Llewellyn Blackwell
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Posts posted by Llewellyn Blackwell
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Do me a favor:
Re-read my first post.
I had no intention of malice or aggression to that post, I was pointing out to you that where this RP interaction went wrong was with you, not the other RPer. You took this as aggression.
Now, put yourself in this other RPers shoes for a moment.
Someone you don't know informs you that there is something wrong with your character, whether or not there actually is. This is a character you have established their history, you know who they are, you know why they exist. This rando suggests you change your character to suit the lore as they know it. How will you react to that? how will you handle being told (no matter how politely) "Your character's history is wrong, you should change it."? Because I can almost guarantee you that that's what the RPer heard, just like you heard aggression in my response.
Now, I imagine you're probably kind of like me, and if this particular incident happened to you, you'd go back and double check the lore and make adjustments as needed, but you might not be super receptive to the idea when broached, because "who the hell does this guy think he is, telling me how to change my character to fit his version of the lore."
First off yes saying it went wrong with me is attempting to put it all on me. I fully acknowledged in my first post that the guy and I clearly did not jive and so I went on my merry way. Nor did I even say the other guy was someone in the wrong, just that by choosing to ignore lore he made it impossible to really RP with when my own character I was on was steeped heavily in the history and lore of paragon heights and later galaxy city. And I was very civil in my discussion once it was clear he was not really interested in the lore I knew we could not really RP because his character simply could not be perceived as being in the same universe as mine.
Had I been on say ol Berk here I could of simply adapted, treated it as a timey whimey wrong dimensional turn at alpha centauri prime, and must be on Earth xL-Z73 or some such where things went differently while being in a group with that guy. When in doubt that is my go to for such things in a game with time travel and portal tech.
But based on your posts in this and another thread its pretty cler to me Ive offended you and you are trying to act otherwise. such as your comment on another posters being well said and more polite and eloquent then how you would of put it comment.
To me civility is a constant must and as such even when as with the player Ive not named and I didnt jive I was never in any way rude nor did I press the issue.
It began like hey interesting name I was born in the heights myself and sure do hate that it was ruined for a 2nd time. He was like 2nd time? I was like yearh I mean it was wrecked twice in less then a decade the people trying to rebuild there sure got a damn hard hand in this life. He pretty much was at that point clearly not really sure what I was talking, that was when I switched to ooc and tried to discuss the lore and offered some civil critique of his bio and concept. news flash if you really dont want people to read and offer their opinion/critique of your bio, dont write one. If you really want to RP only your own ideas, stick to a static RP group. Thats not me being mean thats me saying exactly what Id be doing if that was my goal.
To RP with random peeps in pugs the lore is the only guide book we really have to keep us on the same page. That doesnt mean you need a degree in paragon history but when you find your bio and concept are just not in sync with the world your only real option is adapt in some way.
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People tend to get a little odd about the mind reading thing in my experience... I remember some serious fights and melt-downs about it in the Old Days. No surprise it's still an issue.
A couple of friends and I were discussing it the other day in the OOC roleplay channel, trying to suss out how we wanted to handle one of Kaikarra's new "spells". (She's an Incarnate level character, but as anyone who's read her Diary knows, she doesn't in any way think of herself as one. As far as she's concerned, IC she's just a somewhat more talented than average mage, not some semi-deific powerhouse-) She created that new ward specifically to protect herself and her teammates from the mental effects of the factions they're fighting in Dark Astoria, so it has to have a pretty broad range of defense by definition.
The issue is that one of those teammates... In fact, the one she initially started designing the ward specifically to protect... is a psychic. (He's a PsiMelee stalker-) Part of their IC fighting style does involve him reading the group's surface thoughts. He and Kai are often the front line when they run together, so still being able to do that is important to them. There are also personal considerations involved.
But that "ward" is a Tier 4 Clarion. Not *just* an Incarnate level power, but what is (as far a I know-) one of the single most potent effects of its type in the game.
