City of Heroes/Awesome

Troper Tales of Awesome

For this troper, the crowning moment of awesome for the Imperious Task Force is when he turned a bend in a canyon after fighting hundreds of Cimeroran warriors only to find that the 5th Column, who have been missing from the game since their assimilation into the Council years back, were present in their original form and were the evil time travelers behind this incident taking place in roman times.
For this guy, his was the first time he used the attack "Parry" after the introduction of pop-up words which differentiate the different kinds of Defense from simply missing. Parry was used against a Council Force (they use Miniguns). Hits. Council Force opens fire with his minigun. Misses. Defense message? DEFLECTED. The only thing that went through my head right then? "Holy freaking crap I just completely deflected a friggin' minigun attack!" Freaking Awesome.
- Although it doesn't look as impressive ingame, the mental image of someone parrying a several-second burst from a minigun with a broadsword, to the last bullet, definitely counts.
  - With the appearance of the Praetorian War Walkers, this particular CMOA Took a Level in Badass. Forget miniguns, it's now possible to deflect an orbital laser strike. With a sword.
    - Well, no, sadly, it isn't (Parry defense don't work against the Orbital Lance). But that piece of wood on your arm? Totally enough. Or you could be just lucky.
      - You may not be able to Parry an Orbital Lance, but you can still Parry that Humongous Mecha's gigantic fists. Made even more awesome by a Praetorian Cutscene where some scientists explains that "Each of the War Walkers can handle at least a dozen of the super-powered beings from Primal Earth"... Or, less than one reasonably well-prepared Scrapper.
This troper is immensely proud of taking down Tyrant, the Evil Twin of the game's Superman equivalent, Statesman, by himself. Granted, this troper mains a Katana/Regen Scrapper. And granted, the difficulty was set low enough so that he conned as an Elite Boss (before the devs set it so that he conned as an Archvillain regardless). But still, just the idea of defeating Tyrant in a one-on-one fight is awesome, right? Right?
- This troper will do you one better. She managed to get through both those arcs via Oroborus, solo, on a Crab Spider...before i19.5 hit and the Level-shift alphas were available. The hardest part? Anti-Matter flooring her Defenses. To those not familiar with Crab Spiders, they specialize in Area of Effect attacks and have few hard-hitting Single Target powers. Before this, the same Crab Spider character dinged 50 at the end of the STF, landing the last hit on Lord Recluse.
Any time a Giant Monster is defeated by players. You're lucky if you can beat these things with a dozen players, and having all those superheroes (or villains) of different levels teaming up to beat them is a CMOA in itself.
- This Troper's dad plays COH but at one point during the christmas special, he opened a present which released A GIANT SNOWMAN THAT COUNTED AS A GIANT MONSTER. This Troper recalls the epic battle that ensued with nearly every hero in the area battling the snowman at once, several times a hero would die, respawn, fly all the way back and continue the fight. O.o
- Had a similar snowman attack years back on villian side in the Sharkhead Isles. Though it was summoned during the Zone's giant monster attack so some intrepid villian pulled the local Giant into range and the two behemoths began to duke it out! A few people tried to intervene but were squashed in the crossfire, everyone else (this troper included) just hung back and took bets. Giant Ghost Vs Giant Snowman... Heaven or hell, Let's rock!
Player villains are good at this sort of thing: in the final ten levels, they'll ascend to the very top of the Arachnos ranks, defeating their chosen patron (one of Arachnos's four lieutenants) in mortal combat and defeating Lord Recluse himself in an alternate future. Of course, since Status Quo Is God, you'll never notice such changes taking effect throughout the world, but it's still very notable. When you show Lord Recluse the mask you tore off his future self, he pretty much acknowledges you as a Crowning Villain of Awesome.
Every time I pass a player wearing the "Master of Statesman's Task Force" or "Master of Lord Recluse's Strike Force" badges, I stop and stare at them in awe: they've completed some of the hardest task forces (City of Heroes's equivalent of World of Warcraft's instanced dungeons) in the game without a single death or temporary power.
During an office mission against Malta, this troper's team was blindsided by an oversized mob upon leaving the elevators. This troper, playing a stone tanker, barricaded the doorway with his own Rooted, Granite Armored body while the rest of the team fled downstairs or died horribly. He then proceeded to aggro and defeat the ENTIRE FLOOR (including multiple Sappers) without leaving the starting hallway, while a downed teammate narrated his actions to the survivors downstairs.
