craban

Curse me for being unoriginal, but I liked it the first time too... Mortik, the insane corruptor skull-head...thing...
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When I walk I carry a big-ol’ stick! Huh-UH! Yeah! Baby! Hit you on da Heaaaad. Ha! Yow! Baby! It’s brown and got some leaves on it – I think it’s made of ooooooaaaaaaaakkkkk! Yeah! Huh-UH!

What? Who’s there? Who are you? Oh, you again. I hope you brought some more of those little pills. Those blue ones made my head all wobbly and I was enjoyin’ a chat with the snow-lint monster before it wore off. What? Oh, we were arguing about the socio-political impact McDonald’s had on rural Bor-Volencia, in the Delta Quadrent.

No I won’t be quiet. I don’t care who wants to know what- oh… about me? Really? Welweee? Cool. Ok. I’ll tell ya what ya want ta know.

It began a long long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. It did too. Shutup, you weren’t there. I remember that distinctly. So there I was, a grown man of forty, wrestling with almighty Jupiter for control of the entire future of humanity when… not the planet you doorknob, the god! Oh wait, maybe it was the planet. I don’t remember.

Well of course it’s the truth! Why would I lie? I have the pictures in my head, I watched them on TV, so I should know!

Shows what you know, I’ve never even been to Paragon City. Spent my whole life in rural Buffalo, raising majestic junipers. That bank manager – he’s the criminal, do you know he told me I couldn’t make a deposit without an account?! Well I showed him, didn’t I? And I woulda’ gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for them meddling kids.

Ha, ha, Scrappy-Doo, you lovable scamp.

What?

Oh.

Captain who?

Nope, don’t remember that at all. You sure he got the right guy?

I don’t know, it’s always been that shape.

What do you mean I don’t have a face? How the blazes am I alive without a face? Give me a mirror!

GAH!!! I have no face! Doc, you gotta help me! Hey… I’m a handsome devil, ain’t I? Yeah…. Nevermind…. I think I like it.

So where were we? And that reminds me, why do you keep putting me in this jacket all the time? It’s not very well made – the sleeves are too bloody long. I must have asked that moron at the door a dozen times for one that fits, he just won’t bring it! I go to sleep, I wake up, I’m wearin’ the same thing. The only way you can make it fit is to tie the sleeves to the back, and that’s just stupid. Makes it hard to do anything like that.

How do I get out of it? What the jacket? The cell too huh? I dunno... Why? You taking a survey?

Oh, you are, huh? Well next time I do it I’ll ask, doc, that’s a promise.

Ok, I’ll see ya later. I’ve got a speech at the Union in a little while, better gimmie some more of those wobbly-head pills, those guys are killer.


SSSsiiiiinnnngggging in the raaain… just sssinnging in the raaaaaaiiiiinnnn…. Ssinging in the raiiin juussst sinngggging in the rain… oh I’m singing in the rain… just wishing it would raaain……….

Wait... what?

There's some familiar names! The faces are kinda different, and I don't like that, but oh well. And Knight has always been faceless, (and brainless... Oh Hells, did I say that out loud? Sorry there buddy).

Now then, while everybody is having trouble adjusting...

Wait a sec... you brought the invisble cradenza too! Awesome!

*gouges NewAgeKnight's eye and leaps under the invisible cradenza whistling a happy tune*

Well... I guess we can use 'em for something, (though I was really hoping somebody would waltz in with the "No, go fish" reply. Oh well).

Yippie!

Dangit! Now that is patently unfair behavior!

Ok, ok, maybe we can salvage this somehow. Have you got any lymph nodes?

I still think the whole thing woulda been funnier if every zone had just been flodded with level 50 longbows and swept clean.

Then I would've been able to stand up here and say, "see?!?! I TOLD YA the end was nigh - there it bloody went!"

Instead I can only say, "well... we sure showed them heroes what's what, eh?"

I'd prefer to have been right than victorious, but that's just me.

You know...

That, right there, is all it would take to make a world of difference in the game. A little witty banter from your opponent. Or even some not so witty banter.

All the fights with the NPC opponents go the same way - they may say something the first time they see you, but after that it's all robotic AI stuff. One mission is very much like the next.

But a fight against an opponent like Manticore there, who chats with ya during the fight, brings something new and makes it memorable.

Like I'm sorry I wasn't in that zone when he was there.

I guess the PvP battles are supposed to be more fun for that very reason... still, it would be pretty neat if the Arch-Boss or whatever hit you with a couple lines of dialogue during the fight.

Oh well.

That's the spirit! We'll bake up a fresh batch of cyanide cookies and arsenic tea and see if we can't collect some vict- er... guests. No, I think I did mean victims, yeah.

PREPARE VICTIM ROOM NUMBER 1!

Yamir smorf tune lintle dabliesh con ta no liki sun tamellamedos, bun kille dur-reicht kono san waike.

baka

What the flippin' heck?! I STAB AT YOU! Git back here, you filthy cheater!

