"'City of Heroes' character 'Twixt' becomes game's most hated outcast courtesy of Loyola professor"

Bullshit. I know I'm a little late to the party on this one, so be it:


Dear Professor David Myers,

Hi. You don't know me. We play on different servers. As such, I had no feelings for you one way or the other. So, I immediately take issue with this article that portrays you as some sort of infamous celebrity in the world of CoX. You're not.

Having seen a few dozen videos on YouTube of you getting killed in Siren's Call and Recluse's Victory, I take issue with the article portraying you as a good PvPer. You're not. Also, the article neglects to mention that you also posted on the forums of this game, purposely stirring up ill will. We call that trolling, dear Professor. The act of intentionally upsetting people to cause a negative reaction.

I'm sorry that you became a social outcast on the Freedom server by TPing into Drones. We both know it was more than that, but that's not the issue here. Droning people isn't particularly skillful, but at the same time, it's entirely the fault of the people being Droned. With how large the zones are, you have to be fantastically close to the enemy's base to ever risk it happening, and decent players rarely fall victim to it. So, in my opinion, anyone you ever Droned had it coming, cause they were base hugging.

I've received plenty of nasty tells from other players in my time. Most of them while PvPing. I've never Droned another player. I've killed people within their own bases. I've hidden inside their hospitals and killed them when they respawned. I've hidden atop high ledges and swooped down on them without warning, killing them in mid-air. I've hounded Heroes and Villains alike within multiple zones and inside the Arena. I've stalked players that gathered launch codes or meteor shards, and robbed them of their hard won treasures just when they were sure they would reap the rewards of their efforts.

But I've never Droned.

I've even gone so far as to lure the "robotic firing squad" away from an enemy base, with the help of my SGs sniper unit, to leave an entire Villain base undefended, so that my group could swoop in an occupy the whole base, preventing any players from entering on that side. Safely at least.

So, when I read this article, about how you are universally hated and reviled, when the worst thing you've done is Drone some players, or break up some Fight Club in SC, it makes me want to laugh. You're not grieifing anyone. You never did anything that good or bad. The real crime here was the trash talk and mockery that you lent to this conflict, that the article neglects to mention.

I guess the crux of my issue is this: There is nothing inherently wrong with Droning. The Devs, from day 1, have established that nothing save from trapping someone within the geometry of a map is griefing. So, when you TP someone into a Police Drone or Arbiter Drone, you're not breaking any rules. Once someone tells you they have a problem with that action, the dynamic changes. If you TP someone, knowing it will upset them, you are 100% responsible for their reaction. I'm not justifying how they act, most of them sound like very immature people, but you still knowing act in such a manner to cause that reaction from them.

For instance, when in Warburg, I ganked many, MANY other Heroes. It was even the subject of discussion on the Justice forum (that's my server). People talked about whether it was right or wrong for me, roleplaying a biped Police Drone, to kill other Heroes. So, at that point, I changed how I addressed other Heroes in Warburg. I would still attack and kill any player I could, regardless of faction. However, if any Hero ever asked me to leave them be, I would after the first kill. I took responsibility for the consequences of my action, regardless of whether or not what I was doing was wrong. Why? Because that's how all adults should act, online or offline.

Also, I should point out that my SG, the Paragon PD, was the subject of much hate and griefing, simply by existing. We were a top 10 SG for several years, with hundreds of players. Our mere presence spawned rival SGs (Anti-Drones, Rouge Isles PD, etc), our players were subject to constant griefing and harassment, and some (including me) were even kicked from teams for being who we were. On more than one occasion, I've had whole zones of players turn against me just for my name and uniform. Feel free to read my blog, Professor David Myers. I've fought massive battles against both Heroes and Villains simultaneously, outnumbered as bad as 4 to 1.

And not because I intentionally upset players as part of a study on small group dynamics or how the anonymity of the internet emboldens people. Just because I was me.

So, I hope you book is a success. I hope it's more honest and truthful than that article.


-Police Drone TH, lvl 50 Assault Rifle/Energy Manipulation/Munitions Mastery Blaster, Justice Server, Circa Issue 3, proud owner of the 400 Rep PvP badge, and server FFA Arena Champion for 7 Issues.


PS- Zone PvP wasn't introduced until Fall of 2005 with the release of Issue 6: "Along Came a Spider", not Spring of 2004 like the article would have people believe. Issue 6 is also when City of Villains was released. PvP didn't exist until Spring of 2005, and that was limited to the Arenas. The social environment that fostered peaceful interaction between Heroes and Villains existed for a year and a half before zone PvP was a factor, and 90% of the Villains that were created with the advent of CoV were initially Heroes. Again, something the article failed to mention. Furthermore, from Fall of 2005 till Spring of 2006, the PvP zones were the only place where Heroes and Villains could meet face to face, making the only zone where social interaction was possible between the two factions. Pocket D, Cimerora, and the Rikti War Zone didn't exist at that point.

Level Cap=/=Fun Cap

I don't play World of Warcraft, for many reasons. Almost all of them are personal preference; as much as I don't like WoW, I can't say that it's bad. Far too often, people mistake their own opinion as fact, and I want to go ahead and put that out there before I go on.

Now, there is one thing that Blizzard has done, that I hate, and it's the repeated increase of the level cap in WoW. Also, by proxy, how this practice has lead to droves of people carrying over a faulty logic to other MMOs that, in increasing the level cap, one can make a game more fun.

Firstly, why I dislike increasing the level cap in an established, persistent online game. It tends to invalidate the work and effort of a player. If I've spent the last two months raiding with my guild, to complete my Tier # armor, I'd feel pretty shitty when the developer of the game decides that everything my character owns (and that I thought was good) is now worthless junk, because there are ten more levels for me to grind out, and each one has gear more powerful than the last.

Now, increasing the level cap certainly isn't bad for newer players, or ones who haven't dedicated depressingly large amounts of time to pimping out a character. It sucks for the hardcore players. Of course, they are also hardcore enough to suck it up and grind out those ten new levels, and work up to the newest Tier of gear. I sit somewhere in between casual and hardcore, where I care enough and play just enough to be well equipped, but I haven't religiously cleared the same instance dozens of times to earn a particular set of gear (this doesn't exactly translate into CoH and GW, but close enough).

This brings me to the crux of my rant; I'm tired of hearing people suggest upping the level cap as the best way to make a game better. Wrong, bad, fail. Firstly, not all games revolve around high level play. Secondly, not all games have an endgame the involves endless grinding for loot. For example, City of Heroes is more about the (admittedly downplayed) story of a world recovering from a massive invasion, and your role as a fledgling hero trying to save it. You start as a scrub fighting riots and taking down low level drug dealers, to traveling between dimensions, defeating evil super-powered despots and liberating entire worlds from tyranny. The scope of such an evolution is hard to appreciate if you blast past low level play to get to high levels, and it's completely lost when you replace one plateau of power with another one.

Guild Wars is another great example. While Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall vary greatly in their PvE application, it's undeniable that the endgame in Guild Wars is PvP. Lots of PvP. Coordinated, uncoordinated, pro, scrub, hardcore, softcore PvP. Wanna do small scale? Arena. Large scale? Alliance Battle. Ultra cut-throat internationally competitive? Guild vs Guild or Hall of Heroes. Increasing the level cap offers absolutely no benefit here.

What can make a game better? What can extend it's life? Additional content, not at the expense of the effort players have already invested in the game. City of Heroes publishes a new issue of the game every three to four months, adding more content each time (including but not limited to: New Powers, New ATs, Inventions, New Zones, Power Customization, New Villain Groups, etc). Guild Wars released an expansion meant almost exclusively for max level players. Additionally, they added (early on) the ability to play all the low level areas as elite lvl 20+ zones.

Issue 16: Power Spectrum

Powers Customization:

Hundreds of powers have been updated to allow new color selections and customization. Players can now pick new Themes for each powerset, adjusting colors, appearance, and even animations for some sets.

