Champions Online F2P: Reloaded

[SuicideBunny]

transpolarity, my whatever the hell she was.. no idea, really.

 

[Mangoose]

Hm, the guy I played at launch, The Solution, a steampunk Power Armor/Sorcery guy. Problem was that Power Armor is fucking boring to play (toggle your 3 power slots and then go la-la-la):

The rest of the rabble:

 

[Mangoose]

I like the Magneteer. Excellent costume. Or maybe I just really like the head costume piece. The shoulders were especially a good choice.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Yea, I like him too, he's my first ranged tank (Force/Gadgeteer with a hint of PA powers, also uses a jetpack). The shoulders and quite a few other pieces are from the Retro Sci-Fi premium costume pack (by far the best costume pack if you ask me) and the jet pack he has is from the Jet Pack costume pack.

The helmet is actually a combination of a featureless full helmet, a goggle piece, a mouth piece that gives a sort of an armored from from chin to ears, and the LTS Art Deco top accessory.

EDIT: Also, Cryptic is applying a big patch tonight. In addition to new powers, removal of random drop bags (hallelujah), the new Blood Moon event and a new level 22 mission arc to a Vibora Bay where the street gangs haven't shown their true faces, those in the process of leveling characters can rejoice, for this weekend is...

Double XP Weekend
Talk to Witchcraft in Ren Cen near Defender to get an 8 hour XP buff

You can always refresh your XP buff by visiting Witchcraft
Witchcraft will not be around forever. She will be leaving at the stroke of Midnight on November 1st (PST)

Anyway, I'll post impressions on the new Unarmed powers once I've tested them.

 

[anus_pounder]

Oh. Pretty sweet.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Alright, I've tested out the new powers and taken some pics of the them. First I go through the ones I didn't somehow manage to get a picture of:

Shuriken Storm is essentially a cheaper, weaker version of Lead Tempest that looks very silly. Vicious Strikes is a more military martial art type of energy builder, being entirely on the ground and hand techniques.

That's one of the new damage spike powers, Open Palm Strike (with the advantage that adds a short ranged cone component to it, which also causes the hadouken charge FX). It's a decent spike, fairly fast charge, and one of the few martial arts powers that causes knockback.

One Hundred Hands is a great tier 1 melee aoe. It's cheap and causes decent damage, and with Ghostly Strikes advantage (as above, costs 1 point) it can pierce damage resistance, at least seems like a good bargain.

Backhand Chop is an on-demand Interrupt, pretty much entirely a duel/boss power, and a good one at that due to the 100% interrupt. Can also take an advantage that causes it to build Focus as well.

Elbow Slam is a tier 2 disorient-causing power. Similar to Uppercut in base damage, but doesn't knock in any way, but has an advantage that allows you to deal 30% more damage against knocked down or stunned enemies. IMO, the weakest power in the bunch.

Rising Knee is an on-demand knockdown attack. Similar to Backhand Chop, it also possesses an advantage that lowers enemy damage resistance against next two non-energy builder melee Crushing attacks. Can be fairly useful is integral to the build's attack pattern.

And last, the Dragon Uppercut. It's a very fast-charging damage spike that knocks upwards and has an advantage that causes it to deal 10% extra dimensional damage and on full charge cause the enemy a dimensional DoT (FX of this advantage seen there). A very nice power.


As for the two new archetypes...

The Fist is a melee DPS that's essentially a more crowd control oriented Blade at the start (the two share their passive as well). Generally the power selection is fairly good, BUT.... The build has three mutually redundant damage spike powers (Dragon Kick, Burning Chi Fist and Dragon Uppercut), or four if you choose Open Palm Strike.

The Master on the other hand is a really good archetype, being a dodge tank (though lacking Bountiful Chi Resurgence AKA the most OP self-heal in the game). No redundant powers at all, has good crowd control (Shuriken Storm at level 17) and spiking ability (Elbow Slam at level 11, Burning Chi Fist/Open Palm Strike at level 32), gets an active defense (Masterful Dodge) and the new and improved Thundering Kicks at level one (+12% Dodge for 15 seconds after the three hit combo!). But even so, there's one peculiar thing... Who the fuck though Dragon Kick is in any position to be a level 40 power?


Anyway, have some pics of Darius Dax's current standard armour design and battlesuit design:

 

[Mystary!]

