McNum

On the subject of Forcefield Defenders, I did what the OP did. For about a month. Then I learned not to do it anymore because it was boring and I could contribute a lot more by flinging Energy Blasts at the foes. Death is the ultimate debuff, after all. My Defender's role has varied a bit, both as the game changed and as my playing style changed. Right now, she's balanced. Mostly single target attacks, it's Energy Blast, after all, and apart from the three big bubbles, the knockback powers, with Psi Epic. She's an allrounder, can blast, can hold and can single handedly grant 44.5% Defense Buff to anyone staying in the Dispersion Bubble. 44.5% is very close to the magic 45%, and this can be done on SOs. I wouldn't dream of playing her passive anymore. 44.5% Defense and damage is greater than 44.5% Defense alone.

Actually, here's a fun suggestion: Make a Trick Archery Defender or a Storm Summoner. I would have said Kinetics, but they're all over the place, so go for something a bit less common. These Defenders are the direct opposites of Forcefields. Trick Archers have all the debuffs you could want and a well played Storm is a marvel to behold. It's also extremely difficult to make a good Storm, but you seem up to the challenge. I made a decent Trick Archer. Solo it's not so hot, but it's beastly on a team. She can pinch in on most needed roles, although she much prefers to stay airborne and rain arrows. But a passive Defender wouldn't have tanked AV Shadowhunter and lived. Easily her crowning moment of awesome. "You got AV aggro!" "I know." Well, she can do it for exactly 120 seconds, but it was enough to prevent him from getting to squishies while the Tanker could recover.

The true power of the Defender AT comes from those who don't care about its limitations. If you decide that Defenders can't do damage in advance, then you'll find they can't. If, however, you decide that Defenders can handle any situations that come up and build for it, you'll be surprised. Defenders are a toolbox of many awesome tools. Use them all and be amazed.

93.94%, and I'm pretty sure which one I got wrong, too.

I found a cool look for Forcefields, with a little color blend magic.

Bright Forcefields:
Deflection Shield: Green/White
Insulation Shield: Blue/White
Dispersion Bubble: Red/White

Result? When someone is affected by all three bubbles, they get a prism effect where they're inside a white bubble that scintillates all colors of the rainbow. This happens because of two things: The chaotic patterns of each bubble, and the fact that red, blue and green are the base colors in an Additive Blend. So when using red, green and blue in a chaotic triple layered pattern, you get all kinds of mixes, turning the bubble prismatic.

It looks pretty neat, and it's impossible to get a good screenshot of, since the trick only really works when it's in motion. You can switch the colors around at will, so if you prefer at blue or green dispersion bubble, just swap the red/white and for the other pair.

For a gameplay point of view, it also makes it easier to see who's inside the Dispersion Bubble when in a fight. The prismatic ones are, the cyan ones aren't.

The Rikti War is the obvious candidate for it, yes. Superheroes versus aliens. Rarely seen on screen, common in comics. I think it should focus on the Phalanx, mostly, but the viewpoint character shouldn't only be Statesman. Too stoic and boring. I think this movie should have an ensemble cast. Focus on both the city and its citizens and its heroes. End it with the Alpha/Omega gambit and leave Hero 1's fate unresolved, but the Rikti defeated. Like in the game.

If the movie is a success, have the sequel be pretty much the blue side of the game. The New Age of Heroes, maybe introducing Arachnos here. They're a good background foe, at least. Nemesis, too. You know, so he's set up for his grand reveal in the third movie, but the second should end with Recluse being defeated, not by the great heroes, but by the new underdog heroes. Like us player heroes. The Well of the Furies could be introduced here in flashback.

Third movie is the Rikti War Zone arc and the second Rikti War, with the cause of the war revealed and ending up in an everyone, Hero, Villain and Rikti against Nemesis, who finally got tangled up in his own plans once too many.

