With the end looming, I spent some time writing down my thoughts and memories about my main toons. I understand other people don't care - this is pretty much just for myself. I know from personal experience that it can be rewarding to have something like this. A decade later you can read it, and it will bring back a lot of memories. Nostalgia is fun.
But since I did write all this stuff, I figured I'd share it, and since I played exclusively on Freedom from the beginning, I thought this would be the best place to do it. Anyway, here we go...
@Supermax Global Account
Level 50 Members of Supermax Enterprises, a Supergroup on the Freedom Server
(In Order of Perceived Overall Power in PvE)
Knockout Moe
Science Fiery Aura/Super Strength Tanker
Hours Played: 1164
Moe essentially soloed all the way to level 50. He was a true burn tank back in the day, using Burn almost exclusively. Eventually he got the two main staples of SS (Knockout Blow and Foot Stomp) and became truly powerful. He would impress me by routinely out-damaging my scrappers, while being much more survivable at the same time. He did have a period of weakness while burn was nerfed into uselessness, but when it was changed again, he became a true powerhouse.
I used him a lot in PvP, and he became a recognized and feared name in PvP zones, especially Sirens Call.
Once I retired from PvP, after years of considering Blasta (see below) as my main, I decided that Knockout Moe would now have that title. This was based on the fact that he could do things my other toons couldnt even dream of. So I decided to put all my eggs in one basket, so to speak. I spent pretty much all my influence on IOing this guy, making him even more powerful.
Moe was the one that ended up creating my personal Supergroup (Supermax Enterprises). He was the one that farmed up all the needed prestige and the one that built the Supergroup base from scratch.
In the end, he was my only toon that could solo on +4/x8. Even though I had plenty of other toons, any time I wanted to demonstrate true power and/or feel totally unstoppable, I would go with Moe. He was my one true tankmage.
Blasta
Technology Fire Blast/Energy Manipulation Blaster
Hours Played: 1003*
My very first toon was a Fire/Ice blaster, which was rerolled to AR/Devices, and then rerolled again to Fire/EM. Third time is the charm, as they say. I really fell in love with the combo, and Blasta was born. As almost all my friends were playing scrappers or tanks, I was usually the only blaster. I died more than them and couldnt solo nearly as well as them, but I was always a welcome addition to teams. When they would herd up entire maps of Werewolves, I was the one that would kill them all in one shot with Inferno. After a while I realized that blasters severely underperformed, so Blasta was shelved for quite some time, while I leveled some other toons. But eventually I went back to my only blaster, and he became my very first level 50.
This is when PvP first appeared, and Blasta became my main PvP toon. I did only PvP for many years (literally zero PvE whatsoever), and this whole time I considered him my overall main. He was the only toon I actively played on the test server in competitive PvP matches, and he competed with Ice blasters back when Ice was the clear #1. Eventually Fire became #1, and then he truly blossomed.
With the death of PvP, he once again became a good PvE toon, and he always remained one of my most fun toons to play, but he was simply not quite as powerful as some of my other toons. Issue 24 was about to change that. I designed a new build for him based around the I24 changes, and he was about to become the most powerful he had ever been. It truly saddens me that I never got to play him on Live with his new build. But in my mind, the I24 build is how he will be remembered - without any doubt, the most damaging toon in my arsenal, both in single target and AoE.
* In reality, Blastas hours played is quite a lot more, most likely #1 of all my toons. For a long time I played as part of a Test Server PvP league, where I played only Blasta. Obviously all the hours played on the Test Server did not get recorded.
Killa-Joule
Natural Electrical Melee/Electric Armor Scrapper
Hours Played: 397
Over the course of 2004-2012, I took only two extended breaks from CoH. The second one lasted a few months and was due to me being fed up with the broken state of PvP in the game. When I came back to the game, I decided to simply ignore PvP completely and go back to being a pure PvE player. From then on, I was able to enjoy the game much more than I did previously.
Killa-Joule was the first toon I made upon my return. In fact, he was the first non-PvP toon I had made in many years. He ended up being my second to last 50, and one of my most powerful overall toons. I can still remember my amazement at how incredible Lightning Rod was the first time I used it. This guy had the least endurance problems of any toon I had ever played. He had amazing AoE damage, and contrary to popular belief, the single target damage was also very good.
Because he was created after I had quit PvP, he was never used there, and based on his powersets, he probably wouldnt have been very good at it. Also because hes one of my newest toons, he obviously has a lot less total hours played.
