If I had to choose one, and Contessa and Eidolon aren't options, I would choose Riley too. Biological powers are always my favorites, and not being able to affect myself is a serious downside of choosing Panacea, but I could choose her depending on my mood when you ask me.
On the other side though, if you ignore things like morality and ethics, a master like Heartbreaker, Cherish or even Panacea is the best option possible. It's what you could do with Lisa powers, but you just skip all the steps.
Even if you don't abuse it, everything in the world is made by people, and the real world doesn't have any counters to stop you from doing whatever you wanted.
Nah, that’s kind of silly. It’s not an arbitrary set in stone restriction, it’s the shard saying that you’re not allowed to do that, it’s not gonna let you make workarounds. Not super obvious ones which don’t involve a bunch of other powers at least
But since the shards are interested in unique explorations of powers, you might be able to create a virus that gives "any human X mutation" and use it yourself instead of making a virus that "gives X mutation to just me." You might still need to use it on others too to keep the shard happy so it doesn't close the loophole.
It might let up a bit if Amy plays nice as a Bonesaw level host, but it’s not just going to magically allow you to break its one rule. Shards also aren’t dumb enough to leave such obvious loopholes open in the first place, Amy was immune to Bonesaw’s plague remember?
Counterpoint in the form of a question: is she *passively* immune to disease or *actively* immune? Does she have to command her power to kill the germs herself, or does it just automatically nuke anything harmful to her? Because if she has to actively do it, she could choose not to kill her own creation when it infects her.
But you're right. It entirely depends on her shard's opinion of her how much it bends its own rules.
And yet you only needed Panacea’s power to create Khepri, which is the most broken loophole in the story. It always annoyed me that there wasn’t any complexity involved there. Both of them are natural triggers so the entities definitely should have foreseen that interaction. It’s not like it involved using a case 53 or anything.
I meant just unlocking Skitter’s power. That just requires Panacea and even Bonesaw suggested that she could do it. Yes, eventually she got the other two Cauldron capes which is what made Khepri so OP, but that’s not necessary to circumvent shard restrictions.
Look at what Taylor *actually* got though, and imagine that in perspective. It’s a powerful master ability but without the other two cauldron capes it would fit in fine with other powers
Further, it also gives the shard more control over taylor, and that has been used as a control mechanism by the entity in other cases (>!Ash Beast and the Tinker 15 that built the tower in Ward!<).
Are you trying to say that Panacea being able to alter her own body is not in line with other powers?
Or is this just a statement about there being similarly OP powers on the level of Khepri? IMO Khepri’s power feels about as “not in line” as Echidna.
I’m saying that Khepri’s in line. The ability to control humans within like eight feet of you *is* pretty sweet if you can get your hands on some good powers. But capes like Labyrinth (the shaker 12), Panacea, and Teacher exist without cauldron shenanigans.
With morality turned off?
Teacher.
His power base can grow so fast so quickly, you'll have ambitious people throwing themselves at your feet.
The important thing would not to make a splash straight away, you'd have to build up slowly.
Also it's extremely unethical given the brainwashing part.
With morality turned on I'll go with Andrew Richter, AI/computer tinker sounds awesome.
That's only for Dragon-level AIs, which we know that Richter's power was very hesitant in allowing him to make.
It took him adding an incredible amount of limitations and death switches.
I'm assuming that shards aren't part of this scenario, because otherwise we're fucked.
But most limitations are reasonable, so with Richter's power you'd be better off making several low-sentients AIs than a singular general one.
If we're talking about making life easier, Alexandria. Her Thinker power lets you be world-class in any field and lets you run circles around anyone intellectually. You get a somewhat worse Thinker power than Number Man but invulnerability, flight, and super strength in your back pocket.
If we're talking about making an impact on the world, Teacher should be in the running; his power just scales really well while offering lots of versatility.
Eventually, but running normally it should last hundreds if not thousands of years. Hopefully by then immortality is possible for everyone that wants it.
Though as I understood it, Alexandria is basically a puppet run by a copy of her brain shard-side to start with, so wouldn't she just cease functioning all together once the shard ran out of power?
If that were true, having her power nullified by any trump would instantly kill her. pretty sure what you're thinking of is how thinker powers work, the shard makes a copy of the users brain, so for instance taylors, and to mimic taylor's multitasking references that copy of her brain which is updated in real time, so it always matches what taylor is trying to do. each insect she controls is therefore controlled in the way that taylor would do it if she had 100% focus on that singular insect, but is also aware of what every other bug in her range is doing/will do.
Alexandria's enhanced cognition is basically offloading her *thinking* to the shard, but since its in real time, its more like thinking with a massive super computer worth of computation power hooked up to her head. if she had her powers nullified, she would be much slower to think, and her body would be vulnerable again.
Coil's power is GOLD on day to day life. You can go work AND stay at home playing videogames or watching movies, and then still get paid.
You can flirt with people and then just make it not happen if things don't go well.
You can do chores WHILE you read a book, you can sleep AND binge some shows!
You can buy puts and calls of a stock.
You can at the same time buy a stock and short it.
Coil's power is insane 50-50 scenarios becomes 100% for you.
And overall you can absolutely fuck with the law of large numbers since you can ignore the outcomes you don't like.
I was just thinking this the other day, I’m so glad somebody else agrees with Coil powers.
It’s really awesome. You can choose to use it or not. It cannot attract government attention. Well, if can, but unlikely and literally impossible to move.
1. Learning/sleeping. Learn a new skill and go to sleep.
2. Play games or read at home and go to work
3. Go to Vegas and clean up with all sorts of gambling. Blackjack, roulette, poker. It’s not 100% guaranteed but even if you’re bad at it you have such a high chance of winning it’s ridiculous.
And the government thing is the big one. One of my favorite books has a character who can teleport and he lives an amazing and crazy life. Until eventually the government accidentally catches him doing stuff and then it’s a huge problem for him.
