Author: admin

Hard to beat the study in contrasts of Friday night vs Saturday afternoon/evening.
Friday we were running the Transcendence Trial with the Storm Knights, bringing in Araware and Fazenda. Doyce (Pummelcite) was organizing it all, and it went off like clockwork.
And just about as interestingly.
Jackie had a character to teleport us through the Troll Tunnels, then Invis/Tport us into position at the obelisks. Touch, glow, and then tport past the central chamber up to where Koago was waiting. Wham, bam, XP ma’am.
I think it took us 30 minutes. Maybe 45. It went flawlessly, save for a single instance when Pummelcite ran too far out of a side tunnel and aggroed some baddies and I ended up taking a lava nap. That was in the second go-thru, when we brought in Mr. and Mrs. Azure.
The irony is, it went so perfectly it didn’t feel all that satisfying. Fazenda, though only two or three pips from 16, didn’t level. Mr. A. did, but only afterwards in the Troll Tunnels (Pummelcite was just short, too, so we did a little hunting). But there was very little challenge, very little suspence or feeling of danger. It was like shooting Koago in a barrel.
It’s hard to complain about success, and God knows I’ve been in enough Transcendence Trials that failed to not want to repeat that experience, either. But somewhere in the middle, struggling against all odds to succeed —
— which brings us to Saturday. The Virgil Tarikoss Strike Force, the first (15-20) SF in CoV, as hosted by the Consortium of Injustice.
(And let me just say I’m really jazzed by how the CoI has “taken off” — we’ve been seeing several characters at any given time running in the SG, and we were at around a dozen when I signed on this afternoon. Great group.)
The roster for the SF was Mister Thorne, Undone, Zot, Shadowslip, Alpha-Omega, Mastadon Rex, and Livid. Seven is a lot for a TF, but we all wanted to do it, so, what the heck. We also had some odd level problems — half the group was RSKed down to 20, and they were SKing the other half up to 19. We were stuck with a rotating lowbie who would not be SKed.
Strike Force “StrikeForceName” (how inspirational) had problems from the start. We were going up against, constantly, from my perspective, reds and purples, with occasional orange minions.
We died. And died. And died some more. The Light Brigade had nothing on us. We beat a path through the ether between the Cap hospital and VT’s portal. It was … brutal. I was in debt for almost the entire TF, though I still managed to level to 16. It took us six, painful, agonizing, multiple-deathed hours.
Things got worse when Livid’s compute problems finally booted the player/character mid-way through. Livid’s connectivity had been a real bear for most of the game (which made me, as her sidekick, more than a bit vulnerable). When Livid finally vanished, it meant that we were really imbalanced, and two of the low-levels were perma-gimped.
Worse, I had inadvertently left myself at the middle reputation level, which didn’t help things any (though it’s still, I think, a nasty, nasty slog).
The final mish, against first Infernal and then the ultimate bad guy, was no worse or better than anything else, except that there was only a single bad guy who was killing us in droves, rather than a horde of purples and reds.
Infernal was actually a lot worse than the final opponent, who was powerful, but who went down far more easily.
Hell of a group of players, though. Whether gimped or taking grievous damage or getting slammed to the hospital again and again, everyone hung in there. Nobody suggested we quit. Everyone (except those technically incapable of doing so) made it through to the end. We were a Band of Brothers, Normandy Beach-style. No weak links, nobody who was constantly messing up or causing us problems. It was just a bloody, bloody slog.
And we made it.
Bravo.
Now, let’s never do that again, either.

BD needed help with a PB mission (the Psychic Clockwork King), so Psi-clone and Amorpha joined Puck Bunny, Noelle Frost, Shock.Therapy, and Kinetica (the latter 50s exemplared down to our 41-42 level) at Portal Corp.
A pretty fun mission. There were three controllers, a bushel of pets, one defender, one blaster, one scrapper. That meant Amorpha took point. Invis. from me kept us relatively stealthy going between groups, and we have very little trouble with them (except for Kinetica, who was prone to being killed by anyone she failed to nuke). Between Shock and myself, folks stayed buffed and healed. Pretty straightforward. The PCK went down in just a few minutes.
After we cleared the rest of the map and headed back, Noelle had to leave, so we headed on to a Crey mish that PB had. Things were a bit dicier there — a massive number of Crey tanks, and a good sprinkling of Paragon Protectors. The groups were large enough, and close enough together, that we ran into problems, including Kin going down a few times, my going down at least once, and a TPK when we inadvertently aggroed a veritable flock of Crey tanks.
I probably shouldn’t have brought out Phred, in retrospect — some good added firepower, but he triggered melees before we were ready more than once. My bad (and probably the most egregious tactical blundering of the evening).
Still, ended the mish out of debt and the evening a couple of pips higher than I’d been, so it was all good. And it was good to team up, too. I love duoing with Margie (she’s an excellent player and partner), and soloing can be some fun, but there’s enjoyment in team-ups that I’ve missed of late — more chaos, more voices, more chances for things to go wrong and for things to go right. And when it’s all good players (like the team we were on), it’s even more fun.
I’m looking forward to the TF this weekend, and there’s another team mission that Araware and Fazenda might be going on shortly, too. Should be fun.