But the first movie should be able to stand alone. Superheroes versus aliens from another dimension. Easily a good plot for a summer popcorn blockbuster. If there are any more films, then go to Praetoria. That should give enoough material for several movies, and will be a nice nod to Going Rogue.

Heroside, it's has to be my Elec x3 Blaster. What she have done over her career defies all logic. I made her as a Blapper with controls. She was the Endurance Monopoly. All blue to her, none to her enemies. Worked pretty well. She also had a knack, the worse the situation looked, the better odds of her pulling off something spectacular.

Several times she was the last one standing after a team wipe, including Tankers. She could clear a room spawned for a team, but only when things looked bad. She took on EB Tyrant solo. At level 47. She won. She tanked AV Battle Maiden once. That was fun. Oh and her favorite hunting prey: Rikti Mesmerist bosses. She was just a plain fun character to play, a Blaster with no fear at all, and with a knack for actually pulling it off. Sadly, after the Defiance change, she just haven't been so fun. Considering her Rikti boss strategy actually was "Hurry to melee, get hit to 10%HP by the sword, drain his End and two hit him" she kind of lost her edge. HP is a resource to spend, just like everything else, after all.

Villainside, it's my Stalker. She's nothing special, Nin/Nin, but I'm a good Stalker and she routinely pulls off what can be expected of her. EBs are no threat, and she took on Recluse and won for the 50 ding. I like to joke that she's so good that she can hide in a dark room with a turned on lightsaber. Which she can.

I can't really think of a weakest. My Trick Archer isn't strong solo, but when you hold AV Shadowhunter's attention for two minutes without dying, you're not weak. Besides, what she lacks solo, she more than makes up for in teams.

Indeed, welcome to the game.

One thing I like that hasn't been mentioned is that nothing really decays in the game. In another MMO I played, I had to log on often or my house would explode. CoH doesn't care how long breaks you take on a character, with one execption. On day 90, the auction house is cleared, so don't use the auction house for storage.

But you'll learn the ropes soon enough. Welcome to the game, have fun, and enjoy your characters.

Got my first Freedom 50 today!

Scarlet Feather - Trick Arrows/Archery Defender

Hopefully the first of several, although I don't level that quick.

Not to fuel the conspiracy theorists too much, but have you guys seen the numbers on [Power Mastery.Force of Nature]? 50% res. Unslotted. To all but Psi. Two 50 Res IOs caps resistance to everything but Psi. Well, 74.9%, but it's close enough.

Are they trying to make Defenders more survivable, perhaps? Instead of boosting damage, we get staying power? I could live with that.

We thought we'd get Power Customization when pigs could fly. This week, swine flu.

Horrible pun adapted from a horrible pun on GamePolitics. Sorry...

I've been spending too much time with changing colors. On the upside, I've logged on with characters I hadn't played in months and found a few of them refreshing to play. I might start playing some of these.

Also, Force of Nature on my Trick Archery Defender... Yummy. Is that supposed to give that kind of resistance? Combined with Temp Invul I'm capping Smashing and Lethal Res and when I've slotted FoN, I'll be capping all but Psi. That's awesome, just what I needed.

EDIT: I had a few problems getting into a door mission, though. The loading screen came up and just froze. I had to kill CoH via the Task Manager to close it and I had a color change not stick on a Scrapper of mine.

Mine is mostly a joke from when me and a friend of mine were thinking up ridiculous action hero names.

It's a pun on "Magnum", only made out to be "McNum, Scottish Action Hero!" (Said in the most ridiculosly offensive Scottish accent.) I never actually used it on a character here, even with the kilt available. The name just stuck in my head and I wanted to retire an old handle since it was always taken. Turns out, McNum is almost always free, and it's a five letter handle.

Interestingly, all my CoH friends call me "Rose". After the FF/Energy Defender in my signature. I've gotten used to it, but it's still funny to be called "Rose" when you're male. Not that I want them to stop calling me that or anything.

