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sh1zuchan

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About sh1zuchan

  • Birthday March 23

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  1. First thing, I'm going to link a very good guide to the other aspects of Hami raids: Hamidon Raids - Role Guide by Keen Hamidon raids do go wrong every so often. It's normal to blast through 2-3 blooms, but that creates a very real risk that the raid will wipe, leaving the league with a lot of mitos to clear. At this point you have two options: Pack it up. Everything will despawn eventually if no one is lingering in the zone. Fight through the extra mitos and take down Hami. I'm going to discuss this option. My strategy for getting through this goes through three phases: Yellow Phase Blue and Green Phase Final Burn I'll admit that cleaning up a multi-bloom can be exhausting and not everyone will want to stick it out. Don't be surprised if people start leaving. People will be more willing to stay if you have a clear plan and can keep everyone on task. This guide is more for triple and quadruple blooms. You can use a standard strategy for double blooms, although it will be more important for people to stay focused and on task. Phase 1: The Yellow Phase This is the hardest phase. The Mitochondria Antibodies (yellows) have ranged AoE attacks that inflict stun and knockback. The DPS squad will have a lot of trouble if they're getting bombarded by these attacks, so the yellows need to go first. You can worry about the blues and greens later. Clarion is very helpful during this phase. Anyone who has it should be spamming it. The league should be reminded that the yellows can only be hit by melee attacks. The only ranged attacks that will work here are ones with no positional flags (e.g. Blind). The league should also be reminded to stock up on EoEs before this phase. You're all going to be using a lot of them. Everyone should have EoEs up through most of this phase, especially the tanks. Reminding people to refresh their EoEs can be helpful, since not everyone notices they expire after 60 seconds. Roles: Hami tank: A single tank who can handle aggro from Hami and the big mass of mitos. A standard Hami tank should be able to handle this, but they should take care to cover their weaknesses (e.g. a Dark/ or Fire/ tanker should have Clarion since KB and stuns can be a massive problem), especially since this will probably be the only person at the raid with a build that can specifically handle Hami. This person will be pulling aggro from both Hami and the yellows. Yellow tanks: These tanks don't need to be specialized. All that matters is that they have Taunt (or an equivalent ranged taunt power) and a lot of EoEs. They just need to be taunting the yellows and only the yellows. They should prioritize the yellows that are close to the DPS team. The yellows' blasts are AoE, so anyone tanking should stay away from the DPS and buffers. Tanks that don't have Taunt or an equivalent ranged taunt power should not be trying to draw aggro - those tanks should turn their taunt auras off and join the melee DPS group. Targeter: A single person to direct all the aggro. Usually a melee attacker. Everyone should be attacking the same target so the heals from the greens can be powered through. Melee DPS: Everyone with melee attacks should be following the targeter and taking out the yellows. This includes blasters, dominators, controllers with Fighting pool powers, etc. Buffers: Corruptors, controllers, defenders, and masterminds without melee attacks can hang back and spam heals and buffs on the DPS team. Damage buffs, mez protection, recharge buffs, and end recovery are the most useful. If you don't have buffs, put Brawl in your tray and go help the DPS team. If too many people die during this phase, there's a risk that the DPS team won't be able to overpower the heals from the greens. If that happens, the league should regroup in a spot where they won't take aggro. Incan is very helpful if you need to regroup. Phase 2: The Blue and Green Phase You're past the hard part when you've taken out the yellows. What you have left are the Mitochondria Electrolytes (blues) and Mending Mitochondria (greens). They cause less trouble for the league than the yellows, although you should still keep your distance from the blues so you don't get hit with their terrorize and end drain effects. At this point, the Hami tank is the only one who needs EoEs. The blues won't be a problem for people who aren't too close, and EoEs don't protect against the greens' toxic damage. The league will get into two groups, one for the blues (ranged DPS) and one for the greens (melee DPS, tanks, and holds). If either group (usually blue) clears first, they should move to help the other group. Roles: Hami tank: Role doesn't change. Keep on holding aggro from Hami. Ranged targeter: A single person to direct aggro against the blues. Should be a ranged attacker. DPS should still be focused since the greens are still up and healing. Ranged DPS: Blasters, defenders, corruptors, and sentinels can move to their normal role and burn down the blues. Control targeter: A single person to direct aggro against the greens. A melee attacker is preferable to make things easy for the melee DPS. DPS needs to be focused etc. etc. Melee DPS and all the other tanks: If you don't have ranged attacks, you're not going to be helpful against the blues. Taunt is going to be useless in this phase for everyone but the Hami tank. Melee DPS and tanks should be attacking the greens. Holds: Controllers and dominators can move into their normal role and alternate between firing holds and attacks at the greens. Phase 3: The Final Burn This part is very easy. You move to burn down Hami like you would at the end of any other raid. You won't be dealing with any more blooms, so you won't need Lore pets.
