Zumberge

One of Maxwell Christopher's arcs, which didn't sit with me the first time I saw it back in the game's heyday because it was really ham-fisted. Heavy spoilers incoming, if you're new to the game. So the deal with Nemesis is that he's trying to conquer our world, might have conquered other worlds, and in canon nearly controlled America for a brief time after World War II thanks to a plot involving an attack on US soil where time bombs loaded with nerve gas were deployed in twenty cities. So yeah, unprovoked warfare spanning decades that includes chemical weapons, that he still uses on heroes if I recall his missions correctly. On top of that he was directly responsible for provoking the Rikti invasion of Earth along with who knows how many other things, including the abduction of individuals and their replacement with automatons. He's Doctor Doom, let's not kid ourselves, but he's quite a bit more successful and has a way bigger body count. Case in point: The neurophagic disruptor, which killed SEVENTY PERCENT OF AN ALTERNATE EARTH'S POPULATION. That's over four and a half billion people. The human mind's not even equipped to comprehend numbers that big, so we can't even fully process the enormity of the atrocity. But just imagine if everything below Russia, from Turkey and Saudi Arabia across to Japan and China and ending at the Philippines and Indonesia just disappeared. Everyone there is gone. So you're sent out to get it and people are wondering why he picked that world, as if killing and conquering isn't just a thing he does every day after putting on his brass pants and pouring a cup of coffee. Thankfully, Maxwell Christopher has the answer: Oh. Oh. You mean Nemesis is a bad guy? Well thanks, game, I never would have realized that. I was prepared to overlook OMNICIDE but now that I found out that it was racially motivated, well! This is just completely unacceptable. (Yes, I know that racism is bad - it's judging people based on hereditary characteristics out of their control rather than their actions. It's just an incredibly trite Aesop to put in a story and a really cheap way of establishing that someone is meant to be disliked, even though you've been doing that since the reader/player/viewer heard their name.)

Oh, same here. You do the Vincent Ross arc and go "oh that's kind of cool," and then you come back to it years later after reading Lovecraft and it's just like, "waaaaaaait a minute." It's hard to pull off but it's a treat when people get it right.

Very rarely are you given a second chance. Feels kind of good, honestly.

Even just knowing the gist of what you were going for, Dark/Time is absolutely fitting. Overtly, not yet. Within the excessive backlog of notes and ideas I have is a mortal Nyarlathotep expy that I was contemplating porting from his setting to this one, and after seeing that there was a fish head I can't not make a Shadow over Innsmouth reference, but for what it should be. Sure, you could have it be a fish man in a suit, and that's certainly funny, but also a little lazy. Though if you count "dream of a slumbering primal god who walks the waking world" as being Lovecraft-inspired, then maybe yes. Covertly, uh... a character is basically connected to a Space Between Spaces filled with change-energy that's intelligent but largely incomprehensible such that communication is mostly one-way with the other direction being the equivalent of taps on the shoulder, "one for yes, two for no," and basic gestures, and it operates by dragging the physics of the dimension it's connected to along with it whenever it pokes its form out. Worth noting is that the physics of Primal Earth and all connected parallel Earths are not at all like its native physics. (Whoo, people going on for too long about their characters. It's like Virtue never left, eh?)

I have much love for many mobs. * The entirety of Croatoa. All of it. Every single group in that zone. * Cimemorans, simply because I've done the ITF enough times to appreciate the "hey, they're kind of tough" crunch that they have. * Malta because of the fluff, enough so that I want to see an alternate world where they got what they wanted. They more or less pre-dated the pro-Registration side in the Marvel Civil War. * Pretty much any enemy group where when the fight starts it looks like the world is ending five different ways. * Honorable mention to Rikti monkeys, because I hit 50 on one of my villains by throwing up on them. But overall my favorite one is the one that's directly in front of me.

