Blog of Heroes

Margie and I tend to duo a lot, which is tremendous fun (indeed, it’s a great thing we do together, as opposed to a lot of other hobbies we do in parallel). Here are the combos:

1. Velvet (21) and P-Siren (21) – Tank and Defender. Our “elder statesmen” and Freedom Phalanx toons. Beginning to break into the IP/Talos area.
2. Psi-clone (18) and Amorpha (18) – Controller and Scrapper. Current faves to run together. Co-leaders (as Peppermint Patty and Marcy) of the Consortium.
3. Honeygun (15) and Kazima (15) – Blaster and Scrapper. Perennial favorites at the Cavern of Transcendence. Also fun, though we run into aggro problems (of both our making).
4. Torchielle (15) and TT (13) – Blaster and Tank. This is one where Margie should be doing soloing to get TT up to level (Torchy got a bonus running through the one successful Transcendence trial.)
5. Truly Unstable (9) and Carilian (9) – Defender and Controller. Our slowest group, but still fun to play (and hard to stop).
6. OFFICER (8) and Deep Dark Earth (8) – Scrapper and Controller. A strong pair as well. I enjoyed running them last night.

That leaves Selene (Scrapper 9) and Sister Chinook (Controller 8) as currently “unattached” from my stable, and Hot Shotz (Blaster 10) and K-Two (Scrapper 6) in Margie’s. Which means those are the folks who, when we have a chance, we should be soloing with — or else the slots that, come Issue 4, we’ll be filling with new people.
UPDATE: It’s worth noting that we often add some excitement to our duos by inviting in one of BD’s characters to make it a threesome. Variety is, after all, the spice of life …

After the trial, Margie and I did some “palate-cleansing” by running our lowbies, OFFICER and Deep Dark Earth.
While running about Kings Row (and being discoed every few minutes, dagnabbit), we ran into one of of the “Police Drone” SG. He ran over, greeted us, then gave me 90K influence. Which, for a 7th level toon, is no small sum. (He gave DDE the same, too, which was gracious.)
Ran into another one of them a while later at Atlas Park, but he only said hi.
Dinged up with OFFICER (DDE did, too) to 8, which led me to discover I’d not done a Hero Planner setup for him yet. Pulled out the guide I’ve been using as an inspiration (which feels a bit offense-heavy, but, heck, he is a scrapper), got that set up, and took on another attack. Might do some more with him over this week, though it’s not like I don’t have other active alts that need game time.

Once more into the Caverns, dear friend …
Solid team, this time, on the Cavern of Transcendence trial, and, though we didn’t make it, I felt more irked than crushed about it.

• Liberty Bill and Tanker-belle as the tanks, Kazima as the scrapper. Brave, well-focused, solid aggro-pullers.
• Dubh Bas and Darkness Heals and Darkthorne as the controllers and defenders. Solid support. Excellent heals. Good TP/recall tactics.
• Honeygun and Avocet as blasters. Good pulls and well-targeted blasts.

In point of fact, we did everything pretty well. We had a friend (Hang Time) clear the troll tunnels on the way in. We pulled small groups. We never let the melee spill over into an adjoining mob. We stayed healed up, the mobs were controlled, nearly everything was perfect. And the proof of that was a minimum (two) of deaths, even with the ultimate failure.
(As a point of info, when the time runs out, you get booted back out into the Troll Tunnels, and a nasty read “Mission Failed” sign comes up.)
So, why did we fail? We ran out of time. We had seven obelisks covered, and Dubh was trying to get to the last when the last seconds ticked off.
Why did we take too long?

