All posts by Robin

I'm a woman in my early thirties living in North Carolina, USA, and I have a lot of varied interests; I love creative writing, music composition, web design, surfing the Internet, thinking out loud, and gaming. And yes, my glasses are crooked. :)
Saturday with the Spark

The Impromptu Writers’ Club

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impromptuwritersclub
Are you struggling to write? Lacking inspiration? Feeling STUCK? The problem might not be writer’s block–it might be writer’s isolation. At least, this is how I started feeling after being stuck on my novel for several months. And, as you’ll see in the following article, it really took talking over the book with another person to help me get restarted on it.

How I Accidentally Started a Writers’ Club

For a while, one of my best guy friends and I had been hanging out at a local Denny’s on Sunday evenings, getting back in touch after life took us in very separate directions for a few years. It was a time for him to be away from work and away from home, a time where he could relax and we could catch up.  But it slowly became less of a social thing and more focused on writing–I was working (mostly unsuccessfully) on my novel, and he wanted to hear more about it.

Once I started sharing my novel-in-progress with him, seeing what he thought of my ideas so far, I found out that he liked it, and was eager to read more.  Thus, I was inspired to write more, and I found the process to be easier.  (He is now one of my four beta readers, if you will–my parents and my boyfriend have also read or heard most of the novel, and they have all been wonderfully supportive.) Having this support system around me helped me start writing and keep writing–now, I had an audience to write for rather than just myself!

Inspiration is Catching!

I knew I was getting inspired from these informal brainstorming sessions, but admittedly, I didn’t expect for my guy friend to pick up the pen himself after a few months. I shouldn’t have been surprised, though–he’s been working on his own stories since he was 14 years old! I was overjoyed to see him starting to work with his old stories again, and so I encouraged him to keep working at it, to keep writing, and that I would read and help if I could. (Since I was an English major in college and did teach literature and composition for a few months in a middle school, I have a little bit of experience helping people to write.)

A Typical Writers’ Club Meeting

When we get together for our writers’ club meeting, we usually sit at our respective computers, typing away for a few minutes (or 30, LOL). Then, we switch computers, so that each of us can read what the other has written.  We offer each other constructive criticism, ideas for expansion, and express interest–then we switch back, and revise as necessary.

This helps us both at the same time–we are both writer and reader, so we can easily switch back and forth between the two roles. Plus, reading each other’s work helps us both construct better-flowing stories, and the almost-instantaneous time between composition, reading, and revising makes the writing process speedier and more thorough. No more relying on my memory to figure out what to change in my story!

The Benefits So Far

This has certainly helped me make my novel much better, to have people around me who are interested in my novel and who offer their opinions on how the story is progressing.  Only four people in this world besides me know what it’s about, and each of those four I would trust with my life as well as my life’s work. Plus, I’m getting and giving really good feedback; being part of the creative process in a couple of ways gives me new perspective on both of our efforts.

I never realized how much another person’s input would help me write–I have always been shy about showing my work to someone else, fearing their criticism.  But in a way, doing this kind of writers’ club thing helps me brainstorm and not be so stressed about how the novel is going (or sometimes not going). Often, it’s fun to just sit there and talk out an idea over a fried cheese melt and a laptop computer; I get so much brain work done as I form the idea into words, and I also function as a sounding board for my friend’s ideas.

Have You Ever Tried a Writers’ Club?

Let me know in the comments!

Friday around the Web

Celebs With Mental Issues, Dots, Paper Pop-Ups, and Help for Packing

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celebswithmentalissues

Celebrities with Mental Illnesses: Slideshow
Does celebrity make illness, or does illness make celebrity? Here’s an interesting list of popular celebs with mental illnesses–you make the call.

Dots
Connect the dots to make more enclosed boxes than the computer. (I am no good at this, but then again I never was any good at logic and strategy! LOL)

Paper Pop-Ups
Make cute and cool paper pop-ups from these simple printable diagrams!

Universal Packing List
Always have trouble figuring out what to pack for trips? Let this nifty little generator help you out.

