Androgyne/Notes
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
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| Transcript excerpts, "Origin of the Androgyne" (Frank Gordon, WSPDR; 2006): "...despite warnings that the child would face social difficulties, Rudy and Gilda decided against surgical differentiation." "...by all accounts a loving and supportive home environment; Ani was a treasure to the Hesses." "...teasing and mockery throughout the junior high years took a subtle toll on Ani's stability, despite eir parents' positive influence." "...disturbing and mysterious death of five students, all known tormentors of young Hess...identical deformities attributed to mutagenic radiation exposure..." "...a marked change in Ani's personality...aura of confidence and self-possession...immune to taunts and derision..." "...elected Homecoming Regent. Members of eir class who suspected eir involvement in the murders five years prior staged a humiliating display during the coronation..." "...exposed, tarred, feathered..." "...made the climax of 'Carrie' look like a minor tantrum."
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Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.601
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Contents |
Build Notes
I originally chose this combination for my first corruptor because the sets seemed to me, just conceptually speaking, the two most quintessentially "corruptive" elements available[1] I first rolled the Androgyne when I was still young to the game and had little understanding of or interest in game mechanics; now that I understand the synergy between the sets I'm kind of surprised I don't see more of it. The Androgyne's build, judging by what I have seen recommended on the forums, is fairly unconventional, not only for Radiation Blast and Dark Miasma being a rare combination, but for my specific power choices.
Defender
- Since Defenders were given Soul Transfer in the Dark Ancillary with I16, the Defender is now the build I have to consider the definitive Ani. That was the power I had in mind when I first started sketching out eir backstory for eir self-resurrection from near death after the beating the High Park Five gave em. While I miss having a second hold after being so used to the PetGaze > Soul Storm/Dominate one-two punch for neutralizing Bosses, I find that I can take them out of the fight even faster now by just jumping in with Oppressive Gloom running and smacking them in the face with Cosmic Burst. Psychic Mastery was a fitting epic for Ani considering eir experience fighting the Rikti, but Soul Transfer just completely seals the deal.
- I don't even want to try to add up how much inf I've dumped into Ani's builds at this point (in fact at one time I spent nearly 300 million on a dark-limited high-offense concept second build for the period when Ani was thread-blind, which saw play exactly once before that situation was temporarily resolved to move on with other RP angles). I'm really looking forward to bringing the corruptor blueside come Going Rogue[2] so I can finally slot it out as insanely in a market that isn't ass.
- The Androgyne's current build[3] is there on the right if anyone wants to pick it over. I'm very happy with it in-game. Ani basically makes anything, anything, duoable with almost anyone, and is now at the point where some of those things have become soloable. Ani can solo a Rikti pylon without inspirations, has duoed just about every GM but the Kronos Titan with various Reciprocators and Misfits, and recently Sean Casus and Androgyne duoed three Paladins at once -- sure, Paladin's a wimp as GMs go but still, that seemed pretty badass to me.
Corruptor
- Most recommendations I see encourage players to focus on Rad Blast's AoE potential, which is significant, but I've never been able to tolerate the endurance cost. The Androgyne was for a very long time and often remains today a solo operator -- when I hit the 30s redside, playing on Vicious[4] as a minimum and started having to deal with real Bosses and Elite Bosses, I had to reconstruct Ani to survive and win those fights alone. Rad's AoEs are impressive, but they are too slow to recharge and endurance intensive to make them worthwhile for the single-target battle that usually defines the success or failure of a solo mission. Nevertheless, a seriously impressive trait of this combination is that even a solo-focused build can still make huge contributions to the safety and performance of a team.
- My attack chain consists almost entirely of Neutrino Bolt, Cosmic Burst, and Proton Volley. Dark lets you facesnipe with impunity, and a snipe Scourge is a truly beautiful thing. It's not as effective an approach for Defender Ani, so with that Ani I did go the AoE route, taking Neutron Bomb in place of Proton Volley.
- With the combined amount of control available in Fearsome Stare, Cosmic Burst, Petrifying Gaze, and Soul Storm, not to mention the sickening amount of -ToHit in Darkest Night and Fearsome Stare, even large spawns and adds encountered solo are easily locked down and neutered to be whittled down at my leisure. I describe the playstyle as "I DECIDE WHO LIVES AND DIES".
Blaster
- I knew I was going to have to at least try a Blaster Ani once Radiation Blast's proliferation was announced, but I really didn't expect to enjoy it this much. The highest I'd gotten a blaster before was maybe 26, once with AR/Dev and once with Archery/Mental. I don't do glass cannon well, because with Ani as my main I'm way too used to being an impervium cannon. I expected I would do rad/mental since I had some experience with Mental Manipulation and thought it was the closest I could find to the variety of effects available to the Dark Miasma builds and figured it would look good in dark colors.
- Then I took a look at Fire Manipulation, both what it looked like colorized to match Ani's radiation, and how the numbers and powers would gel with my Rad Blast experience. SOLD. RPed as Ani experimenting relying entirely on eir radiation in case e loses access to the threads again, the Rad/Fire build is an absolute monster, a walking nuclear furnace incinerating anything that comes within 10 feet of me in seconds. It was comical having three very effective PBAoEs at level 10, which is pretty much where I knew it was a keeper[5]. While I don't have the patience to solo it, I love love love teaming with this build, especially running in on the heels of a tank to melt everything around us in often as little as two attacks. At 30 at the time of this writing, I don't doubt at all now that this is going to be my first blaster to 50.
