For all you new players coming over from CoH

zahinder

One thing I've found, particularly with soloing, is that good Become devices can really help round out your character.

Essentially, buying one of these (for a few bucks) gives you an 'extra' AT you can turn your character into. I've found Become Werewolf (essentially, Savage in a can) to be handy for brittle support and ranged dps types early on, before they have some good ways to survive.

I've also found Werewolf handy for support characters in Alerts when it becomes clear the party doesn't really need the extra healing (other support characters or just robust characters). Being able to switch to melee dps is, well, handy.

In addition, Become devices have their own travel powers, so it can be nice to expand the list of travel powers you can use. Other incidental powers can be really handy -- werewolf, for instance, has the Regeneration passive, which means you have an easy way to heal yourself if your character lacks a good way to do so (and many ATs lack healing).

Finally, you can freely pass the device between your characters (or, heck, share it with a buddy you really trust).


So a Become allows you to mitigate the narrowness of an archetype by giving you OTHER archetype options to switch between. They can also provide fun concept enhancements for your characters -- I have a Radiant 'wolf angel of the moon,' and his ability to turn into a savage werewolf fits on many aesthetic levels.

With a silver account, it's nice because while you DO spend money, the benefit is permanent and noticeable.


Note that Become doesn't work in pvp, but hardly anyone pvps in CO.

veresk

sockmunkey wrote: »

The impulse is really lackluster.

The Grim, can be fun. Its not a powerhouse by any means. But it can hold its own and does well both solo and as part of a group. Provided you have a tank smart enough to keep the baddie on one place long enough for your sigils to nuke the snot out of it. :biggrin:

Sounds awesome, will try it then once I manage to get past the costume creator. The first big test for me to pass through. :rolleyes:

c3rvand0

First of all a big welcome to all CoH players. Sorry for your loss, but hopefully you can enjoy CO as much as CoH once you learn the ropes.

A little tip for new players, the power selection can be overwhelming at first, so either play as an AT, as this simplifies the choices or go to the powers forum and it's sub forum builds and seek advice. I am sure the gurus there can give you advice on recreating your favorite CoH toons as well.

Whilst CO has more costume options than CoH, many are locked until level 10. Also, the cartoony outlines can be removed under options on the title screen and under advanced settings there are many options which I recommend you tweak to your taste.

My other recommendation is to join an established Super Group, aka guild, as the CO veterans will be give you lots of advice and grouping will be much easier.

agentnx5

sockmunkey wrote: »

The impulse is really lackluster.

The Grim, can be fun. Its not a powerhouse by any means. But it can hold its own and does well both solo and as part of a group. Provided you have a tank smart enough to keep the baddie on one place long enough for your sigils to nuke the snot out of it. :biggrin:

The core problem with Grimoire is that it NEEDS to be in support role as an archetype!

If it was; I guarantee people would more frequently be going "Oh yay a grimoire! Join my team and stand next to me all the time!" instead of the current "Ugh... A Grimoire, we're going to loose now..." comments.

AoPM in support role turns your teammates into superstars, rounding out their weaknesses with a buff to all stats. It wouldn't really matter then if Grimoires didn't excel, just everybody stick close to the Grimoire's aura.

mijjestic

jonsills wrote: »

"Is the Dark Side stronger?"

"Stronger? No. Quicker, easier, more seductive. But if ever you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny! Consume you it will!"

The analogy just works too well, doesn't it?

thecheeseslicer

CO so far has been great fun. Could do with teaming a bit though, as I've spent all my time soloing. Are there any perks to teaming? Are enemy groups bigger, the more people you team with?

kenpojujitsu3

Welcome to CO and the CO community new people. Enjoy your stay and feel free to ask questions. There are a lot of knowledgeable and helpful people around here.

helbjorn

thecheeseslicer wrote: »

CO so far has been great fun. Could do with teaming a bit though, as I've spent all my time soloing. Are there any perks to teaming? Are enemy groups bigger, the more people you team with?

There are some perks that can pretty much only be obtained by completing content virtually impossible to solo. Aside from that, teaming is mostly unnecessary in CO. Having played CoH from launch through the first several episodes, I agree totally that CoH's motivation to team up was not implemented here and it is sorely missed, I think.

zahinder

Part of the problem is CO lacks CoH's quite excellent LFG tool.

