Paradigm_Shift

The centipede let go of the Whale as it crashed, and fell into the water.

"Big freakin' deal. It's water." The centipede grumbled as it casually started propeling itself back to the beach with synchronized leg-strokes. While most centipedes didn't agree with water very well, this one could apparently swim. Not only that, but it rode the waves and tide gracefully and without much hassle, given that it was so small, and that he was just on the surface of the water, its churning fury just didn't really affect him. He didn't even need to worry about absorbing oxygen, due to unforseen assistance.

It washed up onto shore and headed for its "ride," the man that he had been using as a vehicle. It had been further dragged about the beach by all the tidal attacks.

"And, of course, there's water inside it." The centipede sighed.

"EEEEK!" A lady not too far away pointed at him and shrieked. "GIANT BUG! SOMEBODY KILL IT!"

Virtueverse, Paragon City, King's Row, Sewer Sytem beneath the PPD Headquarters.

"Ok Dealers, listen up." The thug enforcer was resting rather casually atop one of Dr. Mechano's Virtueverse-side dimension bombs. "Our goal is to protect this bomb, orders are direct from Red Death. You may have noticed our group composition isn't exactly regulation..."

The five other thug enforcers nodded as one.

"And this is because of our unique skills. We are to pose as PPD officials, so get out your fake I.D.s and badges. We're here under the pretense of examination the bomb and conducting formal forensics analysis around it. Unfortunately, we cannot allow any heroes to contaminate the scene." As he spoke, the enforcers removed their bandanas, and put on the aforementioned badges. "We are only to use violence as a LAST RESORT." He finished firmly. "I want all of you to seal off the perimeter. Look official boys, and act friendly. But not too friendly, get it?"

The centipede stopped trying to bite the whale, and raised its six foremost legs, the rest continued to cling tightly onto the whale.

"I'M GOING TO BURY YOUR CORPSE IN A CESSPOOL AND HAVE MY MATE LAY HER SPAWN IN YOUR FREAKIN' BRAINS IF YOU DON'T STOP RIGHT NOW!" It roared, its voice drowned out by the sound of everything else. Still, this time the centipede was serious. The astute observer would note that it appeared to have bionic energy weapons merged with the six limbs he had raised, which also appeared to double as rather nasty claw-like melee weapons. The centipede stabbed the giant floating psychic whale with all six, releasing blasts of energy while also attempting to cut straight through.

This did not work. Again, its small size proved to be the centipedes undoing. The claws were about as annoying as a shaggy carpet, and the energy blasts about as harmful as a cool breeze. The centipede refused to relent, continually trying to break through the whale's first layer of skin with a flurry of claws and energy strikes, screaming furiously all the while.

"YOU FREAKIN JERK! I'M GONNA FREAKIN' EAT YOUR GUTS AND SPIT EM BACK OUT YOUR *******!" The centipede screamed in utter fury at Krill Killer. It then performed a very impressive leap and landed on Krill Killer's side, where it bit him.

Centipedes are, of course, venomous. However, three factors got in the way here: A: Krill Killer's skin was too thick. B: The centipede's jaws were too small. C: Even if it had worked, the venom would be much too dilute to actually do anything. In conclusion, the centipede hanging onto and biting Krill Killer was about as effective as trying to pick the lock on a vault door using chocolate-coin tinfoil.

"PHIP 'OU UHPRT!" The centipede gagged furiously.

One of the many water cyclones picked up a particular buff man who had been tredding the water, and threw him at considerable speed towards a beach umbrella that had been knocked over. Instead of being comically impaled, he smashed into the tip of the pole head-first and suffered a horrendous clotheline effect that planting him on his back in the sand, either dead from trauma or with a severe concussion.

"YOU FREAKIN' JERK!" The voice came from around the man's midriff. Whether or not the Whale heard or not was unimportant. The important bit would be if it saw the man's chest suddenly spring open like door to reveal that he wasn't a man at all, but an android! And not only was he an android, he apparently had a passenger. A giant black centipede, almost three entire feet in length and a solid six inches wide, crawled out of the opening and started to skitter its way towards Krill Killer.

"YOU FREAKIN' JERK! THE ONE DAY I GO ON VACATION AND YOU RUIN MY RIDE! THAT WAS BRAND NEW!" The centipede yelled (from no visible source) at Krill Killer angrily, just as loud as any human. "HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF I TOOK THE OCEAN OUT FROM UNDER YOU WHILE YOU WERE SWIMMIN' IN IT? YOU'D BETTER BE SMART, CAUSE OTHERWISE I'M ABOUT READY TO CLEAN YOUR FREAKIN' CLOCK."

In an attempt to intimidate his foe, the centipede reared the front of its body, reaching an impressive ten inches of height.

But not every super in King's Row that day had the best of intentions.

Two minutes before the attack...

There was a loug rummaging noise from one of the thousands of dumpsters spread around King's row, in a dark and neglected alley, only visited by people who call you "friend" and their victims. Today, it was home to a giant wolf. The creature was a full six feet tall, and weighed in at a little over a ton of muscle, bone and vicious instinct. What passerby might mistake a large wolf for rummaging in the trash, was really a large wolf devouring a corpse it had dragged into the dumpster, where it had waited silently for prey to pass by.

Unfortunately, it had hidden in a dumpster with a bomb in it.