Key Features:

• Thousands of Tintable particle and geometry effects for powers, such as Energy Blasts and Stone Mallet colors.
• Customizable Primary and Secondary colors for powersets, with color choices themed to match the selected powerset.
• Powerset Themes selectable for a complete set, or individual powers.
• Powerset Themes selectable at character creation, as well as in the tailor screens.
• Independant Theme selection for each character costume.

New Theme selections:
New Themes of Spines and Thorny Assault available, including themes of Thorns, Metal Spines, Crystal Spines, and Slate Spines. New Animation Themes for Super Strength and Martial Arts.Huge variety of customizable powersets, including Cold Domination, Dark Armor, Dark Blast, Dark Melee, Dark Miasma, Devices, Earth Control, Earth Melee, Electric Armor, Electric Assault, Electric Blast, Electric Melee, Electricity Manipulation, Empathy, Energy Assault, Energy Aura, Energy Blast, Energy Manipulation, Energy Melee, Fiery Aura, Fire Assault, Fire Blast, Fire Control, Fire Manipulation, Fire Melee, Force Field, Gravity Control, Ice Armor, Ice Assault, Ice Blast, Ice Control, Ice Manipulation, Ice Melee, Illusion, Invulnerability, Kinetics, Mental Manipulation, Mind Control, Necromancy, Plant Control, Psionic Assault, Psychic Blast, Radiation Blast, Radiation Emission, Regeneration, Sonic Resonance, Sonic Blast, Spines, Stone Armor, Storm Summoning, Super Reflexes, Thermal Radiation, Thorny Assault, Traps, and Willpower.
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New Character Creator:

* The Character creator and Tailor screen have been updated to be easier to use and even preview the animation and color choices for powers!

Key features:

• Tabbed Character Creator: Jump between Archetype, Power Sets, Costumes, and Character ID in any order without losing progress.
• New Powers Customization screen, for adjusting powers and previewing animations.
• Select colors and themes for each individual power, or apply it to the entire power set!
• Preview live animations of all powers, showing the selected Theme and color choices.
• Save and Load Theme settings for each powerset, saving colors and selections for all powers.

Costume slots: Your active costume slot is stored when you log off will be the costume slot used when you log back in. It will also display that costume in the character selection screen. _______________________________________________

Powerset Proliferation:
More power sets are now in the hands of Archetypes who couldn’t use them previously!

• Archetype - Blasters * Radiation Blast
• Archetype - Brutes * Claws
• Archetype - Controllers * Cold Domination
• Archetype - Corruptors * Archery * Trick Arrow
• Archetype - Defenders * Assault Rifle * Traps
• Archetype - Dominators * Earth Assault
• Archetype -Masterminds * Thermal Radiation
• Archetype -Scrappers * Electric Melee * Electric Armor
• Archetype -Tankers * Electric Melee * Electric Armor
• Archetype -Stalkers * Broadsword

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Enhanced Difficulty Options:
The old notoriety system has been removed and replaced with a new difficulty system of independent settings. You can now fine-tune the difficulty levels of the missions you play by telling the game exactly how you want to be treated:

* Choose to fight monsters between a -1 to +4 level difference from the player's level.
* Choose to set your personal team size (1-8).
* Choose if you want bosses to scale down to Lieutenants when soloing or not
* Choose to have AVs scale down to EBs.

The difficulty settings of the mission owner dictate how the mission is handled. Actual team size overrides any difficulty setting, so you will always get Arch-Villains if the team has 6 or more members. The difficulty setting is per task, so personal team member sizes do not add together. You can change your difficulty settings at any Hero Corp.’s Representative in Paragon City or Fateweaver in the Rogue Isles.

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Sidekicking Changes: Super-Sidekicking! One player can now sidekick or exemplar the whole team, everyone can always play together!

• Each player in the group's level is set to the level of the owner of the active team task. If no team task is selected, everyone in the group's level will be set to the level of the team leader.
• When the team level changes, players will be notified via a dialog and have the option to quit the team or immediately accept. The dialog will time out after 30 seconds at which point acceptance is implied.
• While in the pending state, players cannot receive rewards and any critters they damage will be worth no experience.
• Players can choose to auto-accept team level changes 0 to 50 levels above or below their current level.
• Exemplars will now earn XP and a level capped person will get XP converted into influence like exemplars used to.

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New Badges: Last issue we announced our future plans and design direction for new badges. Here’s a list of the new badges that can be obtained in Issue 16:

• Master of Reichsman Strike Force
• Master of Reichsman Task Force
• Master of Imperious Task Force

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Epic/Patron Powers Pools:

The balance between the Epic/Patron power pools has been revisited. Now all Epic power pools have 5 powers to choose from.

• Force Mastery (Blaster) Existing Powers * Personal Force Field * Repulsion Field * Temporary Invulnerability * Force of Nature New Powers * Repulsion Bomb - Ranged (Targeted AoE), Moderate Damage(Smash/Energy), Foe Knockdown
• Flame Mastery (Blaster) Existing Powers * Bonfire * Char * Fire Shield * Rise of the Phoenix New Powers * Melt Armor - Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe -Res, -Def
• Fire Mastery (Controller) Existing Powers * Fire Blast * Fire Ball * Fire Shield * Consume New Powers * Rise of the phoenix - Self Rez, Special
• Psionic Mastery (Controller) Existing Powers * Mental Blast * Indomitable Will * Mind Over Body * Psionic Tornado New Powers * World of Confusion - PBAoE, Minor DoT(Psionic), Foe Confuse
• Dark Mastery (Defender) Existing Powers * Oppressive Gloom * Dark Consumption * Dark Embrace * Soul Drain New Powers * Soul Transfer - Self Rez, Special
• Power Mastery (Defender) Existing Powers * Conserve Power * Power Build Up * Temp Invulnerability * Total Focus New Powers * Force of Nature - +Res(All but Psionics)
• Blaze Mastery (Scrapper) NEW Existing Powers * None New Powers * Ring of Fire - Ranged, Moderate DoT(Fire), Foe Immobilize * Char - Ranged, Minor DoT(Fire), Foe Hold * Fire Blast - Ranged, Moderate DMG(Fire) * Melt Armor - Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe -Res, -DEF * Fire Ball - Ranged (Targeted AoE), Moderate DMG(Fire/Smash)
• Body Mastery (Scrapper) Existing Powers * Conserve Power * Focused Accuracy * Laser Beam Eyes * Energy Torrent New Powers * Physical Perfection - Auto, +Regen, +Recovery (50% of the values offered by Stamina and Health)
• Darkness Mastery (Scrapper) Existing Powers * Torrent * Petrifying Gaze * Dark Blast * Tenebrous Tentacles New Powers * Nightfall - Ranged (Cone), Moderate DMG(Negative), Foe –To Hit.
• Energy Mastery (Tanker) Existing Powers * Conserve Power * Focused Accuracy * Laser Beam Eyes * Energy Torrent New Powers * Physical Perfection - Auto, +Regen, +Recovery (50% of the values offered by Stamina and Health.
• Soul Mastery (VEAT) Existing Powers * Gloom * Soul Tentacles * Darkest Night * Dark Obliteration * Summon Widow New Powers * Darkest Night - Toggle: Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe -DMG -To Hit
• Leviathan Mastery (VEAT) Existing Powers * Spirit Shark * School of Sharks * Bile Spray * Summon Guardian New Powers * Arctic Breath - Ranged (Cone), Minor DoT(Cold), Foe -Speed, -Recharge, -DEF -Res, knock down
• Mace Mastery (VEAT) Existing Powers * Mace Blast * Web Envelop * Disruptor Blast * Summon Blaster New Powers * Shatter Armor – Melee, Superior DMG(Smash), Foe –Res
• Mu Mastery (VEAT) Existing Powers * Mu Lightning * Electrifying Fences * Ball Lightning * Summon Striker New Powers * Static Discharge - Ranged (Cone), Moderate DMG(Energy), -END Mu Mastery (Brute) Existing Powers * Mu Lightning * Electrifying Fences * Ball Lightning * Summon Striker New Powers * Static Discharge - Ranged (Cone), Moderate DMG(Energy), -END

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Mission Architect:
Check out the improvements made to the Mission Architect:
Custom Critter XP Scaling

• Custom Critters with Custom powers now reward XP proportional to the number of powers added to the critter.
• Critters with no powers are allowed, but they are worth no XP.
• Standard and hard critters are worth less than extreme critters.

