Help me put story to game

I find myself in something of a tizzy. Once upon a time, I used to make characters in-game based pretty much on whatever was available at the time and whatever I hadn't played until then, and as a result, I have a roster that's pretty much half filled with characters that... Aren't exactly true to their concepts. Add to this the fact that I didn't exactly think all of them through, and we have a slight problem on our hands. Now Freedom is promising the ability to make every (non-Epic AT) on either side of the moral divide right from the start, as well as to pretty much play any AT with any powerset that makes sense. I think it's high time I fixed all of those slighted characters and rerolled a whole bunch of them into ATs and powersets more appropriate to them.

This is where this thread comes in. I'd like to solicit your help in deciding what AT and powersets to pick for an existing concept, based purely on what the concept would work well with. Before we begin, the only ATs I really want to play are Scrappers, Brutes, Stalkers and Masterminds, in no particular order. Anything else I'm genuinely not interested in touching. Also, don't worry that I'll name-drop 50+ characters. I wouldn't do that to you I'll stick to just the ones where I'm not sure if I should reroll them, or where I don't know what to reroll them into. Keep in mind, as well, that I'm not just looking for AT and Powerset combos, but actual justifications for why I'll be picking those.

All of that out of the way, let's begin:

The Herald of Light is the soul of a dead soldier which was bound to his sword at the moment of heroic self-sacrifice, and now inhabits a suit of decorative medieval armour. The Herald was made back in 2004, so all I could do was Sword/Regen Scrapper, the idea being that the ghost could simply fix the armour when it broke. I'm reconsidering that right now. My options as it stands are either to wait for Freedom and remake him as a Sword/Shield Brute (though I didn't exactly find a good shield), or to wait even more and remake him as a Titanic Weapons/Regeneration Scrapper or Brute. The reason I want to reroll him is for the simple fact that I don't really like fighters with a single one-handed weapon, aesthetically speaking, but should I really bother rerolling a level 42 Scrapper, and if so, into what?

Morten is a bit... Weird. She started off as sort of a spirit of desire who prayed on vulnerable people, but turned over a new lief when she developed feelings for one of her victims and realised she wanted to help people rather than feed on them. She still steals the essence off her enemies, of course, but this time around only from evil people who deserve it. Morten's entire shtick is that she looks like a pretty, sexy lady... Until you look a little closer and notice the hoofed feet, scaly horned wings carapace tail swinging behind, yet because of her charms, most people DON'T look closer. Right now, Morten is an Ice/Ice Blaster... Which makes no sense and I've wanted to reroll her into something more logical for a long time. The question is WHAT? I was thinking Stalker, since being seen but ignored is part of her powers, but what kind of Stalker? Dark/Dark for her draining powers? Energy/Energy for... Her draining powers? Dark/Energy? Should I even go Stalker or stick with Scrapper or Brute for the kind of powerful ancient creature that she is? This one is the most difficult for me.

Hatarla is something of a fallen angel. She fell from grace at an early age and spent most of her life as mercenary, doing pretty unpleasant things and losing her innocence. These days she's missing one whole arm, both legs below the knee, one eye and most of her wings, but after saving a child who was about to fall as she had, she saw the error of her ways and is now hoping to redeem her sins by doing good, or dying in the attempt. Right now, she's a Katana/Will Scrapper. Willpower symbolises, counter-intuitively, her disgust with her past self and complete disregard for her own life and well-being, in that she is already broken and there's really very little her enemies can do to hurt her any more. The Katana, on the other hand... Symbolises nothing at all, other than that I want a weapon of some sort. I'm not sure I want to reroll Hatarla, but if I were to do so, what AT and Powersets should I pick to fit that?

Bodyshop baffles me. It's not a person, but rather a mass of sentient cancerous tissue given intelligence through the soul of a long-dead hero and the AI inside the helmet of a dead villain. He's sort of an amalgam of hero, villain and monster, but still a hero. Right now, he's a Rad/Rad Blaster for... Absolutely no reason at all. And for the life of me, I have not the slightest bit of clue what to remake him as. Any ideas here are appreciated.