Fastermind
Magic Thugs/Dark Miasma Mastermind
Hours Played: ???*
Fastermind was my very first villain when City of Villains first came out. In fact making a mastermind was pretty much the only reason I became interested in CoV at all. It was the only archetype that was totally unique from anything hero-side. The road to 50 was very long and tedious, spanning over about 7 years. But in the end, this guy became my very last 50. I did not truly enjoy him until the 40s, where he finally started to come into his own. But him at 50 vs. him at 40 was night and day, literally like playing two different toons. In the end, he was definitely capable of some amazing things, things that only Knockout Moe was able to do previously. But being a mastermind, he needed to set up and always be in control of the fight. Any minor setback could quickly snowball into a major problem and eventual death. It was more micro-management than I usually cared for, but the sheer power of the toon made me appreciate him.
*The game shows a completely absurd number of hours played (4792), which has to be a bug. There is absolutely no way that I could have played this guy almost five times more than my oldest and most-played toons. Based on everything else, I can assume that the real time is more along the lines of 1000 hours.
Typical Fortunata
Natural Fortunata & Night Widow
Hours Played: 2235
Fortunata was created and PLd specifically for PvP. She was one of my main PvP toons for quite some time, but eventually I quit PvP and went back to PvE, where she continued to thrive. She went through several iterations, going back and forth between Fortunata and Night Widow builds. At the very end, she settled on a NW build and was capable of very high damage, especially single target, to go along with great survivability.
Because of her PvP strengths, she was used extensively there. Of her total hours played, probably 95% or more was in PvP.
Sir Maxalot
Mutation Fire Control/Radiation Emission Controller
Hours Played: 1974
Maxalot was one of my original toons, created back in 2004. From the beginning, he was very powerful, and I had a lot of fun competing with my close friends Fire/Kin controller. Like my mastermind, Maxalots power was situational, and it took a lot of attention and micromanagement to get the most out of him. Any slipup could turn into death because of his squishiness. But when in control, he was pretty much unstoppable, and he was dominant vs. single targets like AVs.
In PvP he was also very powerful. Although he couldnt do much solo, he was a great addition to any team.
Virtuoso
Natural Broadsword/Regeneration Scrapper
Hours Played: 916
Virtuoso is my oldest toon and could definitely be the oldest BS/Regen on the Freedom server. Unfortunately, he was never quite as powerful as I had hoped, but I got him to 50 and played him regularly anyway. In my eyes he was always overshadowed by Knockout Moe, because not only was Moe more survivable, he could also do more AoE damage. But Virtuoso still held his own, and Head Splitter criticals were always a joy to see. Being Regen, he went through a lot of nerfs, but in the end, he was still very powerful. The Barrier Destiny gave him what he had been missing for many years extra defense and resistance. On top of his regeneration and healing, it made him extremely survivable in most situations.
He was also used extensively in PvP, mostly in Recluses Victory. Due to his regin, he couldnt be bet.
LittleBuddy
Magic Kitetics/Radiation Blast Defender
Hours Played: 298
On my first week of playing CoH, I was in Perez Park and ran into some guy who gave me speed boost. For the first time I experienced what it was like to run around the city like a true super hero. The problem is that it only lasted two minutes. But right away I knew that I wanted to make a Kinetics toon to be able to give my friends the same feeling. For years I considered LittleBuddy second-rate, because he could do very little solo. But eventually I realized his value. Of all my toons, he was probably the best force multiplier on teams. He could get an entire team to the damage cap and keep it there for the duration of a mission. In essence, he could make bad teams good and good teams unstoppable.
He was rarely used in PvP, because I did not enjoy playing pure buff bots, which was all he was capable of. But in PvE, he was a perfect teammate for just about anybody. Issue 24 was about to make him into a powerful soloer as well, with the dependable snipe and nuke being added to his arsenal. Unfortunately, that never happened. But LittleBuddy will still be remembered as my best buffer.
Impale Spammer
Natural Spines/Ninjitsu Stalker
Hours Played: 1705
As mentioned before, at one point I was doing only PvP, and after years of playing only heroes, I decided to try villains as well. I was not interested in PvE at that time, so I decided to get a stalker powerleveled to 50. There were two stalker sets at that time that were considered best: EM and Spines. Because I couldnt decide on one, I chose to get two of them powerleveled at the same time. Impale Spammer was one of them.