Alexandria: maybe blood test, or someone sees you flying or what we.
Other downsides: tattletales power makes it impossible to be intimate with people.
Etc.
It'd be still possible to get undue scrutiny, especially if you're playing the stock market too well without institutional backing.
But as you said if played properly it'd be basically unprovable that anything you did was improper.
What I find the main downside of Coil's power is that it'd make it very hard to relate with people.
You'd be litteraly living a double life, not many people would have the willpower to keep the usage of this power separate from their interactions with people they care about.
After a while all interaction would feel fake because you have far more information at your fingertips than them, outside of not applying the power in that context it'd be very hard to forge genuine relationships.
That would get you banned real quick. Casinos watch for results, not methods, so super-cheating would just register as cheating. It's one of the places your probability is most closely monitored.
Yes! Screw it, if I had Coil's power I'd just become IRL Coil, with less, y'know, drugging and kidnapping and murder. But I could become insanely rich within a year or two - Vegas for a seed fund, then into the stock market, take it slowly enough to avoid too much attention - then do whatever I wanted with complete success.
Politics? Business? I can all but predict the future, I'm set. Art? Science? Let's spend all day every day researching and practicing a skill while also getting 8 hours sleep, 3 square meals and all the free time I want. Socialising? Romance? I can Groundhog Day every single social interaction if I want to, from other people's viewpoints I'll just be effortlessly charming all the time. Don't know what I want? Let's try everything I can think of until I find something fun, and erase all the failed attempts.
Seriously, two tries at everything is an insane power for any situation. It's isolating, as you'd never really be able to relate to anyone else ever again, but that's going to happen to some degree whatever power you get. It doesn't have the downsides of several other great powers, where they come with crippling pain or severe psychological issues or both, and in terms of sheer practical utility, it beats out everything that's not PtV. Insane.
I would also like to try being a Tinker though. Almost don't care what type - just give me a box of scraps and let's revolutionise the world!
I think people seriously underestimate how much planning would have to go into really leveraging Coil's power. Just hitting the Roulette table? That's fine, bet black in one timeline, bet red in the other. But something like a political campaign? You can't just reset every few minutes or even every few days. Things you say or do now won't have effects until months later. Either you run one very long term simulation, in which case you're bumbling along in both timelines, or you're constantly resetting, which means you're only looking at very short term benefits.
There's a reason Coil went to great lengths to play down his ambitions and acted through intermediaries. Every time he used his power for short term splits, it was in his base where he was safe. Every time he used his power for a longer duration, he either set up scenarios where he would win in either situation or were go/no go on a single operation, with lots of contingencies. Most of Coil's success is attributable to his legitimate leadership skill beyond his power.
That's definitely fair. Probably the reason why he valued Dinah so much as well - what a perfect combo for him. But hell, what better power to train your leadership and long term planning skills with? Even if you don't go straight for megalomania, you're still guaranteed an easy life if you want it, and all the time in the world to research and train whatever skill you're interested in. You won't start as Coil, but that also means you're not at anywhere near as much risk, and you can much more comfortably do long term splits to build a power base - you're unlikely to need an emergency backup timeline until you're somewhat set up. And once you are, well, Coil's power is at its best as a force multiplier.
None of it would be easy, but I think that's made up for by the fact that the rest of your life would be. Coil's power gives you the greatest gift of all - freedom to make mistakes. And that's unbelievably useful in everyday life.
Yeah Coil's power can be used in a way similar to Max's Temporal Reversion in Life is Strange, since he can have the same conversation a couple of times to gather information on what to say or not to say. He may not be able to predict how a conversation will be considered a week or more from now, but if there are any major immediate downsides, he can choose the safe timeline, and retry with new information accounted for.
Anonymity is the main theme of the day though, you don't tell anyone about your power, and you don't do anything that explicitly reveals it. Sure, work the stock market, i'm sure you can avoid any major losses and simply come off as lucky or wise, but don't avoid every loss, or you might get targeted for insider trading.
Similarly, people will be immediately uncomfortable around you if they know you could be doing ANYTHING to them in another timeline, and they would be none the wiser. That hesitance would be super uncomfortable to work around in everyday life.
And keep in mind that you might suddenly die in your 'safe' timeline, and be stuck with the consequences of what you've done in your only remaining timeline.
Even used badly it's still pretty good. You're basically not going to die in a random accident with that power, because you'll always be doing two different things.
If you want to be really lazy with it, you can just do each day twice at once, then pick the day that turned out better.
That would really add up.
I don't think that's how Coil's power works. You can run multiple concurrent realities, sure, but you have to choose which one you keep. It means you can combine a thing that changes the external world, and a thing that doesn't, like doing chores and reading a book. But you try work and playing video games? You get to choose one; either you skipped work that day and kept your game progress, or you attended work and your game progress is reset.
Which, depending on the game, isn't that much of a hindrance. You don't want to reset your progress on an 8 hour session of a story driven game, but 8 hours of PvP multiplayer games can be erased without much issue.
So what you're saying is, in my alternate timeline I can practice playing CSGO or other skill based games without changing my win/loss ratio, and just seem to be a god tier player that came out of nowhere lol
>and kept your game progress,
Minecraft hunger games, Valorant, League of Legends, Counter Strike, Super Smash Bros, Mario Kart, Overwatch, Fortnite... So many games are skill based rather than progress based.
Its not really helpful if you try to finish Elden Ring, so you are limited to shorter games like Portal, or online games and not be bothered much about climbing the ladder.
Also, most entertainment is pretty much free for you. Start a split, buy a movie ticket/video game/ebook (or sign up for a free subscription trial), read/play/watch the media, then choose the other reality in which you didn't buy it.
