Hardboiled Hero

Thank you kindly

As weird as it sounds, I'm more confused about the SO build, or something to use while leveling and to help earn the 100m+ inf for the build I'll be using later.

But how else are we supposed to RP the power-rangers?

Clearly they're going to end up merging with the Lizzy's. Also, Warriors should have dogs from the beastmaster MM, and gang war from thugs.. is that possible?

This sounds to me much like I consider the Sentinel AT. They're cool and I enjoy playing them.. they aren't "balanced" but honestly, who cares about balance until we're facing off against each other, and PvP doesn't seem so popular right now that balancing should be a huge worry. As the game stands, I think the bigger issue is just trying to get more concepts available. The lack of "natural" origin control powers is one glaring problem in this regard, although Arsenal control and Symphony control do a little to help mitigate that now. I think the people who like KM will play it, even if it isn't powerful, so the bigger goal needs to be finding things to draw people to the game and various AT's in the first place.

Sometimes you have to be honest with people? I find it better to always be honest with people, and honestly, your take on this is pure trash. In the real world, there are much worse things that can happen than being made a fool.. in fact, traditional fools existed for a reason, because they made people feel better. They really did more to bring light to the world than many people do today. So I would absolutely say that, if your heart wants to sing, then sing. Even if I don't laugh at a joke, that doesn't mean the joke isn't funny. Don't refuse to tell a joke because getting hit by a bottle or three at open mic night is too frightening. Here in America, the founders wrote the constitution to contain the right to "pursue happiness" instead of including the right to "property", because having the ability to try (and potentially fail) is more important than having the right to succeed. So never be afraid to try. The music here isn't "mediocre at best". It's genuinely good. It isn't my genre, but that doesn't take away from it being good. The video isn't technically bad either, but I was honestly surprised to find out there was a story to it. So the editing, or lack there of, I think is the real problem here. Give it another go.

To me, the music is good, but I can only really appreciate it analytically, as it simply isn't my style. (I have trouble listening to any music that doesn't have lyrics) Also, the lack of editing does a disservice to both the music and the video. Music is really powerful in story-telling, just as much so as video, but the lack of editing has the music and video working against each other. They may be telling the same story, but they aren't telling it together, instead competing for attention. It seems like what you're trying to do is essentially write a silent film. Again, silent film is not really my cup of tea, but it's valence (which I recently learned means power/attraction/beauty) as an art form is undeniable. Remember that most of those films would have "inter-title cards", which would help explain the story to the audience. I wonder if you could somehow use your Powershell thing at the beginning, and break it up throughout the film in order to change music theme to match what we're watching, and possibly even to somehow get subtitles or written exposition of what we're watching? I appreciate the artisitc ignition.

I've often felt it's weird that there's no light based support power. Technically Illusion is light based control, but it's really too.. well defined? ..to act as a generic light control. Honestly though, light is an energy, how does it actually hinder people by itself? I could see the heat produced burning people.. that would be fire control. Perhaps whatever "force" the character uses to bend light would hinder someone.. so it could be represented with Gravity or Radiation control, as those are both about manipulating energies which then manipulate matter. I also wonder whether you could color Ice control/blast, or rock control/blast (It has a crystal scheme available) to represent light constructs. I often try to do this for "force constructs" honestly it's not like what I really want, but it can be fun. Honestly, not being able to get effects the way I really want them is why I so often just play a normal human with an assault rifle and strong willpower.

anything would be helpful. I've been looking at the other grav/ posts to get an idea what to do with that, but I didn't find anything about /rad, let alone any posts specific to grav/rad. P.S.: actually I realized I could filter the posts a little better. I found some stuff on /rad, but not much really.

do people just hate /rad or something?

I've really been enjoying this pairing so far, but I just have no idea how to slot it. usually I throw endurance reduction on all my toggles, but the toggles here go on opponents and usually don't stay in effect long enough for me to really care about their endurance cost. should I be throwing +damage into my control powers, as my support stuff doesn't seem to do damage at all? Bottom line is, I like the powers, but I don't really see how giving anything more than 3 slots is going to make my powers much better. I have to be wrong about that though, right? Anyway, any help figuring out the long-term goals of this combo would be appreciated.

Yeah.. "Stay away from the door" doesn't mean the same thing as "Stay off the stairs". I honestly don't remember the ambush triggering from the stairs when I played before, so I'd happily wait there trying to stay away from the door.. and avoid pulling the nearby groups. Then when someone says "Oh. Some idiot triggered the ambush again", it never occurred to me that I was the idiot, because no one ever mentioned stairs, only doors. Sometimes people would be like "Go fight by the statue out-front first.", but again, there's a group under the statue, so if I'm gonna wait somewhere near the statue for the rest of the team, where do you think I'm going to wait? I honestly don't think most of the people that lead posi 1 even know that the stairs trigger an ambush, they're just so used to people saying "don't touch the door", so that's what they say. I see other people saying "set your expectations low", but I really think most of it comes down to understanding the difference between a reasonable person, and a knowledgeable person. If you never tell people "The stairs in-front of city hall set off an ambush", then you can't expect people to know that. If you're just looking at the map and where groups are without that knowledge, it seems reasonable to stand on the stairs. Also, while there are several different styles of leadership (and an effective leader should practice them all), a leader has to be adaptable. We all know that there is likely to be someone who sets that ambush off at the wrong time, so a good leader will be prepared for that and ready to shift their plan to deal with it. That said, I also think that many players get bored of following orders and having everything go as planned. Personally, I don;t cause chaos, but I do feel pretty good after finishing a chaotic battle, so long as it doesn't turn into running back from the hospital 6 or 7 times.

