Casual Play Updates

Oh, I am playing CoH again these two days. But taking it easy and not worrying.

The spines guy is coming along nicely. I agree, this one is a late bloomer, and I also think you need to have had some experience with the game to figure out how to choose good powers and slot them before the spines set reward you. The animations are so darn slow, I want/need hasten. Regen is gonna need stamina. Then travel power considerations, build up, not to mention slotting, etc. Heck, I give myself a headache, and I'm sure I have to do major research and major respec'ing to get the regen part worked out.

But damn, it's fun ganking packs of greens and blues in hollows. :)

Even if my chances of living are sometimes 50:50 when taking packs of even cons or blues with too many white lts. :P

Defenders are my friend. Those green glowy numbers or that pretty blue bubble makes me able to act like a tank and an aoe'er damager all at once. Even a DDD's tar patch made things quite nice.

(Hey, how come Contrition never put a tar patch down? What does it do anyhow? I just knew it looked different from what I expected, I was staring at all the mobs' feet wondering which damn dark patch was the anchor, so I could look leet by NOT killing it first thing, when I realized there was a anchor-like dark patch on the ground in the center of the mob. Talk about solving the problem of idiots killing anchors. Can't target that. :P)

You won't believe the number of tanks I teamed with on Guardian who were street hunting. Without taunt. As an Aoe-capable scrapper. Guess who ended up "tanking" and getting faceplanted more often than not. Had to actually stop aoe'ing when I knew they were doing +1 and +2 mobs.

I only respect one level 5 fire tank who, understandably, didn't have taunt yet but had blazing aura and used it. Jumped into the center of things. Um, but our team was like around 7-9. I was either 8 or 9. And we were fighting whites and yellows to me. Poor guy's hp bounced up and down a lot, and I was spine bursting like crazy trying to draw aggro away for valuable seconds. :P

All the other tanks...Well, you SUCK. At your team's role of meatshield (which you are perfectly entitled and within your rights to reject). But you still suck cos I cannot AoE without getting facefuls of lead, and you suck because you had no situational awareness at all and didn't know how to use punchvoke to rescue the squishies. :)

Well, it wasn't that bad. We actually survived pretty well for a long time. But I was being a really wary scrapper and playing bodyguard sometimes.

And these things are so random. After a while, two members quit and three random ones were brought on, then the remaining people got stupid and tried to kill level 11 mobs at 8-9. (oranges, reds lts, purple bosses) And there was much team-wiping and general rejoicing from the Trolls.

At which point I quit the team diplomatically, ran off to the other end of the hollows, /hide, and ganked blues and greens repeatedly. For roughly the same xp rate. 37 vs 40-44 xp/min. (Herostats is fun.) And far less risk. :)

All debt blew away, and I hit level 10 and decided to take a break from lowbies.

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Went back to Ravenhill.

I had an epiphany while doing his missions solo btw.

He's in perma-debt. The realization was kinda half, OHHHHHH and DUUUUHHHH. So, of COURSE I am leveling more slowly. This was THE PLAN. So WHY THE FUCK was I getting jealous? :)

Not jealous anymore. It was probably some kind of leet powergamer, competitive Achiever-based reaction to things.

Good thing I'm EAS, so the Exploration side wins any day.

One story arc down, 4 bubbles into level 22, and three more arcs to go. And I'm still hoping to see a bit of Striga missions before I hit the next contact tier.

At least it's really easy to die when I want to, now. Just dash in without unyielding and dull pain and hit the mission mobs. :P See how many I take down before dropping.

The debt also blows away amazingly. *Hugs the cuddly DM/Inv* White and yellow sky raiders feel pretty darned wussy if they aren't clumped up in a group of 8 with two forcefields going. At which point, it's a little touch and go, and fun to gamble with. Managed to survive one battle like that with a sliver of health even though I was intending to die for debt. :P

Banished Pantheon shamans weren't too bad either, though they did finally manage to show off their storm cloud and lightning things for a few zaps of damage. Thank goodness I got unyielding though. Those hurricanes and tremor/footstomp? things looked like fairly bad knockdown. Perhaps the masks will be more challenging.

Basically at this point in time, Ravenhill's a killing machine until he's faced with overwhelming numbers of 5-6+. Then the focused fire can get a little much and start eating the health bar too fast. Once he gets invincibility and the numbers around him = +def boost, I wonder how interesting that's going to get. (Probably be in trouble when it's ranged attackers.)

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And I think I was also getting edgy because I didn't go back to scrapper roots for a while. Playing other ATs is fun for a change, but here's my superstitious belief. There's one AT that fits you like a glove, and that one really makes you happy when you play it. The rest is a fun challenge, intellectual gaming exercise, kind of thing. But you tend to be able to immerse in the gameplay style of one AT.

(Or maybe a blend of more than one, but let's not complicate things, eh? Just call it major preference. Minor preferences are ones you can/like to play, while some ATs are just too alien for some people's personalities, so they hate 'em and never play 'em. Major ones are those that sing to the soul.)

Some fellows on the forum, for example, I can see they really like being tanks. (The real ones.) The big brother protectors of the team.

Others, they are defenders, they are really concerned with the welfare of everyone and it's an affront if people die on their watch and so on.

And there are the blaster-types, shoot 'em before they can even shoot back. :P

Or controllers, varied possibilities for keeping stuff under control, the more mind-based, intellectual types.

And there is us. The happy, CHAAAARGE, rowr! Hoody-hoo!, hack-and-slashers. Long live scrapper nation. :)