Returning Player Diary

I did a whole lotta Moonfire that weekend...

Felt a little better last night, but my stupid connection was being stupid again, so no in-game news to report.

Which doesn't stop me from thinking about it- the current debate is between which powerset to pick up next, Staff Fighting or Nature Affinity.

I grabbed those fish costume bits that were on sale a bit ago and made a 'theme' tank around them- Hydronauticus, risen from the deep to protect the legions of Water Blasters recently arrived in Paragon. I made him as a joke mostly, just checking out the pieces in-game (pros: head & gloves are neat cons: boots are that stupid shiny junk that doesn't take color well) and gave him the Energy Melee primary because I thought it would look appropriately watery with a re-color (which it did), and Dark Armor because likewise.

Ran him through a couple of DFBs, and while I really liked his look his secondary was bugging me. It looked good, but I couldn't help remembering a staff fighting character I'd teamed with who had a Trident weapon model.

I mean, c'mon, that's too perfect.


So I was pretty much set on Staff as my next set buy, likely after I get Ray to 50 and need a new project.

But then I teamed with that Nature Affinity character, and it's just SUCH a lovely set. One thing I really liked about that big fantasy MMO was the environmental vibe of those oasis the elf towns had, a feeling Nature Affinity really nailed. Even in the middle of a huge Malta battle with rockets flying everywhere and gun drones chattering away, it was still a soothing presence.

Now I'm torn. =/


Ah well, better too many choices than not enough!

I really liked Staff Fighting. I did a Staff/Ninjitsu Stalker (my first stalker!) and got it all the way to 50. I don't play a lot of Scrappers or Stalkers but this was easy to IO at 30 for lots of extra defense and after than it felt like a Scrapper. Nice combo, nice set.

If you're thinking of Staff Melee and you like melee in general I think you'd like it. Stalkers don't get all the extra modes so I can't say how that works out, but Stalkers do get the Body one (for extra Damage) and that was fun to play.

I tried Nature Affinity on a corruptor back when I was VIP on beta and it seemed good. Maybe not as strong as Time but definitely felt stronger than the other "healing" sets.

My recommendation would be to try both.

My 2 cents... I really like staff fighting, but I played a nature affinity/water blast character much of the weekend and right now I'm in love with the set. I want to try a plant/na troller as well, that sounds like a wonderful combo also. And I have to admit, a lot of my love with nature affinity is just the look. It looks wonderful. I love, for example, that when I use my single target heal a sort of flower/vine sash/belt appears on my own character for a few seconds. It makes me want to heal people as often as possible, heh.

I don't ever check things out on the Beta server, so while I'd heard the name "Nature Affinity" a lot, I really had no idea what it would involve. But right now it's one of the most fun things in the game, at least, if you're at all inclined to play a support character.

That "oasis" power (I forget the actual name -- Life Giving Spores, I think?) is unique among powers in the game as far as I know. It's a "target-the-ground" power like a pet (like the heal tree power in Plant Control), but it's also a toggle, so it stays up until you turn it off and it recharges very quickly so you can use it every spawn if you like. I've tended to be a bit conservative in my use of it, both because I know the intense graphics of the set can cause lag, and because when my two group buffs are up (particularly Bastion) then I don't need the healing boost, usually. But it's a nice power all around, I agree.

I think right now a lot of people don't realize what it does. I noticed a lot of people who did not particularly pay attention to it, or ran out of it right after I dropped it in a fight. I think as people become familiar with it they're going to position themselves to fight inside it if possible. I tried to drop it where the ranged people were when I thought they needed it, and on the tank when that person needed it (AV fight for example).

tonight I made a new character to run through the tutorial, as my son requested we fight "the laser rock guys".

Whipped up a quick energy/energy blaster, which he incongruously saddled with a Huge model with every slider maxed- "I want him a little FATTER, dada..."

I let him scroll through the prefab costumes...he settled on a bondage theme- chest straps, nipple rings and a cornucopia of chains wreathing every available limb.

"With all those chains, the bad guys can't hurt him!"

So it took us a good 15 minutes to make it to Blue Quasar, or whatever his name is, because we had to "help" the multitude of other heroes doing the tutorial fight the Laser Rock Guys. Eventually though he decided we should go see the "BIG GIANT Laser Rock Guy", so we helped out Blue, leveled and hit the Zone Event.

Plenty of other heroes, which he loved, so we made short work of the critter, which he was a little disappointed with- he really likes dodging the meteors & when our "arrow friends" (Longbow bombers) come and light up the Laser Rock Guys.

Paused at Lady Liberty to check out all the other heroes, then hit Habashy because he wanted to "go in the Cave" and then "wear a disguise." It's been quite a while since we ran that arc, I was impressed he remembered that stuff.

We leveled in the cave, and on our way out he said "that box made our purple bar go BOING! BOING! BOING!"

Then it was time for books, but we parked under Atlas and I promised him we'd play some more tomorrow.

Hey Goat,

I just want to say that one of the things that has me coming back to check out the thread is the updates where your son drives.

That is totes awesome in my book.

Cheers.

well, looks like the game itself has called an end to this thread.

I feel sort of bad about it, as it's been part of my life for nearly a decade. By far the longest serving game I've ever played.

But what I feel really sick about is having to explain to my son that all his "friends" are going away.

I guess I could switch to some other superhero game, but I've tried them both and genuinely disliked them.

Back to WoW?

bleh.

What a crappy day.

I probably won't play another MMO...none have managed to hold my attention, even in the worst case of burnout like CoH has...

I'll be doing some memorial work on this thread over the next while.
For now, here's a recent pic of me and my son:

It *is* an excellent picture.

Play.

It's an awesome picture. Your son is clearly a great kid! I'm just sad he'll never experience trick or treating City of Heroes style.

The last thing I did in game before the news came down... I had gone to bed very early Thursday night and gotten up very early Friday, so I ran five tips on my staff melee brute Princess Ozma. I did the other five this morning to confirm hero status, since it was something I'd started.

I also logged into the forums around 11 AM and had time to grab one of the free costume codes and apply it to one of my accounts, and I was feeling really good about that. I don't go bonkers over the costume codes -- I already have several on each of my two main accounts, and don't feel a need to collect a bunch more -- but I added one to my Dilithium Flower account, and was pretty happy about that, and happy about my plans for the 3 day weekend.

Then I checked the forums again on my afternoon break... :/

That really is a nice picture.

Always enjoyed your posts, Goat, even if I did think you wrong, heh.

for some reason it didn't occur to me until Zwill's post about the forums closing down that the forums would be, uh, closing down.

I'm going to export all my posts in this thread to a blog, which will also serve as my CoH historical archive.

My first serious foray into online gaming was founding and running a sizable CounterStrike community for a number of years- when I moved on, I didn't take anything with me. None of the screenshots, videos, player demos, site posts (no blogs back then, I actually had to make a web page & learn rudimentary HTML), nothing. Well, the friends I made. But none of the ephemera, aside from what scraps the Internet Archive hoovered up.

As over it as I was at the time, I'd give quite a bit to have a copy of that website, those screens, our forums, all those little bits of creation that together form a community.

So, this time I'm going to grab the photo albums and shoeboxes full of letters on my way out the door.


I've historically frowned upon folk using these forums to pimp their own thing, but.....yeah. So here's the link, which I'll also post in the Triumph FB group:

The Nethergoat Archive

That's a good idea, I think I'm going to do something similar.