1. Too many mobs. All but one of the tunnels was occupied, which is something of a crap shoot. But that dragged the whole mission out way too long, especially given the next point.
2. We were — well, not dawdling, but also not snappy in moving from mob to mob in the main cavern. That meant our Endurance was all back up, but it also burned valuable time, especially given the previous point. This wasn’t helped by some excellent single-mob pulls by DH, which was a lot safer but, as it turned out, a lot slower. (The irony was that both LB and HG advised caution and slow-steadiness as we entered the Cavern, given that previous problems have come from going too fast and too rashly.)
3. We were not sufficiently methodical in clearing the caverns — we started with L2, then L1, then R1 — which is where I stayed, so I didn’t get a good sense of where the group went from there. But by the time the last person — Dubh — was trying to get into a tunnel, there was confusion over which tunnel to go into.

So, since there will be a next time — everyone was unanimous on that, though grimly exultant that our failure had not been disastrous (as the last one was), what were the lessons learned?

1. Pick up the pace a little in the main cavern. Once a mob is cleared, make sure of heals and then move right on to the next. We had sufficient strength that, even if some folks had been forced to drop mid-battle from endurance, it wouldn’t have been critical.
2. Strength in numbers. The side tunnels will, over time, repop. To avoid that, we left folks in tunnels as we went along, which weakened the group each time. In the one success we had, that was okay, because we had only half the tunnels occupied. This time it was a disaster. So, next time, quickly move en masse to clear the tunnels, then move to occupy them; the TPers and Tanks rove to help anyone whose tunnels have repopped.
3. Orderliness. We did well sweeping up one side and back to clear the main cavern, but we were less organized in clearing the tunnels. So, decided on a direction (L4-L1, R1-R4) to sweep the caverns, assign someone to each, and then move in.

I’m not sure any of this is fool-proof, especially if we have that many occupied tunnels and they repop quickly. But it’s the best I can think of to avoid what hung us up last time.
Again, it’s interesting. After the previous failure, HG (and I) had a sense of just being crushed, that we’d blown it, that we never wanted to see the Caverns again unless we really had to. It was more stubbornness that dragged us back for one last (and it was to be the last) try.
This time — between working on a good team, and withdrawing in good order, it felt more like a setback than a retreat. “Better beaten than bitter,” as Avo put it, and “Live and learn, and we did both,” as HG said. So we’ll be going back.
And this time, we’ll win.

UPDATE: Inserted thumbnail pics. Click to see full-size.
Ran the Task Force last night — starting at 7:30p and running muuuuuuch later. Various notes follow:

1. We had a tight, fit team. One crunchy — a tank — plus two blasters, a controller, and a defender. Both the good blend of ATs and the good people behind them made it a successful outing.
2. The plot line focuses on the machinations (so to speak) of the Clockwork King, and many, many, many missions against clockworks. I am officially sick fo the critters, though the payoff set piece of the CK’s lair was excellently creepy.
3. Velvet Jones, the tank, was in her glory most of the time — untouchable, taunting, keeping the mobs under control and pounding away at them. Most fun was, as the balloon went up in each encounter, unleashing a taunt and drawing everyone’s aggro — and lightning bolts. “It tickles.”
   And, in fact, it did. Between Invulnerability powers and Bubbles, not to mention support of the others, Velvet took very little damage, almost never going below 75% HP.
   Much fun. She even got to wear her cape for part of the evening, before various jealous comments prompted her to put it away for a while.

4. The blaster contingent was made up of Avocet and Boulder Dude’s MoFo Firefly. Good blasting was had thereby. Avocet’s Energy knockback was minimal, and his AoE attacks were perfect for wiping out Gears from fallen big clanks. MoFo did well, too, though his Electricity blasts occasionally confused me (OMG, there are clockworks behind me!).
   Both are Ice secondaries, which made for additional Controlling of the mobs.

5. Margie’s P-Siren was one of the unsung stars. While her psionic blasts were effective, but slow, her Bubbles were one of our lynchpin powers. While they were up, Velvet, at least, was in hog heaven. When they were down, it was more problematic. Indeed, the one time Velvet got in real trouble was when we were independently hunting clockworks, and an ambush found her. Had to SJ away at the last second, which, alas, left MoFo, who was coming to the rescue, to bear the brunt of their fury.
   As it was most of the time, though, I was able to leave down almost all my toggles but Unyielding. As long as the bubbles were up, all was cool.
   (And as long as I was running HeroStats, I could see exactly when the bubbles were going down …)
   It’s worth noting that Margie’s organizing the TF was pretty spiffy as well.