Cecity (obscure term for "blindness") is pretty much what her name suggests. When she was a little girl, Cecity lost all five of her sense, leaving her stuck in a horrible, maddening sensory void for years, until she developed a sort of sixth sense. She couldn't see or hear or touch, but instead just sort of "knew" where things were, what people were saying and what was happening around her. And this sixth sense was so fast and accurate it gave her super-human reflexes. Right now, she is a Claws/SR Scrapper. Super Reflexes is obvious, but I honestly don't like running her with Claws. At the time, I picked the set because I hadn't played it, but right now I have about a dozen Claws characters (though no Stalkers) so I want to do SOMETHING more interesting with Cecity. A weapon of some sort may not be a bad idea. Any ideas as to what I should reroll her as?

Stardiver is a new concept I haven't yet made real. Basically, the Stardivers are an enigmatic species who use eldritch technology to dive into the cores of stars and use the heat, pressure and radiation in there to both build up their energy and craft the alien materials that make up their tech. I have a costume and a name, but no build, so really, almost anything goes for this one. I still want to have her using a weapon of some sort, but I don't know what weapon to pick, what AT to use or what secondary to choose.

Valeena is a creature from an alternate dimension where humans never evolved and other animals evolved to sentience in their place. Her kind was the first to succeed not through feral brute strength, but rather through cunning and ingenuity. Her kind is also that of a pink bunny girl with giant purple wings. Right now, she is an Archery/Devices Blaster because I wanted to emphasise her choice of skill and technology over strength, but I was never able to demonstrate her dexterity, which I want to do when I reroll her. I'm really not sure what to make her, though. Scrapper or Stalker, definitely, but what powersets? All I know is I want to keep her using some kind of Vanguard weapon.

Finally, Artegor is a somewhat eccentric vampire. A bit of a cross between Vampire Hunter D and Castlevania's Alucard, he is a hero simply because he has a kind heart and was tricked into accepting his vampiric powers in the first place. Right now, he's a Sword/Dark Scrapper with Rularuu's Bane. The sword is sort of big enough to look right as a single weapon, but my biggest concern with Artegor is whether I shouldn't just turn him into a Titanic Weapons Scrapper... Or even a brute. And I'm honestly not sure what to do about that.

I apologise for the tl;dr post. Any help on any of these characters will be very much appreciated, especially if they get rerolled into using new sets. Thank you for your time.

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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.

Herald might work well as Titan/WP, as it's his spirit keeping the armour in one piece. That and WP is like Regen, only tougher >_> heh

Will give thought to the others too.

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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.

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

I'd actually peg Cecity as Dual Blades/SR if the pair's allowed. The idea that one blade is always defending while the other is attacking has a certain symmetry to it that might work for her. Ninjitsu might be another neat one... Kinetic Melee?

Morten - yeah, Dark/Energy stalker - light and dark, sneak and plow enemies...

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

I can vouchsafe for Kat/regen as being suitably awesome; Katanas quick animations gel really well with Regen's clickies. Kat/Invul is another good match if you give her some sort of technological Power Suit. Kat/WP is another solid combo, as is Ninja Blade/Ninjitsu.

I'd personally avoid SR, but only because I am so thoroughly sick of the set and it's ease at being shafted at nearly all levels. My only remaining SR character is MA/SR, and thats thanks to MA packing enough punch to kill stuff fast before they smack me down >_>

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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.

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

Bodyshop and Stardiver both say 'Mastermind' to me, out of the ATs you're playing.

And to be honest both of them say Robotics to me. Stardiver could possibly be a Mace/Broadsword Tank/Scrapper/Brute, I suppose.

As for the secondary, I'm not entirely sure.

If MMs had Thermal I'd go with that for Stardiver. Maybe Dark with a bit of recolouring.

Bodyshop would be Pain I guess, but again there's a leaning towards Traps.

But then why have the same AT and powers for two concepts?

I intentionally gave as fast a summary of the characters as I could, since I didn't want to present you guys with paragraph walls over and over again, but this had the unfortunate implication of leaving out a few important details.

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Originally Posted by Arctic_Princess Bodyshop and Stardiver both say 'Mastermind' to me, out of the ATs you're playing. And to be honest both of them say Robotics to me. Stardiver could possibly be a Mace/Broadsword Tank/Scrapper/Brute, I suppose.