Wow that headpiece is awesome.
I like most of your champions, very good color composition, and not too much clutter.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

That's a common thing I encourage for others when I give my advice/opinion: Having too much bullshit on you makes you into a fugly furry muscle demon, what you really need is having a solid core. You know, colours that complement each other and set a look by themselves, a strong theme that unifies the pieces together, and of course keeping it simple so too much shit doesn't hurt the design (since the engineer's design principle applies to superheroes as well, there's a reason why Superman's and Batman's fundamental costumes is still hands down the best there are). Less is more and all that.


The bubble helmet head type comes with the Retro Sci-Fi premium costume pack, and it can be used with monster and beast heads (it also adds the Elder Worm head to Beast heads, which can be used without the bubble helmet), AND a floating disembodied brain.

 

[anus_pounder]

This 2X XP thing is great. I reached lv.38 > 39 in no time and I'm already halfway to 40. I might postpone lv.40 content and create my soldier (or grimoire) character to take advantage of this weekend. I like this shit.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

You do that. Also, if you've got the moolah to spare (wait until the end of the event, the prices asked will plummet) or are willing to brave the instance hopping to fight Tacoman (he's at the Champions Building, 2 hour respawn), since I think the Takofanes Mantle might look better on The Reichsmarshall, I think it collects to the hood.

Also, truth in advertising:

Takofanes is somewhere beneath that lagging mass of heroes.

EDIT: Also, some more of my characters

Aztech, a tank/healer hybrid, only level 16.

Cenobite, who I just made. I wanted to make a character who has red as a primary color, and make use of the bat wing arm accessory.

 

[Jaesun]

I instantly thought of Old Man Paco. :D

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Care to give a Queer Eye For The Straight Superhero Guy answer Jaesun, and say who is the hottest of the ones posted in this thread?

 

[Jaesun]

The Aztec guy is pretty hot. The others, not so much.

I don't like superhero's though. Batman > Mutants/Aliens.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Note for future generations: Jaesun likes hard gay.

 

[SuicideBunny]

somebody update your jaesun.txt and use the info therein to blackmail jaesun into stopping moving rpg related topics out of grpgd.

 

[anus_pounder]

Did the level cap increase ? I thought I saw a villain level mook on Monster Island at level.41. The XP bar also says 900,000something till next level. Finally hit Lv.40, yeah.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Monster Island's Andrithal is a zone where enemies and missions are beyond level 40. It's always been like that. Originally the level cap was planned at being 50 you see, but that was scrapped (along with the Moon zone).

EDIT: Also, remember to max out both your Travel Powers ranks, and then learn to love your lv 40 power, Reaper's Embrace. It's the power your Bleeding stacks were building towards, as it causes Bleed stacks to rupture, making it a massive damage spike power when prepared.

And as advice for your stat build, you'll want both your Super-Stats to be at least 250. Other than that, you'll want to have Endurance and Recovery to an amount that satisfies you, but most importantly you want a lot of Ego. You see, Dexterity and Ego are essentially twins, you need both because they both influence critical hits (Dex gives the chance, Ego gives the damage).

 

[anus_pounder]

Oh. Too bad about that moon zone. I would've loved being a superhero IN SPACE. Anyway, normally I would ask if you're up for some co-op, but not only do I not know what stuff there is to do at lv.40, I'm going to create a soldier and take advantage of this 2x XP.

 

[Jaesun]

somebody update your jaesun.txt and use the info therein to blackmail jaesun into stopping moving rpg related topics out of grpgd.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

The second one of the two new zones planned for release in the future is planned to be the Moon zone, the first one being some kind of city (community is wagering in it being set in China or Japan).

EDIT: Also anus, I recommend using Citizen Soldier as a name for the character.

 

[anus_pounder]

Citizen Soldier ?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I stole it. It's the name of a Captain America expy in StormWatch: Team Achilles (same place where I got Magneteer, but that name was only mentioned once in the comic, though with Magneteer I actually tried to create a version of the character based on the little data there was).

 

[anus_pounder]

Hmmm...Its a nice name, I admit. But I don't have a character concept to go with it.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Well, because of the Targeting Computer passive, you could make some ex-mercenary or something who got an advanced battle-computer implanted across his nervous system.



EDIT: ATTN bros. Everything but the new Halloween stuff is 20% off in C-Store. If you intend to ever use it, now's one of those good times to do so.

 

[anus_pounder]

Well. This is quite hard. I wanted to go for a sort of rebellion look. A rebel trooper with dusty cape (don't like the trench-coat), face wrap, head set, baggy pants etc.. just like a character in a hollywood movie or F/TPS shooter. I ended up with a boring generic gal in cape, tanktop and kevlar vest, just like a character in a hollywood movie or F/TPS Shooter.