Help me make a goddess

I'm pretty sure a single flight speed enhancement in Fly isn't as fast as Sprint, but it definitely is faster than base running speed. However, what concerns me is getting around larger maps, such as for instance where I'm heading off to right now, which is to deposit the Outbreak virus (don't ask, with this character concept I'll never find the right missions). It's a jumbled instance of Kings Row about six blocks in size and it calls for movement about the speed of Ninja Run. I'm just wondering if I can achieve that with just Hover. Would two or three slots do it, do you think?

On the one hand, having to skip "something" would save me slots since I don't plan to add more to Fly if I take it. On the other hand, I actually spoke with Leo and he praised Shadow Meld as a decent power, which is the only thing I think I can skip and gain slots from it. Well, OK, the one other thing it looks like I can skip is one basic attack to replace with Dark Blast (turns out that's not the one with the skull), but I really can't see any "bad" attacks in Electric Melee to dump, and I'm not convinced I'll be able to afford much recharge with as many slots as I need for basic stuff.

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 the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

Yeah, I don't intend to use Hover for crossing zones, I just need snippy movement inside larger instances. Teleport, and indeed Long-Range Teleport, will be used for zone travel. If I can make it so Praxis never has to take a boat, I will be very happy

Sadly, I can't drop Teleport entirely, awkward and unwieldy as it may be. It's too perfect for Praxis' greater being. See, the costume I shared is not Praxis in reality. It's just a puppet avatar that she has pulled together to act as her physical representation, but she can whiplash that thing to any point in existence instantaneously, even scatter it and reform it somewhere else. It just makes no sense to me for Praxis' main means of travel to be, as Dr. Mossman put it, "relying on local transportation." Praxis is omnipresent. She shouldn't need to travel anywhere.

Actually, John Carter (the movie) gives us a good example of this, where one of the godlike alien bad guys is informed that John Carter is doing something on the other side of the planet via a communicator ear-piece. His response? "No, your assistance is not needed. I will handle this. In fact, I am already there" Then the camera zooms away from his face and we see that he has, indeed, travelled across Mars in the time it took him to say that. That's what I want

That said, I neither want nor need Teleport Foe (admittedly, it makes sense for Praxis, but still). Why I'm taking it is I need it to unlock Long-Range Teleport. That, to me, is what will really make Praxis stand out from the rest of my characters. Yes, I know it's not terribly useful in City of Villains with all of seven zones, but the mere fact she'll never have to take a ferry and that she can manifest anywhere through her own power is enough to be worth it.

So... Waste of slots, a little bit, but how fast do you think Hover would be three-slotted for flight speed? In practical terms, I mean. I can calculate the run speed, but I can't really "get" what the different speeds mean.

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.

An unslotted Sprint (according to MIDS numbers) will make you run 33.6 mph. A 3-slotted Hover with 3 [level 50 SO] Flight speeds will make you move at 34.4 mph - slightly faster than an unslotted Sprint.

It seems I was a bit late for passing off an idea for Praxis for you, but I will give my thoughts anyways: MA/Regen/Soul Scrapper. No weapons, MA does good damage and its animations are fairly quick, and Regen (like WP) gives you the Fast Healing and Quick Recovery. I will admit though that WP is certainly better as Regen does not give defense protection for everything - mostly psionics. I personally like MA, and some of the powers allow for you to change the animation (like for Eagles Claw) if you do not like the default. I am not fond of (and have actually respec'd out) MoG - which, imho, sucks since they nerfed it - although the Paragon Protectors can still use the original version, ours has dropped from a 2 minute duration to, what, 15 seconds?? Anyways, personally I use MA/Regen/Soul (not much experience with WP) as my first, but would certainly try MA/WP/Soul as my second choice.

I resolved to not need it, I think. What I need fast in-mission transportation is when exploring large out-door zones, and a number of people asked me why I don't just use Teleport for that. Well, it's not useful in the cluttered corridors of inside instances, but that's not the question I was asked, is it? Why don't I use Teleport in OUTDOOR instances? Honestly, because Teleport doesn't explore the map between my start and end point, so I need something which will MOVE me between those points.

Or do I? When I say "I resolved to not need it," what I mean is I resolved to stop exploring every inch of every outdoor map I visit. That's what the Reveal power is for. Removing this need for smooth-but-fast transportation and using Teleport where fast transportation in-mission is required seems to have solved the problem entirely. I might still devote an extra slot to Hover at some point, but that's if I get any spares, which there might not be.

