Category: Character Design

Finished up the second Shadow Shard TF this evening, continued from Thursday. About half the missions, running about 5 hours. Hang Time, Noelle Frost, Shock.Therapy, War Bones, Sword of Asgard, Amorpha, and Psi-clone.
The final AV battle, Rudaludarulaluk, or whatever his name is (Rudalak), was just what it should be — tough, white-knuckly, but doable. We zapped most of the near minions, went in, pounded on Rudi for a while, inadvertently drew the far minions, nearly all died, rezzed up, zapped the minions, fought Rudi some more, had Rudi come into the outer room, fought Rudi still some more, and, finally, long-last, beat the SOB.
PC face-planted four or five or six times — ended up 86k in debt (which, of course, doesn’t mean all that much right now). At that, everyone else did close to likewise. Lowest death count was probably Shock, since she tended to wisely stay way back.
The pic at the right is Rudalak. From the ground (where PC was, flat on his back), looking up over the head of War Bones, who just Taunted the god. Yes, he is that tall. Yes, he stomps like he is.
I was able to confirm, over the afternoon that in mass-hold situations (esp. something nice and visible like Noelle’s ice stuff), Psionic Tornado is great fun. A nice AoE damage power, with Containment.
Much fun.

It’s amazing to think that the majority of the Hostess Heroes are up in the low 20s now — Ho Ho just dinged 22 last night. I’m getting contacts in IP and Talos and the Striga arc just opened up to me (probably would have been available sooner, but I’ve been lax in keeping up with my contacts).
I remember when we were all 1st level noobs, barely able to lift our weapons without collapsing in a wheeze. And, to that end, let me once again say that I have never had a character so transformed by Stamina as Ho Ho. Endurance drain is the least of her worries, even with all her toggles on and chopping for all she’s worth.
Indeed, I’m really pleased by how she’s doing, tank-wise. Lacking Taunt (which I just picked up, thank God), she was basically jumping into the biggest mob and letting her Invincible bite-me aura keep them locked down. Then she’d whale on the nastiest boss/lieut around, keeping him seriously locked down until the others could clean out the rest of the crew. Between Dull Pain and a few green chicklets, she could stay on her feet against a flock of orange and reds, no problem.
It actually worked great — on a full team of 8 last night we had a couple of deaths, but nothing systemic. I’m sure we’re cruising for serious trouble, but last night demonstrated how formidable a bunch of snacks we truly are.

Played some Devil’s Food characters on Sunday afternoon, in honor of Lorne visiting. L-R Chicken Bone (Lorne), Tofutti (Jackie), Maitre D’mon (Necro MM, me), Brussels Sprout (Margie). Much fun. I particularly enjoyed Maitre D’mon, “The Headwaiter from Hell,” whose zombies (Late Party and Bad Tipper) are, complete with vomit, past customers he just couldn’t let go of …
Avo also ran with us for a bit as Swedish Meatball Meat Ball. Well-balanced team, and we basically cleared out Mercy Island and got up to 8.
SMB and I, in turn, had played some on Friday when I was running Fugu Fish (Spines Stalker, of course). Again, good team, and it was fun doing CoV that way. Glad we’ve finally got some Devil’s Food (CoV equivalent to Hostess Heroes) action put together. Bon apetit!

So, now that I have Psi-clone at 50 … what now?

• 50 – Psi-clone: I expect, inevitably, that playtime with him will drop down some. I do still have some “story” to tell about him, but no realistic reason to think it will happen any more coherently than it has pre-50.
  Did a bunch of scrambling to respec him a couple of times over the weekend. I was singularly unimpressed by the Flash+Psychic Tornado combo — but, then, we were going against Praetorian Robots, and so any sort of psychic power is of dubious use. We’ll see.

