Blah Blah Blah and other deep thoughts

[jdotmi]

Went to Meijer last night. Got everything on my grocery list and then some. :-p Chicken last night was very good. There's even a leftover in the fridge. Maybe could use it to make a sandwich or something.


Played some City of Heroes last night, of course. Got my Radiation Defender up to level 8, but I haven't actually leveled him because I'm waffling on power choices. Can't decide if I should go ahead and get Mutation now, or get Hover. I'm almost tempted to not take Mutation, but it is a Rez, even though it has a sucky downside after it's used. I'm thinking Hover now and Mutation at 10. It's not like I'll need to put up with Perez Park too much before then. Also pondering another attack power, because I only have one right now. :-p

Played one mission with my Dark Defender this morning. She's two bubbles through 5 now. Currently planning on getting all of my alterntes to level 10. Yeah, it's sorta crazy, but it doesn't take too long. It just matters on if I can get good groups with Kung Ru or not. If I can, getting her levelled up is the priority. I just don't want to grind through 19 right now. Really don't want to grind it. Almost tempted to re-roll... almost... Not super happy with my power choices on her. But, bleh, it took a looong while to get up to where I am with her and I so do not want to go through that again. I'll just stick it out and wait for the respec to go in.


Work has been crazy this morning. We've finally slowed down a little bit, but it was really nasty earlier today. Hoping it stays relatively quiet for the remainder of the day. Want to get some of the backlog cleared out.


The refrigerator at the apartment was making strange noises this morning, and it didn't seem like it was that cold inside it. My milk and orange juice I had with breakfast were cold, but, eh, not trusting it. Having satyr_mi check on it and maybe call the office if need be today.

Paid some bills this morning. Rent, my car payment, both of our dell bills. Going to have to go through our bills again later this month and figure out the new totals. We did lose a bill, after all, and we should be losing more bills shortly.


Um. That's pretty much it for now. My posts are just oh so exciting lately. :-p

Comments

[outherelistenin.livejournal.com]

Mutation is a strange power, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Its intended use reminds me of Fulcrum Shift, in that it's intended to turn a losing battle into a winning one, since your teammate gets resurrected at full Endurance with all sorts of nifty bonuses.

I think my issue with the power is Endurance cost and recharge time. If you're in a losing battle or mid-wipe, you're probably already too low on Endurance to use this, and the recharge timer is too long to make it useful more than once per battle... AND, if the battle draws on for too much longer post-resurrection, your Mutated teammate is back in a bad position.

What are your power choices other than Hover? While a lot of Defenders take Hover in addition to fly, I've found that, since beta, I've been delaying Hover until level 12, since even a very slight Endurance drain like Hover can be a problem when, as a Radiation (or in my case, Storm) Defender, you'll have any number of toggles running during battle.

[jdotmi.livejournal.com]

Well, Mutation is the only open power in my primary. I have two toggles running most battles already, and a third is waiting on the other side of Mutation. My other options include the open powers in the Radiation secondary (I only have Neutrino Bolt right now).

I'm considering hurdle or swift. Probably hurdle. I want to get up to Stamina eventually. Recall friend is also an option. I don't plan on using Hover in combat much since I'm primarily a group character. With only one attack power, soloing is almost not an option. I am considering picking up x-ray blast just to improve my solo abilities, but I'm not slotting out my attacks right now because I want my toggles to be as cheap and effective as possible.

I was hoping to make it through with only getting my first attack, my snipe, maybe Aim, and my ranged AOE attack. But my snipe doesn't show up until I'm in my teens at the earliest.

The other options are to forgo offense entirely and get things from the Leadership Pool.

Of course, I could then get a three-fer with dead allies. I have a huge damage attack power that I need to target an allies corpse in order to cast, mutation, and then there's Vengence from Leadership.

I was considering going the Teleport route of travel powers with this character, but I'm not sure. I think I'm going to do that with my Dark Defender instead.