6. Doyce’s Rose.Red was the utility player as Controller. His Group Invis was up most of the time, and really helped our defense and attack planning. It also let him scout ahead on mishes that only required limited accomplishments; coupled with Recall Friend, he could sneak up to where hostages or the final bosses were, teleport us in, and we could finish the mish in a quarter of the time of slogging through the whole thing.
   As an Illusion Controller, though, he did an even more useful job in using Deceive to cut down on the enemy numbers, and Phantom Army to add to our strength.
   And his tactical abilities and previous experience on the TF were pretty handy, too.

7. I have no idea how folks do the mission in 6 hours, as some report, let alone the 2½ that others claim. We didn’t race madcap from spot to spot, but neither did we dawdle. We took a couple of levelling and selling breaks, and Margie had one in-mish 15 minute Symantec-induced problem, but generally speaking we moved swiftly and skipped killing all mobs unless the mission demanded it.
   We met at 7:30p, we started at about 8p, and finished a bit after 3a. That makes for 7 hours.
   I refuse to believe anything under 5.

8. TFs are XP-heavy, and this was no exception. Velvet went up 17-odd pips; since she was just barely at 20, that raised her to 21 and most of the way to 22. W00t.
   That came in handy against the baddies; the initial mobs looked an even mix of yellow and white, with orange bosses; changing that down to white-blue with yellow bosses (with the exception of Babbage and the Clockwork King) made the missions a lot easier. And still good eats.

9. Ah, Babbage. Hovering outside one mission, we tackled him head-on. Problem is, even though we managed to knock him down to between 1/3 and 1/2 XP, that took pretty much all the Endurance in the group. Velvet was basically the aggro magnet for him, but eventually she was reduced to watching her End and hitting only when it wouldn’t knock down all her toggles. Eep!
   The battle was also complicated by his running around periodically and so dragging us through mobs of Lost and Trolls, both of which pursued.
   We would probably have ground him down, eventually, but we got kind of tired after a while. A couple of other heroes had spotted us, and, with our permission, launched into the fray, sealing Babbage’s fate. Still great XP, all told.

10. The only deaths that occured were both MoFo’s. The first came when he came racing to Velvet’s “rescue” when she’d been ambushed by clockwork and had dropped down to orange. I was bugging out, but MoFo arrived just in time to get them all on him. By the time Velvet got there, he was toast.
    And, during the Babbage battle, he drew a bunch of fire from trolls. Damn.
    Aside from that, no deaths in-mish, which is pretty impressive.

11. Especially because we couldn’t see. Between shady warehouses, group invis, various auras and bonus effects, and bubbles (double-bubbles plus the big bubble), it was like trying to run around in a pea soup fog.
    Not that I should complain, because all of those effects were affecting the baddies more than me. But sometimes it was sure confusing …

12. The last battle with the CK was almost anticlimactic. He’s tough, but not on a par with Babbage. He just has a lot more friends (which we had to both carefully clear out first and use a gadget we’d received to help keep him from summoning more).
    The initial plan was to super-buff Velvet and let her do a tank pull back to where the rest were all standing (the idea being that she could take a licking and keep running for her life, so to speak). After all that prep just outside of the CK’s lair (“See that? That’s his arm there.”) it turned out that it wasn’t the CK’s lair yet.
    The actual battle with the CK was a lot less, ah, planned — we had the ground selected, but the actual pull back to it was, um, less organized (involving a couple of characters, not the tank, and mad-oh-crap-I’m-orange dashes back to the others).
    Wham, bam, thank you for helping us rid the city of the Clockwork King, ma’am.