For Stardiver, I actually wanted to have kind of a "loner" persona. Her kind of enigmatic aliens are scattered across the universe, pretty much surviving on their own. She's the kind of creature who crashes into your star, then lands on your planet for a few days to recover, keeping to herself and not interacting with anyone, then leaves never to be seen again. This one has stuck around on Earth for some reason, though (meaning I haven't thought that far ahead...), and is being more proactive in communicating with the locals. The central aspect, though, is she's still kind of like a mute wanderer. She's always by herself, she doesn't speak with anyone, if you approach her while she's fiddling with her tech she'll simply ignore you, you never know what's going through her head and so forth.

To make Stardiver a Robotics Mastermind would be... "Sideways" of that, I suppose. For one, I want her to be a competent, confident survivor, something Masterminds usually aren't just by the nature of the AT's design. They have help. Secondly, a Mastermind to me is someone defined by their followers, robots included, like Vox who is a walking zombie plague or Nathaniel who is a military commander, or the Rook who has built himself a veritable army of combat drones. Their concepts work because they're defined as much by the "help" they get as by their actual powers, if not more so. Stardiver is defined by her own, concentrated power and weirdness.

Unfortunately, I'm not quite done with Stardiver's concept, so if it sounds like I'm making it up as I go, I apologise. Still, here is what she looks like, from before I finalised her name and concept.

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Originally Posted by SlickRiptide A character needs a signature power. The traits of cancer are that it spreads indiscriminately and that it wrecks the parts of the body that it contaminates. I'd make a case for a necro or demon summoning mastermind with a poison secondary.

I should probably relate a touch of history on Bodyshop. He was I think the third character I ever made back in 2004, back when he was called the Meat Machine. He was a Grav/Rad Controller because look at the pretty bunny! Not too long later, I realised I didn't like playing Controllers and he had no story at all, so I deleted him. When Radiation Blast came out for Blasters, I desperately wanted to use it, and I remembered my old Rad Controller. The name "Meat Machine" had been taken by then, so I went for the more obscure but still nasty when you get it name "Bodyshop," creating a character who had no reason to exist other than to carry Radiation Blast.

The story was that the cancerous tissue which made up his body was the result of an experimental radiotherapy treatment on cancer cells which, instead of killing them or making them shrink, made them divide violently. The monster could not be stopped because it grew too fast, until it grew into and interfaced with the helmet of a long dead cyborg villain, which pacified the monster, but still left it mindless. It wasn't until the soul of a hero recently killed in the line of duty somehow merged with the creature that it finally became sentient, having the hero's mind controlling the AI in the helmet, and so controlling the cancerous body, shaping it into a humanoid. So that's still a hero, just a hero who's been taken out of his body and into the body of something completely different.

The reason I make these long explanations is making this guy a Necro Mastermind would turn him evil. Zombies, pretty much by definition, are transformed people, meaning Bodyshop is infecting and mutating people to serve as his soldiers in a Stubbs the Zombie apocalyptic fashion, and that just seems like too easy a solution. I rather prefer to have the fleshy, horrible, disgusting monster be a hero, just to fly in the face of expectations. That's not to say I don't believe Necro characters can't be heroes, not at all. It's just that I don't believe a character who uses a mutating, disfiguring disease as his primary weapon can be very heroic.

That, and I already have Iprit, the walking disease creature who infects and poisons people, then uses their diseased carcassess as its legions of minions. Necro/Poison with Necromancy powers coloured a pea soup yellowish-green looks positively rancid and disgusting, but that really isn't what I want for Bodyshop.

I kind of want to focus on the signature power of a cancer - it regenerates. If you burn, poison or cut out most of it but leave a small part behind, it can grow back and become even bigger. That's sort of what defines this guy - you can't really kill him because he'll just keep regenerating. Which, to me, says Regen, practically speaking, and being defined by his powers of being hard to kill tells me "Brute." Powerset proliferation will see to that. As for offensive powers? Well, what's the most visceral, bodily type of powerset, if not Spines? Do Brutes have Spiens? Will they ever have spines?

