Last day or so I’ve been toying with a Gravity/Storm Controller. Windy is a mutant who can control air pressure to crush objects or pin them in place (the Gravity powers sub for this, as the tentative Wind Control set was never made live) or just plain manipulate the weather. So far I am vastly amused by Propelling random objects into the faces of various malefactors.
General advice for new players: each archetype has a unique inherent power (sometimes more than one). Learn the inherent for each character, as they can have a significant effect on your play.
Overall I’d say that Masterminds, followed by Controllers, are the most different from traditional classes in other MMOs. That doesn’t make them easy for beginners, of course, but it does suggest that trying those ATs out is part of the unique experience of playing CoH.
Swift Justice, a standard spandex guy in tights and cape. Red white and blue, Stars and Stripes, etc. A speedster with invulnerability and martial arts, he’s my golden age guy.
Dr. Thunder, inspired by a Wal Mart store brand knock-off of Dr Pepper. He is in shiny silver and maroon, same colors as the can. He fights with electricity melee attacks.
Killer Eel, a hulking fish-man with electricity aura.
Rainmaster, dressed in fancy grey and blue tailored clothes, has a persistent storm cloud around his feet, has water blast and weather control powers.
Erl King, looks like an undead Celtic warrior, has necromancy and time control powers.
Battlebeetle, a bug-like robot who zips around slashing with his robotic claws.
My personal favorite though is Blue Collar Bill. He has a knit dockworker hat, handlebar mustache, craggy old face, bright orange vest over a green t-shirt and patched jeans, and work boots. He looks like he just got done from a construction job. He has axe and shield powers, but in appearance he’s wielding a shovel and manhole cover. And he’s a badass, I love knocking supervillains around with his shovel. He’s the kind of guy that you’d hear stories about at a dive bar.
Bo’s Minion looks like me but is dressed like the Thugs he summons (he’s a Mastermind). So when he runs around, it just looks like this huge street gang tearing thru a place.
Man, they’ve added so. many. options. for character looks and power customization since I last played. I don’t think I’m ever getting out of the chargen.
Haven’t remade on Homecoming, but my manhole cover character from pre-sunset (everyone who sees the manhole cover shield option must think, “what character would I use that for?” was the Gutter Knight, a delusional homeless Don Quixote who donned a bucket with a slit cut in it (medieval barrel helm) and took up a manhole cover and a monkey wrench to fight crime. The term “gutter knight” comes from Shakespeare and was employed to satirize the pretensions of minor nobility that had fallen on hard times.
Especially the mid-tier inspirations–I keep a Kora farm (a mission that gives you lots of tier 2 inspirations) to restock whenever necessary, so don’t worry about us running out.
For players more familiar with potions and such from other games: inspirations are probably more powerful than you think. They work instantly and give pretty serious buffs that stack up to the stat caps. (The defense and mez protect inspirations are particularly useful for squishies, so I try to keep plenty of those on hand.) The game will be a lot easier if you use the ones that drop freely and pop into the base to stock up when you’re expecting a tough fight.
OK, downloading now. I have no idea what to play. Can anyone suggest, first of all:
A flexible support-type, who has a variety of tricks to use for different situations. Someone who always says “I have just the thing to help with that!”, but it’s a different thing every time.
And second:
A pair of characters who complement each other well, and can between them handle most of the game content without any outside help.
The first would be mostly for playing with the rest of you’uns. The second would be for an old friend and I who get together every week to play co-op games.
Brainiac and I played a ton of duos. Almost anything will solo - and there are a ton of options. But Controller or Defender backing up a Blaster or a Scrapper is what we’ve done a lot of. One thing to watch when duo-ing is knockback - its really annoying for a single target scrapper type to have to run around and hit the stuff that’s been knocked around. (That was the issue with the original Eliza (Empathy/Energy Defender) and Themocline (Fire/Ice Blaster) That and Energy blast does small amounts of damage turning Eliza into a difficult to solo character)
I love my Mastermind. My minions can solo almost anything, but it takes some creativity sometimes to get them out of sticky situations. The cool thing is that I can get them out of sticky situations.
In a group, tho, it’s mostly damage and crowd control, although I seem to remember pulling for the tank a lot back in the day, I think.
And I’m in. My account name is Chronos, and my first character is Dr. Clockwerk (gravity/time). Is there any way to add an accessory to a costume, or does that only work with certain powers?
What do you mean by accessory, exactly? Some things you can add, some depend on your powerset or specific powers.
There’s no way to add an emanator for Grav or Time powers (like a gravity gun or something), if that’s what you had in mind. Powersets that are specifically focused on weapons get some options for customizing the weapons.
For costume accessories, there’s quite a variety. You’ll either have to dig through them or give us more of an idea of what you’re looking for, so we can point you toward likely places to look. Costume components can be combined in weird ways to produce lots of interesting effects.
Prestige powers are another option for accessorizing a look, but they will generally only be visible when the power is active. You could pick up the Nemesis Staff, if you want to be able to pull out a big staff with a sparking gear on the end, or a Clockwork buff pet that will follow you around (and die if anything sneezes on it). Some of the powers are quite useful–the Nemesis Staff, Blackwand, and the Ghost Slaying Axe are very popular, especially at low levels, because they fill out and balance attack chains. You can get these at the P2W vendors; there’s one right by the Atlas statue, and you can select many of them for free. (Controllers in particular benefit from the prestige attack powers, even though they’re not affected by Containment, just because they provide a lot of extra direct damage.)
Are supergroups alignment-restricted anymore? I don’t know.
That would be a Defender, Corruptor, Controller, or Dominator. Details will depend on exactly which powersets you choose, and how you slot them.
The standard answer is pick a non-squishy archetype (Tanker, Brute, Scrapper) and a squishy archetype (anything else). The non-squishies have defensive powers that help them survive direct attacks, especially mezzes (holds, immobilizations, sleeps, etc). Squishies have to survive by avoiding being attacked.
But really, anything plays well with anything else; City of Heroes emphatically does not use anything like the “trinity” of tank, heals, and damage. You can even have fun with the same archetype! Two Defenders can debuff foes so much that they can’t be hurt, while buffing themselves to win faster. Two Controllers can lock down everything and safely pick them off. Two Tankers can increase the difficulty* and easily smash everything. Two Blasters or Scrappers will butcher everything.
I recommend you find characters that are fun for you to play and fit together well thematically. Have fun with the character names and costumes as a pair!
*If you click the chat bubble by the chat input line, you can choose how hard the game is. Keep it at default until you know what you’re doing, but it’s fun (and rewarding) to make it harder once you can handle it.
