If you could have two powers?

[Kuriositys Kat]

My two powers would be :

 1) Flight - being able to fly without machines!
 2) Regeneration - for that inevitable hard landing plus never suffer a cold or flu again.

[faith.grins]

Two specific powers?  In real life?  Fly + Rise to the Challenge.

Two pools?  That's much harder.  I dunno.  Can I take a Dominator's Energy Assault and a Brute's Willpower?  Cause Energy Assault feels pretty superhero:  it's got bone-crunching melee and good ole FREEM!  And I get that "Willpower" isn't necessarily a particularly "super" thing, but the heroes I always identify with most are the ones that take a visible beating, but keep on swinging.  The John McClains of the world, if you will.

[Thirty-Seven]

Gravity Control/Willpower (Stalker version)

The closest to true Telekinesis I can get with this game... plus good survivability AND stealth.

[Jetfire99]

1) Flight cause duh

2) Ouroboros Portal. (Duh time travel means I can mend this mess so HARD)

[PzTnT]

I would have to take Luminous blast and luminous aura. Then you get the power to fly, transform, teleport and manipulate energy 

[Nos482]

Spines / Bio Armour... but then again. As cool as that would be, that's probably the most painful combination possible. All those spines and bio-mass breaking through ones skin

I'll rather go with Super Strenghts and Will Power. There's just nothing like wading through a crossfire and then punching idiots into the ceiling... man, I miss CoH's ragdolls

[Rotten Luck]

Spines / Bio Armour... but then again. As cool as that would be, that's probably the most painful combination possible. All those spines and bio-mass breaking through ones skin

I'll rather go with Super Strenghts and Will Power. There's just nothing like wading through a crossfire and then punching idiots into the ceiling... man, I miss CoH's ragdolls

Curse you for making me remember Rotten's lucks Street Justice Uppercut of doom!...That was so much fun Will Power/ Street Justice Brute.  hit the Combat ready and Uppercut the goon into the roof.

Anyway I go the Warshade route!  Tri-form configuration!

If I have to be more selective... hmm Flight and Phase shift.

[jamesrd08]

Hmmm That is a hard one!

I think it would be....
1) Storm
2) Sonic

Or

1) Force Field
2) Energy... pew pew pew!

Part of me wants to be a PSI/MM Blaster!

If I had to choose just two.... 1) Fly and 2) Invis

Fun Fun Fun ^_^

[corvus1970]

Damn, tough choices here.

Two Pools:
1) Street Justice - Combine awesome-looking attacks with the bone-crunching sound effects, and you have a winner!
2) Energy Mastery - This powerset contains "Energy Torrent" and "Laser-Beam Eyes". Nuff said!

Two SPECIFIC powers?
1) Energy Torrent - Its the backhand/pimp-hand of doom. Have to have that.
2) Flight (from the sorcery pool) - A rather slow flight ability, but it also toggled on a teleportation power. Too good to pass up!

[Cryfire]

Flight and Force Field. 

[Starsman]

Tanker's Stone Armor and Defender's Kinetics. 

[Rienuaa]

Warshade.

All of it.

[Steelclaw]

You know, you really wouldn't even have to pick powers.  Consider what you get as inherents just for BEING a CoH hero before you even think of taking power pools:

* Infinite stamina when it comes to running, walking, staying awake or any non-combat mundane task.

* Broad reaching telepathy; including the ability to broadcast your thoughts to everyone in range (in zone), to a specific individual even across reality barriers as long as you know their name, and to broadcast your thoughts to people who are seeking the same things you are (eg- searching for team, need help, etc)

* You can not die no matter how high you fall from provided falling damage is the only thing you're taking.  Really scare the crud out of your sky diving instructors.

* Why take regeneration?  As long as you don't die you can just take a knee (Rest) for less than a minute and heal COMPLETELY from any injury.

* With Sprint and Swift from Fitness inherent you can run faster than most residential area speed limits.

* Based on damage comparisons at early levels when being attacked by Hellions and returning their attacks; comparatively Brawl does damage equal to a mid-caliber hand gun.

