Had a great day on Torch yesterday

[Pekiti]

I've been trying to grind up a farming toon, so I can subsidize my growing family of alts, but its slow going. When the grind gets to be tedious, I swap over to my new main toon, Questmaster, who is my homage to the comic character "Taskmaster". He's a Stalker, radiation melee/shield defense, and will be using a ton of temp power gadgets to stay with the theme of the character. I was originally StJ/SD, but the lack of a self heal made me nervous, so I went with RM/SD instead (because Dark animations can't be made less obtrusive)

Five minutes into his career, someone stops and compliments me on the cosplay - this makes my whole morning, not kidding. I do the first two arcs in Atlas and get some merits, buy goodies from the START vendor and accidentally outlevel the third arc (sigh). While I am deciding what to do next, I start testing out some temp weapons on hapless Hellions to see how they look. Some weapons you draw and hold in hand until you select another power - revolver and undead slaying axe, for example, and they don't make my shield disappear. I'm making a list of what others I want to get and what I have to do to get them. There is a bow for sure, and some self heals etc would be good.

A level 50+ hero lands next to me and politely asks me if he can beat up the Hellions I've gathered nearby. They are grey to me at my level so they must be nearly invisible to him, but sure. He thanks me and then BRAWLS them down, one by one as he chats to me.

"Working on a badge, but mostly I remember these guys kicking my ass on Day One, so I like to stop by and beat the hell out of them for payback."

 

Right, bad area for gang members, that spot is - after he punched a bunch of them out, he summoned a big storm of lightning and really trashed them before flying off with a wave. I didn't have the heart to keep tossing grenades into them

I go to the Pocket Dimension, visit the AE and run through a couple of missions to get XP. No one is advertising farm teams so I run through one of Humbles missions and club "Bads" for a bit. Another random hero asks me if I am doing a homage to Taskmaster, and we have a brief chat about the character. My morning is made again. By the time I get bored with the AE I am 11th level. I go badge hunting in the Echo zones, and upon return I see a DFB advertising for bodies. They let me join and we have a great time cruising through the sewers - yeah that sounds gooey but it was fun, and the folks leading it were very clear about who to fight and what to do before each big battle. Got some badges and six levels, I'm 17 now and feeling pretty good with the power set and the way it plays, except for Proton Sweep - going to drop that on the respec, it looks stupid and its really slow to cast. I've also learned that the forum advice to "From hide, open with anything other that Assassin's Strike" is good advice. About half the time I am setting up to backstab a big bad guy, they attack and interrupt me (or they get knocked back by an ally, or they run off, etc). [I also noticed that in AE at least, my 'total stealth' isn't worth much, the bad guys see me as soon as I approach them, regardless of level 😞 ]

I'm selling off junk and deciding if I want to buy enhancements now (I can get L20 SOs, and have been totally unslotted so far). I see some folks advertising for a "Frostfire+4" and LFM. I vaguely remember Frostfire as a mission with a building full of ice slides and such - its been like four years- and I don't understand what the "+4" means until later. I slot everything up with 20s, join the FF team and go to the Hollows. I get exemplared down to 13, and in we go.

 

We get wiped out three times in the first hallway because Wow That Is A Lot Of Purples We Just Pulled and Oh Look They Can Summon Pets Too.

I get to use my self rez power, and a wakey I had tucked in my sock, and still get to visit the beautiful hospital area in the Hollows (spoiler: The sandbags and barbed wire marking the 'hospital' will trigger some public school memories if you're like me)

A few people quit the team, while the rest of us huddle up and decide We Need A Plan. A couple of replacements arrive, we go back inside and work together to get through the sea of purples. If you haven't done this mission before here's a tip: Anything with the name Scorcher in it needs to be dealt with first, unless you enjoy being armpit deep in hyperactive little fire imps.

As we level up through the mission, the bad guys start dropping from purple to red to orange and  we shift into steamroller mode as we each find our role in the fights. Mine is to backstab the Scorchers and other bosses, and peel off anyone trying to gank our support. Frostfire arrives (after a cute animated cut scene that I don't remember seeing before) and people on our team have prepared macros so they can trash talk him in Local while we fight! I am laughing so much, that I don't get to apply the killing blow to FF, but the chat in the group is amazing.

 

Things go poorly for old FF and his entire crew, and by the time we all head out for Shawarma, I've gained four more levels and I am level 21 now. Selling junk back in Atlas, I see an awesome Brian Blessed cosplay (as Prince Voltan from Flash Gordon) and get another compliment about my costume from someone who reminds me to 'never skip neck day' 🙂

I am in awe of the endless stream of LFG messages as people (far above my level) gather to fight Giant Monsters, raid a Rikti Mothership, run a whole bunch of events I've never heard of with abbreviations that I don't understand, and generally demonstrate that the server is busy today. A guy falls out of the sky and goes splat next to me in the street - he's almost dead, but he gets up and says in chat "Tried to stand on the blimp" and runs off.

I look up and by God, there *is* a blimp up there. I am promptly shoved out of the way by a car, then by a guy carrying a newspaper, and then by some hysterical woman running by with her arms in the air.
 

It was a great day on Torchbearer, looking forward to more today.

 

Edited March 3 by Pekiti
spelling

[NYG]

Great look! Love the "shawarma" reference! Honestly, I wasn't sure how to even spell that and had to look it up! lol