Jade_Dragon

Well, I don't really think of any of my bios as "tragic", but I guess they're pretty dramatic. If anything, Bloodwolf has got the typical "driven to seek justice by seeing someone he loves murdered" thing going, but it's his wife, not his parents. And there is a bit of a twist...

Bloodwolf - MA/SR Scrapper

Steve McDonald was framed for the murder of his wife by a corrupt Sheriff. Steve spent three years in jail, only to escape when he was believed killed in a prison riot. He used skills he had learned while in prison to track down the real murderer, only to find that it was none other than the sheriff who had accused him. Confronting the man in his home, there was a struggle, and Steve was formed to kill him. Horrified by what he had done, Steve tried the wipe the blood from his hands, and it formed the face of a wolf. Inspired by the image, he decided to seek out corruption, and leave his mark behind as a warning to those who would abuse their power.

Unlike Batman or your typical victim turned avenger, Bloodwolf's wife was killed by a policeman, not a street thug. Thus, his fight is not against crime in general, but against corruption. He is almost paranoid in his belief that power corrupts, and that the most powerful, that is, superheroes, are the most corruptable. He keeps files on all the major superheroes in Paragon City, as well as the supervillains, and knows their weaknesses and what tools he can use against them. In a way, his life is very tragic, as he has given up his former identity as Steve, even referring to him as dead. He has no secret identity, he is only Bloodwolf now.

Sandy - Electric/Fire Blaster

A childhood illness left Sandy Jensen parylized from the waist down, and unable to walk. Her father was an expert in nanotechnology, however, and put his knowledge to work to try and find a cure. The only company he could get to fund his research, however, was Crey. (of course ) Crey secretly altered the programming on the nanobots, and once implanted in Sandy, they went out of control, trying to rebuild her body as a combat cyborg. Her father tried to stop the process, but Crey agents attacked him, causing Sandy (already in terrible pain) to break free of her restraints and kill them. Her father then managed to shut down the nanobots, but not before half of her body had already been destroyed.

Sandy is a very reluctant heroine, and afraid of losing control again and killing people like she did the Crey agents. However, her machine half is programmed to seek out combat, and if Sandy tries to deny it its purpose, it tries to take control of her. She registered as a hero so she would have an outlet for the machine's urges, but fighting makes her feel like a machine, and like she's losing her humanity. Quite the opposite of Bloodwolf, she refuses to use a hero name. Her true name is one of the few human things she has left, and she clings to it as it helps keep her sense of identity.

The really tragic version of this story is the Praetorian version of Sandy, who was unable to save her father before he was killed. Crey lost control of her, but the transformation concluded, and now she's an out of control war machine, blindly killing everything that crosses her path. There's little left of the original Sandy inside her, but what there is is probably trapped in her own personal Hell.

Blue Diamond - SS/Inv Brute

The original Blue Diamond's story isn't tragic, but this is an alternate version of him. My main characters, Jade Dragon, Blue Diamond and Genie Gold, got their powers from magical Egyptian artifacts, that a Mob hit man was after. They got three of the powers, he got one, (taking the name Silver Bolt) and now they're rivals. In the alternate universe, however, I wanted to make Blue Diamond as a Brute, so I changed the story so that the hit man killed Jade Dragon and Genie Gold before they could find the artifacts, and claimed them himself. And Genie Gold wasn't just a partner but a love interest for BD as well, so we've got the "girlfriend killed by villain" motivation going too.

Blue Diamond still managed to get one of the objects, but was forced to go underground because he is outnumbered by the villains three to one. As a result, he becomes a petty thief in the Rogue Isles, just to survive. The original Blue Diamond's backstory was that his father was a policeman killed by criminals, and so the further he sinks into the Rogue Isles underworld, the more he hates himself for betraying his father's ideals of law and order. At the same time, he is filled with rage and the desire for revenge against Silver Bolt. This drives his strength as a Brute, the more he fights, the more he becomes filled with self-loathing, until he goes into a berzerk fury in which he doesn't care who he hurts.

I'm definately planning on "redeeming" him by having him join Longbow and go back to the hero side when Going Rogue comes out, but even on the hero side Blue Diamond has a notoriously short temper. He sees things as very simple, good guys are good guys and bad guys are bad guys, and after having lived in the grey area, it's had a permanent effect on him.