About seeing me elsewhere? Yeah, if you see a McNum, it's likely me. GameFAQs, NeoGAF, various other game-related forums. It's me. Or if it isn't, then try McNum13, then it's me. 13 is my lucky number, so I'll add that if McNum is taken.

I just realized that I've been using a pun for a handle for over a decade now... Awesome!

Stupid flu. Get well soon guys!

Thankfully, H1N1 isn't as dangerous as the media makes it sounds. It''s not that much worse than your regular seasonal flu, it's just more infectious. Very few people have antibodies for it, so it'll hit a lot people. And being an A-type, it'll keep them down for about a week. On a personal level, it means a week of feeling like crap. On a society level, it could mean that 25% of the country is sick at the same time. That is why the politicians are so worried.

Anyway, I hope you get back on your feet soon. It's a rough one this time around, but it'll be over in a week. Try not to infect too many other people. Have anyone near you wash their hands often and when you get healthy, wash off the keyboard and mouse you twittered from.

Sledgehammer. When ironing your pants isn't enough.

That small female vest over tights. I use that combination a little too often. Usually combined with the Plaited Skirts, mini or flared.

I try to vary the rest, but that combination just keeps reappearing. Until I go "No, not that again." and remake the costume.

Also, the autolighting in AE is because there's a kill volume that kills any enemy entity in there. The auction house and Black Market have these too. Since the Oil Slick Target is an enemy, it's instantly killed.

Another way to light it automatically is to place it near a Police Drone. They'll shoot it and light it, too.

That's a very general formula you're going to get from that, but I'll give it a shot.

Okay first assumption: You get 1 xp per year as a human. Humans can live 100 years if they're lucky. The first 100xp are not diminished.

So we begin. In this formula "y" is the amount of xp:
y=100

That takes care of the first 100 years. Let's decrease the xp by 10% per century. That means you should get 90xp for the next 100 years.
y=100+0.9*x

Where y is total xp and x is number of years -100.
So a vampire 662 years old would have 605.8xp.

To get the number used for the actual decay of xp per century, do this:
[Decay] = (100 - [Percent to Decay per Century]) / 100
[Decay] must be a number between 0 and 1.

Then plug that number into this:
XP = [Freebie Years] + [1 - [Decay] * ([Years] - [Freebie Years])

Examples:

A 500 year old vampire will have this much xp at various decay rates:
10% = 460
25% = 400
50% = 300
70% = 220
95% = 120

A 1000 year old will have this much xp:
10% = 910
25% = 775
50% = 550
70% = 370
95% = 145

Since it's more or less an estimate you're doing, you shouldn't need anything more complicated than that. Tailor it to suit you vampire.

I hope it's useful to you.

I never thought to look for a Scandinavian channel, but I'm interested, too.

After all, what's the point of having an "Æ" key on my keyboard if all I type is in English?

I never had real trouble with creating characters in this world, most of them are even natives to the CoH universe.

I kind of like my heroes and villains to be somewhat mundane. Sure they have superpowers (most of them) and they fight/cause crime, but that's not really the important thing. Who they are and why they use their powers like that is what matters to me. I usually start with the very basic: What exactly is this character. Human, robot, angel, demon, you know. Really basic. Then who they are. Just basic again, what's their day-to-day life like and how does that effect them wanting to be a hero/villain. Then comes the powers. What powers and how. At this point I can select Origin and Powersets. As a few examples:

"The mid-20's human female sorceress with a knack for barrier magic. She wants to protect those that fight for what's right and will blast her foes with pure magic in self defense." Aegis Rose - Magic Forcefields/Energy Defender.

