Scarlet Shocker

you might be overthinking it. We have a contiguous history but it's hard to take our enforced hiatus into account. Is it 2012 or 2024? Stan Lee said it best: "Marvel time isn't like regular time." I think that's a pretty good yard stick we can apply to this game, given the way the game works. There is a coherent, long story that your character goes through but it isn't often done in a purely linear way, and you find yourself darting back and forth between stories and even sometimes knowingly travelling in time. Accept that the latest stories; the whole "Who will die?" arcs and latest content are roughly "now" and you first stood on the steps of Atlas Park (or elsewhere) when you came to the city as a Rookie. Batman, Spiderman, Daredevil, the X-Men, JLA et al have been doing the same shit for decade after decade after decade and still live in the "now", unaged, adapting and understanding technologies that simply didn't exist when they first appeared (computers, mobile phones, internets for example) and yet we still gladly accept that they do what they do without much question even when they fundamentally change persona and history. Every time you dive into this game you pick up the latest metaphorical issue of your character's story - which isn't very different from all the stories that went before. Enjoy it for what it is, in the moment and stop fretting!

Foresight Forward planning Innovation

Well I won't dispute the numbers, but I will challenge the feels. That is definitely not how it feels to me, and I think that is certainly an important factor

Sappers are great because they are one of the few things that can make even the toughest hero weep like a child. Sadly heroes don't get anything like that level of sap - even the best build end-drainging enddrainiest sappy* build is utterly meh in comparison The issue is not that end drain is poor overall, is that as a player your actual contribution to the game is at best less than fuck all** in any given situation. As a player End Drain is a waste of time and the only reason you would take something like electric powers is becuse a) you're new and don't understand how the game works (ie Scarlet Shocker) or b) you choose something to be thematic and end up running to 50 with a heart full of disappoint*** Pretty well every other power with a secondary effect performs better than end drain which is pretty poor if you think about it. I don't think anyone would expect somebody to go through a map on an electric blaster or controller and drain all mobs of their powers, but there should be some effect of end drain to give the set some actual feels and to have a reason to play those powers. A practical solution would be to "stack" end drain as some other powers have effects - so each time you hit a mob with a power you gain a stack of drain and once you've hit so many points of drain you can hit your foe with it. Their resistance would be dependent on their level; minion, lt, boss, AV etc and to be effective against an AV you'd need to maybe hit it with a high number of points and a very damaging power. *actual technical term **also a technical term ***non-technical term

Let's see... I was in Cimerora, around 200 BCE I was in Crash Site around 2003 CE I was in RWZ right after a revamp and Praetoria before Cole blew it up and after he blew it up. Then I went back and spoke to Tina Mac who sent me after some geezer she referred to as Tyrant Finally I went to Ouroboros at the end of the known universe and all of time and spoke to the last Kheldian and Mender Silos. and all of this took me just a couple of hours. What year do you want it to be?

imagine his surprise when he realised it wasn't a burrito either!

I think it's lovely that so many original devs play the game for their own enjoyment. Says a lot about the quality of the game overall and the love everyone involved with it has

to be serious for a moment, in my experience, the usual reason for failure is lack of communication/coordination. Even small, underpowered groups can mash almost all the content in this game, provided they actually <talk> to each other and know their roles.

<--- Redundant End drain effectiveness has always been an issue but now it's far worse than it's ever been

Well of course, this last Saturday was 420 day so I know many people indulged, simply because. What some of you may not realise is that today 22nd April is Surprise Drug Test Day at Work, so that's something else for people to get excited about too 😎

Snarky the Vancorn or is that Snarky the Unipire?

No need to bring things down to your level!

I find the elevators in this game to be quite uplifting

Snarky has absorbed all the darkness leaving only bright rainbow colours in his wake

I'm level 28 currently and not burning XP so I expect to stay that way for a shortish while. We play on Saturdays so I'm anticipating maybe 4 weeks at that level(ish) while we go through FW and NW and then back to Redside. I don't know if there's a comparison, but when I had a Spider on live, I deliberately went the Huntstman route at the respec - ie continued on that path and I was very glad that I did. He became one of my deadliest toons, delivering a sea of orange numerals with big AoEs and cones and was highly survivable. I am surprised more people haven't chosen that option honestly.

I thought I'd replied to this. Thanks for the build. Gave her a good work out last night, about 3 hours in First Ward, so tough content on a pretty good team and she is a lot less impressive post-respec than before. I far preferred her as a stock widow than I do as a nascent fortunata. Had to turn off XP to ensure we didn't outlevel content so that's an entire session without having to worry about learning new powers and it seemed a lot less satisfying than previously. I do appreciate that there is a drop off in the mid-level range in terms of powers and abilities. Lower levels are pretty impressive as a new character but this does seem to be quite sub-par despite that, compared to regular ATs. It's made me wonder if I shouldn't respec into the stock widow and use that as a core focus. How viable is that?

ain't no fucker tanning my knacker!

Train to Jo'burg then hitch hike to Lesthoto

Sounds like a new kind of vampire Snark-Thing wasn't so bad. Kind of obscure, but underrated

On live I had a few different iterations of Scarlet Shocker spread across Defiant & Union (we only had two English speaking shards back then) and here I've created Glass Fox and Vitric Vixen who are effectively two poles of the same character - there's an entire thread about it in the not too distant past if you're interested. I found that the latter combo was nigh impossible to play as a contiguous whole so they are largely retired, but I do love the concept of a glass character that once shattered rebuilds itself in a tougher variant. I got bored with different versions of Scarlet and I found they quickly became autonomous characters in their own right in my mind. What I don't grok with the OP is the difficulty in coming up with an original concept for a character. I find that one of the easiest things to do - often the concept comes first, then the power sets are taken to fit the character. A great example of that is I came up with the notion of the Praetorian Imperial Secret Service; an organization with a singular objective of keeping Emperor Cole's legacy alive at all costs. Then I needed a character who would fit that, fanatical, dedicated, tough, but not invincible, and able to boss the field of play, that fitted my play style. That became a no-brainer; a Plant/TA controller (this was live when that was a very respected combo and I tend to shy away from melee and VEATS weren't a thing) and all I had to do then was come up with a costume (gold and white of course) and name. Once all the background was slotted into space the name was simple enough; Barbed Quarrel. Yeah... I over think shit sometimes!

Or you take lots of powers just to slot strange procs! 😎

Suffocated Mule sounds like an interesting character choice!

This is one of my bugbears and I would seriously nerf them, if I couldn't delete them from the game entirely. I also have a big dislike of Vet levels, but that is more about the way it is presented than the actual recognition of the level.

Better there than where the sun don't shine! 😲

to me, it means more than just a game should. much more.