Patteroast

It was also mentioned when Bruising was added that it helps make the non-optional first tier attacks, many of which do minor damage, more attractive.

Mine's rather simple, everything pushed out to the sides. This is the same for all characters, although some lowbies might not be using trays five or six yet, so they might be hidden (I use 4, 5, and 6 for veteran, accolade, temporary, and other various utility powers, plus occasionally macros.) I always choose some attributes to monitor, and I always have a pet window, if only for the veteran buff pet. Full-size is 1920 x 1200, click the half-size below to see that if you're interested.

Very nice story. My story's not as exciting, and spread out over a longer amount of time (first character made in the last days of I2!), but I hope to get there someday as well. As of right now, here's my list, not including a few repeated ATs:

Explomadoza (Empathy/Electric Defender)
Patteroast (Claws/Invulnerability Scrapper)
Professor Orange (Mercenaries/Poison Mastermind)
Dr. Fejwol (Stone/Stone Tanker)
Asoposl (Fire/Radiation Controller)
Kiviuq (Ice/Ice Dominator)
Particle Accelerator (Energy/Energy Stalker)
Captain Kalamari (Triform Warshade)
Crater Jr. (Stone/Willpower Brute)
Operative Greyling (Night Widow Arachnos Widow)

Level 47 - Yetniy (Radiation/Kinetics Corruptor)
Level 35 - Set To Eleven (Sonic/Electric Blaster)
Level 35 - Fratricidal (Bane Spider Arachnos Soldier)
Level 24 - SpaceBot 8300 (Human-only Peacebringer)


My other personal goal is to play every powerset on each archetype at least once. In that endeavor I'm only missing Archery and Dual Pistols Corruptors, Dual Blades and Electric Melee Tankers, a Fortunata and a Crab Spider.

The most satisfying goals are the ones we make for ourselves. I wish you well in whatever you work on next!

Defenders are my favorite archetype. Can't really give a concrete reason as to why... I just enjoy them the most, and a non-rational level. I find them fun.

Corruptors... despite the fact that I know they're rather similar, they're somewhere around my least favorite archetype. And I really don't know why. I keep giving them a chance, and am nearing getting one to 50, but I just don't have as much fun on them.

No archetype will ever be obsolete as long as there's someone who finds it to be fun.

I was just playing a character that I haven't been on in a while, and as I was about to log off, I verified my badges for City Info Tracker, and I noticed a badge that I didn't recognize. It was Destined One... but I do not have the Collector's Edition, nor have I ever had it. Stranger still, this one character (a level 19 Corruptor in the Rogue Isles) is the only one who appears to have the badge.

Is there some strange new way of earning this badge that I stumbled across unknowingly, or is this simply an odd bug?

I've had a character on each NA server for a while... I guess I'll have to start thinking of some ideas for at least four more characters.

I tend to be kind of OCD about my inspiration trays. I try to keep them organized, even in the heat of battle. My generic tray is a column each of greens, blues, purples/oranges, awakens/break frees, and reds/yellows; of course, it varies a lot based on a character's strengths or weaknesses, but if I get something I already have a stack of, I tend to burn it right away.

I also will always trade up a small for a medium or a medium for a large, using the smaller one as soon as possible. Because of this I end up with characters whose trays are entirely filled with large inspirations... but I always keep room for more, and whenever things are looking bleak, I start emptying the tray as quickly as I can.

Let's see... I've got thirteen of 'em. Just for the hell of it, let's put the first eight together.

Empathy/Electric Defender
Claws/Invulnerability Scrapper
Mercenaries/Poison Mastermind
Stone/Stone Tanker
Fire/Radiation Controller
Ice/Ice Dominator
Energy/Energy Stalker
Triform Warshade

I think that team would work just fine... then again, most teams of eight work pretty damn well. Tanking with the Tanker, with backup from the Warshade and Scrapper. Damage from the Scrapper, Stalker, Dom, MM... the Controller and Dom for mezzes, the Controller and MM for debuffs and the Defender and Controller for buffs.

What the hell, I'll add my next highest characters to the rest to make a second team.

Stone/Willpower Brute
Earth/Sonic Controller
Illusion/Trick Arrow Controller
Spines/Regeneration Scrapper
Night Widow
46 Radiation/Kinetics Corruptor
42 Dark/Dark Tanker
41 Gravity/Storm Controller

I don't think it'd be as traditionally sturdy at the first group, but still... Tank, Brute, Scrapper on aggro duty. With Kinetics, pretty much everyone on damage. Triple Controllers for mezzing, buffing, debuffing... It'd definitely work just fine.

I'm another who decides on a case-by-case basis for each character, depending on what suits them best... not just for power usefulness but also story-wise. A few of my level 50 villains switched to better fitting APPs, and currently one of my low 40s heroes is side switching against concept just to get the by far best match for him in the PPPs. There's even my Stalker who had a PPP, switched to an APP, then switched sides to hero, and I decided that a different PPP than the one I originally chose was the best fit.

My favorite example of having an Ouroboros Portal at low level is a silly character I have on the Training Room. He's level 1, and he can never leave Outbreak because he's been banished there forever. He has a ton of badges, and because he's so old that he has the first two anniversary badges, he has an Ouroboros Portal. I can summon it, but can't enter.