In my professional opinion, the biggest problem with Champions Online is that it never should have been made in the first place. It was really just the result of corporate politics and companies deciding that consumers will just have to eat whatever trash they decide to feed us.

Right off the bat, flight is a power that is available to everyone, so don't worry about that. Second, most AT's have some sort of "psychic" power. The point is, all AT's can be psychic themed.. you just have to decide what exactly feels psychic themed to you. Would a melee fighter with psychic blades and an indomitable will feel psychic enough for you? Do you need a character that control minds, Do you want to just mind-blast people and maybe uses some psychically charged melee attacks? Any AT can solo, at least once their build gets good. As far as being useful in teams.. well.. most teams basically want some kind of tank and a lot of damage. Unless you find a team that specifically needs some kind of support.. well there's really no "generically good" support. For that reason, I think you're looking at a Psychic Blast/ Mental manipulation blaster, a Mind Control/ Empathy (or Pain Domination) controller, or a Mind Control/ Psionic Assault dominator. Of those, I don't have much experience with Blasters, but they do the highest damage in the game.. they are generally considered the "squishiest" class and will probably struggle at leveling solo, but I'm told they can survive just fine at end-game if built right. Controllers and Dominators will always have some team utility because of their control powers. This can also help them survive when solo.. but they do start rough solo and they tend to take a little while to clear missions. Personally, I would probably play the dominator. To me it's the one that feels most "generically psychic", having a solid mix of controls along with ranged and melee attacks. Blasters and Controllers are both more popular though, and there's a reason for that. Blasters do significantly more damage, which is really what matters most in the game. I noticed the Mental Manipulation Blaster also gets a little bit of control, but I have no idea how good that is. The Controller, IIRC, actually has damage on par with the Dominator, despite the Con having support secondary and the Dom having damage secondary. The dom will be more likely to be able to control one big badguy, but the controller will do better against groups of lesser badguys. In my opinion, this makes both AT's basically the same.. because the support powers, with some exception, might as well not exist, so both AT's just bring a mix of control and damage. Finally, I want to say that nothing is really "required" in the game.. people don't usually care so much about who or what is in their group, So honestly just play what feels good to you. I feel like corruptors and Sentinels are the worst AT's in the game, but I probably play those and dominators more than any other AT. I feel like Blasters may well be the "best" AT, but I've only ever played one. I still get invited to teams all the time.

What about a plant/sonic dom that sings to the plants in order to make them grow? I looked at plant/sonic con too, but that looked like it may be too control heavy without much damage? I dunno, as I don't have too much experience on either AT.

I'm not trying to dis corruptors and I'm not theory-crafting. (The numbers have already been crunched by people more competent in that field). The simple fact is, that Defender's damage is generally on par with corruptors, only defenders are better at mixing their support powers in due to their recovery bonus. If people wanted to pick corruptors just for damage, it seems like they should have gone blaster instead. Since people are choosing corruptor though, I can only assume they really want to play a damage/support hybrid, which is a role better filled by a Defender. Either that, or they're looking at things more from the lore perspective, in which case "Mechanically better" doesn't actually matter so much. Granted, I myself feel that both AT's are pretty much useless in the end-game.. where you'd really care more about damage caps, because neither of them are the best ranged damage, and support doesn't seem to matter so much in end-game content.

Masterminds need more primaries, since I came back and found the sonic control/assault powers I thought, why not have a choir of angels with sonic/broadsword powers? I understand the desire for a zipline/swinging power, but I'm only okay jumping around instead.. what I really want more is an entangling control/ assault powers to tie people up/ cocoon them in combat. Maybe the power(s) could have some whip stuff too, based on the old meme of wrapping the whip around people to tie them up. Also lasso abilities could be used. If they're not considering these to be "Iconic" enough, maybe look back to old cowboy comics for inspiration.. heroes tying people up used to be far more iconic than it is. Also, some kind of "dimension control" and/or "dimension support" .. some of the powers could teleport enemies/allies.. put a "dimensional barrier" around things either to protect them or trap them. Have a portal open up and some tentacles reach through to hold the target(s).. another portal opens and a bunch of little alien/demons run through and attack the target (and maybe cause confusion). It's just kinda weird to me that there's time control, but nothing to represent control of space.

I definitely believe there are more MM's actively played than scraps and corruptors. From what I've seen, MM's are way more common in radio/paper teams and many people love soloing with the AT as well. I don't see many blasters, but Imagine there are a lot doing AE and High-end content. When I first saw the list, The AT that really stuck out was Defender. There's really no way Defender should be less popular than corruptor.. as in, Defender is just mechanically superior in every way (unless something has changed since last looking into it 3 years ago) and you can make all the same concepts with them, at least if you can get past the idea of hero/villain AT's. That said, as often as I complain about support sets being useless in the current incarnation of the game, I guess many people agree with me.

and that pretty much sums up all sentinels.

