Radiation Infection (RI), which is a Defense and ToHit debuff toggle. Both of the normal debuffs in RI are highly resisted by most AVs and GMs, but it's still worthwhile to use just for the Achilles Heel proc. She and her pets are well slotted for Accuracy, plus she has Tactics for high defense targets. And most of her attacks are psionic which cut right through some tier 9 powers like Unstoppable.
PQ has a pretty solid track record. She can solo most AVs in about 4 minutes without Inspirations or temporary powers. She has used Shivans on a few AVs, as they have VERY high Psi Damage Resistance. Mother Mayhem and Malaise both have 50% Psi Resistance, while Nightstar has 75%. That called for Shivans as well as the veteran Nemesis Staff and Blackwand.
She has also soloed every Giant Monster available to heroes (that I know of) except for the Kronos Class Titan (haven't seen one), U'Kon Gr'ai or a Rikti Drop Ship. The Paladin was the fastest at 4.5 minutes, while Jurassik was around 10 minutes. Most of the low level ones are pretty easy. Even a single Lingering Radiation will drop the Regen on a level 40 or below GM to 0, so it's just a matter of doing damage. Level 50 Devouring Earth GMs took about 50 minutes because they resist enough of the Lingering Radiation. Lusca took the longest of all, due to deaths and the fact that it is really nine GMs.
If you've got an Illusion/Radiation Controller, you can probably solo AVs and GMs too. Of course it may take a few build changes. If you don't have enough influence to make PA permanent, you can still do quite well. Remember that the Phantasm will sometimes summon his own decoy, which is just as effective as PA. Plus you can try and match the downtime of PA to the Purple Triangles of Doom (PToD). If the AV is held while PA is down, you're safe. And if necessary, you can always run and hide! So get as much global Recharge Reduction as you can and give it a try.
Surrounded by PlayWorkArt
If you want to try fighting some AVs, or even soloing them, try out my "Level 50 AV Challenge" arc #168611 in the Mission Architect. It has every AV available in the MA spread out over three missions, plus a couple of Giant Monsters in the second mission. Next week I'll discuss the Purple Triangles of Doom, and my attempts at AV soloing with a Dominator.