Spammer was great in PvP for years and was well-known in all the PvP zones, even the lowbie Bloody Bay. Overall he could do a bit less damage than my other stalker (an EM/Regen), but he was easier to play and could actually be considered somewhat of a ranged toon.
After PvP, I learned to also enjoy him in PvE. He had great AoE damage, and after the buffs to Assassins Strike, he got great single target damage as well. But even though he ended up being a very powerful PvE toon, my best memories with him were definitely in PvP, where he racked up almost all of his total hours played.
Supermax
Science Dark Melee/Super Reflexes Scrapper
Hours Played: 557
Ironically, my namesake toon was actually not one of my most powerful or most favorite. I had two toons named Supermax before. Naturally, I wanted my namesake to be my best toon, but the two previous versions didnt fit the bill and were rerolled. This scrapper was the third try, and even though I realized that he wasnt going to be my best toon, I was simply too tired of rerolling his name, so I stuck with him.
Overall he definitely became a very powerful toon, but the problem was that he was a single target specialist in an AoE game. Unlike practically all of my other toons, Supermax was required to kill every enemy one by one. Especially when teaming, this made him seem weak, because killing one enemy while someone else kills the entire rest of the spawn in the same time well it wasnt too much fun. But he definitely had great single target damage and was great against hard targets like AVs.
Dark Melee was horrible in PvP, so Supermaxs playtime there was very limited.
Phantasmia
Magic Illusion Control/Force Field Controller
Hours Played: 1435
Phantasmia was, unfortunately, one of my weakest toons. She did get to 50 eventually, but it was a slow road. The problem was definitely Force Field, which was always considered a bottom-tier set. Playing her was incredibly safe, but also incredibly slow, and in many cases boring. At level 50, teams rarely needed a lot of extra survivability, but everybody always wanted more offense. And yet Phantasmia could provide only survivability and nothing else.
I did play her a lot in PvP, where her personal force field provided nigh invincibility, but in PvE, after hitting 50, she went untouched for years at a time.
Sabaka
Natural Invulnerability/Energy Melee Tanker
Hours Played: 686
Sabaka was my second attempt at a tanker, after Knockout Moe. At that time, the game developers seemed to be nerfing AoE damage quite a lot, and there were rumors that this was based on a new design strategy. I was afraid that any good AoE set would be nerfed, so I went with a single target focused set in Energy Melee.
This was definitely a mistake. AoE was nerfed, but not in a really major way. Energy Melee, on the other hand, was nerfed heavily. It originally had horrible AoE with the best single target damage, but was changed to have horrible AoE to go with horrible single target damage.
Sabaka was not a bad toon. He was very survivable (arguably more so than Knockout Moe) due to Invulnerability, and tanks did not necessarily need to be great damage dealers. But because of Moe, I could not take Sabaka too seriously. The damage disparity was simply absurd. Much like Supermax, Sabaka would need to kill an entire spawn one by one. Meanwhile Moe could jump into the same spawn and two shot everything in 3 seconds. Essentially Sabaka ended up not being played much because I had a much more powerful tanker at my disposal.
I did spend a decent amount of time with him in PvP in Recluses Victory, back when I was into PvP.
Angry Lizard
Science Energy Melee/Regeneration Stalker
Hours Played: 1307
Lizard was the second of my two stalkers powerleveled for PvP, and overall, he was probably considered the better one. He was capable or more damage (although it was harder to deliver due to no range), and he was definitely more survivable. He was definitely known and feared in PvP zones.
He has the most lopsided PvP to PvE hours played ratio of all my toons. Out of his total hours played, the only hours spent on PvE were the ones it took to get him powerleveled, probably 10 or less. The rest was all PvP. After PvP, this guy was permanently shelved. His powersets were simply not good in PvE, as far as I was concerned, and I had no fun playing him there. He ended up being my only pure PvP toon.
Learning the game with my first Supergroup, DHI. We came from an FPS game (Unreal Tournament), so we all already knew each other and were good friends. It was definitely the best SG experience of my CoH playing time. A couple specific memories
Seeing people running around with travel powers and thinking Man, I cant wait until I can be that amazingly cool!
Killing entire maps of Werewolves with one Inferno on my blaster, after my SG-mate tanks would gather them up in a dumpster. During those times I was routinely #1 on the list of Werewolves killed in Peregrine Island.
