Luminara

You know those portable medical assistance toilets that people with injuries, disabilities or infirmity use? And that old phrase, "Hip deep in it"? Yeah. That's what I see. And now, that's what you see, too. You're welcome!

If they'd had a vision of how PvP should or could work, we might've followed it. They didn't. You can't follow someone's lead if they aren't leading.

Last week, I started a sentinel. I was really excited, because the archetype is giving me the opportunity to create the one character I never could on the original servers, a classic Amazonian fitting with mythology. Not just a punchy-punchy or stabby-stabby Amazon, but a ferocious warrior woman armed with a bow and a sword and not hesitant to use either. I was especially keen to get this one moving, too, because my first 50 since the original servers were shut down is a Staff/Willpower brute (yes, i know, but it's the bladed staff, so it's still a sharp, pointy stick!) who I'd envisioned as an easily frightened, comparatively weak, small young woman trying to prove that she was as tough as anyone. This new character was to be a member of her tribe, scouring the world in search of her to bring her home. For some reason, this fired me up and drove me to really push forward with the idea, instead of starting the character and sticking it on the "when I get around to it" list. I couldn't do this with a blaster. The survivability was too low. As a defender or corruptor, it would've meant only TA/A or A/TA, which I'd already done, and it still would've lacked that last, perfect touch, a sword to whip out and start hacking on anything moving. And not one of the mastermind primaries works with the concept. But the sentinel? Yeah, that checks all of the boxes. A bow, damage mitigation, and (in an APP) a sword. And when I was combing through the sentinel secondaries, I noticed that Shinobi-Iri (Ninjitsu) had +Jump. Everything I wanted, plus more bouncy boingy happiness? I couldn't put my name on the dotted line fast enough, even with Hurdle double-slotted with 50+5 Jump IOs! The problems didn't really become apparent until much later. First was the Stealth component of Shinobi-Iri. All of the time I spent in the costume creator, perfecting a look which was similar to my precious, perfect Legionette (my brute), but not identical, and I couldn't see it. I even made this character just a hair under 6' tall, which is highly abnormal for me (i've always settled somewhere in the range of 5'1"-5'5"), and found just the right balance on the sliders so she looked toned without being bulky and awkward. But, hey, I could always turn off the power to see the character, right? No big deal, just push on and get her to 50. Then the irritation really set in, at 17. I had one of the sentinel ATO sets fully slotted, half of the other, and Shinobi-Iri with a level 20 Recharge Reduction IO. At first, it was just what I called it in the first sentence in this paragraph, an irritation. I'd be launching arrows en masse, and suddenly find my attack sequence disrupted. By Shinobi-Iri. And instead of finishing off a last-sliver-of-health critter with Aimed or Fistful (lined up to pincushion everything else within range), I'd fire off Blazing or Explosive, because the attack chain I can perform by muscle memory, asleep, was thrown off by a 2-3s animation. Now I'm burning through endurance twice as rapidly as I would be if I were in control of my attack chain, I've wasted my hard hitter or my AoE finisher, and I've still got 2-5 critters trying to give me a make-over with baseball bats (clearly not fashion conscious foes). I tried taking Shinobi-Iri off of auto and working around it by using it when I needed it. I tried to ignore it when I put it back on auto. I tried to live with it. And I've tolerated some seriously frustrating crap for some of the characters I created, because the concept I had in mind was so urgent, it felt worth the hassle. But I hit my limit last night with this one. Having that interruption in my attack chain was where I found my line in the sand. She's at level 26, and I'm in the middle of working up an Archery/Invulnerability build to start over with. At 2 a.m. EST, when I can finally log in, I'll transfer all of her IOs and inf* to e-mail, save the costume and power customization, and go back to level 1 with another build. I just can't go through one more mission like this. I won't. So what did it for you? What one thing pushed you past your limit and forced you to redesign a character with the same concept, but different powers? What's your breaking point?

What we refer to as PvP maps, aren't. They're PvE maps, with PvE content and objectives, populated by PvE enemies, and the occasional concern/hope that an "enemy" player (or team) might amble by. There's no PvP content. There are no choke points to defend or take. There are no objectives which send us into enemy bases. There are no flags to capture. It needs smaller, more focused maps, and objectives which require PvP interaction to succeed. Having more to do with powers would also be a massive step in the right direction. Using our characters to build defenses or tear them down. Repairing or disabling a mobile transit to deliver an objective to a location. Having to power up something. Preventing a helicopter or flyer from taking off, or ensuring that it does. None of this exists. It's all been possible from the beginning, but all we really have is dueling and ganking. And teaming shouldn't be optional to engage in PvP content. I say that as someone with social anxiety disorder, and someone who can only play when nearly everyone else is asleep (thanks again, Verizon). Interacting with people in any game makes my hands shake, and I still believe this, firmly. Multi-player PvP allows for more complex and compelling objectives, more interesting and varied map design and a better overall experience for the participants. Finally, there aren't actually any reasons, beyond a few badges, to engage in PvP, especially now that PvP recipes are widely available. The rewards are participation trophies, the exploration badges easily obtained even if there are players standing right on them, ready to slaughter anyone who approaches, and the temp powers aren't impressive enough to warrant fighting to acquire them. As it stands, right now, PvP in Co* is less advanced and sophisticated than what can be had from games a decade older than CoH was when it went live. It barely exists at all here, and what does pass for PvP is neither attractive nor enjoyable to me. When, or if, it's improved, I'll be in line to check it out. Until then, I'll pass.

