Paladin

I'm up for joining one of these. Weekdays I'm usually available after 6:30 pm PST, and weekends can be just about any time as long as it's not ungodly early in the morning.

Paladin's my Broadsword/Regeneration scrapper, and my favorite so I'll be bringing him along.

My Broadsword/Regeneration scrapper namesake was able to tank a tower buffed Recluse without inspirations. Granted, it only took two powers to do (Flight and Confront) but I certainly felt "super."

I don't know if they'll ever give Recluse the ability to fly or buff the range on his attacks, but until then you can "tank" him by parking your character above, out of range and just firing off confront whenever it spawns. Salvaged a few STF runs that way.

Thanksgiving is here, and along with it some free time. I decided to catch up and play through the arcs that I've missed. All of these are played though on Paladin, my 50 BS/Regen Scrapper under +1 Difficulty, with x2 spawns and bosses.


Breaking the Barrier

In order to keep the allies alive I stuck to pulling with Confront and mini-tanking for the rag-tag bunch of Nagans, Longbow, and Hero(es). Fun minigame.

Very impressed with the work here, Lazarus. In much the same way as the Portal Bandits I had difficulty getting into the story until the third mission, but when the story struck it hit hard. The dialogue is excellent, and the send-off text is gripping enough that I was eager to get in there and accomplish what needed to be done.

Teaming with the Longbow in the Shadow Shard was a very pleasant surprise since so often they're cast as villains.

Thanks for letting them be concerned with protecting civilians. I even got to use my Longbow costume on Pal.

The finale, though? Outstanding. From the send-off text to Suziku's realization that she could be a hero, to Dr. Aeon's defeat-laugh bleeding into his ambush-laugh, this whole mission was 6 star-worthy. The smoke and flames hid the computers enough that it built up the atmosphere where I really felt the weight of what rested on the characters' shoulders. Dr. Aeon's motivations were classic and brought a smile to my face as well. Plus, Nagan and Longbow vs. Rularuu? Gold star stuff!

It was nice to see that the little changes to the Nagans' personalities have stuck. I'll be playing through the rest of your arcs to see what happens next, whether or not they're ever put on the club roster.


A Clone of Your Own

Ran it with Pal under +1 Difficulty, with x2 spawns and bosses.

This arc was enjoyable, and I had fun fighting clones of my characters. The doctor's a lot of fun, and the dialogue's got some wit and snappiness to it that I really liked.

I did feel like the characters needed some polish, though. It's hard for me to describe, but it seemed like who the Dr. was, along with the clones and the freakshow, were all more outlines than what they're meant to be. Also, the first clone who joined sides may be set to a non-fighting ally - he would charge enemies but then just stand there, suicidal. Might be a bug?

Thanks for creating this fun arc!


The Murders in the RWZ Morgue


Given my past troubles getting into arcs until the second or third mission, I thought that I wouldn't enjoy the story here. Man was I wrong. From the initial send-off text I was intrigued; you've got a great knack for formatting text to be appealing and engaging.

While I wasn't happy to see Longbow being shady again, the story really was solid. The Rikti monkey's red paws was a nice touch. The chaining mission features fit in about three missions worth of information into one, and it was a solid short story.

Nice job!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Enjoy your time with your families.

Amazing! Congratulations, you two! What a way to start married life - by taking down the big evil one himself. That's some love.

You've got people in your supergroup who care about you very much to help you make such a memorable proposal. Way to go!

It's nice that the devs have come out and given us insight into their thoughts, and we should be thanking them for that. They did not, and have not, provided a date that's set in stone. Some of the posts in this thread give us an idea of why the release date for issues are usually the patronizing "Soon" instead of the rough time-frame they're working with.

Perfectly understandable, War Witch. Delaying the release to come out with a polished and relatively bug-free product is the right thing to do. It'll get here when it's here.

Thanks for the heads up and the smart call.

I'm using Paladin, my Broadsword/Regeneration scrapper for these. Mission difficulty is set to normal level, normal spawn sizes with bosses in order to enjoy the story. If I want a challenge I can just head to Recluse's Victory.

Arcs will always be rated 5 stars if I played through it completely, otherwise I'll leave it unrated.

The Portal Bandits

I ran through this prior arc before Breaking the Barrier to set the foundation for the story, and enjoyed it a lot. The first two missions -did- seem to drag on, but that may be because of the large maps and because the enemy spawns repeatedly called for backup - as soon as I thought I'd cleared a spawn, bam, four more took its place. It seemed a bit generic - folks in stealth armor fighting in the Vanguard base. That's really just a personal nitpick and not a flaw, though.

But the arc was just warming up in the first two missions, and come the third (Vikki Vandale Variety Show) I was having a blast. The basis for the rest of the story was set and the author could have a bit more fun with things, which livened up the remaining missions. I can't explain why, but the bits of lighthearted fun made the later missions of storming the Nagan's base and breaking up the Rikti/Nagan war seem epic and important.