Thursday in the Zone

Building a Better Team Support Toon, Part 2

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betterteamsupport2
As I discussed in part 1 of this topic last Thursday, team support is made up of a conscientious playstyle and helpful powers. Part 1 showed how any player’s toon, no matter how damage-dealing, can be equipped with some team-support powers that boost effectiveness in large teams.

Today, I’m going to go through the natural team-support power trees available in the game–these are generally only available to Defenders, Controllers, Corruptors, and Masterminds.

Cold Domination

Available to: Controllers, Corruptors, Defenders
Best for: Debuffing enemies, buffing allies
Complete List of Powers

Cold Domination coats your allies in icy armor so that they can resist many types of damage; you can also slow your enemies’ movement, recharge rates, and even reduce their ability to damage you or your allies. It can be a great fit for an Ice Control Controller who wants to maintain thematic attacks, or really for any of the three builds to get some strong debuffs and buffs.

Dark Miasma/Darkness Affinity

Available to: Corruptors, Masterminds, Defenders; Controllers get Darkness Affinity instead
Best for: Healing, resurrecting, & hiding allies; debuffing and holding enemies
Dark Miasma Power List/Darkness Affinity Power List

Dark Miasma/Darkness Affinity does a little bit of everything–a little heal and rez, a little stealth, a little scaring the pants off your foes, and even a little damage thrown in there for good measure. You generally suck health or stats away from the bad guys and give it to yourself and your team around you. It’s a great power set for toons who need to be a backup healer for a team, since the heal and rez both require Accuracy checks to work, but I have also had success being the main healer for a team on a Dark Miasma Corruptor. Playing your Dark Miasma/Darkness Affinity character carefully (i.e., not running into the fray like a Tank–guilty as charged) will yield better results.

Empathy

Available to: Defenders, Controllers
Best for: Healing, resurrecting & buffing allies
Complete List of Powers

Empathy is the go-to set for healing, for the most part, but it’s not the only healing set out there. It is, however, a set that doesn’t require Accuracy checks for healing. You can boost your allies’ Regeneration and Recovery rates (how fast they heal and regain endurance), as well as buffing them against all types of damage, and helping them resist negative status effects like Sleeps and Holds.

Force Field

Available to: Defenders, Controllers, Masterminds
Best for: Buffing allies, controlling enemies
Complete List of Powers

Force Field ally buff powers help your allies avoid getting hit in the first place; the occasional foe captures, knockbacks, and disorients you can fire off help your teams survive big enemy spawns. It’s not one of the more popular choices, but I find that Force Field toons just make the rest of the team’s jobs easier. It’s easier to mow down enemies when you’re not taking as much damage, and with your enemies either struggling to get back on their feet or wandering around drunkenly, it’s a much shorter battle. You, as the Force Field toon, may not do a lot of damage, but you are invaluable to the team.

Kinetics

Available to: Defenders, Controllers, Corruptors
Best for: Healing and buffing allies; debuffing and controlling enemies
Complete List of Powers

This set, along with Empathy, is renowned for its buffs (Speed Boost and Increase Density, for instance), but it’s also a passable healing set as well as a debuff set. I don’t have a lot of experience with my Kinetics character so far, but in the midst of battle, she’s very efficient at pulling health off bosses (much like Dark Miasma). I also find that the debuffs, much like Force Field, make the team’s job of owning face much easier–it pulls away speed and Recovery rate from your enemies, weakening them.

Nature Affinity

Available to: Controllers, Corruptors, Defenders, Masterminds
Best for: Heals and buffs with a few debuffing effects
Complete List of Powers

This power set forms a perfect thematic set with Plant Control, since most of its powers are defensive and protective. LOTS of healing, lots of buffing, and just a bit of enemy damage through poison and holds means that Nature Affinity is a good alternative to Empathy, Radiation Emission, and Kinetics. (For instance, Lifegiving Spores giving both +Regen and +Recovery? AWESOME!)

