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bluecenturion
Posts: 60 Arc User
Okay, i'm a CoH Refugee, technically a CoV Refugee truly. I ran mostly Brutes over there, and liked the in your face style. Champions is of course a completely different animal. I tried the melee types here and did not appreciate them. I think one turn off for me was the very few attacks you get. Spamming 2 buttons/animations gets old, especially when i build tanky, which i did.
Then I tried a Hybrid and liked that.
I had a new concept over the weekend. Missed most of the Double Exp, off on a trip. But i sat down Sunday afternoon at about 3:00pm and got some work done. A Blaster, er Ranged Damage, Darkness, CON, REC, END, and actually used a damage passive for the 1st time. So,.... Why Tank in this game, or even Hybrid for that matter? There is almost no teaming, and i am killing so much faster than these things can kill me it is stupid. I am laying out the super bosses before they get halfway through their 1st canned insults.
I ran some Blasters and Doms in the City of X. In fact I spent the last 6 months there trying to figure out why I struggled with Blasters. (Partly my concepts did not fit the only true Ranged Blaster sets) Blasters were really designed from the ground up as Blappers.
In Champions not only is Blasting easy, there is truly no need for armor. Glass cannon? Glass is cool when they are throwing spitwads, makes a mess, but I wipe off. I had 2 deaths in the run to 20, both attributable to my poor skills at using Teleport (why can you not stay phased, it is just stupid not to be able too....)
Then I tried a Hybrid and liked that.
I had a new concept over the weekend. Missed most of the Double Exp, off on a trip. But i sat down Sunday afternoon at about 3:00pm and got some work done. A Blaster, er Ranged Damage, Darkness, CON, REC, END, and actually used a damage passive for the 1st time. So,.... Why Tank in this game, or even Hybrid for that matter? There is almost no teaming, and i am killing so much faster than these things can kill me it is stupid. I am laying out the super bosses before they get halfway through their 1st canned insults.
I ran some Blasters and Doms in the City of X. In fact I spent the last 6 months there trying to figure out why I struggled with Blasters. (Partly my concepts did not fit the only true Ranged Blaster sets) Blasters were really designed from the ground up as Blappers.
In Champions not only is Blasting easy, there is truly no need for armor. Glass cannon? Glass is cool when they are throwing spitwads, makes a mess, but I wipe off. I had 2 deaths in the run to 20, both attributable to my poor skills at using Teleport (why can you not stay phased, it is just stupid not to be able too....)
Go Kill, Hunt Skulz.
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Anyway, the general consensus seems to be that the game is a bit easy for freeform characters built with power in mind.
But then again, is that a bad thing? Let powergamers be powergamers, it is better if the game is designed for the average player (who die by the dozen against Gravitar).
I played CoH/V and found the leveling process to be somewhat on the slow side -- playing a superhero in CO feels a little more like playing a superhero when you can tear through a mission of henchmen and the odd supervillain without breaking a sweat. The later game gets more difficult... and more rewarding for the experienced player.
I will admit that it would be nice if you could crank the difficulty of the leveling game up in the way you could in CoH/V when entering an instance.
@Tiresias
Tiresias: Celestial/Darkness (Support)
Ravish: Bestial/Might/Unarmed (Tank)
If you want more challenge, don't min/max and/or boost the difficulty. If you want more complexity in your skill rotation, design your hero that way.
I have a Munitions character who uses up to 6 skills on each group of enemies. It's fairly difficult and time consuming on the easiest setting... and it's only level 24.
I think they were more referring to how, in CoX, you could set a mission to spawn a full team of 8's worth of enemies, in addition to making the enemies individually tougher. We have a small sample of this in the Powerhosue, where you can tell it to spawn enemies for up to a group of 5, IIRC. That would be a nice option IMO.
That being said, I tend to prefer defensive passives, and up my damage through the toggle powers, active offenses, and even the 11K Questionite sets...
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
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It's easier to take a defensive passive and outlive all the mob's incoming damage and defeat them slowly than it is to increase your damage past the point where you're dealing more damage to the mobs than they are to your unprotected self.
