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Sign language? idk, my dullahan-style character carried her head around and couldn't talk without it. Disembodied works though, there's not exactly an emphasis on realism when you've no head. When my char 'lost her head' her body bumped into things constantly and she had to feel her way around to prevent falling over.

A complete remake/redo would have to be a thing to attract new people tbh. Obviously I love COH, but, Homecoming is as close as a private server ever gets to official and even then it doesn't have the audience numbers to churn a profit on the scope of what an actual multi-million dollar investment would want. You can guarantee... Cosmetic cash shop Faster paced action combat Better graphics Probably a battlepass Procedural generation (instances, most likely) 2004's City of Heroes is from a bygone time that is never coming back, even as the game got older these things were creeping in, I distinctly remember the last months of Live and the cash shop being god-awful, nowadays you won't spot an MMO without a cash shop so you can bet on it. Would they draw the line and have it cosmetics only or have 'Pay for Convenience/Borderline Pay 2 Win elements, idk, NCSoft still own the rights, if the MMO genre kicked off again they'd want to make lots of money and quickly, just like their eastern/Korean catalogue.

There's a lot of thread to read through so I'll respond to just the OP. Sadly, as much as gamers yearn for the next big Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game they're an extremely expensive and high-risk 'investment' for anyone making them, look around at the market these days; World of Warcraft (Microsoft, Previously Acti/Blizz) released in 2004, it's so old now that it's been re-released several times with Classic and riffs on that. Guild Wars 2 (NCSoft) released in 2012, one of the trifecta of the last big three MMO's. Guild Wars 3 is currently being developed though. Elder Scrolls Online (Microsoft, Previously Zenimax/Bethesda) released in 2014 still releasing content today, considered one of the big three western MMO's. These are the big three, two of which are owned by Microsoft who acquired these studios, all three have 'Pay to Progress/Pay for Convenience', all three make money primarily through retention and their in-game stores and they're all well over a DECADE old. WoW arguably milks their fanbase the most with nostalgia-bait, subscription model, MTX store, gold-buying directly from shop, and iirc, even a 'Battlepass' of sorts with the trading post and yearly expansions priced at the cost of a full price game. The MMO scene is dire in 2025, it's a sad state and is sort of at the point of just letting it go. There's only one western MMO that will either break it's back and be the final nail in the coffin for the genre (outside of older games, private servers ran with pure passion and such) or be a renaissance and that's Riot Games League of Legends MMORPG that's because Riot has the capital, the fanbase, the worldbuilding and all of LoL to call back on. If that MMO succeeds (and is as massive a success as say, Fortnite or Minecraft) then you might well see City of Heroes 2 in some shape or form, if it flops I doubt any investor will ever back an MMO project again, and these big MMO's need a lot of investment and capital to be of the scope players expect.

I've really been enjoying one of my more recent characters. I think every aspect of her kit just perfectly aligns. I've known of Magik a.k.a Ilyana Rasputina for a while now, shes my favourite X-men character. Shes badass, hot, contends with the beast within - the demonic darkchilde - has a big-ass sword and rules (or ruled) limbo which is basically hell. Naturally I made a riff on her, integrated the idea into City of Heroes lore and switched up her beginnings. My character was an experiment by the soviets to try and make a supergroup to rival the west, but the experiments went horribly wrong and my char was snatched away into the infernal dimension, she found the 'soul-axe' (harhar) and hunted in hell till her mutation expanded, allowing her to create portals - which were obviously inspired by Ilyana's 'Stepping Discs' allowing her to traverse dimensions and ultimately escape the infernal plane. I play her using teleports all the time, Combat Teleport, Fold Space, etc. Battleaxe with Fiery Aura is extremely satisfying when enemies are teleported straight onto you and you see massive damage numbers and that CRUNCH sound of the axe cleaving through them. I reserve some abilities for her Demonform in which she becomes scaly and such, charging in like I'm a Tank (pairing it with ultimate abilities, such as Demonic Aura). Never thought I'd make a character that was more fun than my Sonic/Martial Arts Melee focused speedster-blapper, but both of the characters have such a cool gameplay loop whos builds are fully finished and insanely fun to play. Nothing quite beats Battle Axe's satisfaction when it comes to whirling around and chopping up baddies that you teleported ontop of you.

