Scarlet Shocker

I do and thanks for noticing. Damage is good for a controller, I'd say it's up there especially on single targets where Poison comes into its own but that's from my "seat of pants" expertise, I've got no empirical data. It is one of the most fun sets to play IMO. Recharge isn't an issue. Because the primary pet is a summon and forget there's no need to aim for perma- anything, so when constructing a build I make no special provision for it. As an aside, back on Live EU servers, a Thugs/Poison MM was considered to be one of the best AV killers in game given that Poison does so much debuff to single target foes and the pets (especially Gang War) allowed the Player to remain relatively unhurt

I notice there's quite a lot in the upcoming Page 7 updates including new power sets. I can't help but feel that those sets will need counter balancing, so I fully expect Page 8 to contain Chelsea Masterminds, which effectively elevates the MM Thug to the level of a Player Character and perhaps even Tottenham Hotspur Blast for those who always feel like they're coming up short!

Dark/Poison is a very strong combination - works well in both PVE and PVP and can take out some very tough opponents Earth/Poison is also potent, with an ability to lock down large mobs while you pick off the worst offenders relatively quickly. As @TygerDarkstorm says it does lend itself to schoolboy humour as my toon from live "Stool" will attest to. I would also imagine that Ice/Poison would work exceptionally well - but balanced by extreme end issues, but the caveat there is I've never tried it.

Could you type louder? I couldn't read that!!

lighten up!

Careful you don't get into another fine mess!

One of the great things about this game is the ability to convert inventions, both within and without their set. But I've never worked out which ones to convert. Some just seem to give endless dross, others seem to come up with exactly what I was looking for. How do I tell which is which? Seems so very difficult to tell.

Well she was glow-ering at me!

When?

Put it in the Bulletin Terminals dotted across the city, that are more or less redundant currently

Last time I went to see her and level up she gave me a real mouthful. I mean, she's not just angry, she's positively Incandescent!

Pretty certain Time is not her secondary power!

just... Why?

only for specators! 🤣

there ain't no substitute for playing the game and finding out what works for you! Everyone's different and you've got a lot of choices!

it's when he holds somebody else's breath they need to worry.

If you're previewing in the costume creator, note that you can not only change the power colours, you can also darken and lighten the background to see how they look in different lighting conditions. Obviously the CC background reflects the side you've chosen to play on, so you can get a reasonable approximation of what they will look like by tweaking those combos. The Sun and Moon symbols give you background brightness adjustment

ED has never been rolled back (nor should it IMO) but Incarnate powers do mitigate the effects of ED somewhat That said it is never advisable six-slot anything unless you're six slotting Brawl with Accuracy!

Just a quick advisory: If you use Teleport as travel power (including Mystic Flight) it's well worth turning the prompt ON - because it's possible that someone will teleport you to your destination, while you are actually in the process of teleporting yourself. This can result in you being teleported to the destination and then back to where you were going in an instant, wasting both powers in that moment.

I think when we talk about good vs evil we're forgetting something important about human psychology. Most people do not consider themselves evil, even if they feel it's necessary to do bad things; the ends justify the means. History is generally the judge on the grander scale. There are of course exceptions and I'm sure some of you will go "Yeah but x,y or z did stuff..." which is to entirely miss the point. Most ordinary folks think they are pretty ok just doing what they need to in order to get on. That in one sense encapsulates the "villain" PC in the Rogue Isles. From the moment your PC is busted out of the Zig (how did you get there in the first place?) it's almost accidental. When we learn that Recluse is looking for exceptional people to make his new champions, we can look back and think he almost opened a list of names at random and said "that one!" which happens to be you. In CoV we aren't called on to have to make hard moral choices. I was lucky enough to interview War Witch back in 2008, and part of that conversation included the fact they were quite conscious of the fact that they needed to keep the evil villainy down to a certain level to avoid being given an unwelcome age certificate. She told me of the proto-Praetorian villain group (this was long before GR remember) and I don't recall their names but they were done up in bondage gear and served one of the signature alternate earth villains. The certification team took one look at them and said "age 16!" The point of that story is to remind us of the real world constraints the dev team were under at the time to produce a family friendly game dealing with super-powered villains. Comics have struggled with it for decades too - how do you make your bad guys bad without actually doing really awful things. This was in a world before some more violent games were available. There was a practical consideration which we need to take on board in terms of the game's history and with that in mind I'm happy to "forgive" a lot; and I still maintain that some of the great red arcs are up there with the best content in the game even if sometimes our villain PCs are carried along on a tide rather than pro-active. Being swept along by a story without too much agency is one of the bigger issues we face both blue and red side. We perhaps feel we have more agency hero side simply because there's more content we can choose to do something different but in CoV that's less easy. It was addressed very well in GR with the conscious decisions to give and make hard choices which makes it more satisfying in many ways. If you don't feel villainous enough, well to a certain extent that's up to you as a player. We're left with many holes in our story that we fill in ourselves - backstory, origin, home life, even down to where in the zones we "live" - so it's no great leap to imagineer that we've done many more nefarious things than the game explicitly says we've done. We can easily imagine that the opponent minion/lt/boss we've just "defeated" is now known forever as Corpsy McCorpseFace because he arrived at the medical facilities several pieces at prolonged intervals. Now we're in different hands and new story tools are available perhaps that will change, but I don't anticipate a rush of "evil" villain content. But we are where we are and although I've said it before I will say it again; We got our game back, so there's that!

