Champions Online: Zen and the Art of Power Armor Maintenance

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Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Prior thread's over this way!

So, how do I get in on Goon action?
We've got a global chat channel. Type :ducksiren:

/channel_join SuperGoon :frogsiren:

into your chatbox. Also note that's singular, supergoon, not supergoons. If you mess that up and ask about why chat isn't working, you shall be publicly mocked.

And... that's it. Seriously. If you play Star Trek Online you can even chat with goon in ChampO from there, and vice versa! There's some goon guilds/supergroups of varying activity levels around, but there's no real pressing need or reason to join one aside from a free costume slot. Guilds require someone to invite every alt you want in, while the chat channel can be joined at any time. There's almost always multiple people on, but not always an ongoing conversation. If it's quiet, speak up! If you hit a lair or a group quest or something, ask for a party!

:siren:

Yes, you can play the game for free! :siren:

Despite originally launching as a pay game, Champions Online is now Free to Play. You don't even need to have bought a retail box, and you can even just download it off Steam if you like! A free ("silver") account doesn't have all the options of a paid subscription ("gold") account, and you'll be locked out of freeform power selection, have fewer character slots, and similar things. But you can play the game from start to endgame without ever paying a cent, and while you get more value for your money by subscribing you can purchase several benefits (such as character slots, costume slots, additional archetypes, etc.) from Cryptic's store for one-time costs.

Subscription vs. F2P on their site shows what you can get. My advice to a new player would be to not worry about subscriptions until the point where you find Archetypes confinding, or think it's tempting to buy something off the C-store that a subscription would grant.

:siren:

Cryptic founds "Cryptic North" to help develop Champions Online! :siren:

Twelve new staff members, most of the staff of Flying Lab Software (the folks who did Pirates of the Burning Sea). It's not exactly a surprise that ChampO's been... languishing on life support development, so hopefully tripling the size of the team will help things out. :toot:

Vehicles are here! (11/09) :siren:

Yes! All new vehicles! They're kind of like the "Become <X>" devices, except make you a flying tank or a fighter jet and thus are infinitely superior. And you can customize them, add equipment, all that sort of stuff! There's even whole entire missions focused around them, too! A full writeup on vehicles can be found on the official site.

^{^{The cash shop ones cost $16.50.}} :toot:

The ~~Batman~~ NIGHT AVENGER patch has gone live! (8/28) :siren:

Filling an obvious hole in the prior Champions Online power scheme, the patch adds an assortment of utility-gadget style powers, such as a complete assortment of boomerang attacks (and energy builder!), some smoke/gas grenade powers, and so on. It also changes how Stealth worked in the system. Instead of being a somewhat useless power on its own, it's now an offensive passive that include a toggled stealth that deactivates temporarily when you attack or otherwise show yourself and a high-damage ambush-style attack, all in one power pick. A lot of the new powers interact with it as well, or have advantages that make them interact, often doing more damage when used from stealth. In addition there's other related content, like alerts, costumes, and vehicle powers you can buy on the c-store.

Silver players aren't left out in the cold too; there's the Night Avenger hybrid archetype that was released with it.

:siren:

Massive changes to the game happened! :siren:

If you've played sometime in the past, a lot of central game systems have changed for the better. If you have a high-level character, you'll definitely be respeccing, and you'll probably need to spend a little time regearing. What's changed? Well, in no particular order...

Questionite Exchange: If you've played Star Trek Online recently, this is basically identical to the Dilithium Exchange in that game. You gain ore from doing certain things in game, notably the new daily alerts and all the adventure packs and comic series missions, and can refine a certain amount of it per day into metal, which can be spent either on in-game items (such as travel powers and costume pieces) or converted directly into Cryptic Points. Similarly, you can convert CP into questionite metal if you want a shortcut to some questionite-based reward. The exact ratio will likely vary over time, and someone who's patient can potentially make a profit simply by investing wisely. More importantly, it means the game can now be almost fully free, as anything that can be purchased through cryptic points can now eventually be acquired through in-game resources!
Changes to stats and roles: Roles are roughly similar to how they were, but are given clearer names (Ranged Damage, Tank, etc.), but now have fewer penalties and effect how your super stats work; the damage roles give you higher damage from your stats, the support role gives you bonus healing from your stats, and so on. The stats themselves have changed as well; players now have three super stats, one primary and two secondary, the latter having half the bonus of the primary. This makes some builds easier and others harder than before. In addition, stats have different bonuses. Ego no longer interacts with crit and no gives bonus ranged damage, like Strength gives to melee attacks. Presence is a pure healing stat, and no longer affects threat. Dex is back to being a purely crit-focused stat. And the damage and healing bonuses from stats are now soft caps, rather than hard caps, so, say, a bruiser with high Strength is going to have more extra damage.
A new Specialization system: Essentially? The talent point system from many other games, such as WoW and TOR. There's four tiers to it, a basic one based off your chosen super stat, two tiers based of roles that you can select from, and a top-tier talent related to the prior three that gives a large static bonus. Note that silver characters are fixed in their tree options, even if they can still choose where to spend talents, but gold characters can choose different trees; this isn't immediately obvious, so be sure to click the arrows before you finalize your choices.
The Recognition system: If you've played TOR, this is roughly similar to the planet commendations. If you haven't, in essence you collect medals during specific leveling bands of play (1-10, 11-20, etc), both as random item drops from enemies and as a reward option from quests. You can spend these medals on various rewards, typically things like costume pieces you'd find on enemies in that specific leveling band; note that most of these are also available as rare drops and many can be found cheaply on the AH, so double check first before you spend your medals. It's a good idea to choose medals as rewards while leveling as well as random item drops are usually sufficient to gear a character while leveling.
Alerts: Something of a mix between public quests and a public LFG system. They're visible next to the minimap, and if you click one, you get sent into a quest area with other players, and have to do... something, depending on the Alert type. Grab alerts are things like stopping villains from robbing a bank, Smash alerts are a straight up combat event, and Burst alerts are similar to Smash but have unusual environmental variables such as natural disasters. The nemesis' of any PC present can appear during an alert, as well as occasionally various feature characters. Completing them gives various rewards, such as questionite ore. Note that events can be timed, and you can grab additional daily quests for them from Socrates terminals.
Mods and Fusion: The item system has been drastically changed as well. Certain types of gear can now accept modifications; think like jewelcrafting in WoW, or item mods in TOR. The item can have up to three modification slots, and mods themselves have no level restrictions, though modded gear can't be used before level 15. More importantly, the old crafting system has basically been torn out and repurposed, and now relates to fusing mods together to rank them up and make them new and better. It isn't clearly explained, so remember, fusing mods unrelated to your crafting skills has higher costs and less rewards, so try and stick to your native skills when you can. All your old stacks of crafting material crap have probably been converted to stacks of modding crap, so be sure to give it a try.
Adventure packs are now free for everyone!: Rejoice, silver players!