While we were talking it over, trying to decide if the sheer mechanical horsepower of that effect meant it was more likely to mean "blocks EVERYTHING" or "involves enough fine-control not to", one of the other channel regulars expressed the pretty pointed opinion that ANY kind of 'immunity to mind-reading' was BadWrong god-modding. Even a T4 Clarion defined as a "Keep ALL THE THINGS outt'a my head!"-spell.
I sort of raised the proverbial eyebrow at that, especially given that were discussing it openly on the channel specifically in order to reach a group consensus that both made some rational sense and WASN'T just god-modish railroading. o_0 So... yeah. It's something people have strong opinions about and that can obviously lead to conflict.
(In the end, we settled on saying that the fact that it IS a T4 ability and not one of the lower-tiered versions meant that Kai had enough finesse when casting the spell to block the Talons' brain-games while still allowing BioRogue to do his thing. Other groups may have come to a different conclusion than we did under the circumstances.)
On the subject of mind reading, I do Consider Clarion once you ahve it to a 120 second duration to justify a virtually impervious degree of mental shielding. HHowever I dont require that much, will power, a few IOs with psi res etc are more then enough for me to recognize someone as having a much stronger mind and will then the average human or some special technique like the building a wall brick by brick in your mind like in children of the damned.
Look Folks I know I can come off as abit too ahrd core but I am actually pretty flexible as long is there is clear respect and love for our beloved game world.
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I try to write a small blurb on the ID for every character I make. Some of it like back-panel description you'd see on the action figure packaging, some of it gets revised to add extra chapters and summarize that old blurb into a single line to make room for new bits.
Self-writing a story on a character that never finds RP. But I enjoy RP and I was in a brief intro with another player last night.
Also interested in finding a group of Kheldians who we could open a channel for in-character meetups and discussions of our squid-ness or lack thereof.
Actually one of my more original characters ofmy own naming is named Skylord and a PB, though not a PB though maybe is a PB in some way. Ive intentionally described his powers as inexplicable his birth a mystery his parents unknown. He was fostered and trained by the late Kelly Graham and was just a young man of 22 when he watched her give her life for he and other young heroes and civvies, and was held back by Alexis cole duncan when he yearned to fly to her side and share her fate.
Ive started an SG with him called cloud 9. Dont exacctly have an idea of the theme but could see it being an all PB SG or at least all flying heroes SG.On everlasting feel free to look for Skylord in game if you want.
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Using the lore certainly went wrong in this little story of yours, but it didn't go wrong where you think it did.
It went wrong with you.
You basically told someone their RP was wrong, and told them how they needed to change their character for their RP to be "right". They don't know you, they presumably didn't ask for your input on their character's origin. They likely have a solid idea of who, what and why their character is, so being told by some rando that it's wrong and should be done another way is not going to be well received.
You weaponized your lore knowledge against this person, though perhaps not intentionally, and when they didn't live up to the standards you held them to, decided you couldn't RP with them.
Whoa now think your being a tad too aggressive here. I didnt attack them in game, verbally assault them or in anyway insult them or their character. I merely pointed out that a character that in their bio was to have recently come out of retirement age in their late 50s early 60s would no matter if you RP it as 2012 or 2019 would of been quite old to begin with if their starting hero name was meant to be based on galaxy city existing and being a homegrown defender of it.
Lets say for example said character is 59 for easy math. If we are going with it being 2019, and the rikti invasion and destruction of paragon heights occurred 17 years ago, this character would of been 42, already middle aged and if a mutant would of likely had their powers for as much as 20 years. Even if we say he didnt put on the tights till he was lets say 22 agian for easy maths, that would be 20 years before the destruction. and renaming to Galaxy City in homage of she who put herself between those in need and an alien armada even as oh so mighty Statesman ordered those trapped to be abandoned including his own daughter.
All I had suggested was the guy consider adding in his bio a previous hero handle, and that he adopted the new one to honor either galaxy girl or more recently the ruined galaxy city.
However can we not agree that saying in their bio they defended galaxy city for decades is just utterly ignoring the world we are playing in? Galaxy city at most if it was renamed within the year of 2002 was only around a decade when it was ruined. And was only ruined towards the end of live, so at most its been only 7 or 8 years since it ceased to be.
