Just to get up to date before The Visit throws my play schedule all out of whack.
Not that it isn’t already — lately, if I get online by 7pm, it’s a good night, and with needing to be in at work by 6am this week… yeah.
Anyway…
Hyperthermian
(Level: 49)
Hype’s ‘colors’ have attracted the attention of a pre-cognitive empath. The Old Testament meets the Tao te Ching. So. Much. Fun. Laughter is good.
Still, for all that, it’s a real spiritual thing: Ashe is really digging into himself — finding out what really matters to him, now that his grandfather’s dead. He hasn’t found the answers yet, but he’s looking.
In short, he’s growing up.
Gameplay
Ran the Sara Moore task force with Hype, Shock, Kin, Psi-Clone, Amorpha, Zephyr, Li, and Puck. Had a couple people hit the ground here and there due to either ambushes or being too close to the ‘damage cloud’ that hovers around any tank who’s fighting Nemesis, but otherwise it went really well. The last group that ran this thing (Shock and Kin were on it, so I heard about it) needed something like 2 or 3 days to finish it, and had one or two TPK’s fighting the AV. We ran it in a night and the AV dropped kinda scary fast once Kin cleared the minions out.
I hear tell there’s more AVs in the next couple Shard TF’s… like… five? Six? Cool.
Picked up Hype’s last power: Rise of Phoenix. Strictly an RP-type power: Hype doesn’t know it yet, but for all intents and purposes, he can’t die — his will’s too strong. (See one of my quotes from the last update.)
Sidenote to Empathy people: Absorb pain is an awesome ‘save the tank’ heal, and Adrenal Boost…
My. God.
I know it used to suck, but holy cow it is SO DAMN GOOD now. It’s like RA, plus Speed Boost, plus Regen Aura, and then doubled. Daddy like.
Epitaph
(level: 32)
Need to write the Coconut Trophy thing… and the next post for Working Girl. Damn. So far behind I think I’m going to lap myself.
Lucian Strange
(level: 17 (new))
Gameplay:
Parry is six-slotted: Lucian can use the Medicine pool heal in mid-combat without getting interrupted 🙂
Lucian hasn’t had a lot of rp yet (aside from being hit on by everything with two legs), but that’s mostly my desire to get him up to SO’s as soon as possible — that’s really where I’d like to be before getting heavily into RP. He lost his jingle-jet yesterday, so I’m hoofing it around the city, Strategist-style, for now… Lucian’s build doesn’t include a travel power: just like Strat.
UNLIKE Strat, I’m having a lot fewer problems with endurance: my current build plan doesn’t have Stamina coming in until level 30, and if it doesn’t seem like I need it even then, I won’t get it. Right now, he’s running Invincible and his endurance is fine.
Puck ? Grav/ff cont ? 45 (NEW)) Lots of Game play and RP?and did the Sara Moore TF. Controllerly goodness abounds! Yes, for the Record?Puck does have four defenseive powers: Combat Jump (to avoid being hit), Acrobatics (To stay standing so she can keep pounding away at foes), Dispersion Bubble (Damage reduction to all), and Mind Over Matter ( Damage reduction to Lethal, Smash, Psyche) Which is now slotted with 1 end redux and two Damage Redux (L44 it was just the End Redux). So having two more enhancements should help a little. One thing about Gravs?not only are the animations slow, and the damage low, but you have to be right in the middle of things too. Like I always say?Puck is a Combat Accessory…not some sort of stay in the back hanger outer type. ;P
Zazi ? (Katana/SR scrp ? 36) Some game play. Mostly my I-am-angry-hack-things Toon. Still clearing out old Story Arcs. Helped out several Alliance members over the past week, and dealt with a really, really bad Tank that told everyone that it was their fault that there was a TPK?and that we didn?t know how to play our AT?s correctly.
Ciunas – (Dark/Dark scrp ? 22) No Game Play.
Dubh ? (Dark/Dark defender ? 21 (New)) No game play.
Zot ? (Claw/Ninja ? 28) Lots of Game play and RP. Stalkers are so much fun. So far I think Zot has managed to meet most of the RP SVG?s on Champion. While she can solo anything but AV?s and Hero missions, she does enjoy having back up from Mafdet, Lady Joey, Marbas, and Mastodon Rex. She works well with any AT type even if the tactics are very different with each one. She really hates any foe that has PBAoE on it and I now have quite the list of those foes.
Gasta ? (Dark/Therm Corr ? 19) Lots of game play and some RP. Mostly PuG?s this past week, but got to back up a few members of the CoI.
19 ? (Merc/Traps MM ? 17) No Game play.
Bane of Asgard ? (Dark/Fire Brute ? 7) No play with him this week.
Venenata ? (Plant/thorn Dom ? 13 (new)) Loss of the Jingle Jet was very sad the other day?.I really, really miss it. She is now 3 bubbles away from a travel power though. Have I said how much I like Seeds of Confusion lately?
Adrenaline Boost is, indeed, very nice. I’m getting it back frequently enough that Amorpha’s got it on a good half of the time, at least.
Absorb Pain is one of those “hmmmm” powers. I’ve considered it a few times, but always had other things that needed taking. I still go hmmmm over it, though.
Consider this:
Empathy’s regular targeted heal does something like 500 points at level 50.
Absorb Pain does over 1000.
That tank that Zazi had to deal with… is it a certain one that Puck has gotten into trouble about discussing? That I think we were on a team with? That pulled an entire room of DE and then asked if the rest of the team had ever worked with a tank before, when half of us we RSK’ed down from 50? That the one?
*Ding Ding Ding!*
That would be the one.
Oh, I have GOT TO HEAR ABOUT THIS!
Li heals for 1157 with Absorb Pain. She loses some health, it’s not all too significant, if I’m being a good girl and am not taking damage. The downside to AP is that you can, literally, kill yourself using it, because of the 20 second ‘no heal’ timer.
However, if you use it wisely that isn’t an issue. Just bad if you’ve got the ‘no heal’ timer up and you suddenly take lots of damage because there’s only one thing you can do about it, as heal aura, direct heal from others, and inspirations don’t work. If regen aura is up, though, you can drop that and your health /will/ regen even if your ‘no heal’ timer is on. I don’t know whether this is a bug or working as intended but it helps Li a lot. 🙂
All that said, I love Absorb Pain.
Avocet was in a group with Anne Blaze once when she was being RPed as smashed out of her gourd. It was really cool when she passed out right in front of us! Knowing nothing about Absorb Pain, I hadn’t realized it was possible for a character to do that to herself.