Hit 41 with Amorpha and Psi-clone (and at about 2 a.m.), huzzah. Ran our first PI mission, dealt with Malta ambushers, dealt with Knives of Artemis, etc.
Actually, the Malta bit was amusing (in a “My God, we’re all going to die” way). We’d just finished doing some mission that was likely to torque the Malta off. We split up — I went to Talos to shop, A. went to Skyway.
“Huh. Ambush. Ow!”
So I began slowly flying that direction. She was at a store, and had ducked inside — but felt honor-bound to do something about it when she was healed because there were others outside dealing with her mess.
So I’m flying back over Skyway, slowly, and I can see her health indicator going up and down, and hear crashes and explosions and such from her monitors —
— and wham! red numbers roll up on me, too, and I toppled to the ground. Ouch.
Heal. Look. Nobody’s around. Fly to Amorpha, get there just as she wraps up the last of them.
Except, clearly, more are coming — I’d overflown them (nothing native to Skyway would be likely to shoot at me, let alone do that much damage).
So we prepped and waited, and here they came down the way, and before I could do much here comes the first wave of missiles …
Ouch.
Then the second wave.
Ouch.
And I’m staggering for the door to the store. Get inside. Heal. Rest. Explosions from Margie’s monitor. “I have the Titan. I have the Sapper.”
Stagger back out. Turn. Blind. Heal.
Whoosh.
Yeah. That was exciting. Now, who was the idiot who suggested that Malta story arcs for the 40-45 range might be fun?
For what it’s worth, Margie’s already decided she dislikes the Knives more. Yes, they see right through our Invis. (and go Invis. themselves), and they use those frelling caltrops with gay abandon. That said, they blind and turn as easily as anyone else, and I can Fly over the caltrops (though fighting at a ruinous Endurance rate), so I can think of far worse opponents.
That gameplay started later in the evening. During most of the day, we were running Mister Thorne and Undone, either by ourselves or with some of the other CoI, which was fun. Hit 14 with both of them so we have (huzzah!) travel powers (Fly and Tport, respectively, and are being made painfully reaware of just how Endurance-sucking both of them can be at the beginning) … 🙂

Finally wrapped up the Terra Conspiracy story arc last night, complete with AV, with Psi-clone and Amorpha. That part went swimmingly — I buffed up A. (who then could concentrate on the AV), then flooded Terra’s court with pets (including my Wolf Whistle), while using some of my other temp powers to shrug off the occasoinal nastygram. Once the riff-raff were cleared out, we were all able to concentrate ton Terra — who packed a big punch, but steadily went down. Boo-yah.
Less pleasant was a bit earlier, when we exited a Rikti mission and got ambushed outside. They weren’t anything we couldn’t handle, but I’d taken a bunch of damage before I realized what was going on, then started getting mezzed faster than I could break free and pop greens and heal myself and fend of the bad guys and get away and … with the mess aided and abetted by drones in the distance and a Rikti with a honking big blade in the foreground.
Down I went. Got back from hospital in time to help A. with the mopping up (she did fine, thank you very much). Rrg. That’ll teach me to tempt the CoH Gods.
Still, we finished a major arc, killed an AV, and I’m over half-way to 41 (A. is, of course, a bit further). And we’re beginning to get contacts in … (duh-duh-DUUUUUUUUHHHHH …) Peregrine Island. Eep!

I was in the middle of complaining bitterly that Eliza Dee had just gotten taken down in the middle of a combat with the final two orange bosses at the end of the mission, largely because my cursor click on a heal had (typically) failed …
When Margie, who was soloing with Hildegard went down in her last encounter in the mission …
… as the bad guy went down …
… and she got taken out …
… by the last
… couple of pips of caltrops damage.
She got the brownie.

Took Psi-clone and Amorpha out last night. We’ve determined that, no, shared mission completion hasn’t rolled out to CoH yet (and won’t until Newspaper Technology comes over, too), so we’re just proceeding with the story arcs we have, and t’heck with it.
The current arcs we’re on are … even on Invincible … not horribly challenging. Devouring Earth (with, whichout emitters, are even more pathetic). Council. Crey. Even the Rikti. We’re just rolling through them, and are even getting a bit lazy — not paying close attention to Invis. dropping, having Phred the Phantasm out all the time, etc. XP are decent, but we’re plowing through jello here, chewing through a pip or two nightly.
Heck, we had Zazi along with us last night for part of the adventure, and she didn’t have problems (SKed) either.
Not that I’m complaining too much about not dying all the time, mind you …

Both Amorpha and Psi-clone dinged 40 this evening. Huzzah!
In completely unrelated news, I set up the CoJ so that anyone could pay rent for the base. Since it has to be paid at City Hall in Atlas, doing it with some lower level characters might make more sense.