Going Rogue was the second expansion for City of Heroes – the first being City of Villains. I didn't discover MMOs until 2008, so while I wasn't around for the launch of CoV I was there for Going Rogue.
When GR was announced I was already an active player of CoH. Well, active-ish, in that I already had one hero and one villain at level 50, and though I did spend some time on alts (no surprise there) I was only revisiting the game from time to time. The updates/issues that had been released since I'd started playing the game had all been fairly thin as far as new content was concerned* so I was excited to see what an actual expansion would bring. It didn't disappoint.
*"I13: Power and Responsibity" didn't make much of an impression on me. "I14: Architect" I actively disliked (and still do) for reasons I'll likely go into one day. "I15 : Anniversary" was another that didn't make much impact. "I16: Power Spectrum" is a bit different in that I didn't appreciate at the time as much as I do now. With hindsight I16 was a huge technical leap forward for the game, and is one of the reasons the character customisation of CoH remains unrivalled.
In my last two runs of this game I've delved into the original hero content in Paragon City, and the newer villain content in the Rogue Isles. Now it's time for the alternate reality of Praetoria, where the line dividing hero from villain is faint indeed.
My hero (or villain) for this run is Mistletoe, a Plant Control/Thorny Assault dominator. I don't have a lot of experience of dominators, or of these powersets. Indeed the secondary is a set that, like spines, I'd never have touched if it weren't for the power customisation introduced in I16.
Dominators were introduced in CoV as the villain counterpart to the heroside controller. Eschewing the controller's more team friendly focus on buffing/debuffing in favour of damage focused secondary powersets, the dominator's mix of melee and ranged attacks makes for a dynamic playstyle. Positioning matters a lot – both in what attacks I can use on my opponents and, perhaps more importantly, what incoming I can mitigate with my controls.
I already know that this run will differ in a couple of ways from my last two runs of CoH. Firstly, other than for enabling bosses at level 5 as I always do, I don't expect to be raising my difficulty settings above the default. Paragon Studios designed Going Rogue as a new 1-20 experience for veteran players, and the new enemy groups of Praetoria are significantly tougher than most of those encountered in the same level range in Paragon City and the Rogue Isles. Even on default difficulty this will be a challenge – one mission in and I was already reaching for my inspirations tray to get me through one early fight.
The second way this will differ is that I have a definite objective for this run. Rather than simply seeing how far I progress I do want to make it to level 20 and so complete the story arc that runs through those first 20 levels. One of the story arcs, that is, since there are four distinct paths that can be followed. This time around I'm going with the Resistance Crusaders, who are best described as the bad good guys.
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