Villainish Drift

With the advent of Issue 12 and Powerset Proliferation, I’ve run into a bit of a dilemma. I have the current pair of villainous twins, Raelith and Raeleth. Raelith is my powerhouse, kick ass Dominator, and Raeleth is my lesser played Electric/Energy Brute. The main cause of this dilemma? Is the addition of Electrical Assault for Doms. Going back to the beginning of CoV, I had originally wanted to roll a Plant/Elec dom, but settled on Plant/Fire because it looked like a lesser used combo that looked like it’d be fun. (And it is lots of fun).

I have mixed feelings on Electrical Assault (the tier 9 is Sparky?!?!?) but I’ve heard that it’s fairly solid from a trusted source ingame, and there are enough powers that I can work out a passable blastroller build.

My problem is that the name Raeleth is perfect for said plant/elec, but is taken by a brute I’m not entirely certain I’d want to delete. Raeleth 2.0 was originally a dark/elec brute that was deleted, and said elec/nrg brute was renamed to Raeleth. (I think she was the original Midnight Azhure, who is now an ice/dark corruptor.) Do I fork out another $10 for a second rename for this poor brute, or do I delete a level 23 brute to free up the name. Though the trickiest part will be to get the height to match that of Raelith. The last time I tried to get the heights close, Rae and Rael were still off by just a smidge. and if I rename Rael to free up the name, what do I change her name to? Rael is taken (I’ve seen the toon in passing - a blaster no less.) Azhure is taken (ironically, I’ve seen that toon in passing as well. Azhure was a brute.) If there are any suggestions, I’m open to them while I sort out the names of what the newbies will bring.

Yes, I12 is going to introduce a few toons on my part. I also need to come up with a name for my Widow VEAT as the name on test I have in use on the live servers on a completely different toon.

It’s the same old blog, but the Twinlet wooed me over with this nifty layout and gushing about the improved backend of Wordpress. So after lusting over the layout and the fact that it has a purple skin (well, more of a fuscha, but the capability to change that) I broke down and said “why not flip it over”. Comments, as they were, are lost in conversion, but that’s alright.

Here we are with the shiny new layout, new rotators, more rotators to follow. It was also pointed out that the last entry was in September of last year. Oops.

On a whim I brought Night out for a spin during one of the Rikti zone raids. With a bit of help from her pre-ED build (and by help there I mean not), hasten and a couple of AM’s she was able to have 3 pets out at once. (The most I can manage normally is 2) In my haste to type in the screenshot command to show the UI, I somehow didn’t get the UI to show, and thus have no proof of my crowning achievement of the day. Go me, or something. Woot. Not.

After running this gem complete from start to finish, I have to say that it is a lot of fun. Five missions, most with longish maps, and all Rikti to fight through. This was mostly a PuG, but I’ve played with a couple of the teammates before on other alts, so there was a good chance that this wouldn’t suck. and it didn’t, even with one teammate logging in and out for a bit due to power outages, and another dropping after the second mission due to time constraints. From start to finish, it took almost 3 hours to complete.

There weren’t any total wipes, but deaths here and there. Rae was the alt of choice for this beast, and oddly enough the only villain on a team of heroes. It was fun, the group consisting of one tank, one scrapper, one blaster, Mind/FF ‘troller, rad/rad ‘fender, Emp ‘fender, and the lone dom. There was a kin ‘fender, but he was the one who left. And on the base difficulty we were zipping straight through.

I can definitely see where Emps are going to be popular for this as the Rikti now mez frequently and hard. Both Stormy and Rae were being chain mezzed right and left, and this was through the mez/psi IO that has mez protect /and/ 20% duration reducer. Carrying a tray of break frees is now a must for the Rikti content.

All I need to do is run Frost through the initial tutorial arc to unlock merits and then respec her and she should be good to go for this beastie. Same with Radi.

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I spent last night fooling around on CoH and I10, lagginess and all. Storm was the guinea pig, participating in the RWZ zone raid. I finally found where the vents to get bombs are, managed to click a bomb and start on that badge. The nice thing is that the clicking of the bomb counts for team credit. The bad?? The timer is set to once per half hour that anyone on the team can click. And oh, you need 25 bombs for the badge.

The good news is that the zone invasions go by fairly quickly. Two of the three badges for that progress fairly quickly if you have someone who can do lots of AoE DoT. 100 Rikti and 10 EB’s. You seem to get kill credit on the Rikti if you hit them, and as for the EBs? I think they follow the 10% damage for credit rule. I know I didn’t kill any soloing, but the badge progress bar moved, and the next thing I knew I had the badge. The bombs are another story entirely, and will take time to complete.

The Lady Grey Task Force? Lots of fun, especially with the new mapsets.If you have a bad PuG, I can see how this will draw on and on and on. But with a more cohesive team? Two hours on the high end of time.

The RWZ raids seem to be the best way to get Vanguard Merits as they drop with all the Rikti killed on the ship. The bad thing is that you need over 1000 merits for a complete costume and 500 for the “salvage bag”. This isn’t includinf the temp powers that can be gained from merits.

Next up is starting the badgering process on Rae. I dont know the spawn points for the Rogue Isles yet, this will be a learning experience until I do.

What are the chances of getting the same exact recipe on back to back RSF’s? Insane I bet. Radi got a Freebird:Stealth drop at the end of her RSF run and then Rae got the same an hourish later. I should go back to collecting SHO’s for a bit on em - maybe I’ll get two micro’s back to back. Heh. At least I know the Freebirds will sell for a decent amount.