Great fun. Went longer than I’d expected (Doyce pointed out that, had we started at 5, we could have wrapped by Midnight. Of course, we’d have had to take 45 minutes or so in the middle to put down Kitten, so …), but I still felt excited and eager by the time it was all over.
Good team. Good experience. Makes me want to do it over again with the next tier of alts in my stable …

Pulled out Psi-clone to play with last night, after I’d gotten as far as I could on taxes — first time in a while that he and Amorpha had been out on patrol.
Rrg. PC takes a very careful hand — much different from Velvet (a tank) or even Torchielle and Honeygun (blasters). As an illusion controller, his touch is more subtle — the strategic selection of Deceive, the big gun of Blind, the polish-off of Spectral Wounds. And, oh, yeah, forgot I had Group Invis. Little thing, that.
And, oh, yeah, forgot I was a freakin’ empath, so I had heal abilities. Which came in really handy when I finally did remember.
Yeesh.
Our duo ran around a bit, then BD’s MoFo Firefly invited us in on a fun Tsoo door mish (Sorcerers are fun to Deceive, since they put all their healing and buffs into our side of the combat). I bailed out of the team after the mish was over to go to bed — and instead worked on implementing the Fly/Hover keybind set for PC. I’ll see how it goes; I’ve had a distrust and inherent dislike of multi-file keybinds, but this one looks like it should work pretty well.

UPDATED: Added time zone, Avocet. Corrected P-Siren & Rose.Red’s levels, Jackie’s status, powers, BD.
———-
Okay, making a note of the, well, notes here, the plan is …
Saturday, 7:30 p.m. MDT
Current Lineup:

• Velvet Jones – Inv/SS Tank L20
• P-Siren – FF Defender L19
• Rose.Red – Illusion Controller L19
• Avocet – Energy/Ice Blaster L21
• MoFo Firefly– Elec/Ice Blaster L18

(Jackie’s decided to sit this one out.)
TF range is lvl 15-21.
Give a yea, a nay, or a “Hey! What happened to my character?!”

Got a latish start last night, but figured it was time to run Kazima and Honeygun again and work off some debt from Monday night’s bloodbath.
We eventually ended up in a nice Vahzilok door mish, with many yellows and occasional whites and oranges. Lots of vomit, plenty of danger, and pushing to the HP/END limits, but we finally freed all the hostages in the office building, during which we both dinged to 15, which gives us that much better power (and slotting) for the next time we try the Cavern of Transcendence (which we are now at max level for).

Okay, I love PvP — as a comic. As a way of playing CoH, not so much.
I guess one of the things that really attracts me to CoH is the cooperative play — the sense that, yes, we really are all heroes. Reading the tales of griefing in other MMORPGs, I’m glad CoH has the restrictions it does.
Now, that said, I can understand why some people would like the PvP challenge. Live brains + complicated builds = exciting challenge. Me, I’d rather team up with others and bop the bad guys. But, then, that’s me.
I am worried, a bit, about what I read regarding how PvP is (a) forcing changes in the basic game system, even for just PvE, and, worse, (b) changing how folks are doing builds to make them more PvP, vs PvE, competitive. The latter shouldn’t really bother me (it doesn’t affect me, after all), but it’s still disturbing. It turns CoH into Mortal Kombat.
Does that mean you’ll never see any of my alts in the Arena (once Issue 4 goes live and the thing actually works)? No. If there were a group of friends doing it, it might be fun, strictly as a one-off change of pace. But as a “this is why I play the game” sort of thing, as I keep seeing people write? No.
On the other hand, it will be interesting to see if both the Arena and the upcoming CoV draw off some of the more raucous of Paragon City’s denizens. That might be a good thing.

