Lazarillo

Granted, I have no real skin in the game. This won't influence my teaming habits one whit. It just means sometimes I'll get an extra 2½ million influence on TFs, but with random mission-end rewards, that's already a thing. On the one hand, that in and of itself is kinda janky. On the other, the amount of flak I've seen Defenders get for being "less damage" even in the face of their significantly meatier support, makes me think that if the intent is one for each, then putting Corruptors into the "ranged damage" category makes perfect sense, when that's how they're treated by many players.

Being correct is not the same as being right. I'm reminded of people in the very olden days daring to ask for Dual Blades to wield a Main Gauche in their right hand/both hands and Dev-BABs throwing a tantrum and refusing because "that's not what Main Gauche means!"

Am I missing a patch note about that being removed? Or are you saying that it should be removed?

Holy schneikes, I remember noticing something seemed off about Savage Leap never critting wayyyyyy back when, but I never realized it was a bug. Always just thought it wasn't meant to crit. Where's that old Savage Stalker I abandoned...?

This is probably the intent of putting it behind a badge that basically any villain is likely to get at low levels: parts specifically tailored towards Villains, which Heroes aren't likely to see/receive. But that doesn't mean I support that intent, either. As everyone else has said, these pieces should just be open to everyone. HC doesn't need to go back to the "grind for costume pieces" philosophy that was mostly just used to keep people paying subscription fees, regardless of context.

I've done some fighting of these new guys and mostly like 'em. I was a little worried that with Storm and Seismic being very...visually intensive at times, they might be kind of poor choices to give to normal enemies. But appropriate to their status as minions, it seems like the Thorn Casters got more modest abilities. New spirits are nice, new LTs are a mixed bag (I don't really think LT Succubus should be able to Placate, as untouchables are more an annoyance power than anything, and too common as it is even on bosses...but it's not without precedent). Haven't run into high level Ruin or Madness mages yet but I did enjoy the surprise of an Agony Mage Dreadful Wail-ing in my face right when I thought I had him.

In theory, no player should know about that in the level 20 range. Though there are other reasons even evil-types should meet a 5th Column character and apply boot liberally to face, nothing further needed. (I haven't done the arcs yet, but I'm gonna hope this is written in a way similar to Brother Hammond where the mission intro includes a "yeah, you could play along with this yokel briefly, sounds like a good way to screw him over for personal gain"-type narration.)

As a Striga Isle fanboy, I can't wait to get in and actually try these arcs. My immediate reaction though based on current play of level 20+ villains is to wonder how much that range really needs more content. It's already packed! I get why Striga kinda needs to be in this range, so in light of this new stuff, slight tangent, I know, but how about looking into increasing the caps and/or moving the level range on, say, Dean MacArthur/Leonard, Bobby Curtins, and others?

Hopefully it's sellable.

I was always the impression the statue of him is a 1:1 scale.

Even those those sets are in the code, HC avoids them because they don't want to be accused of ripping off the other communities that did them, for better or worse. It'll probably something kinda niche, and oddly specific, like "Symphonic" Control was.

I mean, there's still not a timetable, so I'd assume that if people ask you the answer is still "eventually, at some point".

Okay, I see what looks like VEAT power customization. Which means that I'm now stuck. Because if it is VEAT power customization, I'm never gonna play anything but a Fortunata again, probably. And if it's not VEAT power customization, then the fakeout is going to leave me so annoyed that nothing else in the patch could possibly salvage it.

...and there's a lot of "working as designed" function that still doesn't function the way it "should" in Ouro. For example, if you miss Praetorian content (which is extremely easy to do even without any XP gain buffs), and go back and use Ouroboros to complete it, the game's ongoing story flags won't pan out correctly. Given Praetorian content is generally more punishing than equivalent stuff in the Primal Level ranges, contacts at least needs an increase in its cap. ...but honestly, it'd be nice just to be able to finish stuff. My anal-retentiveness hates that I have a character who permanently is stuck with Diviner Maros' contact bar half-full because I outleveled his arc but not his standalone missions, and he stopped giving me stuff before we were done.

