Scarlet Shocker

There are many posters in the city saying as much. I don't know who pays for them but they've been there a very long time. They hint that the "enemy" is the other, the alien (literally in this case I guess) - the undesirable that YOU, dear citizen need to be afraid of. Non-humans are bad. Except the PPD. PPD is full of Kheldians who are ready to protect the banks. PPD Kheldians don't seem to protect ordinary citizens when the Outcasts or Trolls are getting up to nefarious crap on the streets of Atlas Park or Kings Row. I've never yet seen a Kheldian PPD officer in Perez Park rescuing anyone from the Circle of Thorns. But if a bunch of villains try and take down Kings Row or Skyway City bank... they're all over it like measles on RFK Jr. So what are they really about? The ultra-capitalists protecting the almighty dollar? Propping up the banks Of course, I'm being very tongue in cheek here, But it does seem weird that this anachronism has stood for so long. Is there any reasonable explanation? I'd love to hear it.

And you rob the place blind, you say publicly "this place was great once despite its faults and is still worth saving" and you and your team move back in using Primal resources as tools where needed and you oligarch the shit out of it as you fight to become top dog. Your public face is one of benificent philanthropy and good works "We'll bring Praetoria back into the fold" while you work to reinforce it. Your USSR analogy is apt because it's not difficult to argue that the Russian Federation is significantly stronger and in a better strategic position today than the USSR was in 1989. As for Hamidon, Keyes just ripped him a new asshole even at the cost of his life and the Primals have always managed to deal with their version. Sure, maybe their version is weaker but together you are stronger... A showdown with Praetorian Hami is inevitable because nobody on any side wants the pair of them tag teaming on Primal. That would be a Hami sandwich too far. Some of the Praetors will be almost certain to stand by you (beats incarceration on Primal Earth) and you can probably use some of the nastier AVs from alternate dimensions, Reichsman for example - incarcerated and then had the crap kicked out of him despite beliving himself to be invincible - who would be lusting for revenge. Plenty of other examples too.

You've summed up well the state of the Praetorian government with a concise precis. But I fear you may be missing one point: There are plenty of self-interested characters who nail their metaphorical colours to the mast throughout history. There are those who do it for selfish reasons and those who do it for ideological reasons and/or a combination of those but generally they accumulate power to themselves under the umbrella of their Master's ultimate power. We see it in Praetoria itself where his Praetors align with him because that's their best hope of power, they squabble amongst themselves and their machinations are many and varied but they obey him until it suits them not to. Arachnos is exactly the same, as was Soviet Russia, as is North Korea and the PRC. I highlighted a part of your text where I think you're making a judgmental error: Some people seek power but they recognize that their power is tempered by those higher in the food chain so they ensure they have that ear and wield the power they get from that for their own cause. Grima Wormtongue. There currently is no way for a player character to be pro-Cole and then once he's fallen wish to either assume that place for themselves or to carry his mission forward using their own vision. We are booted out of Praetoria into Primal Earth and told "there you go, you're free now, go be a good guy or a bad guy in a different universe but this one is closed to you."

But you're RUGged enough to take it

just revisiting this briefly I've been playing Spandex Ballet on our regular Sunday casual team on Everlasting - a Staff/WP scrapper. Low 20s now, and it took a while to get there but I must admit it's turning into something fun. Without doubt the most fun scrapper I've ever played, even at only lvl 21ish She's got an attack chain which took a while and whilst I doubt she's going to ever excel at any one particular task, she will make a very good journeyman melee toon by the feel of things thus far. A few end issues as you might expect but nothing horrendous. I'm actually enjoying the Staff Fighting... the powers are interesting and different and I don't need to worry about strange combos. I can see myself investing in this one over time!

What happens when he and Ghost of Scrapyard get together and decide to party hard?

So we joined up for our regular Sunday Casual team on Everlasting (see here for details: We did a couple of paper missions (we're redside) and then the four of us decided to have a bash at the Silver Mantis SF. There was a fair bit going on so our shoutout on recruited one extra but we elected to run with 5. Shouldn't be a problem we're all in the 20 - 22ish range. I was leading and as is my wont, I clicked the number of deaths to give us an end of SF tally. More out of habit and curiosity than any real challenge setting. All good, we set off on the first mission. Except something was horribly wrong. None of our travel powers were working. Not my Flight Pack, my Jump Pack or my Combat TP. It quickly became apparent that I was not alone in my predicament. Some fucking numpty bollocks-for-brains had clicked no travel powers instead of the thing they'd meant to click. We were 1000 yards from the mission entrance so we walked 500 yards and then we walked 500 yards more to faceplant at the mission door... We decided to persevere, and see how it went and truthfully it was reasonably ok. I had taken combat TP to get into the heart of the mobs, but... well instead I just walked up to them and mumbled some kind of expletive then hit 'em with a stick. But it worked. We had more trouble getting from A to B than actually dealing with the mobs until we came across the Vampyre Pez Dispensers in the pool room. (Don't these guys play snooker or billiards?) They started spawning at 25 and they seemed to spawn in overdrive. Maybe they were pleased to see us. I mean I know @Snarky (who is a vampire) acts like a puppy who's been left alone for a day every time I post on the forum but these guys were really keen. So we had to hospital/base more than once and every time we managed to run/walk/sprint back they'd managed to grow their welcoming committee like they had been taking spawning lessons from the SupaTrolls back on live. We did take out a couple of the Pez dispensers but there were more of them than there were of us and with 30+ Vampriririririr all conning purple we got our proverbial butts handed to us in neatly wrapped wicker gift boxes finished with a neat little bow. But yes... Travel powers are important and failing to have them can discombobulate an entire team. So can pez dispensers.