I don't agree about Moment of Glory, to be honest. I always found the original version to be more trouble than it's worth. Being unable to heal myself for two seconds and still being vulnerable to psychic damage, as well as the various untyped environmental effects, just seems like more trouble than it's worth. Yeah, it lasts 20 seconds now, but it recharges so fast I'm using it nearly every fight, and it can absorb SO much damage it's amazing. I can use it to take in a nasty alpha from a big spawn, I can use it to save my *** by giving Instant Healing enough time to have an effect, and I can generally rely on the fact that I have an "out" recharged at pretty much all times.

As for Regeneration for Praxis, you make a good argument, and it's one that I brought up, myself. Ultimately, I went with Willpower because it has Psychic protection, it guards against more things and I like both the names and descriptions of most of its powers. It may not be as good, but it fits the concept better.

I can't say I really see how Martial Arts could work for the concept, however. As I said, I need a set that's as hands-off as possible, and Martial Arts is all kicking and punching. From the air, no less, and for a VERY BIG character. It's weapon-less, yes, but it's too physical for my tastes.

Why I ultimately went with Electirc Melee is because it looks good in black, it looks kind of like divine power, it's somewhat hands-off on at least a few powers, it has Lightning Rod and... Well, because I had Blackheart's "Dark Thunder!" attack playing on a loop inside my head. Hey, if the son of Mephisto can use dark electricity, so why shouldn't Praxis?

I wanted an energy-based powerset for attack, and for melee ATs, that's a limited field. You have either Energy Melee, which I'm already using on another divine being, Kinetic Melee, which has too much arm waving and physicality, and Electric Melee. Yeah, Electric Melee isn't perfect, but a process of elimination brings me to it.

I actually spoke with Leo the other day who was very determined to suggest a Warshade to me. Visually speaking, the suggestion makes sense, and I probably would have gone with it... Except Warshades weren't on my list of ATs I will play for a reason. I just don't like how they play. However, if I had something that LOOKED like a Warshade but didn't play like one... And was customizable and didn't have glowing eyes... I might have gone with it.

---

Honestly, if I could have picked a non-melee AT, I would have. Dominators really look the part the best, I'll agree to this much. The problem is that I want three things out of an AT - survivability, damage, confidence. I've played everything City of Heroes has to offer, and I've not found a non-melee AT that combined all three, aside from Masterminds. If we ever got that vaunted Assault/Defence AT... Yeah, maybe I'll reroll. But I've been saying that for 8 years now and it hasn't happened.

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.

There are no dumb ideas, Ferl, and yours wasn't dumb at all. Praxis' needs are simply too specific in this case. I agree with you on the subject of Regeneration, as well. It was a very good fit, just in a different way. I had to pick something at some point, and I picked Willpower, but that doesn't make Regeneration wrong. I do disagree with Martial Arts on a fundamental level, but that's mostly based on aesthetics, which comes down to personal opinion. I specifically wanted energy-based attacks because of the effects those come with, and because usually some of them look less like hits and more like esoteric powers.

It's true, Martial Arts CAN look like dark energy. That's what it looks like on my reptile girl. So can Super Strength, for that matter - I've used it for that. At the same time, these still look too much like hitting people. I'm already making a compromise by going melee (something I did for the personal defences and higher base hit points), so I want to do everything I can to offset this and make the set seem less physical. Someone suggested Lightning Rod as the ultimate divine power... And try as I might, I couldn't disagree.

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.

Looking at your power picks, I was wondering if you had considered the Presence or Leadership pools.

Presence, primarily for it's Fear effects as a goddess can be awe-inspiring to believers and non-believers alike. Leadership for a token boon for anyone that works alongside/worships her receiving a small bonus just for being in her presence, whether it is intentional or a side-effect of her magnificence.

As you're using Willpower, you should have more than enough end to go around for some of the leadership toggles and/or to offset the slightly high end cost for the fear from the presence pool once you get to the higher levels and have your character more slotted out.

Doh! OK, why didn't I think of that? Thank you I'm not sure about the logistics of this, but I'll see what I can do.

I used to have Hover 3-slotted since way back when its base movement speed was somewhere around the speed of continental drift. However, after the last base flight speed increase, I dropped all my characters down to one slot since it seemed fast enough, and all my fliers had Fly for moving around.