Okay, that's cool. But why should I play this game? It's free, it can't be good, right?
On the contrary! Despite a somewhat... shaky launch, Champions Online is perhaps one of the most fun MMORPGs to actually play right now, and has been improving constantly since release. In fact, it has several things that other MMOs don't, or don't do as well.

Action! It's much faster paced than most WoW-style MMOs. While there's an autoattack, it rapidly builds energy to use on other attacks, giving a sort of ebb and flow to combat that works really well in practice. Characters have high mobility, powers are generally very responsive, and you can even set it up with shooter-style or 360-controller-operated controls. Downtime is basically unheard of; even if the inspirations (buffs) enemies drop don't heal you up, it takes all of ten seconds or less to heal to full even without. You can go at an incredibly fast pace if you like.
Customization! There's basically no other MMO that can really compare. The only game that really comes close is City of Heroes (which Cryptic also did), but its older and uglier and generally has less flexibility due to when it was made. If you want to a cyborg gorilla in a top hat, go for it.
Naming! It might not sound like a big deal, but names aren't reserved like they are in other games and instead "Character@Account", with the latter hidden in-game outside of chat. Since superhero games live and breathe on building around a specific concept and that plausible character names are often real words and relatively simple, this makes it so much easier to make whatever random concept you want.
Chatting! The chat servers are shared with Star Trek Online's, meaning if you have friends there you can keep in touch while playing ChampO, and vice versa! ... Okay, it's not that big a plus, but it's something.
Nemesis! You can make your own super-villain opponent once you hit 25 and fight them all the way to the endgame. Their look, powers, and even their minions are all selectable just in case you didn't think there were enough options back during chargen.
Fun! ChampO is not one of those DARQUE and SERIOUS games that are still dumb as rocks by try to hide it. ChampO embraces the comic book feel, and you'll be surrounded by bad voice acting, corny writing, and enemy groups that include things like "singing robot cowboys", "radioactive sharkmen", and "~~HYDRA~~ ~~COBRA~~ VIPER". You'll be rolling your eyes constantly! _{Seriously this is a plus.}
Free! Sign up, download the game, and get to it. As mentioned above, you can get from level one to the level cap without paying a dime.

Okay though, that all sounds good. But what's the catch?
You had to ask, huh? While I have a great deal of love for ChampO, there's no point in mis-representing the game. You'll either appreciate it for what it is, or be disinterested quickly. But that's why it's free, right?

Bugs. As much as ChampO has improved Cryptic still has a fairly small team on the game, and there's some persistent animation, targeting, and mission bugs that can occasionally annoy. I haven't seen anything game-ending, but you'll occasionally get taken out of the flow.
Not very MMO. Champions Online ultimately does not heavily encourage grouping, and pretty much all content can be beaten by a properly-built solo character. Lairs (group dungeons) are the only things really designed for a group, as everything else (including the Mission Packs and Comic Series) scale down to the solo level. Whether this is really a flaw depends on how you approach MMOs; personally I like the lack of any sort of "must raid!" pressure, but if you're the type who thrives on co-op and group action you'll probably have difficulty.
Easy. A properly-build freeform character can basically steamroll everything in their path, and the death penalty is minor enough to be nearly unnoticeable (about 10% less damage/healing after you've died often enough). It's only to be expected; there's so many variables in chargen that if Cryptic tried to balance around the top end it'd be nearly impossible for newbies. Archetypes have a rougher time of things as they aren't designed in super-twinky manners, but for the most part if you want challenge you're mostly looking a Elite difficulty instances or Lairs.

Okay, I'm in, and there's a billion options. How do I make a character that doesn't suck?
If you're a free player, this one's pretty easy; there's Archetypes. Think of them basically as "classes" like in most other MMOs, pre-made builds along certain power themes ("big strong guy", "fire controller", etc). Unlike freeform builds, these are locked into certain roles, tank or support or DPS with the powers and chosen super stats to aid in that role. You have a few power choices along the way, and the choice of power Advantages are all yours. Even gold characters can use archetypes, and if you're completely overwhelmed you may want to try one. Except the Mind. Because it sucks. Some Archetypes, generally those released after the game went F2P, cost an extra fee if you're a silver player; gold players get all the Archetypes free however since you could just make them yourself with a freeform character. Also note that archetype characters don't have any choices in how they spend their specializations, as their trees are pre-chosen, but can still spec as desired within these trees.

Tank (Protector):
The Behemoth (Might)
The Glacier (Ice)
The Master* (Unarmed)
The Mountain* (Earth)
The Invincible* (Powered Armor)
Melee DPS (Brawler):
The Blade (Single Blade)
The Devastator* (Heavy Weapons)
The Disciple* (Telekinesis (Swords))
The Fist* (Unarmed)
The ~~Jedi~~ Unleashed (Dual Blades/Force)
Balanced (Guardian):
The Grimoire (Sorcery)
The Void* (Darkness)
The Specialist* (Dual Pistols/Dual Blades)
The Savage* (Bestial Supernatural)
The Impulse* (Force)
The Night Avenger* (Gadgeteering/Martial Arts)
Ranged DPS (Avenger):
The Inferno (Fire)
The Soldier (Munitions)
The Marksman (Archery)
The Tempest* (Electricity)
The Scourge/Cursed* (Infernal)
The Squall* (Wind)
Support (Sentinel):
The Mind (Telepathy)
The Radiant (Sorcery/Celestial)
The Inventor* (Gadgeteering)

*Italicized archetypes cost money, either by subscription access or by C-store purchase.

But I have a subscription! What about Freeform characters?
A lot of people get overworked about these, since there's so many options available. While there are helpful guides around on the official forums and elsewhere, a better idea would be to understand how the powersets are put together, and what you really need in a character. In general if you're inexperienced you'll want to pick a powerset and mostly stick to it, at least until the 20's; this gets you higher-level powers quicker, and the support powers in the set are guaranteed to enhance your attacks and such. What do you really need on a character though?