In other words - tanks can do more content solo (but slower) than a blaster ever will.
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The thing is, even with just a few weeks of Champions under my belt, it is obvious (to me) that seems unwise. As SomeBob pointed out in the post right above yours it is easier for a tank to solo the content, just slower.
Specifically, building for damage rather than survival you start to sacrifice way more than you can get. Kind of like burning your house one piece at a time to keep yourself warm through a long winter. This is the point SomeBob made. It "feels" like the design of the game as well, although I am new to it.
Since the Devs have hid their formulas and mislabeled a good half stuff in the game descriptions it is hard to numerically prove that, for me, currently. My 2 years of calculus training does me not good when someone throws me word problems that are completely inaccurate and nearly impossible on the surface. Can you imagine giving this problem to a 6th grader encountering their first math: If a train was flying from Cincinnati to Bangladesh and encountered weather from another world how long much longer would it take to reach its destination?
That is how this game's descriptions come off to me. I understand they made some major revisions and have obviously not updated the game text to reflect the changes. However some of it was written just poorly right from the beginning it seems. This was either to be deliberately obtuse, or more likely, out of sheer ignorance, flat out incompetence, or just to cheap to have a copy editor glance over it.
I am using a Darkness character using Fear as a major mechanic. That means that CON stat not only gives me a very good amount of health, it feeds my Blue Bar thanks to Spirit Reverberation. My very basic concept is to keep my Green Bar and Blue Bar as big as possible, and recharging fast. I am using my first Slotted Passive that is not purely defensive, Shadow Form. I am also running as a "Ranged damage" for the first time. I semi-stealth and teleport a lot, but when bored/confused/cautious it is easy for me to grind through the minions/villains to get through to the goal.
But back to the point. Without good formulas, or decent numbers, I am flying by seat of the pants estimations based on non numerical experiments. (Building, then gaming) I have found what I believe to be a "sweet spot" somewhere between very good survivability and fast kill times. Basically I am estimating a logistic curve in my mind for each power set combined with super stats and role. Each would generate a different formula and graph. I am trying to find a build set/stat/role that takes advantage of the rules to push me onto the best looking graph, and into as sweetest a spot possible. Because of Darkness' relationship with CON I think it is perhaps one of the better combos in the game, based on my (limited) guestimations. Also, Darkness/Fear works well to represent a character I just started writing about.
I may not be right about this combo producing one of the best possibilities in the game, but that is the game plan I have for trying to determine the most useful builds in the game. It really is unfortunate that so much of the game is intentionally hidden, and the parts that are revealed are so dreadfully inaccurate however.
When I was leveling my PA tank, I used concentration, active offenses, hybrid/tank roles, and generally DPSed on par with the squishies in most alert groups.
I will say if you want a more fulfilling melee experience, you should try using enraged and comboing. I found chaining attacks together for enraged stacking fun on my might tank. Granted, that was before the enraged nerf.
:eek: I use those same stats on my tank!
"There is only one way to support a PFF tank: Send Cyrone lots of money weekly... because he's the only one to successfully be a true PFF Tank." - chuckwolf
So, why play a tank? Because you feel like it.
Why play a healer? Because you feel like it.
Insert any other question -> Because you feel like it.
Now my question... why did you build a character with only two attacks if that's boring for you?
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
In city of Heroes/Villains we had 24 power picks + our inherents, which included the archtype inherent, which combines about 3-5 buff self powers from Champions.
In Champions you get 12 power picks, plus a travel power. Of the 12, 3-5 need to go 'buffing" yourself, leaving 7-9 for slotting attacks. Those attacks include the 1st 2 picks. You need to get your buffs and armors slotted in fast if you want to build tanky. That means the majority of the 'free' picks you get are slotted late in the build.
Take the "Behemoth" for instance. Only 4 attacks through level 34, and that counts the builder as an attack. In City of X Super Strength got its big attack at level 8, Knockout Blow. And you had a nice attack chain already set up by then. Level 8. Behemoth gets uppercut at level 35.
How could I not be bored? Seriously.
