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shirenomadThe last week of October, I shelled out for a month of City of Heroes. Unfortunately, what was then one of my two reasons for doing so, the expected Halloween event, never happened. Rats. But the other reason was that Lady Dream was doing the same, and by golly, the Angels need to stick together! So here we are, out of early retirement, bringing justice to Paragon City... and getting much less rest for our efforts. If you've been wondering why I haven't been very visible the past couple weeks, now you know.
I hit level 20 early on, ran my costume mission, and then spent twenty minutes fiddling with my new threads only to get disconnected. (The server wasn't being entirely polite that day.) Decided I was wasting enough of Lady D's time, gave up, and killed off some Tsoo for the last mission of the night. Then I came back yesterday and gave Flamemaiden some proper street clothes to run around in. Secret identity and all that, you know.
Lady D did the same, and so we both have new wardrobes, which we of course needed to show off.
We're also enjoying the new emotes.
Then I ran my cape mission, and tweaked Flame's superhero tights.
And of course, finally I had to set up a keybind for Flamemaiden to say something appropriately righteous and change into her superhero tights whenever villainy strikes!
Speaking of which, I went a little nuts with the keybinds this time around... I dug up some online guides on the subject and cranked out basic situational responses (in character) for things like "need help", "incoming monsters", and so forth, as well as a cycling list of six taunt phrases and climbing.
Anyway, for some reason, we're attracting the attention of giant robots. I thought we were going to raid a Vahz lair in Boomtown, but while a third hero (whose name escapes me; I'll call him Super Bob) and I were waiting for Lady D to arrive, Bob whispers to me, "Turn around, very slowly." And I do, and five yards away, tops, is the biggest freakin' Clockwork I've ever seen.
Yup, the mission was right next to a Babbage spawn point, and yup, Babbage was right there. So we call in backup from nearby Steel Canyon and take him down in a pitched battle.
...no, that's not quite accurate. The first thing we did was say, "Hey, he's only Level 17! We're all 19s and 20s! We three can take him!" Well, Babbage may be level 17, but he's a level 17 with an ungodly amount of HP and the ability to punch you into next week. This guy transcends the concept of "boss". He is purple no matter what your level. So after the predictable result, Super Bob stayed behind (face in the dirt) to make sure the triumphant Babs didn't go anywhere, while Lady D and I went to the hospital and then started recruiting for a counterattack.
It's fairly easy to recruit for a strike like this; everyone wants in. We wound up forming a team of (*counts* five... six...) seven heroes, including three healers, for the hit. While I'll continued to recruit, some of them went on ahead and sniped all his little buddies. They had an advantage in that if Babbage took notice, they could duck into my mission (which, as I mentioned, was five yards away, and did NOT include a 15-foot-tall killer robot) and wait for Babs to calm down. So by the time I got back there, it was just us and the big guy.
And THEN came the glorious pitched battle.
Lengthy (as you can see, the sun set while we were fighting him), but successful. And we all wore our Clockstopper badges with pride afterwards.
So by comparison, when we were in Kings Row a couple days later and the call went out to stop this guy, it seemed like a cakewalk:
No badge for killing that one, though; gotta stop its construction in the first place to get that.
Then last Saturday, Dream and I gathered some fellow heroes (*nods to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
falgorn*) and started the Synapse Task Force, which is one long string of Clockwork missions. Somewhere along the line, we must have really ticked off the Clockwork King, because we stepped out of one mission (in the middle of Skyway City!) and guess who was there to greet us? Again?
He was easier the second time. But I'm glad I've exhausted the list of Clockwork missions; after Synapse, I'm sick of the little buggers.
Oh yeah, there IS a third reason to play: Brian got his hands on a trial, and Thomas has been getting back into things by pre-ordering City of Villains. Only problem is that they both decided to play on Infinity and Flame's on Pinnacle. So I figured I was overdue for a second toon, and created Winchester.
Inspired after reading Elseworlds: Justice Riders. Sheriff Prince indeed. (Plus I knew I wanted to try out the Assault Rifle set this time.) Unfortunately, Brian's been preferring to solo, and Thomas has been busy in general, so Winnie's not been seeing much action. Alas.
