Good COH article on Massively

http://www.massively.com/2010/10/13/a-mild-mannered-reporter-steal-me/

Booster Pack Review #1: Cyborg!

There are now 5 booster packs available for COH plus the Mac-Pac and the Wedding Pack. There is some information out there about them but there really aren't a ton of reviews by people who play the game. I aim to change that by discussing what's in them a bit, and more importantly IMO, how useful and fun they really are.

The Cyborg Pack was the first pack released and IMO is still one of the best. It's 9.99 and can be acquired through the Architect Edition boxed set too at an effectively cheaper cost. It includes a power, new costume pieces, and combat auras.

The set power is "Self-Destruct". This is a decently strong PBAOE blast that can be triggered once per hour. The character dies but no debt is incurred, making it ideal for situations where you know you're going down and want to take a few damaged enemies with you while not acquiring debt.  Details can be found here. I have found it useful on almost any kind of character but it's especially good on scrappers (who tend to be up close to the enemy and are somewhat fragile) and for low-level tankers when the rest of the team goes down and the inevitable decline begins as enemies pile on. it can also be a quick ticket out of the sewers and other remote locations if the team breaks up. It's a great power - I give it an "A".

Combat Auras are technically costume pieces but they are a little different as they do not really go on to your character. There are 4 - 3 versions of a "laser-eye" type projection - left, right, and both eyes - plus a HUD-type projection that comes down over the character's face. These are activated whenever you click on an attack power. They are color-tintable too, nice for making your heat-visions-ish look your own, or your targeting laser a nicer shade of red.

Costume-wise this an effective set for hi-tech heroes and may have some useful parts for others. In general the set looks good when mixed with the metallic, armor, and tech skins. Specifics are below.

-The head pieces are effectively another type of helmet and there are two - one looks almost like a full helm with a screen, the other is a sort of robot-face. I have used them on everything from a terminator-type villain to a facemask for a ninja - they mix well.

- The shoulder pieces are very versatile including a ball-joint looking piece, a wedge-shaped piece, and a set of cables that look like coils of some kind. I have used these pieces on multiple characters, both tech-based and just in plain old tights and I consider them the most useful pieces in the pack.

- The chest piece is really a robotic arms set where you can make one or both arms into a robotic arm. This is handy for some concepts but not very useful in general.

-The chest detail includes the good-looking cyborg shield which is a very detailed breastplate, much more techie-looking than say the Valkyrie breastplate, somewhat akin to the Enforcer breastplate.

-The arms include the "cyborg arms" which look like a metal-muscled set of tech arms - not a whole lot more to say except that all of these cyborg parts include two sections for coloration and it's worth flipping back and forth between the two to see which arrangement handles your color selection better.

-There is only one belt and it looks like 2 straps bolted to either side of your character's waist. It's of limited usefulness.

-The lower body options are limited to one leg and one boot option, which match the heavy metal muscle look of the arms

Overall these costume pieces mix and match well in most areas with the auras, head, shoulders, and the chest detail being the most versatile and the arms and legs being less flexible, though being very fine examples of their type. The belt is nearly a give-up. Overall I give the costume pieces a B+ for flexibility and looks.

Given the goodness of the costume pieces and the coolness of the power, if you play tech heroes at all you will not be disappointed by the contents of this pack.

(The picture at the top is of my villain X-100 who uses the cyborg arms, legs, boots, and breastplate in case you are unfamiliar with the look. I used various shades of gray and white and I am very happy with the way he turned out.)

The Aluminum Cruiser is online!

Atomic batteries to power...Turbines to speed...

The sleek lines of the awesome new Aluminum Cruiser!

OOC: The methods behind March's madness

Knowing that Issue 17 is coming in April and that it's supposed to have new content for levels 20-30, I decided to spend much of March (and the XPXP weekend) pushing up a lot of lower level characters to level 20. We have had a lot of characters created but not many of them have made it to level 20, and I decided it was time to change that - it's one of the reasons the sewers and the hollows got so much attention. Time has also been spent in King's Row running radio missions to change things up a bit, along with some final run-out time in Steel Canyon (probably my favorite zone in some ways) to get to 20 and unlock the 2nd costume slot. We are big on costume design here so that 2nd slot is very important. In fact, Halloween salvage is still a hot item here as a character develops, because getting that 2nd look sometimes makes a character "real", instead of a "maybe". That also makes the level 20 slot the 3rd, which lets us be a little more experimental with things and make it a more specialized outift like winter garb or a clubbing outfit. Might seem a little girly, but with 2 girls playing it does come up.

Right now we have 6 characters in the 20's, with 15 more at levels 15-19, so we are close to having a nice big wave of options for April.

OOC: The Sewers

After The Hollows the place we spent the most time on XPXP Weekend was probably the Abandoned Sewer Network in Atlas Park, so I thought I would post some thoughts.