I haven't gotten too far on either, but I've tried a Arsenal/Arsenal dom up to level 26 and a Arsenal/traps 'troller up to level 22. The Dom is just flat out more fun, but I suspect this is because of how the /traps set works.. it seems like it's powers have super long cooldowns. I don't know 'trollers well enough to say what sets might be better though. I have enough general experience with /FF to know that I would find that boring on a 'troller too. IMO, I think the reason we don't see much discussion of Ar/ yet is because it's clearly designed to pair with /Ar.. and that combo is fun enough. I'm not sure all the number crunchers have had enough time to get to 50+ and do all the tests they want to do to start saying what the "best" mechanical pairings are. Personally, I find Ar/ to be good enough that I would be willing to try pairing it with any assault power, but it works with /Ar and that's the most obviously thematic, so what's really to discuss until we get more solid numbers to analyze.

So which brute do you think you play more assuming "proper" slotting?

I've always had a serious "problem" with RPG's.. Even in TTRPG's I've noticed that many of my friends always make characters that they see as basically themselves, or their avatar, in another world. This leads to power-gaming and rules lawyering.. as a friend told me once "What kind of person doesn't want to be as good as they can be? Anybody would power-game their life if given the choice." (I don;t really agree with this.. after all, were it true this guy would be studying engineering in his off time instead of role-playing). However, if you accept the game on a mechanical level and simply make your best avatar within that system, then playing that avatar will fulfill your goals, and you will be able to stay immersed in that system. On the other hand, for me, playing RPG's is always telling someone else's story.. it's about the character's psyche, their decisions. I've literally had one of my friends say "If someone plays bad people, it's because they're a bad person". and I can actually kinda understand that, given that many characters are a person's avatar in a world that won't have real repercussions. However, I've always been drawn to playing villains, anti-heroes or whatever, because I see role-playing as a way to understand "evil" without becoming "evil" (and also the "good" my characters do, doesn't somehow mean that I am "good"). While playing MMO's, I got into the habit of playing mostly female characters, which I eventually came to the realization is because (a) I don't view the character as being me, and (b) I'd rather look at animated women more than animated men. In TTRPG's there's also (c) I'm more interested in trying to understand women than I am in trying to understand men. You might have already noticed though, while I would say I care more about the immersion (because I'm looking for role-play/interactions over mechanics) I'm starting off less immersed.. I'm telling someone else's story, as opposed to putting myself in a story. This is all to bring me to the ultimate point I'm trying to make.. for those of us who are heavy role-players, the limitations on interaction and character design in an mmo breaks immersion so, at least at some points, the game is really just staring at a screen and pressing buttons. The mechanics will always be a wall to us because we don't make our characters based on the mechanics. That's also why people who really care about immersion and role-playing are often the least immersed.

I've kinda been outta mmo's for a while, but I know there at least was a big "Christian gamer community" like 5 years ago. Remember however, that Angels and Demons are not exclusively a Christian or even an Abrahamic concept. They pre-date Judaism and are pretty much in religions in all parts of the world (not that all religions include them, but all parts of the world seem to have a religion that includes them.) I could argue that the way Angels and Demons are usually represented here is actually not Abrahamic at all. I suspect some of this abundance of angels comes from another "problem" though. If all character Origins grant access to the same powers, why would anyone study magic instead of just picking up an assault rife? Like.. even you personally.. if magic existed in the real world, would you really spend years learning magic to chill and heat your food, or would you just buy a fridge and a microwave? For most people, magic lacks convenience. Hence, subconsciously, magic origins probably get kinda skewed towards characters for whom magic would come naturally.. angels, demons, dragons, elves, whatever. There really aren't a lot of good costume options for characters to actually look draconic though.. and elves are just over-done in all worlds. Like I said, I'm just guessing it has something to do with that. By the way, do you think it would change things if more people called their angels and demons by names that are used in other parts of the world? Oni, Loa, Daeva, Djinn.. I mean.. at the end of the day, "angel" and "demon" are just the most recognizable words for a concept that is everywhere and eternal. Should people use less recognizable words?

I "need" to make a brute, a scrapper, and a stalker. I want to try Staff fighting, Katana/Ninja Blade, and dual-blades. So, If each of those three powers had to go on a different one of those AT's, which would you put on each AT and why? What secondaries would you pair them with? Do you think any of these would just be much better for a tanker (as in, actually seemed designed for tankers, as opposed to just tankers being good so everything is better on them.) I figured some people might enjoy the thought exercise. Thanks.

He fell.. Onto an earthquake. To the OP's point though, Claw Hammers are actually pretty common as murder weapons go today, and I'm sure there have been as many or more assassinations carried out through history with blunt weapons than with swords (although I imagine smaller blades would be more common.) As I say this, I just picture the assassination from Braveheart where the guy rides a horse into his victims bedroom and smashes him with a Flail.