Mister Gerald

When I said, " I'd have to see what it is you're doing in combat..." I meant literally see. The only thing significant I could deduce from your log was that you popped exactly 0 inspirations, which is a mistake. Enough purples (Luck) and you can survive almost anything, and reds (Enrage) help you kill faster.

Given the lack of details, or a response to any of the questions asked, I'd say this is some damn pathetic trolling.

My first Kheldian was a Peacebringer named, goofily, Doom of the Nictus. I deleted him mainly because of his name, but also because he was still in the single digits. This was his costume, being worn on his reboot (Osiron), who's just chilling with War Witch (he digs her color scheme):

I'm not sure why I went with different legs, or the belt that I did, or a beard-thingie that is invisible against his beard, but I fixed all that with the updated costume. Unfortunately, this was around the time that wisp auras were borked, and I didn't enter any costume contests as a result:

If you can't figure out what's different about his eyes, it's that he has a yellow-orange wisp aura on them. It does kinda get lost when he's using a PB power and he gets the brighter eye aura on them, but I like the way it looks in-game. If we ever get to customize our Kheldians better, I'm going with yellow-orange powers on this guy.

Oh yeah-- Ulterior pants. There's a problem with them-- namely, I feel like I should be naming some of these guys Captain Buttcrack, or ***-less Chaps Man. The solution?

It's green and black on the other side, in keeping with his colors.

When I decided to roll my second Warshade, I rolled him on Exalted. Obliteron's just an alternate-universe version of Osiron, basically-- different colors, but also with shoulders and a different cape:


It was with his color scheme that the Ulterior pants problem really stood out, so I got the idea for the cape with him. It was, erm, around Christmas. He's got green eye wisps, because well, I just love that aura.

Here he is in a different costume. It's partially based on a costume on my first Warshade:

I think the helmet works really well with that mask and with the eye wisps. I can't decide which is creepier-- when the wisps are cycled off,

or when they are cycled on:

08/05/2012 edit: I actually won a costume contest with this costume! First prize was 400m influence. Not too shabby.

Okay, so I mentioned that this was my second WS. My first happened on a lark-- I was fiddling with DotN, and my girlfriend tried to read the words "Natural Peacebringer" from across the room. She said, "Norville... Pembrook?"

When I stopped cackling, I decided to roll a WS I had absolutely no intention of playing seriously. What would someone with that name look like? How would he dress? I decided he would look like a dweeb and he would dress in the dark. Ladies and gentlemen: Norville Pembrook.

His battle cry is, as one would guess, "I GOT DRESSED IN THE DARK!!"

Of course, this was before Dechs Kaison's guide changed my life. It was kind of jarring to kick so much butt and look so goofy, so I asked-- what would he look like if he hadn't gotten dressed in the dark? I decided he would most likely overcompensate in the opposite direction.

Although he's got skull shoulder pads and a skull belt buckle, that's the Eldritch symbol on his chest. Why? 'Cause TENTACLES, that's why.

After that I started making his costumes a little more serious. Here he is as a generic incarnate, with blue eye wisps (and apparently, contact lenses):

Here he is as a member of Vanguard. You know how the Vanguard helm doesn't show your eyes? Well, that's what eye auras are for. Spoooooookyyyyyy:

Bear in mind that he's a very short guy. The following costume was originally the same height as all of them, but I recently acquired Supertailor access (in lieu of the flying carpet... for now). This costume, as wrong as it is, is even more wrong on a very tall character. Of all my costumes, I consider it my crowning achievement, as more people (random or otherwise) have had more to say about it than any of my other costumes:

Echo was just liberated, you say? Well good for you! Still ain't goin' in.

I said I'm not going in. Stop asking.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

So far, I've seen him say the following (there may have been one more, but I lost it when thunderstorms knocked my power out before I could save):

[NPC] Super Unknown: And he thinks I didn't hear it! Can you believe it? No, no, he did it there in the restaurant. No, I'm totally serious.