From someone who plays sporadically, takes 3+ month long breaks, and sometimes comes back. Roleplay - Setting is somewhat unique across the MMO genre and allows a broad array of characters, has one of the most refined chat/communication systems ever released in a multiplayer game, even twenty years later nothing comes close to City of Heroes chatbox it's options and simplicity. Customization - Being able to create your character the way you want is great, graphics are obviously dated but still have soul unlike a lot of UE5 slop these days. Best of the Genre - Superhero MMO's are rare, good ones even rarer; DCUO and Champions still aren't as good. Solid Gameplay Loop - Gameplay is akin to Diablo or Path of Exile when boiled down to it's core, though it lacks a focus on loot the gameplay loop is the exact same. Casual - The game is fairly casual compared to other MMO's which often demand hundreds (if not thousands) of hours to truly max out a character, not really the case here and you're promoted to dabble with alts and new powersets because of it, not much sunk cost fallacy vibes.

Like others have said, you can bring whats needed by just being there. But there's some outliers if you are asking more along the lines of 'what is the minmax OP', but for the most part you can build anything to be very strong. Most people will agree at the super min-max level, a Kinetic Corr, or Kin at all (Not the melee set) has the potential to make every team you're on a breeze due to +DMG capping. Ice/Cold Corr brings the perfect balance of defense buffs, endurance buffs and most importantly -RES buffs. Sonic/Sonic Defenders bring absurd amounts of -RES, which when paired with +DMG capping from a Kin will translate to doing the most damage possible in this game. Worth noting though, you won't be doing 'the most damage' your team will be, but they'll be thanking you for the buffs and debuffs. Most the time, this stuff is completely overkill for 99% of content, or most the time they'll be another /Kin, or a /Cold making your character worse off. Even saying that damage isn't everything, all classes and builds have their place, you generally need a Tank of some sort (I'd recommend Invul, that's my fave). But really, don't get too focused on the build, no one really cares, and for super high end endgame content like starred stuff most of the time as long as the box is checked for the debuffers/buffers and you've properly setted out, it's fine, your knowledge of the raid/taskforce will be far more important.

All my chars have softcap on one or two positonal DEF's, had far more mileage with Ranged DEF, even as non-hover Blasters who prefer being in the thick of it. People saying 'wait for the Scrapper or Tank to get aggro' I prefer to nuke a cluster of 16 mobs as a Blaster before anyone gets aggro and often times to survive the 'Alpha Strike' my DEF is the first layer of... defense. Nothing worse in this game than being a Blaster and your nuke hitting nothing because someone killed the mobs before you. 'I hit my nuke, where big numbers... oh...' I hate it, so I build to survive and build for Rech to do it every other mob pack.

My Blaster has it, she has as much def as a standard Super Reflexes Scrapper and focused on S/L RES (Sonic/Martial), S/L is generally going to be what you take hits from when your DEF layer is ripped apart so much -DEF Debuffs are S/L. She isn't a hover blaster either and I prioritize using melee over Sonic. +15% RES to all damage when low HP (Gladiator +5% is essential too imo) stacked ontop of whatever RES you already have for a mere 2 slots is insane value, even for all out squishy builds.

It's definitely worth, I slot it on all my chars

Thought I might be alone in thinking the same, maybe it's a hot take, idk... The event kinda made me take a short hiatus from levelling/badging/enjoying the games usual content because it's almost impossible to find teams or assemble them, legit thought it was just an April Fools day thing. The benefits of it are too good to pass up, I don't blame people for enjoying it but it sponged players from every other aspect of the game.

I try to fit in character hooks lately, anything that makes my character easier to approach even if they're not the approachable type. Try to think of it from the outside looking in, what would interest me in a bio and how can I include that in mine. First up is RP style for the character, if they're an adult concept then I don't want them RPing with minors IC or OOC, I really dislike self-censorship so I get that out there, also include that I'm cool with OOC approaches/Tells Welcome etc, a little OOC chat for anyone too anxious can quickly break the ice. A synopsis and then 3 or 4 character hooks that might not come across in costume or backstory elements others might be able to link to, e.g. 'Known to work frequently with Crey Industries.' or 'Works for Hero Corps most evenings.' Basically I try to cater my bio to make it as easy as possible to engage with me and the character

The building code in Paragon involves lining residential homes with radiation shielding. It's a comic-book world with comic-book antidotes to powers, barely any NPC citizen is going to have access to the same resources Heroes do. I mean Positrons whole character is someone that cannot find a cure for his powers, he encased himself in his suit to prevent harming others, that's how dangerous radiation is in-universe. He was "cured" (killed and resurrected) after a lengthy arc, but it seems like it was a massive character-drive, the kind of thing you'd shelve a story to move onto the next. All these things are writing tools the author of a rad hero or villain can come up with their own ideas within the lore and setting of the game, even then you could be some alien from a far off world with a type of 'radiation' that isn't the radiation as we know it or all manner of other creative ideas to play how you want to. But.. characters need flaws (yes even comic-book characters in comic-book worlds) to be interesting.

