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.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Fire God for an Evening
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2 comments:
Sounds like you kicked ass, man. Congrats!
I know the heroic feeling you are talking about in COH, though never having played a tank, it never quite works out the same way for my characters.
With Cacaphony, I get a slight heroic feeling everytime I send multiple bodies flying with knockback. Orleans has got some explosive knockback too, but from where I am usually standing, his powers are so bright when manifested, I can't actually see most of the bodies catching air.
As far as the team goes, those bubbles are his bread and butter. It sounds really dumb but I get a perverse pleasure taking a break from dealing some damage of my own, mid-battle, to renew the bubbles around you guys. I don't know why so many other bubblers wait until an NPC group is put all the way down to renew the team's bubbles. Maybe they think that since nobody can hear a bubble going up in battle, they won't get any credit for doing their job. Maybe their teammates keep the view scrolled full-forward turning their bubbles invisible on the screen, dictating that if the bubble isn't heard going up, one might not realize it is there without looking at the stack. Generally, what they do makes little sense to me. Between groups is when you stand to have the least endurance anyway and doling out bubbles takes up most of one's end' on an eight person team.
Bubbling mid-battle is a little risky. It is risky to turn from doing the damage you'd been focused on or scraping groups off of your partners with knockback, to manifest powers ancillary to battle. Add that risk to the fact that you WILL be standing there taking hits while bubbling others and it does feel very heroic. Sometimes, there's even a quick bit of fancy movement involved as Orleans' range is so great, it spreads you two out. Hitting fly and flipping around to get in range to bubble either of you around obstacles that block LOS is a neat little heroic decision every time it happens.
Sure, every once in a while our 3-man team meets a mix of foes that do something intersting. That Crey guy with the ice blasts is particularly hard for Caca as are those clockwork energy holds. Those not only stop Caca in his tracks, but drop all the toggles he's running at the same time. It ups the ante quite a bit for a defender. I'll be held, have no bubble of my own, no running defensive toggles of my own, your defenses will drop and your damage output will dip slightly too all while I can't toggle a new power until unheld. It's in those moments that I get to pop different insps and use different, more rarely used powers, as a creative, catch-up solution to the situation. You'd think the creativity or the nervousness in using lesser practiced powers would be what feels heroic, surviving in a brand new situation. Nope. That doesn't do it for me. I don't know why. Perhaps it's because all this has a player truly on the defensive. It's strange.
No, I feel heroic during every one of those little decisions to stop fighting, flip around, take damage, and bubble the others. It's weird. It's especially weird now that we are so high in level, because I doubt anyone is at truly, truly, truly, greater risk without the bubbles. In a way, then, I guess, it is the fiction that makes me feel heroic. The idea of what's going on. It makes me feel like X-men, each using powers in combination in battle to succeed.
Eric and I always chat on PUGs about how nobody really appreciates knockback. The same is true for bubbles. PUGs always make comments about loving bubbles, but never in a way that impresses. It's always about how pretty they are. The comment always comes before the battle. Fighting, they usually fail to realize how much less damage they are taking or how more infrequently they are getting hit at all. That would require paying attention from one's last PUG to this one. In the end, everything above still ringing true for me, I suppose I get an even greater heroic feeling when bubbling strangers given the players' failure to realize the impact. I do it for their sake, and most of them don't even know it. What's more heroic than that?
Bubbles are less appreciated than (for example) an empath's heals and buffs. People don't see the damage, but most veteran players know the difference. I know that on Mantlet, the number of +3 to +5 mobs I can take on increases by roughly 30% when he's bubbled up. I notice the largest difference while soloing, as the lack of bubbles is immediately apparent as my health drops. Others may not appreciate the mini-forcefields, but Eric and I DEFINITELY do. It's part of what makes our little triad work.
Keep the faith man, those who know really do appreciate it.
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