So in a nutshell: Solo capabilities Early bloomer Panic buttons No Storm, Emp, or Pain (Also right out of the gate if anyone else in the know sees something and thinks I'm blowing smoke, point it out. I like to learn.) I'm gonna interpret being able to solo as being able to deal damage, which... Controllers aren't really known for, Fire/Kins aside. Though there's exceptions: Illusion Control's first two powers - Spectral Wounds and Blind - deal psionic damage about on par with most of the first two powers in Defender secondaries, with the latter being a hold and having an AoE sleep that will probably catch nearby minions. Couple that with a single-target confuse at level 2 and you can reasonably expect to survive solo spawns early on. Illusion gets its AoE hold at level 6, which is great, but the next two powers are stealth related so you're kind of plateauing with regards to threat control. If you're willing to wait it out until levels 18 and 26, though, you get the ability to summon three basically invincible aggro magnets and a stationary screaming ghost illusion that fears nearby enemies. The latter (Spectral Terror) lasts 45 seconds and recharges in the same, so if anyone shows up late to the party they're probably gonna get tagged by it. The capstone pet flies around, tosses out energy blasts with knockdown, and summons additional illusory copies of itself to draw aggro. tl;dr: You can solo pretty good out of the gate, but Illusion is more proactive rather than reactive compared to other primaries. Gravity Control... ohh boy, Gravity Control. This set's had a history, and someone who's experienced it first-hand can probably tell you more. As it stands though it has two fairly damaging attacks in Lift and Propel, both of which cause knockdown/back and both of which deal more damage against targets hit by the set's hold, Gravity Distortion. There's also the standard AoE immobilize and hold, a pet, and two powers which will probably confuse most people you team with. One is Dimension Shift, at level 12, which is a toggle that immobilizes all enemies in a targeted AoE for up to 20 seconds, at which point the toggle drops and goes on recharge which, okay, immobs are pretty good. But while it's active, they can't attack you unless you or your teammates enter the AoE, making it effectively a time out button. The other is Wormhole at 26, which lets you target enemies in an AoE and teleport them somewhere else for knockdown and stun, and yes, you can teleport them over cliffs. This rarely comes up, though, so it's mostly just a stun with flavor. tl;dr: The most shooty of Controller primaries with some neat tools but you might need to explain what you're doing first. Finally, Mind Control has an attack in Levitate and some Psionic damage in Dominate, its single-target hold, and Confuse at level 6, so it's a bit like Illusion. As things progress you get an AoE sleep, hold, fear, and confuse, in that order, so it's a pretty good kit. Between the sleep and the hold, at level 12, you get Telekinesis, which is an endurance-sucking toggle that holds the target and any nearby enemies and slowly pushes it away from you. It's very strange; I had a Mind Controller and I still can't tell you how to use it properly. Properly slotted and kitted you're always going to have something to handle unexpected threats, though for general purpose teaming you're going to be using the AoE fear since the confuse is on a four-minute cooldown for some silly reason. tl;dr: The Swiss Army Knife of control, but damage is lacking compared to the other two. Secondaries, kind of focusing on stuff that would be beneficial to a solo player... I'll give it a crack: Darkness Affinity: Early heal that can heal yourself, early -res, good debuffs, a rez that can target multiple teammates, an AoE intangibility for more control. Kinetics: Early heal, +recharge and +DMG buffs, late +end, has literally never been bad, everyone will love you if you have Speed Boost. Poison: Many early debuffs for hard targets when soloing, a single-target hold because who doesn't love stacking holds? Maybe too close to Emp with the rez, single-target heal, and mez cure. Radiation Emission: More early debuffs but in toggle form, an early heal, a +DMG +recharge +recover buff in Accelerate Metabolism, has also never been bad. Sonic Resonance: -res, a bubble that gives resistance and mez resistance, a single-target intangible, more team-oriented but there's a few powers that could benefit a solo player. Whoof.

Fun story: I wanted to roll a Corruptor back in the day but didn't know what powersets to pick so I asked, "what's a good combo that'll be useful for endgame content like the Recluse Task Force?" The response was, "Ice Blast/Rad Emission." They weren't wrong. Ice Blast is largely single-target damage with generally fast animations and (as far as I know) cold isn't one of the more commonly-resisted elements. The -recharge effects stack up to a mild yet noticeable degree against Arch-Villains and Heroes, and Freeze Ray and Bitter Freeze Ray let you help out the Controllers and Dominators in stacking holds. Ice Storm is nice to have against groups and just a "set it and forget it" against harder targets, and I'd generally avoid Frost Breath. My original build didn't have room for Blizzard but now that ranged nukes don't tank your endurance and are easier to use... sure, why not? Radiation Emission is... Radiation Emission. It's always been good: You have a heal, you have a rez, you have a PBAoE buff that gives everyone delicious delicious +recovery and +recharge, you have the ability to debuff basically every stat enemies have, and if that's not enough you can turn fallen teammates into nuclear bombs for heavy damage and debuffs. The main drawback with it is that two of its powers are enemy-targeting toggles, which used to drop when the enemies did but that's been fixed; now they stick around until the body despawns, so it's actually a stealth buff. I'd tell you to avoid Choking Cloud (PBAoE toggle, chance for a mag 2 hold) and EM Pulse (wide PBAoE nuke-style regen and recovery debuff), neither of which I've had much love for. As far as power pools go I'd say pick up Vengeance from Tactics so you can buff your team, debuff the enemies, and then pick up your meat shield comrade all in one go. Epic pools? I'd say go for things which let you stack holds (Dominate from Psychic Mastery; the various Patron Power Pools), or things that buff all your debuffs (Power Build Up in Power Mastery). Worth noting is that Soul Mastery gets you both a hold and a click that gives a boost to all your effects. So there's that.