You seem determined not to like this game.
I mean, aside from Behemoth being able to choose Uppercut at 35, you pretty much got everything else wrong about Champions Online.
This way you maintain good damage, while also having some toughness. I think as you get to the higher levels, you are going to find you prefer a defensive passive, especially if soloing. You sacrifice a little damage, but you can still get it up high enough to tear through everything plenty fast.
As far as your Energy is concerned, there shouldn't be any reason to have either REC or END as a SS, nevermind both, unless you have chosen every En-hungry power there is. Get a passive energy return, use some energy management in your specializations, and look for other tricks to return power, and you will be fine. Yes, it will be tough early on, until you get all your synergies rocking, but once you do, you'll be golden. And the extra damage you get from using DEX and/or EGO as SS, instead of REC/END will be nice.
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Used to be coach on the forums. Still @coach in game.
I am expressing here what i do have problems with, in the hopes of soliciting feedback from people who have played for a long time and understand the game better.
We weren't kidding when we told you that you build the character the way you want it.
You seem to be stuck under the old CoX paradigm.
There are no classes. If you want to play a "Tank" then build it. If you want to play a Tanksupportdps, then you can do that too.
You can create a character that uses a ton of buttons to play or you can just spam Force Cascade (Big Damage, Big Knockback, Long Range) all day. It's your choice.
You are building a Super Hero; you aren't playing a Class. There is a huge amount of wiggleroom here. Min/Max-ing will push you out of Super Hero range and into Godmode.
How your character plays is almost entirely up to you.
You get 14 power picks
1 must be an energy builder
You get 2 travel power picks, which do NOT count against your total power picks - in CoX you had to buy a TP w/ "regular" power points, (plus a possible prerequisite power as well).
If you were playing a tanker, scrapper, brute, or stalker, 1 of your powersets was centered on your defensive abilities - in CO you need only spend 1 point on your passive
In CoX, if none of your powersets had a self heal, and you wanted one, you had to invest 2 points into medicine to be able to take Aid Self, (might have only been 1, I can't recall)
Almost every power in CoX had a cooldown, meaning that you needed many attacks to have a full attack chain. The reverse is true in CO, meaning that 1-2 attacks are all you really need to keep up a constant stream of attacks.
Because of the more restrictive arrangement of powers in the CoX power sets, someone playing a tanker or scrapper, (with very few exceptions), would have to wait until their 30's to get a ranged attack or something outside of their ATs focus area.
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
Anyways hitting mobs twice with fireball takes them out, about 3,400 damage without a full charge up, any lingerers running around and it's tk lance for them.
I just spam rank 2 force guyser( forgot how to spell it lol) and tk lance, and with the tk maintain power, forgot that name too, it helps build up my leeches so i can stack 5 in seconds and unleash my tk lance on single targets doing roughly 6,000 without crits odd damage, which is a bit poor but not too bad, my main stat was DEX and it does help with getting alot of crits for more damage, to me the more damage the more better, luckily im balanced with alot of damage and good shields.
The internetz is one crazy place! tread carefully!
I do enjoy the completely freeform character building. This was something i hungered for, for a VERY long time in City of X. Having about half the power picks available (and that is before you consider extra post 50 powers!) is a little rough to get used to. Champions slightly makes up for that with the tap/charge thing, but it is a small bone to throw at a big dog.
City of X gave up the battle of trying to hide every little game mechanic detail from the community. I think that was around the time a Dev left there, some years back, after sabotaging the PvP system beyond belief. I've always been a PvE person, but it is an amusing piece of game history. But yes, the CoH community had accurate information to build from. In fact a few of the more clever members actually created systems that helped the Devs! Arcanaville is a great example, she actually figured a way to true up activation/server lag and come up with a truly accurate way to measure game time in combat for purposes of balancing powers and DPS. Arcanatime.
From what I have seen the Champions Dev team has no interest in the community having a reliable way to determine performance. They seem to be of the mind of the building contractor I once knew. Ask him if something was straight. He'd go "Does it look straight to you?' Ask him if it was built solid, "Does it seem solid to you?" Ask him if it was a good quality "Are you happy with it?"