  2. As someone who runs MSRs, my advice is you should never assume the person running the league is okay with you dual boxing or leeching. If they notice either, don't be surprised if you get kicked. If you need to go AFK, say something in chat and take care of your business quickly. If something is going to keep you away for a while, you should drop out of the league. Remember that player notes are a thing and it's hard to tell the difference between a ditz and a deliberate leech. Lowbies are fine as long as they put in an effort to contribute.
  3. The first time Spark of Inspiration used magic was an intensely surreal experience. Ricky removed his welding mask and looked at his partially finished work. It was a four foot metal statue of a person with outstretched arms. He was enamored with what he called the simple beauty of bronze age figures, and like those figures the statue was abstract and mostly featureless. The statue was certainly something that Ricky found aesthetically pleasing, but he wasn't happy with it. His money was running out and he was under intense pressure to produce something commercially viable. He'd been through such a long drought of ideas that he was about ready to give up on everything, leave Paragon City, move back in with his yiayia in Chicago, and find an apprenticeship. He cleaned up his workspace and looked at the statue again. He remembered leaving so much of his life behind to move to Paragon, begging his yiayia for money for art school, the satisfaction of making his earlier pieces, the magic of exploring a museum when he was a kid... Ricky snapped back to the present and suddenly felt strange. The earlier mix of melancholy and dread was suddenly gone. He felt wild and restless, like something trapped had to break out. He looked at his hands and saw sparks start to erupt out of them and scatter around the room. Then there was a flash and he was knocked out. A short time later, something nudged Ricky awake. He was dazed, in intense pain, and covered in blood and he could barely move. He looked at what woke him up and screamed. What he saw was a strange, short, faceless figure also covered in blood sitting next to him in the dim room. He yelled at it to get away from him and it noisily shambled into the dark. When he couldn't hear the thing's clanking steps anymore, he screamed for help until what little strength he had gave out. A few days later, Ricky woke up in a hospital bed. He was greeted by a woman who said she was an investigator for MAGI. "You're Richard Zografos, right?" He nodded. "25 years old, transplant from Chicago, artist, no prior experience with magic." He nodded again. "I wish we could have met under better circumstances, but it's not often that a mage with your level of experience makes a semi-intelligent golem by accident."
  4. I have two characters who absolutely hate being late. Grimoire of the Void gets distressed when he's late because he has a lot of lingering mentalities from his old life. In the past, lateness meant missing out on pay and possibly being disciplined or fired. Now he's trying to learn to let himself be late, although he has a hard time with it. It doesn't help that he almost never has to account for travel time because of his reality warping powers. If you invite him to a party, you should tell him to show up an hour late or else he will catch you while you're getting out of the shower. Charlie the Dynamo hates being late for two reasons: his profession and his health. Charlie's work as a hitman always demands timeliness. When he's out doing his dirty work, lateness can mean cascading problems. He might lose a target, have to do more planning, make his client angry, and delay other jobs. When he's working with his clients, he presents himself as a consummate professional and will do his best to avoid tarnishing that image. If he is late meeting a client or finishing a job without a very good reason, he will usually apologize profusely and offer a discount. Charlie's other issue with lateness is that he pays a lot of attention to his sleep cycle. His powers compensate pretty well for his blindness except for one thing: they give him insomnia. Since he's not passively aware of day and night in the same way as sighted people, he can easily end up staying awake for multiple days in a row. If he goes too long without sleep, he'll become a miserable, incoherent, and erratic mess. He's had some very nasty experiences with this in the past, so he will reschedule things if that means avoiding delaying his sleep.