Mission Browser Improvements

• Author Hyperlink: Author names are now hyperlinked and will underline on mouseover. Clicking on the name of the author in the Mission Browser will do a search for all the other arcs that author has also published. Clicking it will search for arcs by that author only

Mission Creation Improvements

• Runaway Boss Dialog: The boss now has dialog when he runs away.
• Health Dialog on Allies: Allies and Escorts can be set to say things as they lose health.
• Betrayal Options: Allies and Escorts can now be set to betray on any normal objective. They can also say something when they betray.
• Drag & Drop Mission Goals: Goals in Architect missions can now be dragged and dropped to change their order.
• Objective Counts: A count is listed on each detail creation button of the number of details that can still be placed.

Custom Villain Groups

• If a player has all three basic critter types in their CVG, they will receive full rewards for the mission. If one critter type is missing they will receive 50% rewards. If two critter types are missing they will receive 25% rewards, and if none of the core critter types are in the CVG, there are no rewards. o This applies only to critters auto-spawned by the mission, not specific bosses called for by objectives XP Curve Adjustment

To go along with our new changes to sidekicking and exemplaring, we've made some adjustments to the experience awarded from minions, lieutenants and bosses in the level 5 to 24 range. In short these enemies are on average receiving a 20% experience and influence increase. This will slightly speed up the pace at which heroes and villains advance through the 5 to 24 range

Battle Suit Justice Burailion

An insane anime mecha, Burailion has almost no IOs slotted up, but is still one of my favorite characters. I went Invulnerability/Energy Melee because I wanted him to be a PvP character, but interest in him PvPing gave way to mild RPing with him.

This isn't his original outfit, but it's my current favorite (mainly because most of the pieces didn't exist when I stopped playing). It's a combination of Cyborg (arms, legs, shoulders, belt, hat, face plate, and chest plate), Enforcer (gauntlets, chin piece), and Techbot pieces (torso and head), with Piston Boots tossed in for good measure.

I'll be adding some binds and macros to him later, fleshing out the whole deluded crazy robot angle. Such catchphrases to be added:

• "Burning finger!"
• "Battle Suit Justice beatdown!"
• "I've seen this episode; it's the one where I kick your ass!"
• "Last time on Battle Suit Justice Burailion: I was awesome!"
• "Battle Suit Justice Burailion has high insurance premiums."
• "You are a fly in the soup of justice!"

That last one seems more in the vein of what the Tick would scream out, but you get the idea.

Crossfire: Ghetto Counter Strike, or something better?

A couple of my guildies introduced me to an online FPS called Crossfire. It's currently in open beta, and free-to-play. I downloaded and played it for a few weeks, and I'm both impressed and underwhelmed with the game.

Firstly, let me prove that I've played it enough to voice an opinion. I have a KDR of 2.15, average 20 kills a game over 222 matches, and just over a third of my kills were headshots. Frankly, I don't count honor for much, but for what it's worth, mine is good. Had I not wasted so much time in "Ghost" matches (explained below), my KDR would be much more impressive. Unfortunately, Ghost mode is the favored match type of one of the guildies who got me into this (meaning I got talked into playing it, a lot). Moving on.

Pros

• Persistent Stat Tracking
  
• Persistent Character Inventory
• Functional In-Game Clans
  
• Multiple Games Modes
  

Cons

• Weak Graphics
  
• Poor Hit Detection
  
• Poor Weapon Balance
  
• Hyper-Inflated Weapon Prices/Minimal Money & XP Rewards
  

I want to like Crossfire. I really do. I enjoy that it takes the CS formula and tries to build on it. While it doesn't have the CS equivalent of Hostage Rescue (which I think everyone is thankful for), it has Search & Destroy (bomb map), Team Deathmatch, Elimination, and Ghost Mode. Team Deathmatch and Elimination both play out mostly the same; each team tries to kill as many opponents as possible, the only difference being, one has rounds (Elimination), while the other has players constantly respawning. Ghost Mode has much potential, as it's a bombing variant where all the Black List players (Terrorists) are armed only armed with knives. However, they are completely invisible when motionless, and almost invisible when moving (It's quite nerve wracking to play as Global Risk [Counter-Terrorist] in that game-mode). It also offers a much wider array of weapons to the playerbase, without restricting players from owning certain firearms based on which team they are on (In CS, CTs get M4s, while Ts get AK-47s). Also, the idea of having a persistent character inventory is novel, especially for this type of game. I like being able to pick what weapons I'm going to fight with each game, and be able to start with them (as opposed to CS, where I have to earn money to buy them, and I lose them if I die). In the same way, I like the ease with which I can find and view my own and other players persistent stats. Rather than assuming a player is good because he is a higher rank than me, I can look at this profile and find things like his KDR, number of headshots scored, number of knife kills, and how often he leaves a match before it's finished (the last one is tracked as a players "Honor").

However, in as many ways as Crossfire impresses me, I'm very disappointed with it. Firstly, I've been fed up with one-hit kill sniper rifles since CS 1.6 (I hate the AWP, and will only play on servers where it's banned, if I can help it). No amount of arguing or debating will convince me that having such a weapon in a game makes it better. It doesn't. Allowing players to forgo accuracy with a sniper rifle by virtue of sheer firepower cheapens the game. Maybe if the sniping mechanics made zooming in a greater risk (drifting crosshairs, more severe movement penalties, etc), I'd be ok with it, but as is, it's merely a way for poor players to beat better ones, purely on the basis of who's using what gun. Since players have persistent weapon inventories, you really can't prevent someone from joining a game and using one (you can votekick them, but that's a horribly un-reliable function).

Also, there are vast amounts of server-side lag. I've died hundreds of times by foes, who on my screen, are on the other side of a wall or corner. In reality, they killed me before I hit cover, but the server doesn't process fast enough to display that on my screen. Instead, I get pasted after I'm out of view (on my monitor). This also affects aiming, in a small way, because every so often, an enemy is displayed as being a few in-game feet away from where he is actually located in game. Accuracy is further fouled by firing from a crouched position. Certain weapons have more kick than others, and thusly cause your character to recoil more. Rather than simply have this affect accuracy, the devs made it so it physically makes your character recoil, affecting his body placement. Translation: if you're using an SG-552 or an AUG A1, and fire while zoomed in and crouching, the hitbox for your head will rapidly move up and down, making it very, very hard to score a headshot on you. Quite lame.

Money and XP rewards aren't based as much on kills or performance as they are on time spent in a map. A player with a KDR less than 1 can earn far more than a player with dozens of kills and no deaths, provided the first player has been in the map long enough. Giving people extra XP for things like most damage dealt, most kills scored, and last kill, is nice however. But, it doesn't make it for the majority of matches where a decent player gets dicked over by a poor rewards system.

And then there are ignorant quirks about the game, like a target hit in mid-air ceases moving forward, the just drop. I've died far too many times while leaping for cover, just to get tagged once, drop, then get lit up in the .5 seconds I'm perfectly still. Maybe this is another defect due to server-side lag, but it's still completely lame.

The game is still in beta, but progress made here will carry over to the live version of the game. So if, down the line, I decide to go back to it, I can, while retaining everything I've earned. I appreciate that. However, if things stay more or less like they are now, I'll be content staying with the five years young Counter Strike: Source.