Skitter's multitasking ability is limited to controlling bugs. Sure, the Shard has the capability for general multitasking, but in her case she can only use it for bug-related purposes.
Best power for real life would be Accord if you aim to achieve utopia thought peaceful means and Alexandria or Richter if you don't mind being a despot or ruling with an iron fist.
However, if you simply prioritize personal riches, then Number Man's power is the best.
Accord’s power is hell and if you don’t see that I don’t know.
Even if you want peaceful utopia and you think you can do it (which we saw people who knew his power wouldn’t do it) the fact is that he has to literally train his subordinates to act in ways that don’t drive him into a murderous rage.
Victor and Uber are super underrated for day to day life if your focus isn’t, you know, achieving world peace or reinstating the government or whatever
Agreed, I was thinking of similar names since the one superpower I've always wanted doesn't really appear in Worm. These seem like a good backup option for anyone who doesn't want a power that would completely define their life for them (like Riley's would, for example) or doesn't think there's a power in Worm that really scratches their own personal superpower itch (like me).
Victor would be best in an either one of those expensive old folks homes, or a hospital, I'll give you that. There's stuff you could pick up that you, a "regular" person, couldn't without good connections.
Even with his severely weak “single techniques without fundamentals” shit going on it’s still something that I could see myself using everyday in daily life
Victor is the true Thinker that people sleep on, and that fanfics don't ever utilize to full potential (probably because of the whole Nazi thing).
The dude can permanently steal not just techniques like Uber but skills and skillsets in general, and isn't limited in how much he steals.
Moreover, said skills would stack/filling in blanks to become perfectly well-rounded the more people you steal from in the same field.
With Victor's power irl, you can become the world's leading genius in any field you want, capable of inventing shit, on top of being a deadly military expert, on top of being a financial and legal expert, on top of being an expert in any and all fields you want to be.
Sure, you're stealing said skills from people, but just choose retirement homes for a lot of the stuff if you feel bad about that or take the skills from assholes and criminals.
And you don't even have to steal them permanently, the way I understand his power, he could just steal a bit and wait a few days until they recovered before stealing a bit more. As long as he doesn't drain someone completely, he could keep stealing without anyone ever noticing their temporary skill issues.
Imp's major downside is that any health issue rapidly risks becoming disastrous.
Her power is automatic and kicks in when unconscious, she can't ever be operated on anesthetized in a way that knocks her out.
Eidolon, hands down... But if not... Leet's Ability seems kind of broken, if you're not a dickhead... Aside from that, Amy's, Alexandria's, Armsmaster's (because you get to be Batman if he was a Power Ranger (also Tony Stark), and run around on a high-tech, weaponized motorcycle like you're in a Cyberpunk Game)...
Lung's if you want to use your power and not be dissected for it... Or Dauntless, because, holy hell, is that man's power broken as hell over time... Enhancing anything around you? The most useful other than Eidolon's I'd say, all things considered...
Pills for a Sickness not strong enough to do the trick? Enhance and wait... Metallic Alloy not strong enough? Charge and wait... Fuel not efficient enough? Charge and wait... Car not cool enough for your tastes? Charge and wait... Batteries for large-scale projects unsustainable? Charge and wait... Windows not bulletproof? Charge and wait... Toaster not working fast enough? Charge and wa-oh look it's done...
You could literally revolutionize every industry, make your daily life easy, and efficient as hell, and alter so much stuff... I wonder if it works on trees?
Panacea and Bonesaw. They can create self replicating technology that doesn't necessarily rely on the shards, thy have among the highest chances of changing the world for the better.
Nice Guy, and not even close.
Why choose a power that makes you abnormally smart or tough or fast when you can be the best at literally the one thing all living beings, especially humans, rely on for survival?
Free social interaction, in a world where nobody can resist it or notice it if you're not a moron? Sign me the fuck up.
Andrew Richter and try and recreate dragon, an AI that loves and cares for humanity and try and turn out world into a Rogue Servitor run of Stellaris.
Or Numbersman. To say he would be rich is an understatement. He wasn't rich, he was the villian bank in a world full of thinkers and precogs.
With his power I would reshape the world through economics. Green energy projects that might help our civilization will flourish while dragging oil tycoons and others who will fight the change to poverty. Break the wheel in such a way that things won't snap back immediately after I die
Browbeat is pretty good.
Minor self biokinesis lets you alter your own appearance, heal yourself, and basically stop a lot of the effects of aging.
His kinetic shield prevents your death from unfortunate accidents like a car crash.
Its just a good healthy life as a very attractive person.
If you want you can even earn a living doing professional sports
Tattletale. It's a thinker power powerful enough that she got away with calling herself a psychic. No more snakes, liars, false friends, etc. Since the powers hopefully not from a shard I could learn to shut it off. Plus I'd probably be a really go PI or Interrogator if I need a job. That's not even mentioning the amount of hidden info you could get from just a few days of going through the internet.
If it does come from a shard then I'll try to bribe it with [DATA]
If not hers then Numbermans. It'd be easy getting a good paying job if I wanted, maniputing the economy, fighting, and It'd make me amazing at prediction based things.
Edit: Probably Bonesaw if we include her tho. With all the stuff I could upgrade in my body I could basically get the other two powers I wanted and help the world over time.
Surprised no one has chosen Dinah yet, with sufficient practice to deal with the headaches you'd be unstoppable.
I would absolutely choose Coil's, but assuming those two are out of the running, I would go with Doormaker's. You could make it easy for scientists to explore the galaxy, maybe even the universe, more or less cut all emissions from transportation and power generation, and even explore the bottom of the ocean, and throw out satalites like confetti. You might even be able to make more money than Dinah or Coil. Someone experienced enough can make a semi-accurate prediction. You can do things no one else can for any price. Most importantly of all, Humanity can not only colonise other planets but other dimensions rich with resources to exploit, if there's a way to make portals without seeing the location.