"The professional assassin who underestimated a target and got thrown in jail. Busted out by Arachnos, she made her home, and hunting grounds, in the Isles. When the Rikti bombed her home, it got personal. She'll kill anyone for money, but will happily do any anti-Rikti work for Vanguard." White Lie - Natural Ninja Blade/Ninjitsu Stalker

"A young adult human female who rather suddenly found out her body worked like a powerful capacitor for electricity. (In the story in my head, she found out while showering... ouch.) After getting some training in how to control her electric outbursts by Freedom Corp, she decided to give the life as a professional Hero a shot. She picked an insect theme for her costume since she likes bugs." Candle Fly - Mutant Electric/Electric Blaster

Personally, I hate bugs, but that's why it was fun to make her love the critters. And one more where I really wanted to include the Rikti War in a character, because of how big it is in the CoH Lore:

"While hiding from a Rikti squad during the war, a teenager was saved by an unnamed hero with big red wings. He then got killed by a mothership blast, and she kept a feather from his wings as a reminder. His spirit lives on and granted her the powers of magic arrows and flight as she matured. She now continues the good fight in his honor." Scarlet Feather - Magic Trick Arrow/Archery Defender.

That's how I do it. I start with something rather mundane and add the fantastic. Paragon City is more or less a modern city as we know it, with people working to keep it running. It just happens to have a Superhero Guild and countless villains roaming the streets. I do have some way out there characters, like a demon who got mis-summoned and is stuck or my Kheldians, but they're just in reverse. The Demon is fantastic, then we add the mundane. She's stuck with no way home. Kheldians are fun because you need two characters. The human and the fuzzball. My Peacebringers tend to be overly heroic. To merge with a Kheldian willingly to fight crime, you gotta be at least a little nuts, or overzealous. I play them as the Paladin taken a bit too far. Warshades are different. Dark and brooding. The Kheldian has done terrible things as a Nictus, and the human host might not have been voulentary at first, or a captive host has convinced the Nictus to repent. That's a fun dynamic to play at. But again, fantastic alien, mundane human.

Then when I know all this about a character, I begin on the costume, but not really before. The name isn't that important, as long as it has the message behind the character intact.

I think the most fun part of the CoH universe is that when it's as familiar as it is in relation to our own modern world, it's easy to create these mundane/fantastic hybrids. We already know how mundane functions here, all we need to do is add fantastic. It's not as easy in a Fantasy world. How do we know what it's like to be an elf? Or orc? Do they even think like humans? Can we comprehend what it's like to have a 900 year lifespan? I can't. I can't really relate to them. But a common modern man gaining powers, or something powerful getting stuck in the modern world? Now that makes for an interesting character to me.

Hey, this thread is back. Well, why not? I'll add a little.

Personal Forcefield: It's nice, very safe, no real change needed.

Force Bolt: Also nice. It could be interesting if the knockback was unresistable or just really powerful. So you can tell an AV to sit down, now.

Deflection and Insulation Shield: Don't change them, they're good.

Dispersion Bubble: Can't think of anything to add to this.

Detention Field: New animation! Soul Storm's hovering twirl, encased in a forcefield bubble. If you miss THAT, you're not paying attention.

Repulsion Field: Sort of useless. Before ragdolls you could use it to bounce a single target into the air indefinitely, but the severe end cost and single focus on knockback makes it skippable. A chance to stun could be interesting, or giving the enemies an Air Superiority style spin before ragdolling. Adding -fly could be an odd, but interesting addition. But as the power is now, Force Bolt covers most situations where it could be useful.

Repulsion Bomb: It's as powerful as a ranged AoE and has a chance to stun? Keep.

Force Bubble: Personally, I'd want it smaller, but as a placable pseudo-pet. It might violate the cottage rule, but the ability to make a zone where anything hostile is catapulted out, without having to be in the zone could have a vast number of uses. For instance, if we need to run, I could throw one in a tight hallway and the enemies would more or less be unable to follow. Maybe give it a short duration -stealth, since bumping into a wall of force should give some noise.

But the main problem with Forcefields isn't so much that it's broken. It's not. It's very good at what it does. It's just that what it does isn't as needed by teams at large, even if bubbles are always welcome.