I am frustrated with having no data, and spending a week looking at powers descriptions only to find that a majority of the descriptions are incorrect. So maybe I do like the game, but I do not like leveling a character to 20 based on building for a power combo, only to get there and realize the superstat the power description said was a major help there is actually a secondary stat that barely helps at all. To which I guess the Devs would reply, "Did you have fun running to 20?"
I am also frustrated with having so few power choices. not only does this restrict character building, it locks the character into a very small number of animations. I am seriously not used to watching a character do the same 2 things near constantly.
I would agree with most of this. As I said, I do enjoy the freedom to build anyway I want. However, all those different powers with cooldowns meant different animations. Interesting animations. They do not even flap wings in Champion for flying from what i heard. They are seriously animation poor. Not sure how much City of X you played, but I not only took all the armors on my melee I generally added more armor picks. Course I built Scrappers that could out tank most out of the box tanks. Also, most every melee and many ranged classes had a heal built right into the sets. But, just a different system yes. The main difference I think for me in the end comes to getting to pick less things to define my character (albeit from a much greater pool of picks) and getting stuck with doing the exact same animation near endlessly unless I want to alt onto another character. And have those 2 animations lol.
Regarding wings - you *do* flap your wings while hovering and at the lower stages of flight - it's the highest stage of flight where you fully extend your wings and kinda look like you're gliding. In other words, if you just tap the flight power, or are just hovering, your wings will flap - as you progress through the various stages of flight, your wings flap, once you reach the highest stage of flight and are moving forward, they fully extend and stay out. Since you stay at a lower stage of flight while in combat, your wings will flap while you're fighting.
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
You. Built. The. Character. That. Way.
Xel'Qypla is almost pure poison. She has... 12 skills (yeah, I didn't use all my choices) and only 2 have Duplicate Animations: Defile and Infernal Blast. If I wanted to, I could make one of those come out of her Chest, Fist, or Head instead of her Palms.
As for the Numbers? The game launched quite a bit different from how it is now. There were no archtypes, 2 Primary Super Stats - no secondary, Ego was crit severity, Presence was threat, most skills scaled with specific stats, etc. There are no doubt some bugs and things overlooked/put on the back burner. If you want specifics, ask for them here on the forum: someone probably knows the answer.
Hmm. i seem to recall from a guide stickied on these boards aimed at people new to the game that they recommend a block, a buff or two, I forget all the details.
But I guess you are right. you could take most all of your powers and spread them across many different powersets and get various animations for your character. But the point is I like building an effective character, that is also fun to run.
I mainly ran melee in CoX, plus a few forays into Doms, and many attempts at making a decent blaster I liked (never quite succeeded lol - picture many similar conversations to this in the Blaster boards lolol along the lines of why do these powers ranges not line up, why do i have to be in melee, why does...) I am grateful to be (mostly) free from picking a role, but i still really enjoy finding a design that all works in the same direction and not built like a 12.00 doghouse from Wahmalt.
I understand that Crowd Control here is by and large useless, so my Dom days look to be over. But I may be as wrong about that as the flapping. ( i had heard a complaint in zone chatter about wings, guess I got the details wrong, I'm not big on winged designs) I have also heard that multiple applications of a crowd control power in game is basically useless. Which is really a sweet way to waste a power pick if true.
As for "buffs" - well that's a very broad category. If you're talking about the various "form" toggles, like concentration or form of the tempest, well they are nice, but not having one in no way makes you ineffective.
I build characters like this:
1 EB (obviously)
1 solid single target attack
1 solid AoE attack (cone or circular doesn't matter)
1 way of healing myself - you can target yourself here in CO, so I use a bind that targets myself then casts the heal, to satisfy this.
1 passive - I tend to prefer defensive passives, simply because they allow me to focus on attacking instead of just staying alive, but there are other powers you can take to compensate for gaps in your character's effectiveness.