* If you are looking for an important item it will immediately start to glow and make a persistent humming sound until you find it.

* You will hospital port the moment before you die.  If you travel a lot you MAY want to shop around for an insurance company that has a very liberal referral program.

* Visiting your neighborhood tailor or seamstress can open up more options for self improvement than the most talented plastic surgeon... even gender if you bought the Science Booster.

* Eat and gorge to your heart's content... your body shape ain't gonna change unless you WANT to make it change.

[Vasarto]

OH! Just thought of another!

Gravity Control / Time Manipulation!

Think about it? Master of Time AND space?

[faith.grins]

You know, you really wouldn't even have to pick powers.  Consider what you get as inherents just for BEING a CoH hero before you even think of taking power pools:

* Infinite stamina when it comes to running, walking, staying awake or any non-combat mundane task.

* Broad reaching telepathy; including the ability to broadcast your thoughts to everyone in range (in zone), to a specific individual even across reality barriers as long as you know their name, and to broadcast your thoughts to people who are seeking the same things you are (eg- searching for team, need help, etc)

* You can not die no matter how high you fall from provided falling damage is the only thing you're taking.  Really scare the crud out of your sky diving instructors.

* Why take regeneration?  As long as you don't die you can just take a knee (Rest) for less than a minute and heal COMPLETELY from any injury.

* With Sprint and Swift from Fitness inherent you can run faster than most residential area speed limits.

* Based on damage comparisons at early levels when being attacked by Hellions and returning their attacks; comparatively Brawl does damage equal to a mid-caliber hand gun.

* If you are looking for an important item it will immediately start to glow and make a persistent humming sound until you find it.

* You will hospital port the moment before you die.  If you travel a lot you MAY want to shop around for an insurance company that has a very liberal referral program.

* Visiting your neighborhood tailor or seamstress can open up more options for self improvement than the most talented plastic surgeon... even gender if you bought the Science Booster.

* Eat and gorge to your heart's content... your body shape ain't gonna change unless you WANT to make it change.

We had a discussion back on the original boards many moons ago (before Inherent Fitness became a thing) as to what constitutes a "Natural" origin hero.  Bill Z Bubba pointed out that, at level 1, every character in City of Heroes could jump over a car, a chain-link fence, or another person.  I'm in reasonably good shape, and my legs are much stronger than my arms, and I still can't jump over a chain-link fence.  I have a hard time believing that even if I had <4% body fat and had done some marathon training that I could ever jump over a car.

Point being, there's an issue of Scale in City of Heroes, where everyone is assumed to be a base level of Super which is still substantially higher than some people are capable of obtaining.  (In Mutants and Masterminds, they describe certain levels of certain traits as being "peak human," meaning if you have that level of that trait, you would hold World Records for it in the real world.  I think the tone of City of Heroes was such that basically everyone was "peak human" in most, if not all, regards.)

[Kaiser Tarantula]

Point being, there's an issue of Scale in City of Heroes, where everyone is assumed to be a base level of Super which is still substantially higher than some people are capable of obtaining.

This is actually more of a case of "acceptable breaks from reality."  If your hero were absolutely confined to baseline human capabilities, the world would be very inconvenient to move around in, even moreso than it already is.

You ever notice that every 'human' thug from the lowliest of Hellions to the nastiest of Malta sappers can jump the height of a small building to chase you?  That even Mastermind thugs can super-leap?  That's because, otherwise, it would be possible to break the game by simply hanging out on a rooftop and sniping where your foes can't reach.  Sure, a Flying hero can do this anyway, but they have to take a power to pull it off.

If you were limited to 'peak human' levels of jumping, even under Sprint, your jump would be practically useless.  You would have to take the Leaping or Flight pools, simply to have some degree of vertical mobility outside of ramps and stairs.  As far as running goes, CoH characters are pretty quick, but in reality almost every car in the game is driving abysmally slow.  Like, no more than 10mph slow.  Slow enough that if I saw a car at the end of the block driving at CoH speed, I would feel comfortable in my ability to cross the street before it hit me, provided it didn't speed up.  Outrunning CoH's cars is no great feat.