Other Builds
- Ani's seen a couple attempts at other ATs so far, but they've almost all ended in deletion. At one time I thought Ani would translate perfectly into a tank, and tried at different times a Dark/Energy and Shield/Dark versions. Both were enjoyable builds, the latter especially, but they both ran into the same wall in the 20s: Dark/Rad Ani has an easier time keeping any team safer than any tank I've played can. The Shield/ had several team-friendly tricks that helped me counter that impression but ultimately it just wasn't worth it. It didn't feel like Ani to have a complete lack of tricks up my sleeve to counter OSHI- situations as innovatively as I can with Dark Miasma. Blaster Ani makes up for it only by virtue of putting out such constant, ungodly buckets of damage that I really don't mind having nothing to do in terms of watching out for my teammates.
Switching Sides
- or: Selling Out and Loving It!
Redemption was never my aim with Ani, but the personalities of my characters are heavily influenced by how they actually play and there are very few things I've done in the game blueside that feel as "heroic" as when Ani wades through hordes of Rikti unleashing radioactive hell and emerges unscathed. Over time the general villainous aspect of the character took a huge back seat to eir personal vendetta against the Rikti.
The League of Misfits, with whom I do most of my playing, joined the Shield of Paragon a few months after I joined, and I had a lot of fun with the Shield's players and wanted to branch out into the other groups in the coalition for a while. However, few of my characters created since we joined proved to be real "keepers", and I don't like to throw alts into other groups at random, I want it to be something that fits my character and that my character will somehow contribute to. The more I thought about it, the more I knew I was going to hero-ize Ani some way or another sooner or later, so it just finally clicked for me to kill three birds with one stone -- play another 50 levels of Dark Miasma with Radiation Blast, play Ani heroside with my friends, and put a character I know I won't abandon into another Shield group.
The more I thought about Androgyne's past, the more I noticed all eir atrocities were the result of a loss of control -- but the character emself is almost always in control now. The approach I decided to take sprang from that observation -- as Ani develops greater control over eir abilities, e for the first time has a real choice in how they will be employed -- now e's going to try being a hero. Which is really how e looks at it: trying it out, giving heroism a test drive, not seeking redemption but looking for some fun new challenges.
Making the transition and staying honest to the character has not been easy, but the payoff has been overwhelmingly satisfying in all three respects so I'm very glad I did it. While I did feel like a sell-out at first, the recent RP arc with the Reciprocators gave me an opportunity to really explore not only Ani's villainous side as e indulges it in the course of visibly dissociating emself from the 'Cips for their benefit, but also the growth of a more genuine drive to not just amuse emself toying with criminals but to actually pursue justice as e continues to aid the Reciprocators without their knowledge.
Spivak Pronouns
e = he/she/they; em = him/her/them; eir = his/her/their
I mainly remember them by just dropping the "th" from "them" or "their".
One of the first things I did after creating the Androgyne was start researching gender-neutral pronouns to use when emoting in the game. I'd long been familiar with the s/he and hir amalgamated forms, but I've mainly seen those used to refer to an either/or state to be used in the generic for inclusivity's sake, not in reference to a specific individual. Other versions I encountered are in common parlance for referring to intersex individuals, but the Androgyne falls outside of that paradigm. The more exotic variants springing from speculative fiction all seemed inappropriate as well, as I didn't want to lose sight of the character's humanity.
I finally decided on the Spivaks, both because I think they're elegant in their simplicity and because they reflect the Androgyne's condition: e, used in place of he or she, simply lacks that which would identify its subject's gender.
I would never insist that others employ these to refer to Ani, many will casually use "he" since the toon's usual[6] body type is Male, or "it" or "them", but I always feel a little touched and honored when my friends employ or make an attempt at the Spivaks.
Wiki Credits
Laid out with a 1280 or larger resolution width in mind.
Name Banner by Zenvious
Portrait (Top-Level) by Fruxie
Portrait (History/Notes) by Juggertha
Portrait (Associates) by Static Bolter
- ↑ While Rad/Rad might seem more appropriate for that purpose, I have an almost pathological aversion to rolling themed combos. In fact after over 3 years in this game, I don't think I have a single character with matching powerset elements. The closest I've come is a rad/rad Defender that lasted about a night or two and a couple Shielders, stone/ brute and /dark tank, who carried the thematically appropriate shield until their sacrifice to the character slot gods in the mid-20s.
- ↑ Or more specifically, go Rogue > Hero > Vigilante
- ↑ If I were to ever find myself with a retarded amount of inf to waste, I would love to replace the Devastation: Chance to Hold in Neutrino Bolt with Gladiator's Javelin: Chance for Toxic Damage. Otherwise, it's done.
- ↑ +1/x1 w/ Bosses for you post-I16 punk kids.
- ↑ Yes, I took Fire Sword Circle. Yes it's a radiation sword. No, IC it's just like a pillar of churning radiation or something. Yes it is awesome.
- ↑ THANK YOU SCIENCE PACK!