Guild Wars Update: March 5th

Some changes came down the pipe today, and frankly, ANet hates Rangers. Taken directly from the Developers Updates page:

Read the Wind (PvP Only): functionality changed to: "For 24 seconds, your arrows move twice as fast."

Flail: decreased duration to 1..15 seconds.

Rangers had been outshining spellcasters at dealing damage and could do so while being much more resistant to pressure damage. This made them ideal for spike builds. By removing the damage bonus on Read the Wind, we're cutting the damage they do with each attack, and by dropping the minimum duration on Flail we've made it harder for them to get an attack speed boost without any real drawbacks or costs. (Rangers can't put points into the Strength attribute, so they can never increase the duration on Flail. Warriors who use this skill should be unaffected by this change.)

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Ok, saying that they "hate" Rangers in an embellishment to say the least. However, this is the second time they've nerfed key skills in Ranger spike builds (in recent memory). Skills like Sundering Attack and Experts Dexterity have already been nerfed to the point of near uselessness in PvP (they still retain their PvE shine, in all fairness). However, it's kinda obvious what the meta will shift to now (Favorable Winds anyone?).

There is one change that makes me happy:

Disciplined Stance: decreased duration to 1..4 seconds; decreased armor gain to +10.

Defensive Stance: decreased duration to 1..5 seconds; decreased armor gain to +10.

Soldier's Defense: decreased duration to 1..5.

Shield Stance: decreased duration to 1..6.

These stances were originally balanced with 8v8 combat in mind. In 4v4 play, where there are fewer attackers and enemies cannot have as wide a range of utility skills on their team, Monks using these stances have become a problem. We've lowered the durations and armor bonuses to help 4v4 teams fight through these defenses.

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I hate stanced Monks. Nothing pisses me off more than a Monk who uses Disciplined Stance and Shield Bash to fuck up melee spikes (granted, while I was pissed, I always conceeded it was legit, since they sacrificed team support for self protection). Granted, my plans to start playing PvP Monks have now been backburnered, but playing Saru just got more fun.

Oh, and finally, a handful of skills that just got buffed:

Shadow Refuge: increased duration to 6 seconds.

Ether Feast: increased Health per Energy drained to 20..65.

Aura of Restoration: decreased Energy cost to 5; increased recharge to 12. Functionality changed to: "For 60 seconds, you gain 0..1 Energy and are healed for 200..500% of the Energy cost each time you cast a spell."

Healing Signet: increased Healing to 82..172.

To split effectively, characters typically need more self-sufficiency than they do when fighting in a big group. With that in mind, we've made a selection of self-healing skills more powerful.

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Interesting, I might stop running dual-attunement now, since Aura of Restoration now gives a smidge of energy back (we'll see). Also, a whole new reason to run Tactics again, Healing Signet is now a healing nuke. Protector's Stance+Healing Signet=ftw?

Dual Attunement Air Spike: Bringing the Thunder

I've tried to think of some catchy names to attach to this build. 'Da Hammah', 'Air Hammer', 'Thunder-Fucked', stuff like that. But frankly, names don't matter when it comes to how well something works.

I don't play casters, it's not my schtick. However, I rolled up a PvP Elementalist (codename: Cripslashin Kittens), and took it to Jade Quarry. I'd actually never played in JQ, but one of my guildies wouldn't shut up about it, so I decided to join him. Not having many Elementalist elites, I went and capped Elemental Attunement, and threw together a generic air spike build:

• Lightning Javelin
• Shell Shock
• Lightning Orb
• Lightning Hammer
• Glyph of Elemental Power
• Elemental Attunement
• Air Attunement
• Aura of Restoration

It works great. It fell out of meta with the increase of enchantment stripping (Rend/Rip Enchantment being high up on that list), however, in JQ, most necros are fond of running Weaken Knees builds, to target NPC carriers. So, for purposes of RA, AB, JQ, or AW, this build is perfectly viable. It hits for 160+ dmg consistently, and never runs out of energy, provided you maintain both attunements. But, I still didn't feel like the build was doing as much damage as I wanted, so I opted to go Ele/Me, and run Arcane Echo:

• Shell Shock
• Lightning Orb
• Lightning Hammer
• Arcane Echo
• Glyph of Elemental Power
• Elemental Attunement
• Air Attunement
• Aura of Restoration

This was fun too. Echoing Lightning Hammer makes for some insane DPS. Either build is capable of taking out a carrier turtle in 6 seconds or so, making it a tad faster than Necro/Assassins running Weaken Knees and Shameful Fear. However, running an echo build in the middle of a frantic PvP scenario is annoying to say the least. As much as I liked it, I ended up echoing the wrong skills on more than one occasion. Regardless, I was looking for a bigger and more effective spike. So, I added Energy Blast, which worked well, especially since it's armor ignoring damage. The downside is that I regain no energy casting it, and it doesn't benefit from Glyph of Elemental Power.

But that doesn't matter. The build does a sickening amount of damage, and most of the spells don't require line of sight to use. This allows me to attack relatively unseen, a tactic I've been fond of ever since my days with an AR/Dev in CoH.

Non-Consensual PvP: Intro to World/Zone PvP

Non-consensual PvP can ruin a game for some people. While I'm an avid PvPer, and I support a players right to attack another without permission or provocation, I acknowledge how my actions can impact my opponent (or victim). My old roommate John refused to play games online for this very reason. Quite blunty, he told me that he didn't want to deal with other players that would try to force him into a PvP engagement. Despite my trying to convince him that there were easy ways to avoid such a fate, or to prevent it entirely, he merely responded that he shouldn't have to alter his behavior to avoid being targeted by "douches".

One of the most common arguments I heard against this type of PvP (or, simply against people attacking others without warning), was the analogy of dodgeball. You shouldn't be allowed to force someone to play dodgeball with you; it needs to be their choice. Honestly, I see merit in this argument. It's not fun to get killed. It's not fun to get killed by another player. It's even less fun getting your ass kicked by another player when you had no idea it was coming, or intention of fighting back. I am aware of these things, and I understand.

I'll still probably kill you.

And it's not cause I want to be a bully, or because I giggle to myself as I gank you. Firstly, there is usually a tactile reward for winning. Faction, renown, honor, gold. If an NPC asked you not to farm him, would you listen? To those who would listen, I applaud your compassion, but suggest you leave the warzone. Secondly, I don't know that you aren't a threat until one of two things happens:

1. You leave the area.
2. I leave the area.

Remember when I said it's not fun getting killed? PvPers don't like getting killed either, that's a big part of why we are so hard up to kill you first. Nothing is as harmless as a corpse.

However, a distinction arises here. World PvP=/=Zone PvP. They are similar but hardly the same. World PvP can, in some instances, mean that nowhere is safe. Danger of PvP can be around any corner, and everyone could be spoiling for a fight. In this situation, the "dodgeball" analogy holds water. The PvEer can't help to cross paths with the PvPer sometimes, and only one will walk away from that encounter (guess who).

But then there is Zone PvP. Imagine a place 100 times the size of Warsong Gulch, or Grenz Frontier. A place where there are plenty of places to hide, plenty of hidden treasures to earn, and a place where you are meant to fight other players. If you're here, you're meat. Period. In this place, the counter analogy is "Why are you on the court if you don't want to play?", and you'll get held to it. Cries of "Why does my gameplay experience have to suffer to benefit yours?" gets thrown back and forth between players on both sides.

My policy is to shoot first, ask questions later. But please believe, I will ask afterward, and I will listen to your answer. If I find you're not here to fight, I probably won't bother you again. But I will not let you pass untouched, on the premise or chance that PvP might not be your schickt. I will kill you. I will remind you of why this place is dangerous, why you need to be prepared, and why you need to tread lightly. I'm sorry if your gear is expensive to repair, I'm sorry if you respawn miles away from here, I'm sorry if I fuck up your quest.

You should have been more careful. PvP is srs bizness.