In a roundabout way, I think I may have come up with a good combo for this guy, if it's possible - Spines/Regen Brute. I recall wanting to make him a Spines/Regen Scrapper at one point, but I have another Spines/Regen Scrapper with an alien story so that was never possible and I think I just forgot about it. Yeah, that will probably work.

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Also, if it seems like I'm just rejecting suggestions, that's not at all the case. Every time I explain anything at all, this helps, and greatly. Being able to verbalise all of these things makes the problems a lot more clear and the solutions a lot more focused. This is helping tremendously. Thank you!

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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.

I have some bad news... Well, "news" for anyone who's not as behind times as I am. Brutes don't have access to Spines. I think they never have. Ok, this is pretty bad, then. Was that part of the incoming powerset proliferation options? I lost track of that list.

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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.

I apologise for dragging this one out of a pit, but with Freedom entering Beta and showing me what powerset combos on what ATs I can have, it's made me think about it once more. With your permission, I'd like to give the original thread a new lease of life, as well as an infodump update. Here goes...

Decided
The Herald of Light I'm pretty confident I want to turn into a Sword/Shield Brute. I don't really have one of those, and I can't think of a more important concept to hold the spot for, so I think this one is mostly finished. The starting shields are pretty bad, though. I hope some of the unlockable ones will show up in the Paragon Market. This one should be decided.

Dediced
For Morten, sometimes, the less I think about things, the easier they are to decide. I went back and forth between Scrapper, Stalker, Dark, Energy and so forth, but I think the simplest solution is to just go with my gut and make her an Energy/Energy Stalker. It fits her nature as a creature who feeds on and thrives on energy, and I can avoid the "dark" aspect of her powers by claiming she has left that behind. I'll think of a more meaningful story when it comes to that, but Energy/Energy should have the right feel to it. I'll save Dark/Dark for someone less flamboyant.

Decided
Hatarla I think I'll leave alone. I played her some as a Katana/Will Scrapper and the combo is fun. Having unlocked the Rularuu Katana for her, I think the look is exactly where it should be - a grizzled, scarred veteran who uses tech, cybernetics, magic and demon weapons, and basically anything she can get her hands on. I don't think she needs a reimagining.

Undecided
Bodyshop is still up in the air. I was hoping that the proliferated powersets would extend to Spines for Brutes so that I could make him a Spines/Regen Brute, but no such luck. I could go for claws, but that's not nearly disgusting enough. I could, as well, go with a Stalker since those have Spines, but I'm not really sure it's appropriate to the concept. Bodyshop may be a hero, but he's a regenerating monster first and foremost. He's not the kind that appears out of the shadows, but more the type rampages. Brute would be excellent for him, but I suspect I'll have to put him on even more of a hiatus while I wait for the next round of proliferations. In the meantime, I'm still open to reinterpretations of his design and powersets, but I want to keep him as close to an unstoppable monster as I can.

Undecided
Cecity I'm still on the fence about. I'd like to make her a DB/SR Scrapper as I don't have one of these and it fits her "sixth sense" concept, but I have to wonder... Would Street Justice not be more appropriate? Obviously, I'll have to see how the animations look when (if) the Beta Market comes back online, but honestly, wouldn't it make sense? Now, truth be told, I essentially jammed an alien concept into a costume design I made to plagiarise Oniblade's Ayumi, so the themes that make Cecity up are a bit... Disparate, but I kind of feel like I should give her some sort of weapon. Or should I? I'm still undecided on this one.

Undecided
Stardiver, by now, has had half her powers decided. I'm pretty confident I want to give her a Titanic Weapon of some sort, but I still haven't the foggiest what actual secondary to give her. I know it can't be Invulnerability or Stone Armour as those are already taken, and her concept is still far, FAR too loose to draw anything meaningful from it, other than "advanced alien tech." I have to wonder, though, if I can't draw on the act of diving into the core of a star itself, and perhaps use Fiery Aura, or hold out and go for an Ice Aura? I'm still undecided on this one, and any help would be appreciated.