• 31 – Velvet Jones: Still regularly appearing during Phalanx Prestige Days. With the new I7 Defense bits, it may be that P-siren is more viable as a bubbler, in which case she might get more play. Otherwise, she’s still around as my “low 30s” toon.
• 27 – Lynn Calodo: Just transferred her over into the Boomtown Saints, which should be interesting. Haven’t been giving her a lot of play lately; I should change that.
• 27 – Torchielle: Current high-rotation toon. Was surprised to discover the other day that fire blasters are, any more, rare birds. I like the power set a lot. Awaiting I7 for a freespec to change to Fly. Though I suppose she could now join into the TV respec. Might be fun.
  She’s currently in an online story — which I’m not handling well, it seeming to drop off the bottom of my priority list way too often.

• 21 – Fazenda: Pulled her out for the first time the other day, and had a lot of fun. Need to play her more.
• 20 – Ho Ho: Stamina! Oh, blessed art thou among powers! Getting regular Monday play, and enjoying every bit of it. Still feels “slow” given the low attack rates on Axe, but playing quite solid beyond that. Made a fun Golden Age “mannish” costume for her for the 2nd Anniversary.
• 16 – Mr. Azure: Needs more playtime. He and the Mrs. are in sort of a slump at the moment.
• 14 – Amethyst Crown: Top candidate for dropping in favor of a new Squid. A solid contender, but Margie’s stolen her AT thunder with Blue Point, and I have plenty of other solo toons.
• 14 – Honor the Flag: Just dinged 14, so she has (ta-daaah!) a travel power, Fly. Huzzah. Still sucking wind from endurance, but a good “let’s just run out to the Hollows and have fun” character. Still gets complements on the uniform.
• 10 – Big Lungs: Second in line to be dropped, though I like her appearance.
• 09 – Lady Zebra: Getting a fair amount of playtime. Still low enough that she’s a bit of a struggle. Like the powers, like the look, not impressed by the SG she’s gotten hooked up with.
• 09 – Al McGordo: I really like him. Never play him. Rats.
• 08 – Fr. Frank: Third on the list of drop candidates. No particular reason, just not playing him.
• 17 – Mister Thorne: Lost his leadership role due to lack of playtime. Got it back. Just need to put his appearance on a schedule. Still not happy with the powers. Re-roll?
• 16 – Mister Ravenous: Gotten some playtime in the last few weeks. Enjoy brutes. Maybe will do more now in my copious free time.
• 11 – Eliza Dee: Sadly neglected. A pity, because I like her.

So, beyond the above status, what’s next? Kheldians, of course. I need to do some reading/ research, and there’s still the question of whether we want to run a two-squid team or not; yes, because that would make it easier for us both to start from scratch; no, because we could then hook them up with one of our at-loose-ends tunes (e.g., Al McGordo). Also need to ponder doing “experimental” squids first, to get the hang of the AT. To be pondered.

Spent the first half of last evening signing in all my active and semi-active and proto-active toons on to get the 4/28 costume tokens. Will probably do the same today to get the 4/29 (re)costume tokens.
Didn’t do much, costuming-wise. I already had a fine Golden Age costume for Psi-clone (and a rather less lovely Silver Age one), and the only other one I had to do was Ho Ho, for Monday. Alas, women’s top styles don’t have much in the way of “normal” clothes, so I went for the mannish look — man’s dress shirt and tie, black jodhpurs tucked into stiletto black boots. Actually looks pretty nice. Unkinked her hair, of course, into a Josephine Baker-style bob.
It’s hard creating a stereotype from a stereotype, but at least it was something.
Flew over to the Pocket D party — main — to see what was happening. What was happening was, evidently, a lot of people who hadn’t done anything to their costumes standing around and bitching that the Devs weren’t there, hadn’t been there, had been there and gone, and dude, where was their costume piece / new mishes / jetpacks / rebate check?
Feh.
Eventually ran off and did some Fazenda/Araware gameplay. Ironic, since Fazenda’s already close to being Golden/Silver Age in her costuming (female stage magician in top had … a visual that hasn’t changed much over the decades). Actually, it worked pretty well — there are some distinct similarities to the Hildy/Torchy combo — PBAoE combat grinder gathering up mooks while the blaster blasts them — except that (a) Araware’s an empathy-backed scrapper, not a tanker, and (b) Fazenda’s blasts are single-target, not AoE.
Fun times. May do them some more.

