Tachstar

My ultra-hyper scientific analysis of current Pineappley tankage. Played my testy level 32 SR/SS tanker, still in Brickstown, still sporting the same setup as last time around. Got off to a bad start jumping into a banner event circle in which some purple freakshow end-suckers were loitering. Wound up pulling the boss one into the zapper thingee by the tram. Admiral Ackbar'd his butt. Hurr. Moved on from that and fought some prisoners. Would have been cool if the prison riot event had been running, but alas. Seemed kinda off at first, particularly in regard to end usage, but eventually I jumped into a group of five or six level 38 prisoners and proceeded to clobber them, albeit at a molasses-like rate. Didn't run out of end due to scientific pacing of attacks, even though there was much whiffage. There was a massive end hit from clicking Rage, which at one point caused a toggle to drop. Not sure if Rage has always been like that and escaped my notice previously, or if this is something new. All in all, this tanker wasn't as butt kicky as last time, but still not bad. Next, played my level 27 electric/stone tanker, set up the same as the original on Torch. Started off with a zombie invasion in Talos, which didn't go well. Electric armor vs toxic damage, and all that. Blech. Decided to try something else. Duped my level 31 dark/staff tanker, scientifically calibrated the powers and slots and +end IOs to match the original on Indom, then commenced clobbering. Did some back and forth comparison between the dupe and original. Didn't notice much difference. Both felt pretty good. Duped my level 27 SR/MA tanker from Excelsior. Noticed that some of the MA attacks have been swapped on Pineapple. It's the same up to Crane Kick, then it's Dragon's Tail, Focus Chi, and Crippling Axe Kick instead of Focus Chi, Crippling Axe Kick, and Dragon's Tail. Cool. However, in the interests of science, I refrained from using Dragon's Tail until after I'd done some comparisons. Played the duped version, then the original, then the duped. The dupe seemed to do better with end usage, but as noted in a previous post, not sure how much of that is due to an accolade. Damage seemed a little better, too. You know, it would be cool if MA had some more alternate animations, like, say, a Kirk Drop Kick or some space karate or something. Played the electric/stone tanker again. Ran some radio missions, switching back and forth between the dupe and the original. Again, end use seemed less heinous on the dupe, but the difference wasn't tremendously different. Not enough to prompt me to run out into the street and perform the Macarena in celebration, which tends to confuse the neighbors, as none of them play CoX. Damage seemed better on this one, too, even more so than with the MA attacks. Overall, this dupe seemed the most improved over the original version. Hopped back onto live for some more comparison, and lo! Another zombie invasion. Stood on the hill in Talos next to a brute, not sure what kind, but probably fiery, and we fought alongside each other quite merrily until I woopsied and didn't click the heal or a greenie to counteract ye olde toxic damage in time. Bloop. And so, thus, therefore, and to wit, the current version of tankage on Pineapple seems pretty much okay to me. Better, I suppose, than merging tanks and brutes into one AT to rule them all -- Tutes! Branks? Um. Yeah. Laters!

Redbone -- Witch Queen of New Orleans (live)

The Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose -- Treat Her Like A Lady

Waylon Jennings -- Only Daddy That'll Walk The Line

Tanker Treat!

Blue Öyster Cult -- Mistress of the Salmon Salt (Quicklime Girl) A plant/poison troller gone rogue.

The Alan Parsons Project -- The Fall of the House of Usher

Garbage -- The Trick is to Keep Breathing Back in 1998, this song blew the woofers out of my 20-year old Pioneer speakers.

Matraca Berg -- Appalachian Rain

Fitz and the Tantrums -- Breaking the Chains of Love Really liked their first album, haven't liked anything they've done since.

I was wondering about this, too. My blaster, Starflux, even makes a brief appearance in the Issue 12 VEAT trailer. At the time, I thought was pretty wootful. It didn't occurr to me that remaking that character here, now, could pose a problem -- until I started reading this thread. Now, I don't know.

These are the only three of mine that I think might possibly be affected, with the one in the middle -- Wolveringo -- being in my mind the most likely. His origin story begins, "In the town where I was born lived a man whose name was Bub..." Does anyone recognize the other two? I'm calling them Electromagna (invuln/electric tanker) and Red Punch (kin/nin scrapper). So far as I've been able to determine, they don't have names. Oh, yeah, almost forgot. I also have a catgirl named M'ree (ff/beam rifle defender) who looks more like a Caitian than the Caitians in STO, which have human legs. Ridiculous! See also: free the Horta! Ahem. So, anyway, maybe that one, too? Oh, and probably Nightmare Chef, even though I never play him.