The right superstats.
What are the right superstats? Well, that depends on the powerset you chose. In general, the stats that the related innate talent associated with your main powerset are usually what you'll want to take, but it's something to experiment with if you want. Whatever your superstats are they'll raise your damage so you always want them fairly high, but you don't want to neglect other stats either. Note that some stats are quite obviously intended for certain sorts of builds; melee combatants are probably going to want some strength, ranged combatants some ego, and so on. With the recent major changes, characters now get three superstats, one primary and two secondary, so it's a little easier to make choices. Note that your primary stat affects the basic specialization tree you get as well.
A good single-target attack.
While not always really necessary, you're going to be fighting a lot of harder targets (supervillains, legendaries, etc) as you go up in levels, and having ways to whittle them down quickly is good. Every set gets a basic single-target attack at first level in addition to their energy builder, but for the most part these get obsoleted by later attacks in their tree. You can respec out of these attacks, and while it isn't required, sometimes you're better off grabbing a different single-target attack in the set or an early AoE power instead. It's something to experiment with in the powerhouse. If you're planning on tanking, or even just soloing most of the time, having a single-target attack with Crippling Challenge is a good idea. It's costly, but massive debuff the target's damage and breaks through blocks.
A good area attack.
This one is pretty obvious. Most of the time while leveling you're going to be blowing up minions. The faster they die, the safer you are and the quicker you level. While not every powerset is equal here, in general you want something with no cooldown since many enemies (even many minions) can stun and interrupt. Personally I strongly prefer cone-based attacks like Submachinegun Burst or Fire Breath for minion-wasting since you can use them at range and the enemies are less likely to run out of the effect, but almost any sort of AoE is good. If you have a melee AoE, get used to finding out which enemies are ranged-focused and head to them, so the rest of the minions dive into your whirlwind of blades anyway as they try to melee you meanwhile.
A slotted passive power.
This is critical, and one of the things that defines a powerset. It doesn't really matter if you choose an offensive or defensive passive for leveling, as enemies die quickly enough and frankly the game isn't very hard, but it can matter later on depending on what roles you prefer. One advantage to defensive powers is that they're set-agnostic, although some get bonuses from certain stats; if you have a lot of Con, Defiance is going to make you nigh-invulnerable regardless of whether you're Super Strength or Sorcery. In most situations, a defensive passive is probably your best bet, especially if you're new or inexperienced.
Offensive passives are a little trickier, as you'll need to match the damage types of your attacks to what they boost. In general, this simply means just taking the passive the set provides, but sometimes there's other options. Munitions can make good use of Targeting Computer (from powered armor), Kinetic Manipulation (from Force), or Quarry (from Archery), each specializing in slightly different bonuses. Fire, Ice, and Infernal Supernatural can all make use of Firey Form and Ice Form to boost their damage, and anyone can use Infernal's Pestilence (but shouldn't, because it sucks). Sorcery has no less than four different passives of its own that buff groups, but they can also make use of Shadow Form and Seraphim to boost their damage. And this is just a sample of some of the potential crossovers; it's a fun thing to experiment with once you have some practice.
Note that while you can only use one slotted passive power at once, you can own multiple. There's nothing stopping a Might character from switching between Unstoppable and Defiance depending on whether they're tanking or DPSing, and there's nothing preventing a Sorcerer from swapping from Shadow Form to Aura of Radiant Protection when they get in a group. This is something to experiment with in the endgame though; don't worry about it while leveling.
Your set's buff power(s).
Most powersets have some sort of passive buff or toggle besides their slotted passive power. Most of the ranged sets have an Energy Regen passive power that boosts your energy when you score a crit, or set people on fire, or something set-appropriate. You'll almost always want these early on (possibly even before the slotted passive), but make a note of what stat boosts its effects. Melee sets on the other hand tend to have Toggled powers that boost their damage and provide other bonuses, such as further damage increases when you knock enemies back or stacks of a buff that gives energy and increases damage. You'll generally want these early on too.
A block power.
Unlike the above, this is not quite as critical. In fact I wouldn't even buy one until the 20's. But you'll definitely want one eventually; they give you bonuses or spread debuffs, and the extra resistance while blocking is critical for some of the harder encounters later on. Some block powers (such as Force Shield, Parry, and Energy Shield) have advantages that let them linger on after you block or grant large defensive bonuses; even if they're expensive, these are usually worth the cost.

And... that's it really. Once you have those, you're basically "set"; everything else is further fleshing out an already competent character. This may look like a lot of words, but all I've really done is explain what to do with five or six powers... out of the fourteen a freeform character gets. What do you do with the rest? That's up to you! You'll probably want some sort of healing or shielding power, such as Bountiful Chi Resurgence (and its advantage Resurgent Reiki) if you have a power that grants a dodge bonus; Bionic Shielding or Protection Field are also good choices. Inertial Dampening Field from Force is quite handy too, if you don't mind the endurance cost of running it; the flat damage reduction will basically neuter a lot of minions, especially if you have a slotted defense buff. If your powerset causes certain debuffs, look for powers that exploit them; Feral Supernatural causes a lot of bleeds, so Reaper's Embrace (from Single Blade, which does massive damage to bleeding targets) is a good choice.

Don't be afraid to experiment. Even cross-set builds can work fine, if you have passive buffs that support them! If you don't know where to begin there, take a look at Quarry and Defiance, as both powers are set-agnostic regarding what they boost. If you need more in-depth advice, fellow goon Bluhman has done posts explaining the individual powersets and stat choices in greater detail. Note that many of the powersets have changed or had additions and revisions since the guides were written, but the general advice can still be useful.

Energy Projector power sets
Technology power sets
Martial Arts power sets
Brick power sets
Mystic power sets
Superstats, and which to take - Now updated to include help on specialization trees too!

So. Uh. Skip the spam. What doesn't work?
The balance in ChampO (well, in PVE anyway) is better than it's ever been after the F2P patch, but there's still some sets that need... work. Archery, Fighting Claws, and Telepathy are currently the weakest sets in game right now. Archery is basically explicitly inferior to Munitions at the moment, and many of its powers have cooldowns (problematic with enemies that stun/knockback), although it has several powers (Quarry, Evasive Maneuvers) that work well with other sets. Fighting Claws is explicitly inferior to the other martial arts sets; it has absolutely no AoE (besides Inexorable Tides, which all MA sets share) and its Form is generally weaker than the rest. Dragon's Claws is the only power in the set worth taking, and it can be taken by other MA characters. And Telepathy is a dedicated support and crowd control character in a game filled to the brim with tankmages and where crowd control is weak enough to be nearly useless. There's not much else to say about it; it doesn't even have a toggle passive, and is in desperate need of review.