Actually, Silver Bolt's story is kind of tragic, too. He was born into a Mob family, but when he was a child, his parents were killed by corrupt cops, after they tried to testify against the Mob. He was taken in by the Mob boss, but he always wanted to find a way to turn the tables on him. When he learned of the power of the Egyptian artifacts, he decided to take them so he could set himself up as a god, above the law, and above criminals. He does not believe in good or evil, he thinks they're both the same, and he does not believe in the law, so he wants to make himself the law.

Loopy Loup Garou - EM/WP Brute (soon to be Claws/WP Brute)

This one isn't really tragic, but I thought of it when I mentioned Going Rogue above, and so I might as well post it. It's kind of tragic, in that it's a basically good person trying to make it in the Rogue Isles, like Blue Diamond, but since he's a bit of a brute and a rogue anyway, he's really not uncomfortable or unhappy being a villain. He won't kill, but he doesn't have any problem making someone BELIEVE he will.

As you might guess from the name, Loopy is a werewolf. He was employed by Ultimate Wrestling Entertainment, a wrestling franchise that makes money from matches between super powered wrestlers. It's completely based on the WWE, and includes all the smack talk and drama between the matches, so Loopy was a very popular Heel. The UWE was almost shut down over a scandal involving drugs, which the non-super powered wrestlers were apparently taking to give themselves powers. Many of the wrestlers were arrested, including Loopy, but he always insisted his powers were real.

When he was sentenced, Loopy claimed the whole thing was a set up by the managers, who had framed the wrestlers so they wouldn't have to take responsibility for setting the whole thing up in the first place. He vowed to escape from the Zig, which he did, and come back and get his revenge on the managers. He's joined Arachnos to try to prove his innocence, but hasn't yet made a move against the UWE. Who knows, it might have just been more smack talk.

Thanks, Trickshooter. That explains what CoD's entry means.

I checked Hide on an EA, Ninjitsu, and Regeneration Stalker. In all three cases they were exactly the same. Defense was available on all Types except Psi, plus Melee, Ranged and AoE. As I expected, AoE was much higher than any of the other values. (Over 50% on my level 35 Stalker, although I think a good part of that was an AoE defense coming from a guy standing next to me)

So there is a "hole" against Psi attacks that don't count as Melee, Ranged or AoE, but that's the case with all Hide powers. EA doesn't have any special penalty.

In fact, I'm pretty sure Combat Jumping, Weave, and the other similar Pool powers work the same way. The short help probably should say, "Melee, Ranged, AoE, all types but Psi" on all applicable powers, but the number of such powers is probably pretty high.

Well, as I said, if the game disagrees with City of Data, then the game is right. Obviously.

It makes no sense to me for Hide not to have Positional Defense, though. One of the defining attributes of Hide is that it offers 37.5% Defense against AoE damage while Hidden. This helps prevent your Hide from being broken by AoE attacks when you are moving into range to strike. If EA does not have this capability, that's a severe problem.

If Hide has both Positional AND Typed Defense, then the Positional Defense will take precedence if you are attacked by a Psi attack. If it is a melee attack, then the Melee Defense will take precedence and you will be protected. If it is ranged, then Ranged Defense will take effect. The only way the attack can bypass Hide is if it is one of the rare powers (mainly Controller holds) that are not considered to have a Position.

I always consider the fact that I can walk right past any group of nasties I want and never be noticed by them at all to be the ultimate travel power.

As mentioned, the temp powers make all the difference. I have yet to use my Raptor and Jump Packs up, and my Stalker is 35. And I had a 50 MM who kept both of hers all the way to 49. Of course, preserving them like that means walking as much as you feel you can get away with...

It's a typo. According to City of Data, all versions of Hide offer the same defense: Versus Smashing, Melee, Ranged and AoE. Why Smashing particularly I don't know, but I'm guessing it's to allow it to stack with Smashing Defense elsewhere in the set.

If this can be shown to be not true in game (say, by using the Combat Attributes) then I stand corrected.

Note, BTW, that it is impossible for any Positional Defense to not offer protection from Psi. The only way to exclude Psi is to give Defense to all other Types, and that would exclude using Positional Defense. This is one of the reasons why Force Field no longer has a "hole" against Psi attacks.

Remove the aggro cap, no.

Raise the aggro cap, maybe.

