Latex

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

Demon-blooded mutant Hero inspired by Magik. Street level no-powers Villainess. Cosmic-Incarnate tier golden-age American Hero. Diamond-skinned psionic mutant inspired by Emma Frost. Sentient clockwork Praetorian concept, but 18+. Spectral-see-through Jello-Ghost. Soviet goth Villainess 'Damn Bitch. You Live Like This?' energy. Bubbly bunny heroine with a dozen sponsorships.

If I could 6 slot LOTG everywhere it's in I would, the 7.5% +Recharge is so good. RES vs Smash/Lethal, amazing, RES vs Psionic/Toxic, amazing (Sad I can't make room for it) What I see people sleeping on is Adrenaline Booster power. When you have a ton of +Rech its so good and gives even more +Recharge, enables perma-haste easier, adds damage, adds a TON of +ToHit too.

Whatever Impervium is, it's not mentioned a single time in the 2004 lore bible, so it must of been added later, which is odd because that means it has zero foreshadowing and is likely just 'salvage description fluff' or maybe part of Praetorian lore.

I believe the Porcelain masks contain fragments of Giovanna Scaldi's soul, she willingly undertook this ritual and died during it in attempt to counter the Church and a Bishop called Abelard. She was an extremely powerful mutant psychic in 17th century Venice that turned an entire town of elites into her puppets. Description of the masks is like an 'Eyes Wide Shut' masquerade vibe, full-face, porcelain & enamel, containing a fragment of Scaldi's soul that basically overtakes you(?). But the masks all look similar to Giovanna Scaldi whom was a courtesan serving the elites of Venice in the 1700's. Here are some direct quotes written by Sean Fish (Manticore). There is much more lore on the Carnival of Shadows, I get the feeling the OG Developers had a soft-spot for them, there's a ton more reading from Page 120 onward of the 'COH Bible'. CoHBible-1.pdf

Well balance in CoH revolves around debuffs, I'd say -RES is the most powerful debuff (maybe -Regen, idk), when I see my Battle Axe critting for 2400 on a debuffed target that defines my fun, it's fun to just smack stuff as hard as possible, bigger number better, this is an RPG and all RPG's since the dawn of time rely on bigger number better it is the entire progression system of every RPG ever. There are outliers that are flat out terrible in terms of... everything, no matter how you IO build them, they'll always be terrible. Psi Melee, Regen, to name a couple off the top of my head. I'd love to use Psi, it has some cool unique animations but it's so utterly unfun for someone who likes the RPG staple of 'bigger number better'. I'm all for total revamps of drastically bad outliers like Psi and Regen. Some powersets need a rethink from the ground up to be competitive and thus fun for many. You will be hard pressed to find someone who finds the weakest powersets fun in any other RPG, DnD session or anything 'I like this, but I wish it was a bit better.'

A lot of examples here are PVE games, Helldivers 2 is PVE, MH:W is PVE, I don't think balance is as important in some PVE games. - Helldivers Dev is off the mark though, the lack of balance hit that game hard and they lost a lot of players because of the way they balanced. - In a game like Marvel Rivals the game will live or die (exactly like Overwatch did) off balance, if your favourite Hero is statistically garbage you are going to lose more games than you win, this means annoying/letting down your 5 teammates, whether they're friends or randos. - Same for a game like Path of Exile 1 and 2 where meta's form and the game turns stagnant because it's utterly figured out. It's impossible to balance some things. But if you have a meta form and allow it to dominate the game then your game has an issue that will eat away at it's gameplay. City of Heroes is no different, thing is in this game it's hard to gauge what is truly by the numbers mathematically meta because it has as many variations in builds as Path of Exile, there is without a doubt some meta picks in COH; Kinetics, Ice Debuffing, Sonic -RES, Fire Brute Farming. It also doesn't have the tools like other games do; World of Warcraft's combat log tech/parse calculators are able to define the best played and most minmaxed characters and groups in the world, this is a metric that might get you recruited into an esports team or earn you fame in 'World First' races. Should meta builds be nerfed? Some argue buffing everything else makes more sense but then you end up in a situation like Diablo 3 ended up in where Blizzards ethos was the only ever buff which lead to making the game a total circus. I think it's better to spread out the access to the defining characteristics of a meta powersets so there are other picks equally as good or better in situations the other isn't. e.g. give a couple other powersets it's own riff on Fulcrum Shift for examples sake- not a copy/paste, more something that mathematically ends up just as powerful, being able to reliably hit damage cap from a single powerset is kind of absurd, more powersets should be able to compete with that. I think good example is what they did with Fire Armor on Homecoming they nerfed it in farming but improved how it feels and leant in on what makes Fire Armor a pick for those that want it, not sure on the broader community consensus on the Fire Armor nerf, but I'm loving my character with the fire changes, I don't bother with farming though but it is still the best 'all out offense' powerset. - Try as hard as they might, they'll always be a meta in every single game, it is impossible to balance. - Ignoring the meta will turn the game stagnant with very little flexibility for optimal builds. - The perfectly balanced game is one where the meta is hard to make out because powers/skills/weapons/whatever are more focused on user skill and when it is inevitably figured out the margin between S+ tier and D tier is 5% difference to the point user skill can actually make a D tier power/skill/weapon/character S+ tier with good game knowledge. This enables two playstyles, the real meta player who puts in the extra mile to be 5% better than everyone else not playing that powers/skills/weapons/whatever and the D tier which is only 5-10% behind but doesn't have to put in anywhere near the effort to be 'almost as good'.

There is a single mention of Atlantis in the City of Heroes Bible a.k.a the document actually used in development of the original game, this is as canon as canon gets. If you want to read the 500+ page Bible yourself, here it is; CoHBible-1.pdf