I had to work out what was going on here, being referenced in a brand new thread from somewhere else, but I am good throwing my few penneth worth in. From memory, Mercy changed for the worse when Going Rogue launched (or was it Freedom?) when we got effectively new training missions from Blue Spectrum, Twinshot and Mr Graves. Mercy was effectively gutted during that, and it's rubbish now. It's not exciting, it adds little to the player experience - and the lower level content is eminently skippable. If you want to play red-side, far better to start blue, run a few DFBs and get some power levels, then visit Null the Gull, swap sides and head to Cap au D or Port Oakes. The only reason you'd start and stay red, so far as I can see is for RP reasons. To fix it, make the zone engaging. Maybe the Snakes and Arachnos form an uneasy alliance to throw Longbow out of Mercy and that involves you as a player. Give the low level players a reason to stick in the Rogue Isles and make a difference even if it's just for their own benefit. If players can actually feel like a part of the story of the Isles and it's written well enough (and I know HC team do have some quality scriveners) then it could be a great reason to play red, either solo or as a team, take names, kick ass and progress. It also has the potential to turn into a whole arc that takes the player from 1 to 50, through all the red zones and elevate the player character to somewhere equal to the lower signature characters such as Silver Mantis or Viridian. The cheaper version would be to replace the fetid clip show arc of Alain Dessoc, and turn it into the VEAT arcs but that doesn't give new players a reason to engage with red side from the start so kills the idea stone dead.

I had to read this twice to get the point but now I think I do and I love it. I may get somewhat philosophical here and I don't ask for your forbearance one iota. But to me this is the beauty of this game in a microcosm: "Do what thou wilt..." This game gives us so many different, exciting, unique ways to play this game, that there are literally infinite combinations - I am almost certain that not everything has been tried. Deny me if you will, you shall be wrong! But more than that while I might baulk at this particular choice of powers, it should be celebrated. The game does not require min/max or best build theoryrcraft. You can do it all, and still carry a bad German accent like a 1970s British sitcom, and everyone will still believe you are a deadly vampire, even when all the evidence suggests you're a frustrated bank clerk from Wisconsin pining for the fjords of Düsseldorf. Joking aside, fantastic, and thanks for sharing. I have no inclination to play these power sets or try it myself but I love that somebody can play it different and get immense enjoyment. So many games force us down a narrow path; do x,y,z in the correct order, timing is everything, get it wrong and fail, insert a dollar into the interface to continue. Not here, and that remains our strength!

Slava Ukaine! Also this sounds very much like "black pudding" whcih in the UK is a major constituent of what we commonly call a "Full English Breakfast". Lesser nations frequently refer to it as "food of the Gods" because it truly is so wonderful. And for reference a FEB should be; Eggs, Bacon Sausage Tomatoes Black Pudding Mushrooms Bread & Butter/Toast (depending on preference) Fried bread Baked beans are optional. Some consider them American but Americans don't seem to understand them so... A large mug of strong hot English Breakfast Tea (orange in colour, more caffeine than other better known warm beverages and better for you at the same time having more anti-oxidants and trace elephants. Hash browns should NEVER EVER EVER be part of an FEB. Nor should any other potato based foods. Not even chips (which are not crisps)

Very good at reading maps and navigating

I'm enjoying my time on Indom 🙂