Getting powerleveled with glowies. There was a point in 2004 where glowies on certain missions gave a ridiculous amount of XP, and you didnt even need to be on the mission map. You could literally be in a different city zone, and you would still get the XP. A couple more specific memories related to this
I was standing in Atlas Park one time while getting PLd like this, and I noticed a friend standing there. I decided to play a trick on him, so I started saying in broadcast chat that he was giving out free XP. People saw me saying this, then saw me getting level after level while just standing there, and eventually there was about 100 people standing around him, begging him for XP. Others were talking about it in other zones, and it was broken up only when a GM arrived. My friend said that he was absolutely flooded with tells.
The glowie powerleveling allowed me to take 5-6 new toons to the mid-30s within a few days. I had become bored with my existing toons, so this brought new life into the game for me. In fact, without it I may have lost interest in the game (because the low levels were pretty boring back then) and left early on.
The broken Kraken farming in the Sewer Trial. Much like the above glowies, the Krakens in the trial gave a broken amount of XP. You could go from the mid-30s to the 40s in just a few hours, at most. And you did this not by getting powerleveled, but by actually doing a difficult trial. It was everything youd want from a trial. It was a challenge to even get to it, since it was buried deep in the sewers. Once there, you had to get on a balanced team and participate in several difficult giant monster fights. The XP was incredible, but it was also fun, because it was truly a challenge. Risk vs. reward was in perfect balance. Which is why I was very disappointed when it was nerfed. Not surprisingly, after the nerf, I never even heard of a single person going down there to do the trial.
Seeing Portal Corp and using the portals for the first time. Obviously it became mundane with time, but the first time it looked and felt really epic.
Hitting level 50 for the first time. I had been playing the game for quite some time and had several very high level toons, but no 50s. It was truly rewarding to finally hit that final plateau for the first time.
PvP. Lots of memories here
Getting in my first PvP arena match, running up to a guy, and Total Focusing him in the face. It felt awesome.
All the incredible times on the test server, before PvP went live.
The true disappointment I felt when it did go live, and looked to be a total failure. On test you could get into a match within minutes, pretty much any time during the day. Once it went live, the arenas were completely empty, even during peak times. This was a result of PvPers being spread out among all the live servers.
Getting invited into a new PvP Supergroup called Tribute, and declining because PvP seemed dead on arrival. Tribute went on to be arguably the most famous PvP SG of all time.
The great times in all the PvP zones, especially Sirens Call. Met a lot of friends and made a lot of enemies here, some of whom ended up as friends. In fact, most of my time playing CoH was spent in the PvP zones.
Playing with JAL (Justice for All League) against the best players and best teams on the Test server, during the games peak of PvP gameplay.
The utter shock of Issue 13. We the players straight up predicted that it would destroy PvP in CoH. We were ignored. It ended up destroying PvP in CoH. It was by far the worst design decision in the history of CoH, and one of the worst in the history of MMO gaming in general.
The original Hamidon raids. The Freedom server desperately tried to beat the raid for a while, without any success. Eventually I decided to check it out. It was definitely an epic feeling to be in the same place with all the other heroes, but the lag was totally unplayable. The best part was seeing Hami one-shot huge groups of people at a time. Eventually these raids became routine, but back then, they seemed like a totally impossible feat.
The first time I used Rain of Arrows and Lightning Rod. Both powers really blew my mind. Archery and Electrical Melee had both been out for some time before I tried them, so the greatness of the powers was well known. They were the reason I decided to play the sets. I knew exactly what to expect. And still, my mind was blown.
Incarnates. After years of the developers being worried about the game becoming too easy and constantly nerfing things to prevent it from happening, it was surprising to see what they did with Incarnates. The Incarnate system truly made everybody much more powerful. Personally I loved it and had no problem with the game becoming easier. After all, it wasnt that hard to begin with. I also greatly enjoyed the Incarnate Trials. They really showed how important experience was in the game. In the first couple days after their release, it was hard to imagine how they could possibly be beaten. A short couple weeks later, it was hard to imagine how you could possibly fail them. A lot of people didnt like the trials, but I loved them. The feeling of fighting alongside three full teams of people was epic. It was harder to stand out, but when you did, you really stood out.
With the end looming, I spent some time writing down my thoughts and memories about my main toons. I understand other people don't care - this is pretty much just for myself. I know from personal experience that it can be rewarding to have something like this. A decade later you can read it, and it will bring back a lot of memories. Nostalgia is fun.
But since I did write all this stuff, I figured I'd share it, and since I played exclusively on Freedom from the beginning, I thought this would be the best place to do it. Anyway, here we go...
