Annzilla's Old and Updated Build

She's one of my favorite alts, a Stone/Fire Tank. She was the first of the Tanker Project after Ms Ann (my main). I recall that leveling her up was really tough for me because of Rooted and the sluggishness of the Stone set in general. It took some time to get used to TPing into mobs and managing aggro from afar. The speed debuff is much less forgiving to teammates when they do not stick by the tanker. Stonies are too slow to be able to run to a teammate to tauntlet the foes away so I had experienced more teammate deaths that way.

Funny thing.. I also never understood why so many people chose the Stone set until hitting 32 for Granite Armor. Basically, it's tanking on easy mode. For me, personally, it got kind of boring at that point, but I get why people are drawn to it. You just don't have to worry about managing health or mitigation at all. You're a big stone slab that punches things.

I just wish there was a female form for the stone armor. I'm not talking about hyper sexualization with the boobies and all, but just not as masculine as the Granite Armor as it existed. Oh, and I was't too fond of grunting like a man, either. Hah.

At any rate, with all the posts I have done on Annzilla in the past, I realized that I have never actually posted up her build.

This build was as of mid-late 2011.

I don't believe I rerolled her at all, so this is probably the sunset build as well.

Here are the stats, with Granite on, duh.

You can grab Mid's data link for the old build here. Or you can check out the new build with the fitness inherent below:

Pretty much the same. 

I didn't bother putting the other data bits for this build because it's basically the same. The new build is a bit more expensive, but is mostly the same, but Greater Fire Sword removed (dps for incinerate is better, and I always felt that she had more attacks than needed), and a few more "nice to have" powers picked from the pools.

If I were to replay her, I will probably stick with the old IOs since they are super budget and easier to get and revert to the new build if I play her more than expected.

Data link for the updated build here.

Stone Tanking in the Statesman TF

Ran a Statesman TF today as my Stone/Fire Tanker, Annzilla (I'm the green lizard lady sitting down).

The team consisted of mostly folks who never ran it before. You can imagine my anxiousness as the team leader. I really want it to be a good experience for folks and running a TF with the possibly of team wipes is not the ideal situation.

Needless to say, this run nearly could have been a Master of Statesman TF (with the exception of one death in the first mission). Yes, we kicked butt that much.

Its also worthy to note that I have never run the STF as a Stone Tanker before. I couldn't believe how freaking easy it was compared to running one an Invulnerability Tank. Stone Tanks got it easy. Seriously! I'm looking forward to running it as other Tanks. =)

Annzilla Reach Security Level 50!

Like I said in the previous entry, I have a lot of posts to catch up on. I've actually managed to get Annzilla up to level 48 since the last time I wrote an entry on her. As a tanker, it is stupidly easy to level up once I hit security level 45.

Not because that is the optimal level to get power leveled, which I did not, but it is more so because I am finally able to get Maria Jenkins as a contact. Pretty much every single mission Maria gives you has an Arch-Villain in it, so that just means gobs and gobs of XP.

Its doubly easier for me, because I am a tanker, I create my teams, and run the missions like a well oiled machine. I basically power-leveled/power-game myself (and the teams). That is how I was able to get to level 48, just in time to run the Lady Grey Task Force with some friends.

The team is assembling by Lady Grey. Unfortunately I did not write down the names and I had forgotten to coerce the team into posing for a picture. =(

So the task force starts out pretty good. The team starts out by saving Penny Yin's butt. And then going on to fight the Clockwork King.

I just want to quickly mention how much more fun Annzilla is to play after being fully IO'ed up with level 50 IOs. She is slotted with as many +speed/travel as possible, so playing her is not so unbearable anymore due to the travel/speed restriction while in Granite form or with Rooted enabled.

For me, it took her 47 levels to mature, and by that time, I was so delighted at how awesome she played.

And if you're wondering, yes, I am one of those perma-Granite Stone Tankers. There are different schools of thought on perma-Granites due to the -Acc and -Damage debuffs that go along with Granite form, but as a Stone/Fire tanker fully IO'ed, I don't have a problem in either accuracy or damage output of my attacks.

But I digress. Back to the Task Force:

So in the next mission where we are to save the chatty twins and lead them out, I level up!

Caught the very tail end of the ding animation again. =(

That particular mission was rather unfortunate because one of the hostages we were supposed to save died right at the Arch-Villain and the mission failed. Previously, the hostages could have died, but I guess they changed it in the i12 for a mission fail. I suppose now that a mission fail is in place, one could farm the LGTF to auto fail the mission for a shorter TF run.

Something to think about I suppose. But on to the next mission! This is where we fight a neutered version of Hamidon. We did beat him up (with some snags along the way) and I caught the 'dying Hamidon' animation. Its always so pretty to watch so I thought I'd share it. (sounds kind of morbid, doesn't it?)

This particular mission went well for the most part. I honestly still haven't run the i11 (or was it i10?) Hamidon raid when they changed the mechanics of it (again), so I am a bit clueless as to the how-to of going about killing the thing.

