Spines/Fire is one of Homecoming's premier farming Brutes. Spines delivers relentless AoE via Quills, Spine Burst, and Throw Spines, while Fiery Aura brings strong resists, Healing Flames for sustain, and Fiery Embrace for burst damage. Cap fire defense at 45% (Weave, Maneuvers, Fire/Plasma Shield, set bonuses) and you're nearly untouchable on fire-only farm maps. Fast Fury generation, minimal downtime, and huge influence-per-hour make it the classic "bootstrap" alt to fund your other toons.
Reference guide to City of Heroes: Homecoming IO enhancement sets, organized by power type (melee/ranged/AoE damage, defense, resistance, healing, holds, pets, travel, etc.). Explains set bonus mechanics (ED, Law of Fives, attuned/Superior ATOs), highlights ⭐ best-in-slot and 🔴 rare/expensive sets, and lists universal must-have globals (LotG +Recharge, Panacea, Numina's, Steadfast +3% Def) plus per-archetype ATO procs and a quick-reference table of top bonus sources.
Bots/FF Mastermind: ranged robot pets + Force Field shields for team defense. Forgiving, solid solo past lvl 22. Prioritize shields, Leadership/Fighting pools, Mace Mastery epic for soft-capped defense + high recharge via LotG uniques. Slotting favors pet survivability over damage. Incarnates lean recharge/defense; Lore/Judgement are playstyle calls.
Robert rebuilt his 8-year-old Vue D&D combat app in BoxLang, using SocketBox/WebSockets for real-time state. Features SRD 5.2 character creation, turn-based combat with fog-of-war, and a chunked map system with dual-layer tiles and POI markers. Encounter state lives server-side; ~300 TestBox tests cover it.
Robert ported 1983's Zork to BoxLang to demonstrate natural language parsing without AI models. Transcribed original ZIL (Zork Implementation Language) source from GitHub into BoxLang structs—rooms, objects, exits, synonyms, flags—using Claude for verbatim translation only. Parser handles tokenization and verb resolution like Infocom's original, proving vintage solutions remain viable.
Robert Zehnder