So far, I'm trying to see if I can't get away with Hover with just one slot if I explore less, which I'm sure will be a great boon to you whenever we get to team again

Presence I actually did consider, but I'm not sure I'll have the slots and I DEFINITELY don't think I'll have the power picks for it. Well, I might have for the single-target fear, I suppose, if I can find a spare power pick and trade Confront for Challenge, but... That's not exactly a good trade for a Fear power that's not very good. I'd want to play around with the AoE Fear power because of the scream, but that's three power picks into the set and I just don't have the slots.

Leadership, on the other hand, I don't really think I want, and not just because I'm stubborn. Leadership is one of those pools I really don't like and have only taken on Masterminds, for the simple fact that it needs team-mates to really work. I know Leadership toggles work on me, too, but they're just so inefficient I feel like I'm cheating myself.

Plus, Praxis is not a benevolent goddess. She does not bestow favours, she only gives commands. She's actually a TERRIBLE deity to follow for any followers she's ever had, pretty much operating on the "please the goddess so we don't all die horribly" principle. There's nothing to be gained, just very much to be lost.

Endurance, yes, probably. However, I worry about power picks and enhancement slots. I don't see anything in Willpower that I don't want to have, and I can't say I see much in Electric Melee that I can do without. I don't want to lose Hover, Teleport or Long-Range Teleport (which has a prerequisite of Teleport Foe), I MUST have Soul Storm (which has a prerequisite of either Dark Blast or Moonbeam) and Leo seemed to like Shadow Meld, plus I like the stats.

That's not saying it's a done deal, but I can't figure out what I can drop. Hell, even Confront I like as a power.

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.

Well I was only speaking from the perspective before you had made the decision (or before actually reading what you had decided to go with in the thread).

I guess it's in how you play it, but Elec/WP/Soul doesn't seem 'godly' to me...I mean, I've got an Elec/Regen/Mu Stalker and he just isn't the 'god' type...on the contrary. He's very very flawed, consumed by jealousy (so much to a fault that it collapses in on itself and reverses into an advantage) and is limited in power...It feels that way too since, well, Elec Melee has limited ST damage...you can't just drop a foe when you want to (even on a Stalker). If you can't do that, it kind of skews, IMO, the whole title of omnipotent/omniscient deity.

Gin though, my Dark/WP/Soul Stalker is probably as close to a god as I'm comfortable making in this game. An incarnation of pure wrath, things disintegrate when he touches them, but even his power is harmful to himself taking most of his WP to withstand the pain his own power wreck him with. Death is nothing as long as he has wrath in his heart, so he can bring himself back from the brink of non-existance, even just from ashes or dust.

But yeah, neither of them are 'gods', just incarnations of the essence of sin that gives them godly might. If they were gods, they shouldn't feel harm, they should die or lose and if they want something dead, it should be instantaneous. I'm just not convinced Elec/WP does what you say Praxis can do.

Against most of the things you'd fight in the game (bosses and EBs), Elec doesn't really do the god thing...even against lots of targets, its range is limited.

I was just (at the time) pointing out how Warshade (or even Peacebringer) can do what Elec does, ramp up and has extended range over your choice and nails that feeling better.

As for my previous mention of just waiting for new sets to release, yeah there are some nice adds that might work (after using Google) in the future. You're not me, I'll just side-roll my most powerful 'god-like' charater and amend that to her concept. You re-rolling might require you to tweek (or even break down) the concept and waste time you could be spending on Kim or Praxis' minions. There's no rush here, you're not me so you don't have to have your most powerful character literally be more powerful than all your other characters currently, right?

That's pretty much the gist of it, yes. I don't need much power to have fun, I just need to not die a lot and not take AAAGES to kill stuff. Electric isn't bad. I've played it on Stalkers, I've played it on Scrappers and it does well enough. Yeah, Praxis may not be godlike in terms of numbers, but then the game has never been exact in terms of how I want it to play, either. There are occasional lucky strikes, like what happened with Xanta when Titan Weapons showed up, but most characters are compromises of some sort. If I were writing a book or drawing a picture, I wouldn't compromise, but I still want to play the game.

And if I waste time, then I'll waste time. I pay good money for the luxury of wasting time having shallow fun

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.