Initially we had a civil conversation, neither of us ever got rude or aggressive in our word choices, and when I felt he was tuning out and clearly just didnt care I simply said good day left, and put him on ignore.
Ive never lacked for good RP partners Ive never felt the need to not ignore those that do not groove well for whatever reason. I dont use ignore as a tool to be rude but to simply avoid those who for whatever reasons do not click with me. Usually it involves being a whiny morale killer on a TF and even then I ignore usually rather then kicking them off the team outright unless I feel they are not also trying to carry their share of the load.
Paragon wiki exist, this guy wasnt some newb to the game he clearly had some understanding of the game lore, just a very shallow one and clearly no real interest in deepening it, thats fine. Nor am I under some obligation to RP with them on their terms, or even associate with them in game.
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I consider them intertwined and build accordingly. however that doesnt mean a character cant be optimal, and infact the only way one can really justify RPing some kind of serious superman class bad ass is to be both well built in concept and performance.
For example I will not remotely acknowledge anyones claims in RP that they are resistant to psi abilities like mind reading if their power sets or IO set bonuses do not indicate at least some moderate level of resistance or defense.
On My pure human claw/wp toon I dont take rise to the challenge. I only give him moderate amounts of resistance and push more into defense to show he depends to some extent on agility and only has light armor. I use multiple sets procs in his attacks so he doesnt have alot of higher teir set bonuses, but his attacks while all not having more then 40 or 50% dmg bonus hit plenty hard and have all sorts of modest CC effects to help hinder enemies and compensate. On live this build never updated after fitness became inherent and was in fact much weaker then it is now, but even back then more often then not id have people impressed with my characters performance and compliment me evena s they asked why I didnt have inherent fitness.
build should reflect the character as they are RPd. We call those who act super awesome at low levels god moders while we recognize incarnates as the god like beings they are. Our Security level is an in game concept reflecting both our power rating and our success and effectiveness. We use pets, emotes, and power animations when we RP.
Our character is a sum of all its aspects when we RP. otherwise your just talking shiite in RP and not worthy of others time.
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when in doubt examine the powers and concept your after, and start looking into the lore for a name and some details that work in synch with what you want to play to really become part of the world.
That is how I became bentley berkeley. I wanted to playa doctor strange/ doctor who type. I wanted to be magical, I wanted a long life span, to not exactly be a uber hero type but somone more low key, and as I explored the lore via the wiki and found bentley berkeley I knew it was meant to be
For example what kind of special organizations do we have in coh, well we have the ones clearly listed in the city hall. META MAGI ETC, Research them, find the name of a hostage, or a name from the history you can adopt and adapt to your idea and power choices.
Also named bosses from missions are a gold mine. I recall making a sky raider back in the day I used the name and just gave him a lower rank RPing he had been demoted after losing so badly in the arc the name came from.
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Actually part of the animation changes were in large part due tomany players not liking the frnezied looking attacks, and most of us at the time of the change I recall being very happy with more of apunch dagger approach to using them
As forbrutes, brutes dont need any damn help being more kill crazy. Not every power set is suppose to feel optimal at every lvl range. Some are supposed to only feel good at high lvl, some thrive at low to mid level and are just decent at high end.
Hell not every character needs to push for max lvl and incarnate. many of my characters I intentionally park at certain levels depicting what I consider the concepts proper power lvl. In other words batman and wolverine are not cosmic class concepts,
Id suggest savage melee anyways.
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Greetings I am on the everlasting server. My character of the same handle as I use here on the forums has always been sued by me as a mentor type figure. While he himself is magic based I have no issue mentoring those of differing themes, exemping down to help you run your arcs, and can help explain things as you need.
I am a role player though so if that is weird for you I understand.
If you do play on Everlasting and are interested send me an ingame email with your character name and Ill keep an eye out for you when I am on
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I remember on Live a trio had Synapse runs to like 30-45min and would shepard other players through it, and I wish I could remember what builds they were using for it.