Telekinesis and Power Armor have some problems too. Telekinesis is basically weaker than the other melee sets and has some problematic powers; fortunately there's a large patch on the test realm (as of this writing) and it will likely come out a lot better. Power Armor meanwhile works perfectly fine, but the fact the powers work differently than others (being toggled for the most part, and mutually exclusive in use with non-toggled attacks) means it plays really, really poorly with other powersets. Power Armor's buffs are really good, but you want to stay far, far away from its attacks unless you're a dedicated PA build.

Despite my warnings, all of these powersets still work perfectly fine in game. You can and will be able to hit max level, likely with ease. They just aren't as good or have similar competing sets that work better in practice. It's just something to consider if you're a minmax sort.

I hit the endgame! Now what?
Roll an alt. No really. If you're a gold subscriber, you get a free alt slot for getting a character to 40.

That isn't good enough? Well, to be honest Champions Online has always been a little sparse here, but as time has gone along they've been adding more endgame content, or group-focused content that works at every level. There's Lairs, such as facing off against the angel Therakiel or going against your nemesis. More recently however have been the adventure packs! More in-depth than a mission and longer than a lair while scaling in size and reward to the size of your team, they're quite fun and can be replayed as much as four times per day if you're so inclined. As of the latest patch, these are now free for silver players too!

Serpent Lantern!
Face off against VIPER and their supernatural allies! The first adventure pack and probably the weakest, but it does have several interesting gimmick boss encounters, and the largest percentage of bind-on-equip drops, if you had an urge to go farming.
Demonflame!
The world is in danger! Face off against Luther Black and his DEMON organization, and stop him from gaining the powers of the Kings of Edom! A much better paced romp than Serpent Lantern, taking place in both Millennium City and the Qliphothic Realm (think "magic hell dimension"). The final encounters present a bit of challenge too.
Resistance!
Travel to a parallel dimension to defeat Shadow Destroyer it was the alternate-universe Defender all along while gaining help from an unlikely ally it's Dr. Destroyer! The most complex of the mission packs, and it shows where the developers are starting to get into the swing of scripting encounters. And there are some big surprises in store at the end you ride a giant robot!

Beyond that, Cryptic's started doing with ChampO what they tried with Star Trek Online, having weekly mission releases that play into a larger story arc. Unlike the Adventure packs, Comic Series are available to everyone for free, including silver players. There's only one currently, but Cryptic's mentioned plans to tie the missions together into a seamless Adventure Pack-style whole once it's done.

Aftershock!
A sort of sequel to the Demonflame adventure pack. The heroes head to aid an UNTIL base in North Africa, only to find that things have gone horribly wrong inside, and are drawn into the Qliphothic Realm once more! In addition to the boss drops, there's the potential for other awards (such as Sidekick devices) if you succeed at optional objectives.
Whiteout!
It's in Canada, there's aliens. Several interesting puzzle-based missions, as well as good old fashioned brawling with shapeshifting aliens, complete with a unique boss fight at the end! Bonus: a cameo from your Nemesis.

Any other tricks or things to know?
If you're a Gold player, sign up for the Public Test Realm. In addition to the obvious chances to mess around with patches before they're launched, you can :siren:

try out C-store purchases at no cost :siren:

. While most of them are pretty obvious in what you get, the fact there's no refunds for C-store purchases is probably enough motivation to test things out there instead. You can even try out builds and the like, as there's an NPC outside of the Millennium City powerhouse that will boost your level (to any multiple of 5, anyway.)

If you want a gold subscription cheap, go and buy a retail box. They're only $5 or so these days from Amazon, Best Buy, and the like, and even if you have an active account they give you a month free. Quite a bargain. Note however that you can only activate a key from any particular retailer once, so don't go and buy ten boxes from Amazon or something equally dumb.

When you save a costume, it actually saves it as a jpg file, with the costume's data in the image's metadata. This means you can browse your costume gallery quickly (even if the actual image is low-quality, to keep file size down), and also easily upload and share them if people ask.

What's that about a weapon draw macro?
Normally there's no way to pose with your weapons drawn, if you're a powerset that uses them. Despite there being pose and walk animations for weapon powers, usually they automatically get sheathed/vanish a few seconds after using an attack power. But! There is one (probably a bug, but an unfixed one) method of avoiding this. First, add:

/bind KEY PowersCancelAllActivations

Of course replacing "KEY" with an actual... key on your keyboard you'd use. (Do I really have to clarify that?) Then all you need to do is get your weapons drawn normally; doesn't have to be in combat, you can just wail on a destructable object or something. Hit your key (let's say F12 for this). Then activate the power again, and hit the key again. So basically, use it twice in quick succession. This confuses the game a bit, and hooray, your weapon stays out. It may take a few tries to get the timing down though; if you're having trouble, wait a few seconds between attempts so you aren't messing up an otherwise successful go. It also only lasts until you activate an attack power again, but the only point of this is to prance around a costume contest or something so hey.

Upcoming releases!
Unfortunately, while Cryptic used to keep a Calendar on the official site listing upcoming releases, they've since stopped this since being bought by Perfect World. Any upcoming info has to be found off their official forums, twitter, or similar methods these days. In general though, Cryptic is basically the anti-Blizzard in terms of updates, favoring smaller but more frequent content additions, especially since the F2P patch has given them lots of :10bux:

. If it's been a while since something's been added, there's probably a larger patch en route.

Outside links:

Champion Builder: A program allowing you test builds out. Somewhat superfluous these days since gold accounts can use the test realm and silver accounts are limited to archetypes, but it's potentially handy still.
The official manual: This doesn't really exist in hardcopy, and is somewhat outdated and useless these days, but it's worth a read for new players anyway just to see what features you may be missing out on.
Champions Online Wiki: It's a bit spotty in its coverage of mission content, and some information on it is out of date, but there's not much competition for info sites at the moment.
Ultra Fighting Team Millennia Ranger:: Here it is! Recorded by Songbearer. This happened way early in the game's life, the supergroup broke up after the goonrush lost steam (to the best of my knowledge), and the bug that allowed for a GIANT ROBOT has since been fixed.

Some screenshots, just for the sake of it!

Asimo fucked around with this message at 05:18 on Jun 22, 2013

# ¿ Jul 7, 2011 22:51

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 14:27

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

My vote is "character that most closely resembles their player".

Also: The dark ages costume set is apparently missing a part or two, you may want to hold off there if this is important.

Did the last mission of Aftershock, and it's pretty fun. Not very long, maybe twenty minutes, and heavily boss-focused. In fact, it's nothing but boss encounters, three of them, although one is in a "vehicle" and the last is a team-based battle against multiple supervillains. If you don't have an ~~overpowered~~ defense-based build, you may want to prepare a little ahead of time. The special reward this time is a headpiece a Crown of Edom, naturally, nothing too exciting by itself but it has a little particle effect to go with it.