@Supermax Global Account
Level 50 Members of Supermax Enterprises, a Supergroup on the Freedom Server
(In Order of Perceived Overall Power in PvE)
Knockout Moe
Science Fiery Aura/Super Strength Tanker
Hours Played: 1164
Moe essentially soloed all the way to level 50. He was a true burn tank back in the day, using Burn almost exclusively. Eventually he got the two main staples of SS (Knockout Blow and Foot Stomp) and became truly powerful. He would impress me by routinely out-damaging my scrappers, while being much more survivable at the same time. He did have a period of weakness while burn was nerfed into uselessness, but when it was changed again, he became a true powerhouse.
I used him a lot in PvP, and he became a recognized and feared name in PvP zones, especially Sirens Call.
Once I retired from PvP, after years of considering Blasta (see below) as my main, I decided that Knockout Moe would now have that title. This was based on the fact that he could do things my other toons couldnt even dream of. So I decided to put all my eggs in one basket, so to speak. I spent pretty much all my influence on IOing this guy, making him even more powerful.
Moe was the one that ended up creating my personal Supergroup (Supermax Enterprises). He was the one that farmed up all the needed prestige and the one that built the Supergroup base from scratch.
In the end, he was my only toon that could solo on +4/x8. Even though I had plenty of other toons, any time I wanted to demonstrate true power and/or feel totally unstoppable, I would go with Moe. He was my one true tankmage.
Blasta
Technology Fire Blast/Energy Manipulation Blaster
Hours Played: 1003*
My very first toon was a Fire/Ice blaster, which was rerolled to AR/Devices, and then rerolled again to Fire/EM. Third time is the charm, as they say. I really fell in love with the combo, and Blasta was born. As almost all my friends were playing scrappers or tanks, I was usually the only blaster. I died more than them and couldnt solo nearly as well as them, but I was always a welcome addition to teams. When they would herd up entire maps of Werewolves, I was the one that would kill them all in one shot with Inferno. After a while I realized that blasters severely underperformed, so Blasta was shelved for quite some time, while I leveled some other toons. But eventually I went back to my only blaster, and he became my very first level 50.
This is when PvP first appeared, and Blasta became my main PvP toon. I did only PvP for many years (literally zero PvE whatsoever), and this whole time I considered him my overall main. He was the only toon I actively played on the test server in competitive PvP matches, and he competed with Ice blasters back when Ice was the clear #1. Eventually Fire became #1, and then he truly blossomed.
With the death of PvP, he once again became a good PvE toon, and he always remained one of my most fun toons to play, but he was simply not quite as powerful as some of my other toons. Issue 24 was about to change that. I designed a new build for him based around the I24 changes, and he was about to become the most powerful he had ever been. It truly saddens me that I never got to play him on Live with his new build. But in my mind, the I24 build is how he will be remembered - without any doubt, the most damaging toon in my arsenal, both in single target and AoE.
* In reality, Blastas hours played is quite a lot more, most likely #1 of all my toons. For a long time I played as part of a Test Server PvP league, where I played only Blasta. Obviously all the hours played on the Test Server did not get recorded.
Killa-Joule
Natural Electrical Melee/Electric Armor Scrapper
Hours Played: 397
Over the course of 2004-2012, I took only two extended breaks from CoH. The second one lasted a few months and was due to me being fed up with the broken state of PvP in the game. When I came back to the game, I decided to simply ignore PvP completely and go back to being a pure PvE player. From then on, I was able to enjoy the game much more than I did previously.
Killa-Joule was the first toon I made upon my return. In fact, he was the first non-PvP toon I had made in many years. He ended up being my second to last 50, and one of my most powerful overall toons. I can still remember my amazement at how incredible Lightning Rod was the first time I used it. This guy had the least endurance problems of any toon I had ever played. He had amazing AoE damage, and contrary to popular belief, the single target damage was also very good.
Because he was created after I had quit PvP, he was never used there, and based on his powersets, he probably wouldnt have been very good at it. Also because hes one of my newest toons, he obviously has a lot less total hours played.
