Morrowind/Oblivion had a robust character model detailer. But it allowed you to change the character’s natural features only. The gear you wore still looked the same.
Tabula Rasa’s character creator is possibly the silliest I’ve seen yet. Natural features are fine enough, but it lets you significantly customize your starting uniform…and before you even get out of the tutorial you’ve begun picking up new armor, thus rendering your choices in chargen completely null and void.
Still looking forward to putting Windows back on my gaming computer so I can play TR, though.
I hate those things. With the shield generators and the Porters I try to avoid Sky Raider missions if possible.
And back to flying because I love it so much.
When a contact sends you to the opposite end of the zone it’s really nice to just fly up a bit point myself in the right direction and hit auto-run and then watch tv for a couple of minutes and not have to bother with the minions on the ground.
They’re not so bad. The trick, though, is to identify the Engineers in a spawn and come down on them hard. Heck, you don’t even need to beat them first; just hit them once to interrupt the summon, then attack your preferential target. They won’t attempt another summon.
What’s funny about Flight…there was a ‘discussion’ on the game forums not too long ago where a few players were arguing that Flight sucked because it was the slowest of the travel powers, and nobody would want to choose it because of that.
…Yet Flight has consistently always been the most popular travel power. Super Jump risks you landing in the middle of a spawn, Super Speed has no vertical capability, making some maps like Skyway City tough to traverse, and Teleport is tricky to use and requires attention at all times. Flight is slow, but ignores terrain and will always get you where you’re going.
I put Teleport on nearly all my characters, FWIW. I think I only have one that actually uses Flight, though several use Hover. I take pride in being the fastest traveller in almost any group, and I find it a lot of fun to use. Plus Recall Friend makes you a welcome addition to any group, especially before level 14.
I don’t know if it’s the most effective build or not, but my first character is a mutant blaster with the fire blast primary and fire manipulation secondary. I added the flying pool when I hit 6 and plan to add the flame mastery at 14. (or 20, whenever you get to pick another pool) The fire theme was an RP choice.
So far it’s working well, I’ve been to hospital twice but only one of those was from mission combat. The other was because I was stupid and strayed into an area where I was 4 and getting blasted by 5 level 7 mobs.
:smack: That sounds like someone wasn’t thinking.
You can’t go wrong with fire. Many ‘elements’ have signature tricks: Ice slows down enemies, Dark decreases their accuracy, Electricity saps Endurance, etc. Fire adds lots and lots of damage. It’s a very strong attack set, and for a beginning character it’s a good option. Sadly, Blaze is out of your reach with the trial level cap, as that’s a game-changing power. (I’m sure it’s going to be nerfed at some point in the near future, as it’s stupidly overpowered, but god damn it’s fun.)
Secondaries are pretty much a free for all, but generally speaking pairing type with type (Fire/Fire, Ice/Ice, Assault Rifle/Devices) will get you a solid character.
I believe the substantial buffs to Trick Arrow and Archery came around the time you joined; opinions of them may be changing, but they were considered gimped (with some justification) before that. They looked wildly overpowered when they were first tested, and got nerfed hard before they were released, which contributed to the impression. The sets are only now recovering.
Also, soloing isn’t just about offensive capability. It’s also about your damage mitigation, and TA doesn’t get much in the early levels. Basically, you have the slow from Glue Arrow and the -damage from Poison Gas Arrow (the -accuracy in Flash Arrow is very small). Maybe you have Ice Arrow to freeze one lieutenant. If you don’t catch all of a spawn in your debuff arrows, or if you have extra aggro, you have no mitigation against them at all. Even to be able to heal yourself, you have to spend two power slots to get Aid Self, which is fairly slow and interruptible.
None of that means that it’s not fun to play–I love my TA/A. He’s always been challenging, though. In the early levels, I played him in a very assassin-like manner, using Teleport Foe to snatch single mobs out of spawns and turn them into pincushions before the rest of their buddies could find me.
I do remember reading about that. The activation times were ludicrously long, so you’d be standing there holding a drawn arrow while the rest of your team slaughtered the enemy.
The way I think about Ice Arrow is this: you have a spawn of 3 minions, and you freeze one. You’ve just mitigated your incoming damage by 33%. Even more if you freeze a Lieutenant.