Yes. Yes, I did go ahead and buy a cape last night. So there.
Velvet tells the story herself …

Went on the Monday night Session 3 of the Cavern of Transcendence. And …
… well, it all went to hell. Twice.
First time in, all looked like it was going pretty nicely. Good team — Darkthorne the lead, Kazima, Honeygun, Dubh Bas, Avocet, Dr. Meson, Tanker-belle, and Liberty Bill. Made it through the troll tunnels with no sweat (thanks, Kinetica) and only one death (mine, dammit, too close to a troll TNT stash when it blew). Got in, battled our way forward. Good thing to have two tanks along this time, drawing agro. Cleared out the initial group, most of the groups to the left, started working around to the right, then the center … we were doing great, ahead of schedule …
… and then made our first mistake, as we tackled the group at the top of the ramp, without clearing out the last group on the left. Which got pulled into it, which overwhelmed us, leaving half the team dead on the ramp.
After several minutes of fruitless pulls, abortive resurections, and general additional debt incursion, we gave up. The deaders went to Atlas for hospitalization (we had nobody with Rez, except for one who could do it in battle). The livers stayed in place to prevent a re-pop.
Except that, nearly to the mission entrance again, somebody discoed out. They got back in, but the TF was broken, and we all had to exit and restart. Which was disappointing, but doable, and the mission clock reset.
We went in again, no problem. Got to Cavern … and found the enemies had popped up a level. Swell. Fought one group. Fought another group. Fought the next group. Fought the … crap, pulled some extras, or there was something off with the healing, or … well, half the party went down. More than half. All but two. Honeygun, fleeing to the exit, ended up embedded in the rock next to the lava.
And most of the deaders were smack where the Igneous were milling about, stepping on their corpses.
One unsuccessful pull (and death) later, and we realized that was about it for the night. The last person threw himself on the enemy (so he could get a death-teleport back to Atlas), and we called it an evening, with promises to try it once again, maybe next Monday.
On the bright side, we got a couple of new Lessons Learned.

UPDATE: Added some photos from Margie, and reorganized the post to put all the photos at the bottom.
After an afternoon of Psi-clone/Amorpha running about (clearing older mishes at breakneck speed via Group Invis), Margie and I hooked up with the Alliance of Champions Meet-n-Beat (Second Session) for an evening of …
… well, a lot of standing around, actually. 🙂 Took a while for things to gel up, especially as we were waiting for occasional additional people to drop in. The time was not a waste, since we were able to do the “meet” part and get in some RP — sort of the Brian Bendis approach to comics adventuring (only not as realistic or witty, my own contributions included).
The group eventually split up in two, with P-Siren going off with one group to do an intense timed mish with various nasty demon-looking types (lots of explosions from Margie’s PC, and much laggy high-graphics action), and Velvet going off in another group to …
… well, stand around a while at the park (NE corner of Atlas Park), then stand around at the Atlas statue (lots of ugly costumes, a very few good ones), then, finally, a quick mission (see picture) in Talos (at which point, like every hero does, I was filled with It Must Be Mine Lust for the Sky Raiders’ jetpacks), at which point we returned and …
… sat around. And chatted.
Eventually, the other group returned, bloodied but unbowed, and then we stood around figuring out how to balance the levels in the group again, at which point I realized I needed to get up in 6 hours or so and bailed out for bed.
Not sure if I am on tap for tonight’s third run at the Caverns of Transcendence — depends on if they need another right-level (Honeygun). May be an interesting group, looking at the participant list.
The Meet-n-Beat (late slot) team: (L-R) Velvet Jones, Shock.Therapy, Dr. Meson, The Hushman (back), Black Mynx, Liberty Bill, P-Siren, Puck Bunny, Darkness Heals.


Velvet’s “Beat” team: Velvet Jones, Dr. Meson, Darkthrone, and Darkness Heals.



Some of P-Siren’s “Beat” team: (L-R) Shock Therapy, P-Siren (legs only), Black Mynx.


Back to the Meet part: (L-R) Darkthorne, Velvet Jones, Darkness Heals, Zepher-Storm