Pain Domination

Available to: Corruptors, Masterminds
Best for: Healing with a large side of combat boosts and tricks.
Complete List of Powers

Pain Domination is like Empathy with teeth–you’ve still got heals and buffs, but there are some seriously powerful enemy debuffs hidden within those powers, too. This is a great set for a multitasking healer who doesn’t have time to heal/buff and damage/debuff in separate actions. (Conduit of Pain as a retaliatory Rez is hilarious!)

Poison

Available to: Controllers, Corruptors, Masterminds
Best for: Damaging enemies, healing and buffing (occasionally)
Complete List of Powers

Poison is best for somebody who doesn’t want or need to play healer much, but does want to debuff enemies in all sorts of ways, reducing defenses, resistances, speed, To-Hit, and even Regen rate. There are some healing/buffing powers, and even a limited Rez (Elixir of Life), but this is more in the capacity of “emergency healer” rather than “primary healer.” Bright side: the debuffs alone should make it pretty easy for a team to mow through enemies, rendering the healing less necessary anyway!

Radiation Emission

Available to: Defenders, Controllers, Corruptors
Best for: Healing, resurrecting, and buffing allies; debuffing enemies
Complete List of Powers

This power set is one-half of the popular Controller build called “Ill/Rad,” or Illusion Control/Radiation Emission. It’s a potent healing set, not quite on par with Empathy, but pretty close, from my estimation. I’ve seen Radiation Emission toons be the main healers of a team, or sometimes the secondary healer–it depends on your playstyle. They also are great for debuffing enemies, bringing down their ability to recharge, to move quickly, to damage you or your allies, or even be able to hit you at all. There’s also a surprising damaging attack late in the set, when all else fails!

Storm Summoning

Available to: Controllers, Corruptors, and Masterminds
Best for: Debuffing and controlling enemies; buffing and healing allies
Complete List of Powers

I’ve played a Storm Summoning Controller for a good while, and I find that the power set is best for locking enemies in place and debuffing them. Heals and buffs are few and far between, which means that your Storm Summoning toon won’t be the main healer, but you can be backup healer in a pinch. The storms are great for debuffing and knocking around your enemies, and it does a good bit of damage (at least, for a team-support character!). While they’re busy trying to recover from what you’ve done to them, your teammates are mowing ’em down. Fun fun!

Sonic Resonance

Available to: Defenders, Controllers, Corruptors
Best for: Buffing allies, debuffing enemies
Complete List of Powers

This is a pretty basic set, and not a very popular one…but I disagree with popular opinion. Played right, your Sonic Resonance toon can make enemies up to 50% less resistant to all types of damage. What does this mean? It means that your team mows through high-level bad guys as if they were your level, demolishing them in 5 seconds or less rather than standing there slashing for close to a minute. (I didn’t know just how much this would make a difference until I played a Sonic Resonance toon of my own, and saw how cool it was.) Debuffs aside, there are also some great team buffs for Defense and Damage Resistance, but you need to be in the middle of your team to make sure everybody is getting the benefit.

Thermal Radiation

Available to: Controllers, Corruptors, and Masterminds
Best for: Healing, resurrecting, and buffing allies; debuffing enemies
Complete List of Powers

This set is more like Empathy in that none of your healing powers require an Accuracy check; however, your buffs and debuffs make up more of your power tree. Thermal Radiation toons help their teams by keeping them shielded from harm, boosting their fighting abilities, and drawing stats away from your enemies. I don’t have a lot of experience with my Thermal Radiation character as of yet, but I like how her powers work so far–everything helps my teammates, even when I target an enemy!

Time Manipulation

Available to: Controllers, Defenders, Corruptors, and Masterminds
Best for: Recharging allies’ powers, boosting ToHit, healing, and enemy debuff
Complete List of Powers

Time Manip toons help with combat by boosting +Recharge, +Damage, and +ToHit, as well as bringing down enemy defenses and resistances…AND there’s healing, too! It’s an excellent power set for somebody who doesn’t just want to be “the healer” for a team, since these powers facilitate battle for the rest of the team. (Farsight and Temporal Selection are standout buffs, while Temporal Mending looks like a great Heal!)