In the finale of the Barracuda Strike Force, Reichsman proceeds to summon enough 5th Column mobs to fill the entire room (and it's a pretty big room). It's entirely normal, and expected, to have an entire team wipe. Normal operating procedure is to use the Dominator's Eleventh-Hour Superpower to lock down the entire room, when the Stalker uses theirs to kill them all. This troper did not have a Dominator in the team. To make matters worse, these mobs could apparently smell our fear, and actively followed when we entered after hospitalising. At that point, this troper, as a Brute, essentially decided 'what the hell', and fought them in a corridor, with the rest of the team dead on the ground under the massive amounts of Nazis. Approximately twenty minutes, two Power Surges, a Demonic Aura, and an entire tray of inspirations later, they stopped attacking. Closer inspection revealed that I had killed half of them, entirely alone. This seems like an insignificant thing in comparison, until you take in the fact that this is a room so difficult that there is a button there specifically to avoid a team of eight having to fight them all.
Duoing the Imperious Taskforce.
Pre ED, pre gobal sidekick I watched a baster almost Solo a +4 Bastion TF (even sidkicked the AV was +5 + av bonus, and my enhc were red, I was useless)...with lots fo Proximity mines.
Douioing the Forstfire Arc in Ouroboros, with Enemies buffed, Self Debuffed, Enhancements have no effect, and no inspirations. At max difficulty, and winning.
The powerset may currently be frustratingly underperforming to many people's chagrin, including this troper, but the Gun Fu-esque animations for Dual Pistols are just epic. Especially Piercing Rounds, where you throw your guns up into the air, twirl around, catch them, and "punch" the bullet through a line of enemies. It is absolutely pointless and, some argue, ineffective due to the long animation time, but it is possibly the most awesome animation the developers have ever cooked up.
The first mission of Leonard Silmon's story arc for villains, added in Issue 17, pits you against X clones of yourself, where X is your choice of 1 to 8. Choosing to take on eight clones of yourself and defeating them all is totally badass no matter which way you look at it, plus it awards you with the "Army of Me" badge, which has this hilarious description:

"You don't understand the math behind it, but you're pretty sure you're equal to or greater than eight of yourself."

This Troper took his BS/Regen Scrapper into Recluse's Victory and fought a Spine/Regen stalker to a standstill for almost an hour under Atlas's Statue. The battle spread across global channels, eventually drawing a crowd of nearly 100 onlookers. The battle was finally finished with the scoring of a critical hit after using Build Up and Headsplitter. In the aftermath, a large a bloody battle ensued between the assembled heroes and villains. (Side note, using the same scrapper, it was often amusing to get hit with an assassin-strike, regen up to full in a matter of moments, while turning around and spanking the surprised/annoyed stalker with only a few attacks.)
At the end of one of the missions in the Incarnate Alpha Slot story arc, a rogue Vanguard captain and a weakened Honoree stand side-by-side; when you approach them, for some reason, Rikti portals open nearby and Rikti start flooding out by the dozens. After a friend and I managed to defeat the two Elite Bosses with our Dual Blades/Willpower and Fire/Fire Brutes, I looked at the enormous mob, checked out my recently-respecced Brute (to take advantage of the Energy Mastery Epic pool and the new Inherent Fitnesses), and said to my friend "Wanna go for it?" And we dove into the mob that was, I repeat, dozens strong -- there were likely a little over a hundred Rikti Conscripts and monkeys squished into that room. Conservation of Ninjitsu at its finest -- with the aid of powers like Rise to the Challenge, Strength of Will, and Rise of the Phoenix, we defeated dozens upon dozens of Rikti Conscripts in one long marathon battle that literally ended with me gloating on top of a pile of Rikti bodies (he had unfortunately given up after getting KO'd several times and left the mission). I felt like such a badass. It's just a shame that since all those critters were summoned that they didn't count for any infamy rewards.
- My experience wasn't quite as awe inspiring, but I took a Martial Arts/Regen Scrapper in solo and, through liberal use of hit and run tactics, defeated each portal and the Rikti it spawned. I then followed up by taking out both Elite Bosses. I did this without a single death, which is something, considering Regen has virtually zero defense and resistance. In fact, I soloed the entire story arc, with the exception of Trapdoor. (Who regenerates too fast and spawns minions too frequently to solo.) Upon completion of the story arc, my first reaction wasn't to be proud of myself. It was to be proud of the devs for creating what could very well be the Story Arc of Awesome.