Asimo fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Jul 7, 2011

# ¿ Jul 7, 2011 23:04

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Bluhman posted:

The OP link to the CO-Wiki also goes to the manual page. Just pointing out.

It works fine to me! I have no idea what you're talking about. See for yourself! :tinfoil:

_Dammit.

Also, Bluhman's tips are excellent. But yeah, I should clarify; the toggled Power Armor attacks don't play nice with other sets, but the non-toggled ones are fine to play around with. Only real downside is particle damage is only boosted by a few other offense passives; aside from the generic damage boosts like Targetting Computer and Quarry, I think it's just Electic Form?

If you really want to take advantage of Shatter, Frost Breath and its advantage is the quickest way to stack chilled, and after two or three ticks you're almost guaranteed to have most of the enemies in nice and destroyable frost cages. Still more setup than most energy sets though.

Asimo fucked around with this message at 02:43 on Jul 8, 2011

# ¿ Jul 8, 2011 02:39

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Some observations on Headquarters, having played around with multiple ones on the test server:

Each character gets their "own" HQ. You still have to own/purchase the "type" of HQ to have access to it, but you can pick different options for different characters. For example, say you only had the "Cave" HQ. One character could have a cave with rusted metal and 60's tech, another could have a volcano lair, and another could have a jungle cave with an open roof, all without paying extra. If you wanted a Moonbase for a character though, then you'd need to buy it.

The different bases have differing amounts of customization, partly due to I suspect some being more completed than others. The Cave has the most by far, with the Sanctum and Moonbase being roughly similar, and the Basement having almost none at all, with most options being "default" or "nothing here". I imagine it'll be fleshed out later, but if you're concerned about that sort of thing don't pick it.

Of course, that's what you get for living in mom's basement. :chord:

Also yes, low gravity is an option for the moonbase.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2011 09:53

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Aphrodite posted:

It's not an option. You can't turn it off.

Well, theoretically an option. :v:

_Cryptic...

Bluhman posted:

Literally everything works with Aura of Primal Majesty.

Am I the only one who isn't that fond of AoPM? I mean the bonus is guaranteed to be useful to you (and everyone else on the team), but in general there's diminishing returns on the effects of superstats past a certain point, and it doesn't give anything close to the defensive/damage bonus of a proper passive. Granted, it is a unique bonus not really granted by any other power, but it seems like something you'd rather have on a teammate that you can leech off of than on yourself.

Granted, my pet-based character is Invention (although with Ritual of Arcane Summoning too, since hey it's almost a robot) with minimal attack powers, and winning most fights is basically the equivalent of "aim at enemy, set attack drones into turret mode if it's something difficult, win". Between support drones, bionic shielding, Aura of Radiant Protection, and Inertial Dampening Field almost nothing short of a Legendary poses an appreciable threat. But that helps less for the arcane-type summon builds.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2011 21:25

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Aphrodite posted:

No, the bug is that the option appears, not that it doesn't work. You're not supposed to be able to toggle it.

Huh. Well, I still see no downside. :colbert:

# ¿ Jul 8, 2011 21:33

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Well, there you go then. If you need an example of the sort of twinkery you can accomplish in the freeform chargen system, that's one! :v:

# ¿ Jul 8, 2011 22:09

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Huh, this will probably have wide-reaching balance consequences in the long run, especially since they've done an entire melee review already balancing around the old numbers.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2011 02:02

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Bluhman posted:

The primary experimental gun attacks under the roof of Gadgeteering are a little underwhelming in damage terms.

To be clearer here: even after repeated buffs, Experimental Blaster is still sort of crappy damage. The debuffs give it a certain value, but they're not reliable and you're generally better off with some other power.

Experimental Burst Ray on the other hand has useful random effects and actually is good damage compared to similar-tier stuff like Submachinegun Burst... in theory. The problem is that it's a charge power rather than a maintained power, which is far less useful in practice. It's common for enemies to run to the side to avoid ranged cone attacks; with something like a Breath attack it's easy to just stop and re-position, but with Burst Ray you're stuck firing off your shot and wasting half your energy against a single target. You can (and will) be knocked back or interrupted while charging, forcing you to start charging again.

And while with things like SMG if your target dies the power continues, allowing you to damage other enemies nearby, with Burst Ray if your target dies while you're charging... do nothing. You don't fire, and you don't lose energy, but you lose the charge and can stop over. Since you're almost certainly going to be a pet build as Invention, this is a far more likely scenario than it sounds, and incredibly annoying in practice. The chance of failure with repeated charges is obnoxious as well, as the damage buff isn't quite high enough to justify it. You can tap experimental burst ray at least, but it's a higher energy cost and lower damage than its competition if so.

Bluhman didn't mention Attack Toys, and I see a lot of people skip them because they're... well, attack toys, but they're actually incredibly useful as a pet power if you have a concept that can tolerate it. Since the F2P patch the toy automatically summons duplicates, and while there's a bit of a ramp up time, with a full set of toys out at Rank 3 they do surprisingly high damage, and tend to attract attention away from you or your more valuable pets. There is a bug(?) however where each additional toy counts as an extra controlled pet out raising endurance costs, but if you're a dedicated pet build you're probably either in Sentinel or used to letting them do most of the work anyway.

quote:

--Two Gun Mojo serves as the primary tool for ranged damage in this setup. Though, the actual use for the move is to get a stack of enrage to feed its other two big-hitters.

Unless you need an Enrage (such as for Bullet Beatdown), I really really recommend against Two Gun Mojo. Its damage is absolutely horrible, similar to the other crappy single-target charge attacks you get at level 1 in most ranged builds, except it's also a maintain so you don't even get the potential benefit of an alpha strike. That said, it's one of the most reliable ways of getting an Enrage stack, and one of the few that can do so at range.

quote:

--Bullet Beatdown, for the akimbo pistols build, ends up being the main output for damage, as the planned build uses a Martial Arts Focus Form (in this case, Form of the Master) to obtain energy returns. Consequentially, it also boosts melee damage, which makes the Bullet Beatdown come out as a super-damaging melee attack with a wide number of debuffs on each hit, ranging from roots, to even a chance to interrupt enemy actions. With the advantage, Not Without Incident, the attack becomes AoE by chance, or whenever enraged, and when combined with Parry + Elusive Monk, the attack also will make you more capable of dodging!

