Scarlet Shocker

I never knew you could get cheese from cottaging!

ouch. I've made similar errors but not to that extent. I hope you have plenty of inf left lying around

I can see why you went there but that genuinely wasn't in my mind! The name is a clue but I'm afraid in this instance it wasn't that Eddie

I'm genuinely better informed now. Serious thanks forthcoming. I knew about the rabbit thing, interestingly due to Sir Stephen Fry and QI - but not about the culinary evolution of the sausage but it makes a lot of sense and many many cultures still have a huge reliance on saucisse as part of their culinary culture.

We get many many threads - and have since I've been a forumite, both on live and in the various successors that basically start; "How can I make XYZ character?" There'll be discussions of power sets, costume options, pool powers, origins (one of the few times that origin in this game has an actual impact, which I find interesting.) There will also be many admonitions based on "please for the love of all that's holy, just don't" and I'm very much in that camp so you will understand I have a certain bias in this thread. I hide my bias unashamedly for several reasons. The first is simple pragmatism. That is the best and fastest way to get the game shut down and the game's history shows that. The second is that... putting it politely it's boring. I can read comics about a guy who gets angry and turns into a green rage monster. I watch the movies (avidly I must add) and I've even played the games on occasion but those are less satisfying to me. But those stories, those characters... we know them because of their deeds written by others. We know them because their creators gave us a great fantasy gift that we love and cherish and take to our hearts. Before comics there were myths, legends, heroes of might and magic and even holy books. Perseus, Thor, Jesus are all great tales of morality and heroism in the face of adversity but they are created to dictate a tale to us, to give us a way to think rather than to think for ourselves. If we create those characters as replica we have nothing more than a simulacrum, homunculus, or more bluntly a cheap ass clone. That is dissatisfying on many levels, because we don't have our own story, nor do we have licence to create our tale for ourselves because ultimately we are handed the character from the hands of another. We are not in control and anything we do with a character here is going to be a tiny imprint in a macro image. But I do have sympathy with the idea that we are inspired by another tale and want to bring that (or something close) into our world. After all, we are all about stories, and stories of great heroes, deeds and world shattering events. So we look at that and think, what if...? I get that we love comics and heroic fiction and the costume creator gives us great options to create our favourite comic characters in the game. I've made great versions of Darth Vader, Moon Knight, Dr Doom and many others, just to see if I can and they look fantastic. But then I look at them again and think much as I enjoy the stories of Marc Spector, Logan or others that I love (and I do tend to prefer more left-field characters I admit) I recognise they ain't mine. What if I want them to be mine? That's the question. What if I want to take the story of a comic/hero I love and admire and make it my own? Concept is everything. Hulk is not original. It's simply a retelling of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, but done in a more modern age (actually fewer than 75 years after the original and we're almost that far ahead of Hulk.) And that tale itself reflects Gilgamesh and Enkidu, one of the earliest stories known to man. So you don't have to be original. In the 21st century that's very difficult and many would think it's crap because it has little or no context in which to frame it. But what if you find a character you really love and want to make it your own? How does that process work? What do you do? Where is the origin? What are the power sets? here is a character I've just created. It stemmed from a bit of word play, teaming with a good friend, plus a bandying of ideas. I will not tell you who the homage is to, I leave you to guess. I will say there is no input from Alan Moore. But it was clear to me that he was a vegetative character. Plant based and not exactly a warrior. So he had to look very plant-like in the costume creator (why is there not a mobile version of that? #rhetoricalquestion) Here's the origin story I wrote: Yes, that's very janky because that's his bio in game and I'm at my character limit (is that a pun?) That's my homage - but I hope sufficiently different to anything anyone's got in print with a (C) symbol to ensure that I won't get genric'd nor will our beloved game be imperilled. But I know what trumps all of the above: I get to write his story. I get to decide what his future path holds. I can mould it to my whim. I can take external events and decide what happens to him, how he evolves, is he going to be a hero, villain or something in between. And nobody's ever going to look at him and think "meh, Batman clone" So where, in your mind does that line cross? Homage vs rip? What makes your character original to you?