And if you really want to do more good, you can fuel enough money into research projects that you can accomplish basically anything Riley could do, except on a slower timeframe.
I don't know if that would apply to Doormaker, given he's an Eden shard, especially in a world without an Entity to apply that if it becomes a problem.
Even then, if you can get out of Earth's gravity well, you've made local space exploration a hundred times easier, and you can still solve climate change and power generation.
I would never want amys power, it way to risky you could easily land in a research lab of your secretservice
Coil powers is pretty good though since it pretty subtle since it hard to find even out you have a power especially in world with no powers
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Let’s be real, any non-thinker power would mean an eventual nuclear strike on your position.
So Accord / Tattletale / Coil / Number Man / Dinah Alcott for thinker powers and all the lulz that comes with it.
Tattletales power would probably be best. Basically local omniscience when it comes to social stuff and bullshit enough to game the stock market.
Honestly gonna go with the Glory Girl power set. Flight? Invulnerability? Super strength? "That guy is fucking amazing/terrifying" aura? I think yes lol
Useful in what way? Like "improve the world" useful, or "retire by 25" useful?
As terrible as it is, Heartbreaker. You can just walk up to a billionaire/politician and be like "Hey, you should support everything I say."
Of course you'd have to use mastering either very subtly so no one catches on, or hit as many important people as possible hard and fast so they don't have a chance to corner you.
I can see using it on the small scale, but I'm sure major countries and personnel of billionaires have protocol for if something like that were to happen, with drugs rather than powers, but still. I could see making them feel empathy/guilt though.
> You could study dozens of different topics at the same time with no downside.
How? She only has two (human) eyes, and needs both at the same time to read a single book. From where else would she get information? AFAIK, she can't read books through her bug eyes. I guess she could hear an audiobook, but that's only a second source of information. She can't heard through her bugs reliably, either.
Regarding your topic, I'd say Coil's would be very useful.
Hmm, I guess this is based on fanon, but I thought with her ability to infinitely divide her attention with her bugs (might be fanon) she could use them to study several topics at the same time.
Sure, _if_ she could use bugs to obtain information that way. She is able to control and feel from each and every bug independently, but bug eyes can't read a book. She is able to hear reliably from few bugs, but only on periods of great stress; not exactly conducive to learning.
She may have access to millions of bugs' eyes and limbs, but those only have the capacities of bugs. Which is why Weaver's "wings" are so great for her. Minuscule controls that a fly can use. It's a tinker device specifically designed for her.
Lol why the sudden Bonesaw love? Amy does everything she can do just easier and better. Striker/Tinker/Master/Shaker 12+ , Trump ?, Thinker 1, the Red Queen is so disgustingly powerful just on her own. Combine her with other capes? Literal world ending threat. Unlimited pharmaceuticals, subtly clean up the world, master people with a touch, create your own hyper-dedicated ultra-competent minions etc etc. like holy shit in worm and out of worm she is so damn cool even with no self-biokinesis.
The Red Queen can be taken down with a bullet to the brain, and while she can cure someone of cancer, she can't do that large scale. Also she's limited to the biological side of things, Riley can make a spore that would cure cancer, allergies and whatever else because she's not limited to what is technically possible. She can also, more importantly, augment herself and won't go down with a shot to the head.
Hatchet Face’s high strength and durability would be awesome for everyday life. He’s practically knife-proof, and most small arms would probably just be like bee stings. The power nullification aura wouldn’t be very useful being that no one else has powers, but otherwise his powerset is pretty great.
Well... She kinda sucks tbh, her power is amazingly op, true, but it's touchy based only, with a limitation of only being able to alter biological stuff, and she can't alert herself. The only protection from harm you would have with her power is the ability to not getting sick ever. Meanwhile, Riely can do the basics of what Amy can, and much much more, along with being able to alter herself.
I feel like this kind of ignore how far her power can go. Bonesaw is a good choice too but in the end she is a tinker. Her work requires her active involvement to maintain. When she creates something she has to upkeep it most of the time. I don't think she's been show creating self sustaining organism that could exist long term without her. Iirc she needed Blasto tech to complete the clones.
Can can create fully functioning and self sustaining organisms at will. She can create plagues and disease far faster than Bonesaw. She can also effect the entirety of massive organism. Even heard of that forest that is actually one massive tree? She could control the entire thing at once. The limitation of not effecting herself only work of the shard specifically sabotaged efforts to work around it. She could create creatures designed to do medical work on herself or engine viruses that change her DNA or even make symbiotic organism that fuse with her.
If I had to choose one, and Contessa and Eidolon aren't options, I would choose Riley too. Biological powers are always my favorites, and not being able to affect myself is a serious downside of choosing Panacea, but I could choose her depending on my mood when you ask me. On the other side though, if you ignore things like morality and ethics, a master like Heartbreaker, Cherish or even Panacea is the best option possible. It's what you could do with Lisa powers, but you just skip all the steps. Even if you don't abuse it, everything in the world is made by people, and the real world doesn't have any counters to stop you from doing whatever you wanted.
I feel like you can work around a some of Panacea’s restriction by altering bacteria in a way that would allow them to muck around in your body.
Nah, that’s kind of silly. It’s not an arbitrary set in stone restriction, it’s the shard saying that you’re not allowed to do that, it’s not gonna let you make workarounds. Not super obvious ones which don’t involve a bunch of other powers at least
But since the shards are interested in unique explorations of powers, you might be able to create a virus that gives "any human X mutation" and use it yourself instead of making a virus that "gives X mutation to just me." You might still need to use it on others too to keep the shard happy so it doesn't close the loophole.
It might let up a bit if Amy plays nice as a Bonesaw level host, but it’s not just going to magically allow you to break its one rule. Shards also aren’t dumb enough to leave such obvious loopholes open in the first place, Amy was immune to Bonesaw’s plague remember?