[Arcana]

This is actually more of a case of "acceptable breaks from reality."  If your hero were absolutely confined to baseline human capabilities, the world would be very inconvenient to move around in, even moreso than it already is.

There's also the fact that even when the world is presumed to not contain superpowers, protagonists tend to have abilities beyond normal human ability just because its narratively more interesting.  cf: James Bond's dexterity, John McClaine's endurance, Jack Bauer's bladder control.

[emu265]

This is actually more of a case of "acceptable breaks from reality."  If your hero were absolutely confined to baseline human capabilities, the world would be very inconvenient to move around in, even moreso than it already is.

You ever notice that every 'human' thug from the lowliest of Hellions to the nastiest of Malta sappers can jump the height of a small building to chase you?  That even Mastermind thugs can super-leap?  That's because, otherwise, it would be possible to break the game by simply hanging out on a rooftop and sniping where your foes can't reach.  Sure, a Flying hero can do this anyway, but they have to take a power to pull it off.

If you were limited to 'peak human' levels of jumping, even under Sprint, your jump would be practically useless.  You would have to take the Leaping or Flight pools, simply to have some degree of vertical mobility outside of ramps and stairs.  As far as running goes, CoH characters are pretty quick, but in reality almost every car in the game is driving abysmally slow.  Like, no more than 10mph slow.  Slow enough that if I saw a car at the end of the block driving at CoH speed, I would feel comfortable in my ability to cross the street before it hit me, provided it didn't speed up.  Outrunning CoH's cars is no great feat.

Oh, this discussion reminds me of people trying to attribute logic to the Pokemon games.  This is makes just a little (read: a lot) more sense.

I always thought it interesting how even the lowliest hero could take gunfire without missing a beat.  I'd take that ability!  The fitness thing is more acceptable, given the default bodies of even the skinniest heroes and villains.  The "smooth" options for males are a little more modest, but still. 

But again, this is a video game... and Cities would be A LOT less fun if you lost 75% of your health from a single gunshot sans S/L resist.  It'd also make the gun-based powersets ridiculously more overpowered.  In fact, the lethal damage type would be completely overpowered... ironically it's the most resisted type in the game. 

Speaking of health loss, what constitutes 0 health?  You're obviously not dead, and you're obviously unconscious.  But what kind of bullet knocks you out without killing you?  Barring an insane trickshot.  The game needs continuity between damage types, so it can't be perfectly realistic.  I always thought it funny how weak lethal attacks could be, though. 

[faith.grins]

There's also the fact that even when the world is presumed to not contain superpowers, protagonists tend to have abilities beyond normal human ability just because its narratively more interesting.  cf: James Bond's dexterity, John McClaine's endurance, Jack Bauer's bladder control.

Actually, the fact that John McClaine does not give up is what makes him such a great hero.  It's not that he can beat anybody in a fistfight, or that he's got perfect aim, or that he's The Man With The Plan - it's that if he's up, he's still coming at you.  And tenacity isn't just a very endearing trait, it may very well have been humans' first primary evolutionary advantage.  It's a very human super power.

In fact, the lethal damage type would be completely overpowered... ironically it's the most resisted type in the game. 

It's the most-resisted because anything primarily robotic in nature resists it heavily but has low Smashing resistance.  And that makes sense even in the real world:  a sledgehammer does a lot more damage to a robot than a .22 .

[emu265]

It's the most-resisted because anything primarily robotic in nature resists it heavily but has low Smashing resistance.  And that makes sense even in the real world:  a sledgehammer does a lot more damage to a robot than a .22 .

It's not just heavily resisted on the NPC side, but on the player side as well.  That and every single armor powerset gets a lethal resist power.  It's an extremely common damage type and therefore any defensive powerset is neutered without a way to deal with it.  Evading bullets via Super Reflexes makes perfect comic book sense, but resisting bullets with Willpower is a little more abstract.  Every squishy has access to an S/L shield, as well.  It's reasonable that it's so common, given that guns are an extremely effective weapon.  But the sheer volume of defenses against it are what doesn't make sense (barring your example of robots, etc).