Yes the sewers in Atlas Park - it's a quick way to level up a new character, requires a group and can lead to some pretty epic fights with a good group. On a busy weekend it's pretty easy to find a Sewer Team in Atlas Park and join in regardless of archetype. If you go in at SL2 you can pretty much guarantee SL6 to 8 with a good run. The longest I have run was when I took a Plant/Emp controller from SL4 to SL11 in one epic run that had us exiting the sewer network in Boomtown!.

Some thoughts:

- Getting out of the sewers can be a pain if you are far in and the best answer to this is the self-destruct power. Kaboom - some badguys are dead or injured and you're at the hospital!

- Catching up with your team after going to the hospital can be a pain too - having someone with Recall Friend makes this a lot easier, but this implies that a higher than usual character is on the team. This is certainly doable with the way team leadership works but it takes a little bit of planning. Having 2 characters on the team with recall friend and self destruct lets you pop back to AP to pick up some more inspirations if they are needed too.

- It's a good training ground for some basic team tactics like "don't pull in every group of enemies at once" and "take out the boss's before they mez everyone into oblivion"

- Teams are a little more fluid than a regular mission team so don't be offended if someone bails out after a while. There's no "mission end" to the sewers so you could go on for a long time but everyone else may not want to.

So, The Sewers: a nice speedy way to level up a new hero with a pick-up team.

OOC: The Hollows

For much of XPXP Weekend we spent our time in the Hollows. With a lot of people running around, there is always a mission team forming and the Wincott Run is a nice simple set of missions that ends with a nice XP bonus and some Merit rewards: bash 10 - Bash 10 - Hideout - Hideout. I probably ran this arc 10 times over the weekend with several different characters and I enjoyed it every time.

Once Wincott is handled then you can run Flux's arc, which is similar and ends with the first real big time mission - Frostfire. I ran Frostfire at least 6 times over the weekend and it's simply great with a team. Solo is not so much fun (though I have done it) but with a 6 or 8man team it it rocks like nothing else at the lower levels.

After this you get Julius the Troll's arc which is small and Talshak the mystic's arc which leads to the Transcendence trial which I have not yet run. Those are good arcs and I generally spend most of my characters life from about SL5-8 up to about SL20 in the Hollows. I occasionally make a side trip to King's Row for radio missions, a bank job and a temp travel power, but I don't consider them essential - the travel power just makes traversing The Hollows a lot easier prior to SL14.

So yes, I consider this one of the great zones in the game, the highlight of the sub-20 content.

OOC: Assault Rifle Blasters

I didn't start off COH with any interest in Assault Rifle blasters.I made one (Captain Tejas) and had some fun with him but I didn't really think of guns when I thought of super heroes. Then I got "M30 Grenade". That is one of the most fun powers I have used - launching a grenade with a thump into a mob of bad guys and blasting them in all directions ass over teakettle - it's great! You can then follow up with another AOE attack in Shotgun (another great sound effect) blasting more of them, and then start picking off individuals with burst and slug. The best part is that you can have all of these powers by 8th level! I used to think sniper was the end-all blaster power but the low level ranged AOE blast is actually even more fun. I have ended up with 5 AR blasters:

Captain Tejas AR/Energy Melee on Champion
Mr Snake Plisken AR/Devices on Justice
Aluminum Trooper Man AR/Electric on Triumph
Sheriff Blacksteel AR/Fire on Champion
Captain Autofire AR/Electric on Freedom

Also, a Villain
Z3-R0 AR/Devices on Champion

OOC: Fire Tanks

Lots of activity over the weekend with XPXP weekend and I rediscovered something I thought I had been wrong about - Fire Tanks are a blast! Draco Rex (Fire/Super Strength) went from SL8 to SL17 in one run over the weekend and he was a ton of fun to play. He began with the basic fire armor power, plus he had the fiery aura (damaging radius effect) and during the run added healing flames (a self-heal) and the endurance boost power - this set of 4 powers means he is tough, causes damage to all enemies around him, can self heal (besides rest) and can boost his own endurance! It's a great combination that makes him relatively self-sufficient for a tanker - he doesn't need an empathy defender sidekick and even if he has one, he is not dependent on them to get through a tough spot in a big fight. I know in the long run it's not as tough as a Stone tank or maybe an invulnerability tank, but it is a lot more fun at these lower levels right now. Most of my other tankers have been Invul tanks and they are a little bland in both looks and powers. Regarding looks, fire is awesome - electric ain't bad and I haven't played an ice tanker yet, but fire looks good both in a fight and just running down the street. It's renewed my interest in tanking and I now have 4 of them:

Draco Rex - Green Fire/SS Tanker on Infinity
Bituminous Man - Red Fire/Stone on Justice
Anthracite Man - Orange Fire/Stone on Champion
Plutonium Man - Blue Fire/Energy on Freedom

I may add another on Virtue just to have one of my favorites available, probably Uranium Man or Lignite Man to continue the themes.