That leaves 9 other powers that I can take for w/e I want. Depending upon the stats I'm using and the way I want to play the character, I may take a secondary energy unlock, a block replacer, a self rez, a rez-other, a pet, some control powers, and active offense/defense, etc.
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
A Passive.
A Toggle.
An Energy Unlock.
An Active Defense.
A Self Heal.
That leaves enough power choices for an awful lot of variety.
You say that a majority of the power descriptions are incorrect. I know that there are some issues in that regard but find such to be in the minority. Can you give any examples ?
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
Reading through this thread, much of your posting seems to be incorrect stuff you've heard second hand rather than stuff you've experienced/played/tested/tried for yourself. If you had done it yourself I can't imagine you would have stated some of this as it is very off base and you seem fairly level headed.
Now, if you're not determined to not like this game because it isn't COH (your postings whether it's your intention or not convey this notion to me) I suggest spending some dedicated time in the powerhouse just testing things out, some time reading some of the guides on how to build (shameless plug, there's one of many in my sig) and some time browsing other builds people have come up with to get a real sense of what people with more experience in this game tend to "need" (shameless plug, there's a link to a long list of builds in my sig).
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How to build a freeform character...the Kenpo way
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Serving since September, 2009 / 65 Characters, 63 Level 40's
As a veteran coh player myself for 6 years i can tell you right now that comparing coh and co is not the same, coh recycled loads of animations, and even had a problem in balancing, so much so, if you were a corruptor you could just about kill anything, being a brute fa/ss build farm anything, if you were a blaster you would be laughed at especially in the pvp side of things, it was very unbalanced, even the devs had to make corrections just before the game shut down by making blasters more current and better, upgraded the distance of blast powers to steer from aggro and even added a quick snipe option so that the snipe powers weren't ignored.
The beauty of co is that you can pick anything you like and can still play the game on standard level.
Aslong as you follow what some of the other members here have said you should be fine
I understand you are looking to build a really good character, whether it be thematic or based on a specific pvp design, so definitely try Kenpo's guides, i read through them and honestly never looked back, my characters are all freeforms and they are really good, follow the CO i win trinity an you won't be disappointed.
Good luck on your builds!
The internetz is one crazy place! tread carefully!
I agree 100%. City of Heroes was widely nicknamed "City of re-use" Those guys went green in a big way, they recycled everything.
The point I was making is that it "feels" to me like I am constantly hitting the same 2 animations over and over again in Champions. City of X got around that because they forced an attack chain on everyone. Many bad things about that, but the good thing was they got your character doing something besides the same right hook endlessly.
I agree with you about CoX's problems. In fact I was trying for 6 months to get a Blaster that could walk and chew gum at the same time. I will not go into all the details, but I was very frustrated by what I perceived to be a "Designed from the ground up to be a Blapper" problem. They were indeed starting to address some of those issues, and the board discussions were quite fascinating.
Agreed, the fact that the devs at that time were committed to changing the base problems within the blaster community was something really special, especially when they were on those video blogs giving us all the relevant info about it and going through ti in depth was remarkable in a way.
Having said that, the issue with blasters/avengers in this game is there's definitely not enough power choices and as you get to 40 you get a sense of failure, maybe even feeling you haven't accomplished anything really, my first 40 was truly epic, i am in love with him hes a blanker (blaster/tanker) and he is a monster, might even be good for pvp the damage output is massive.
The internetz is one crazy place! tread carefully!
One that stung me was Telepathic Reverberation. I have a Migo brain cylinder character I ran for a week, and made choices off the propaganda in the brochure. In fact it scales with Presence, and so my somewhat tightly written concept seemed mis aimed from the beginning. I'll probably never play the character again, and a week is wasted. I will reuse the concept sometime, cause I like it, but that build is dead to me.
If you feel that the above is to plain or repetitive to you, then by all means add in a few more attacks - just plan things out so you aren't doing so at the expense of the overall effectiveness of the character too early one - get those "must-haves" out of the way ASAP, then focus on the fluff/niceties.