What wasn't mentioned is that Not Without Incident is not actually "adds an AoE effect when enraged", but "adds an AoE effect in addition to the attack's damage". While it has the usual pistol problem of some randomness in targetting, if there's only a single target (or one or two others), being enraged and using Bullet Beatdown is obscenely damaging. It's not the instant burst of a charged Haymaker or the like, but it's in a similar DPS range and since it's a tap-combo power there's limited chance of interruption. Taken with Quarry and a Form power, it's going to be the mainstay of a Pistols-Munitions build, easily.

quote:

-For the majority of the time, your main attack combo for sustained damage will be Concussor Beam, Minigun, and Micro Munitions; Concussor beam hits a single target and propels it backwards a bit, but does really good damage. THe Minigun will hit like the Gatling Gun, hitting enemies in a line for rapid damage ticks. It's important to take Minigun's advantage, U-238 Rounds, as one of the selling points of Power Armor attacks is how much they can reduce enemy defense. Micro-Munitions fires rockets which explode around a central target. Also note that you can fire each of these attacks at completely separate enemies, so long as the angle between the different targets isn't more than around 70 degrees.

It's probably just me being incompetent, but I have never liked Micro Munitions. The damage is excellent, but the burst AoE seems awfully small, typically has difficulty hitting multiple enemies unless they're grouped in melee (as the ranged AI tends to scatter), and unlike Minigun stops firing once its primary target is dead, for an annoyance kind of like Experimental Burst Ray's.

Asimo fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Jul 10, 2011

# ¿ Jul 10, 2011 00:05

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

doomfunk posted:

For a build as likely to lack strength and con as a Munitions build is, Howl is absolutely a better consideration than Enrage, especially if you're going to have Int superstatted for Quarry.

In fact Enrage is, as a power, largely marginalized at this point but for simply serving as a conversion tool for stacks of Defiance to Enrage. In terms of maintaining an Enraged! condition, Howl or a rage-granting attack is generally superior.

Yeah, I could've been clearer about that in regards to Two-Gun Mojo. Enrage itself has some uses, but it's not going to recharge sooner than it wears off unless you get it to rank 3, have a good amount of Int, or both. Howl has the issue at rank one too, but its cooldown lowers much quicker as you rank it up, and it has an obvious additional use in fearing enemies. Downside is the SFX are annoying for certain builds, but eh, there's worse tradeoffs around there.

Which reminds me; how's that self-heal advantage on Enrage? It sounds... questionable even with Defiance, but I wonder if I'm missing something useful again.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2011 05:24

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

I see I have chosen wisely in the past. :stare:

# ¿ Jul 10, 2011 06:46

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Bluhman posted:

If you're hurting for extra defense, though, Eye of the Storm is another excellent alternative, as it increases your defense while it is maintained, in exchange for some damage (and the ability to move I think...)

Eye of the Storm is a weird power, in that it's kind of crappy if you're a tank for a group as it lacks taunts (I believe) and does average damage, but if you're solo it's quite surprisingly good. It basically applies a force field-style damage shield that is added to each tick its maintained. If you're using it solo, you definitely want its advantage, which causes it to deal damage to what hit you whenever you get hit. With large groups of minions this adds up quickly, and while it's still a ways below Sword Cyclone, it comes surprisingly close.

quote:

-- The main reason said payoff isn't worth it is because of Dragon's Claws; this downward swipe of the claw acts almost exactly like Dragon's Wrath, but has the added bonus of an extreme bonus to crit severity. This makes it much more powerful than Dragon's Wrath in PvE circumstances; while DW can pierce some defenses, most enemies in PvE areas don't have any. Meanwhile, the raw damage that Dragon's Claws offers on crit will completely decimate high-health enemies without defenses, and because of this, all the other single-target attacks Claws has are rendered moot points.

And beyond that, there's nothing really stopping another Martial Arts set from just taking Dragon Claws themselves... and having access to their own, better powers. This is the downside to a set with a single good skill.

quote:

-- The focus form of Martial Arts is Form of the Master, which grants stacks of focus when dodging enemy attacks. Its advantage, Storm Eye Prana enables you to recharge healing techniques faster. This enables you to do the same thing that was done using the Quarry Pistol Build; you can stack multiple Bountiful Chi Resurgences on top of one another for double dodge heals.

Curiously, if you're tanking or soloing, this Form is almost certain to raise your Focus stacks faster than Form of the Tempest, as your dodge percentage with an Unarmed build is almost certainly going to be higher than your crit percentage, and likely quite a bit higher. It's still limited in some situations since it depends on what your enemies do rather than what you do, but it's something to keep in mind. And obvious its advantage synergizes well with Bountiful Chi Resurgence.

quote:

-- Thunderbolt Lunge is the main lunge that all these sets share, allowing the user to close in on targets very quickly. It doesn't stun like Mighty Leap or Void Shift does, but can do so if you take the advantage of Essence Assault. Lunges aren't completely necessary for melee characters, but serve as an easy and quick way to immediately get into melee range.

I'd rate lunges quite highly, especially if you have no real ranged attacks in your build. They have several advantages, such as letting you hit flying enemies (and knock them down, when advantaged) and give a way to add crippling challenge to a build that lacks the basic attacks its usually found on. That said... there's no real reason to pick any set's lunge over any others', but the only real difference usually is the SFX and the debuff they inflict, so pick whatever fits best.

quote:

Thanks to the knockback mechanics, this can be used to quickly build up knock resistance stacks on enemies, making it a valuable resource for maximizing the damage from Knock-heavy sets like Might and Heavy Weapons.

Hmm, does it actually work this way? I always assumed that the "does extra damage to knockback-immune targets" referred to things like Supervillains and Cosmics and such that couldn't ever be knocked back. If it applies to just resistance too, well... that's quite useful.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2011 09:37

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Bluhman posted:

Indeed it does. I've been able to get Haymaker taps to go from around 1600 damage to 2100 by using a combination of Demolish and Knockback resistance application. It's very easy to test and do on the Powerhouse dummies.

Oh my.

Makes some sense anyway, although it's weird that only knockback powers get a bonus when resisted while other control powers don't. I guess it really is the only decent control method in ChampO.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2011 09:57

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

As a Lifetime subscriber, you don't really need a whole lot. The obvious things would be Character slots maybe (sure you have 16, but you'll run out... eventually...), and of course any costume bits or travel powers that are useful for a particular concept. It's not like the points expire so you can keep them around until something really gets your attention, and as mentioned in the OP you can test out devices and such on the test server without any actual cost (if you're gold/lifetime anyway).

e;fb

# ¿ Jul 10, 2011 19:39

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Aphrodite posted:

You do get a new character slot every time you hit 40 with a Gold character though. So you can technically have infinite slots for free.

