Madam_Enigma

That I really don't mind usually. After all in a City(s) of Villains, your not bloody likely to find many heroes. Their vastly out numbered, and tend to be hunted down quickly. Only groups with powerful backing can survive, and even they get beaten down regularly. I'd hate to see the turnover rate for Longbow or Wyvern. They must have a lot of deaths each month.

Oh yes, because heroes get so much variety at high levels. I can fight Malta (and KoA), I can fight Praetorians, I can fight CoT (still), or Council, or Carnies, or Rikti. Crey also to a lesser extent, but Crey missions dry up after you bring down the Countess. Oh, and I can head to the shadow shard and get reamed hardcore by those stupid eyeballs.

Villains fight Longbow, Arachnos, Arachnids, Carnies, Nemesis, Crey, Rikti, CoT, Council, Malta (and by extension KoA), or the PPD.

Interesting thread. And I agree that being evil doesn't have to equate to being vile. Poison Bloom for example is extremely evil. She enjoys torture, murder, and would cheerfully destroy the world if she got the chance just to see it burn. She's kidnapped many wizards and force them to serve her. She's enslaved magical beings from multiple realities just because she can. BUT she is also pragmatic. She knows that if she completely destroys the world, there is nothing left for her to enjoy. Her riches would mean nothing. No one left to kill means she can't enjoy her favorate past time (torture using various slow acting toxins). Instead, she hires herself and the ninja academy she took over out. She'll work for anyone, and do anything. As long as the pay is good that is. When she discovered that the work she'd been doing for Recluse would end up destroying the world, and kill her... She took steps to prevent that. She doesn't really want to watch the world burn. Sure it'd be fun, but then she'd be out of things to do.

By the same token, I am a big fan of the morally gray hero/villain. Frank Castle is interesting because he does bad things, but for the right reasons. Magneto isn't evil, but he is fanatic. He honestly wants to make things right, but doesn't see how his actions merely prove the anti-mutant propoganda to be right. Morally ambiguous characters are very interesting. They walk the fine line between Right and Wrong. I have a few characters like that. I already described Blazing Sleet, a hero who is constantly misunderstood.

Then I have Fluffy (currently named Poison Bloom's Pet). Fluffy was stolen from his parents before hatching by PB. He was enslaved, and raised to think she was his mother. Everything he was taught said that she was one of the Good people. He was raised to think hurting others was something the just did, and thus he grew to enjoy it. But he's not evil. He's a villain only because he doesn't know what he's doing is wrong. Or at least, he didn't. RP wise he learned what had been done to him, and wants to atone. He's broken away from PB and headed to Paragon to find his way. Yeah, he's gonna Go Rogue.

Madam Enigma was brutalized as a child, and mentally snapped. She's a borderline psychopath. She'll kill without remorse or regret. So why is she a hero? Because her chosen victims are those who prey upon the weak. I'll run the morality missions with her, but I'm unsure how she'll fall. She's a cold blooded killer, but has the heart of a hero. She saves lives, but is psychotic. She's saved Paragon and the world multiple times, but her body count is incredibly high. RP wise she's had her security clearance revoked multiple times, only to have it reinstated after saving the city (or world) yet again.

So, are Fluffy and Madam Enigma evil? One hurts and kills because they think it's an act of the just. The other does so because they've been hurt so badly they can't forgive criminals. Heck, I should have a link to M.E.'s backstory in my sig.

Ok, every now and then I see a really silly complaint about CoV. The complaint is as follows:

"My villain's story arcs are too evil"

Er, your a freaking super villain. How is that a bad thing? I personally enjoy the more evil arcs. They let my villain actually feel like a villain. Some of the villain contacts have you do things a hero would be expected to do. Granted, sometimes it's just stopping one of your own plans which goes too far according to an Abitor.

When I see someone complaining about their villain getting missions to kidnap, murder, frame others for their misdeeds, and other villainous acts I can't help but wonder. Ok, sure there's such things as the anti-hero and misunderstood hero. I have some myself. Characters such as Blazing Sleet who is a would be hero, who is viewed as a criminal. I RP him as being in the rogue isles to fight criminals away from the pesky 'heroes' who keep trying to bring him to justice for saving lives. He's a ice/thermal corrupter.

How do I get around the 'I'm a hero doing evil' dilemma? It's simple really. For one thing, I avoid the truely evil contacts. You know the contact who gives an arc to corrupt a young hero and make them a villain? I don't work for him. I pick missions which while evil, don't exactly hurt innocents. Billy Burner wants me to take down a Council base? Great, I'll do it. Joe Schmo wants me to beat down a family splinter group? All right, the villains are paying me to eliminate villains.