  5. Grimoire of the Void came home, plopped on the couch, loosened his tie, and stared at the ceiling. He had been on duty for 48 hours straight, but he didn't feel tired at all. In fact, the only reason he wasn't still working was that he wasn't allowed. He'd already been yelled at for forgetting to go off duty before. In Grim's old life, it was normal to come home at 10pm after a 12-hour shift and get called back in at 4am. Now he had this strange new magical body that didn't require sleep and 60 hours of free time he had no idea what to do with. He looked at his phone. The time was 6:15pm. He had dinner even though he wasn't hungry (and didn't require food). He took what felt like a long shower. He turned on the TV and couldn't find anything he felt like watching. He found a novel with a bookmark in it, read a few pages, and remembered why he put it down. He found a game console collecting dust in the closet but couldn't find a game he felt like playing. He got on his computer and futzed around online for a bit, but he couldn't find anything that interested him. Eventually, he was just pacing around the living room. He looked at his phone again. The time was 8:00pm. Grim plopped on the couch again and sighed. This was torture! He was free to do pretty much anything he wanted except work, and all he wanted to do was work. He didn't have anyone he could hang out with because his old work didn't allow him to have a personal life and he hadn't been able to use his newfound freedom to make friends yet. He got back up, paced around, tidied up his apartment a bit, and looked at his phone again. The time was 8:30pm. AAAAAAGGGHHHH!!! He was ready to toss his phone across the room when he heard it buzz. The message came from one of the people tasked with helping him when he was still getting used to his powers, a guy named Hector. Hector made Grim a little uneasy. He was a reformed supervillain who was helping new heroes get their careers started. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but he came off as the carefree and irresponsible type. Despite his misgivings though, Grim felt just then like an angel had handed him a missive. "hey can u help me w something?" Grim put on pants and dashed out the door.
  6. Most of my ideas for characters pop from really simple descriptions. Dr. Altair started out as just a twink with a death ray. My only starting idea for Charlie the Dynamo was a blind street urchin. I made Cryo Cat because I wanted to make a cat and it had to have Kinetics for some reason. Prof. Altair is a bit more well-formed because I wanted to use a Praetorian counterpart to develop Dr. Altair more. I was more or less asking, "What if Dr. Altair weren't raised by horrible people?" The concept for Spark of Inspiration started from his powersets (Bots/Elec MM). I wanted to take that and make it more nonstandard, and I ended up with an artist who ended up as a mage with golems. Grimoire of the Void is my only character with clear inspiration from an outside character. I was thinking about Satoru Gojo when I made him, though the concept for him drifted so much that they're only superficially similar now (The only thing they clearly have in common is that they always cover their eyes). Wayward Torch's concept started as something simple, but I constantly felt like I had to develop it more. The most basic thing was I wanted to make a fairy. I felt like his concept had to be something slightly terrifying and mysterious (Having him as a Dark/ Dominator turned out great for that). I thought about making him a leannán sí (sort of a combination of a muse and a succubus), but I couldn't work out a backstory that wouldn't make him evil (I wasn't in the mood to make a villain) or tragic. Just having him as a shapeshifter turned out to be really fun and my only problem so far has been not enough costume slots. When I wrote his backstory, it ended up being this big metaphor for a gay awakening (TL;DR Praetoria is the closet).
  7. Cryo Cat's hobby is juggling. It started from an exercise he would do to get used to his artificial right arm. He would get coordinated by passing a ball between his hands. He's the type that gets bored easily, so it didn't take long for passing to turn into tossing. After seeing a performer at a street fair, he was motivated to turn that exercise into juggling. Having an artificial limb with no feeling made adding even a second ball a struggle, but he was motivated to add a second, then a third, a fourth, and now he's comfortable with five balls. He's also been experimenting with other objects and patterns besides the basic cascade. Coming to Primal Earth was a liberating experience in many ways for Wayward Torch, and one of his favorite experiences was discovering the outdoors. On Praetoria, he never would have given any thought to going out into the wilderness, since entering the Hamidon's territory without being heavily armed would mean certain death for most people. What got him started was accepting an invitation to go camping in the Adirondacks on a whim. Something about leaving the city and going into the mountains touched him deeply and he felt like the trip ended too soon. He usually goes on camping, hiking, and rock climbing trips when he has multiple days off in a row. Spark of Inspiration pursued art first as a hobby, then as a profession, then as a hobby again after he fell into heroism. His favorite medium is welded metal, but he's usually content with drawing in his sketchbook. His main sources of inspiration are the avant-garde art of the early 20th Century (he especially likes Picasso) and the Bronze Age art of the Eastern Mediterranean (many of his sculptures resemble Cycladic figures). He's much happier and more passionate pursuing art as a hobby because he doesn't feel any pressure to succeed and can express himself however he likes. No, he doesn't do commissions.