Guild Life

Well, it's been a crazy week.

I've been made an officer of my guild. Since it's full to capacity, I'm not required to recruit, but they expect officers to organize and help with events without being directed to do so. So far, I've raised interested in structured PvP, and have helped host a few 8v8 matches within the alliance. They've been fun, and I'm impressed with the overall skill level, despite their lack of experience.

Our home map is Burning Isle, which is a bitch to navigate, but it makes for some interesting matches. I'll probably suggest we host the next set of matches at a "friendlier" guild hall.

Hopefully, I'll be able to lead a GvG team to victory before the end of spring. I doubt it will take that long, but my schedule in real life makes it hard to coordinate events on a regular basis.

Guildmates, love 'em or hate 'em

Recently, I left my guild.

There was no conflict, there was no bitterness; I just needed a guild with active players. I was an officer in a guild founded and run by my sisters-in-law, whom I have nothing but good things to say about. Other than they're inactive as fuck (sorry guys).

However, joining a new guild is like finding a new job. The first rule is don't quit your current one till you find a new one. So, I went guild hunting. There are many ways to do this. Look on the forums for your respective MMO to see who's recruiting. Some MMOs, like WoW, have sites entirely dedicated to people looking for guilds. A more laid back approach is to seek out guilds in game, either by soliciting yourself (r5 Warrior Looking For Guild!) or looking for people who are actively recruiting (Wicked Tough Fighters [WTF] is now recruiting! PvP/PvE/AB/HM/Vanq/Kurz/1.5 mil fac, pst!).

I took the latter approach.

However, when I look for a guild, I have more questions for the recruiter than they do for me. How big is your guild? How big is your alliance? Do you PvP? What kind of PvP? Does your GvG team have spots open, or do you have multiple GvG teams? Do you run dungeons? Do you vanquish? Do you use voice chat? Do you have a website? How active are you? What's your officer to member ratio? (That last one is a biggie, imo)

So, after some searching, I found a Kurzick guild that was recruiting. After finding out there were almost no requirements to join, other than not being a tool, I hit the guy with my list of questions. Most were answered to my satisfaction, but I had one last demand: Lemme see your cape. Capes are make or break. I much prefer tabards ala WoW, but capes are neat in their own way. However, they can be gaudy and ostentatious, so as a result I end up being picky about them. The cape wasn't all that, but the recruiter struck me being a solid guy. So, I went ahead and joined up.

It's been a while since I logged on to an active Ventrillo server. And I can't remember why I missed it. People talking over each other, feedback, audio loops, and my mic shutting off every 15 minutes. But I still missed it.

Anyways, as complicated as joining a guild may or may not be, actually integrating into one is a different story. There are two types of guild mates; the ones that treat you like family simply because you're guildies, and the ones who treat like a stranger who isn't welcome in their house. All the people I met fell into the first category. Score.

Even better still, my new guild is the head of the alliance, meaning my guild leader is also alliance leader. Double Score. We ended up teaming right after I joined. He started out treating me like any other noob, which I didn't mind really. I provoked this by admitting I didn't have any good ranger builds for my NPC hero. As a result, he ended up explaining a lot of things I already knew, but in a way that I didn't care or feel like I was being talked down too.

Sarutobi is doing the Asuran quests in EotN, which from what I hear, are the most annoying of the three racial factions. My GL agreed with this sentiment, and showed me a different route to take to get to Gadd's Encampment, entirely avoiding the Shards of Orr. After we reached our destination, he stayed on to help with the quest, Finding Gadd. Is so doing, we ended up fighting a lot of dinosaurs. On the way to Gadd's Encampment, he gave me a rundown on the different dinosaurs:

GL: "Raptors are assassins, which makes them nasty, but manageable, don't get mobbed. Angorodons are necros with nasty degen and lifesteal, be careful. Tyrannuses are warriors, and hit hard as hell. Triceratops... Just don't fuck with them, they're bad news."

So, after completing most of the first quest, we come upon a trio of Ceratadons, milling around. I suggest we attack, and while the GL mulls over it, I blitz them. He runs in after me, and we end up almost wiping after killing two of the three (it was just us and six heroes). While we rez the fallen...:

GL: "Who's bright idea was it to attack?"
Me: "Yours."
GL: "Um, no?"
Me: "Uh, yeah? You were totally like 'I've seen Jurassic Park! These guys ain't shit! All they do is get sick and die! Let's take these bastiches!' and I was all like, 'Uh, ok' and them you died."

The GL ended up laughing his ass off, and tells me that I'll fit in just fine with his guild.

The good news didn't end there. The next day, I ended up scrimmaging with a guildie who shared my same affinity for FoW farming. After a few battles, I looked in the vent channel to find out five other had joined us in the Fow Farming (solo) channel, and realized that all five were in the same GH as us, deciding who as going to fight who with what build. I'm glad to see so many players chomping at the bit for PvP, and I'm really looking forward to helping in the organization of a GvG team or two.

Guild Wars PvP: the Z-Axis Advantage

When I hear people talk about Guild Wars, the first complaint I hear is how Guild Wars lacks Z-axis movement: you can't jump. The game is 3d, there are plenty of stairs, ramps, mountains, valleys, gulches, ditches to navigate, but you can't so much as vault a fence. You can jump in WoW, which is handy when exploiting NPC behaviors, or trying to out-maneuver another player in melee. You can jump, fly and teleport in CoH, which for the longest time contributed to fast paced PvP. But there's no jumping in GW.


That doesn't mean it can't be used to your advantage in PvP.


Not only does Guild Wars lack an accessible Z-axis, it completely fails to recognize it for purposes of spell and attack range. If an enemy is a relative 100 ft above you, but within the maximum range or you attack or spell horizontally, it can still be executed.

But what's really different is how this affects melee in PvP. If I stand under a bridge, and an opponent stands directly above me on said bridge, we can attack each other in melee.

How is this an advantage?

Imagine that you're under the bridge, and don't have time to get up there to stall enemy advance during an AB (they're travelling from the West Equipment Shrine to the Northwest Resurrection Shrine). A warrior can instead stand under the bridge and attack foes who are passing above (which gives warriors with Bull's Strike, Enraged Smash, or Crippling Slash a great chance to shut down an attack).


I've used this on many occasions to score kills on targets oblivious to my presence.

Also, remember that elevation increases range. Combine the two together, and this allows Rangers and Paragons on high elevation to not only exceed their horizontal range, but ignore any Z-axis impact on range (a great example is firing from the walls of a base on the Ancestral Lands or Kaanai Canyon maps).

Double Faction AB Weekend, results

I went ahead and condensed my weekend updates into one nice summary post.

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Day One:

In my corner of the world, the AB weekend opened up strong with a total domination of the Luxons in Kaanai Canyon. Went on to win the next three matches by virtue of points, and lost the fourth in the same manner.

Kurzick 4, Luxon 1

However, I heard from others that the Kurzicks weren't doing so hot. But, if the battles are being held at Kaanai, that means we've been kicking enough ass to keep it there (of the five maps, Kaanai is the Luxon home map, meaning we've pushed them back as far as we can). The best part, this was at 3 AM EST, so plenty of people have come out of the woodwork to do battle this weekend. I'm so looking forward to this.

Day Two:

Logged in today to find the map had shifted to Etnaran Keys, which is considered "shallow luxon" territory. Fought the first match, won, and the map immediately shifted back to Kaanai Canyon ("deep luxon", as they call it). In the end, I only ended up winning 2 out of 5. Lack of coordination and bravery did the most damage to the kurzicks. Too many people won't attack unless someone else leads the charge, or they have a vast numbers advantage. I got very tired very fast with being the first one into battle, and the first one dead. There were many instances were even having a single ally would have won the skirmish.