You’re right, though, it’s a hard set to use even now that it’s been buffed. I find Hover helps with any ranged attack set, as nearly every enemy is stronger in melee than ranged. I’ve never bothered with Aid Self on any character yet (the only one I’ve even taken Medicine on is my Empath, which is stupidly redundant, but it was thematically necessary for him).
If you want to try a second character, I’d recommend a scrapper - They are tough (not as tough as tanks) do good damage and are a melee character - which plays very different than a blaster.
Controllers are hard to play and slow - particularly with the level cap of the demo (they rock after level 32). Defenders don’t generally deal a lot of damage and most builds are most useful to team with - with some defender builds you spend a lot of time looking for teams because your job is to buff other people - not really useful if you don’t have teammates to buff. Tanks also don’t tend to deal a lot of damage. The downside to blasters is they die easily - kill em quick is the blaster motto.
And do they ever. 
Kill 'em quick, that is. My level 33 Fire/Dev blaster is soloing Unyielding without any trouble. Granted, he’s got plenty of IO set bonuses, but even Bosses die ridiculously fast. Stealth to get into close range, Build-Up, Blazing Bolt, Blaze, and half their life is gone before they can even start reacting. Jam on the space bar to zoom up into the air with Hover, and all they can do is take potshots. After that, it’s just a matter of raining fiery death down on them.
Survivability is poor if the enemy gets their hands on you, true enough. Scrappers are, I think, the best AT for beginners and soloers. The primaries and secondaries are refined to a knife’s edge; they have very few weaknesses. They’re strong in damage and they can take hits very well. My first character ever was Broadsword/Regeneration, and there was never a time he couldn’t slaughter anything standing in his way. Their only weakness is a lack of ranged attacks, which makes pulling difficult, but otherwise they’re a great AT to learn on.
Caution: you can only have one freespec at a time. When a new one is granted, it replaces the old one.
Sailboat
Hmm. I could swear it tells me on login that I have 2 unclaimed respecs for a couple of my characters. One might be a trial respec, or I might be misremembering.
Look up Brainiac4 and I sometime when we have the fire/dev blaster and the fire/rad controller out. (Level 44 about to hit 45 - which may be this weekend or may be two months from now depending on how life goes). He locks them down, the imps nibble and tank, and especially tightly packed, I hit them and they all fall down. Plus we never have to pause for endurance.
Raining fiery death…I really love the sound of that.
TA might debuff pretty well, but kinetics is the best there is, IMO (for soloing/damage.) Not only do all the powers debuff the enemy, but the also buff you and your allies. Drain their endurance, also gain health. Slow them down, and speed up yourself (siphon speed is awesome because you can have a
“travel power” at level 4.) I forget the next one’s name, but it reduces their damage and increases yours. You can see where I’m going with this.
I combined that with radiation blast for my second newest character and I’ve soloed him to level 11 already very easily. My newest char, an illusion/warming radiation (which is one they’ve added since I stopped playing and started back up again) doesn’t solo nearly as fast. Although it is fun to see illusionary wounds take a big chunk of their health, it’s just too bad most of it comes back before I have a chance to finish them off. 
I originally attempted to go without Stamina for the blaster. Finally, in my mid-20s, I said screw it and respecced for it. Honestly, sometimes I think Stamina is just too overpowered. I went from burning out in a hurry to being able to maintain Stealth, Hover, and the Targeting Drone toggles while keeping up a constant stream of fire.
At 5, you can go to King’s Row ( heroside ) or Port Oakes ( villainside ) and do 3 Police Band/Newspaper missions once you talk to your Detective/Broker. That will get you a Safeguard/Mayhem mission; complete THAT and you get a Raptor Pack with 1 1/2 hours fuel that lets you fly. It’s a little slow, but fun and useful.
My Fire/Dark Corruptor has lots of fun with Rain of Fire. He doesn’t have quite the raw damage output of a blaster, but /Dark makes up for it by weakening the enemies - and one power, Tar Patch keeps them from running out of the Rain. Plus, I can do that while standing out of line of sight.
I’ve done two missions from the police band, I’ll head back tonight and do a third. (ran back to Ms Liberty to level up to 6 before I logged last night) Thanks for the info.
There are trainers in every City Zone, so you don’t have to run back to Ms. Liberty. They’re marked on the map with a light green? marker. Blue Steel is the trainer in Kings Row.