Hi, NRG

Once I have a character name that I like the choice of powersets usually follows quite quickly. The American Nightmare is unusual in that I went through several combinations before settling on Energy Melee/Energy Aura.

I originally went with Radiation Melee/Radiation Armor, but RM was an unfinished set on Live and it still feels somewhat unpolished, and I dislike the visuals of RA. The glowing green eyes are all that's left of that version of the character now. I also considered Shield Defence – always a good fit for a character with America in their name – but while it does work with EM's attack animations it wasn't doing it for me, so I went with EA instead.

I've never played either of these powersets extensively before, so now at the end of this 24 hours of villainy, how do they shape up?

Energy Melee I've always liked visually, and for not being as LOUD as Super Strength. Initially it felt very hard hitting, and while that impression has faded it's still a solid set. The disorient secondary effect is too random to rely on, but it has at times made a difference when it counts.

Energy Aura? Well...

It's a powerset that's perhaps best known for a legendary thread in the old CoH forums. To this day I'm sure that if anyone asks what's the best secondary for War Mace there will always be someone who recommends /EA, because as MrPlayskool showed us WM/EA is STRONG and PRETTY.

(I was sorely tempted to go with /EA for a War Mace character I have, but in the end I reluctantly decided that concept needed a less showy secondary, so it went to The American Nightmare instead. Lucky her.)

It's... not bad? As I've said before I've been running +0/x2 since level 5 and it's got me through that without me having to drop my notoriety back down as I did on Time Raider. Admittedly that's with an absurd 73 defeats along the way... Still, I did only load up on extra defence inspirations once, when a spawn of two Scrapyarder bosses was giving me a very hard time. Harder, in fact, than the Elite Boss that ended that mission, oddly enough. With a very few exceptions this character has put down bosses fast.

/EA is a defence based set, with limited damage resistance. It's not as fragile as Super Reflexes, which has only two settings – untouchable and dead – but the extra resistance I got from running a temp power during one tough mission definitely made a difference. (It was a timed mission and I wasn't taking any chances on failing it.) I'm not sure when I'll be ramping up the notoriety further on this character, but on the plus side my endurance issues have pretty much ended since I hit level 22 and slotted a few end red single origin enhancements.  When I'm pausing in missions now it's to regain health, not endurance, and for a brute that's a big deal.

It's been a fun run. I'm still in Sharkhead and having intentionally not utilised my travel powers for the most part while I've been there I've got more of a feel for the place now.

City of Heroes is the game that's most likely to break my six game rotation. There's just so much to do, so many different builds to play with, and so much content. I've yet to touch the third of the 1-20 experiences in this blog. That'll be next time and that of course means another new character.

But not yet. I've enjoyed this run more for having come back to CoH after time in other games than I would have had I been playing only CoH all along. There are other MMOs out there I still want to delve into, until it's time to return to Paragon City and the Rogue Isles once more.