Week in review

Interesting stuff going on in a couple places with a couple characters.

Hang Time
(Level: 50)
HT was named a Spartan in the Freedom Phalanx (in recognition of his time as a Prefect). Other than that, *he* doesn’t have anything going on, but Sabrina’s in pretty bad shape, and… well, she’s not lying to him anymore than she’s lying to herself, so technically, she’s not lying to him? Maybe?
*Pulls hair.*

Hyperthermian
(Level: 47)
No gameplay or roleplay with Hype in the last week six weeks, basically.

Strategist
(Level: 33)
A little gameplay and roleplay in the last week. Strat returned to the private flat where his partner stays and they had a … discussion about some … irresponsible choices she made in the last week. Thing is, it was pretty much a cry for attention from Strat, because she feels like he’s ignoring her (and, yeah… he kinda has been), so hopefully he’ll wake up and stop being stupid about that.
Gameplay-wise: Working GREAT following his respec — fewer endurance problems now — and I dropped two of his ‘passive’ defenses in order to get Crippling Axe Kick and a defense vs. area attacks. C.A.K. used to suck ass, but they have SERIOUSLY upgraded the damage on it.
Teamed up for about a half-dozen missions of varying difficulty and found he plays FAST — both in taking down enemies and in just… movement (upped his sprint speed during the respec) — also, the Disorient Effect he gets from Cobra Strike, Eagle Claw and Thunder Kick, AND the Immobilize from Crippling Axe Kick **all** give Controllers a Containment bonus, which made the controller on the team veddy happy.

Epitaph
(level: 27 ((NEW!)))
John’s had… a lot of stuff going on. Damn.
Short version: He broke up with Midnite (well, kinda — he asked for some space, but said he loved her, and she kinda freaked out and ran. Literally.)
Spending a lot of time with Ren, which has just been fun for both RP and gameplay.
Met his wife, face to face, and didn’t remember her. Ow.
In other news:
* Raene was kidnapped and tortured in Austrailia, and the people questioning her were asking about John. WTF? The “Raene” that he broke up with is actually a (poorly conditioned) clone who freaked out when faced with real emotion and ran off (to the Rogue Isles). Raene — the real one — is back in town, but can’t bear to face John.
* Ren (Hekuba) got her horrible migraine-pain-headaches fixed, thanks to a plan Moonfire and Sunstorm and John came up with. Woo. Ren and John have been spending a lot of time together as part of “Working Girl”, which is a really fantastic story written up here: here. (NO CoH knowledge necessary to know what’s going on, really.)
* Pearl was working with Moonfire while John and Ren were also, and recognized her “KIA” husband as “John ‘Epitaph’ Jones”. After the task force was over, she told him she knew him, and what his name was, but didn’t tell him she was his wife. She then ran off and had herself a little breakdown.
John was told Raene was a fake, but didn’t believe it, and he hasn’t gone to look up “Tanner McClain” yet, so he doesn’t know he used to be married. Yikes.
Clearly, there’s a lot of stuff going on with John.
Gameplay notes: Dinged to 27 in the last week, picked up a new power (solar flare, which kicks ASS), and respecced to make his powers match the stuff that’s been going on in Working Girl a little better. In the respec, in other words, I got rid of this cone attack I only ever used to pick up aggro from a group of baddies (Solar Flare works just as well for that, now, BOOOM), and picked up Group Energy Flight, which means I can fly a whole team of heroes around. In my experience, teams rarely use Group Fly, but I can see a lot of uses for it with the folks I play with. I also managed to respec some more speed into my regular fly power, which doesn’t suck at all.
Probably going to do the Terra Volta Trial pretty soon with him.

Gilly
(level: 19)
Logged in and ran a mission with her. That’s it.

Kethos
(Level: 21 ((NEW!)))
Roleplay-wise, I’m focusing mostly on simply playing Keth within the framework of the story arcs in the game for now — Keth and Myca are ‘solid’ as far as personal drama goes, so he’s more light-RP, good gameplay, and enjoying the new City of Villains stuff.
Levels 18 and 19 came from just beating the hell out of stuff with Myca, which levels 20 and 21 came from running the first CoV Strike Force… twice.
Gameplay Notes: At level 18, picked up Dark Consumption (to recover endurance, yay), and at level Level 20: got Acrobatics (to protect from getting knocked all over the fight, YAY). I’m probably one solid night of playing from gettin Level 22 and Consume (for MORE endurance recovery, Yay!). I’m Really REALLY REAAAAAALLY hoping that helps me deal with his endurance ‘issues’.
Note: Still need to run lower-level missions as someone’s malefactor to earn more Infamy to buy shiny enhancements.
Did the “Strike Force” (CoV Task Force) twice. First time was much for difficult than the second. My suggestion: stealth and scout what you can, and proceed with caution WHENEVER Circle of Thorn are involved — they just suck in this TF. SUuuuuuck.
I like the TF though — it runs pretty fast at only six missions, but if you TRY to run it fast, it will kill you a LOT and take HOURS. The second time we went kinda slow and steady and finished in 2.5 hours.
After the second run of the TF (about a week after the first), the four of us (all at least 20) decided to go do the cape mission, which sends you to Paragon City to deface statues and beat up Heroes.
On the way, we ran into the Ghost of Scrapyard, a Giant Monster with about three bajillion minions. It was ugly, but we managed to beat him and did enough damage that Mako awarded us the “Hammer Down” badge.
Cape Mission:
1. Expect wave attacks.
2. Stay together all the time.
3. Find whatever little cover you can, and USE it, over and over.
We got owned once, but I attribute that to a bad case of ‘holy crap it’s late’.

Pummelcite
(Level: 15 ((New)))
Lukacs has discovered where Sam Wincott’s being held in the Hollows, and needs to assemble a team to rescue him before the Circle of Thorns opens the portal within the Cavern of Pain Transcendance.
Gameplay notes: Respecced him to pick up Brimstone Armor, since CoT fire attacks are getting to be troublesome. I think I have him about as good as he can be at this level for tanking for a group (at the cost of no move power beyond Swift and Sprint), and I want to do the Cavern of Transcendance Trial that he just finished the qualifying story-arc for. WHO’S WITH ME!?!

Shade Dancer
(Level: 14)
No recent gameplay or roleplay.

Barret
(Level: 13 ((NEW)))
Barret’s got a very interesting thing going with Cassidy, who is totally insane. More need not be said. Haven’t aligned him with any of the supergroups out there — Cassidy and him pretty much just have a Crypt of Their Own. Picked up Combat Jumping at level 12, in anticipation of Super Jump at level 14.

Markov Chain Countersign
(Level 12 (New, and all in one day))
Deleted MC in favor of a different look and name, then ran the hell out of him on Saturday to get him up to 12 in anticipation of some stuff on Sunday that didn’t quite pan out. We’ll see.
Still not sure about either the name or the look of the guy. Hmm.