Thursday, September 6, 2012

Characters part 5 -- The Martial Artists




I'm still not entirely clear on how I came to possess multiple level 50 MA scrappers.

To begin with, there was Shinobu Dragonheart on Virtue.  She was MA/Invul, and one of my early 50's after I came back to the game in 2006 or 2007.  It took me a while to get her to 50, but the final push came when I was just learning how to really IO a character and build for smashing/lethal defense.  I had a lot of fun being able to take on endless hoards of Council with her.  Years later, I moved her to Exalted, where I could shorten her name to just Shinobu.  I reworked her build and joined at least one Khan run there, but I didn't play on Exalted that much.



I started new characters all of the time, and so I think before Shinobu Dragonheart even made it to 50, I created Tiffany Blackheart.  She was MA/WP.  I think I created her once, played a few levels, deleted her, and then later saw a picture of her and got nostalgiac and recreated her.  But her original costume made her look fat, so it was a love/hate relationship until I dressed her in an all-black schoolgirl outfit, and that worked for me.  She was meant to be a street fighter, a kind of tough girl hooligan.



She was also level-pacted with a broadsword/shield scrapper named Valkyrie of Atlantis, and so for a long time I was playing her up to 50.. it was a major project for me.  It's the only time I ever did that too, since she was earning experience for two and it took me twice as long to make it to 50.

Part way through the journey I ran into a problem -- a Double Experience Weekend.  I wanted to level a new character quickly for the DxP weekend, but I was really enjoying playing Tiffany.  The compromise?  Play another MA scrapper!



And I had just the one I needed too!  With all of martial art's high flying kicks, I'd come up with the idea that a ballerina would make a great MA scrapper.  So I'd created "Ballet Dancer" on at least two servers -- Justice, and Freedom.  The one on Freedom I had played up to the high 20's, and I was really enjoying the character.  So why not recreate that character on Virtue, where I played most often?



"Ballet Dancer" was taken, so I went with "Nina Ballerina" from the old ABBA song.  I've come to think that's the better name in any case.  And over DxP weekend and the weeks that followed it, Nina Ballerina shot up to 50, and Tiffany arrived there about the same time.



This left me with three level 50 MA scrappers, all on Virtue.  But they were different in concept so I didn't mind.  Soon, however, I felt the need for a level 50 on Freedom -- I wanted to join the hami raids that Leandro and company were running there, and I had transferred my only 50, Serpentine Fire, to Virtue.

What I did have was a level 26+ MA/WP scrapper named Ballet Dancer.  But I'd done the ballerina-as-martial-artist thing once, and had no desire to repeat myself.  I found the name Jalia free on the server -- the name of my first 50, and the name I used in EQ for my barbarian shaman.  One name change and a complete makeover later, and Jalia the MA/WP scrapper on Freedom was born!

I got her to 50  quite fast, and joined several hami raids with her.  And that left me with 3 MA/WP scrappers and 4 MA scrappers over all.  Obviously I never needed another MA scrapper again, right?



Well... possibly.  I still had Ballet Dancer on Justice, and over on Victory I had Kung Fu Chelsea, originally created because I saw someone else's martial arts combat girl and liked the look a lot, so I copied it.  Eventually I changed her to give her a unique look, and I got her up to 23.  She was also MA/WP.



Then there was Astral Moon, an MA/WP stalker.  This was my first attempt to get a stalker to 50, and frankly Martial Arts is not a great stalker primary (entirely single target) and WP on a stalker is somewhat less than it is on a scrapper or brute.  So... I only got her to 35.


And then, of course, MA was ported to tanks, so I eventually made an MA tank.  ^_^  Only got to 19 on her though.

But I played Shinobu Dragonheart, Tiffany Blackheart, and Nina Ballerina to death.  They are among my favorite characters -- Nina is my go-to character for hami raids, Tiffany is leader of one of my super groups and one of my old-school tough girl scrappers, and Shinobu is my even-more-old-school scrapper.  :D

No comments:

Post a Comment