Kurzick 6, Luxon 4

I ended up bringing out Reya, and it was worth it. Her range ended up being enough of a deterrent for most luxons that I kept a handful at bay at any given time, while liberally applying Burning Arrow+Poison Tip Signet. I only got to spend about an hour or so playing, as my employer called me up to inform me that I need to cover a four hour gap, leaving a mere 8 hours between the end of this shift and the beginning of my next one. Oh well, I'll be able to fight plenty tomorrow.

Day Three:

Sunday was horrible. The map had changed to Ancestral Lands (deep kurizck), and the wait times were obscene. After 20 minutes, finally got into an AB, which we won. After spending another 45 minutes in queue, decided that I'd rather shoot people, so I went and played some Counter Strike.

Kurzick 7, Luxon 4

All in all, this was a poor weekend, given how much I could have fought, versus how much I did. It didn't help that I was called into work on Saturday, my day off.

----------------------

I ended up earning around 55k in Kurzick faction this weekend, which translated into 110k faction for purposes of title tracking and my guilds ranking. Earned about 15k in Balthazar faction, which was spent (or wasted, based on what the Z-Chest dropped for me) on Z-Keys. Not bad, given that I wouldn't have earned nearly that much on a normal weekend, but I could have earned two to three times that much faction had I played for more than two hours a day this weekend.

Oh well, at least I have tomorrow off.

Double Faction AB weekend.

You better believe my ass will be planted for many hours.

I'll keep a tally and post results of the battles to come this weekend. Might be fun to track to shift of power as it happens. I'll be limiting myself to Saru only, and will stick with my hammer. In the event that Minion Mancers come to play, I'll go W/P and get my spear on.

See you there.

Warrior PvP

Warriors in Guild Wars are unique compared to most MMOs, in that they are the main damage dealers for high level, organized PvP.

In City of Heroes, the maxim for a long time was "lolmelee" (which has changed as of late), and in WoW, a pair of hunters usually means instagib. However, in Guild Wars, a single Warrior can require the attention of half the team to manage. Simply being a warrior isn't enough, you need the right build and playstyle to rock it as a PvP tank. But, there are still a number of advantages that come inherently to a warrior.

• Warriors have the best armor, and frequently use shields, so attacks against them to drastically less damage than they would against other professions. Because of this, a warrior tends to be targeted less, and will take less damage by virtue of simply being attacked less.


• Most people who PvE with warriors feel that they don't do good damage, when in reality, that perception is caused by high armor NPCs. Caster armor caps out at 60 AL, meaning you attacks will do double the damage they would do against another warrior.


• Warrior attack skills look weaker than Elementalist skills on paper, but actually do equal or greater damage in application. The damage from an attack skill is added to the damage dealt with the warriors weapon. If I hit you with a sword for 27, but then add +38 from Dragon Slash, that's 65 damage. Also, remember that warriors have inherent armor penetration when using attack skills, so it will do even more damage than the sum of base damage plus bonus damage. The main advantage of Elementalist spells can be found in their range, and the fact that many are area of effect.

Even with these advantages, a poorly built or played warrior will die and fail like anyone else, you'll just look stupider than others in so doing. A good warrior balances attack skills, utility, self preservation, and mobility. Take for example this warrior. The shock-axe warrior is one of the most iconic warrior builds to run, be it GvG, AB, HA, RA, TA or competitive missions. Variations of this build have been used for years, and it's rarely fallen out of favor in the PvP meta (and if it did, it never stayed out for long).

Depending on the environment, you can expect different levels of support. In GvG, HA, or TA, one can expect consistent and competent support from one or more monks. In this situation, a warrior can focus less on keeping himself alive, so long as he can trust his backline. However, in AB, RA, or competitive missions, one cannot usually control who your teammates are. In these situations, a warrior has to be able to keep themselves alive, and that means altering ones build. That can mean bringing along a self heal, including a block stance, or having a way to boost HP to counter a spike. A warrior that brings Lion's Comfort and Defy Pain, with a high Strength spec, will be very difficult to kill, especially 1v1. A warrior running Shield Bash can completely negate an enemy assassin's attack chain, saving himself from a nasty spike.

The most important part of being an effective warrior is target awareness. A battle can be won or lost based on who the warrior attacks, or doesn't attack. A well timed knock-lock can prevent the monk from saving an ally, prevent a rez, or snare a foe long enough for the team to attack en mass and kill it. A sword warrior running Crippling Slash can make a monks like hell by applying cripple, bleed, and deep wound to multiple targets, slowing an enemy teams advance or retreat. Sometimes, rather than going after casters and playing a game of monk stomp, you have to lineback and run interference against enemy warriors. It all depends on the situation, and the situation can change rapidly and often.

Rage, the great motivator

A long time ago, I had an encounter that affected how approach people, goals, and possessions in Guild Wars and other MMOs.

At the time, Sarutobi wasn't level 20 yet. I hadn't even reached Yak's Bend yet, much less capped any elites, tested out PvP, visited FoW, etc. The game was still very fresh for me, and all I owned of it was Prophecies (to be fair, at the time, that's all that existed).

I joined a team that was attempting the Nolani Academy mission, and on the team was a level 20 female warrior, who was helping a friend complete the mission. She was an arrogant bitch, who immediately took control of the team, and started ordering everyone around. However, the orders summed up to:

"Stay back, I'm fighting"

If we tried to help, if we got too close, or even if we ran in to try to pick up drops from fallen foes, she'd yell and scream, threatening to drop team and make us finish without her.

At several points during the mission, my teammates fawned over her, asking about her armor and gear. She blatantly refused to answer any questions about them, stringing them along, only telling them how expensive they had been, and thusly, how rich she was. I know now that she wore Obsidian Armor, and wielded a Flamberge (No clue what the shield was, the warrior pictured left isn't her).

Needless to say, she pissed me off. After shitting on us for 20 minutes or so, she left talking about how grateful we should all be, that she did us this amazing favor.

Because of this player, I've always made sure that if I can, I take the time to assist others. I try to be generous with my time and resources, and when possible, will give people better gear. I visit lower level areas on occasion and offer to run missions and quests with player, and give advice on character builds and playstyle if it will help. This is true of Guild Wars, and of City of Heroes back when I still subscribed.

I also wanted to prove how powerful and self sufficient I could make myself. I wanted everyone to know that I would work with them, not for them, that I would cooperate, not follow orders.

Most importantly, when I PvP, once in a while, I hope that the bitch from Nolani Academy, with the Obsidian Armor, I hope that she's there, as an opponent. And on this rare occasion, when I remember her when I fight, I hope that she's one of the people I bring my hammer down on, and that she recognizes me, with my retarded name, as I rip her apart and leave her broken before me. I hope she sees me when I start to play that violin ever so softly, after each win.

Of course, this wasn't the first time I'd felt such a burning desire for "revenge".

A long, long time ago, even before this, I used to play Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction. At the time, I was almost solely focused on PvP, especially lld (low level dueling). I ran a level 18 assassin named Solaki. I found a forum created for LLDing in D2, and I started to visit it, trying to pickup tricks and tips that would help me. I came across this thread (which I'm amazed that I found again so easily after all these years), where an open challenge was issued to all level 18 east coast duelists.

Being the idiot I am, I messaged the guy, and set up a meet for a duel. He beat me hardcore. He started talking mad shit, over and over again, pretty much insulting me every way a person could be. I later found out that he was hated by everyone who dueled in that bracket, and that no one respected him.

I almost stopped PvPing all-together after that fight. But I was too pissed to stay away. That's when I made Slice_O_Rama. I figured I wasn't cut out for the lld bracket, so I made a mid-level assassin, who I geared and built to be the best and most powerful at her level. I succeeded, and reveled in the glory of being called a hacker and causing countless level 80+ mages to rage-quit from matches against me.

But I wasn't like HackX. I didn't shit on the people I beat. I talked trash, but not to people who were just there to have fun. I fought for fun, not to bully others. I existed in a happy medium where I only fought those of higher level than me, where I sat in on duels, ready to cream anyone who dared interfere.