[NPC] Super Unknown: I'm thinking of changing names. I'm starting to think 'unknown' was a bad choice.

[NPC] Super Unknown: Hey, Roger? Can I get you to speak up? It's really loud where I am.

[NPC] Super Unknown: So, anyway, I just wish there was some way I could increase my visibility, you know? I need to get in on the whole merchandising thing.

[NPC] Super Unknown: My wife was telling me she bought this new purse the other day. When she told me the price I was like, why are purses so freaking expensive these days?

But in all cases, he says this when he runs off:

[NPC] Super Unknown: Well, time to get back to work. This cape isn't going to fly itself!

Well, Catwhoorg, maybe something needs to change if hardly anyone wants to run or participate in one and they cite either the tedium or the long wait between waves as a reason. If your build is so messed up that you can't complete a respec trial, then you need to do one of two things: re-roll if the character is below level 10, or use your second build.

I know I'm probably going to be one more in a long line of people who've made these recommendations, but I think after failing to see one happen even as the WST over the past six days, they could stand to be repeated. So, here goes. My suggestions for the TV respec trials are:

1) Make them shorter.
2) Make them have less time between waves.
3) Make them take the exact same amount of time, but with no downtime between waves-- i.e., the ending of one wave triggers the next wave, and go buff up at your own risk.
4) Decrease the time involved but offset this by making the trial easier to fail.

Any one of these would make them less tedious and grindy, which means more people would do them and have more fun with it. The redside trials are much easier to get participants for.

A lagniappe suggestion about respecs:

Give us the ability to make unused respecs claimable "Character Items" in our mail! My 50(+3) elec^3 blaster main is never going to use any of the four respecs currently sitting on him.

Thoughts?

Quick note about knockback in Kheldian powers: Play it smart. When in Nova, open with your cone, then blast with your true AoE (the one with the knockback). If you're good and enraged (or, better yet, mired/double-mired) knockback won't matter 'cause everything will be dead.

That's what I do, but I've yet to hear anyone complain about knockback on any team I've brought a Kheldian to.

It is as if many, many people in this thread have large, gaping mouths, insatiable appetites, and no corresponding orifice for waste to exit.

Making blanket statements about the "uselessness" of particular powersets and ATs is, frankly, stupid. Not every player, playstyle, or team is the same. Not everyone is fully purpled out with a full complement of Rare Incarnate powers, believe it or not. People do die on teams, and while complete team wipes don't necessarily equal catastrophe, repeated faceplants eventually become tedious (my main's a blaster, so I know a little bit about defeat).

That said...

Several months ago, when my emp/dark was in his 20s, I teamed with a couple 50s (one of whom was a tanker) doing some shard farming. I hadn't had Fortitude for long, and I had been taking secondary powers along with my primary.

You know what else I took? Medicine.

I've since respec'd out of it, but at the time? It actually came in handy. At the end of the mission I got thanked not for great heals, but fantastic heals. Mind you, this wasn't a 1x1 we were on. It was at least 2x8, with them not yet being +1. All I could do was heal. There wasn't any *time* for blasting and I would've been an idiot to try. The experience was great fun and productive.

Bottom line: if you never need any healing done, you're probably playing it way too safe.

Having said that, let me tell you what happened last night. But first, a little background info:

I've found it difficult to get teams as a defender on Pinnacle from my 30s on, so I made a second build for soloing. This build has HA, HO (why? Just in case, basically), the 2 auras, and that's all from Empathy. The rest is Dark Blast (all but Blackstar), Leadership (all but Vengeance), Dark Mastery (all), Hasten, Super Speed, Stealth, and Hover. Not the best build in the world, granted, but it does what I need it to.