Hostess Heroes tonight. Kitten was dawdling and downstairs as we started, and as we were tied into the final Doctor Vahzilok mish, we couldn’t take the time off to get here up into bed.
So she instead ran back and forth between our computers whenever she’d spot a purple mob. “Purple! There’s a purple there! Look out! He’s purple!”
Very … um … helpful.

The picture shows (L-R) the HH team: Twinkie Kid, Bear Claws, J A W Breaker, Princess Peep, Ginger.Snap, Ho Ho, Otter-Pop. and Ring.Ding. Not shown, alas, is Capt. Funyun, who mapserved (though not before getting victory credit and the SO).
Ho Ho and Princess Peep both dinged 18 over the course of the evening. Invincibility for me, some sort of PBAOE radiation debuffer for Peep. Invincibility, as I demonstrated on the next mish, needs a little warning label: “INVINCIBILITY: Note, does not convey actual Invincibility” — though it’s certainly a fine defensive power.
Need to get taunt. Currnetly slated for 22 (20, of course, is the desperately-needed Stamina).
I’ll be out next go-around (somewhere over the Atlantic, in fact). Week after that: Synapse (1, 2, 3).

Ran with Ho Ho and Princess Peep last night, getting both to 16 and beyond.
I’ve decided, in retrospect, that I really ought to have gone for Taunt — the “Bite Me” aura is good with Invuln, but Axe is way too slow for punchvoke. Since my job is, often as not, trying to hold/control aggro for the biggest nasties (followed by standing up to same), not having Taunt is a problem.
Alas, I’m in the High Teens Rut (appropriate for Ho Ho), so this time I got Health (leading to the desperately needed Stamina at 20), and next time I have to get Invincible. Then Stamina. At 22, I start backfilling some of the Resists, but I’ll reevaluate at that time to see if I need to get Taunt (since the best Taunt is, of course, staying on your feet).
Until then, guess I just have to keep wiggling the butt and asking to be bitten.
Gameplay went pretty well — were in some nasty Lost mishes, but I (barely!) managed to stay on my feet. Unyielding rocks vs. Aberrents — never got mezzed once, and that was a good thing.

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Afterwards, we pulled out PC/A to finish our (4th) costume mission slot. That should get us an added free costume token today, when the /cov fix goes in. Margie went on to do something similar for P-Siren and Araware.

Current status of my various toons:

• 49 – Psi-clone: Continues the slow rise to 50. We’re playing him and Amorpha around 3 days a week, interfered with by fatigue, travel, and other commitments. We’re still making steady progress, though, carving through AVs-as-Elite Bosses. I do want to respec him, though — the Mental Blast from the Mind Mastery Epic Pool has been pretty wussy. I can do better. I also, once I7 hits, want to do something fun costume-wise.
  (Hmmm. Just heard from Margie on something about that. More in another post.)

• 31 – Velvet Jones: Hrm. When’s Phalanx Prestige Day? Hrm.
• 27 – Lynn Calodo: My ongoing solo character (though I’ve ended up on a few teams and conversations with various Shrike alts). She’s still deep in Striga territory, but doing quite nicely on Heroic, thanks much. As a solo character, not sure what, if anything, I’m going to do regarding TFs. Or, for that matter, respecs, though I don’t have anything I want to respec her to/away from.
• 26 – Torchielle: I can snipe! Yay! Having continue god-awful-area-damage fun with Hildegard. I find working with them to be relaxing.
  Did a costume change on her, in conjunction with getting her a cape. That meant changing her hairstyle, which was only partially successful.
  I am looking forward to a respec, though — I want to change her over to Fly from SJ. I think it makes sense for her, given her background, and I’m coming to decide that I like the flexibility of Fly.