  - My experience on my Super Strength/Dark Armor Brute was rather soul-crushing at first. I could barely damage Trapdoor without running out of Endurance, and his damage against me was too much to take in direct combat. thoroughly irritated, I shelved the character for two weeks. I returned to him at the end of those weeks and decided, "Well, I haven't done the I19 Respec yet, couldn't hurt anything I guess". One Character Respecification later, I have junked every enhancement that was in every one of his powers, replaced using the money from the Auction House and the junked enhancers with shiny new Sets. I enter Trapdoor's mission. EVERYTHING falls before me, my powerful Negative Energy blasts, my utterly insane fists, and my mocking laughter. Enter Trapdoor. Liberal application of my fists to his head catapulted him off the side of the circular battlefield and into the lava, where I chased him and pounded him senseless, laughing all the while.
The end of the first mission of the Apex Task Force is definitely one of the greatest moments in the game so far. Eight heroes on the front steps of the Paragon Police headquarters, fighting off several waves of attacking Clockwork, all of which are several levels higher then the players, followed by a pair of War Walkers, Giant Robots the size of battlemechs. Then you face four War Walkers, then finally six of them land around you, leading to one of the most epic battles this troper has ever been a part of.
The Mastermind archetype gets a Crowning Moment when the Mastermind's henchmen get their full upgrades. The exact nature of said moment varies with the type of henchman taken. Robotics Masterminds, for example, get one when their robots blast the everloving SHIT out of their first mob after getting their final upgrade.
TVTroper Ironic Mouse's Martial Arts/Ninjitsu stalker is his favorite character. Why? Because the final Ninjistu power makes it next to impossible for anything to hit him. He has taken on several of the game's signature characters on his own and won! Granted, he usually needed to level up once or twice before taking on said enemies, but the feeling of taking down Black Scorpion, Valkyrie, Positron, Aurora Borealis, and Lord Recluse singlehandedly is nothing short of awesome.
- And the first time I partook in a successful BAF Trial, I was literally shouting for joy. To elaborate, a team of 16-24 players must break into a heavily guarded facility, take down the guards, then defeat an insanely overpowered boss, then stop hundreds of prisoners from escaping (if more than 20 escape you fail), then take on another insanely overpowered boss, then take on both insanely overpowered bosses defeating them within ten seconds of each other, and all the while, a timer is running. It wasn't until a week after its release that the players were able to work out a winning strategy. Only because the people that had been beta testing didn't want to make it too easy too quickly by sharing what they'd learned to do over the course of three months. @Lady of Ysgard, Virtue, veteran Beta tester
The live Praetorian Invasion Events in May 2011. In short, an admin or two will log into the game and start dropping massive numbers of epic level NPCs onto a map, ranging from hundreds of minions to dozens of epic bosses and clones of Tyrant's Praetors. The players then need to take them out as fast as possible. One of them had a Rikti invasion start on top of the Praetorians. Needless to say, the resulting firefight was very shiny.
During the Christmas event of 2011, this troper (Phoenixgearguy) playing a Technology Tanker did the missions given by Father Time and accepted the "Defeat Lady Winter" mission after "Rescue Baby New Year" that required a team as Lady Winter was an Elite Boss that hit like a truck. Despite dying a lot and through sheer determination that even rewarded a badge, my Tech Tanker beat Lady Winter ALL BY HIMSELF.
Despite being Awesome Yet Impractical, the Self Destruction power can sometimes result in a moment of awesome if the player's explosion wipes enough enemies to earn just enough XP to level up. What's better than blowing yourself up? Blowing yourself up, then popping right back into existence with your stats boosted, ready to go bash in the next set of heads.
For this troper, it was the end of the last mission in the first Lady Grey Taskforce I played after respeccing Evangelia, my Broadsword/Invulnerability scrapper, and fully kitting her out. After we took down Hro'Dtohz, everyone got dogpiled by L54 Rikti who started conning at red and got worse. Everyone used up all their wakes and rezzes; everyone was on the ground. Except Evangelia. Eva was in the center of what looked like a Rikti mosh pit, swinging and spinning and punching and wreaking mayhem for seven or eight minutes while everyone else was hosping, buying insps, coming back, pulling others out of the fight, and reassembling the team out of sight of the freaking army that's swarming her. She finally dropped when the timing between Parry, Dull Pain, and their attacks changed enough to let enough damage through. But she'd done her job by that point -- she'd taken down dozens, maybe over a hundred, Rikti entirely by herself in one epic melee, and the rest of the team was fresh again. They ported her out and raised her, and we headed back in for the Honoree. I got 8 Incarnate Shards and uncountable Vanguard Merits out of that fight, and a memory that will always stay with me.

Game Lore

If you read through the game's backstory on the website, you'll discover that at some point right before the Cold War, Statesman was hit by a tactical nuclear missile while carrying hostages out of the USSR. The hostages died, obviously, but Statesman survived. Let me repeat that for emphasis: Statesman was hit by a tactical nuclear missile and lived to tell the tale. Good god.
