Crasical

I have only done a few scenes with him, but I have a character, 'Mister Krampus'. Mafia mage, kidnapper, blackmailer, extortionist. Like the fairytale monster, he's got a basket on his back with one or more kids trapped in it; he openly admits that they're the kids of PPD and Longbow officers that he's holding for ransom, or until their parents pull the plug on operations designed at disrupting The Family, he self-describes as an 'Evil Wizard'. But he's given out good advice on life, relationships, and unwanted magical transformation origin stories, he's a good drinking partner and *apparently* so polite and charming that nobody has ever really called him on being not only a criminal, but blatantly going out of his way to target children and the helpless. I always walk away somewhat disoriented after playing him, and I'm never sure if the people I've been talking to are weirdly forgiving, or if the bar has been pushed so far with other, viler and more murderous villains that Mr. K seems positively benign. I suspect it might be the latter, one person asked if he was going to use the kids for human sacrifice and when he said no they basically calmed down to 'well that's all right then'.

I'm conflicted because I have a character, Sable Tentacle, who's just hit 43 who'd be perfect for this set and I'd have to reroll 'im. Plus side: It'd be perfect for him Con side: He's 43 and I'd have to reroll him

Conditioning is boring but it's a useful bonus; don't strip it out. Especially with SoA's being kind of end heavy in the first place.

This is Jungfrau. Natural origin Trick Arrow/Archery Defender, blueside. Swiss olympic archer with a grudge against the Council, her left arm is a memory-metal prosthetic than can snap out into a bow to let her fight crime with a variety of gadget arrows. I'm not feeling entirely satisfied with her costume and I'm not really sure why. Suggestions, critiques, improvements all welcome.

That's a big list of how to do it wrong, can you give some examples about flaws done right? A lot of this seems to build on flaws 'as seen in a tabletop rpg', and CoX as an MMO is a different medium.

Look, don't get me wrong. I actually enjoy doing some research for my characters to make them hew closer to factual accuracy. But to really portray my roster, I'd have to be an expert in: Prison culture, drug addiction, christian theology, computer programming, Mexican luchador wrestling, foraging and wilderness survival, 'comic book mad science', New York geography, herbalism, roman history, modern arms and armor, volcanology, Gaelic mythology, traditional hand-drawn illustration and cartooning techniques, military culture, and the ability to speak Spanish, Tibetan, Italian, Japanese, and Hawaiian It's a bottomless rabbit-hole, and since 'the greatest roleplayer ever to live' isn't a paying gig, you don't have time to research all those things, *ESPECIALLY* to the degree needed to get not break the immersion of an expert in the field, much less impress them with your immersive portrayal of Himalayan basket weaving techniques. now gimme my cookie

That would do it, mystery solved.

Cosmic Cow. I felt like I had to rep my space-invader, raygun-toting cow after all those bull puns.

Some bugs I noticed doing the reworked seasonal content, 'The Widow in Red'. Ritual summoning circle spawns with Council Mission vs. Countess Crey rewards vanguard merits for some reason? Red widow doesn't despawn after (or before) the cutscene with Lord Recluse and remains on map, but invincible.

IIRC damage debuffs are resisted with typed resistance flags.

I like the idea of Backlash, but I feel like it only works for Scrappers. Brutes and Tanks would prefer a more consistent taunt aura.

I used it as an example because A) It's a close analogue, in being a PBAoE debuff aura, without having to factor in Weirdness like Hurricane's repel. B) It's a set I'm also familiar with alongside Poison Time is indeed pretty top-tier, but I think that's because it has a lot of very solid, very impactful powers; I wouldn't say Time's Juncture is what comes to mind when people think of Time being really strong. IMO, it's not enough of an outlier to disqualify it as a point of comparison, and that comparison is that it's got some measurable advantages in the mitigation department compared to Venomous Gas, something that is a gameplay-altering capstone that comes online 30 levels later.

Here's my issue: Time's Juncture. Venomous Gas provides (Defender Values) -18.75% Damage -12.5% ToHit Versus Time's Juncture's -25% Damage -15.625% ToHit Now, yes. that's deliberately a lopsided analysis: Venomous gas also does a -12.5% Base Defense debuff and a -25% Resistance debuff, which is *really nice*. That much can't be understated. But time controllers get a lot of other mitigation and survival tools (Farsight), their aura is ten feet bigger, and Time's Juncture is available at level four. Essentially I wish the safety net was a little wider for Venomous Gas, since it's asking you to jump into the fray like that, and the rest of the set is so bare of personal protection.

People would make really obnoxious characters with this. But that’s on them, and cool people might get some good use out of it, so signed.

I just unlocked the badge, can I have their nifty unique shoulderpad and belt, now?

Investigator.costume

I've got a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960. It basically can't handle ultra-mode, regrettably.

Clearly I need to save up for a new graphics card, then.

I'd very much like to be able to toss a those dang mayhem mission escorts over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes to be hauled to the exit by force.

Succubus are most deffinitely in the endgame CoT boss pool, but AFAIK it's just them and Death Mages.

Remind me of what the last fight entails? My memory is saying that that's a fight where you have to take on two Elite Bosses at once, two members of the Ravenwing Cabal, but I might be misremembering an one is only a boss.

It should continue to give its benefit when you're not hidden; hide remains active and still gives a small defense boost even if you're revealed and in combat. Strictly speaking you're not incorrect, but Hide has a recharge time of two seconds, costs no endurance to run, and is kind of a key stalker power, so the niche case that you're running with it turned off (and can't just toggle it back on for a second once every 2 minutes if you have to escort a hostage or something) seems comically small to me.

Huh?

Competitive Mayhem Mission has always been a really cool concept, but balancing them is tricky. How do you integrate the stuff that makes Mayhems and safeguards cool into a PvP environment? Though doing a more dangerous bank heist does seem a great way to introduce a long-duration temp boost like the one you get from completing DFB or the Dark Astoria arcs as a reward, maybe as something that villains are trying to steal.