The Officially Unofficial Weekly Challenge #5: Play a Widow Fortunata

[DougGraves]

VEATs are rarely played.  They are specialized builds with fewer choices.

 

But they are well designed and can be powerful and a lot of fun.

 

So try out a Widow and get her up to be a Fortunata.  

[ZorkNemesis]

What if I already did that a few years ago?

[Clave Dark 5]

I had one with a build I took from the forums, this was probably three years ago.  The thing was a beast, couldn't be stopped - he could stand in the middle of a group of foes desperately trying to wail on him, and apply a Heal Self and not get interrupted (the few times he needed to Heal himself, at that). 

 

He never made it past level 47, because playing like that is was so unimaginably BORING.  Seriously, it's no fun in having an I Win button; this is one reason I can't stand farming.

[Snarky]

I did the crab thing. 50d it and (to me) it looks ill suited for CoH content.  Maybe in a team of Crabs it would be different, but it is very structured to be mediocrity in a hard shell. 
 

Probably politically incorrect of me but I think of widows as female.  They are all female in the game. I never run female toons. So, this week I bow out of the challenge.  
 

Good luck to all the new widows!

[NotsoevilDM]

Ugh! What's one more alt to level. I mean, I only have like 10 on the go at the moment. Challenge accepted!

[Major_Decoy]

I don't know, getting a character to level 24 in a week seems like you're either not really getting a feel for the character or kind of unreasonable.

[KaizenSoze]

There is a FAQ in the VEAT forum and plenty of builds. I guess I should take this as a hint to finish the page 7 updates for the FAQ.

[Ukase]

I'm probably in the minority, but I've heard this song before. 
Play a widow, it'll be fantastic! 
It was not fantastic. Now, that may say more about me than the widow, but if it weren't for an sg event crawling on red side from 1 to 50, I'd have stopped at level 24. 

You have to respec. 
Why? Because you're level 24. 
But, I don't want to respec. I hate respecs. What are my other options? 
A respec. 

It's really a ridiculous thing to make a player do. At least with the HEATs, a respec isn't crammed down your throat. 

On one hand, it's an interesting thing, giving the player a couple of options, choose this path or this one. It's not a lot different from the epic/patron pool choices, but those decisions are made later in the characters career, and they aren't a focal part of the build, just well, I guess the ancillary word works. I totally get how some players see this as a fantastic feature. 
But, for me, not really liking the idea of stopping what I'm doing at 24 and doing a respec...not my idea of a good time. 

Still, I intend to revisit the widow, and I will make a fortunata at some point, but not sure this week is good timing. There's just not much the fort has to offer to me that seems interesting or fun at this point. 

[PeregrineFalcon]

13 hours ago, DougGraves said:

So try out a Widow and get her up to be a Fortunata.  

Edited March 18 by PeregrineFalcon

[lemming]

I had a widow that I did back in Sep 2019 and was at 50.   It then sat parked much of the time until last issue when I went ahead and respecc'd and outfitted.

 

A very tough versatile build.

[ZekeStenzland]

Probably not. 
 

However, in my defense, I just yesterday got my Night Widow (created in 2022) up to 50 yesterday. I’ll be playing him some for the next week. 
 

Also in my queue is leveling my “mace only” Bane Spider. 
 

I do enjoy playing my VEATs though. 

[Techwright]

15 hours ago, ZorkNemesis said:

What if I already did that a few years ago?

 

Create a new one and run in through gold side?

 

[KaizenSoze]

1 minute ago, Techwright said:

 

Create a new one and run in through gold side?

 

HEATs and VEATs cannot start on gold side.

[Techwright]

31 minutes ago, KaizenSoze said:

HEATs and VEATs cannot start on gold side.

Yeah, I just realized that when starting one now.  Not looking to add negatives to the pile, but for me, that's one.

[KaizenSoze]

Folks starting new or trying out Forts after awhile, should take Fated Sealed.