Traps

Available to: Corruptors, Defenders, Masterminds
Best for: Enemy debuff and damage
Complete List of Powers

Traps aren’t necessarily your typical “team support” tree, but they can help a team weaken/get rid of very large mobs, which is supportive in its own way, much like Controllers’ Primary Power Sets. A Traps toon can’t do much healing, but the Force Field Generator and Triage Beacon can help in a pinch. Otherwise, you can pretty much pick your preferred flavor of debuff (Caltrops, Acid Mortar, Time Bomb, etc.), and run with it!

Trick Arrow

Available to: Controllers, Corruptors, Defenders, Masterminds
Best for: Enemy debuff
Complete List of Powers

Trick Arrows are purely for negatively affecting enemies, nothing else. Pull a Hawkeye and bring an arrow for all occasions–keep your enemy from flying, recharging their powers, recovering endurance, dealing damage, etc. Or you can use a couple of the arrow types to hold them in place, make them slip, or even put them to sleep! A toon with Trick Arrows can thus help a big team manage lots of enemies. (And, if you happen to be playing with a Fire toon, shoot a few Oil Slick Arrows for extra fun.)

Summary

Building a natural team support toon takes having a general idea of what you want to do with your team support powers, and which toon archetype you want to build on (Defender, Controller, Corruptor, Mastermind). But there are literally dozens of combinations that can make you able to support any team you work with!

Wednesday in the Word

What Do We Offer God These Days?

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whatdoweoffergod
Numbers 7:23
And for a sacrifice of peace offerings, two oxen, five rams, five he goats, five lambs of the first year: this was the offering of Nethanel the son of Zuar. (KJV)

This verse describes one of the offerings made at the dedication of the Tabernacle by leaders of the 12 tribes, and is part of the longest chapter in the first five books of the Bible. Each of the 12 tribe leaders brought identical sacrifices to show their dedication to the Lord, and to praise and honor Him for blessing them through Moses (recorded in the previous chapter of Numbers).

For modern believers, this kind of physical act of sacrifice seems alien. In this day and age, who would bring animals and precious objects to a modern Christian church as any kind of offering to God? Indeed, since the practice of sacrificing to atone for sin has been rendered unnecessary by Jesus, this kind of voluntary material tribute to God feels weird.

This does not mean, however, that we are exempt from thanking God. Just because we don’t bring our best plates and lambs to the altar anymore doesn’t mean we’re cleared to treat God like Santa Claus and just ask Him for things without being grateful. Yet many times we do just that–we cry out to Him only in times of sorrow or need. In times of health and happiness, sometimes we forget to tell God “Good job;” we forget to recognize how He protects us, and to praise Him for prayers answered.

Praising is just as important as praying. It’s not that God needs our praise, but that we need to praise Him in order to remember all that God has done for us, all the times He has taken care of us. We bring the sacrifice of praise, as this hymn states; instead of items, we bring our gratitude and humble hearts before God, and we let the memories of God’s faithfulness develop our trust in Him. Our praise and gratitude are literally the best things we can offer God today.

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Rediscovering The Library

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rediscoveringlibrary
In this age of frugal living/careful spending, I’m surprised when I hear some of my friends talk about “buying” the new book everyone’s talking about. I’m surprised–not because I’m surprised at people reading, but because I buy almost no books anymore. Instead, I’m a regular customer at the library. Want to know why I made that change? Read on to find out!

My Background in Reading: Extensive

For most of my life, I’ve been a voracious reader, tackling numerous books in a week sometimes (if boredom was striking hard). It didn’t hurt that I grew up being taken to the library a few times a week, too, always marveling at their large book collections. It was a wonderful place to explore, and I enjoyed checking out the mountains of books I inevitably wanted to read every week.

High School: A Gradual Moving Away from Reading

Somewhere in high school, however, I lost the will to read for pleasure. I credit it to my AP and honors literature classes and general college prep, which demanded so much reading outside of school hours that after I was done with homework, the last thing I wanted to see was a printed word. I, who had loved books from childhood, virtually quit reading for pleasure until the summer before my sophomore year in college.