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
Thanks for the response. I actually want to like Champions Online, just struggling to get my sea legs. I think I will enjoy many things about it. I do enjoy the freeform building, just feeling a little squeezed by the limited number of power picks. That may change as I start 40-ing a few characters. Since I do not have a good feel I keep trying different things and then discarding them, in the 15-27 range right now on all the builds I have not deleted for room.
I had glanced at your build guide before, and it made sense, although in truth I sped through it because I was searching for other info when I found it. I will go back and read it for content tonight when I have more time. It does look like it offers good advice. One concept that jumps out is about the trinity thing. Quite intriguing that the game even offers that up as a possibility. We did it all the time in CoX, of course, but it was always through using build tricks to get closer to that. At least until they added the level 50 stuff, then it got easier to do, and was somewhat sanctioned as well. To find that Champions just assumes you will build that way, or offers it up, is really cool.
No offense, but you need to familiarize yourself with the systems here in CO a bit more, instead of making comments that come across as overly critical.
Please don't misunderstand - I want more people to play CO and to have fun while doing so, but people who post here trying to compare CO to CoX, without knowing certain key things, do themselves and the game a disservice.
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
I hope that Champions continues to grow. On the whole I think it is a good game. The comparison between Champions and Cox is inevitable, and I believe necessary.
I can guarantee you that I will continue to post "without knowing certain key things." I did on the Cox boards for five years, and do not plan on changing my habits too much here. To me posting on the message boards lets me interact with people, and I find that I learn things at a quicker rate due to these interactions. If I knew everything about any subject and was completely confident and happy with that subject I would not post a word about it. No reason to.
I know that I have a tendency for a dramatic tone, no offense meant while I am randomly slinging hyperbole. I am trying to be more conscious about that.
For now I am standing by my statement about the limited number of power picks in Champions. I have a twofold reason for that.
1) You get less powers. I know you are saying it is more complex than that, but the argument goes both ways. In CoX each Archetype had inherent powers that have to be purchased in Champions, or just gone without. Its a very muddy issue, with a valid argument to the way Champions does things, and why that is okay. But, simply, you get less picks here.
2) I have not 40'd a character here. I know that I am a newb here. While i am expressing, critically, what I am having problems with I have only experienced a certain percentage of the game. I have always been an altoholic, and especially when dealing with all new stuff I am switching around quite a bit. So I have run quite a few weeks of content, all of which has been at level 27 or less. Most has been at level 20 or less. That means I have been using 1-2 attack powers and an energy builder on just about everything I have run. For 100% of my Champions gaming experience. Maybe when I have leveled a string of 40s I will feel like there are so many extra picks available this will no longer be an issue. But the beginning game 'feel' of Champions compared to CoX is very restrictive, choice wise. In my experience.
You get less powers here by number, but not by effect, as the passives, a single power here, required multiple powers in CoH to approximate the same level of effect. Thus, you do not have less powers here, when looking at the effect they provide rather than the number of powers it takes to get there.
As has been said, many times, with freeform you can have many attack powers as you wish. It just so happens in CO, unless you focus on attacks with cooldowns, you will find having many attacks provides your character with less overall effectiveness, as you are essentially duplicating what you already have for the sake of animation variety. You would get more utility by choosing less similar power, which is the reason many limit the number of attacks in their build.
Perhaps you might enjoy a character with several attacks that have short cooldowns that would give you more animation variety and perhaps at least a little bit of a chaining feel. Combining some unarmed attacks with might ones could give you that. Rising Knee, Backhand Chop, Thunderclap, and any lunge would give you several cooldown attacks with different animations and utility effects. These could be supplemented with a couple of attacks without cooldown to fill in any dead space. Such a build would work well with molecular self-assembly as a energy unlock so long as Int is one of your stats. Add in a heal that suits you, a block if you want one, perhaps some active offense and defense, or simply powers that fit your vision for the character, and you may end out with something you find quite pleasing.
As player just starting in CO, playing silver so I have to stay within archetype, how (and when) do I GET a self-heal/heal that I can use on myself?
And how does a non-melee type stay alive during a battle without one? (Yes, I know to block.
I'm still fairly new. If I screwed up again, let me know.