Heraclea

General thoughts. The Rogue Isles are too seamy and dreary looking, given that their government is nothing if not ruthless and efficient. Goldside is what the better side of the Isles ought to be. Areas of Cap au Diable and St. Martial come close. Should be more of that, less Sharkhead. Paragon City ought to be seamier than it is, given its history of charming elected officials like Robert Alderman, Spanky Rabinowitz, or Councilman Birch ranting about imaginary conspiracies. The higher echelons of the local police department seem to be possessed by aliens; does no one have an opinion about this? Or what happens to reporters who know? And then there's Blue Steel. Heroes ought to have a more complicated relationship with the local government than they do. In my head-canon the Vanguard are a much worse threat than the Rikti. My trouble with redside has always been that it's been much more difficult to pick a path through that content than it is blueside. The limited amount of content is a problem, and much more of it seems to be gated through 'introductions', which have been mitigated if not eliminated for heroes. If you're a low level hero and want to avoid Vahzilok or Clockwork missions, that's easily done. The same if you're in the home stretch and prefer not to deal with Malta or Carnies. Suppose you want to level your villain, but would rather not deal with Arachnos or Longbow. How would you swing that? The linearity of the zones mirrors the lack of multiple paths; there is one redside zone per level range, from Mercy Island to Grandville. Blueside, Galaxy City is no longer an option, but the rest of the different zones, contact zones and hazard zones, offers more places to go. Redside is also relatively poorly served by task forces; what is the redside equivalent of Posi 1 and 2? Make a redside Posi 1 and 2. Fill it with Hellions and Skulls, low level Marcones, and you'll probably see a small bump in lowbie villains. (There's a longstanding dropped narrative thread in the oldest material which teased us about relationships between these low level gangs and the more powerful City factions. You could work on that redside.)

Add light roleplay to your ordinary game play. I do this for every character I take a shine to. The number one in game expression is banter binds, which I always send to local so they don't clutter team chat. My numpad is typically filled with these. Example: /bind numpad1 l "The power of Cheese compels you, $target!" If you have, say, Lord Recluse targeted, this will call forth a local chat and chat bubble that says "The power of Cheese compels you, Lord Recluse!" These serve gameplay purposes, too. They call out your target, letting the team know you've got your sights on a milestone mob, name boss, AV, or problem like quantums or sappers.

Rolling Stones - Street Fighting Man

Also, my character Yamnaya takes her name from the Yamnaya culture. This was an archeological culture once found in areas of Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. Most linguists believe that this culture was where the Proto-Indo-European language was spoken. They spread across Europe and the Indian subcontinent because they were the first people to domesticate horses. The same people persisted into classical antiquity, where they were known as Scythians and Sarmatians. Recently, various pit-grave burials from this culture and the Scythian culture area have been re-interpreted. Prominent graves containing chariots and weapons were assumed to be the graves of soldiers and leaders. It was just assumed that these must have been men; then somebody took a look at the hip bones, and found out that up to a quarter of these graves were of women. The women as well as the men had battle scars, and some apparently died violently. Now this area, north and east of the Black Sea, was in Greek legends the home of the Amazons. These legends may have in fact been based in historical facts.

One version of the founding legend of the Roman Amazons relates them to a story told about Gog and Magog as the giants who traditionally guarded London. In this version, rather than landing in Britain, they became the founders of New Colchis. This is not exactly history, but close enough.

Yes, they're the ones shooting green stuff.

I made my speedster themed character a Kinetic Melee/Radiation Armor scrapper. The combo works reasonably well and this one shot into the lead as my personal favorite and 'main' scrapper. Kinetic Melee for the busy animations and revving sound effects. Radiation Armor, for Beta Decay. Electric Armor is also worth considering.

Lady Gaga - Enigma

Slave - Slide

Verbum sapienti - make a targeting macro, go after anything that says 'Sorrow'. Take care of that first and it gets easier.

I am finding Psi at least playable. Being a rather tanky scrapper helps. The Insight mechanic works with Critical Strikes procs to allow me to one shot all sorts of things. The t9 AoE has a nice fast recharge and solid soft control. That said, I am wondering whether this character will find a niche, as the Titan/WP scrapper failed to do. At least with only Alpha she fares poorly against Knives of Vengeance in Dark Astoria; she does a bit better against Banished Pantheon, but not by much. I doubt she will do much Apex or incarnate trials either: still a scrapper after all. She does quite well on old school content. Psi Melee is at least not as clunky as Titan Weapons was.

Pentangle - A Maid that's Deep in Love

I eventually opted against Boggle. I did take two Leadership toggles for confuse resistance and general team utility, so my level 49 choice was between a very situational power, and Hasten, which needs few slots and has general utility. I chose Hasten because my perception is that the attack chain I have is rather choppy, so more recharge might help.

I just got my second Aztec themed character to level 50. Native American themed costumed pieces are very hard to put together. A war bonnet is probably just not practical, but we need more fur-with-skin, fringes, and feathers than we have now.

I am not a fan of the outsized boots, and they don't really work with the rest of my costumes, which tend to be relatively sleek. The flared skirts are something I seldom use, either. The Valkyrie skirt makes a much better gladiator skirt than the Roman skirt does. So I use it instead. I like most of the Gunfighter stuff -- though I tend to use it mixed with other pieces for something other than a steampunk/Wild West scheme -- but those shoulder pads with tiny animal skulls (big whoop, you shot a baby goat) -- are rather silly. The Patrician Toga on a female character is more like a mini-toga. I usually have one costume slot using it on most of my Romans, but I always combine it with another skirt, usually Talons, to add a bit more length.

Love that Batmobile!

Level 49 and time to take Hasten on a scrapper (Willpower/Psi Melee). Chose Hasten over Boggle as the last power. Taking Hasten means a trip to a tailor to turn off the fiery hands. Did this at Proximo in Cimerora. I turned off the glows for each of the five costumes and Proximo did not charge me a cent of inf to do this, I expected this to have at least a nominal fee.

Also, soft capping just may not be a goal worth pursuing on some builds. I have an electric armor brute, easily softcapped in resistance against smashing/lethal/energy, which are the three most important types. I also have a tanking regen brute, not nearly as tough, but who benefits more from recharge and -recharge resistance than resistance or defense bonuses, which I have not ignored but not made the focus of the build. On a regen brute they aren't easily in reach. Reflexes and ninjitsu characters easily softcap defense. My advice always is to build and slot generic IOs while leveling based on perceived need: and then replace the generics with your chosen sets, but do not compromise core aspects of your build or respec to move slots around without considering why you put them there in the first place. Especially do not compromise accuracy in your attacks to chase set bonuses. This is why Kinetic Combat is a mainstay for me; you get the S/L defense bonus at four, which probably leaves you room for a generic accuracy or random Acc/Dam. (And do not disdain the Chance for Knockdown, just as long as you don't stick it in a power that already does Knockdown.)

Here is the build I made in an attempt to create a Regen brute that could tank. I did try enhancing regen as well as resist/defense and recharge speed, which are the things you will want to concentrate on. This build is somewhat inaccurate in that it doesn't have some of the newer enhancements.

Black Market Karma - The Fall

Alela Diane - Pirate's Gospel

Six Organs of Admittance - Close To the Sky

Espers - Mansfield and Cyclops

Black Sunday a/k/a The Mask of Satan (1960) Just about anything from the classic Hammer years. The Exorcist Rosemary's Baby (Odd choice) John Dies at the End

My favorite music is probably 'Williams Square' from Founder's Falls.