I instead found myself playing more video games and being on the computer more often, needing more pictorial and interactive ways to relax instead of having to stay focused on more words. It was so unlike me, in retrospect, but at the time, I didn’t think anything of it.

College: The Change Back (Mostly for the Better)

The summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college changed things drastically, however. Due to an ex-boyfriend’s casual dismissal of me, I ended up very sad and lonely most of that summer, languishing, feeling like I had no purpose.

But soon enough, I got tired of sitting at home crying, and finally I got up the courage to venture out and buy a few books to read at a nearby bookstore. Suddenly, it all came back–why I had loved reading. It had helped me to escape a world I had had enough of! So I began collecting more and more books, reading them and putting them aside, sometimes to reread them, sometimes not, for the next 8 years.

Uh-Oh…Now the Mountain of Books is in My House…

But you can guess what happened. These days, I’m virtually swimming in a sea of purchased books. My bedroom is stuffed with them, there are boxes upon boxes in the hallways, and still there are books in the floor. It’s a picture of my brain and my life. I love information, I love reading, and I still find myself looking at the bookstore and wanting to buy a lot of the books I see. But, with the new problem of storage, I just didn’t want to have to deal with picking them up off the floor and trying to find places to put newly acquired books for the rest of my life.

Suddenly, a Solution–The Library!

Then, a brainstorm. As I sat at the library using their wireless Internet one afternoon a couple of years ago, I looked around and it struck me–why am I not using this library card I have in my purse? Why don’t I just check out the books I want to read, and then bring them back in 2 or 3 weeks? DUH! Knowing how fast I read, I knew I’d be done with at least one book by week’s end, maybe more.

So I rose from my chair and pecked around in the fiction section a bit until I found a couple of books that interested me. I have been enjoying the library’s privileges since, reading 3-4 books every 6 weeks or so (depending on how hectic my schedule is). Once I’m finished with them, I can return them and let someone else enjoy them, and they aren’t lying around cluttering up my house any further. Plus, I’m not spending tons of money on books I might not even read again. I have rediscovered the library–rediscovered one reason why it is so wonderful.

Don’t Let Your Library Go to Waste!

But libraries are vanishing fast–even our local library may not be around much longer, and that saddens me. As a money-saver, as a time investment, and as a place for free Internet that isn’t a loud coffee shop, it’s perfect for me and many other local folks. Yet libraries all over the country (and possibly, all over the world) are still having to deal with budgets shrinking, less visitors, almost no income, and lack of new books to put up. I think it’s awful.

Many people have commented on this issue, with some folks saying libraries as we know them won’t be around much longer anyway. Others are saying libraries are struggling and failing to meet a new technological need rather than an informational one. And some say that libraries must update technologically to offer the same kinds of community help that they used to.

I believe that yes, libraries as mere storehouses of books are not the informational resource they once were–the Internet has taken that place. But the library is still a free/almost free source of Internet and printing facilities, as well as a safe place for families and communities to come together. (Not to mention that they are generally QUIET…yay!) I think the world definitely still needs libraries–their ageless serenity is a refuge from the outside world, a home away from home.

Whether libraries will ultimately come to house technology as well as books/in place of books, or whether they become cultural centers or something else entirely, I believe that communities still need them to serve, and will need them as long as there are social humans. Libraries were not only my refuge in childhood, but have become a newfound haven in my adulthood. And I think it can be that way for others, too. I just hope more people rediscover their libraries soon, so that this experience I’ve had doesn’t just become part of history!

Monday in the HTMLab

A Jungle of Strange Words: My Forays into PHP and MySQL

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ajungleofstrangewords

My current experience with PHP and MySQL has not been all tiptoeing through tulips. More often, it’s slashing my way through somebody else’s jungle-y code, trying desperately to understand how each part of the code functions, why even the smallest comma or space throws everything off, etc.