Aside from never being sure on which mito's to defeat first with what attack, Hamidon has an unresisting damage type which cuts me down like butter.

So the team did a great job. I say the team, because I was on my back drowning in the water the whole time. Go team!

The final mission is when we have to fight a mutated and brainwashed Hero 1. If you know the stories of Hero 1 in the CoH/CoV universe, its a sad story.

During this particular mission, we plow our way through to get to Hero 1 with ease. The problem is actually fighting him. We did not have anyone in the team with any regeneration debuffs to debuff him when he goes (his version of) unstoppable. When he does so, he becomes resistant to all types of damage and is basically in god-mode. Our problem was being unable to get his health points down enough to beat his regeneration when he does go into god-mode.

This one screenshot is just too cool, love the vivid colors!

After he went into god-mode and regenerated his health points to nearly full for the 5th time, I along with two other team mates had to do a quick run to Bloody Bay in order to get some Shivan pets to aid in defeating him.

Shivans do have neat little -regen in many of their attacks so it really made a difference.

The whole task force was clocked at about 3hours and 45 minutes until completion. 45 of those minutes was likely during the Hero 1 battle.

So after the TF I hung around a bit with some Paragonian Knights friends who also ran the TF.

Yes, I am the one with the afro.

Prickly Tiger, aka @Yaki-Sama had also dinged 50 during the TF. The PK folks had a neat little ceremony to honor the new 50's.

All in all, it was a fun TF (my first actually, with Annzilla) where I was able to finish leveling my Stone Tanker. She'll be shelved until needed and I will be starting a new Tanker!

Saving the Reactor Core from the Freakshow

Annzilla and a few good friends ran the level 34+ hero respecification trial tonight! The trial, also known as a "respec" trial is a series of instanced mission with the last mission being a trip to the Reactor Core in Terra Volta. Its a unique map and its pretty darn neat!

For characters that have not run the trial before, upon completion, it awards the character a chance to respec their powers. What this means is that you can choose different powers in your primary, secondary, ancillary, and epic power pools, as well as being able to slot them differently.

Almost to the reactor core. Dashing through the halls.

The respec trial for any first timers is very exciting. Like I said, there is a new unique map that you do not see anywhere else as well as very interesting and engaging gameplay during the core itself.

There are 3 different respec trials with different enemy groups for different level ranges. The bad guys spawn at doors on the top platform surrounding the reactor core. Their objective is to attack and destroy the core and the heroes' objective is to protect the core from the attacks! There is about 10 waves of spawns to face down to successfully complete the trial. In between the spawns, the squishy heroes need to get protection from the radiation in the form of a red bubble while they are in the core or else they lose Damage over Time. The sturdier heroes, like Tankers and Scrappers can do without it because their regeneration outpaces the DoT in the reactor room.

I remember my first time running it, it was some heart pumping fun! But then again, it was crazy hard back then since the devs seemed to have rushed the trial release where testing was inadequate and the difficulty was not scaled correctly. After actually completing it through many failed tries, it was my first feeling of real satisfaction with the game.

Nowadays, the respec trial is not too difficult and you do not have to build the "perfect team" in order to succeed. In fact, any decently coordinated team can beat this trial with ease.

The team kicking butt and protecting the core. I'm the Stone Tanker with the brown, poopy looking stuff around my feet.

But after running it a bazillion times throughout the years, it does get rather predictable and tedious. To spice things up, I have this personal challenge that I create and try to beat. For the level 34+ respec trial, I try to shoot around the 1 hour and 30 minute time limit. It's just a fun little thing to do to keep it interesting.

In the end of this trial run, as expected in a "who's who" team of kick ass heroes, we obviously kicked ass with a Respecification Trial successfully run in under 1 hour and 15 minutes!

Manganese Hero, Polar Vengance, Annzilla, Jane Flame, HardKore

More ToT Grinding

After 3 more hours of ToT grinding, Annzilla is now level 40. I didn't think I could do it, but I guess I made 40 by the end of this week after all.

Tonight's grind was so much better than last night's because I created and ran this team. Meaning, I made sure the team consisted of decent players and that I was on the lower end of the team level range. I was about 2 levels lower than the average team level, which means more XP for me! Hey, as a tanker, I can do that because even at my lower level, relative to the spawns, I have the defense and resistance to make me useful and keep me alive.

I am going to attempt at ToT grinding with Annzilla as much as possible before the Halloween event is over (presumably on November 1st) and will probably run Peregrine Island Archvillain missions thereafter. You know, Hero's Hero story arc with gobs of AVs? Yeah. That one.

And if all goes well, Annzilla will be all done and I will be starting my new Dark Maisma & Energy Melee Tanker, Paradoxic.

