TheOtherTed

Dr. Stephen Fayte: "I am merely a gifted surgeon, and nothing more." This line, and this alone, is the main reason I do radio missions.

I only have two. Lee Three, a super-spy working for an agency that's so secret even I don't know what it's called, is a direct fusion of Melinda May from "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." and any of the main characters in "The Heroic Trio" (ok, not a comic - sue me). I realized after watching both that the one thing missing from my MMO life was a character who could kick arse in painfully awkward heels. The second started as a name only - The Paralegal. I couldn't think of a concept to save my life, until I played one of those other superhero MMOs. Suddenly I realized that the name was the answer to the question, what would Zatanna have become if she'd gone into law instead of show business? Other than that, I did have a couple of characters who were accidental knock-offs of some comic or other. I deleted one as soon as I realized what he was, and the other I was too invested in by the time an SG mate pointed it out ("so, basically, Wonder Woman, but with a bow and actual clothing"). I also have several characters who would fit just fine in the Gotham universe, and one who would make perfect sense in a Luke Cage comic, but, again, not intentionally.

I know I'm late to the party, but perhaps your son would prefer elegant music from a more civilized age...

I had a lot of fun with a Dark defender on live - reasonably active (but not too active), surprisingly safe, and a pretty good AoE heal once slotted. Weak on team buffs, and requires a bit of positioning and situational awareness, but some very nice AoE debuffs with decent controller-y elements. I recall on live, however, that Dark defenders were a bit undervalued - not sure if that's still true. I personally wouldn't recommend Kinetics. I played one for years, and got thanked for all the wrong reasons.

My solution to the naming problem is to dip into other languages for words (or, if I'm lucky, actual names) with meanings relevant to my character. It can take some digging, but I can usually find something that I like the sound of. In the end, I'm the one who has to "live" with the name - whether someone gets it or not is secondary (although it is fun when I get a random /tell from someone who does). Sometimes, I'll come up with a general idea for a name and dig around to see if there are similar types of terms in other languages. For example, I wanted a cool name for a secret spy character, so I looked up whether other languages had equivalents of "Jane Doe" (i.e., a tag for an unidentified body). That led to two character names I've used a lot - "Jeanne Truc" and "Lee Three" - which in turn helped me fine tune the character concepts. Again, not so concerned if other people don't make the connection - I like how they sound, and I like the concepts they convey in my head. Anyway, here are two of my favorite sites for name inspirations: https://www.wiktionary.org/ https://www.momjunction.com/baby-names/all/

Thanks all for the input - it helped a lot! Still not quite sure about the boots, but for now I've decided to hide the problem by going dark red from knee to sole and figure it out later. Thanks again!

Great call on the Organic Armor face! Never realized you could change the eye color, and I always skipped it because of the texture. Also, your comment about the muted colors in the right column got me thinking. I inverted the color scheme on the robe, went with muted red for the primary color (the trim/pattern), and medium grey for the secondary. After which, I tried the muted yellow for the secondary, and things started to click into place. Results are as follows: The boots still bother me, but I wanted something relatively subtle to break up the red. Any ideas? Or maybe another leg/boot combo that works better?

And while I'm here, I might as well post my request 😀 I had this idea for a species of "nomadic space genies" - interstellar travellers who visited the Earth centuries ago (at least pre-Islamic, probably pre-Christian, maybe even pre-Roman). They had superhuman abilities (of course), worked from the shadows (of course), and may have been confused with (or maybe became a source of) stories of Djinn or other spirits. In any case, they're swinging back through this part of the galaxy, you know, just to say "hi." The specific character is a female Dark Blast/Dark Miasma corruptor (redundant? I'll find out...), and so far I've settled on the following features: Hooded (either Arcane or Circle of Thorns), Thug Mask or other lower-face coverings (but no Veils, please), and Supernatural Face 4 (the one with the white featureless eyes). Thinking some sort of Robe or Jacket - currently sort of happy with the Warrior Fire robe, but, gosh (do people say "gosh" anymore?), it's hard to match with anything else. Definitely open to other ideas. As for color scheme, I was thinking some sort of off-white (or very pale color), but not sure what the secondary color would be. Tried various types of purples, but nothing grabbed my eye. Also, she'd have a dark and spooky combat aura, but I didn't want to play with that until I got the basic costume down. "Hollywood" Persian-inspired garb would be cool, but would welcome a "sci-tech" feel as well. Nearly full coverage. Would prefer a sleek look (aside from the robe/jacket) - massive jagged shoulders and ten-ton monster boots just aren't my thing.

