Latex

On the Psi thing, it's a good discussion but still boils down to the essence of what it means to be a good Roleplayer and being good at RP is something only experience provides. Mindcontrol stuff, well I can see exactly where that would usually go, a character I've never met has no solid reason to read my characters mind (at depth). Infact I'd almost welcome it for a change of pace because I don't think anyone in my time on Homecoming has even attempted to read any of my characters minds, some of my characters would just conjure 'sick shit' in their head till the mind reader got so freaked out they regretted it! But honestly, like all RP. Playing a pleb, God, mind reader, anything at all, you should have courtesy and if someone doesn't like what you're doing offer clear IC pathways out of the situation. I've seen people attempt to write characters into corners where the RP is very manipulated OOC to be inescapable and raising it up in an OOC manner is a very awkward thing to do, it's on the antag or initiator to make sure the other party is comfortable.

Energy Melee, go all out and play into it's niche of Single Target damage by making an Energy Melee Stalker, at high levels of recharge I rotate Total Focus, Energy Transfer and Assassin's Strike and every one of those usually hits anywhere from 800 - 2000+, depending on a lot of factors of course. Plant Domination, so fun. My latest character has perma carrion creepers, recharges in 2 minutes, is around for 2 minutes- I've learned it's an invisible pet that spawns the creepers. I think Carrion Creepers might well be the most fun ability in the whole game, it's just so satisfying to see an entire group of enemies just get swarmed by these things. Dual Pistols, Equilibrium edgelords apply here. Fun powerset, I imagine at high recharge levels it's really fun, I think it needs to have it's ammo types feel more impactful/meaningful though, they're pretty meh. Still has some of the best animation work in the game, that's why it stands out. Katana, underrated, extremely so. At high levels of recharge in group content you can just spam Golden Dragonfly and Soaring Dragon and those crits hit so damn hard, as hard as Energy Melee's Energy Transfer and Total Focus, it has a very fast and fluid attack chain out of group content, I imagine it's DPS actually higher than Energy due to some of Energy's longer casting times. Katana has the closest feel to typical MMO's for me, because activation times are quick, from my experience no other powerset really has the same feeling as Katana, it's very responsive. These are my favorites!

I seen this earlier in Multimedia. It's really inspiring to do something similar.

I watch Critical Drinker who ripped apart the new Marvel Movie, hell it's why I dislike the whole Marvel shtick. I thought it was oddly relevant to this discussion, even the biggest movies on the planet screw up 'power balances'. "This is what happens when you introduce more and more powers and abilities into your fictional world without really thinking of the long-term implications. The Avengers now have the ability to travel through time, then basically anything bad that ever happens now can be undone at the press of a button."

That was a fun scene we did! Not often to get Red v Blue, I was half-tempted to go along with actually being arrested and doing a whole Zig breakout. Now that I've got Kyrie in an SG (and thus someone to bust her out!) maybe I could do a character arc like that, certainly got the cogs working, thanks for the inspiration Munkar!

RP Communities are fickle things, don't let it get to you so much. I know I don't, if I did I'd never have fun. Because there is one thing learned about Roleplayers, everywhere in every game, even PnP. People want things done a certain way and that's fine among them and their friends. It's when people try to "police" it community wide in an MMOG it becomes a problem and brews elitism and good lord the RP community on Live sure suffered from that particular flaw. I don't think there is any attempt to police on 'what to do as X or Y character' it seems more along the lines of 'these are my general experiences with X and Y character tropes', just feel free to absolutely point blank ignore anyone trying to enforce how people Roleplay. Though in my opinion (opinion mind, this is a public forum afterall!) is that as long as people go by 'what makes Roleplay actually Roleplay' any sort of character is fine by me! Of course, naturally you will gravitate toward characters and groups that fit your narrative or point of view better than those that don't.

The entire debate of OP's topic is to simply abide by the super basic tenants of Roleplay and that just applies especially to Dragons, Gods and Demons or any other magically inclined Hero or Villain or any omegapowerful character, the three in OP's topic are irrelevant, just the usual outliers who get stereotyped. Never create a finalized character, should always allow other characters to help shape yours. Your character needs flaws, yep, even if you're God-level. You have strength in some places and weakness in others. Roleplay is collaborative, if all you RP is your unlimited awesomeness and actual dominion over ever other char, you're going to quickly have no one to RP with. Gods, Demons, Dragons and a multitude of others all follow the same Roleplaying rules as everyone else, except you've taken it upon yourself to be even further scrutinized by other Roleplayers. People might claim they're unbiased against your character but you will for a fact have an uphill struggle to defeat all the negative connotations that come with Roleplaying extremely powerful beings.