The wolf ripped another chunk from the man's intestines, pawing at his head in an effort to flay it open to get at the wonderful banquet within. And it was happily nosing through the man's stomach, looking for the spleen, when the gas bomb went off right behind it. The wolf didn't stand a chance, and died within seconds.

A long ways away, in Perez Park, something stirred.

***

But, then again, a great deal of the supers at King's Row did have the best intentions.

High in the sky, resting on the edge of a skyscraper, rested a dozing man. Wearing a white robe to conceal combat fatigues beneath, with white hair that had been dyed black at the fringes. He serenely surveyed all of King's row beneath him. And watched as green murk flooded the streets. And watched as the rioting began. And watched as everything went straight to hell...

"Its been awhile since anybody had the guts to do something like thit." He murmured softly to himself. He knew how this would go. Arachnos had done it once in the past, and the situation was looking to be about the same. Hundreds would die in the initial minute. Rioting would begin within the next five. A cure or antidote would be developed within the hour. The entire one would be on the verge of collapse within a day, with thousands dead and missing.

...Unless enough people answered the call.

The man stood, and teleported down into the streets, drawing a thin rapier from folds of his robe and marched down the street. He avoided the alleys for now. He could do the most help by cleaning up the main streets, the villains and scum that thought to hassle the civilian population directly in the chaos. Before him was a group of Trolls, who had decided their time in King's Row would be best spent on ripping apart civilians in the middle of the street.

'People like them are the most dangerous in this situation. They need to be put down first.' The man thought to himself, teleporting into their midst and downing two of the green monsters with a flash of metal. He continued to fight, cutting down every villain he saw as he went, traveling down the street in a straight line.

Whenever a user posts on these forums, a tiny button resembling scales appears under their avatar attatched to the post. Clicking it apparently increases their "reputation." What is this?

For me, the new setup just seems...clumsy. Its like they tore out the old lovable and squishy forum goo sphere and replaced it with a large and bulky non-euclidian THING. Everything has to be done in a more roundabout way, I feel.

Personally, I hate the new forums. What about all of you?

Discuss.

Only the last "tic" of RoA will reliably scourge. And on bosses, if you're opening up with it, there is a VERY SLIM chance that it won't happen at all.

The whole problem is that its listed as being rarely *resisted.* Still, that IS a valid point I hadn't considered.

There we go. Thank ye, Sarrate.

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Even going back all the way to Issue 1, the most commonly and in fact one of the most heavily resisted damage types by NPCs was and still is, in fact, toxic damage.

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??

I don't think so...

Where did you get that idea?

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A combination of Redtomax's and paragon wiki. And it's been a while since I checked, so I could very easily be wrong.

So I was thinking. A bad sign. And I was thinking about one of our very own melee sets. Spines.

The in-game description for spines states, and I quote, "Very few foes have resistance to Spine poison." Even going back all the way to Issue 1, the most commonly and in fact one of the most heavily resisted damage types by NPCs was and still is, in fact, toxic damage. Now, perhaps the actual description was aimed towards player defense sets, of which only the "newer" ones include any form of toxic resistance. The problem being that in Issue 1, PvP did not, in fact, exist in any form. Which meant that the description could not have been implying that you were going to fight other players.

So why the hell does the description say that? The only reason I can think of was to attract new players to a damage bonus by light of the fact that few opponents would have resistance to it. But why say that if it is clearly and obviously the exact opposite? And if advertising a set for its rarity in being resisted, why not mention that in the set description of something like dark melee or dark blast? Darkness being one damage type rarely, if ever resisted by NPCs. (When they did though, they resisted it a LOT. )

So, again. What's up with that? Stupid, pointless question, but it's been bugging me for a long time.

I personally HATE Port Oaks with the entirety of my being. I loathe and despise it. Hatred can be DEFINED and ascend to a high plane of meaning through my feelings towards Port Oaks. Port Oaks needs to be chopped into hundreds of chunky, pulpy red smears, set on fire and then scattered to the winds with a fragmentation grenade. Port Oaks needs to go and kindly DIE IN A FIRE. Port Oaks needs to crash and burn. Hate. Hate. Hate. Allow me to tell you how much I have come to Hate Port Oaks since I came into being. I have 3,567 miles worth of paper cut into the word "Hate." If the word "Hate" was further engraved into every nanoamstrong of those 3,567 miles, it would still not equal one trillionth of the Hate I feel for Port Oaks. Hate. Hate. Hate. There should be entire religions devoted to despising the vacuous waste of space that is Port Oaks. It is something where there should be nothing. It needs to be wiped off the face of the Earth, off the face of the universe. Port Oaks needs to be leveled so that not one dust molecule stands atop another. We need to blow a hole in the very fabric of reality where Port Oaks is located and erase existence itself in that one area.

Port Oaks can go [censored] itself.

Why?

Because I have to use the damn place for connections to get everywhere else to and from Mercy Island.

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I might just agree if Lusca was altered to reflect being affected by the magical energies in Nerva versus the polluted water of Independence Port.

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Waters polluted by Crey Industries. Which is very, if not equally active in Nerva. They have their own little science-oriented Freakshow circus there.

Very much /signed.

They actually had some of these for a while. They and several other "unique" maps, like the Chantry and sky temple, were removed due to clipping issues and spawned objects and enemies. We may get them back and more when they resolve the issue, if they ever do.