Fastermind
Magic Thugs/Dark Miasma Mastermind
Hours Played: ???*
Fastermind was my very first villain when City of Villains first came out. In fact making a mastermind was pretty much the only reason I became interested in CoV at all. It was the only archetype that was totally unique from anything hero-side. The road to 50 was very long and tedious, spanning over about 7 years. But in the end, this guy became my very last 50. I did not truly enjoy him until the 40s, where he finally started to come into his own. But him at 50 vs. him at 40 was night and day, literally like playing two different toons. In the end, he was definitely capable of some amazing things, things that only Knockout Moe was able to do previously. But being a mastermind, he needed to set up and always be in control of the fight. Any minor setback could quickly snowball into a major problem and eventual death. It was more micro-management than I usually cared for, but the sheer power of the toon made me appreciate him.
*The game shows a completely absurd number of hours played (4792), which has to be a bug. There is absolutely no way that I could have played this guy almost five times more than my oldest and most-played toons. Based on everything else, I can assume that the real time is more along the lines of 1000 hours.
Typical Fortunata
Natural Fortunata & Night Widow
Hours Played: 2235
Fortunata was created and PLd specifically for PvP. She was one of my main PvP toons for quite some time, but eventually I quit PvP and went back to PvE, where she continued to thrive. She went through several iterations, going back and forth between Fortunata and Night Widow builds. At the very end, she settled on a NW build and was capable of very high damage, especially single target, to go along with great survivability.
Because of her PvP strengths, she was used extensively there. Of her total hours played, probably 95% or more was in PvP.
Sir Maxalot
Mutation Fire Control/Radiation Emission Controller
Hours Played: 1974
Maxalot was one of my original toons, created back in 2004. From the beginning, he was very powerful, and I had a lot of fun competing with my close friends Fire/Kin controller. Like my mastermind, Maxalots power was situational, and it took a lot of attention and micromanagement to get the most out of him. Any slipup could turn into death because of his squishiness. But when in control, he was pretty much unstoppable, and he was dominant vs. single targets like AVs.
In PvP he was also very powerful. Although he couldnt do much solo, he was a great addition to any team.
Virtuoso
Natural Broadsword/Regeneration Scrapper
Hours Played: 916
Virtuoso is my oldest toon and could definitely be the oldest BS/Regen on the Freedom server. Unfortunately, he was never quite as powerful as I had hoped, but I got him to 50 and played him regularly anyway. In my eyes he was always overshadowed by Knockout Moe, because not only was Moe more survivable, he could also do more AoE damage. But Virtuoso still held his own, and Head Splitter criticals were always a joy to see. Being Regen, he went through a lot of nerfs, but in the end, he was still very powerful. The Barrier Destiny gave him what he had been missing for many years extra defense and resistance. On top of his regeneration and healing, it made him extremely survivable in most situations.
He was also used extensively in PvP, mostly in Recluses Victory. Due to his regin, he couldnt be bet.
LittleBuddy
Magic Kitetics/Radiation Blast Defender
Hours Played: 298
On my first week of playing CoH, I was in Perez Park and ran into some guy who gave me speed boost. For the first time I experienced what it was like to run around the city like a true super hero. The problem is that it only lasted two minutes. But right away I knew that I wanted to make a Kinetics toon to be able to give my friends the same feeling. For years I considered LittleBuddy second-rate, because he could do very little solo. But eventually I realized his value. Of all my toons, he was probably the best force multiplier on teams. He could get an entire team to the damage cap and keep it there for the duration of a mission. In essence, he could make bad teams good and good teams unstoppable.
He was rarely used in PvP, because I did not enjoy playing pure buff bots, which was all he was capable of. But in PvE, he was a perfect teammate for just about anybody. Issue 24 was about to make him into a powerful soloer as well, with the dependable snipe and nuke being added to his arsenal. Unfortunately, that never happened. But LittleBuddy will still be remembered as my best buffer.
Impale Spammer
Natural Spines/Ninjitsu Stalker
Hours Played: 1705
As mentioned before, at one point I was doing only PvP, and after years of playing only heroes, I decided to try villains as well. I was not interested in PvE at that time, so I decided to get a stalker powerleveled to 50. There were two stalker sets at that time that were considered best: EM and Spines. Because I couldnt decide on one, I chose to get two of them powerleveled at the same time. Impale Spammer was one of them.
Spammer was great in PvP for years and was well-known in all the PvP zones, even the lowbie Bloody Bay. Overall he could do a bit less damage than my other stalker (an EM/Regen), but he was easier to play and could actually be considered somewhat of a ranged toon.
After PvP, I learned to also enjoy him in PvE. He had great AoE damage, and after the buffs to Assassins Strike, he got great single target damage as well. But even though he ended up being a very powerful PvE toon, my best memories with him were definitely in PvP, where he racked up almost all of his total hours played.