Grand Funk Railroad -- The Railroad

Silversun Pickups -- Substitution

Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs -- Wooly Bully Live vocals -- check out that last chorus. Heh.

Saw that there was a new patch, so I rolled up a new beta tanker -- Tanky Man! Super duper reflexes/super duper strength. Skipped the tutorial. Didn't take any of the P2W powers. Clobbered enough Hellions to hit level 2, then used the cheat thingee to level on up to 25. Went to Talos and clobbered some Tsoo and Warriors who were disturbing the peace. Felt pretty good, but I did a respec and slotted more end reds, then did a radio mission. Not bad, not bad at all, but I was feeling the singular targetiness of super duper strength pretty, ya know, strongly. Still, thanks to super duper reflexes, the bad guys were whiffing so much that taking them out one. at. a. time wasn't too onerous. Leveled on up to 32, got new SOs, and went to Brickstown. Lucked into the prison riot event thingee, and hey, THAT was big fun. Rage, along with Assault, gave me a 98.75% damage bonus. I'd put two level 35 recharge SOs in Rage, and it was ready to click again within a couple of seconds after wearing off, which was great. When the Freakshow guys showed up, I got 'em all ticked off at me and commenced to taking them out one. at. a. time. I popped a few inspirations along the way, some greens, reds, and yellows. At one point I decided to click Elude, and that was interesting. Massive defense boost. I wasn't sure what would happen when it wore off, but I had several purples ready. When it did wear off all my toggles dropped, but thanks to my real life super duper reflexes (and the fact that for once the mouse cooperated) I managed to click all those purples and some blues and got right back to clobbering. But, dang. After the Freakshow were subdued, some super duper prisoners came out, so I clobbered them, too. Got to pick a temp power. Woot. Then I ran around randomly clobbering various other bad guys for a few minutes. There was one other player in the zone, also a tanker, but our paths never crossed. Anyway, that was fun. I'm fast becoming a big fan of super duper reflexes on tankers. Super duper strength felt kinda super duper puny before Rage, even with Assault -- as mentioned previously, the one. at. a. time thing was looming fairly large -- but once I got Rage things really picked up and I didn't mind the one. at. a. time thing all that much due to the increased clobber rate. So, five out of five stars. Would play again.

I have a kin/rad that hit 50 a week or so ago. I didn't have any particular plan in mind when I created her, I'd just never played kin or rad blast much before and thought I'd give it a try. I mostly play her with a team that does weekly TFs, which is fun, but soloing with her was slow and tedious, so much so that I often considered re-rolling her as something else -- until the mid 40s, when she became powerful enough to rise above the tickle-tickle-tickle damage she'd been doing before. Now she's two levels into the Incarnate stuff and I'm glad I didn't delete her. Fulcrum Shift + Irradiate + Atomic Blast = woot! The slower (non insta) Photon Volley hits really hard, too. I went with Psychic Mastery for the ancillary. So, yes, I am having fun with rad blast on this defender, but it took a while and many respecs to get there. Someone who knows what they're doing with IO sets and builds would probably do a lot better along the way.

Tommy Seebach -- Apache

Jeff Beck - Constipated Duck

I have a kin/rad defender -- my second 50 on Homecoming (first was a very blappy electric/martial blaster). I play solo a lot, so my characters are always in the middle of it. One of the things I like to do with this defender is run up to a group of bad guys, hit 'em with Fulcrum Shift, followed by Irradiate to soften 'em up a little, and then nuke the <bleep!> out of 'em with Atomic Blast. Clean up any leftovers with Dominate, Cosmic Burst, and Proton Volley, and apply Transference and Transfusion as needed. Doesn't always work, of course, and some mobs nuke better than others, but when it does work it's a thing of beauty. Defender: Knock, knock! Bad guys: Who's there? Defender: Ka! Bad guys: Ka who? Defender: Ka BOOM! I try to keep plenty of breakfrees on hand. With my blaster purples were the thing, but this defender gets stunned if a bad guy looks at her funny. Anyway, it's a lot of fun.

My wp/psi guy was 14 when I logged on and 21 when I logged off.

The Who -- A Quick One While He's Away

Meanwhile, somewhere in Peregrine Island...

Fanny -- Ain't That Peculiar

Johnny Cash -- Heartbreak Hotel (kinda sorta almost)