It's really weird, that anger motivated me to drastically different paths.

The PvP is weak in this one...

• Jumped on Guild Wars for the first time in a week or so and got trounced in an AB.
• Jumped on Counter Strike: Source for the first time in a week or so and ended up with a negative KDR.
• Declined to have an argument even though I knew I was empirically correct.
• Had a staring contest with an 8 year old and lost cause he kicked me in the shin.

Needless to say, things aren't going well for me right now.

My work schedule is doing me in. I don't dislike my job, and what I do, so much as how often I do it. I've been working 65 hour weeks lately, and it's wearing on me. Now, I don't mind a long work day. I worked 13 hours yesterday without complaint, other than the extra 3 hours shouldn't have been sprung on me the day of, I should have had prior notice. This week, even with all the extra hours that got tacked on (at least of them 10 of them) I only worked 58 hours, and next week is looking like a liesurely 45.

I need a full nights sleep, which isn't liable to happen anytime soon. I was planning on getting it tonight, but Leyna and I are getting up (relatively) early in order to meet someone about a litter of rat pups (I'm building a cage at the moment, and she wants to raise some rats from infancy, rather than buy an adult from a store).

Anyway, due to my inability to compete with the living, I've been playing a lot of of console games in place of my PvP fix. Metroid Prime 3, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, Shining Force Neo, all pretty good games. Shining Force Neo is pretty much 3d Diablo, with how gameplay, loot, and avatar are handled. Voice acting is pure shit. I mean really, I thought that Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders (also a good game) had the worst voice acting of any console game, but I was dead wrong. Even worse than the fact that the voice acting is bad, it's pervasive and they won't shut up. Every time dialouge starts, you have to slog through at least 5 minutes of it. Even worse, every character you've recruited thus far, even ones not currently in your party, contributes. I fear building my party, and shudder to see what 11 characters worth of dialougee will be like.

But Disgaea, still one of my favorite games. It's a tactical RPG. Rather than facing off with randomly spawned monsters, taking turns whacking each other as both you and the enemy simply stand there waiting for the other to act, a tactical RPG is played out on a grid of sorts. While still turn based, you have the ability to move units around the battle field, as you try to out manuver your opponent and gain the edge on them. Think chess with Final Fantasy characters. Because of it's free moving nature, team size isn't limited to 3 characters in Disgaea. You can field up to 10 units per battle, and can have as many as you want in reserve, as part of your "army". This allows you to custom pick your team for each battle, after seeing what you are facing, and how they are deployed.

What really makes Disgaea cool is how it handles character classes and leveling. With a level cap of 9,999, and damage capped at- well, I don't know if there is a damage cap. Anyway, as you level different classes up, you unlock stronger versions of the same class. This in itself is nifty, but then you have the option of transmigration. This allows you to take a character and revert it back to level one, while retaining a percentage of it's original stats and skills. Even more, you can make it a level one of any class. So, your lvl 93 Ninja can become a lvl 1 Shinobi (Shinobi>Ninja), with anywhere from 30-95% of his original power. That, and if you transmigrate your Priest into a Warrior, he'll keep most if not all of his healing spells, same if you transmigrate your Mage/Skull into a Warrior (0MFGT4NKM4G3!!!1!).

Quite obviously, I'm having fun playing around with my units (that sounds dirty), creating quirky, powerful soldiers.

Music for the Slaughter

I listen to different music when I PvP than when I PvE.

If I'm PvEing, my media player is usually on random. Everything from William Shatner to Tatu to Kompressor. If I'm feeling particularly epic, I'll put on Vanessa Mae and put her best of album on repeat. Other times, I'll put on Justice Radio or Woot Radio, and listen to whatever the hell their DJs pick.

If I'm PvPing, it's a whole new ball game. I have a special select few MP3s that I whore while PvPing, sometimes I'll listen to the same song on repeat for hours on end. I once spent five hours in the Random Arenas listening to "Oh No You Didn't" from the Mercenaries 2 commercial. On another occasion, I pimped out "Dance Commander" by Electric 6 while fighting in 13 consecutive ABs. "Bitches" by Mindless Self Indulgence is a little to short to cycle for that long, but it usually finds its way into PvP oriented playlists, as do songs by the following artists:

• Disturbed
• System of a Down
• Drowning Pool
• Godsmack
• Linkin Park
• Jay-Z
• Three 6 Mafia
• Dynamite Hack
• Burning Airlines
• Various hawt techno

"Last year, on the Justice Server" or "Hollow Words pt 2"

Last year, on the Justice Server, myself and about 30 other players engaged in a 5 stock Domination Match, to celebrate Wintereenmas. Basically, a standard FFA Deathmatch type game, but each player only has 5 lives.

I faced Broad Sword/Regen Scrappers, Radiation/Psi Defenders, Ice Armor/EM Tankers, and one very stubborn SWAT Drone SL-OW, who brought an AR/Dev, and made it into the Top 5.

In the end, I faced WWII, a Stone Armor/Super Strength Tanker. He couldn't even begin to damage me, and I couldn't beat his regen. So, we both turned off our toggles, took our mezzes off the power bars, and faced each other as Statesman intend; like really stupid men. I triumphed, and not only was the last man standing, I claimed the most kills of anyone in attendance.

It's rare that I PvP for so long without taking a brief respite (drink, snack, bathroom, etc), but this kept me glued to my seat for almost 1 1/2 hours. It's things like this that makes me miss CoH the most.

Good times.

City of Heroes PvP

Before I begin, everything and anything I'm about to say might soon become completely irrelevant, as major changes are soon coming to the City of Heroes PvP system. Anything I say below is referring to PvP from Issue 4 to Issue 12.

The most fun I've ever had PvPing has been in City of Heroes. It's also some of the most imbalanced PvP, but that doesn't mean it wasn't fun. However, those imbalances are really most glaringly obvious in high end, competitive PvP. I'm talking about zone PvP. The middle ground between Arenas and World PvP. In zone PvP, everyone has a chance to win. A skilled player can take a very sub-optimal powerset combination and make it shine. A lot of avid PvPers disagree with me on that, but hear me out:

Through a combination of usage and general skill, a good PvPer can take an underperforming character and win consistently with it.

Consistently being the key point. Not always, not most of the time, but consistently. Now, the immediate response I tend to get is, "An AR/Dev will NOT beat an Ice/Nrg, it's just not going to happen." Sure, in the Arena 1v1, I agree 110%. But this isn't the Arena, it's a zone. It has NPCs, multiple exits, huge expanses of terrain, with the chance of outside interference at any point, for either side, whether you want it or not, and most fights start with one person ambushing the other. There are too many variables to make blanket statements as to the outcome of a fight. Police Drone M8 and I used to tear a bloody swath through Warburg, wrecking anything in our way. I played an AR/Nrg, he played a Stone/Emp. Not exactly FOTM power builds. I can recall times where we steamrolled Ice/Rad and Ice/Dark corrupters, as an afterthought. If either of us had fought them in the Arena, we'd have been toast. But we outplayed them in the zone, and trashed them repeatedly before they left.

Prime example: I was playing my Invul/SS tanker, King's Rook, in Warburg. Super Strength is a great choice for Siren's Call, or even Bloody Bay, it is not a top performer in Warburg. Energy Melee, even after the nerfs, is still way to strong hit for hit for SS to compete in higher level PvP. Same with Invul. Solid against spikes, but in a sustained fight, every other Tanker primary is liable to outperform it in sustained combat.

I found myself fighting a EM/Stone brute, and an Ice/Dark corrupter, near the villain base. I was losing, and the ice blasts were destroying me. I spotted a pair of Zeus Titans in the distance, +5 to myself and the villains I was fighting. I queued up Hurl, and pegged a Titan, then moonwalked behind a piece of rubble, positioning the Brute in line-of-sight with the Titans. They came running to attack, but hit the Brutes aggro aura first. They turned on him, causing the brute and corrupter to shift focus. I pulled back, let the debuffs fade, then rushed the corrupter, taking her out why the brute was distracted. I then turned and finished the brute off with the help of the NPCs. Got full credit for both kills, and saved my own hide. It was more luck than anything else, but unorthodox and underhanded tactics can level the playing field.