The use of clues to set up a secret door was brilliant, and I found myself smiling and audibly remarking about how clever it was to my brother. I also want to thank you for giving one of the allies a self heal - as a hero player, I don't like the idea of teammates getting KOed, and the dumb-as bricks AI need all the help they can get. Confront only does so much to keep them alive, and making sure they survive to the end of the story's an important part of the immersion for me.

I enjoyed the ending, although I didn't much care for the human guilt-trip in Obscura's final rant. She seemed too reasonable to blow off what she said, which conflicts with the four-color, bright setting I like to see CoH as. Again though, that's just a personal nitpick and not a flaw in the story.

Lastly, I noticed a few comma splices in the dialogue. It didn't interfere with the story, but the grammatically inclined might find it distracting. No where even close to being a dealbreaker though.

Very fun, and it really picked up steam as it went along. Nice job, Lazarus!

I'm playing through Breaking the Barrier now. I'll let you know how that turns out.

I'm no author, but I'm continually impressed by the great work that you all put out. If this can help give some much deserved praise where it's due then you can count me in. I'll have some arcs played through and basic feedback provided a bit later this weekend.

She's in the New York Post?

It's good to be on the winning team.

It's certainly more archetype friendly.

A worthwhile purchase for fans of the CoH costume creator and those with regular characters they play. I'm sold.

It's been a long time since they were changed. Hack used to have a more crushing sound, but was changed to a 'brighter' higher pitched sound that makes you think of metal striking metal.

I don't recall other changes, but I believe Headsplitter, Disembowel and Whirling Sword all still have their original sounds.

I remember those days. I spent a long time on my BS/Regen herding up groups of 5th Column in Brickstown and used the geography to stack them all together, then MASSACRED them with a Built-Up Headsplitter. A few times I had so many of them that my computer froze for a second while it calculated the amount of carnage it was going to have to process, followed by a chorus of that beautiful satisfying CRUNCH as the broadsword sank into the Nazis.

Honestly, though? Looking back at it, the level of offense and survivability I had with BS/Regeneration is nothing compared to the carnage I unleash with my Soft-capped VEAT once the AoE cap is accounted for. Soft-capped anything approaches the survability of Toggle Instant Healing, and add both Aid Self and Defense Debuff Resistance to that and you're looking good. I'd wager that, were it around in I4 as it is today, Defense would be hit as hard by the nerf hammer as Regen was.

Which makes me think that the Incarnate content is going to involve a lot of defense mitigation.

Interesting mechanic. I can see those who play a bunch of alts getting a lot of use out of this, but unless this can tie into the incarnate system somehow I doubt I'll find much use for it - Dr. Vahzilok managed to put a vaccine against alt-itis in the water system of Steel Canyon, or something.

Thanks for keeping the system going, CoH Team.

I'm buying it the moment it's released. Pal's either getting a gold and blue colored atomic aura, or silvery runes - it's too early to decide which.

I'd be willing to pay a little extra for the quality that's just overflowing from this pack, so $10-15 is reasonable to me. The only thing that would make this even better would be if we could have natural auras, and not just nature - but then, natural heroes probably wouldn't have an aura in the first place.

Back when I still PvPed in Sirens I finished off a fleeing villain player with the Perfect Zinger proc from Confront. I had a screenshot of the event until my computer died. Good times.

I'd go with brawl slotted with the Chance for Knockdown in Kinetic combat. Underlings get knocked back, so I can hope that a level 1 underling would go flying.

Stuck at work, but a Swords Aura? How would that work?

I might pick it up for Pally, depending on how swell it looks. I haven't been this excited for an issue release since AE came about.

Edit: Ahh, so it's looking like enchanters and their magic flying swords have finally made it out to Paragon City. Interesting looking enemy, and I can see it used in a lot of AE arcs in the future.

The task force looks absolutely epic. As someone who only plays one or two alts and plays his main character most of the time, this issue is what I've been waiting for. I can't wait!

The only thing /Regen needs is to get Revive looked at; the power should have an untouchable component added to it. It's worthless as a battle revive without relying on MoG being taken and recharged.

Edit: -Recharge resist would be nice, though.

This is amazing news, Sho! I remember being so disappointed at the ending of the anime series as it was released, seeing it finish at the end of the prologue without some much deserved retribution.

I watched the series over a course of a few months, and actually forgot the show started with supernatural elements. I must've been more surprised when the moth sprite first showed up than the characters in the show.

The guy was a very good man from all accounts. I wish his family all comfort in this trying time.

Clever title, though.

Rawr. To Hulu I go!

I stopped watching Family Guy when the political rhetoric was cranked up to 11. Because of the unabashedly, even offensively liberal attacks, I've never been interested in picking up the show again... until now.

How's the political [censored]-flinging in this episode? Toned down enough for the sake of a smart, witty plot like the first few seasons?