When I do newspaper missions, I can avoid the kidnapping missions and rare bank job. I avoid doing mayhem missions too. I don't mind the occasional mission against Longbow cause Blazing Sleet is viewed as a criminal by most of the world. He's not, but they THINK he is. They think he's burning people alive when he heals them or generates a protective barrier of flames around them.

But for the most part I think people whining that villain content is too villainous is... really really dumb. What do you guys think?

Ninja/TA? erm... ouch. I'm not sure I'd try that combo again. It's painful. TA gets very few ways to keep the ninja out of trouble early on. And they do get into trouble. At higher levels it might not be so bad, but you'll be resummoning a lot. I would suggest ditching the fighting pool attacks in favor of aid self and aid other.

You wont want the presence pool most likely. Your ninja will be taking gobs and gobs of damage to begin with. you really wont want to have them dying even faster. Remember, as a /ta you can not heal your pets or yourself.

Superspeed and super jump? you may have too many travel powers. Especially since you have ninja run. Do you have the jump jet from GvE edition? If so, you wont need that many travel powers. You can use sprint+ninja run for travel, and the jump jet for when you do need vert mobility.

Since your not going for set bonuses, I would suggest grabbing leadership instead of the travel powers. And stamina, you will want stamina instead of the personal attacks to counteract the resummon cost.

As for how long to get to fifty? Depends. I took a mastermind from 1 to 35 in about a month in issue 6. Now you could do so much faster. The real question is, can you stand playing this combo?

You want travel power? Sprint+mental training+Ninja Run=58-60 mph run speed and good jumping ability. Add in Hurdle if desired for more jumping ability, or swift for more run speed. Sprinkle a single SO run speed enhancement in each run speed power that takes one.

Well crabs on a crutch. Just got a call from family. Plans changed, I'll be out of town.

Dual Pistols may not have a snipe, but it has some rather nice powers. Supressive Fire is dang handy for example. Piercing Shot (I think) is a nice snipe like attack which can potentially hit multiple foes. And without an interrupt period to boot. It's got some solid AOE, as well as good single target damage.

That, and it brings the sexy back.

What really bothered me was the level 40 arc. One mission, then being told to do a patron arc. Lame.

Heh, I once joined a team where the rad defender bragged about soloing every AV and GM on his current character. Team leader told him "I don't care, why not go back to soloing them"

I looked, and his "AV/GM Soloer" had absolutely none of the GM badges, none of the TF badges, or anything like that. I also wondered how one could solo the GM version of ghost widow, if the AV version is nasty enough to cause team wipes.

I'm going to give some brief bios for a few characters I roleplay in my gaming group or play in City of Heroes. These will demonstrate my views of the origins.

Natural
She's known as Moth. For ten years she's protected the earth. She first crash landed after events unknown. Known abilities are winged flight and the ability to control gravity to various effects. To earth's populations, she is a meta. She has powers above and beyond what normal people do. To Moth however these abilities are not superhuman. They are a natural part of her.

You see, Moth's people hail from a planet with extremely high gravity. In this environment, animals had to evolve differently to survive. And her race is evolved from a moth like insect. To survive, her people developed the ability to control gravity. For most of her race, it's instinctive. It's something that is always turned on. As long as her people are awake, they are reducing gravity by roughly 100 G's. The ability doesn't work while sleeping, and there's a deep rooted social conditioning and fear of sleeping with no one near them who's awake.

When Moth left her homeworld, she joined an intergalactic police force. There she trained long and hard. She learned to control her natural abilities. She is a Natural hero. An alien perhaps, but her abilities are not unusual.

Tech:
Cree hails from a jungle planet. Everyone from his planet has what earth considered super-human agility. They need it to survive. Villages are in the treetops, because the forest floor is too dangerous. They are a simple people who deliberately avoid galactic civilization and high technology. They know of it, and do some trading. But the people tend to distrust technology.

Cree however is different. He loves technology, and has a knack for building weapons. He traveled the universe for several years selling his services as a mercenary. This gave him the funds to work on inventions, and a chance to field test them. When he crashed on earth, Cree just continued his work.

While he has superhuman agility, Cree isn't a mutant or science experiment. His origin is Tech because that is what he deals in. Sure he's a skilled warrior, but if you take away his toys he's not that dangerous. Unless you fail to take his tools too.

Science:
Amy 'lost' Mason, also known as the black angel is a tragic soul. From the day she was born she was subjected to cruel experiments in genetic splicing. Now she is more animal then man. She once was human, but not any longer. She is a freak, a monster. She is also the first of a new race. Pray this fledgling race learns compassion.