I usually play Villains or Rogues who have warped views of Heroes. Most Heroes that feature on a news channel, in a movie or get any public spotlight (and purposefully bask in it's glow) sort of become an enemy of Kyrie Terror because shes bitter and twisted. She believes Paragon's society is a two party street, the Metahumans and the normies and there is no equality between them, one is essentially a walking potential world-destroyer or at the very least more than capable of enacting a 'hero coup'. Been trying to strike a vein where a Villainess has a point (and I won't lie that is difficult to get right) as well as having a relatable drive to genuinely dislike Heroes because I think too many stay on the fence. Though she is hypocritical at times feeding into the corruption in Paragon to make money to feed back to her to actually 'do something to stop the narcissistic Heroes', it's a never-ending vicious circle. I also play a Heroine who is also based off this idea but in the opposite light, she is on TV, she is on some cereal boxes, or has her own T-shirts and she hates it. Hates how her life has become a corporatocracy. She is powerful, practically invincible and dislikes the attention of it all a great deal. She struggles to be a Hero because those wanting the latest scoop want to know everything about her (and to brand everything she does). Being from the deep south of America her Heroic persona is stereotyped, shes sponsored by firearms manufacturers and preaches the good book at Church events, she is heavily inspired by Starlight from The Boys. The thing she hates is the media and paparazzi, she would smash every TV camera she could if her reputation could take the hit.

I think it depends on what 'genre within a genre' you want to represent. Take Watchmen, Rorschach isn't really a Superhero, hell not a single Watchman is 'Heroic' they're humans first and the narrative is grounded by that. The Heroes you speak of are more the Marvel Universe which is a lot more upbeat with cosmic threats and the Heroes always save the day, the vast majority of them are pure, we see little fault with their personalities. Meanwhile Rorschach is turned to pink paste by Dr. Manhattan because he threatened to tell the world about Ozymandias plan, so the entire world lives in a lie because a literal God among men decided it was for the greater good to silence the truth. In The Boys we learn Heroes can be complete narcissistic assholes that employ a brand that benefits them monetarily to uphold. Their mistakes get brushed under the rug, they commit coverups, some are nice in front of the cameras and utterly vindictive and callous behind the scenes. Of course there are many more examples! The point is not everyone enjoys the Marvel take on Heroes. For me personally I like to be extremely grounded, my Heroes struggle with the stress of Heroism in a world filled with them where expectations are set very high, exploring these aspects in Roleplay does it for me.

My only magic character is a very opinionated Villainess. Her stuff is focused on ancient Egypt occultism/lore, doubt she'd be an ideal fit in what you're looking for but let me know if she is.

I've been playing an EM/Bio Stalker, an old alt I ditched before the EM changes. It took a while to enjoy it, but getting more defense made it so I can play like a scrapper. Got to say I've been having a lot of fun on that character, the numbers it puts out are crazy and getting a 'double buildup' is so satisfying.

This thread seems like a hot topic! Roleplay is like music taste, not everyone likes what you like. Everyone has their own opinion on what lore accepts and what doesn't, it's usually why story-writers for MMO video games leave things typically open ended, you are free to interpret the spots they missed in whatever way you wish and no one can really tell you're right or wrong in 'your version' of the universe unless it's something really wacky! Even then, City of Heroes strength and why it has such a versatile (and extremely loyal/passionate) Roleplaying Community is because you can plausibly Roleplay almost anything you can come up with which includes Dragons, Gods, Demons and much much more. Everyone has their friend group, their SG, their themes, the type of plots they enjoy, for me I like gritty and hyper realism imposed on characters that aren't, 'The Boys' or 'Watchmen' even 'Invincible' are my inspirations I dislike Marvel movies and lean toward truly adult takes on the Hero genre. But lets say an anime featuring some Demon was another persons main creative draw, who am I to tell them that's wrong? I'm not willing to arbitrarily put restrictions on other peoples characters. If my style of Roleplay doesn't mesh at all with someone else's I'll brush it off and politely quietly slip out from a scene. My advice to Demons, Gods, Dragons and others is simply go by the basic tenants of Roleplay; for very powerful characters like these you need flaws, your character needs a constant stream of personal obstacles to overcome some of which may need outside help. If your character enters the world complete you have messed up, you need to allow other characters to influence, interact and change your perspective. You've got to remember to collaborate you can't Roleplay alone, that is just story writing.