I’m 90% sure you are serious, but I am somewhat incredulous. I just ran this a couple of days ago, and we had no team wipes, and it took us a little over 2.5 hours. Now there was probably 20 min of breaks, maybe 30. We did fight Babbage, but for every mish that was not a defeat all, we had someone stealth to the end and teleport us to the boss room. There are so many kill all missions...such a slog.
Again, not calling you out, just trying to imagine it...
Have to admit I am with you on that hmm. Ive ran that tf many times on live, and no few since Ive been back. Personal best I ever recall was around an hour, and that was with stealthing, an insane amount of psi dmg as in all used some AT and psi power sets, and we went at it like rabid animals. I have a very hard time believing anyone can get even another 10-15 minutes shaved off.
Maybe maybe in the bugged broken hami-o era that allowed for game breaking builds. Maybe those could.
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Is Perma Elude possible now with IO set bonuses?
To answer the actual question -- no, it is not, neither with set bonuses nor with any in-game bonus at all. The maximum possible recharge rate is 500%; Elude has a 180s uptime and 1000s recharge, which means that even with maximum recharge bonus at all times there's still a 20s gap.
In terms of recharge rates achievable with set bonuses (and Hasten and Alpha slot), you're looking at something like at most 300% anyway, which leaves 153s of gap.
This sounds about right, back at the end of live I had an SR who was as global recharge specced as a build could be, and regularly ran with kins, and had all the recharge stuff from incarnate. I did find however that Phase shift filled the gap nicely, and a blue was all it took to avoid a pants down issue. And then I frankly stopped taking SR toggles, just the autos and elude kept your defs so high even against def debuffers you didnt need fear.
And when you think about it, there is nothing more top of the hill for an untouchable defense then literally becoming untouchable when you would otherwise be at your most vulnerable.
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First an LOTG global recahrge is not a porc. its a special. Its bonus works just like any multi part set bonus, and even counts against the rule of 5 when using sets that grant a 7.5% recharge bonus.
However it and all other IOs only work when exemped down to no less then 3 lvls under the lvl of that IO. This is why we say ignore crafting IOs, never buy lvld IOs, buy attuned IOs.
Attuned basically means they work from the lowest lvl for that IO to the highest. get an attuned LOTG special, and it will work from lvl 22-50, and they cost basically the same on the AH.
This is how set bonuses work to, as long as the set is in its active lvl range its bonuses are active.
To experiment open your combat attributes window and use flashbacking to see how at a given lvl a set bonus will deactivate.
This is the root of why some wont ever exemp down, they are terrified of playing without every bit of power they have. Which is funny because with a build made with exemping in mind you will be way way stronger in content exemped then you where at its proper level.
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Ill be honest a lot of the complaining in here comes off as hyperbole to this ol berk. Maybe its just dumb luck but just about every alt Ive made has gone through the arcs taking me through KR and not had one bit of trouble. Ive done it now with a PB, a scrapper, a blaster, a brute, a stalker, and Sent.
Now sure a few of those are pretty hardier like the regen brute and sent. However I ignore the defenses on PBs at low lvls and even as a glass cannon did fine there.
Ive always found the area with skulls your sent to to be in yellow range at worst for my characters. Now I tend to do abit of street sweeping by habit as I wander between missions and am usually a lvl above them when I reach them or close to it. Always played that way, and kind of felt it was the expected approach the game was designed around.
Yes flying offers some modest advantage at these levels. Seems only fitting considering how slow it is in end game and pretty much anyone and everyone can get some form of fly. So maybe just maybe think of those who actually love flight and tend to feel slapped in the face for that preference in like 99% of the games content.
Now if you all want to offer up increasing fly speed in general maybe I could see its modest early game advantage not deserving. However as it stands flight needs these little moments where it shines as the best option.
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So as Ive said before I am a big fan of using the game lore to integrate my characters into the world. Im far from the only one but it does take abit of effort to do it well. Lets use for example a character I ran with in the last month that while a good RPer, clearly didnt understand the full lore around which he was trying to base himself.
He placed himself as in his late 50s- early 60s in apparent age. He connected himself to Galaxy City in his name and was supposed to be an old silver age hero come out of retirement.