Have you considered that I'm actually living in the future, after it's rebuilt?

And let me do Tips there! I want to live in Galaxy City again!

Okay, but more importantly, why aren't you deliberately "failing" that mission to get double the payday for doing nothing but enjoying the show of Dr. Aeon getting taken down live on the air?

A bit before the original loss of the game, I started playing a lot of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Particularly, I got into it because I didn't like how a lot of late-original-CoH wrote its story arcs, and SWTOR was more to my liking on the writing front. Somewhat ironically, by the time CoH resurfaced, SWTOR had started doing the same things in terms of storytelling that CoH had done before its original shutdown, and so these days I tend to bounce more between the two. Also, though not an MMO, but possibly from leaning into Bioware due to SWTOR, I got on a real Dragon Age kick for a while, too, to sort of satisfy my love of creating new characters. That's another I've somewhat fallen out of love with though (or at least, with the third, and likely any hypothetical future games in the series).

...because he's the only one?

So here's one that I didn't know, kinda turned out for the best, but damn, if I'd known the sheer ripple effect it was going to create... Anyway, the item itself is under spoiler text, but there's a whole story to it. For full effect, maybe don't read the spoiler of what it was until after the rest of the post? Started the game in...mid 2005, I think it was (I do remember it was, just by coincidence, like, the day after i5 first launched, and man were people pissed...I digress, but the date is important). Created a really basic character, Fire/Ice Tank, and named him "Paradox". Couldn't believe that it was an available name, but I wasn't about to complain. I log in, play the tutorial, wow, this is amazing! Only I get near the end of the tutorial, and realize I got the name 'cause I misspelled. He's "Paraodx". D'oh! No problem, delete, come up with a new name, try again (I forget what I picked at the time, though I do have the character remade on Homecoming with a name I'm sure isn't what I used then). Over the next few days, made a few other characters, to try all the other ATs, including a Sonic Blaster named "Upset Vibration" (a rock-n-roll-er parody), a Dark Scrapper named "Dark History" (a deliberately silly edgy character who became my first 50), an Illusion Controller, "Lazarillo", (a carry-over from a TTRPG I made for a game with some friends at the time), and a Rad/Rad Defender whose name I don't recall. I'm going around, and someone explains global channels to me, and I join Protector Watch. Oh, but the name it lists for me is that first character I made, with the misspelled name. I don't want to be "Paraodx", so I figure, hey, I'm on my controller, I'll use that in chat so people will know which character I'm on. Now go back and read the spoiler if you didn't already. 18 years later, and my accidentally locking myself to the name of that one character in-game, I start using it on the official CoH forums, and then in other places, and then others. And now, I'm like, "Lazarillo" (or something very close) almost everywhere as an online handle. All because I wanted to chat with the alt I was using at the time. If only I'd known when I'd started, I was gonna have to commit to that changed name.

Why play Mind Control, when I can play a Fortunata? (Okay, besides the fact that I can't color my Fortunata powers.)

I mean, really, we're talking about a racist old bastard who's been a villain longer than any reasonable person's lifespan, who basically impossible to truly kill because his true mind just surfs to a backup body any time the one he's using is defeated, and who tends to run a bunch of simultaneous but highly indirect plans, primarily through some sort of complexity addiction, and is primarily motivated by the desire to install his own personal empire over all the world. Wait, is that Nemesis, or maybe someone from Dragon Age after all...!?

You can trade Empyrean/Astral Merits, but once they're proper salvage, there's no way to get them to another character anymore.

A post about the "seven-dees" and none of them are "Disco"? I am another d: disappointed.

Honestly, the biggest weakness of Widows is that I can't color my Fortunatas' powers. But on the flip side, if I could color their powers, I'm not sure I'd even bother playing anything else.