Coyotedancer

I remember some of the discussions about the AT from the pre-public server days,.. and there was a pretty straight-forward concern about making them "too good". As you say, there was the fear of making a tank mage. Sentinels were (and still are-) essentially an unfinished project that's never been completely settled. Starting out with them on the not-all-that side damage-wise was absolutely a choice, not an accident.

Here we go again... This apparently endless routine of someone grouching on the forum about "OMG Sentinels suck! Because they aren't Blasters!" is really getting old. Yes. Sents were intentionally undertuned and need some tweaks. Some of the damage sets feel very uneven. AR is just-... yikes. Their inherent isn't a flashy Big Deal when you're in the middle of an 8-toon Incarnate smash team. But they aren't useless and some of us have a hell of a good time playing them, in spite of the AT in general not suiting power-builders. They're solid soloists, and that's just as valid a role in the game as Team Centric Uber Damage Monkey.

I ❤️ my DarkityDarkDark Defenders. They are made of win. And tentacles.

Chibi-Scir says "Why you do this thing to your clix, Hew?" Im1.jpg (533×800) (domuscygna.com) Yeah. My G-Dub sort-of got claimed by one of the Resin Minions... I don't think I'm getting it back. XD

And every bloody one of them is player-targeted, just for a little extra "sticking it" to the sneaky sorts... Anyway, I never said it was impossible to stalk your way through Praetoria... My very first Praetorian was a KM/WP Stalker way-back-when, and I just caught a rift gate with my most recent one yesterday afternoon (DB/Energy). The heat-seeking ambushes are just something to be aware of. Depending on the path you take and the contacts you run, you'll spend more time scrapping than you would red side or blue. That's particularly true if you stick around and carry through to First Ward, which seems almost intentionally designed to make stalkers face-palm.

I think I used the Wedding heels with the stocking bits when I made the Unquiet Bride's outfit using Angelic Plus.

What App said... I've taken Stalkers through Praetoria successfully, but... yeah. Just go into it knowing that you're basically going to be playing an occasionally-sneaky Scrapper for the duration of your stay gold-side.

You've seen how I type... 😆

I've always felt as if that particular arc was like a mystery authored by someone who had never actually read one... They'd *heard* of these things called "mysteries", and kind-of sort-of got the gist of what they were usually about... But didn't quite understand it well enough to really pull it off. It's like the Mystery-story version of one of those AI-generated inspirational quotes. 😝

I'm in it for the LOLs... That is to say, I prefer roleplay done with a light touch and good humor. I'm not the least bit interested in angst and scenery-chewing interpersonal drama. I don't give a single flying rat's bum about the deep, philosophical ramifications of using power and violence to address the symptoms of systemic social injustice in a modern fictional setting... But a friendly, cooperative team where the IC jokes, terrible puns and saucy commentary are fast and furious? Oh, heck yeah. Bring it. I suppose that makes me terribly shallow... But I think there's more than enough drama, angst and discussion of Important Social Issues to be found *outside* of the game world. I really don't need to deal with it inside the game world, too.

There's definitely an aspect of experimentation to the City for me, even after all this time... "Hmm. X and Y sound like an interesting powerset combination. I wonder how it would handle solo/small team/full team/in Praetoria/whatever?" or "A random roll challenge gave me *what* as a combination? Seriously? What kind of build is it going to take to make THAT MESS work?! Let's find out!" The majority of the game being as casual-friendly (read: Easy Mode) as it is allows me the freedom to play around and make decidedly sub-optimal and 'off meta' characters, concept builds and other strangeness and still be at least fairly successful with them. I can play damned near anything and have fun with it here... so I do. Zen Mode farmer? Human-only Kheldian perma-Fuzzball of Fury? DarkityDark 'Tentacle Blaster'? Sure! Why not. Base-building lets me create small-scale, 3D locations to wander around in. I'm a tabletop gamer, so world-building and map-making are old pursuits. I see my bases as an extension of that. Likewise, putting together sprawling tangles of related backstory for my magi and my bird-things scratches similar world-building itches. Even if I never actually share any of the details with other players, its a fun mental exercise to puzzle out the story of something like Nova Primeva. As a roleplayer (Though more of the casual, 'loves RP mission teams but would rather walk through hell than do melodramatic BarP/City of Soap Operas'-sort), I'm also interested in colorful characters and personalities. I like creating my own and interacting with other people's creations. I'd call that IC-level social interaction. There's also an OOC-level of social interaction, too. Chatting with friends in-game is A Thing for me. A pretty important one. Getting to play the game with my nephews and sib-in-law, who live on the far opposite side of the country... Teaching them the ins and outs of powers, and enhancements and navigating the environments... Showing them things like the ice slides on Frostfire's map... Taking them on their first ship raid... has all been tremendous fun. Running duo with Mr. Coyote. Teaming with fellow Libertines from back-in-the-day. It's all good fun, and a big attraction of being here.