  8. My characters have family situations all over the place. Cryo Cat was conceived in a test tube and birthed in a cloning tank. He also never had anyone he could call a parental figure in the lab where he grew up. Charlie the Dynamo was sent to an orphanage after he lost his parents at a young age. Spark of Inspiration was raised by his yiayia (Greek for grandma) after his parents disappeared. He loves her and understands that she cares about him deeply, but she has a habit of meddling that he can't stand. He came out as gay to her in a fit of rage when he got sick of her trying to play matchmaker for him (He thought she'd be mad when his secret got out, but she just started trying to match him with guys instead). She doesn't approve of him being a hero and has told him many times, "Your yiayia will never forgive you if you die first." Dr. Altair despises his parents. If you mention them to him, he will look at you like you just peed in his cereal. He was raised by mad scientists who wanted a perfect little successor. It's not worth going into any detail about what they did to him. The only important thing is that he was more than happy to report their criminal activities to the police, sabotage their lab, and run away when he had the chance. The thing Dr. Altair really resents is that he inherited his father's cryokinetic powers. He only uses them at all because he has to. Even now he refers to them as "his powers", always pronouncing "his" with disgust. He tried suppressing them before, but they started leaking out in explosive ways. His low point was when he stayed at his now ex-boyfriend's apartment and destroyed all the plumbing in the building in his sleep.
  9. Prof. Altair received a grim assignment. The PPD had found the Resistance cell that was responsible for a deadly series of bombings in the Imperial City and had them under siege in a warehouse. They were too much of a threat to Praetoria and had to be wiped out. Breaking the siege wasn't too much effort. Prof. Altair froze the back door, kicked it down, and charged in. The first fighter he saw had no time to react before he was encased in ice. The second frantically fired at him until he rushed her and froze her where she stood. He advanced through the warehouse continuing his unhappy work until he had the last remaining fighter backed into a corner. Seeing she couldn't win the fight, the fighter dropped her gun and removed her helmet. Prof. Altair looked at the fighter's face and felt sick. She was one of his former students! He even remembered her being particularly motivated during his physics classes. She once came to his office after the end of a term and they worked for hours on a complicated problem without reaching a solution. When he had been drafted into the Powers Division, she came forward on his last day of teaching to help unfurl a banner that said, "We'll miss you, Hector!" The official report on the incident said that Prof. Altair left no survivors, but that was a lie.
  10. A close encounter with death was how Basil Green became the Grimoire of the Void. Everything about Basil's old life before he got his powers was a spiraling disaster. He spent his teen years messing around and barely graduated high school, then the real world crashed down on him hard. He ended up lurching between various dead end jobs before he ended up at a shipping warehouse where flagrant violations of workplace safety were the norm and high productivity quotas rapidly sapped workers' sanity. After working at the warehouse for about a year, Basil was reduced to a shell of his former self. His desperation to avoid getting fired made him a nervous wreck. His personal life had been whittled away so much that his only hobby was smoking. He would have tried to find something better, but he just had no energy. What kicked Basil out of that life was a drunk coworker with a forklift. The intoxicated operator sped round a corner, accidentally pinned Basil to a rack, panicked, and hit the accelerator. Basil would have been cut in half if the rack didn't hold a poorly secured crate labeled "CAUTION: MAGICAL HAZARD." A strange book fell from the crate and hit Basil on the head. Then he heard booming in his mind: I HEREBY PASS UNTO THEE MY BURDEN THOU SHALT BE GIVEN A BLESSING AND A CURSE THOU SHALT BECOME EVERYTHING AND NOTHING THE STARS THEMSELVES SHALL BEND TO THY WILL USE THIS POWER AS THOU WILT
  11. For Charlie the Dynamo, I'm thinking it would be the first time he fought off an Arachnoid. It's not easy living in Grandville's Gutter, especially when you're a homeless blind teenager. Charlie had managed to survive so far by sticking close to other people who had been discarded by society. When danger approached, he could normally expect to follow someone to safety, but relying on other people is no guarantee against the horrors of the Gutter. One day someone sounded the alarm, and as usual Charlie tried to find someone to follow during the ensuing panic. This time however, he noticed something wrong when noise of the commotion stopped - he was all alone. He paced around slowly until he heard the unsettling hiss of an Arachnoid. The monster shrieked and he knew had been spotted. Charlie assumed a defensive position hoping to survive just a little longer. Then he heard the Arachnoid rush forward and the fear suddenly left him. He ran at the monster and gave it a good punch. He managed to hit it in the solar plexus and it stumbled back gasping. He sensed he had a chance and tried to pounce on the monster before it could recover, but it pulled back before he could land another hit. It gave a weak, resentful hiss and retreated. Then Charlie was all alone again, but this time he was safe.
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