You make the flawed assumption that you can reliably get to 40 before ADDing your way into some other new gimmick concept. :shepface:

(Granted, then it's a matter of pruning old redundant ones, but...)

# ¿ Jul 10, 2011 19:53

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Regarding Heavy Weapons: Thermal Reverberation is fun to take with it since a few powers can cause fire damage, but I find that Molecular Self-Assembly is better. Eruption is surprisingly handy for what it is, as it's a knock-up, it has decent damage, it refreshes Enrage (something Heavy Weapons desperately needs as its enrage builders are kind of annoying), and... it has a three second cooldown. Tap it whenever it's up and you've got basically a constant stream of energy coming in.

That said, the set is still kind of inferior to Might in a few ways. Not drastically, but it takes a much larger investment of powers and advantages to have the same level of net functionality. I still love it though.

Also, Roomsweeper is the best power in the game, bar none. Okay sure there's things with better damage, but it still hits pretty hard, it's an AoE, it stacks enrage crazy fast, and it sends enemies flying about fifty miles. :allears:

It's the quintessential Might trick.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2011 02:26

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

doomfunk posted:

Heavy Weapons has such a bitch of a time maintaining Enrage on its own that yeah, it makes a really great Tiger form attack set. Lots of charges, lots of big meaty attacks, lots of fun.

Yeah. If the third attack on Cleave was a 100% chance to build Enrage even without a Disorient on the target it'd probably be fine as an example. It's not the best power, but hell, two of Might's better powers (Roomsweeper and Havoc Stomp) stack enrage easily and rapidly. And the number of cylinder attacks in Heavy Weapons is obnoxious; in practice, a melee-range cylinder AoE may as well be single-target.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2011 03:40

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Also, I linked the guides you've done so far in the OP, Bluhman. Sure, the thread's only three pages so far, but I figure it'll be easier to have some direct links for people reading it later.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2011 04:32

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Bluhman posted:

Oh! Thanks, Asimo. Taking some of these powerset pictures has been a bit difficult. (but also some of the funnest things I've been doing nowadays with this game. )

No problem. There's not enough talk about this game, and getting useful info in one place for new folks is always handy. V :shobon:

quote:

-If you're a character with quite a bit of constitution and use burst-damage attacks, then Imbue will be another fine choice. Imbue will guarantee that the next ability you use hits as a critical with severity scaled off of your constitution. This means that not only can you make your attacks hit much harder, but also your heals, and when combined with a technique like Resurgence, you can get a bunch of health restoration in a pinch.

Note you'll probably want to de-activate your energy builder before using this, as it can and will eat the proc, at least last I checked. :ughh:

Note this can be used with almost any powerset too; if you have a power to spare and you're a Str/Con Might guy or something, enjoy your massive Haymaker crit.

quote:

- Seraphim might not be optimal for team healer situations, but for solo play, it does a pretty good job if you're focusing on doing Paranormal damage and also obtaining survivability via heals. The fact that it also helps in restoring energy also makes it a more sustainable alternative to the Paranormal offense passives.

A weird side effect of Seraphim is that it's the only damage-boosting power that works in Sentinel stance. Now this reduces your damage and damage resistance, but if you're in a set that is boosted by Seraphim, this may not be enough to care when you're basically getting effectively infinite energy and a massive boost to healing. You're usually better off with a defensive passive or the like, but it's quite handy for certain fun solo builds.

quote:

-Darkness comes out as a quite self-sufficient all-rounded thing, which, though it uses an offensive passive that implies DPS, has a skillset that reflects anything but. Instead, Darkness' strength lies in its ability to slow down enemies and keep them well controlled, while still doing quite good damage. Quite honestly, the playstyle of this set can be described as 'telepathy if it was actually done right'.

Yeah. Darkness really looks like an energy damage set, but it's sort of the only control-type set that doesn't suck. Probably because it does have useful damage powers. :shepface:

quote:

-Darkness' prime area attack is Shadow Embrace, which sends a tight cone of tendrils out to repeatedly damage enemies. The damage from this attack isn't anything special, but it is extremely good for spreading the fear debuff, which is fairly key to Darkness' gameplay and triggering its energy return, Spirit Reverberation. Shadow Embrace has many versatile advantages available to it, namely Dark Displacement, which causes enemies to become repeatedly tossed in the air. The advantage also used to come with the functionality of Fatal Allure as well, but the real reason you wanted this advantage was to knock enemies down, not to draw them in. By sticking with Dark Displacement, you have a much lower chance of disrupting enemy formation.

The knock-towards is rather useful in some ways in that it locks enemies down longer and has a higher chance of proccing. What it doesn't say however is that it more often knocks the target over your head, and if it was the one that you were targeting this means his friends are no longer being damaged. Kind of a lesser version of the annoyance I mentioned about Experimental Burst Ray, and definitely worth skipping.

quote:

-Late game sorcery yields a surprisingly potent cone attack in Skarn's Bane. Aside from doing a lot of maintained damage for a cone, it has application in PvP for removing energy forms and other buffs placed on enemies. Though this isn't a huge factor in PvE, the attack is still notable for its damage, outdoing most of the breath cones of other sets and even Shadow Embrace.

This attack is astoundingly damaging for a sorcery power. It's noticeably better than any of Celestial's AoE powers for example, and once you hit the level where you can pick it up out-of-set (I forget if it;s 23 or 26) you should immediately grab this if you're rocking with Seraphim.

quote:

--Ritual of Radiant Summoning summons an angel, which is the only pet of the four capable of healing. If you're constantly losing health, it'll almost never attack, and it tends to place some priority on healing you instead of others. However, its heal is slow, and once in a while, it tends to get left behind if it's been wounded and needs to heal itself.

Do not take this power, regardless of whether you're a pet-focused build or not. Its heal is slow, it's absolutely poo poo in throughput, it only heals a single target at a time, it wastes time attacking, and it can't heal itself so it dies amazingly quickly in practice. If you need a healing pet grab Support Drones instead, as they're superior in every conceivable aspect. Even if you think taking it is worth it for concept or something in a pet build, you're probably better off taking an active healing power yourself or another damaging pet instead.

No, I'm not bitter. :argh:

quote:

-Bestial's sole AoE attack is Frenzy (...)