It never existed for me. Just one of the benefits of using Hurdle as a travel power.

Yes. No, that would be movement suppression, buff/debuff restrictions and limitations, gutting mez across the board so no control lasted longer than 4 seconds (while simultaneously replacing all status protection with status resistance, and adding a scaling reduction to mez time based on prior mez status (any one of which would have been effective, and any one of which obviates the other two)), reduced caps for the ATs with the lowest caps already, etc. Essentially, everything else they did to further shoehorn PvP into the game. Especially the movement suppression. That alone raised enough ruckus to rival ED.

I'd standardize damage output in respect to animation time. X damage per Y animation time, with all other aspects of powers balanced around those stats. That would bring a lot of under-performing powers up to par, and normalize other things, like endurance costs and recharge times. Barring that, I'd standardize mez. I'd restrict Holds (single-target and AoE) and all AoE control to controllers and dominators (total lockdown), and single-target Stuns to defenders, corruptors and masterminds (partial lockdown). Single-target Sleeps and Immobilizes would be available in place of other status effects in other archetypes. Giving every archetype access to every status effect and every vector was terrible design from the start. And barring either of those, I'd add damage to collision physics so Knockback could be more than soft control. Knocking an enemy into a wall should hurt, not merely provide a brief pause in incoming damage.

The only situation when that can occur is when the player is using AoEs and there's more than one target. The streak breaker doesn't check to verify that X number of targets were missed in an AoE, thus forcing Y number of additional targets to be hit, nor does it count AoE targets when determining whether to force a hit on the subsequent roll. So this is possible. However, it's also highly unlikely, simply because using only a single AoE three times in a row would entail an incredibly slow pace (even using Brawl and the inherent origin power would drastically speed things up), and be ridiculously boring. Additionally, as each target in an AoE is checked individually, the likelihood of missing that one target, at 95% chance to hit and with multiple targets in the radius, three times a row would be tiny. You're much more likely to miss a specific critter if you're mixing single-target and AoE in your attack chain, but it's still infrequent.

At least you aren't forced to cover your nipples on male characters. If you want to campaign for equality, campaign for equal nipple exposure.

Just stick a skirt on BAB. No-one will know the difference.

Presuming Dr. Vahzilok doesn't get to them first. Or the Banished Pantheon. And presuming that the teleportation grid is functioning. And that the individual beacons are as well. And even then, filled body bags scattered throughout missions, implying death by violent means, suggest that either there's a limit to the trauma the grid can handle, or the grid's response time is longer than a few minutes.

In that shirt? Maybe in the Dollar Store universe...

Hold down PageUp (or is it PageDown...) while panning. Press the other Page* key to revert the camera to default zoom level and position.

I wonder how many peoples' mental health I could ruin with /bind g "team Group hug in the buff!$$powexec_location self Disruption Arrow".

On tonight's episode of "Granny Tow"... @Mister Mass waves his cane at someone. @Lines says "Don't worry". And I do a math!

You saved the placenta? Ew. Also, ew, again.

You should inform your team if you're playing in the buff. It always helps teams coalesce and focus.

Range and Radius are different mechanics, though. And Range buffs don't increase Radii. Equipping Intuition Core Paragon (Alpha slot), Intuition Radial Paragon(Alpha slot) or Clarion Radial Epiphany (Destiny slot) would be the easiest and fastest way to test whether there's a bug allowing Range buffs to affect Radii. And this would make it easy to test on a number of archetypes. If it affects one global proc, it should affect others. That said, 100' is a 66.67% increase over the base Radius, a figure which, to the best of my ability to discern, is only possible with Incarnate abilities, or specific buffs like Boost Range (plus something else buffing Range, as Boost Range tops out at 59.6%), neither of which is available to a level 33 tanker (that i know of). What's the value for the Range buff from Gauntlet?