 

Fate sealed will make all controls after 33% while giving you 33% more mez resists.

 

Also, also knockback and immobilize will fire 100% of the times.

 

For instance, Psionic Tornado only knocks up 50%, with Fated Sealed it's 100%. Useful control to keep mobs down.

[DougGraves]

17 hours ago, ZorkNemesis said:

What if I already did that a few years ago?

 

Good question.  

 

I don't know when they were last revised or if other changes have occurred to make them play differently.

 

But I would say that maybe you are different now.  You could use a break from whatever you currently play.

 

Try the Widow Fortunata again.  Worst case you hate it and it makes you fall in love with your current characters all over again.

[DougGraves]

11 hours ago, Snarky said:

Probably politically incorrect of me but I think of widows as female.  They are all female in the game. I never run female toons. So, this week I bow out of the challenge.  

 

I refuse to believe that someone as creative as you is blocked by this.

 

I bet you can come up with 10 reasons to have a male widow even if they normally are all female.

 

The Dune series is based on having a male with the powers normally only women get.  If Herbert can figure out an excuse you certainly can.

[DougGraves]

8 hours ago, Major_Decoy said:

I don't know, getting a character to level 24 in a week seems like you're either not really getting a feel for the character or kind of unreasonable.

 

When I have played VEATS I found that I did not get a feel for the character until I hit 24 and respeced.  

 

It's my one major complaint about them.  They change a lot after the respec which makes learning them as you level much less useful, although not useless.

[Snarky]

12 minutes ago, DougGraves said:

 

I refuse to believe that someone as creative as you is blocked by this.

 

I bet you can come up with 10 reasons to have a male widow even if they normally are all female.

 

The Dune series is based on having a male with the powers normally only women get.  If Herbert can figure out an excuse you certainly can.

Okay.  I thought about it.  I could make a floating skull that was a Fortunata.  at a 100o years old, as a skull, gender sort of ceases to matter.

 

So, I open up MiDs and looked at Fortunata.  And, without spending 40 hours 50ing and running this thing it looks to suffer the same issues as Crab.  In effect, I could make my genderless skull a Mind/Psi Dom and run circles around the Fortunata.  Because VEATs and HEATs are shot in the foot from the starting line.

[ZekeStenzland]

I’m pretty sure all the NPC VEATs come in female, male and huge varieties now, although the soldiers are more commonly male/huge and the widows are more commonly female. 
 

[ZekeStenzland]

I do wish you could just start the VEAT characters with the 2 extra sub roles available at level 1 until you (eventually, probably) commit. 
 

[lemming]

Oh yea, I have a Soldier needing to be done as well.   Recluse Ranger (and yes, he looks like a chipmunk)

[Sovera]

I leveled a Fortunata once. I don't like nukes. Everything feels like we're just making time until the nuke is ready because the nuke is so much damage. Sentinels are better in that aspect since 25 seconds is enough to do one spawn and move to the next where 40-50 seconds is territory to be half finished with the second spawn.

 

But those are niggles. The Fortunata was easy to play with loads of defense. I did the mistake of wanting to play the role of mobile passive buffs and loaded on Leadership which was a nightmare with all the toggles and zero endurance aid. Then I tried to Hami and it ignored my defense and two shot my squishy ass a couple of times and I parked it 😄

 

 

I REALLY dislike having to spend the first 24 levels as a substandard class before playing what I actually set out to do but it's as easy as powerleveling the character with a second account, but ,I can't stand soloing anything without an agro aura anymore.

[KaizenSoze]

21 minutes ago, Sovera said:

I can't stand soloing anything without an agro aura anymore.

Night Widow still have a lot of trouble with runners. Forts with Fate Sealed having a much better time dealing with runners. Between Subdue, TK blast, and Psi nado things are not getting far away.

[SeraphimKensai]

I have one I like that uses a select build macro in missions to alternate between three different IO'd builds. It's fun. Kinda crazy, but fun. Veats can be powerful.