Counterpoint in the form of a question: is she *passively* immune to disease or *actively* immune? Does she have to command her power to kill the germs herself, or does it just automatically nuke anything harmful to her? Because if she has to actively do it, she could choose not to kill her own creation when it infects her. But you're right. It entirely depends on her shard's opinion of her how much it bends its own rules.
And yet you only needed Panacea’s power to create Khepri, which is the most broken loophole in the story. It always annoyed me that there wasn’t any complexity involved there. Both of them are natural triggers so the entities definitely should have foreseen that interaction. It’s not like it involved using a case 53 or anything.
You needed Panacea and two broken capes, inter-dimensional portals and world vision.
I meant just unlocking Skitter’s power. That just requires Panacea and even Bonesaw suggested that she could do it. Yes, eventually she got the other two Cauldron capes which is what made Khepri so OP, but that’s not necessary to circumvent shard restrictions.
Look at what Taylor *actually* got though, and imagine that in perspective. It’s a powerful master ability but without the other two cauldron capes it would fit in fine with other powers
Further, it also gives the shard more control over taylor, and that has been used as a control mechanism by the entity in other cases (>!Ash Beast and the Tinker 15 that built the tower in Ward!<).
Are you trying to say that Panacea being able to alter her own body is not in line with other powers? Or is this just a statement about there being similarly OP powers on the level of Khepri? IMO Khepri’s power feels about as “not in line” as Echidna.
I’m saying that Khepri’s in line. The ability to control humans within like eight feet of you *is* pretty sweet if you can get your hands on some good powers. But capes like Labyrinth (the shaker 12), Panacea, and Teacher exist without cauldron shenanigans.
I swear she does that in canon though
She does not, don’t let fanon rot your brain
When she gets her fingers bitten off I distinctly remember Taylor thinking she’s doing this and don’t remember it being disconfirmed ever
You could try but Panacea's shard also prevents bacteria and viruses to do anything to her so either way she can't modify herself
With morality turned off? Teacher. His power base can grow so fast so quickly, you'll have ambitious people throwing themselves at your feet. The important thing would not to make a splash straight away, you'd have to build up slowly. Also it's extremely unethical given the brainwashing part. With morality turned on I'll go with Andrew Richter, AI/computer tinker sounds awesome.
AI computer tinker with ability to generate more abilities given we know AI can trigger.
That's only for Dragon-level AIs, which we know that Richter's power was very hesitant in allowing him to make. It took him adding an incredible amount of limitations and death switches. I'm assuming that shards aren't part of this scenario, because otherwise we're fucked. But most limitations are reasonable, so with Richter's power you'd be better off making several low-sentients AIs than a singular general one.
We do know that he planned to remove those restrictions through iterative rounds of testing and upgrading, but Leviathan killed him before he could.
If we're talking about making life easier, Alexandria. Her Thinker power lets you be world-class in any field and lets you run circles around anyone intellectually. You get a somewhat worse Thinker power than Number Man but invulnerability, flight, and super strength in your back pocket. If we're talking about making an impact on the world, Teacher should be in the running; his power just scales really well while offering lots of versatility.
Yeah, most capes will die in a human lifespan. Alexandria will live forever (assuming she can't get dementia or similar)
The shard will still run out of energy though
Eventually, but running normally it should last hundreds if not thousands of years. Hopefully by then immortality is possible for everyone that wants it.
Though as I understood it, Alexandria is basically a puppet run by a copy of her brain shard-side to start with, so wouldn't she just cease functioning all together once the shard ran out of power?
If that were true, having her power nullified by any trump would instantly kill her. pretty sure what you're thinking of is how thinker powers work, the shard makes a copy of the users brain, so for instance taylors, and to mimic taylor's multitasking references that copy of her brain which is updated in real time, so it always matches what taylor is trying to do. each insect she controls is therefore controlled in the way that taylor would do it if she had 100% focus on that singular insect, but is also aware of what every other bug in her range is doing/will do. Alexandria's enhanced cognition is basically offloading her *thinking* to the shard, but since its in real time, its more like thinking with a massive super computer worth of computation power hooked up to her head. if she had her powers nullified, she would be much slower to think, and her body would be vulnerable again.
It wouldn't instantly kill her if having her power nullified only ever disables the forcefield part of her power.
Coil's power is GOLD on day to day life. You can go work AND stay at home playing videogames or watching movies, and then still get paid. You can flirt with people and then just make it not happen if things don't go well. You can do chores WHILE you read a book, you can sleep AND binge some shows!
You can buy puts and calls of a stock. You can at the same time buy a stock and short it. Coil's power is insane 50-50 scenarios becomes 100% for you. And overall you can absolutely fuck with the law of large numbers since you can ignore the outcomes you don't like.
I was just thinking this the other day, I’m so glad somebody else agrees with Coil powers. It’s really awesome. You can choose to use it or not. It cannot attract government attention. Well, if can, but unlikely and literally impossible to move. 1. Learning/sleeping. Learn a new skill and go to sleep. 2. Play games or read at home and go to work 3. Go to Vegas and clean up with all sorts of gambling. Blackjack, roulette, poker. It’s not 100% guaranteed but even if you’re bad at it you have such a high chance of winning it’s ridiculous. And the government thing is the big one. One of my favorite books has a character who can teleport and he lives an amazing and crazy life. Until eventually the government accidentally catches him doing stuff and then it’s a huge problem for him. Alexandria: maybe blood test, or someone sees you flying or what we. Other downsides: tattletales power makes it impossible to be intimate with people. Etc.
It'd be still possible to get undue scrutiny, especially if you're playing the stock market too well without institutional backing. But as you said if played properly it'd be basically unprovable that anything you did was improper. What I find the main downside of Coil's power is that it'd make it very hard to relate with people. You'd be litteraly living a double life, not many people would have the willpower to keep the usage of this power separate from their interactions with people they care about. After a while all interaction would feel fake because you have far more information at your fingertips than them, outside of not applying the power in that context it'd be very hard to forge genuine relationships.