Although Alerts helps. Not everyone agrees, but after Alerts were added I grouped WAY more than before, and finally felt there was a point in making tanks and support types.

cptvanor

sockmunkey wrote: »

Mixing both ranged and melee often results in one or the other being lackluster.

While this is true, you can make an effective PvE solo hybrid melee/ranged character. It won't be "raid worthy", and will most diffidently be weaker then if you focused one one or the other. But you could get though most of the solo content in the game.

Other option is to throw in one or two powers and use them as flavor/filler type stuff. My ranged characters will typically have a melee attack or 2, because there's something wrong with a super hero who can't punch the badguys...

Likewise even with a melee character you can typically find room for a single ranged attack, to use to pull or take down a runner.

thecheeseslicer

Thanks zahinder and hellbjorn for your responses. I do like teaming, and this is an MMO so I think teaming should be encouraged. Fingers crossed that there's some good team content put into CO in the future.

pion01

cptvanor wrote: »

While this is true, you can make an effective PvE solo hybrid melee/ranged character. It won't be "raid worthy", and will most diffidently be weaker then if you focused one one or the other. But you could get though most of the solo content in the game.

Other option is to throw in one or two powers and use them as flavor/filler type stuff. My ranged characters will typically have a melee attack or 2, because there's something wrong with a super hero who can't punch the badguys...

Likewise even with a melee character you can typically find room for a single ranged attack, to use to pull or take down a runner.

With diminishing returns it's very doable to have a tank-mage with both melee and and ranged attacks, it's just that, why would you? It can be kinda redundant.

Personally I'm a big believer that everything should have Roomsweeper, and it's a pretty ******n devastating aoe hit if done right (except martial artists), and Demolish is nice for spamming and neither of those takes much to get the most out of.

Yes, theoretically specializing will yield higher results, but with mods, gear and diminshing returns, it's not likely you'll find anything that ultimate specialization will benefit from, just like you won't find anything that ultimate variety will either.




...Crap. Now I wanna go test out a Defile + Bestial Frenzy concept.

cptvanor

pion01 wrote: »

With diminishing returns it's very doable to have a tank-mage with both melee and ranged attacks, it's just that, why would you? It can be kinda redundant.

There's not much reason to I agree. But you can, and for some people concept trumps effectiveness. So while you'll never be as effective if you do both ranged and melee attacks, that doesn't mean some people wouldn't prefer having both even if it means they're not as effective as they could.

This is especially true of people coming over from CoX and trying out freeform builds.

Like I said, IMO the best option is to go one way or the other but mix a dash of the other side in for flavor.

zahinder

pion01 wrote: »

Personally I'm a big believer that everything should have Roomsweeper, and it's a pretty ******n devastating aoe hit if done right (except martial artists), and Demolish is nice for spamming and neither of those takes much to get the most out of.

I LOATHE knockback attacks, and KB has killed my interest on many powersets and ATs (like Behemoth).

It just... ugh. If I could just switch it off, permanently, even with no further damage or compensation, I would.

A melee guy who scatters enemies all over the landscape? Some of whom might die and drop loot somewhere inconvenient, or all fire at you from range all scatteed in every direction?

Not to mention how much it sucks on teams.

jorifice1

Another little something I wish I had known sooner.
Hit "J" for the journal
At the bottom it will give you the button for the "Crime Computer"
The "Crime Computer" will find many of the Contacts (i.e. quest givers) in the game for you. It will even let you TURN IN THE MISSIONS without backtracking to those contacts. It will not show every single contact in the game at this point, but most of them are still there and if you get stuck and don't know where to go next it is a great little helping hand.
The other truly awesome thing about your Crime Computer is that you will find a little thing that says "Exit the current Map?" this lets you instantly fast travel to the outside entrance of any interior instanced mission instead of backtracking through a maze of already cleared halls.
Hope this helps.
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zahinder

Yeah, the ability to leave maps is... very handy (you can also hit the little face on left of minimap for same window)

It's somewhat recently (with On Alert, I think?)

Before that point, I've had some EXTREMELY curse-word-laden minutes with the game trying to find the f'in exit (which is rarely marked or obvious from the map)