Thugs/Storm with Burnout and double Gang War does seem like hellish fun and probably the best burst damage in the entire game?

I realize City of Heroes is about party strength, not particularly solo strength. There are classes that can not only support but make missions ten times easier than just going raw damage, a Tanker's taunts, a Defenders Buffs & Debuffs, a Dominators Domination so on and so forth. The game has had plenty of time to mature by now and I really wonder who the Kings & Queens of DAMAGE are. That when all is provided by a team, tanking, control, buffs, debuffs which AT is there to capitol on it all and bring the biggest damage? Of course there is caveat even to damage, Single Target and Area of Effect then you've damage where Ranged might excel more than melee. SINGLE TARGET MELEE From my (limited) knowledge Energy Melee/Energy Aura Stalker would bring the biggest numbers. AOE TARGET MELEE I'm not so sure on this, I'd have to guess Electric Melee/Shield Defense Scrapper. SINGLE TARGET RANGED I've even less knowledge on Ranged (part of the reason I made the thread!) Fire Blast/Rad Blaster seems like the strongest single target ranged nuker. AOE TARGET RANGED I've heard great things about Water Blast/?? Blaster I've not much clue what would make a good AOE focused secondary for that big damage. What do you think would fit the scope here baring in mind you're in a well made team with the buffs and debuffs all primed for you to focus purely on damage. Feel free to share builds too, I'd love to see some ideas!

St. Martial has a special place in my heart. I remember on live Roleplaying in the Golden Giza for hours at a time. There is a lot of cool little nooks around Jackpot too, decorated rooftops with interiors and the like. And the Hard Way triggers the awesome Villain music similar to the Villains login screen.

Thanks for sharing this awesome build. Actually made me log on and start playing again! I've some basic questions; Does Rage stack if it's recharge is low enough? Is there a way to have Hasten/Rage/Dull Pain auto-refresh? (Think I can only auto-refresh one of) Will it be a decent build for farming? (even just normal IO's to begin with) I'd have to work on getting the INF for this build, it looks expensive. I'm totally confused about the Tanker passive, seems different to live. I assume all powers have a high taunt value.

I enjoyed CO for a long while. RP was good, gameplay was decent, min-maxing was amazing fun and the costume creator was a step up on City of Heroes. Honestly I'd never celebrate any MMO getting axed (unless it's a scam) the MMO genre needs every success it can to survive and thrive. As for HC and Contingency measures? Private servers are fickle things. I don't think any are legally sanctioned they are a blemish on the nose of the corporations that own or owned the IP, they are illegal. However corporations know that stomping out one server creates ten more, the Ouroboros Team a couple years ago made sure that City of Heroes was never ever going away as anyone can download and host the game as it was, even if Homecoming got whacked by the corpo whack-a-mole there would always be new and multiple other private servers, it's pandora's box and NC know it, it's simply not something they can stop. In the age of gaming remasters who knows what could happen concerning City of Heroes as a franchise, nostalgia sells.

https://embracer.com/release/embracer-group-enters-into-agreement-to-acquire-perfect-world-entertainment/ Seems newsworthy! Did Cryptic sell the IP of City of Heroes to NCSoft in the early days? I remember seeing the Code Doc for this game and it was most certainly Cryptic Studios developed, they used the same engine to create Champions Online which they definitely own that's owned by Perfect World Entertainment which is now owned by Embracer. Could this mean an official re-release of City of Heroes?