• 21 – Fazenda: Still need to show off my new “illegal” costume. The next Knight Night should be … probably while I’m on a business trip next week. Urg.
• 15 – Ho Ho: Missed out on her last week. Looking forward to playing with her this week.
• Mr. Azure, Amethyst Crown, Honor the Flag, Big Lungs, Al McGordo, Fr. Frank: Nada. I’ve been tempted to do a bit of soloing with Honor, but went with Lynn instead. And I’m looking forward to getting back to the Azures in the future.
• Mister Thorne, Mister Ravenous, Eliza Dee: Again, sadly, nada. Maybe a bit more on the CoV side once we’re done with PC/A’s rise to the top.

Got on a little late last night with Ho Ho and Princess Peep, but still had plenty of fun — lots of pre-Frostfire Hollows mishes (and I suspect that next Monday will be Frostfire-a-Go-Go, over and over again).
Both of us dinged 12, which let me put another attack into my chain (rather than Taunt — the group is such that Taunting doesn’t seem as necessary or useful).
Battle-axe is so freaking slow (if powerful) that it’s occasionally frustrating, but I’m not going to do Hasten because I’m already sucking air endurance-wise.
Nice to be able to run through the (northern) Hollows with increasingly less concern about the mobs there. Cannot wait for a travel power, though.

Current status on characters:

• 48 – Psi-clone: Very light play over the last week. Played around with the Elite Boss downgrade for small groups, which worked pretty well. HeroStats dithered a lot, but we’re about 19h from levelling to 49, which means we really should spend more time with PC/A.
  Which is part of the problem at the moment — I’m feeling like we should play PC/A, less that I want to play PC/A. Harrumph. Not sure what’s going on there.
  Well, maybe I do — part of it is resenting the sense that, now that I’m almost 50, I need to go to the extra effort to get “closure” with him. And part of it is that, presently, I’m having a lot more fun punching things (see Lynn, Honor, Mr. Azure, Mr. Ravenous …).
  Brought him in for the Longbow Elite PvP soiree, in which I had reestablished to me that PC works a lot better in a support role than as a front-line combatant (which, effectively, everyone is in the PvP zone). I also was reminded how Spines has a -Fly on it, which kinda sucks when you’re fighting a Spines Scrapper in PvP and depend upon Fly to get away (or stay out of reach). Oh, and that Phred, by tagging along behind me, provides a good pointer for folks who can’t see me with invis. Feh.
  Like the person he resembles, Psi-clone works better in a controlled, organized, minimal-surprises situation.

• 31 – Velvet Jones: No activity. Missed a Phalanx Prestige day in there (need to talk to the management about posting reminders on the boards).
• 23 – Lynn Calodo: Got a lot of action with her. She’s working out well in PUGs (which there seem to be a plethora of in Striga), but she’s also pretty decent solo. Siphon Life is fun.
  Not much action in the Nexus Program at the moment, but at least it gets me into CC.

• 22 – Torchielle: No activity, aside from RP on the “Have You Been Saved” forum story (and not much of that, given my schedule).
• 17 – Fazenda: Mmmmm. Minor action. Need to play more. When’s the next Knight Night?
• 16 – Mr. Azure: Did some playing over the past few weeks. Good scrappery goodness with miniscule endurance drain. And, always, fun to play.
• 14 – Amethyst Crown: No activity. At the top of the “slot on Champion that can be freed up” list.
• 12 – Honor the Flag: Not much action over the last week, but still having fun with her. Surprised I haven’t had more PUG invites — have spent several periods standing around waiting for something (with minimal desire to tank my way through missions solo).
• 11 – Ho Ho: Endurance, and the speed of the attach chain, remain problems, but still fun to play.
• 10 – Big Lungs: No activity. Second on the list to drop.
• 09 – Al McGordo: No activity. Would like to get back on with him, but not feeling like playing someone that low level right now.
• 08 – Fr. Frank: No activity.
• 17 – Mister Thorne: No activity. Not much anticipated. Bleah.
• 15 – Mister Ravenous: Brutish goodness. With Charity keeping him healed and buffed, he’s a big, furry, well-dressed juggernaut. I just wish we had more folks to RP with. On the other hand, at 15 he’s now Strike Force-enabled, so maybe we can get an SF going soon.
• 11 – Eliza Dee: No activity. I like her. I want to play with her. Hard to justify when I have another brute I’m levelling up.