More Halloween Grinding with Annzilla

As the title says, I trick or treated all night with my Stone Armor & Fiery Melee Tanker, Annzilla. I started at 10P.M. (give or take a few minutes) and grinded with a full team of 'pick up' folks and reached level 38 by about 1:30 in the morning. I was level 35.4 when I last played her so a 3.5 hour grind isn't too terrible for about 2.5 levels. It makes me very glad that I am that much closer to 50 for Annzilla. I am probably going to continue to milk the trick or treating as much as possible. I really would like to start on the next Tanker Project already! And if you're wondering, its a split between either Willpower, Dark Armor, or Fiery Aura. Most likely it'll be DA because its new!

3.5 hours of just standing around clicking doors may sound rough, but the folks I played with knew what the heck they were doing and they were also a hoot. It was actually very fun!

After the ToT grind, I ran to Wentworth's to craft some goodies and noticed this along the way!

I had no idea that NCsoft is now advertising in-game. I have been away for 6 months after all.

I do have mixed feelings about it. I think its neat because of its novelty, but it is a little annoying But my fear is that the in-game advertising will morph into a more intrusive form like "pop-up" ads or in-game email spam. Don't ask me how I think that'll be possible, but I just don't want my games to get there. Ever.

And Lastly, I've finally decided to build that base for my Super Group! The group consists of all my alts and my brother's characters (who's account is inactive at this time). I have no intention of inviting anyone else to the group. It's just a personal base for my characters so I don't have to rely on other people to transfer items or influence between my characters.

So far, there is only the entrance and the energy room -and NOTHING else! I couldn't afford it. I think I'll only be able to afford one big item per every two gaming sessions so the base is not going to be functional for another month I think.

Its okay though, I'm in no hurry!

Stone Armor & Fiery Melee Tanker: Annzilla

I thought I'd elaborate on one of my characters, Annzilla, my Stone Armor & Fiery Melee Tanker.

She was created from a screen name I have that is very similar to it. And since it had the 'zilla' at the end of the name, I felt compelled to make her as tall as possible and give her a reptilian flair. I usually like to have an idea of my characters' history before I create them, but since I created her on the fly, she doesn't have a developed background story yet.

As for game play, have mixed feelings about it.

I have created several Stone Armor Tanks in the past, but was never able to get any of them past level 20. Its that darn Rooted toggle power that is essential to for Stone Tanker to have. When toggled, it allows the character to have faster regeneration as well as status protection. That's all fine and dandy, but the drawback is the movement debuff which does not allow you to jump or fly, and your sprinting is soooo sloooow. Since I am a naturally impatient person, I couldn't tolerate it.

The reason why I got this far is thanks to my old Super Group -and no, they did not power level me. I just have good friends there that would switch their characters to play an Archetype that better complimented Annzilla, namely any character with Kinetics. Its safe to say that about 98% of the times I teamed, there was always a pocket Kin around to Speed Boost me. I am spoiled, I know!

It seems as if the Stone Armor power set is based on the concept of "slow, but solid." Being solid is nice, but 'slow' is not my playstyle. When I tank with Ms Ann, I move quickly from group to group; I am conscious of where my teammates are at all times and I make sure that all the bad guys' attention is on me. I do try to emulate my Invuln Tanker playstyle with my Stone Tanker, but it the Stone Armor powerset makes it inherently difficult to due to the lack of mobility.

I like to think that it takes actual skill to be a good tanker, but after reaching level 32, Stone Tankers have access to the Granite power that has very high defense buffs. Because of Granite, it doesn't require much skill to be a 'decent' Stone Tanker.

For most other Tanker primary sets, people will instantly know when a Tanker sucks. These Tanks must argo manage and health manage, with some requiring more attention than others. If they have no clue, missions will be a mess, people will die, and they will be exposed as a crappy tanker. After level 32, Stone Tanks become slow defensive behemoths and can stand around and spam taunt.

And for someone impatient and easily distracted as I am, that kind of playstyle becomes very tedious. My general feeling with Annzilla is "I can't wait til she is level 50." I don't think I will play her too regularly after she reaches the cap.

Even though she's a boring Tanker, she's still a Tanker and that's the role I thrive in. I am a harsh critic, because she's really not that bad to play. However, I think the overall character concept of Annzilla is what saved her from the delete button. I just get a kick out of running around as a giant, green lizard lady breathing fire at things. Hopefully that sentiment will last me all the way to level 50!

Annzilla goes Trick or Treating

More fun tonight, this time with Annzilla, my Stone Armor & Fiery Melee Tanker.

Obviously, shes the Stone flavored Tank that I am trying to level up to complete my set of Tankers. As of tonight, she is level 35.4. Maybe I will get her to level 40 by next week, but probably not.

I started the night with some trick or treating.
It's hard to see me, but I'm in the very center of the circle of fire!

Another view of the fighting the 'tricks' coming out of the door.
If you could make out a person holding a fiery scimitar, that's me!

As the night progressed, the zombies invaded!

Here's the bird's eye view of the melee going on!

I am going to try to get in as much trick or treating with Annzilla because I don't particularly like to play her for long periods, but I do want to get her to level 50 sooner rather than later. Trick or treating with a decent group of players is the easy, safe, and quick way to earn xp in the time that I would play her.