Travel powers are really just a matter of taste. For the most part, you can get anywhere with any of them. There are some exceptions, mostly for Super Speed, but those can be got around with temp powers or even just taking a more roundabout way... the few places in the game that cannot be gotten to at all with Super Speed are only of importance if you're looking to get every exploration badge, because a small handful are in those inaccessible spots. (You'd be surprised how few, if you're willing to work on getting there.)

If you have the jump jet or a temp power jetpack, you can get anywhere, even with just Ninja/Beast Run.

I've never felt that fly or hover were essential. I choose travel powers based on what fits the theme, because they all work well enough. If there's no clear winner and it doesn't matter otherwise, I tend to take Super Jump because it happens to be my favorite.

I used to be a pretty serious badge hunter, had something like 90%+ of possible badges on my first level 50 hero, and I also did some badging on my first level 50 villain, but at some point I fell drastically behind to the point that I felt I'd never get back to that many.

It was actually kind of freeing. If I'm playing, I still get badges if I can... I recently got Empath without ever farming for it, so that made me happy. I'm a fan of jumping around and exploring, so all my 14 level 50s have run through the exploration and history badges. If a friend is running a TF, it really doesn't matter who I bring, and I don't feel a preference at the time, I still go with whoever doesn't have the badge (even if they're one of my below-50s.) But it doesn't kill me not having them all, anymore. (Well, I'm still kind of annoyed that I made my main badger one day after Celebrant stopped awarding...)

This isn't really answering the question. No, not needed, but it wasn't really ever needed... badging itself isn't needed if you want to get right down to it. Personally, I do low-level badging on all my 50s and a few of my other prominent characters, nowadays. Maybe 20 characters. I would not pass up working on rare or hard to get badges if my friends wanted to work on them, but otherwise I can wait.

I am definitely a journey above destination kinda guy. Having (multiple!) interesting destinations is great, but I prefer a more undirected approach to gameplay. I know for a fact that most gamers do not feel the same way as me, so I don't mind at all that games tend not to cater to how I play... if I can find my own fun, that's enough to keep me playing.

For my search message, I usually like to simply state my powersets and say, 'Send me a tell!'

It conveys that I would like to team and would not like blind invites, without the awkwardness associated with being invited just before logging off ("But you say you're always up for a team!") or being berated by weird anti-no-blind-invites people ("How dare you tell me what to do! I will now tell you what to do.") It also sounds friendly, at least to me.

I occasionally mix it up on some characters... t3h Ub3rbl4st3r's message is "S3nd m3 4 t311! (I promise I won't actually talk like that.)" and my petless MM has "Warning! Petless mastermind! (But please team with me anyway.)" That one has actually pulled in a few people curious about the very existence of such a thing.

When I'm actively trying to recruit for a team, I prefer to use a simple and polite, "Hello! Would you be interested in a level XX mission team? "

I'm reminded of the wall safe glowies in office maps sometimes appearing in the walls of cubicles.

The only times I've deleted a character are:

1) Before extra slots and server transfers, I deleted and remade some characters on new servers to free up room.
2) On a few occasions, I've decided that a character would work much better with a different powerset, so I deleted and remade them with it.
3) When Going Rogue came out, I deleted and remade a bunch of characters who fit in better in Praetoria.
4) I've deleted a handful of entirely horrible characters that I made as a joke, but later didn't find amusing, just embarrassing, and had absolutely no attachment to, or any intentions of ever playing.

Of those three categories, only #4 really even counts, since the rest involve remaking the character.

Yeah. I fully subscribe to the 'I might like them again later' theory. (And it's proved true multiple times, so hey! )

On my entirely natural TA/Archery Defender, I originally decided that for story reasons that I would not get a travel power. Then they came out with craftable costumes bits that animate with travel powers! So I picked up Fly, and a second costume where he was wearing Rocket Boots. I like to jump up into the air and hit my Fly+Costume Change macro when I need to travel, now. If/when they ever come out with jetpack costume pieces, I'll swap his rocket boots out for that.

My Dark/Fire Brute has fire generating armor that specifically creates burst of fire only to deflect or discourage attacks. (The Dark attacks? He's just punching people, and his armor's giving off smoke. ) Because the fire isn't supposed to be there unless he's being attacked, and also because in my concept for him, he's not terribly protected from his own fire, I always turn off his armors when between missions.

I also used to make sure that I switched into my costume with wings when I was using Fly on my Ice/Ice Dom, but eventually I kind of stopped switching back into the original costume, because I liked the winged costume better.

I think it's best to consider Eviscerate a single target attack that can sometimes hit bonus enemies, than consider it a reliable AoE attack.

Other than the big obvious servers (Freedom and Virtue), the smaller servers do have their own personalities... but they're hard to really define with a few words.

I started on Infinity, and even though I can't really describe how, it just feels like home when I'm there. The average of all the personalities of people who choose to play on a server, combined with what character you choose to play there, can make a difference.

Not that much of a difference though. You can get the same general experience on any server. Mostly friendly, helpful people who are nice to play with, with a thankfully rare scattering of jerks and weirdos.

Mark me down as another people who didn't realize there were two different sets of animations for Fiery Aura... even though I've used both.

I have a few that didn't just happen, but they did happen several years into playing the game, so I think they qualify: It was only maybe a year or so ago that I realized that other than your last server used being on top, the servers screen was sorted by load from least to most. How I never noticed that I'll never know.

It was also only in the last year or so that I noticed the weird market access offered by Shady Cage in Port Oakes.

Every once in a while I like to just hop around the game, looking for places that I never really noticed before. It's still one of my favorite things to do.