Oh, and 45 minute RSF runs? Rock mightily. Seeing the dialogue “Positron has defeated Manticore” rocks even more. Damn I love Seeds of Confusion. Having the competing team wipe in the last mish due to a frisky cat? Not as much fun as they were literally a minute or so behind us.

I might as well post this here - incentive to eventuallywork on the rest of the character bios, and to have it someplace handy so I don’t lose it in the future.

*****

I don’t remember much of who I was, most of which was told to me by him. There are times where things feel familiar, smell familiar, blurry memories that I’m not entirely sure are mine. Sometimes I have fleeting memories that I can’t quite pull into focus, memories from this world, and memories from another. Another world that I can’t remember, yet I’m certain I’ve been there before. Memories of this world, places that I can’t quite recall.

I look into the mirror and see a face that isn’t entirely mine, yet is mine. I can shapeshift into another form that isn’t entirely mine, yet is mine. I’m told I nearly died from a horrific accident, yet I remember none of it. I’ve also been told stories about the alien who merged with me to save my life, yet I remember none of it. We don’t remember any of it. Not entirely human, not entirely alien.

I look into the face of the beloved of the person who was once me. He’s a stranger except for fleeting memories that hint at the bond of what once was. I see the pain of my not knowing, the patience on his part that one day I’ll regain the memories of who I was, who we were. I don’t know if I’ll ever truly remember who I was, who we were.

The tally of 50’s has increased by 1. Radi dinged 50 the other day and I’ve been remiss on mentioning it. And she dinged flat on her ass. Let me explain. I have a screene of her dinging, while getting knocked on her ass by a PPD Awakened (aka PB’s ala villain group on the villain side). The screenie of this may or may not get posted - it depends on how badly I wish to humiliate myself.

Midnight’s also back for a second incarnation. This time she’s an elec/nrg Brute, which as of level 5 or so, is insanely fun to play. For me, she’s kinda trampy looking, but it somehow fits her. Scantily clad in black, thigh-high boots and purple hair.

And in other news, I’m still in love with Night. I forgot how much fun she was to play. I know I’ve said that before, but I can’t help but repeat that again. I ran her through the third respec last night, only had her in Nova form for travelling (I still can’t quite get the hang of SJ and Teleport, though I was using TP to put her in a mob then hitting Mire with Inky Aspect running. Fun stuff). And she didn’t die once. There may have been one or two others that didn’t die once, but for the uber squishie AT? Not shabby.

It was funny having someone call out “I see a White Dwarf”, and because of who it was that said it I didn’t believe him. Then I turn the corner and see…. a White Dwarf. Didn’t phase me in the least, took him out easy. Voids, Quants and Nova’s/Dwarves don’t seem to bother Night as mush as they do when I play Star. I know it’s because of the differences between PB’s and ‘Shades. But dayum.

Meanwhile, I need to take an evening and work on sorting out salvage, recipes and whatnot on the V-side. Both base enhancement bins are bursting, and all of my villain alts are stuffed to the gills with salvage, recipes, and more salvage. A chunk of the recipes are invention enhancements that I’m hanging onto to either sell until I get that badge on Rae, or to craft to work on /those/ badges. Now if I could get a frelling costume drop. Grrrr. I have yet to see A. Single. Frelling. Costume. Drop. This has me pissed beyond belief.

With Inventions and the Auction Houses in full swing, one badger has been busy, busy, busy. Once Stormy gets as many of the new badges as I see fit, then Rae will undergo the same treatment. I can only focus on one set of badges or I’ll go insane.

And lemme tell ya, the selling and crafting badges are enough to drive anyone insane. I have no clue how an ingame friend churned through all of the selling badges in one multi-hour sitting. (Okay, I do have an idea, they’re far far more dedicated than me.) And, yes, the last selling badge is for selling 7000 items. Stormy’s hovering around 2500 total transactions currently for comparison.

Meanwhile I took Night out for a spin the other day and had forgotten just how much fun it is to play a human-form WS. If it weren’t for the fact that her only way to fly is through Nova form, I’d drop it entirely. I may drop the power slots in Nova form to base and add a couple fly enhancers to the form itself. Because, dayum. I forgot how much fun it was to jump in a pack, pop Mire (normally Orbiting Death would be on at this point, but I was exemped to 39/40 for this session and unable to use Orbiting Debt), toggle on Inky Aspect and watch the mobs stagger around while causing them to faceplant. Oh, and Fluffy. Let’s not forget Fluffy. *grin* Definitely need to respec this gal to a more straightforward human form at some point with some possible IO/set love. Resistances and bonuses are probably good things for her.

Radi’s finally graduated to running the RSF and dinged 47 yesterday. Running the RSF with Radi is quite different than running it with Rae. Everything’s still purple to Radi and I tend to faceplant with her more than I do with Rae. That should change soon as she gets closer to 50, I also need to crank out a respec build for Radi that’s more RSF friendly.

Part of me doesn’t want to respec Radi since ice/rad is a fun build to play, but I have to remind myself that she was built mainly for TF’s and whatnot. I just happened to have managed to like the powerset combo /a lot/.

It’s been a while since I’ve written about anything ingame.

To summarize - I9 and inventions is out, and it’s slow going on getting those badges on Stormy. I have no clue how many of them I want to get on Rae. I guess work on one of them one at a time, and see how it goes.

Stormy’s one badge away from 400. I mused ingame last night to a friend that I can remember when getting 200 badges was a stretch back before Trailblazer was introduced ingame. Oh, the memories.

Now that things have settled down a bit I will try to update more on this side as well