The aggro cap isn't random, it's exactly one more than the number of targets that can be hit by the most powerful Blaster AoEs. The target cap seems to go in increments of 5, though, 5, 10, and then 16 instead of 15. So the Tanker aggro cap could be boosted to 22. That might not be as much as some here are wishing it could be, but I think it would be enough to differentiate Tankers.

I'm not sure that the ability to IO out a Scrapper to make it perform like a Tanker is really that big an issue, though. The Tanker will still have more HP, and the Tanker can also be IO'd out to do more damage. I won't say that the Tanker will do more damage than the Scrapper, not without an Inherent that deals damage, but IOs do allow the various Archetypes to come much closer to each others' capabilities.

Dwarf Mire -> Human -> Human Mire -> Nova -> Nova Detonation takes 0.73+0+2.37+2.03+2.5 sec, since the change to human form takes no time. (Although timing it so you drop out of human form without queueing could add about a second to that)

Human Mire -> Dwarf -> Dwarf Mire -> Nova -> Nova Detonation takes 2.37+2.03+0.73+2.03+2.5 sec.

So that's 7.63 seconds total for the first, and 9.66 for the second. However, for the first only 6.9 seconds pass from the Dwarf Mire, while with the second only 4.53 seconds pass. Both are well within the 10 second duration of Dwarf Mire, but at best you will be able to fire Emanation and then maybe one or two blasts more for the second chain.

Likely the OP used the Dwarf->Human->Nova order because the entire chain was shorter, allowing him to take less damage before the Detonation went off. However, the Human->Dwarf->Nova order probably is better because less of the duration of the Dwarf Mire is wasted. Personally, though, if I go Human->Dwarf I'm going to stay Dwarf unless I see an opportunity to switch forms.

It is true, though, that just after a Dwarf Mire in Dwarf form, you have enough time to go Nova, drop a Detonation, and then return to Dwarf form to continue attacking and even renew your Mire.

Kheld powers are not in the current list of customizable powers. I am hoping that is because we cannot customize the squid/lobster colors (for the same reason BaBs gives for Granite Armor here) and so they figured we would be disappointed if we could change one and not the other.

Besides (and I just thought of this) you'd have to recolor the Nova/Dwarf attacks, as well. While that should be the same as any other power in principle there may be complications the devs will have to address. After all, they aren't "our powers", they're the form's. (More specifically, the powers are not in our Primary or Secondary, they are Inherent) It'll also take up more space in the character definition file that probably hasn't been allocated for it.

Anyway, I'm hoping these issues are eventually resolved and we get the ability to recolor everything. Someday.

Basically, the driving force behind Conserve Power's change is that the power already existed in Tanker and Scrapper Epic pools, and thus with this Proliferation Tankers and Scrappers would be able to pick two of the exact same power. Thus, it was changed to Energize. The power remained as is for Brutes since the release of CoV, and was uneffected by its Proliferation to Stalkers. So it is at least logical to conclude that the Proliferation to blue side is directly responsible for the change to the power.

Energize may be a different power than Conserve Power, but the basic function of the power was unchanged. The duration of the effect was decreased and its recharge made shorter, but that did not change the function of the power. Black Dwarf Mire had the duration of its effect decreased and its recharge made shorter, but that did not change the function of the power. Energy Assault Total Focus had its damage increased and its recharge made longer, but that did not change the function of the power. Such changes do not violate the "Cottage Rule".

Instead, new functions were added to the power. As I said, jokingly, in the thread in which this was announced, apparently this is a loophole around the "Cottage Rule". On the other hand, Repulsion Bomb has had disorient added to its effect, when it did not have that effect before, and it has had its damage increased. (Pretty much from no real damage at all to meaningful damage) So while I may joke about it, yeah, there's precedent for this as well.

So that's it, that's the "Cottage Rule". You can add new effects to a power, change the duration, magnitude, and other stats of a power, but you can't make it stop doing what it currently does. You might even remove penalties or other secondary effects that it might have had before. (Such as with Invincibility) But Dimension Shift makes foes intangible, that's what players expect it to do, and all precedent is that the devs aren't going to change that effect.

Now, if you want a stun or fear when the foes come out of intangibility, that's fine. Personally, I would like to see Detention Field do a small amount of damage to a foe held in it, or just have it prevent regeneration, so foes don't heal back up. I think that would be a useful change to Detention Field, and it might be a useful change to any foe intangibility power, just so it doesn't make you lose any progress you've made towards defeat of the foe.