So I asked him why the new hero name, and he responded by saying that he always had carried that name. I pointed out OOC that Galaxy City was only called Galaxy City post rikti invasion, renamed in honor of the late galaxy girl, and was previously called Paragon heights. So unless he had only strapped on his tights for the first time well into his 40s he had to of had some other name.
See the reason I got so curious is because one of my characters named Skylord, is in his origins connected to the late Galaxy Girl who as is well noted in lore acted as a mother to her old neighborhood after retiring, so I have her being my characters foster guardian and mentor in the uses of his powers. Now I took the time to try to zero in her age and am pretty sure she was around 80 when she died. She and Dauntless could of had a secret child etc who would of been in theory the right age to of been this guy I met.
However he clearly didnt know even the basic timeline for the game world. And just kind of blah blahd at my suggestions on how to fit into game lore better. It was clear however he really was less about trying to fit into the game world, and force the game world to fit into his idea. So while in theory he and I should of had some good in game reasons to hang out and work together, I just couldnt interact with a guy who wanted to rewrite game history on a whim.
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Bodyguard is not just Defensive stance, it's also Follow.
Defensive//Stay and Defensive//Attack don't count. :)
Also, what Bodyguard does is share out any damage you personally, the Mastermind, takes: each pet takes 1 share, the MM takes 2 shares. (With all six pets out, you will take only 25% damage - a whopping 75% damage reduction!! - while each of your pets takes 12.5% of that damage). It does not help at all, with damage taken directly by one of your pets. They're bodyguarding you, not each other. :)
This, this right here is the why and how MMs are the tank counterpart. Not even a tank gets that much DR with just a button push out the gate.
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I've been playing a Bots/Empathy MM quite a bit recently, doing PUGs.
I am a support build, for the character concept, there is no offense built in to the armor suit, only support. (Basically the power armor is built to provide all the services of the emergency teleportation network, outside of the reach of the network, there are then battle ready robots to provide defense for those 'ported in to or out of danger.) If things are going super smoothly, I break out my prestige attacks, because... well, why not? But usually, there's buffs to apply and people and robots to keep alive.
I am trying with her to subtly help other support players figure out what they're doing, but using buffs, keeping everyone alive, usually if there's another support with a Clear Mind style power on the team I ask them to keep it up on me, along the lines of "If you can keep me under Increase Density, I can keep the rest of the party under Clear Mind."
Also, side note: Tip for any MMs with heals- Heal your damn pets, they're basically extra hit points for you.
Here is a better tip, MMs are the red side counterpart of tanks. MMs can easily hold aggro, sustain through it, and do good DPS. They are like the rage stacked SS tanks that kill everything and dont die.
MM are not Supporters, They are leaders. So lead the way.
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This really just boils down to not every power set compliments others. Blasters, love me some empathy, scrappers and brutes eh maybe if I am really pushing my limits. Tanks eh sure if I am not one of the sets with lots of healing.
But really a defender only healing is alot like a tank only tanking. There is a niche for the hyper focus in extreme challenge content. But in general since anything can solo any typical leveling content, why make something so gimp it actually struggles taking down frostfire.
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I myself am more of the buff kheldians to make them having a true kryptonite worth it camp.
In the old days I used to ahve this big what if, specifically for PB but I am sure it could b easily adapted to WS to, of the end old tank style crashing Light Form it instead was a super awesome toggle that gave them in human form access to all the nova and dwarf form powers at once. I dont know why I just always thought that would be a way cooler and thematic end ability for the PB then a Light Form that is just a tank end power with the so hated crash and likely die issue. I mean sure you can self rez, but eh not my ideal play style so Ive always ignored Light Form.
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Now as some may have noticed. I am pretty resistant to changes based on misperceptions of various power sets just because they are not top of the META or take some out of the box thinking to make work well.
However with the creation of the Sentinal, I am seeing alot of what made especially the Peace Bringer unique and worth using really lose its niche.
This isnt just due to the blast/defensive power combo of the Sent,but also due to things the kheldians just dont get. For example an epic/ancillary pool. While kheldians possess many power options not every one compliments every build, and even with a heavy global recharge build conserve energy can struggle to be enough to sustain all the toggles a kheldian might want from the various pools to compliment it.
