Random gameplay: City of Heroes

Not a post about Roleplaying!

Last night was the latest foray into City of Heroes with a wonderful bunch of people I met through Rockjaw (and who are affectionately known on my Twitter feed as "Nutters").

We made an attempt at Statesman's Task Force, which is a Level 45-50, 8-man event of 5 missions. We only had 7 players, so we grabbed a filler to start it.

We were only able to complete the first three missions, with the next two due to complete... sometime. Since I'm taking my main character along, I'm hoping it will be sooner rather than later.

Of the team, not everyone had done the TF previously, and there was some variance in the team's levels (a L45 Ice/Kin Controller played by my wife, up to a L50 Energy/Energy Blaster played by me, with a smattering of L46/47s from everyone else).

Mission 1: Blow up 45 Giant Sticks of Rock!

Okay, that's not what it's called. Or even what it's about. But there's these big cables that look for all the world like giant sticks of Brighton Rock. Tactically it worked pretty well for that phase of the mission. The team left two of the sticks of rock near the start, in preparation for the inevitable AV spawn. I decided to go for comedy gold, though, and used /e dance6 while standing in the right spot... and when the cutscene kicked in, there I was, dancing in the background. Thankfully my Superspeed w/Stealth IO and Stealth power made me effectively invisible, so I didn't get instantly ganked when the cutscene ended... though when the first ambush arrived, the entire team got torn a new one. A couple more wipes later and we had beaten the stuffing out of Arbiter Sands.

Mission 2: Beat up a pile of people who think you're wimps!

This is one of the "Find and defeat some Archvillains" missions. There are four of them, spread throughout a future version of Atlas Park that has been claimed by Arachnos.

The cutscene in this mission is sheer genius - some of the best comic-style tongue-in-cheek lines ever. I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't played it yet, though. But it's funny every time I see it.

Other fun stuff that happened was facing Regent Korol (who, despite what one of the team claims, is just a big, scary, really tough spider - who cares if she has babies?), and the rather casual comment from me "Say goodbye to your health"... just as she dropped to 50% and fired off a nuke that wiped at least 75% off everyone's health.

Also, every single one of the archvillains seems to be surprised that the team is able to defeat them. Hang on, there, bub, we've been trapped by Dr Aeon because he's basically afraid of us - surely you might consider us some threat? Apparently not, because "This is impossible!", "This cannot be!", "How could there be heroes with any power left?" and "Now I'll never find out..."
"What happens next..."
"On my favorite soap operas..."

Okay, maybe that last one isn't about how tough the team is. Maybe.

The rest of that mission was pretty trivial, really.

Mission 3: Who's up for a respec?

This is the wonderful mission that is actually a villain respec trial. Somehow the "villain respec crew" who are found running through the mission managed to see through my Invisibility plus Superspeed w/ Stealth IO combo, and ripped me to shreds in seconds, but the rest of it was rather easy, up to and including working the vines around the Tree. Only 80 vines, this time - I'm used to 88, but this is probably because we only had a team of 7 - but the "Triple Pass" tactic worked as it usually does. For anyone not aware of this tactic, it's "Pass one: Defeat Circle of Thorns; Pass two: Damage vines; Pass three: Destroy vines". Three quick trips around the room, and the job is done.

Then pound the tree. Easy.

We've left it there, and I'm hoping that the 5 hour timer on the temp power is in-game time, not real-time.