And that's what made PvP in CoH so unique and appealing to me. It wasn't cause I wanted to pull NPCs onto people in PvP, but that I had the option. Ambushes were a possibility, almost anyone had access to stealth powers, giving them greater freedom of movement in a zone where others hunt you. You could stand atop a sky scraper, looking down on others, and leap down to instantly join the fight, or merely steal a kill. You have foes flying, leaping, teleporting, or just plain super speeding around in a mad craze, trading blows and firing at each other.

I scored countless kills in Warburg by resting on ledges, looking down over the zone, waiting for a target to fly by the blind corner, unaware of my presence. I'd target them, leap over them, fire a beanbag into them to stun them and drop their flight toggle, then free fall with them to the ground, where I finish them in melee while their helpless. Done properly, they don't realize it's me till I land next to them on the ground, already attacking them. A prepared player breaks the mez before impact, might even retoggle flight to pull out of the dive. But usually not. I'd hit them with Power Thrust to knock them on their ass, and use my melee attacks to finish them fast. Again, it's underhanded, and doesn't even allow them a chance to fight back, but that's zone PvP for you.

Despite playing AR/Nrg, I was considered the top PvPer in my SG. The SG leader put a bounty out open to anyone who could beat me in the Arena, in part to encourage newer players to PvP with us. We'd do weekly Arena FFAs, with everyone exemplared down to the level of the lowest Drone participating. Even then, I almost always came out on top. Most weeks we'd take a team of Drones into Siren's Call, and dominate the zone for an hour or two, until the villains got tired and called in their own SG mates.

However, the few times I participated in a high end, organized PvP event, I received a hot ass-whipping. It's just how it is.

That being said, one of the other aspects of Zone PvP in COH was that everyone could try their hand at it. They certainly weren't guaranteed, or even likely, to win, but they had a shot.

Kaiser's movie quote mania

On the City of Heroes forums, there is a subforum for each server. My home server was Justice, and in the Justice forum, we had a game, "Kaiser's movie quote mania."

Take a quote from a movie, change it to fit CoH and the Justice server, then make other try to guess it. If you guess it correctly, you get to post the next quote. So on and so forth. It started in February of '07, and it's still active. Non-active accounts can't post in those forums, but we can still read, so I combed through and picked out a few quotes, mostly PvP related.

-----------------------------------------------

Police_Drone_TH:

Police Drone TH: [paces back and forth on the deck of the Paragon PD King's Row HQ as he addresses his new recruits] "Greetings. Police Drone X9 has chosen you to serve your server in Warburg. Those of you who continue to profess a belief in "badging" will receive the standard substandard training that will result in your eventual ganking. Those of you who renounce this superstitious and hysterical belief will be eligible to join the warrior elite of the Paragon Police Department. Each of you will be given a Paragon City Registration Card."
[Displays his own card to the crowd]
Police Drone TH: "Whatever you do or whatever you learn will be imprinted on this card. If you lose your card or fail to follow commands, you will be subject to immediate ganking. That will be all."
--


Folonius:

Kaiser: "I've done far worse than kill you, Folonius. I've trapped you. And I wish to go on trapping you in inescapable places. I shall leave you as you left me, as you left her: marooned for all eternity in the hotdog stand with no way out, buried alive. Buried alive."
Folonius: "KAAAIIISER!"
(echo)
Folonius: "KAAAIIISER!"
--


Mender_Frog:

"Give up, just quit, because in City of Heroes, you can't win. Yeah, you can try, but in the end you're just gonna lose, big time, because the world is run by the Gnome. The Gnome, oh, you don't know the Gnome. He's everywhere. In the White House... down the hall... Katfood, she's the Gnome. And the Gnome ruined base raids, he's gankin' folks in Warburg, and he threadjacked the Prophet's thread and turned it into PWNZ! And there used to be a way to stick it to the Gnome. It was called PVP, but guess what, oh no, the Gnome ruined that, too, with a little thing called Recluse's Victory! So don't waste your time trying to make anything cool or uber or awesome 'cause the Gnome is just gonna call you a fat washed up loser and crush your soul. So do yourselves a favor and just GIVE UP!"

Bubble: "Man, why don't we just do his job, so we can do our job and get the [censored] out of here? "
Frog: "What do you mean, "do his job?" What am I, a cold-blooded stalker? I'm not a cold-blooded stalker."
Bubble: "Now, wait a minute..."
Frog: "No, you wait a minute. You want to gank the hero but not be the villain. Doesn't work like that. You have to wait until the villain ganks the hero, then when you gank the villain, you're the hero. "
Bubble: "So - just to clarify - if we do his job we're the villains, and if we do our job we're the Heroes. "
Frog: "Yes."
Bubble: "That's... great."
--


Emma Peel:

"Plasma Warrior: All right, listen up. You heroes will not die on me in game. You f’ing noobs will do everything you can to prove me wrong. You'll ask for bio breaks in the middle of combat, give sbs when they’re not wanted, pull agro you can’t handle, eat cheetos and diddely-bop through Paragon City like you were back on the block. Or when you’re supposed to be healing and rezzing in combat you'll send tells, play with your mouse, and think of your girl who’s playing WOW. Forget her. Right now, some Orc has her on her back and is telling her to play WOW for peace. This is Emma. Those of you who are foolish will think of her as 'ditz,' 'bimbo,' 'twit' or 'bleeptch.' She is your enemy. She came over on the “Let a Crazy Person Out of the Psych Ward” Program, and after she fattens herself on Cabernet and Dark Chocolate she will be hunting your young butts in Siren’s Call. Now forget about this noob PvPer stuff. What you'll encounter out there is hard core PVP, Player Versus Player. Highly motivated, highly trained and well equipped. If you meet Emma or her cousins, you will give her respect and refer to those little beastards as 'Echo Papa.' Meet her twice, and survive, and you will refer to her as 'MISS Echo Papa.' Now people, I am sick and tired of filling body bags with your dumb f’ing mistakes.Emma is super jumping in on your position. It's night... Look at me! I'm gonna save your life and your gonna save mine. It's night, it's raining. While your thinking about Salvage, cheetos and whether or not we should be watching Heroes on NBC, Emma is going to crush your f’ing gonads with her Gravity powers. And your afk. You've been playing this mission in Peregrine for hours. It's your turn for a bio break, you're allowed to pee. What do you think Emma is going to do? Is she going to wait for you to come back to the keyboard, TJ? And smile? And talk about men? MISS Echo Papa gets all wet watching you die. Some of you think you have problems because you're against the in game advertisements coming up. You demonstrated in Atlas Park... you wear Statesman symbols on your costume, and you have attitudes. I'm a noob, my brother plays SWG, the RWZ got the clap from my sister, Mom drinks, Dad coughs blood, I have ringworm, imersion foot, the incurable crud and COH ruined my chances of being a brain surgeon. People, you are in CITY OF HEROES. You have no problems. Except me. "
(points to Emma who is summoning her Singularity and grinning)
"And her."
__


Bohmfalk:

"Oh, the reason I called... Could you find out who else is in Warburg? I've made two Tanks and a Stalker already, so if they've double-booked the mish, and/or they're going to ambush me, I'd like to know. If you could find that out, that'd be great."
__


Kaiser_Soze:

"In the year of our Lord two thousand and seven, patriots of Justice, low on endurance and outnumbered, charged the fields of Siren's Call. They fought like hardcore PvPer's, they fought like heroes, and won their server, forever."

Police Drone X-9: "Shall...we...play...a...game? How...about...a...nice...game...of...pvp?"