Thanks to body mastery and the like most ATs will be able to get basically two fitness powers to help with endurance. At high end against malta sappers and carnies solid reliable end recovery is a well known demand of most players just to enjoy the game and not spend time scrambling around waiting for blue to recharge.
I really think Khelds should get access to some kind of epic pool. Or failing that, the ability to at least pick up to 5 pools to allow for wider ranges of diversity.
Not sure Id of felt this way if there wasnt this sentinal class. But the team running this server chose to add that. I like them fine. But I feel it was at the cost of nerfing Khelds by proxy.
So what do you all think? Proliferation of blaster and or tank epic pools? Access to just one more of the travel pools?
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Anyone that thinks WP surpasses or obsoletes Regen is bad at regen period. Saw that same tripe happen after WP released. And saw WP tanks, scrappers and brutes all eat dirt while my BS regen wiped 8 man dif groups solo and then rezzed the team with the healing pool revive.
Regen with the right primary, and smart play has no equal. Being bad as a player doesnt make the power set bad, its a higher skill prereq to be great is all.
Dark Regen has NO EQUAL. I once taught a player with that very combo who called himself gimp how to use it. He eventually shelved it because it made the game have zero challenge or thrill for him. Still recall how after I brought him on a TF in the shadow shard shortly after he respecced he said to me " Man I cant ever recall rushing a AV and not wondering if I could do anything, Now I am eager to solo them"
Regen needs a little breathing room, To hit debuffing is the best, but even Parry in the sword sets compliments it insanely well. Combo that with a pure global recharge focus in your IO sets and nothing in the game is a threat to you.
Im sorry if this sounds combative. But I love me REGEN as is and I doubt any changes suggested here would do other then ruin my love.
Demetrios Vasilikos, Task Force commander of Virtue.
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To fair we had things that tankmage way better than sentinels long before sentinels.
The all mighty Blapper! Haha :D
Pff blappers are for commoners. I was a blanker!
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In the early days I would always run the respec trials as soon as I was the right level and use the respec to fine tune a build, drop powers I hadnt liked try new things. usually Id have what I wanted pretty dialed in by the 3rd. And personally I never posted nor used others builds. And by the end times could completely plan out a build in my head right down to IO sets and slots per power the moment I made a character.
Its all about putting in the time. Once youve capped a few of every AT it just becomes a reflex in my experience.
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Dark/Regen Sentinel . Dark is great dmg CC and debuffing. the to hit debuff heavily compliments regen that with the extra breathing room is nearly unkillable.
Or if you duo often consider a corr or def.
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As someone who mained a kat/SR scrapper for the entirety of the original games life. Who adapted and thrived during the nerfing that took my perma elude, ED that made me depend abit too much on parry, to IO sets that slowly began to give me things like modest bits of resistance, more end recovery and eventually enough recharge that while It wsnt perma elude was enough that phase shift ws enough to cover eludes entire down time, to incarnate powers giving me enough to finally regain perma elude.
That it simple is not needed. SR isnt a speedster defense for a concept like flash its a spider man time super agility set. Your idea for an after image power would make more sense added to the Super Speed pool.
SR is a high skill set. Players like myself prefer there being a mix of easy entry level sets that new and casual players can use with little trouble, and high skill sets that take extensive game experience to make great. If every set was EASY to make work the game would be terribly dull to folks like me.
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Guess not everyone enjoys abridged anime on youtube I was straight up lifiting lines from one of the more popular ones in an act of humor.
How does RP affect your character build?
in Roleplaying
Posted
Exactly, the fact is mind walkers are mind walkers. and its important to note that while it never made it into the game, sister psyche and in fact all psionic characters should have what she termed the psionic origin.
We see in Who Will Die that even if there is no actual mechanic in game for it, those who are powerful psions clearly can and do invade the minds, even of other powerful psions if they have not honed a defense.
Ol Berk as soon as I could I started buying and slotting the various IOs and sets to get my psi res to 30% which is my personal benchmark for being well defended against psi invasions in RP.