The difficulty of finding teams on Pinnacle made it necessary for me to prioritize slotting it over my teaming build once it got to 47. My teaming build actually had mostly level 45 (and a few level 40) regular IOs slotted when I hit 50. When I did my respec of that build, I opted to sell those because I was going to just slot them too. Except... I ran out of cash on that character. (Yes, I could e-mail myself more from my main, but I like to see what I can get an individual character to do to take care of himself/herself). So the build just kinda sits there.

However, last night, I got the opportunity to join an ITF. "What the heck," I said to myself. "By now everyone's figured out how to cap their resists and has nifty Incarnate powers, and I've been on more than a few teams that didn't really need much on the way of heals, so I'll just bring my soloing build and blast/immobilize/stun/-to hit my way to glory."

...It didn't quite work out that way. People did die-- only once from running off, but the other deaths were because my heals a) didn't recharge fast enough and b) didn't heal as much damage as on my teaming build. My auras worked well when people were grouped tightly enough for me to fire them off, but they didn't recharge as quickly and didn't provide as big a boost as they could. Most embarrassingly, my stuns didn't stun, even stacked, and with one of them doing lots of damage to me (Oppressive Gloom works great in theory).

Also? When people died, I had no Vengeance, and no rez. I didn't even have Clear Mind for when they popped an Awaken. Sure, I was doing loads more damage than I would have done on my teaming build. But a defender's teamed damage < a defender's solo damage.

tl;dr: I brought the wrong tools to the job, but that's what happens when an empathy defender buys into the argument that empathy isn't very useful-- it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Just two theme songs:

Power of Soul by Jimi Hendrix, covered by Marcus Miller. (When I finally upload an avatar, you'll understand why.)

When I'm on my emp def, Stage of Genjuro - Demon Song (Samurai Shodown II). To me it encapsulates what it's like to have things go well, then get hairy, but survive it all anyway (let it play for 90 seconds and you'll see what I mean).

This post has given me a lot to think about. I play an emp/dark defender, and I've noticed that after a while, I find myself usually in one of two situations:

1) Ineffectual and redundant; would've been better on my soloing build instead of group build. Nothing lives long enough to do significant damage; these folks know what they're doing. I've got tentacles, blasts, and stuns (among other things) but I feel like I'm leeching. Gimpathy indeed.

2a) Yelling at the screen for people to hold still so I can at least fire my auras and we can maybe stop with all the god damn wipes since they are so determined to run all over the place and out of heal range.
2b) Alternately, yelling at them to pop some damn insps so I can give away the huge blues I don't need because I was there when the recovery aura went off. If you're having end problems, I feel bad for you son. I've got only two auras but +rec is one.

3) Usually after 2a), calmly but firmly taking charge regardless of who is the actual team leader, and having us stop wiping through the use of-- *gasp*-- tactics. After one instance of that, the TF I was on took down the AV so fast people were all, "Well that was boring."

I have learned, though, by reading this thread, a few things:

1) It's NOT my fault if somebody dies, even if they ran off and rejected my teleport. In fact, from now on, while in missions I should teleport only corpses unless asked. If you can run off and handle business separate from the group, more power to ya. If not, I'll rez you where the rest of us are unless you decide to hosp it. Running after you ain't gonna happen if you aren't in visual range and even then you can't count on it happening.

2) Repeated team wipes does not = no fun. My job is only partly to help keep the team alive (just like, in fact, everyone else on the team). Granted, sometimes it's the biggest part, but it is just a part.

3) I still have a lot to learn about being an emp defender.

Except for the few toons I might roll on Exalted? Pinn 4 Life!

Server status page says everything is down, but when I saw a medium load on Freedom I had my suspicions. Currently logged into Pinnacle. We'll see what happens...

I actually have a scrapper that I'd love to get in on this-- if only I could. :/

"That's" is a contraction of "that" and "is" (just like "here's" is "here" and "is") and gets an apostrophe. "Boys" and "girls" and "Thursdays" are plural (just like "aliens") and therefore do not.

This is all mostly moot because no one can get on anyway. :P

...and it seems to be borked again. Showing a date of June 24, 2011, no less.