I’ve struggled with various projects in the last few years, mostly working on getting PHP to display results from a MySQL database. One of those projects is this very blog, which is now working beautifully after a few false starts. The other, a Magic: the Gathering trades database, never would find search results the way it was supposed to despite hours of debugging and reworking. (I finally got tired of struggling with it and screaming at it after about a YEAR–I was never so happy to hit the Delete button in my entire life.)

The Problem I Face (and What Most Newbie Programmers Face)

The bottom line is that PHP and MySQL are two of the more logic-based, technical Web programming languages out there. It has been far more difficult to teach myself PHP and MySQL than it was to teach myself HTML and CSS, because the vocabulary is so different, and the syntax is hard to read. From this newbie’s perspective, some of PHP and most of MySQL just hasn’t made sense at all; it’s just dollar signs and semicolons everywhere, and thus debugging it is a lost cause (as I discovered).

More experienced programmers might ask, “Well, why not just Google it and learn from tutorials?” There’s a problem with most tutorials available on the Internet; they are simply not written for actual programming newbies. They contain far too many technical words that are not easily defined–terms that someone with experience would know right away, but which a complete newb to programming would be confused by.

But Never Fear! Help Is On the Way!

Thankfully, after much, MUCH searching, I have discovered a few simpler, well-paced and fully-explained tutorials available to PHP and MySQL newbs like myself:

In some of these tutorials, I have found long-searched answers to some of the most basic MySQL and PHP questions I’ve had–questions which undermined any knowledge I tried to take in. With those now answered, I think I’m finally on my way to understanding. Check them out, and see if these careful explanations work for you!

Sunday in the Wild

Two Problems Tackled, One Remains!

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WOOT! I finally (FINALLY) figured out how to make my header image stay visible when navigating to other post pages and other standalone pages. Also, I figured out how to take away the silly “Posted on” and “Category” lines from my standalone pages–they didn’t need it, after all. YAY for victories, however small!

One problem remains: how to make comments work. Currently, I’m tinkering with the comments template, but there’s a lot of things I need to add to the stylesheet in order to make comments look right, as well as function right. Sigh. Coding awaits.

Just wanted to let my viewers know that I’m still working on this theme and trying to make it right. 😀 And at this rate, I hope to be 3 for 3 soon!

Saturday with the Spark

The Enemy of Creativity: Self-Censorship

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theenemyofcreativity
Writing is a creative process, sometimes just randomized brainstorming and fitful starts, sometimes fluid composing that only stops when your fingers or brain cells are too tired to go on. I’ve been writing ever since I can remember–one of my first short stories was composed on a steno notebook belonging to my dad, written in blue highlighter. (Maybe not the best choice, but as a six-year-old, I chose the tools close to hand!)

In childhood, I would hear about “writer’s block” as being this terrible condition that befell all writers at some point. But I used to think I never suffered writer’s block, because ideas for a story always came so easily to me–the words just flowed, and it sounded good to my ears and looked good to my eyes. It was much later, as I grew up and began writing for schoolwork or for other people to read, that I began to experience writer’s block in earnest. For me, that choking, halting sensation of just not knowing what to write next alarmed me. Was I losing my touch?

The Root of Writer’s Block: Self-Censorship

This feeling has come back sometimes while composing my novel, and at first, I was afraid that I was running out of ideas for the story. As I probed the feeling of writer’s block, however, I discovered that it wasn’t simply a lack of ideas–it was a lack of presentable ideas, ideas that other people would like. I was censoring my ideas, trying to make the novel immediately something that “other people” would like, rather than just writing what I felt was best and reviewing it later. Though I’m not sure that self-censoring was the complete source of my earlier writer’s block, I’m pretty sure self-censorship came into the picture at least a little, since I’ve been a perfectionist most of my life (LOL).

This Can Happen to Anyone

Self-censorship can strike at any time–when you have that little tingle of unease in your brain that signals “Ooh, I don’t know how good this is,” or when you are having difficulty producing part of a story because you’re afraid it’s all been done before. This is the enemy of creativity: when you hold yourself back, your writing becomes more stilted than ever, and you end up producing something that reads as if it’s afraid to come off the page. This censoring process, which starts out with good intentions (wanting to produce “good” writing that will be enjoyed and accepted), ends up just hamstringing you.

