Babbage!

Here's a nice screen-shot from last night. Orlean's is powering up, Mantlet's winding up, and Cacaphony is bubbling (although obscured behind Babbage's monster frame). Midnight-Lord (aka Silver-Suit) is also in there as well.



Congrats on Cacaphony reaching 50, as well! YAYYYY! Been a long time coming. Despite Double XP weekends, Orleans is still ahead of Mantlet, as well. But, it's not a race, it's a scenic journey. And a great one at that...

Cheers fellahs.
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Fire God for an Evening

There are a few times in CoH where I actually get to FEEL heroic. Playing Tanks a lot, that also plays into certain times where you FEEL like the comic references you have seen over the years... Charging in, near indestructable, throwing cars and standing solid in the middle of the swirling melee like an unstoppable juggernaut. Last night I had one of those moments...

After the kids went to bed last night, I had an opportunity to jump online for a while. Amy was out with her mom doing "girl" stuff, so it was a rare treat to get a little unplanned CoH time. I logged into Flambeau Noir and after a couple bum teams, went to Founders Falls and built my own. In short order, we had (not counting Flambeau): An Ice/SS Tank, a Fire/Inv Tank, Spines/Regen scrapper, a AR/Dev Blaster, a Fire/Rad controller, a Dark/Dark Defender, and a Empathy/Archery Defender. Solid team.

So, since I was the leader, I started picking missions in Founders on the radio (boring I know, but hey). The first one I picked was a Council mission set on Unyielding (+1/+2 mobs, but lots of them) and we set off to the door to fire it up. Inside, the first room we came to had (I kid you not) about 30 council standing and sitting around. Even for an 8 man team, that's a LOT of enemies, and they all conned +2 (orange/red/purple) to me. The rest of the team was about L37 as well, so it was pretty well balanced that way.

We started with a standard Tank rush on the spawn and suddenly, I was in 7th heaven. Mobs everywhere were clustered around me like glue, virtually ignoring the other Tanks while I spammed my AoEs in sequence and torched a nearby boss with single target attacks. And all the while, my health bar barely moved. I looked at my status bar, and the only buff running was Accelerate Metabolism from the Controller. SWEET! The rest of the mission, I was diving headlong into spawns of 20 or more council and not only surviving, but mowing them down like grass before the scythe. It was incredible. In retrospect, Council are something of a "sweet spot" enemy for Flambeau. They are vulnerable to fire, tend to cluster in one spot, and tend to deal Smashing/Lethal damage (which Flambeau is highly resistant to with his shields and Tough running).

For the next 6 missions, I was like some sort of flaming Superman. The team was actually dumbfounded and started cheering me on throughout the missions, presumably because we were raking in some incredible XP at the pace we were chewing through the spawns. One mission I actually asked permission to try a new manuever and ran off from the starting point, dragging about three spawns with me by taunting and using my taunt aura. I had an entire hallway of council stacked like they were trying to get into a college kegger. And I was in the middle of it, flaming away with everything I had. The hilarious part was when I got done, the Ice Tank who had been kicking back watching with the rest of the team said "Holy Shit. I was watching your Endurance bar the entire time. It didn't move, and your health barely dropped... What the hell?" I explained that I had AM running thanks to the Controller and that I had been cycling Consume (large AoE, drains endurance from foes to fill your blue bar) along with the rest of my AoEs. It's a high point for a Fire Tank's toughness and damage output to be looked at in awe by an Ice Tank (one of the tougher Tank primaries in the game by that level with the layered defenses). I was having a freaking FANTASTIC time of it. The team actually started teasing me about leaving some for the rest of them, but since we were all raking in the XP, it was all in good humor.

At the end of the last mission, we all were on a "high" from the great mission runs, and all of us had leveled during one or the other. I got a lot of very nice compliments as the team broke up and some private tells that I had been added to their Friends lists. Overall, as a Tank, the night was a complete success. I protected the team, had a great time, and kept the pace of the missions up so everyone was earning XP and having fun at the same time. It was one of those rare pick-up-groups where everything clicked, even their appreciation of my corny humor (usually you guys are the only ones who "get" the references). I know that the buffs and support from the team contributed and made possible my feeling invulnerable, but in turn, everyone seemed thrilled that their individual contributions were resulting in such a rewarding and productive set of missions.

It's hard not to be happy with a set of missions like that, especially since Flambeau saw the big yellow "Level Up" at the end of the last mission of the nite. It was the perfect end to a great evening. I only regret that you guys weren't there to share in the festivities. : )

Thanks for reading the rant, I'll see y'all on Thursday.
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Neuron goes DOWN

As you can see after the break, the senior members of Apotheosis had no trouble taking care of Neuron.

Here they are softening him up...

and then putting him down.

Way to go Cacaphony, Mantlet and Orleans!

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