I am not worthy @Luminara /em does 23 cardboard salaams and tips hat backwards #bluebottle I genuinely love that what I posted as a throwaway comment turned into something educational. I know about the eggs thing - I have kept chickens in my time and we do not wash our eggs in the UK so we just stick 'em in the fridge or on a shelf and they almost never go off. But I have to say your description, whilst detailed, informative and yet concise left me wondering "WTF made them think that was a good idea?"

Suck, don't blow!

It looks similar because if I were to respec I'd reuse all the IOs as best as possible. Primarily for economics but also I don't think that build is so bad as is. As for damage, I don't mind killing stuff slow. I play a LOT of controllers so I'm fine with tickling stuff to death. I also hate speed runs so quick kills are not a thing I deem necessary. In most cases, the primary roll of a combatant is not to win, but more importantly, not to die. Sustainability is a major consideration. I do like the thought of test servering it. I've never tried it. I might persuade a buddy to join me to do some testing. This is a good question. I don't often exemp past 50 and if somebody needs help I will bring the character that best suits their needs if I'm exemping as a favour. If I'm doing it because of TF reasons etc or merits, they need to be good but they don't need to be the primary leader. A good example I just went from a Tinpex on her to a Manticore (see related post in GD) and she performed excellently on both. Not invincible but creditably. I do like the idea of takign down tough AVs either solo or in small teams.

so there we were on a Manticore (pronounced Man-tickory) TF and I happened to be zooming through Faultline when I was... rather perturbed to see this. I mean, what dead adults do in the privacy of their own home, I'm good with that. Die and let die as the saying doesn't quite go... But doesn't sausage go off when left outside for too long?

Ok this was an interesting exercise: I've taken on many of the suggestions in this thread and come up with this build It's demonstrably worse in every respect. That I found profoundly interesting. TRying to add powers I'd excluded seems to have done a big job of gimping my original build Either I'm misreading suggestions or my original build was a lot better than initially supposed. Scarlet Shocker Sentinel 2.0.mbd

I also need to make another point: I intensely dislike the use of the Fighting pool for non-melee characters. I have been known to hold my nose and use it but I really don't like. IT's just always struck me as an inefficient usage of powers and slots to get additional bonuses. I get there is a case for using it but it's a strong personal preference.

Also, I take the point about no epic power. I might look at that. I love Power Sink and the end-drain powers and that is -Rec so it is the finisher. To my mind, End Drain is the raison d'etre of Electric in this game so not utilising it means I should be playing a different set. I've actually given VS a spin on an elec blaster and I take back what I said about it. Not nearly as wank as it was on live so I could revisit that. I don't really see the need to slot Energise much more than it is already. I'm doing fine for End, and haven't under most situations, needed much healing. I'm open to correction on that but thus far it seems to be more than adequate. My Regen is a gnats cock under 640% and my max HP a tad under 1300. That said, if you have compelling info to say why I should allocate more resource, I'm happy to know 🙂

Great feedback people thanks. I've got her almost fully slotted now. She seems to be very tough in almost all situations I've encountered - but due to the events I've been running a LOT of Weddings of the last couple of weeks, so perhaps that isn't the best test. In those she's been pretty well invincible except last night where she got faceplanted unexpectedly three times with almost no warning. Full health, then non. I didn't look in the stats afterwards but I think there's enoguh here to be going on and I've got about 46.327 respecs available if needed 🤪

Ok that's interesting. It may be a dumb question but what does "target_custom_next notmypet"' actually target? I ask because a friend and I are dual teaming with MMs and it's been an... interesting start. We're neither of us very experienced with MMs but healing pets has been an issue so I'm wondering if this targets our team mate's pet?

So it's basically X-Men characters in a copy of an X-Men story?