We have Longbow and Vanguard and Arachnos on our backs already. We don't need some bald one-eyed coot giving us a mother****ing hard time too!

I'd been seeing adverts in my weekly comic pics for the game all through 2004 and 2005 and I was already tempted but I was mistrustful of online billing... but eventually I committed to buying the game (you could buy it in shops then on disks) and that got me hooked The original world builders created an amazing environment and rich story in which to place their city and that's proven to stand the test of time. There may be a few dodgy missions or quest lines but ultimately you're a hero in a City of Heroes and that's fucking amazing!

There are many ways you can do it if you so choose but those methods are all fudges. My point is that there is no real story arc that allows you to effectively uphold Cole's vision

Invincible Woman is always ready for Adamastor

There are just too many double entendres here to cope with!

I am so disappoint there is no noodly appendage

Things you didn't know you didn't know!

Foreshadow is in the Hollows! 😅

A couple of points here: I don't think Training Origins exist any longer. They were removed some while back so you go straight to DOs. Hami Os are great but I only use them when there's a need for a "filler" enhancement that gives me a dual benefit - for example I need one extra Acc/Dam. Note that I don't believe you can +5 Hamis. You can get them to 53 max I believe. As others have said don't bother slotting purples until you're 50 and make sure you know what your build needs first because they can be expensive. One final thought: Unless you're absolutely going to Min/Max and play the toughest content you can find solo, you run the risk of seriously overthinking things. Decide what you want your build to do, Damage, Support, Control etc and aim along those lines but once you're mostly with a good build those extra few percentage points aren't realistically gonna get noticed in normal gaming. Rather than worry about the perfect build just play the character and enjoy the fun

And he should have been called Purple Spectrum to keep it even!

Watch it! I've clocked people like you for less. Timely retort though!

I think you misunderstood that I'm not a fan of the content overall. I like it a lot. At least I like a lot of it a lot. (Calvin Scott was a genuinely disappointing finale, tbf) MY point here was that I think there was a greatly missed opportunity to become something really ruthless, to follow Cole into the moral abyss to the extent you come out the other side so single mindedly focused on his ideology that you make Recluse look like a saint in comparison. I would love more choices in Blue and Red side - I think it's more important in Red side where your character is more individual and autonomous - but we kind of covered that in other spaces so I didn't really want to deal with that part of it here.

Slightly diverting from my previous "Retcon" thread and other discussions, I wanted to express that but didn't want to divert from that. One of the biggest problems with GR is that it fails to allow you to make a realistic choice. As a Praetorian, you've lived your life in the zones, and absorbed the culture, propaganda, and ambience of the world, knowing you're born in a state of total war against the Hamidon and other external forces, but you're not allowed to enjoy and progress that vision. You're not permitted to discover what an utter wanker Cole turns out to be and yet say "I'll stand by him because the alternatives are worse." There's a strange parallel there, which some might consider ironic. I have yet to grasp why most Praetorian citizens would fail to back Cole. I admit I'm no Lorologist, but you spend your life living and learning and drinking Enriche, which is literally the coolaid - and the real resistance is run by a deluded madman and managed by losers who can't even speak English. There's literally no attraction for a citizen to join the Resistance and the only reason for a powered character to join is because you've got to make that choice at the point of creation/training. Cole keeps the city safe, he's got a capable team backing him up and keeps us all safe. Let's honour him in the right way. And then he blows the whole fucking zone up. What kind of twatt does that? Am I the only one who hates the story?

Good find!

I think the Arbiters are one of the more interesting parts of Arachnos. I've seen very little lore in game to define them, but I get the sense they are something akin to Recluses' personal Praetorian Guard (in the Roman, rather than Going Rogue sense.) The big problem is there's so little about them in game that we don't know what function they truly fulfill but I figured their job was to keep his four lieutenants in line and prevent any potential usurpation. I would love to see their story told in much greater detail and understand how they came to hold the balance of power

I didn't say (or at least mean to imply) that it's a bad arc... but the writing and resolution is pretty... disappointing. Conceptually it's sound but needs more flesh on its bones; "Oh noes, she jilted me I keel her" is weak in the extreme unless it's given a bit more detail. I balance that with the fact it's a story designed for a fast moving game and nobody wants a TL;DR explanation, but I've run it a couple of times now and despite the fact it's essentially part of <my character's> story, I felt like quite the bystander until the very last few moments, by which time it was too late to affect the outcome. Again, game design issues and a common problem with many arcs on all sides here, because of the linear structure of the quest mechanics.