On a related but sadder note, Lady Dream has a cat in real life, who at the moment is seriously ill. I'm sure she'd appreciate some prayer.
I hit level 20 early on, ran my costume mission, and then spent twenty minutes fiddling with my new threads only to get disconnected. (The server wasn't being entirely polite that day.) Decided I was wasting enough of Lady D's time, gave up, and killed off some Tsoo for the last mission of the night. Then I came back yesterday and gave Flamemaiden some proper street clothes to run around in. Secret identity and all that, you know.
Lady D did the same, and so we both have new wardrobes, which we of course needed to show off.
We're also enjoying the new emotes.
Then I ran my cape mission, and tweaked Flame's superhero tights.
And of course, finally I had to set up a keybind for Flamemaiden to say something appropriately righteous and change into her superhero tights whenever villainy strikes!
Speaking of which, I went a little nuts with the keybinds this time around... I dug up some online guides on the subject and cranked out basic situational responses (in character) for things like "need help", "incoming monsters", and so forth, as well as a cycling list of six taunt phrases and climbing.
Anyway, for some reason, we're attracting the attention of giant robots. I thought we were going to raid a Vahz lair in Boomtown, but while a third hero (whose name escapes me; I'll call him Super Bob) and I were waiting for Lady D to arrive, Bob whispers to me, "Turn around, very slowly." And I do, and five yards away, tops, is the biggest freakin' Clockwork I've ever seen.
Yup, the mission was right next to a Babbage spawn point, and yup, Babbage was right there. So we call in backup from nearby Steel Canyon and take him down in a pitched battle.
...no, that's not quite accurate. The first thing we did was say, "Hey, he's only Level 17! We're all 19s and 20s! We three can take him!" Well, Babbage may be level 17, but he's a level 17 with an ungodly amount of HP and the ability to punch you into next week. This guy transcends the concept of "boss". He is purple no matter what your level. So after the predictable result, Super Bob stayed behind (face in the dirt) to make sure the triumphant Babs didn't go anywhere, while Lady D and I went to the hospital and then started recruiting for a counterattack.
It's fairly easy to recruit for a strike like this; everyone wants in. We wound up forming a team of (*counts* five... six...) seven heroes, including three healers, for the hit. While I'll continued to recruit, some of them went on ahead and sniped all his little buddies. They had an advantage in that if Babbage took notice, they could duck into my mission (which, as I mentioned, was five yards away, and did NOT include a 15-foot-tall killer robot) and wait for Babs to calm down. So by the time I got back there, it was just us and the big guy.
And THEN came the glorious pitched battle.
Lengthy (as you can see, the sun set while we were fighting him), but successful. And we all wore our Clockstopper badges with pride afterwards.
So by comparison, when we were in Kings Row a couple days later and the call went out to stop this guy, it seemed like a cakewalk:
No badge for killing that one, though; gotta stop its construction in the first place to get that.
Then last Saturday, Dream and I gathered some fellow heroes (*nods to
falgorn*) and started the Synapse Task Force, which is one long string of Clockwork missions. Somewhere along the line, we must have really ticked off the Clockwork King, because we stepped out of one mission (in the middle of Skyway City!) and guess who was there to greet us? Again?He was easier the second time. But I'm glad I've exhausted the list of Clockwork missions; after Synapse, I'm sick of the little buggers.
Oh yeah, there IS a third reason to play: Brian got his hands on a trial, and Thomas has been getting back into things by pre-ordering City of Villains. Only problem is that they both decided to play on Infinity and Flame's on Pinnacle. So I figured I was overdue for a second toon, and created Winchester.
Inspired after reading Elseworlds: Justice Riders. Sheriff Prince indeed. (Plus I knew I wanted to try out the Assault Rifle set this time.) Unfortunately, Brian's been preferring to solo, and Thomas has been busy in general, so Winnie's not been seeing much action. Alas.
On a related but sadder note, Lady Dream has a cat in real life, who at the moment is seriously ill. I'm sure she'd appreciate some prayer.