I'd just lean into it, depends if you want to know the ins and outs of exactly how Radiation in City of Heroes works, when you start explaining superpowers it ruins the mythos. Truth is, no ones take is incorrect or correct. The official lore only states that the building code in Paragon City involves radiation shielding and that's as far as the official lore goes. Roleplaying wise if you're making a Rad Hero I'd go head first, perfect character flaw, perfect weakness. Powerful but fearful if they were to fully unleash, great story potential for Villains to exploit. Feels like it's in a similar vein to the cover page Heroes of Marvel. Every well written (powerful) Hero has to hold back, any Omega-level mutant unleashing their powers to the 100% results in bad shit for everyone. This is obviously why Dr. Strange makes 'mirror dimensions' because they want to show off his powers without affecting reality, it's a cheap cop-out imo. Storm won't want to unleash Hurricanes in New York. Jean Grey doesn't want to dominate an entire planet, but could. Iceman could easily freeze literally anyone to death, including speedsters. Magneto, well, that's why he's one of the most interesting mutants, because sometimes he does go 100%.

I actually use radiation Heroes as a character-driver that turned my Slavic girl into an all out Villainess hellbent on targeting radiation Heroes (and any of their Hero friends because she's loopy). Her story is that in more impoverished ex-soviet states Heroes were flying by a 'busy traffic area' to get to battles elsewhere against the reds. There was an influx of radiation themed Heroes who didn't know the true extent of their own powers, yet still flew over airspace to do good in cold wars against the Soviets. They ended up contaminating crop fields, slowly and over a long time when all the flashpoint black-ops style wars died down. However in my character story there was an awful famine caused by radiation from passing Heroes (that basically salted the soil for agriculture for hundreds of miles around), famine was a main problem for this small village, but all the awful things associated with radiation came with it which included the loss of my characters loved ones. Figured it was a great way to make a Villain who 'has a point', my favourite style. Edit: Also, I'm the type of writer that treats Hero powers as Magic under another name. The more you explain it, the less it works. The Force and Midi-chlorians being one infamous example of overexplaining things, one person can describe Radiation Powers in City of Heroes lore one way, and another the opposite way and both would be right. If you do want the absolute nitty-gritty on Radiation, well they infused lead into building construction (or some alternate made-up material that 'radiation shields') in Paragon, I think that says enough that Radiation power use is dangerous in some forms to private homes. Honestly? This only serves to make Rad heroes more interesting in my eyes (and Rad villains all the more callous), the flaw of their powers means they really don't want to fully unleash their powers in busy areas. All mentions in the lore bible written by Sean Fish (Manticore) seem to frame radiation as a few things. One seems to be a catalyst for inducing super powers. The other seems to be that everyone who has Radiation powers is seeking a cure to stop having Radiation powers. Unless they're Villain aligned.

Here's my Psi/Kin, the build is very different to yours, maybe you can take something away from it? Focus points of the build; + Perma Haste + Adrenal Boost for thematic + As close to Ranged DEF softcap as possible, almost gets there with Power Boost (44.4%) + Capitalising on Power Boost to bump ToHit to insane levels (63%+ For 60 seconds) + High S/L, S/L seems to be the most common damage that debuffs DEF + Force Feedback in two powers has the potential to hit +Rech cap often + 122.6 Endurance Things the build does bad; - It's not Fire/Kin (I have one already, it's significantly better) - It's Psionic - No ACC in Transfusion, unreliable Healing - Relies heavily on Power Boost for DEF softcap Not sure about and need thoughts!; Psychic Scream (30 Degree AOE -50%(!) Rech) or Psionic Lance (Quickform, Highest Single Target Damage) Build requires some hefty adjustment based on those two powers, currently leaning toward Scream for the debuff and more AOE. Redpulse - Corruptor (Psychic Blast - Kinetics).mbd