Vanguard Pack!

It's here! We've finally unlocked it!

So tell me my friends, what will you do with your unlocked Vanguard goodies at level 1? Show me those characters!

What I've always thought was cool were the Vanguard claws - you can make Elemental Blades with them! Here are many examples:

Dark Claws:


Fire Claws:


Ice Claws:


Psi Claws:


Toxic Claws:


Light Claws:

I tend to work slow when it comes to costumes, largely because I wait until I'm playing the right character, but I do have this 2x2 collage of my Velcro Kitty (a name I intend to change on reroll, as I can't tie it into a decent story):



This was done some time ago when I was still planning for the Vanguard pack and trying to decide what to reroll said Blaster as. My choices were Scrapper, Brute or Stalker, and what I picked would depend on the weapon I chose.

I and a few others settled on Energy Claws. Axe and Shield is cool, but not for this character and both Broadswords and Katanas will be used by other characters. But the Claws were cool enough, and I don't have a Claws Stalker yet, plus the character sort of looks the part.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Rakkshasi/Rowan Wendel has been waiting for her arcane blades for about a month now, she was supposed to wait until the pack was out to show up, but she's an impatient one, heh

Now that is cool Sam! I really like the colors there, especially for the weapons! Great job on the outfit, I say!

For reference, all the Vanguard "stuff" is pure blue primary + pure cyan secondary. From what I've seen of your blades, you seem to use a bright primary colour for the outline and a darker secondary colour for the interior which gives them a more "physical" look, for lack of a better term. I picked a brighter colour for the interior, which makes them look a bit more funky, like pure energy, which is what I was shooting for. Man was I shooting for this. Those things will make at least three characters of mine worth playing

The rest of the costume is very old, back from when Velcro Kitty used to use Dual Pistols. Ah, I will miss those animations, but I will NOT miss that horrible powerset.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

The really cool thing with Interface + Vanguard elemental weapons is that you can simulate the element they are. With Fire Claws, you can use the Reactive Interface for the Fire DoT. With Negative Energy Claws, you can use the -ToHit Reactive. Etc.

I only used it on a couple characters so far. One minor change (Ducat got new gloves):



And one major one: I rerolled a character named Votive who I had sitting around uninspired and made her into a Nin/Nin stalker:

Well, this thread fell back way too fast, and I owe it to bAss' great costumes to at least try and contribute something more than leftover work from before. Besides, I finally got time to mess with the Vanguard pack, so here goes, a trifecta of concept character redesigns with some explanation attached. I hope the shots were decent. It's pretty hard to snag good shots from the editor that don't look like either an artist's reference pic or a criminal's mugshot.

First up:


This used to be Velcro Kitty when she was a pistoleer, but I could never justify the name, so I'm changing it on a reroll. I'm not sure what to yet. She's a Stalker, as you can see, and uses shorter energy swords for greater precision. I'd get a better shot of her mask, but you can see it well enough in the previous shot.

One why: Why not go with the Vanguard Claws? Because while they look good in stills, they suck in actual combat animations. The claws are tied to somewhere on the forearm instead of the wrist like all other claws are, which means that a lot of the time, swipes happen with the flat of the blade. It looked awful to me, so I changed it. If you like it, I respect your decision and make no contest.

After that:


This is Valeena, who's getting a reroll and a slight name change to kill the crappy phonetic spelling. Her original incarnation used a green energy bow which I never really liked, so I've tried to keep as close to that in the remake as I could. Ditching Devices will not be missed, but I'll have to come up with a secondary that doesn't double up on either my Kat/SR (Samuel Tow himself) or my Kat/Will, which kind of leaves me out of options. Even if I go Stalker, she'll still conflict with my Kat/Nin one.

To fail to answer one why: Why Katana? Other than that I wanted a green energy blade... I don't know. I'm not sold on this.

Finally:


This is Emillia, and she's staying right where she is. Currently a level 46 DB/Will Scrapper that I haven't touched in quite a while, I HATED running her with any of the less interesting blades of the time. These Star Wars inspired lightsabres (come on, we've all thought about it at one point or another) should bring some much-needed enthusiasm back into the character and maybe convince me to cut her three-year-long hiatus short and add one more notch on the belt.

To fail to answer one why: Why teal and rancid green? I really do not know. If anyone has a better idea of a dual lightsabre colour combo that won't clash with that... Bright costume, then go right ahead and I will probably use it.

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That's all I have for now. I hope you guys enjoy this and keep the thread alive.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

This is Double Time. Story? Er ... I just had to make a new character with the Vanguard Pack and the 7 Stars Emblem. He's Claws/WP and uses bright green vanguard claws. I was initially going to try and imitate a Vanguard Soldier but thought it cheap and made Double Time instead.

Cool screenshots everyone. Specially bAss_ackwards, as always.
I love the pack, but I hate that blades and bow sticks are stuck in grey and purple vanguard default colours.
It should be using primary and secondary colours for the sticks too, just like the shield and riffle does it.
Why would the devs did this? Its annoying, specially when some weapons can be fully tintable, and blades sticks can not.

Thanks to the Vanguard Pack, I can make a well-armed Callidus Assassin.

I finally have a Fire Sword on my Broadsword/Fire Scrapper.


I also hijacked bAss's information on how to make decent looking Fire auras using one of the auras (Bioplasma) as a combat aura and setting the powers to use Dark Fiery in the same colours.


I'll post screenies later but I'm very happy with the changes. Ta bAss!!

I'll be using the Vanguard Chest Detail piece and the boots on my tanker's level 40 costume, after I came up with a concept of what she might have wound up looking like if she had stayed in Praetoria and climbed the ranks:



A very Praetorian Guard look for Maxi Pound, the 4 foot tall Inv/SS gal. Imagine coming across her on the Sutter TF?

The pack has recently given me an idea for a new character!

Arcane Hunter

Hmn, widow claws hidden behind the Valk glove? Very nice.

Edit: Oop, no, see the flat blade now. Still, easy enough to make a one claw char there

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Not the widow claws, those are flat blades.
Cool looking character as always bAss!

Having just been given the bonus of Vanguard parts, I decided to do a little touch up on some of my robotic heroes and villains. I had been lusting after the weird looking Vanguard face pieces because they look so machine-like--perfect for robots and aliens. So, here's one example, the Blade Golem, a claws/superreflexive stalker on the Redside. The images hyperlink bigger images:



And yes, the sinister red eyes do shine laser light in combat!

I just recently revised one of my other Redside robots and I'll post some images later tonight if people are interested.

I was absolutely dying for the Vanguard belt piece... Once I got it, I designed a whole costume around it, lol! This is Defiant Gal's tech suit:

Mind 'n Matter, who's usually restricted to loincloths and fairy-bits for his costumes, got a power suit, too, inspired by the Vanguard belt.