Thus far? First one was a Street Justice/Bio Armor Scrapper. Entirely done because both sets fit the concept fairly well. SJ has some good feedback to the hits and visually the attacks make for a good alternative to the high-flying acrobatics of (original) Martial Arts and the sweeping strikes of Kinetic Melee. The little bit of soft control in it helps, too. Meanwhile, Bio Armor is... well. The only melee defense sets I played with were Super Reflexes and Willpower - both of which are "set it and forget it"-style - and Regen, which is "push button to not die." But Bio Armor? Bio Armor needs to come with a manual. At the very least I got the adaptation options figured out: "Kill things," "guess I'm tanking," and "never stop punching." Other's a Beam Rifle/Devices Blaster, and I thought that it was the first pure energy damage blast set in the game but it turns out that I forgot Rad Blast existed. Certainly has better secondary effects than Rad, though, even though it's mostly single-target. Plus lasers are cool. FLASHLIGHTS OF THE IMPERIUM. Plant Manip was my jam back in the day. If anyone reading this wants to roll Plant, my advice would be to get Seeds of Confusion immediately at level 8, six-slot it with 2 Accuracy, 3 Recharge and one Confuse Duration, and spam every spawn you encounter with it. It is stupid good, especially compared to other AoE confuses (Mind and Elec) since the recharge is so short. Once you hit 50 stick a Coercive Persuasion set in there, because the Contagious Confusion proc will go off at least once every time which will result in bosses getting confused as well, even without the Overpower effect. It's also got an AoE sleep which, yeah, sleep, but it's AoE control that keeps enemies from attacking that's available at level 6. Provided you tell your teammates to be careful with AoE attacks it can get you through a lot of low-level missions and task forces with less grief.

For what it's worth this is a problem that crops up in FF14 as well; the White Mage who doesn't DPS which, ha ha, no. You DPS. Everyone DPSes. This is probably preaching to the choir, but the damage output of Defenders might be sub-par but arresting killing arresting enemies is the single best way of mitigating damage to your team, and there's certainly enough secondaries with quality debuffs on them. If push comes to shove, hey, stop shooting; better to have attacks and not use them than to not have them and need them.

Blueside has more content and it's easier to get in the mindset of a hero than a villain (generally speaking). Which is not to say that redside is without merit; the zones were designed based on what the devs learned since CoH's launch and as such they're a bit more tightly focused and the writing seems, if not better, then at least more interesting. It's like the saying that heroes are reactive while villains are proactive. You're going out there doing things, and there's more depth and intrigue going on because everyone has an agenda and hidden motivations. On a more personal note, it does pain me a little to see so few people (relatively) redside and at the very least I try to even the scales a little, but my villains tend to be joke characters or just not serious because all the serious ones wouldn't really mesh with the setting or everyone else's characters as a whole. In that sense it's a bit limiting, or limited.

Well the great part about being based on superhero media is that there's such a wealth of possible approaches to explain what happened based on story arcs and plotlines used by real world writers! For example: * All of Statesman's non-canon children were trapped in a containment field in space and one of them punched reality so hard it rebooted everything. * This is actually the City of Heroes cinematic universe. * Four words: Crisis on Infinite Servers. * There was no time skip. All the exposure to psychic hoboes and carnies and toxic gas caused everyone to trip balls so hard they thought six years had passed. * Someone made a deal with Rularuu for everything to be undone to save their aunt. Dude, she's like a hundred years old. She lead a good life. She stormed Normandy, for crying out loud. * Lord Recluse was about to kill Raiden in the darkest timeline but Raiden sent a message back in time to hopefully avert disaster. Wait, "he must win?" Who must win? And where? Thanks a lot, Raiden. >:/

Veteran of Virtue under another name, but they're not me anymore. I imagine that a lot of you are taking the opportunity to remake characters you had since the beginning of the game proper, but with the power sets they should have had. Good on ya.