Redside is the best side.
After 24 hours /played Bad Girl is level 23. That's actually the same level as my last villain, American Nightmare, reached in the same amount of time, and that surprises me because each has taken a levelling path distinct from the other, running different story arcs and on different difficulty settings.
On that last character I upped my notoriety to +0/x2 at level 5 and never looked back, whereas this time I've stayed at +0/x1 - except for a couple of missions when I wanted to test her ability to handle more difficult fights. This is a classic levelling question - whether to fight tougher foes for higher XP at the risk of more frequent defeats, or take on easier fights for less XP and less risk of defeat. Bad Girl has racked up less defeats than American Nightmare, though there's not that great a difference in the numbers. She is, after all, a Blaster.
Thinking about it the most likely explanation for this equal speed in levelling is twofold. Firstly, American Nightmare ran the Hearts of Darkness arcs, which are more story heavy than most and have long (for this game) stretches of travel and talking in between the combat, and combat is the main source of XP in this game.
Secondly, I gained almost two levels on Bad Girl in just over an hour running the Virgil Tarikoss Strike Force. XP rewards for SFs - for any group content really - are excellent, and without those sixty six minutes of mayhem this character would likely have ended this run at level 21.
As is often the case when I finish up a run of City of Heroes I'm sorely tempted to break my own rules and dive straight back into it. This time though I'm tempted to do so with the same character. After five alts over five days of this game I might have found the one I'll take all the way to level 50.* I guess it was inevitable it would be one of my villains.
*At least the first I'll take to level 50. Aside from those I've already played over the course of this blog there's still a dozen or so others waiting for their day(s) in the spotlight.
Energy/Energy remains my favourite powerset combination in the game, and nothing in the last 24 hours has changed that. Combining these already dynamic sets with Hover leads to fast paced and frenetic action with an emphasis on in-combat movement that's exceptional for a 2004 MMO with rooting animations. There's also a lot of tactical options available - more than might be expected for sets comprised almost entirely of attacks, attacks and more attacks.
It's not without its weaknesses. I do rely heavily on Aim/Build Up/Snipe as an opener to one-shot high priority targets, and if I leave a boss standing for too long it likely won't end well for me. The reason I've kept my difficulty settings at +0/x1 is that I can't comfortably juggle more than 3 mobs at a time, and since I've been focusing on enhancing my accuracy - because I'd rather hit for some damage than miss for all of it - my damage isn't quite what it could be at this level.
As a Blaster I'm also very squishy. It doesn't take too much incoming damage to drop me and if my Energy Torrent doesn't sweep all (or most) of a group off their feet I'm going to feel it. A Blaster built for survivability is a contradiction in terms, but I'm good to have to at least look at some defence/resistance if I want to up my notoriety.
All of which is just numbers, albeit interesting numbers that I'll spend some time on when I return to this character. Which I will (almost certainly) when I next return to City of Heroes.
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