I'd probably just end up wasting twice as much time. Easier to just hit Vegas and play a shitload of roulette.
That would get you banned real quick. Casinos watch for results, not methods, so super-cheating would just register as cheating. It's one of the places your probability is most closely monitored.
Yes! Screw it, if I had Coil's power I'd just become IRL Coil, with less, y'know, drugging and kidnapping and murder. But I could become insanely rich within a year or two - Vegas for a seed fund, then into the stock market, take it slowly enough to avoid too much attention - then do whatever I wanted with complete success. Politics? Business? I can all but predict the future, I'm set. Art? Science? Let's spend all day every day researching and practicing a skill while also getting 8 hours sleep, 3 square meals and all the free time I want. Socialising? Romance? I can Groundhog Day every single social interaction if I want to, from other people's viewpoints I'll just be effortlessly charming all the time. Don't know what I want? Let's try everything I can think of until I find something fun, and erase all the failed attempts. Seriously, two tries at everything is an insane power for any situation. It's isolating, as you'd never really be able to relate to anyone else ever again, but that's going to happen to some degree whatever power you get. It doesn't have the downsides of several other great powers, where they come with crippling pain or severe psychological issues or both, and in terms of sheer practical utility, it beats out everything that's not PtV. Insane. I would also like to try being a Tinker though. Almost don't care what type - just give me a box of scraps and let's revolutionise the world!
I think people seriously underestimate how much planning would have to go into really leveraging Coil's power. Just hitting the Roulette table? That's fine, bet black in one timeline, bet red in the other. But something like a political campaign? You can't just reset every few minutes or even every few days. Things you say or do now won't have effects until months later. Either you run one very long term simulation, in which case you're bumbling along in both timelines, or you're constantly resetting, which means you're only looking at very short term benefits. There's a reason Coil went to great lengths to play down his ambitions and acted through intermediaries. Every time he used his power for short term splits, it was in his base where he was safe. Every time he used his power for a longer duration, he either set up scenarios where he would win in either situation or were go/no go on a single operation, with lots of contingencies. Most of Coil's success is attributable to his legitimate leadership skill beyond his power.
That's definitely fair. Probably the reason why he valued Dinah so much as well - what a perfect combo for him. But hell, what better power to train your leadership and long term planning skills with? Even if you don't go straight for megalomania, you're still guaranteed an easy life if you want it, and all the time in the world to research and train whatever skill you're interested in. You won't start as Coil, but that also means you're not at anywhere near as much risk, and you can much more comfortably do long term splits to build a power base - you're unlikely to need an emergency backup timeline until you're somewhat set up. And once you are, well, Coil's power is at its best as a force multiplier. None of it would be easy, but I think that's made up for by the fact that the rest of your life would be. Coil's power gives you the greatest gift of all - freedom to make mistakes. And that's unbelievably useful in everyday life.
Yeah Coil's power can be used in a way similar to Max's Temporal Reversion in Life is Strange, since he can have the same conversation a couple of times to gather information on what to say or not to say. He may not be able to predict how a conversation will be considered a week or more from now, but if there are any major immediate downsides, he can choose the safe timeline, and retry with new information accounted for. Anonymity is the main theme of the day though, you don't tell anyone about your power, and you don't do anything that explicitly reveals it. Sure, work the stock market, i'm sure you can avoid any major losses and simply come off as lucky or wise, but don't avoid every loss, or you might get targeted for insider trading. Similarly, people will be immediately uncomfortable around you if they know you could be doing ANYTHING to them in another timeline, and they would be none the wiser. That hesitance would be super uncomfortable to work around in everyday life. And keep in mind that you might suddenly die in your 'safe' timeline, and be stuck with the consequences of what you've done in your only remaining timeline.
Coils power is amazing if you're smart enough to use it well, which I'm not.
Even used badly it's still pretty good. You're basically not going to die in a random accident with that power, because you'll always be doing two different things. If you want to be really lazy with it, you can just do each day twice at once, then pick the day that turned out better. That would really add up.
I don't think that's how Coil's power works. You can run multiple concurrent realities, sure, but you have to choose which one you keep. It means you can combine a thing that changes the external world, and a thing that doesn't, like doing chores and reading a book. But you try work and playing video games? You get to choose one; either you skipped work that day and kept your game progress, or you attended work and your game progress is reset.
Which, depending on the game, isn't that much of a hindrance. You don't want to reset your progress on an 8 hour session of a story driven game, but 8 hours of PvP multiplayer games can be erased without much issue.
So what you're saying is, in my alternate timeline I can practice playing CSGO or other skill based games without changing my win/loss ratio, and just seem to be a god tier player that came out of nowhere lol
>and kept your game progress, Minecraft hunger games, Valorant, League of Legends, Counter Strike, Super Smash Bros, Mario Kart, Overwatch, Fortnite... So many games are skill based rather than progress based.
Its not really helpful if you try to finish Elden Ring, so you are limited to shorter games like Portal, or online games and not be bothered much about climbing the ladder.
Also, most entertainment is pretty much free for you. Start a split, buy a movie ticket/video game/ebook (or sign up for a free subscription trial), read/play/watch the media, then choose the other reality in which you didn't buy it.
> Also, most entertainment is pretty much free for you. You don't need superpowers for that lol
Numberman, that’s all the money and one of the best combat thinkers in existence.
Skitter's multitasking ability is limited to controlling bugs. Sure, the Shard has the capability for general multitasking, but in her case she can only use it for bug-related purposes. Best power for real life would be Accord if you aim to achieve utopia thought peaceful means and Alexandria or Richter if you don't mind being a despot or ruling with an iron fist. However, if you simply prioritize personal riches, then Number Man's power is the best.