Memo to self... Never go AFK waiting for a raid to start if Mr. Coyote is also attending. 😝 I can see why it might look iffy, but the whole "Nope. Not buying it."-thing when offered a pretty reasonable-sounding explanation does make me raise an eyebrow. (If you DON'T feed the cat you'll probably end up with a fuzzy butt parked right on top of your keyboard. It's very hard to bash jello when there's a fuzzy butt on your keyboard. Trust me on that one. *eyes feline side-kick*)

I don't play Villains... I play Rogues. And Heroes. And Rogues who pretend to be Heroes because they hate randomly getting dropped from blue-side teams if they dare to go to a base or through Ouro at the wrong time. <_<

While I do sometimes miss the "old school" Circle look, which was probably more appropriate for a group of anachronistic mages than a lot of spikes and skin-tight lizard leather, I'm actually glad that the redesign put them in parts that are (mostly-) useable by player characters, too. It made designing faction-matching outfits for my own Oranbegan characters a WHOLE LOT easier and less annoying... I mean, really. We would *never* have gotten anything close to those robe meshes for player use. Ever. Now, if only those Death Mage bits, the horned gloves and the caped shoulder piece that the guys got two years ago would finally be ported over to the female side of the costume creator-... <_< >_> I still say the NPC Thorn Wielders need a recolor, too. There's no reason why they should be stuck in brown like the Guides and Archers. Even in lizard leather they should get their traditional black and red, darn it. 😆

I'd call them situationally useful... 'Dropping it on a potentially-bothersome second group that someone accidentally aggroed when you're on a smaller or lower-powered team, for instance. When an ambush group spawns right on top of you and the aggro-monkeys are all already halfway down the hall, completely oblivious. Things like that.

Looks like something may have reverted with the last update... The long slope timers are doing that "rounding to even seconds thing" again. Last night running on Everlasting, CoyoteNephew and Mr.Coyote were consistently getting even-number :00 times. Not only are the hundredths not logging again, they never got an odd result. No 31 second runs, or 33s, or 35s in spite of many, many passes down the course. There's no way their times were THAT consistently hitting on even numbers. <_<

Rogue life is best life

It's usually either Semnai (favorite Brute... Broadsword/Bio) or one of the assorted version of Kai (KM/Bio Stalker or Darkity/Dark/Dark Defender-) for me.

Speaking of... As promised, the screen. People kept coming and going over time, so this isn't everyone who attended... But I think I managed to get the majority in this screenshot.

'Going to miss Ad a lot... Ad was, as my grandfather would say, "good people". 😟

Kai would say that there are probably worse reasons to go Rogue. 😝

Funny thing... Paul (my Dragon, who spent most of his life in Blades/Chaos tank-spec) ... was actually a sort-of "alternate world" version of Palrah. My favorite WP/DB CoH tank. 😆

My Dragon enigmatically raises an eyebrow. (Yeah. I sort of miss Secret World sometimes.)

As much as I love my DarkityDarkDark Defenders... and I do adore them... If I were making a mostly-solo character? I would actually go with a Stalker. If you'd just rather avoid the melee thing, Dark Sents can actually be pretty good fun, too. Not *fast* at all, mind. They're slower than Christmas. But they're also basically unstoppable past a certain point. (I went Dark/WP and Dark/Bio for Shonokin and Tavaris. Being a goon in front of either one of them is like being caught in the path of a glacier. Doom may be slow, but its also inevitable. 😆 ) If you're determined to stick with Defender vs Corruptor... I'd go Corruptor. It'll be a slog soloing either, but the Corruptor might be a hair faster at it. Th eDefender would be safer by a bit, but that comes down to a matter of priorities.

Aw, come on over... We don't bite. Much. 😝