Drat. 's awful quiet in this place.

Well then, I'm gonna find the best cell in the joint and claim it as me own. Then I'm gonna sit there and draw me some friends and some monsters to eat them and some aliens to creep inside and pull things back out so that they can see what it is exactly that makes things tick so loudly in the dark which is real annoying when yer tryin' ta sleep and all you hear is ticking and tocking and ricking and rocking and sometimes if I close my eyes I can still see the awful light that shone around the place just before the world came crashing in.

Good times, bad times, I wish somebody had a watch.

So they closed the old Asylum on the CoV beta boards and it looks like we'll be using these horrid blue things for a while, (I wonder if there's a color scheme button somewhere)...

So I'm bringing the crazies and the fools and the loons and the poisons and the knives and the bar and everything else over here.

Ain't it great?

Shutup, you know it is.

LET THE INSANITY COMMENCE!

That's fine - it means my blaster won't be suffering a loss of damage output as well as Endurance Recovery, (since I use 6-slotted Stamina to dish out firey death), or at least... suffering quite so much.

However, unless I discover that having 4 Damage SO's in a power means I do LESS damage than if I only had 2, I'm not respec'ing my character, I shall simply do less damage.

So we're stuck with it. Oh well.

Like I said before, we didn't have to sacrifice much to get it, so we can't really complain. Help is help. And I can honestly say that MY level 50 Fire/Fire Blaster will try to make use of it. But then, I really enjoy using that Rise of the Pheonix power. Really enjoy using it. As in, going out of my way to suck up damage sometimes so I can use it.

If I were anything else than a level 50 blaster tho I'd look at this as a mildly nifty thing that happens just before I die and NOT something I should be actively seeking to use. And I think most other blasters will agree with me.

If it helps keep a single blaster alive in a fight then I guess it's worth it. On a more practical level though if a blaster notices Defiance kicking in it is time to use that escape plan they made before they began the fight, (the one every blaster over 30 forces himself to learn after much debt: mass use of heal, (either from a Defender or Inspirations), and then run like heck when heal runs out). Blasters that seek to use Defiance as a weapon will be something to fear, but they'll also be carrying around loads of debt.

Now people might argue that blasters by definition carry around loads of debt so there is nothing at all lost by using Defiance... but... well.... it's not funny.

Of course, playing a blaster is supposed to be different than playing anything else. Using Defiance will just make it really different. An "added challenge" for those of us who thought playing a blaster was too easy.

I can deal with it. But then... I REALLY like that Rise of the Pheonix power. It's too cool. (Plus debt is meaningless to me now, which is why I'm at 1.5 million or something. Very handy, that)

When I read about Defiance I thought, "AWESOME!" I remembered several frustrating fights where it came down to a single shot, that I missed, and thus allowed the enemy to take me out. If I'd been doing more damage on the previous hits then I would have won.

Awesome.

So I logged on and tried it out. At level 50 I found that the monsters and AV's could still take me out with two or three hits, (as a Fire/ Fire Blaster), so being able to hurt them more didn't help much, (ok, not at all since I couldn't even use Rise of the Pheonix to carry on the fight - not enough health upon rising to survive a blow). As for the rest, well, even when I stood around and begged 'em to hit me, they just seemed incapable of dragging my health in range before I got bored and roasted 'em. (Lots of misses on their part...)

So I thought, "ok, maybe it would be more useful at low levels" and made an Archer/Tech Blaster just for the heck of it. I ran around and took on mobs of 3 yellow minions and even a large mob with Orange Lt's in it without too much trouble. However, defiance didn't really help as much as I'd hoped because I kept missing those crucial shots.

Which doesn't surprise me at all. I know full well that my characters miss more often when I have some short-term boost in effect, either Defiance or Aim or one of those yellow inspiration things.

I think the idea is cool, and could be useful in certain situations, but it is not something blasters should seek to actually make use of because it will not save them. Oh it might work out just perfectly, you hit the baddie for massive game-ending damage just before he takes you out... but I think more likely you'll put off some healing for the damage boost and not quite finish off the bad guys before they get you.

I also noticed a new measuring bar for this power that began to fill up a little then decrease when I fired off a power. I presume that is meant to prevent abuse of the power and that's probably a good thing. However, as a low level blaster that very thing seemed to make Defiance even less worthwhile than it was 'cause I was losing health badly, hitting those two minions, them hitting me, but I wasn't doing "uber damage" to take them out... just an extra point or two, then the slider went back to zero, started growing again, and before you know it I was dead.

Sooo I'm of the opinion that this sounds good, might even be useful now and again, and since I don't think I had to trade anything away to get it, I can't really complain about it. But make me Lord of the Battlefield it will not.... I feel like I've been begging my parents for a car for months and months and months and finally was given the keys to a 1983 Volvo Station Wagon, (or whatever) - yeah, it's a car... no, it's not really what I had hoped to get, but I'm glad to have it and will probably grow quite fond of it later.