If you have sufficient buffs, debuffs and/or controls in your primary and secondary, you don't need either. A Radiation Emission defender has access to a massive ToHit debuff, for example. Defenders who use Dark Blast powers also debuff ToHit. Force Field and Traps defenders already have access to impressive +Defense powers which apply their effects to them. Stacked Holds, Stuns and Sleeps also provide significant damage mitigation, thereby reducing any reliance on Resistance or Defense. Enemies who can't land a hit (-ToHit), hit like kittens if they do (-Damage), or simply can't do anything (Hold/Stun/Sleep) don't warrant taking Tough or Weave. If your combination of primary and secondary are lacking in mitigation, and you primarily play solo, yes, both can be beneficial. A defender can achieve just short of 15% Defense (All) with Tough (slotted with both unique +3% Defense (All) IOs and maximal Defense slotting in Weave. Coupled with other buffs, debuffs and/or controls, this can shift weak mitigation to strong, safe play. If your character concept supports it, yes. The game is extremely forgiving of power selection and slotting, there are always ways to build around "holes" in a character's efficiency, so sticking to concept should always be first priority. I played a defender with no +Defense, no +Resistance, no -ToHit and only one single-target control all the way to 50, relying only on -Damage and a targeted AoE heal for mitigation. I tanked AVs with that character. I attended Hamidon raids. I even soloed a Giant Monster to 50% health (i didn't die, i gave up and left because it took 20 minutes to get that far and i didn't relish the idea of finishing the job). I did all of that before IOs, before set bonuses, and after a couple of massive nerfs (GDN and ED). There really is no such thing as "incapable" or "too inefficient to play" in this game, and no reason not to let character concept be the overriding factor in decisions.

Tanker attacks have an integrated Taunt. By design, they generate aggro by attacking. The more you attack as a tank, and the more damage you deal, the more aggro you focus on yourself. Use. Your. Attacks. Additionally, there are no "defenseless" archetypes. None. Not a single archetype in this game lacks some means of reducing or utterly removing incoming damage. Every archetype has access to a variety of controls, debuffs and buffs. Every archetype also, not by coincidence, deals damage, because the most effective defense, in this game, is offense. Defeated enemies deal 0 damage. Lastly, there is no optimal team composition. All archetypes are useful and usable in a team, and no one archetype is "needed" for a team to function. A completely random group of 8 players with totally different archetypes, power sets and play styles can utterly decimate the toughest content in this game, simply by using BOTH OF THEIR POWER SETS AND COMMUNICATING. This game is not WoW. It was designed so a team didn't "need" any specific archetype or archetypes, but instead, so every player could approach the team content from the perspective of "Solo plus X". As long as you continue to try to shoehorn Co* into a WoW model, you'll continue to struggle, and that's on you.

I was a bit shocked no-one else picked up on that. Dunno, maybe we're just wired differently.

The war hasn't ended. Edison envisioned locally generated DC serving small neighborhoods and/or individual homes. Despite having been stalled and nearly defeated by AC's ability to transmit over very long distances, what Edison foresaw has recently begun to occur. PV technology, charge controllers and batteries have become significantly more efficient in the last couple of decades, and the prices have declined drastically. Small electric co-ops are setting up PV arrays all over the U.S., and larger companies have been investing in the technology as well, setting up their own arrays and paying individual homeowners who feed back into the grid. We aren't far from exactly what Edison tried to create now, with the exception being, it's in the hands of the people, not one man or a handful of select firms. If the trend continues, we could, in our lifetimes, see locally generated DC from solar panels becoming the default in suburban neighborhoods, solar panels in most rural back yards and panels on every high-rise and skyscraper. There's even photovoltaic glass now, which, if the price falls enough and the efficiency is sufficient, could replace standard windows on skyscrapers and provide a means for every building to become completely grid-independent. Again, we aren't quite at that point yet, but we're much closer, and it's not likely to be ten or twelve decades before DC becomes the standard. We'll still be using AC, via inversion, in most homes and where power is shared amongst multiple people, but the generators, the solar panels, will be DC, and there's so much DC technology on the market now, it's not a stretch to say that homes of the near future could be DC-only. No more AC plugs and sockets, just USB ports and car cigarette lighter sockets. DC LEDs for lighting. 12/24/48v appliances. The end result could, conceivably, be AC being phased out for all but single appliance usage and long distance transmission. Which would make them both winners. Local DC plants, AC transmission lines, both in homes.

It occurred to me that Recluse is less the cardboard bad guy and more a tragic villain. He didn't set out to become the bad guy. He wasn't scheming and plotting in the beginning. He was an ordinary man, with ordinary goals and ordinary dreams, not the least of which was making his own way in the world. When he became an Incarnate, his life and fate were bound to the Well, effectively leashing him to the Well's goals. Everything he's done since has been in hope and pursuit of finding a way to free himself, to break free and reassert himself as the one in control of his life. He despised Statesman not because it's convenient for the story for two former best friends to become rivals, but because Statesman was directly responsible for his bondage, for his servitude to the Well. He's turned to amassing more and more power, personal, political and financial, in search of some means of freeing himself. And he's turned the Rogue Isles into a "social darwinism" because he believes it will help people avoid his fate, because he sees it as giving those with the strength, power or ambition the means of taking control of their own destinies. He wants freedom, for himself and anyone else willing to grasp it and capable of doing so, whatever the cost, even his own soul. Note that I'm not implying that he'd sprout a fluffy bunny tail and start pooping rainbows if he were freed of the Well's influence. He's definitely become the bad guy, but not as a choice, rather a reaction to what he views as enslavement.