Supermax
Science Dark Melee/Super Reflexes Scrapper
Hours Played: 557
Ironically, my namesake toon was actually not one of my most powerful or most favorite. I had two toons named Supermax before. Naturally, I wanted my namesake to be my best toon, but the two previous versions didnt fit the bill and were rerolled. This scrapper was the third try, and even though I realized that he wasnt going to be my best toon, I was simply too tired of rerolling his name, so I stuck with him.
Overall he definitely became a very powerful toon, but the problem was that he was a single target specialist in an AoE game. Unlike practically all of my other toons, Supermax was required to kill every enemy one by one. Especially when teaming, this made him seem weak, because killing one enemy while someone else kills the entire rest of the spawn in the same time well it wasnt too much fun. But he definitely had great single target damage and was great against hard targets like AVs.
Dark Melee was horrible in PvP, so Supermaxs playtime there was very limited.
Phantasmia
Magic Illusion Control/Force Field Controller
Hours Played: 1435
Phantasmia was, unfortunately, one of my weakest toons. She did get to 50 eventually, but it was a slow road. The problem was definitely Force Field, which was always considered a bottom-tier set. Playing her was incredibly safe, but also incredibly slow, and in many cases boring. At level 50, teams rarely needed a lot of extra survivability, but everybody always wanted more offense. And yet Phantasmia could provide only survivability and nothing else.
I did play her a lot in PvP, where her personal force field provided nigh invincibility, but in PvE, after hitting 50, she went untouched for years at a time.
Sabaka
Natural Invulnerability/Energy Melee Tanker
Hours Played: 686
Sabaka was my second attempt at a tanker, after Knockout Moe. At that time, the game developers seemed to be nerfing AoE damage quite a lot, and there were rumors that this was based on a new design strategy. I was afraid that any good AoE set would be nerfed, so I went with a single target focused set in Energy Melee.
This was definitely a mistake. AoE was nerfed, but not in a really major way. Energy Melee, on the other hand, was nerfed heavily. It originally had horrible AoE with the best single target damage, but was changed to have horrible AoE to go with horrible single target damage.
Sabaka was not a bad toon. He was very survivable (arguably more so than Knockout Moe) due to Invulnerability, and tanks did not necessarily need to be great damage dealers. But because of Moe, I could not take Sabaka too seriously. The damage disparity was simply absurd. Much like Supermax, Sabaka would need to kill an entire spawn one by one. Meanwhile Moe could jump into the same spawn and two shot everything in 3 seconds. Essentially Sabaka ended up not being played much because I had a much more powerful tanker at my disposal.
I did spend a decent amount of time with him in PvP in Recluses Victory, back when I was into PvP.
Angry Lizard
Science Energy Melee/Regeneration Stalker
Hours Played: 1307
Lizard was the second of my two stalkers powerleveled for PvP, and overall, he was probably considered the better one. He was capable or more damage (although it was harder to deliver due to no range), and he was definitely more survivable. He was definitely known and feared in PvP zones.
He has the most lopsided PvP to PvE hours played ratio of all my toons. Out of his total hours played, the only hours spent on PvE were the ones it took to get him powerleveled, probably 10 or less. The rest was all PvP. After PvP, this guy was permanently shelved. His powersets were simply not good in PvE, as far as I was concerned, and I had no fun playing him there. He ended up being my only pure PvP toon.
Non-50s
Blass Torr (Level 41 Technology Archery/Electricity Manipulation Blaster)
Street Energy (Level 40 Magic Street Justice/Energy Aura Brute)
DominHaitian (Level 35 Natural Earth Control/Fiery Assault Dominator)
H3410R (Level 34 Magic Ice Control/Empathy Controller)
War Mayce (Level 32 Magic War Mace/Shield Defense Scrapper)
Blizzard Time (Level 27 Magic Ice Blast/Time Manipulation Corruptor)
Dominhator (Level 24 Magic Plant Control/Dark Assault Dominator)
Tenker (Level 21 Mutation Willpower/Titan Weapons Tanker)
Sonicold (Level 17 Science Cold Domination/Sonic Attack Defender)
Random Memories
Learning the game with my first Supergroup, DHI. We came from an FPS game (Unreal Tournament), so we all already knew each other and were good friends. It was definitely the best SG experience of my CoH playing time. A couple specific memories
Seeing people running around with travel powers and thinking Man, I cant wait until I can be that amazingly cool!