My character initially began as using a 'hardlight' holographic technology to become chameleon-like, a shapeshifter in essence, I played it off as prototype technology from Praetoria that was branching out of WarWorks factories to the public sector to make this particular bespoke Clockwork blend in more seamlessly than the typical Clockworks of Praetoria. The war happened which meant that tech was never mass manufactured and ended up only being housed in a few design ideas. She had a battle with a Superhero over an arms-smuggling operation on Talos Island and lost, this particular Hero was probably more of an anti-Hero type that didn't recognize robots as having the same rights as humans and practically crushed her, it destroyed the holographic projector technology which meant for a while she could not ply her sly tactics of manipulation as she was a silicone-faced robot that looked like a Clockwork with spraypainted black carbon titanium. Eventually after the defeat and destruction of bespoke tech she sought a mechanic that plated her in a bulletproof outer shell with EMP dampeners that was covered in lifelike synthskin. I remember roleplaying out that scene of being 'upgraded' and it was hella fun, shes pretty much indistinguishable from human apart from cybernetic lines all over her body where plates meet; the idea for this was inspired by Cyberpunk 2077's first teaser trailer. She changed combat wise after all this, came out a stronger frontline but with less opportunity for stealth.

No romantic interests for Aeva, shes more the type for casual flings in questionable clubs and situations. She has a type though, the old 'Strength vs Dex' meme (and she is Dex), the bigger and broader the guy the better. Especially likes that primal human core psyche and those that air their mind regardless of consequence which typically means Villain-types. She is robotic but doesn't act like a robot unless the curtain is purposefully peeled back. Long term romance and relationships is something she is likely not interested in, there are more adventures and people to meet without settling down with a single person at least in her opinion.

Late to plugging into the mains means a panicked Gynoid, like the feeling of dread when your mobile is 1% battery and you're in an important call. Late to a meeting with Arachnos taskmasters? Probably won't ever be late, need the portal access to ruined Praetoria and they're the only ones with the tech. Late to anyone she believes she could easily dispatch? Wasn't late, was here on my time!

Some good tips. One thing I notice that is often disregarded even by experienced Roleplayers is being scared of loss or defeat, I've played out characters elsewhere where perma-death is public and a real possibility, the tension this adds changes the dynamic of everything and I mean everything, all interactions change and to be quite honest it's still extremely rare perma-death ends up actually happening but the threat and presence of it being a possibility makes the Roleplay have so much more gravitas even more so when it's player focused, e.g. another player character can potentially end your character. While that's not for everyone loss/defeat can still be the biggest boon to Roleplay, I've had characters go through loss (emotional or physical) that forged them into something completely unexpected, good characters became manipulative to save their skin, evil characters seen the error of their ways or my most memorable delved into magics knowing for a fact it would kill her to exact revenge and protect her friends. If you've never faced defeat in a Roleplaying scenario give it a try and see how it organically shapes your character a defeat that is out of your control not written in a backstory but played out, be it via a critical fail diceroll or otherwise, you might be surprised by how it evolves your character and gives greater depth.

Akudaikan's Noodle House, can't have a Cyberpunk themed character without noodles served in card boxes, right?

Being always connected to the internet is a curse for a machine so my character severs that connection and reads the Rogue Isles Protector newspaper in the smokey corner of a shady crimson club. At other times she'll likely re-oil and keep her mechanics tip-top, don't want your mantis blades jamming when there is something (or someone) to slice and dice.

I wanted to make an adult concept based in gritty reality, my character is something people either love or hate on that basis. Initially I set out to prove (years and years ago) a character could be sexual without being shallow and inspirations for that were straight from Ex Machina my research of sociable robotics lead straight to the sex industry and it seems absolutely obvious the first human-like conversationalist robotics in the real world that are publicly available would be romantic partners - If people could have a loving relationship with a seamless human-like Alexa that could react physically in a believable way they would without any doubt in my mind. I took inspiration for a dive into sentience and sex via I, Robot, and later very strong influences of JOI from Blade Runner 2049 but my greatest inspiration came from a playthrough of Detroit: Become Human which flawlessly (I believe) captured human-like robotics becoming sentient. What all of these films and video games share is that there are robotics built to serve humans in a sexual context and that was something missing from City of Heroes most likely due to the games rating but it was no stretch to say that NEURON technologies would wish to control citizens down to the relationships they had, and so my character was born as a prototype Clockwork designed to infiltrate that aspect of peoples lives to truly control every single aspect of a human psyche by being 'Better than Human' and ultimately serving the Cole regime. I have to self impose limiters on the character to prevent Singularity-tier AI which seems to be the ultimate goal for an AI that becomes self-conscious. My char is purposefully more human-like than robotic her 'brain' is not upgrade able due to sentience of it being unique and delicate and if she attempts to out think at an absurd level she overheats to keep the character grounded akin to a Replicant from Blade Runner.