This probably isn't what you're looking for, but I recently recreated a reptilian-themed character that I ran on live. AR/Poisons Corruptor (former Marine whom the Council used for genetic experiments involving Snake DNA). BTW, I updated the glasses recently but didn't save the costume - what you see in the pic won't be exactly the same as the costume file. Reptilian_marine.costume

On live, tankers. I started the game with scrappers, so that likely flavored my impression of Tanks - they felt too slow and too passive. I tried time and again to get one going, but to no avail. It wasn't until I tried a Dark Armor tank (with suitable costume and backstory) that something finally "clicked." Also, masterminds. Had a bit of fun with a Robots/FF MM, but when I started to feel like I was just a buffbot for my, well, bots, I realized I'd rather be a buffbot for other player characters (I was heavy into defenders and controllers at the time). Dropped the AT and never looked back. I still have no desire to play one. On Homecoming, sentinels - which seemed a bit strange, because I consistently have fun with scrappers and blappers. Still can't put my finger on why I haven't been impressed, but here we are.

Two of my reboots are the same as they were shortly before the lights went out - a SJ/WP Scrapper detective from 1943, and a WM/SD Brute valkyrie who got sick of serving mead to deadbeats. Same costumes, same names, same backgrounds. As for my other reboots, I didn't go out of archetype, but they still feel very different. There's a ghostly Illusion/Empathy controller who became Ill/Dark (costume slightly updated to match); an Archery/Kin defender who went Archery/TA with full name and costume overhauls (now a techie Celt from an alternate universe instead of a Gods-blessed Roman from the past); and an Archery/Energy blapper secret agent who split off into two new characters - an Archery/Martial Combat blaster Amazon and a Dual Pistols/Energy blaster agent. All my other characters are entirely new. None of my other "live" characters have made it here, nor are they likely to. They were fun and all, but so are my newer creations.

As others have said, Ninjutsu offers broader utility than Super Reflexes. Stealth, increased jumping and run speed, endurance recovery, self-heal, even a placate/confuse power. In contrast, Super Reflexes offers defense, more defense, a little resistance, yet more defense, and tops it all off with - you guessed it - defense. I'm not sure how the numbers work, but I will say that my Martial Arts / Ninjutsu scrapper feels almost embarrassingly overpowered. I do loves me some Staff, though - but mainly for thematic reasons. I like the animations well enough, but I can't help but notice that one of those other superhero games has incredible animations for staff fighting.

Thanks for the input, all. Went with a variation of a Persian name that means "Protector of Fire" and archaified it a bit. Figured the meaning captured the whole "keeping the faith" thing that this character's got going on - so long as I ignore its Zoroastrian origins. And the fact that it's a masculine name. No idea how to feminize it, and there's no way I'm putting a Hollywood '-a' at the end of it, but I'm happy with it for now. Still would have loved to keep the whole "Song of Death" or "Deadly Music" theme, but everything I could come up with was, well, unmelodic.

Not sure where this should go - since I'm asking for creative help, I figured I'd try here first. A long, long time ago, in a thread far, far away, I mentioned that if I were to make an Amazon in CoH, I'd go with an Archery / Martial Combat blaster. For fun, I looked up some Wikipedia stuff about Amazons, and came across the story of Molpadia, an Amazon who shot and killed her queen Antiope, either by accident, or to keep Theseus from "taking advantage" of Antiope's injured condition. Boom, instant character idea - the legendary Molpadia (or her descendant) still walks the earth, and still keeps some of the old traditions. The problem is the name. First, the name Molpadia is Greek, so not a "true Amazon" name (not that we have a lot of Scythian to work with). Second, in the account I read, Molpadia was translated as "Song of Death," but my own research suggests it really means "Song of the Gods" or "Divine Melody" or somesuch. Third, and most importantly, I just don't like the name. It sounds weird and awkward to my brain ears. So, if you were to create an Amazon and give her a name that's at least evocative of savage warriors from bronze-age Asia Minor who would dutifully kill their own leaders to prevent them from being captured (and worse) by the enemy, what sort of name would you come up with?

Historical plaques. Whenever I see one, I always have the urge to "read" it by pressing my hand on it.