The life and times of a Superhero

Well I took my dad to see Lord of War. Not a bad movie, but it is a little sadistic from time to time. With the alterations to the Aerostar, I can take his 300+lb Electric Wheelchair around. I get to use the handicapped spaces when he is with me. I respect the rules. I don't cut corners and it pisses me off when someone breaks those rules. After the movie, my dad had to use the bathroom. Having ALS (Lou Gehrigs Disease), when you need to go, there isn't much time till the river starts flooding so to speak. Just like every movie theatre bathroom, all stalls are jammed packed. We beeline to the handicap stall. It was already occupied. I knock on the door indicating that my dad is waiting outside and would like to use it asap. No response from behind the door. A quick peer over the stall wall indicates that there is an adult who is using the crapper. No Wheelchair or guidestick. Possibly deaf so I called out to him indicating "Hey buddy, can you hurry up? My disabled father needs it." I got the reply to the equivalent of having sexual intercourse with myself.

Ok this guy now pissed me off. A stall opens up beside the handicapped stall and I decided to improvise since the waterworks were soon to go. I park the wheelchair in front of the regular stall. I cram myself and my dad, holding him up and keeping his balance on me since the chair could not enter the narrow passage. One thing is that I always think on my feet and sometimes Karma tends to help a bit. The heavy wheelchair I parked and picked up my dad was parked in front of the handicapped stall door. As I was helping my dad in the stall I hear this thunk. The knucklehead moron in the handicapped stall is trapped inside because the wheelchair is blocking the door. I can hear him trying to push it out of the way, but to no avail. I am of a medium build and can barely move that wheelchair in a parked position without disengaging the electric drive system. So he starts cursing obsenities and threatens to call the police. My dad was just about finished at this time so I start walking him back to his chair. All the meanwhile everyone is hearing and looking at the handicapped stall and the words coming from back of it. Suddenly some security personel decided to show up. I explained what transpired here and were backed up by some other bystanders. I figure the guy got kicked out of the theatre and given a stern warning. In retrospect, I really would have liked to meet him in the parking lot and shown him some of my skills at fighting(dirty).

"Go away or I shall taunt you a second time!"

A quip from a Monty Python movie.

Ok with Issue 5, the changes to taunt makes me want to drop that power all together. Case in Point, I was on a mission earlier when some Circle of Thorn ghosts running around fly by. I taunted one of them. He didn't even stop and flinch. Another example of this is on a mission to where I have to protect an item. I taunted the enemies around the item in danger. They fire at me once and turn their attention to the item. Even after numerous taunts and punch-vokes, the item is destroyed.

I can see that the developers want to stop herding and power leveling. This is very aggravating. I made a tank to take aggro and keep it. Keep my team safe and such. I do not power level. I do not herd. This change hurt my toon more than those power levelers. I have no way on managing aggro no matter how much I punch-voke or Taunt. I lose it pretty easy. If this is the wishes of the developers, please reclass this toon from Tank to Distractor or even Crappy Scrapper. This is no front line defense. This is basically a reduction in effectivness. It might be more preferable to have 50% controllers on your team now since the tank cannot hold aggro. I remember from Issue 1, a tank is a defensive powerhouse. He can manage aggro and keep his teammates safe from harm.

"But Awesom e Man, how do you propose to fix the current problems of COH?"

Thanks for asking, Here are my solutions that should restore Tank function and discourage powerleveling and herding.

Bring back Taunt. Keep the defense as it is, since it will come into play for the next part of my solution. Taunt should grab aggro and hold it. Then apply a power to enemy minions. For every single one of their peers in melee range, add +3 defense and general resistance. So in a small group aggro, they will be a little tougher, but managable. Herd and it's impossible to kill them as they will kill the tank first with the reduced defense. Team wipe will follow shortly. The defenders might try to heal the tank, so for each minion add +1 damage for everyone of their peers in melee range. The more herding, the more damage to a very crappy defense. This should discourage herding with the big amounts of debt.

This also presents a drawback. Ninjas and KoA, in some missions they will ambush you, especially when dealing with Chimera. My Scrapper has faced many ninja's over the distance of 30 feet. To rectify this problem, I present Team Dynamics. Since you are not herding, your teammates should be able to work together to kill them off in a very quick manner.

Feel free to comment.

-A disgruntled tank.

"Have you ever heard of a Gruntled tank? Me neither."

Well I just got a new Shetland Sheepdog puppy for my Nintendo DS. His name is Killer. Once I figure out how to export stats and images from the DS, I'll put up pictures and info. So far he is learning very fast and loves to be petted.

Beware! This is a rant.



Now that you have been warned.

A MMORPG is basically a game of many many people. The thing that irked me today is the fact that groupings although not necessary, the fact that people do not want to group because of a certain criteria really gets me steamed. Ok I can see that if you are a Role Player, you want people who will roleplay fitting to a certain description. The eventual problem to this is that you tend to burn your bridges doing so. I am a Role Player. The difference that sets me apart is that I do not care where you are from or why, but I called upon you to help with a task. There are others from all walks of life and such. Why limit?

What brought this on? Well lets see. I have a few dozen toons, all of which are useful in one way or the other. However others will not team with them because they are not fitting of a RP standpoint. I say OMGWTFBBQ! But here's the biggie. The RP'ers are doing something from EQ or AD&D and so on. But they are in a metropolitan city. They are going to run into others. Why not team with humans from this century instead of staying within the bounds of your RP? It kinda reminds me of an Elitest society. The fallacy of all this is that they will have to call on others to help because of the holes in their offense. What pisses me off the most is that it's in the same SG instead of forming their own to which they have their own bounds.

Just got to work and already blogging. Well let's hope that everything goes smoothly. As for Defender, well he has a new look and has better heals. Not to mention the Knight Errant badge. Thanks to Taliaferro and Arwenmanriel.

Tuesday morning...email problems galore. Need some kind of relief. AOL Blacklists and stuff.... Someone please blow up AOL.

This is to the ones. You know who you are. I am coming to get you and there is nothing you can do to stop me. I shall have my vengance even if I risk it all. Yes it is worth it.

Hope you die a slow horrible death.

-AeM