How about the last mission of Viridian's Arc in COV? All that effort to invite a number of Archvillains to a conference ends up up with those present questioning the presence of resident Magnificent Bastard Nemesis. Of course immediately afterward (Mental imagery suggests that all eyes would be on Nemesis at this point) Longbow shows up to crash the party. Immediately one of the villains present asks how they found out. Nemesis is the first to reply. "Elementary. I TOLD THEM!" Nemmy's had a lot of moments, but this one sticks out in my mind. Especially funny is The Center's comment: "And this is why I never invite Nemesis to anything."
Lord Nemesis tricking you into thinking you are just one of his robots on the villain's side.
Another Nemesis CMOA - he has so many decoys, agents and schemes acting at a distance that, whenever the Prince of Brass shows up in person, you know things have gotten serious. In this case, facing off against the general of the Rikti invasion force. He has his high command, you have an NPC Ragtag Bunch of Misfits. Just as you reach the general himself, another raiding party appears behind you - led by Nemesis himself, here to finish you off. What's a player to do? Take down both armies at once, of course!
How is there no mention of Breakneck? Granted, the in-game rendition isn't quite as badass as the official tie-in comic's version, but you still have to admit that an elderly, out-of-shape ex-superhero with a heart condition breaking free of his chains and taking on one of the biggest bads in the game one-on-one is fairly bad-ass, even if he gets his ass handed to him and his heart fails as a result. Especially since he saves the world and buys you time to finish the job in the process.
The story arcs are generally well written, and give the player the sense that their hero or villain has done something to distinguish his/herself (Status Quo Is God not withstanding). However, one particular story arc comes to mind: at the end of an arc where the hero is successful in preventing a time traveler from shifting history, (s)he receives a congratulatory note from one of the established major villains of the setting. The letter further notes he is going to keep his eye on you and your career from this point on. If attracting a major villain's recognition of your exploits isn't awesome...
The first mission of the Mender Ramiel arc. The player steps into a shattered Ouroboros sunken in the ocean as lightning crashed in the background of a blood red apocalyptic sky. Between him and saving Mender Ramiel is about fifteen arch-villains at full power, some of them known incarnates, all of them nasty in-game, and one that even takes no less than twenty-four regular heroes to even have a shot to take down. What does the player's Future Badass version do? Effortlessly swat them aside.
- There's a layer of Fridge Horror to that when you realize that even though you're THAT powerful, your future self still apparently need to resort to altering the past fix things, and its implied that despite everything you're looking at, Ouroboros is doing comparatively well to the REST OF REALITY.
The last part of the Cloning Facility arc in City Of Villians. You've spent all this time building the Facility only to find out it was a giant Xanatos Gambit to make clones of you to destroy Primal Earth. What do you do? Kill everyone one in the facility up to and including Protean the man who killed Manticores parents. He then rigs the entire facility to blow so you spend the next three minutes walking through flames as it blows. When you get out and talk to your Contact you both know Protean isn't dead. So you instead decided to cripple him by draining his bank account.
- Made all the better since it's the first redside arc that makes you feel like the contacts are working for you (even though the second one isn't) rather than you working for the contacts.
- There's another section that's worthy of note. Just at the start of the second arc, you test the cloning equipment by taking on clones of yourself. The first few tries are zombies and werewolves. Then you fight clones of yourself. As many as you want. You get a badge if you somehow defeat eight of yourself.
The hero version of the Cloning arc is just as epic as the villain arc. Storming Protean's base with your good double and tearing your way through an entire building full of 5th Column goons? Awesome. Going toe-to-toe with Protean and giving him the beatdown he deserves for everything he's done to you? Satisfying. If only the ending wasn't such a Tear Jerker and a Player Punch...
The end of the tutorial Story Arc involving Twinshot and the Shining Stars. When you arrive in the base, it's already under attack by Praetorian Clockwork, lending credence to the theory that Twinshot is a Praetorian spy. But as you proceed through the base, you hear Twinshot arguing with the team's Smart Guy, Proton, and soon it becomes clear that he's been The Mole all along. And when you arrive in the final room, Twinshot and Proton have a confrontation, with both of their allies -- including you on Twinshot's side, and the infamous Vigilante Maelstrom on Proton's side -- standing shoulder to shoulder with each other. Just when it's clear that the confrontation will end in violence, everyone tosses out a Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner to their Rival, and then everything erupts into a complete melee between the Shining Stars and the Praetorian invaders. It's one of the most well-scripted and -executed story moments in the entire game, and it's incredible to see how the game's writing has evolved since the early days.