How to Beat Self-Censorship

Don’t let your personal judgment get in the way of your actual writing process. Write first and judge later. Seriously. You can always edit, erase or backspace if you review your writing and don’t like what you see, but if you don’t produce any writing in the first place, you won’t ever explore your ideas. (Who knows, you might write something that is utterly beautiful and life-changing to someone else, even if you think it’s nothing special!)

Also, don’t be ashamed if you have to go back and rewrite something several times over to get it “right.” Your taking the time to rewrite something that has already been put on paper/typed up in a document is a positive sign of writing development–and that development can’t take place until the original thought is put down in visual form somehow. Writing is not something you produce perfectly the first time (something I’ve had to realize the hard way); it’s something you imagine into existence, shape and sculpt, and then sand and polish until it gleams. Don’t let your desire for the polished finished product keep you from imagining.

Friday around the Web

Dance to Get Smarter, PacXon, Funny Haiku Shirt, and ArtPad

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dancetogetsmarter
Study: Dancing Makes You Smarter
Apparently, people can dance to keep their minds active. Now you have an excuse to boogie down wherever! 😀

PacXon
Not the pure Pacman ripoff it first looks like. Lock the familiar ghosts in a smaller and smaller space to win, but don’t let them touch you or your line while you’re crossing their space!

Funny Haiku Shirt (Threadless)
Haikus can be fun
And even appear on shirts
Snicker-worthy woot

ArtPad
Bring out your artistic side with this interactive painting site, which also allows others to see your painting process when you save and send it! Microsoft Paint bows down and is not worthy.

Thursday in the Zone

Building a Better Team Support Toon, Part 1

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teamsupporttoon1
On City of Heroes, many people spend lots of time playing solo–running a few quick missions before work or school, or just taking some time to hunt for badges to unwind. This in itself calls for a very efficient damage-dealing type of character (“toon” in the game’s parlance); you must be able to deal with everything you come up against on your own, so there’s no room for useless powers in your build.

Building a Solo Character =/= Building a Teaming Character

However, this style of building toons does not always suit team play. In a team, there are other players to think of–you can’t just go charging in, aggravate all the bad guys in a room, and expect that everyone will survive. Neither can you be the sole damage-dealer for the whole team, when there are enough bad guys generated for up to 8 players in a team. This is just asking for trouble.

To play best in a team, you’ve got to be willing to support your teammates. This usually requires a mindset shift, as described above, but it also helps if you have the following powers, too:

Helpful Team-Support Powers for Every Toon

  • Recall Friend (from the Teleportation power pool): Enables me to get another player’s toon across a wide hero zone in seconds, or to pull them back to a safe area in a mission if they have been defeated. Efficient for helping lowbie toons without travel powers get around faster, or for moving large teams from mission to mission in quick succession.
  • Aid Other and Resuscitate (from the Medicine power pool): These are both healing powers–Aid Other gives some health back to a fellow player, and Resuscitate brings a character back from being defeated, with full health but no endurance. These two powers don’t always work (they require an Accuracy check), but they are great for when the main healer of the team has been defeated and we need healing NOW.

These powers are the most useful, and since they are available from power pools rather than primary or secondary power trees, any toon can choose them as one of their power picks when they level up or respec.

I generally take both Recall Friend and most of the Medicine pool with my ranged-damage toons, but I even build my close-combat toons with at least the healing powers (Recall Friend is better with toons who play more at range than close-combat, I’ve found). This might take away from my damage-dealers’ available attack powers or defensive powers, but I find that building my character this way helps my teams (which makes me feel useful and helpful, leading to happy Robin).

Don’t forget, though: when you play team support, this means you need to watch out for your team. Have your Team window open so you can monitor the health and endurance of your teammates without having to see them personally on your screen, and don’t run ahead of your team or lag behind. Match this conscientious playstyle with good team-support powers, and you’re on your way to helping whatever team you join!

We’ll cover specific team-friendly powersets in the next installment of “Building a Better Team Support Toon:” Part 2!