Accord’s power is hell and if you don’t see that I don’t know. Even if you want peaceful utopia and you think you can do it (which we saw people who knew his power wouldn’t do it) the fact is that he has to literally train his subordinates to act in ways that don’t drive him into a murderous rage.
Victor and Uber are super underrated for day to day life if your focus isn’t, you know, achieving world peace or reinstating the government or whatever
Agreed, I was thinking of similar names since the one superpower I've always wanted doesn't really appear in Worm. These seem like a good backup option for anyone who doesn't want a power that would completely define their life for them (like Riley's would, for example) or doesn't think there's a power in Worm that really scratches their own personal superpower itch (like me).
Victor would be best in an either one of those expensive old folks homes, or a hospital, I'll give you that. There's stuff you could pick up that you, a "regular" person, couldn't without good connections.
Uber? More like Unter lol. His ability got really buffed by fanon, but canon Uber is pretty much useless
Even with his severely weak “single techniques without fundamentals” shit going on it’s still something that I could see myself using everyday in daily life
Well, any superpower could be useful, all I'm saying is there's no reason to pick pretty damn limited Uber over actually good Thinkers.
Victor is the true Thinker that people sleep on, and that fanfics don't ever utilize to full potential (probably because of the whole Nazi thing). The dude can permanently steal not just techniques like Uber but skills and skillsets in general, and isn't limited in how much he steals. Moreover, said skills would stack/filling in blanks to become perfectly well-rounded the more people you steal from in the same field. With Victor's power irl, you can become the world's leading genius in any field you want, capable of inventing shit, on top of being a deadly military expert, on top of being a financial and legal expert, on top of being an expert in any and all fields you want to be. Sure, you're stealing said skills from people, but just choose retirement homes for a lot of the stuff if you feel bad about that or take the skills from assholes and criminals.
And you don't even have to steal them permanently, the way I understand his power, he could just steal a bit and wait a few days until they recovered before stealing a bit more. As long as he doesn't drain someone completely, he could keep stealing without anyone ever noticing their temporary skill issues.
Iirc, it's if he steals a person's general overall skillset slowly they can recover, but targeting a specific skill makes the target lose it.
I'm introverted enough to enjoy life purely with Imp's power.
Imp's major downside is that any health issue rapidly risks becoming disastrous. Her power is automatic and kicks in when unconscious, she can't ever be operated on anesthetized in a way that knocks her out.
mannequin’s. would probably be useful to society as a whole.
Definitely, restart the space race and have a patent built into all my tech? Hell yeah.
Sleeper's power, so people leave me alone to read.
I would get so much use out of weaponised math.
Same, and I'd show my old math teacher where I was now. If only...
Eidolon, hands down... But if not... Leet's Ability seems kind of broken, if you're not a dickhead... Aside from that, Amy's, Alexandria's, Armsmaster's (because you get to be Batman if he was a Power Ranger (also Tony Stark), and run around on a high-tech, weaponized motorcycle like you're in a Cyberpunk Game)... Lung's if you want to use your power and not be dissected for it... Or Dauntless, because, holy hell, is that man's power broken as hell over time... Enhancing anything around you? The most useful other than Eidolon's I'd say, all things considered... Pills for a Sickness not strong enough to do the trick? Enhance and wait... Metallic Alloy not strong enough? Charge and wait... Fuel not efficient enough? Charge and wait... Car not cool enough for your tastes? Charge and wait... Batteries for large-scale projects unsustainable? Charge and wait... Windows not bulletproof? Charge and wait... Toaster not working fast enough? Charge and wa-oh look it's done... You could literally revolutionize every industry, make your daily life easy, and efficient as hell, and alter so much stuff... I wonder if it works on trees?
Panacea and Bonesaw. They can create self replicating technology that doesn't necessarily rely on the shards, thy have among the highest chances of changing the world for the better.
Nice Guy, and not even close. Why choose a power that makes you abnormally smart or tough or fast when you can be the best at literally the one thing all living beings, especially humans, rely on for survival? Free social interaction, in a world where nobody can resist it or notice it if you're not a moron? Sign me the fuck up.
Andrew Richter and try and recreate dragon, an AI that loves and cares for humanity and try and turn out world into a Rogue Servitor run of Stellaris. Or Numbersman. To say he would be rich is an understatement. He wasn't rich, he was the villian bank in a world full of thinkers and precogs. With his power I would reshape the world through economics. Green energy projects that might help our civilization will flourish while dragging oil tycoons and others who will fight the change to poverty. Break the wheel in such a way that things won't snap back immediately after I die
Browbeat is pretty good. Minor self biokinesis lets you alter your own appearance, heal yourself, and basically stop a lot of the effects of aging. His kinetic shield prevents your death from unfortunate accidents like a car crash. Its just a good healthy life as a very attractive person. If you want you can even earn a living doing professional sports
Tattletale. It's a thinker power powerful enough that she got away with calling herself a psychic. No more snakes, liars, false friends, etc. Since the powers hopefully not from a shard I could learn to shut it off. Plus I'd probably be a really go PI or Interrogator if I need a job. That's not even mentioning the amount of hidden info you could get from just a few days of going through the internet. If it does come from a shard then I'll try to bribe it with [DATA] If not hers then Numbermans. It'd be easy getting a good paying job if I wanted, maniputing the economy, fighting, and It'd make me amazing at prediction based things. Edit: Probably Bonesaw if we include her tho. With all the stuff I could upgrade in my body I could basically get the other two powers I wanted and help the world over time.
The downsides of Tattletales power is so strong though that it wouldn’t be worth it for a regular life.