Killing entire maps of Werewolves with one Inferno on my blaster, after my SG-mate tanks would gather them up in a dumpster. During those times I was routinely #1 on the list of Werewolves killed in Peregrine Island.
Getting powerleveled with glowies. There was a point in 2004 where glowies on certain missions gave a ridiculous amount of XP, and you didnt even need to be on the mission map. You could literally be in a different city zone, and you would still get the XP. A couple more specific memories related to this
I was standing in Atlas Park one time while getting PLd like this, and I noticed a friend standing there. I decided to play a trick on him, so I started saying in broadcast chat that he was giving out free XP. People saw me saying this, then saw me getting level after level while just standing there, and eventually there was about 100 people standing around him, begging him for XP. Others were talking about it in other zones, and it was broken up only when a GM arrived. My friend said that he was absolutely flooded with tells.
The glowie powerleveling allowed me to take 5-6 new toons to the mid-30s within a few days. I had become bored with my existing toons, so this brought new life into the game for me. In fact, without it I may have lost interest in the game (because the low levels were pretty boring back then) and left early on.
The broken Kraken farming in the Sewer Trial. Much like the above glowies, the Krakens in the trial gave a broken amount of XP. You could go from the mid-30s to the 40s in just a few hours, at most. And you did this not by getting powerleveled, but by actually doing a difficult trial. It was everything youd want from a trial. It was a challenge to even get to it, since it was buried deep in the sewers. Once there, you had to get on a balanced team and participate in several difficult giant monster fights. The XP was incredible, but it was also fun, because it was truly a challenge. Risk vs. reward was in perfect balance. Which is why I was very disappointed when it was nerfed. Not surprisingly, after the nerf, I never even heard of a single person going down there to do the trial.
Seeing Portal Corp and using the portals for the first time. Obviously it became mundane with time, but the first time it looked and felt really epic.
Hitting level 50 for the first time. I had been playing the game for quite some time and had several very high level toons, but no 50s. It was truly rewarding to finally hit that final plateau for the first time.
PvP. Lots of memories here
Getting in my first PvP arena match, running up to a guy, and Total Focusing him in the face. It felt awesome.
All the incredible times on the test server, before PvP went live.
The true disappointment I felt when it did go live, and looked to be a total failure. On test you could get into a match within minutes, pretty much any time during the day. Once it went live, the arenas were completely empty, even during peak times. This was a result of PvPers being spread out among all the live servers.
Getting invited into a new PvP Supergroup called Tribute, and declining because PvP seemed dead on arrival. Tribute went on to be arguably the most famous PvP SG of all time.
The great times in all the PvP zones, especially Sirens Call. Met a lot of friends and made a lot of enemies here, some of whom ended up as friends. In fact, most of my time playing CoH was spent in the PvP zones.
Playing with JAL (Justice for All League) against the best players and best teams on the Test server, during the games peak of PvP gameplay.
The utter shock of Issue 13. We the players straight up predicted that it would destroy PvP in CoH. We were ignored. It ended up destroying PvP in CoH. It was by far the worst design decision in the history of CoH, and one of the worst in the history of MMO gaming in general.
The original Hamidon raids. The Freedom server desperately tried to beat the raid for a while, without any success. Eventually I decided to check it out. It was definitely an epic feeling to be in the same place with all the other heroes, but the lag was totally unplayable. The best part was seeing Hami one-shot huge groups of people at a time. Eventually these raids became routine, but back then, they seemed like a totally impossible feat.
The first time I used Rain of Arrows and Lightning Rod. Both powers really blew my mind. Archery and Electrical Melee had both been out for some time before I tried them, so the greatness of the powers was well known. They were the reason I decided to play the sets. I knew exactly what to expect. And still, my mind was blown.
Incarnates. After years of the developers being worried about the game becoming too easy and constantly nerfing things to prevent it from happening, it was surprising to see what they did with Incarnates. The Incarnate system truly made everybody much more powerful. Personally I loved it and had no problem with the game becoming easier. After all, it wasnt that hard to begin with. I also greatly enjoyed the Incarnate Trials. They really showed how important experience was in the game. In the first couple days after their release, it was hard to imagine how they could possibly be beaten. A short couple weeks later, it was hard to imagine how you could possibly fail them. A lot of people didnt like the trials, but I loved them. The feeling of fighting alongside three full teams of people was epic. It was harder to stand out, but when you did, you really stood out.