Find one. They're very dog-like, as @Coyotedancer mentioned. They adore being handled, hugged and rough petting. Very playful, even when they're old, and just as delighted to sit in your lap quietly when you're not in a playful mood (they purr up a storm and drool a bit, just from the sheer delight of being close to you). Friendly with everyone, including small children, and they're not averse to a little rough handling. They know they're big cats and can take it. They'll even chase dogs, though it's strictly play, they're not aggressive. Just be aware, they're not small animals. Maine Coons are the largest cat breed, they can grow up to 20+ pounds. And whatever you're doing, they'll want to "help"... which typically translates to sitting on your workspace, purring and giving you "I love you" eyes. They're one of the most intelligent breeds, too. They can figure out how to turn a knob and open a door. They'll actually pat you to tell you they want to be petted, or pull your hand onto their head and rub up against your palm. They are, in my experience, the most loving breed. They love you and expect you to love them back, and they express that affection through as much physical contact as possible, and expect you to do the same. If you want a lapdogcat, this is it. An alternative would be a Savannah cat. They're also dog-like. They enjoy walking on a leash, they fetch and they're VERY active. Unparalleled loyalty. They'll follow you to the depths of Tartarus and back, and they won't go far from your side when you're in the same room, except to play (again, VERY active breed) and for biological necessity (litter box, food). They're also fascinated with water (water bowls tend to double as kitty pools for Savannahs). They're not snugglers like Maine Coons, but they crave any attention you give them and will tolerate being held without putting up a struggle, as long as you're letting them face whatever direction they choose (Jessica likes to sit on my arm, monorail cat style, watching the valley while we stand on the porch). They also grow large, but they're longer, leaner and taller than Maine Coons, not as bulky. The big caveat with Savannahs is that they need to play. They don't want to play, they NEED to play. You have to spend some time every day playing with them, primarily giving them something to chase. Catching the toy is a secondary consideration for them, it's the chase that they need. If you don't keep them chasing something for a while every day, they'll start climbing the walls, literally, looking for something to chase, and 3 a.m. is prime time as far as they're concerned. They're also very intelligent. When Jessica wants to play, she selects a toy, takes it to one of the areas she's decided is her play space, and pats the toy to tell me that it's time. She couldn't be any more blunt and direct if she shouted "PLAY TIME NAO" in English. Even these generalizations fall short of how remarkable these two breeds are. They're both very, very intelligent, and every individual has unique traits. My Maine Coon, for example, couldn't get enough of whatever I was eating, which included some really odd things for a cat, like apples, plums and pistachios. My half-Savannah, on the other hand, won't even lick the plate, regardless of what I've had on it, but she stands up on her hind legs and expresses excitement at dry cat food. You can't go wrong with either of these breeds. Even half-breeds retain defining characteristics from the Maine Coon or Savannah lines. Pure bred kittens or adopted shelter cats, you just can't make a bad choice with them. They're amazing, incredible companions and friends. The greatest gift you could possibly give yourself is a friend like a Maine Coon or Savannah. They'll love you every second of their lives, and you'll love them more every day, and be endlessly fascinated with their minds and personalities and entertained and comforted by their presence. One warning, though. Once you let them into your heart, you're setting yourself up for the worst grief you'll ever experience. They don't live forever. I learned that the hardest way. It's been 8 years since I lost my Maine Coon and I still struggle with the grief. They're that... intense, in every way. They crawl right into your soul and make themselves a part of you, and when they're gone, the world is the darkest place imaginable. Be ready for that, and plan to get another as quickly as possible after he/she passes. It's the only thing that helps, which is another thing I learned the hardest way. But I wouldn't trade one second of my time with my Maine Coon, no matter how much I miss him now, and I wouldn't trade one second of my time with my half-Savannah either, despite knowing that I'll be absolutely destroyed when she dies (fortunately, she's barely over a year old, so that day is far in the future). For dog-like companion cats, there's nothing comparable to Maine Coons and Savannahs, but really, any cat is a worthwhile friend. There are plenty of shelter cats and strays just waiting for someone to love them, and I think you have a lot of love waiting to be shared. Don't just think about getting a cat, Bill, go out and do it. Don't stress about which cat or what breed, the cat will choose you and you'll know it when it happens.

I have another 20 or so months until I ding 50. Really hoping I get the flashy graphical effects IRL.