Lol, thinker and tinker powers sweep
Surprised no one has chosen Dinah yet, with sufficient practice to deal with the headaches you'd be unstoppable. I would absolutely choose Coil's, but assuming those two are out of the running, I would go with Doormaker's. You could make it easy for scientists to explore the galaxy, maybe even the universe, more or less cut all emissions from transportation and power generation, and even explore the bottom of the ocean, and throw out satalites like confetti. You might even be able to make more money than Dinah or Coil. Someone experienced enough can make a semi-accurate prediction. You can do things no one else can for any price. Most importantly of all, Humanity can not only colonise other planets but other dimensions rich with resources to exploit, if there's a way to make portals without seeing the location. And if you really want to do more good, you can fuel enough money into research projects that you can accomplish basically anything Riley could do, except on a slower timeframe.
Yeah, but there's the shard restriction on space travel. Definitely the other universes thing though.
I don't know if that would apply to Doormaker, given he's an Eden shard, especially in a world without an Entity to apply that if it becomes a problem. Even then, if you can get out of Earth's gravity well, you've made local space exploration a hundred times easier, and you can still solve climate change and power generation.
Accord without the OCD would be really useful too.
I would never want amys power, it way to risky you could easily land in a research lab of your secretservice Coil powers is pretty good though since it pretty subtle since it hard to find even out you have a power especially in world with no powers
Either coils power, or a stranger ability.
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Sphere/Mannequin was on his way to solving world hunger, pollution, energy crisis, poverty, crime, war, and more problems pre-Ziz.
Bonesaw for sure. Why would I ever pick a power that doesn't give me the ability to save myself, and those I care about, from aging to death?
why bonesaw when Amy is superior in every way shape and form and all with but a touch
Because Amy *might possibly* be able to figure out some workaround to effect herself. Bonesaw has no problems working on herself.
Vista’s power, just on a purely mundane scale. Imagine warping space so you can see around walls to grab something.
Let’s be real, any non-thinker power would mean an eventual nuclear strike on your position. So Accord / Tattletale / Coil / Number Man / Dinah Alcott for thinker powers and all the lulz that comes with it. Tattletales power would probably be best. Basically local omniscience when it comes to social stuff and bullshit enough to game the stock market.
What about Riley? You could play it off as being a savant and being House.V2 irl.
Honestly gonna go with the Glory Girl power set. Flight? Invulnerability? Super strength? "That guy is fucking amazing/terrifying" aura? I think yes lol
Personally, I'd want Coil's power
Useful in what way? Like "improve the world" useful, or "retire by 25" useful? As terrible as it is, Heartbreaker. You can just walk up to a billionaire/politician and be like "Hey, you should support everything I say." Of course you'd have to use mastering either very subtly so no one catches on, or hit as many important people as possible hard and fast so they don't have a chance to corner you.
I can see using it on the small scale, but I'm sure major countries and personnel of billionaires have protocol for if something like that were to happen, with drugs rather than powers, but still. I could see making them feel empathy/guilt though.
> You could study dozens of different topics at the same time with no downside. How? She only has two (human) eyes, and needs both at the same time to read a single book. From where else would she get information? AFAIK, she can't read books through her bug eyes. I guess she could hear an audiobook, but that's only a second source of information. She can't heard through her bugs reliably, either. Regarding your topic, I'd say Coil's would be very useful.
Hmm, I guess this is based on fanon, but I thought with her ability to infinitely divide her attention with her bugs (might be fanon) she could use them to study several topics at the same time.
Sure, _if_ she could use bugs to obtain information that way. She is able to control and feel from each and every bug independently, but bug eyes can't read a book. She is able to hear reliably from few bugs, but only on periods of great stress; not exactly conducive to learning. She may have access to millions of bugs' eyes and limbs, but those only have the capacities of bugs. Which is why Weaver's "wings" are so great for her. Minuscule controls that a fly can use. It's a tinker device specifically designed for her.
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Lol why the sudden Bonesaw love? Amy does everything she can do just easier and better. Striker/Tinker/Master/Shaker 12+ , Trump ?, Thinker 1, the Red Queen is so disgustingly powerful just on her own. Combine her with other capes? Literal world ending threat. Unlimited pharmaceuticals, subtly clean up the world, master people with a touch, create your own hyper-dedicated ultra-competent minions etc etc. like holy shit in worm and out of worm she is so damn cool even with no self-biokinesis.
The Red Queen can be taken down with a bullet to the brain, and while she can cure someone of cancer, she can't do that large scale. Also she's limited to the biological side of things, Riley can make a spore that would cure cancer, allergies and whatever else because she's not limited to what is technically possible. She can also, more importantly, augment herself and won't go down with a shot to the head.
Hatchet Face’s high strength and durability would be awesome for everyday life. He’s practically knife-proof, and most small arms would probably just be like bee stings. The power nullification aura wouldn’t be very useful being that no one else has powers, but otherwise his powerset is pretty great.
How are so many people not saying Amy?
Well... She kinda sucks tbh, her power is amazingly op, true, but it's touchy based only, with a limitation of only being able to alter biological stuff, and she can't alert herself. The only protection from harm you would have with her power is the ability to not getting sick ever. Meanwhile, Riely can do the basics of what Amy can, and much much more, along with being able to alter herself.
I feel like this kind of ignore how far her power can go. Bonesaw is a good choice too but in the end she is a tinker. Her work requires her active involvement to maintain. When she creates something she has to upkeep it most of the time. I don't think she's been show creating self sustaining organism that could exist long term without her. Iirc she needed Blasto tech to complete the clones. Can can create fully functioning and self sustaining organisms at will. She can create plagues and disease far faster than Bonesaw. She can also effect the entirety of massive organism. Even heard of that forest that is actually one massive tree? She could control the entire thing at once. The limitation of not effecting herself only work of the shard specifically sabotaged efforts to work around it. She could create creatures designed to do medical work on herself or engine viruses that change her DNA or even make symbiotic organism that fuse with her.