Undecided
Valeena is... Still suspect. I want to make her Katana/SomethingThatMakesSense, but I don't know what. I'm kind of sort of thinking Energy Aura, though, as this gives me a convenient excuse for why why a petite bunny girl can survive rockets to the face, but it's still a tad odd. I wouldn't want to make her a Stalker, though, as it just... Doesn't really fit her personality. She's a smart fighter, but not a sneaky fighter, though if we can explain how a ling wingspan glow-in-the-dark half-naked bunny girl is stealthy, I would definitely go for it. I could, however, go the other way around and go with Axe/Shield, surprisingly enough. The Vanguard Shield and Axe are perfect tech for Valeena, as they can grant significant power without requiring too much physical strength to carry and wield. What do you think of that?

I am so lost
For Artegor, I simply do not know, and I haven't really seen much discussion on him that I can remember. Suffice it to say that I'm still looking for help with him and whether I should make him TW/Dark instead of BS/Dark. I really don't know what to do with the guy.

Also, to offset the few concepts that I pinned down, allow me to introduce a couple more under consideration:

New
Mary-Beth is sort of a genetic experiment where animals were experimented on to both make them bigger and stronger and also give them more advanced intellect, enough to work as autonomous operatives, either as soldiers in the field or lone partisans. Mary-Beth is one of the few specimens to survive the experiment, but found herself hated and feared. Lashing out at society, she joined a biker gang of misfits and mutants and tore up the countryside for a few years, until conscience got the better of her. She helped the other misfits turn their lives around and chose to save people instead of hurting them, realising that someone had to do the right thing.

Right now, Mary-Beth is a Mace/Inv Brute, though the only weapon I could use for her was the Legacy War Mace since it was the only one both long and big enough to look like a two-handed weapon. I'm thinking of possibly turning her into a TW/Something Brute, but should I? I mean, she's a 10-foot-tall literal cow girl and strong as an ox, so wouldn't it make more sense to have her fight with the biggest weapon she could find?

New
Jun is my homage to typical fighting Japanese School girls, specifically as evidenced by Street Fighter's Sakura. Her story is a bit different, though - she's the daughter of a super hero couple who inherited a bit of her parents' powers and developed a lot of her own, basically making her into an incredible hand-to-hand fighter. She's tough, fast, strong and light on her feet, but does not exhibit any energy or elemental powers. She's just a very strong teenager.

Right now Jun is using the classic MA/SR framework as best suited for agile hand-to-hand fighters, and it has served her quite well, but I have been wondering if Street Justice may not be better for her. It would be slightly less strict martial arts, but if it has that Shoryuken that I've seen in some of the pics, I doubt it will be much less appropriate. I don't know which way to go on this one, and I'd appreciate any help I can get on the matter.

I apologise for the run-on post, and thank you for your help, both past and future

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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.

It's becoming clear to me that this thread is dead in the water, but so long as it exists, I might as well use it as a place to think aloud.

With the Paragon Store up and giving me the ability to purchase Street Justice, I finally got to see the set. And it's marvellous. It's slightly over-brutal, but more than anything else, it's direct. It's a collection of solid hits that put "hurt" before "technique."

This, it seems, is precisely what suits Jun the best, as I mentioned before. Currently, she's supposed to be a fast, strong, agile little girl who chose crime fighting because it was the right thing to do, and who approaches things with boundless enthusiasm, incorruptible spirit and amazing drive, but not too much skill or experience. She's using MA/SR on Live right now, but Martial Arts don't really fit her. The set is more one for a Martial Artist, aiming for pressure points, pulling off acrobatic kicks and using the enemy's strength against him. I figure Jun much more for the "rush headlong into trouble and figure it out along the way" sort of fighter who'd rely more on guts and her wits than training and technique.

The more I think about her, the more I realise that I'm making a modern-day female Naruto, that sort of slightly simple-minded but pure-hearted type of good kid who'd go to any length to do the right thing and punch people in the face when they start blathering on about shades of grey. In fact, remember that Aaron dude? Yeah, I wanted to have a "punch Aaron in the gut" on about screen two of his monologue.

So, yeah, come Street Justice, I'm rerolling Jun into a SJ/SR Scrapper, and throwing another 31 levels down the drain. But she'll be better off for it. I'm sure I'll make another MA/SR Scrapper at some point, probably more of a Bruce Lee type. Maybe even revive my good old friend Jack Hammer, if I can think of a name that wasn't stolen from me.

So far, Freedom looks like a win.

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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.