Main problems are with End management. My toggles pretty much force me to sit there and do nothing while they work. I can attack a little, but not enough to make it worth it to pick up a bunch of attack powers. I can heal, but it's PBAOE, which means I have to be near the people needing healing. And it seems to suck in terms of HP healing at the moment, but I'm in the process of slotting it up now.

I probably won't use Hover in combat in groups because, well, it won't do much for me. I'd mainly get it for travel. I can probably do a minor bit of hover-sniping with it, but lacking a huge amount of attack powers limits that. All that aside, I rock in groups. My roomate loved it when we took on an entire PP mob of yellow clockworks without dying or really getting in danger at all thanks to my toggles. Something like 14 clocks in the group we smashed to bits.

[outherelistenin.livejournal.com]

Actually, I don't use it as much lately, but I absolutely do use Hover in battle.

I don't know about Radiation, but my Storm Summoning abilities - mostly the toggles like Freezing Rain and Snowstorm - draw a lot of aggro. Most enemies deal the majority of their damage in melee, so getting out of melee range with Hover basically allows you to avoid the brunt of their damage.

Focusing on powers like Leadership and Mutation is an interesting strategy for a Defender. I won't say that it doesn't work, but we're damage mitigation. Neither of us does it up to Force Field standards, to be sure, but when I'm doing my job well, I rarely have to heal because my teammates just aren't taking much damage from slowed, stat-reduced enemies who can't stay on their feets. Then again, being a Defender is all about situational powers and making the choices between them.

I feel your pain in terms of wanting Stamina, however. I originally wanted to avoid the Pool, but since I'm all about toggles, and since Hurricane is such a gigantic damned Endurance hog, my life is all about Endurance management.

I don't play much with PBAoE heals. O2 Boost was the first power I six-slotted, and most of those heals are recharge and healing, with only one endurance-reducer. In function, I'm finding that this means I can be a really effective healer if a teammate goes orange or red. It's not my main purpose - damage mitigation always comes before healing - but it's another effective entry in the arsenal. Radiant Aura can probably work similarly for you, but like our blasts, our heals are much more situational than they are for an Empath.

[jdotmi.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Radiation defenders don't get a targeted heal. Ever. We only ever can get the PBAoE heal that is the first power in our list. Well, barring the Medicine pool.

Defenders are the best at all buffs and debuffs. That means we get more out of the Leadership line than other archetypes.

I was playing the Hero Planner on my laptop at lunch. It was driving me insane. Seriously. The rate at which powers open up in the Radiation lines makes for some weird choices.

Right now, I'm skipping Mutation. If enough of my SG members complain later on, I may take it. It can fit in my build. Most rez powers are slow on the recharge, so that's not really a big issue. It's that pesky downside at the end of the Rez that worries me.

Right now it's looking like I want as many toggles as I can get my grubby little paws on and I want Stamina. Going to putz around with the Hero Planner some more when I go home and see if I can't map out a good strategy for it. But the Leadership pool is looking pretty good. I can buff Defense, Accuracy, and Damage and debuff my opponents defense, damage resistance, damage output, and accuracy, and still come out ahead.

Okay. This is looking pretty good.

Primary:
Radiant Aura
Radiation Infection
Accelerate Metabolism
Enervating Field
Lingering Radiation
Fallout (requires dead ally)

Secondary:
Neutrino Bolt
X-Ray Beam (could swap out for Mutation in Primary)
Proton Volley
Neutron Bomb

Leadership:
Maneuvers
Assault
Tactics
Vengeance (could swap out for anything, it's very situational, requires dead ally)

Flight:
Hover
Fly

Fitness:
Hurdle
Health
Stamina

Teleportation:
Recall Friend


That entire list is doable. 6-slotting Stamina will take a HUGE chunk out of my endurance woes, and two SO End Reducers in each toggle would help lots as well.

Wow. Just played around with enhancements. o_o I can make this work... I can even swap stuff around and still make this work...