Note quite true, as Venomous Breath is a "generic" supernatural power, so Bestial can take it was well without screwing up its power progression. As it's ranged and toxic damage however there's generally no real reason to since it almost certainly won't be getting a bonus from your passive buffs, although its range and cone may make it handy.

quote:

-The main reason Infernal is largely popular is for its single-target heavy hitter: Defile. Huge energy costs aside, Defile comes out as a self-reciprocating attack, which does major damage on hit as well as reducing the enemies' defense against toxic damage and their healing capabilities. Following it up with another defile will keep those debuffs constantly applied, meaning that each following defile blast after the first will do more damage to the target. The fire set can certainly benefit from what Defile has to bring to the table, but unfortunately, the opposite doesn't quite apply.

Defile is also potentially useful for Fire and Ice, as they focus more on AoE powers and lack a decent single-target nuke. The toxic-debuff effect won't affect their other powers sure, but it still hits like a goddamn truck with either of their offensive passives.

On a related sort of note: both Supernatual slotted passives suck. Okay, okay, Regeneration isn't too bad, but it teaches some bad habits in terms of soloing and leaves you surprisingly vulnerable in the late game to heavy-hitting cosmics or swarms of enemies that can damage you faster than you can heal, even if you can bolster this through other powers that boost dodge/damage resistance. Pestilence on the other hand is absolutely worthless and you should never take it even _{unless I've missed yet another twinky use for something.} In general you're far better off with Defiance or Unstoppable or something that boosts physical damage for Bestial, and Firey Form or Ice Form for Infernal (as they boost Toxic damage).

Asimo fucked around with this message at 09:50 on Jul 12, 2011

# ¿ Jul 12, 2011 08:52

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

doomfunk posted:

With some defense tweaking Regen becomes incredibly potent, such as stacking up dodge/avoidance or wearing 50% resistance bonus primaries.

Yeah. Like I said, Regen actually isn't bad, it just takes a bit to get it useful, even if it makes you nigh-invulnerable against minions. It just teaches some bad habits while playing due to this, and you can get a similar effect with a higher-resistance passive and other self-heals while also being more resistant to large endgame alpha strikes.

quote:

Pestilence used to be very attractive as it was the only offensive passive that would augment ranged physical damage in some way. It's definitely not the best passive but I will qualitatively state that it does augment damage quite a bit, and the damaging aura around your character actually hits very hard. Between the aura and Devour Essence guys in melee drop with ridiculous speed.

The trouble really is that it's a flat (if guaranteed) damage addition, rather than a percentage-based one. It does... what, 300-400 damage every 2 seconds at rank 3 at 40? That's not horrible no, especially since it's to everything in range, but if you're able to do 400+ damage per second with your powers, another offensive passive (that'll be boosting damage by 50%+ at rank 3) will be giving you more net damage, and it can only scale up from there. Those sets also give you some other benefit to go along with it too, even if it's something useless like "resists fire damage!"

quote:

It's not Ice Form, and it covers everything in bugs, but it's not terrible. It's also worth mentioning that the other passives that buff toxic damage output in any way (aside from Quarry) only grant any defense vs elemental attacks, which are uncommon at best.

Pestilence doesn't really grant anything besides its damage though. The healing reduction is rarely handy, but it comes up almost never in PVE. Really, all Pestilence needs is some side benefit like Quarry or some increased defense so it's a "hybrid" passive or something besides a flat damage.

quote:

(Quarry and Invuln are the best passives. )

Yeah, pretty much. :v:

I'm still inordinately fond of Defiance though. It has a ramp-up time, but when maxed out and with the right super-stats it provides absolutely absurd levels of damage resistance and synchronizes wonderfully with Enrage. And even better, it half doubles as an energy-granting passive, since everything that hits you grants a burst of energy. Throw Inertial Dampening Field on atop it, and you've got an Invuln-like effect too.

While lots of folks here are all for defensive passives over offensive ones, and I agree, you can still do pretty well with an offensive passive, especially if it's a melee one that grants a level of general defense that you can exploit/augment. Most things in PVE really aren't that hard especially if you have a self-heal or some other defensive power, and if you start to have trouble in the endgame you can always respec or join a group.

Having messed around with an Aura of Primal Majesty/Enrage build on the test realm, it really is sort of crazily good as an "offensive passive". The constant ugly SFX and the fact that it's very obviously gaming the system just makes it feel wrong to me though, even so. :spergin:

doomfunk posted:

People still scoff at Ice as a viable offensive powerset on its own for good reason, though.

Yeah. It's not the only powerset with the issue of "it takes twice as much work for 75% of the effort of its competition", but it's still pretty noticeable versus the massive instant damage of Elec and Fire or the hybrid defensiveness of Force. Archery's another example when compared with Munitions; both sets do average-low damage, but Archery requires you to rotate a half-dozen attacks and is just awkward all around despite having some good powers, while Munitions is just "use assault rifle/SMG/Minigun, the end".

Asimo fucked around with this message at 21:58 on Jul 12, 2011

# ¿ Jul 12, 2011 21:48

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Borgonderbee posted:

I love this game

That is made even better by your avatar.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2011 04:08

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

doomfunk posted:

For all the talk we've been doing about build synergy, you're absolutely right. For about half the powersets in the game right now if you just stick with the powers in the set you'll be able to punch through the whole game. You only need to work on optimization if you want to do ~interesting~ things like soloing Nemcon or Andrithal.

For example, I've been half-considering doing a semi-joke "anime martial artist" Force/Might hybrid. :shepface:

Haven't gotten it sorted out yet, but force bolts and force cascade later in, roomsweeper/havoc stomp and haymaker and mighty leap... probably Defiance on top of it and random active offenses/defenses and things like IDF to improve survivability. It'd lack a good toggle, but it'd keep Enrage up, be decent at both ranged and melee without too much overlap, and be perfectly serviceable for just about every content you'd throw at it. You can do a surprising amount in a Freeform build with even a little attention to it. Only thing throwing me off is the super stats. (Str/Con? Str/Int? Hmm.)

# ¿ Jul 13, 2011 12:58

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

That's a feature, not a bug. :colbert:

And yeah, I'm not sure the weapon pack is really worth 380 cryptic fun bucks, although they are some fairly nice designs. The big rock axe does finally maybe make a powerset that fits the old premium rock costume set though. In any case, have some images.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2011 21:15

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

FlyinPingu posted:

I just wish that instead of an axe they added a rock hammer or something, that'd look way cooler.

I think they're focusing more on bladed or semi-bladed weapons for Heavy Weapons, for better or worse. The only "pure" mace is the single default one available. It makes a certain degree of sense as there's a few powers with animations around impaling or other swordish things, but so it goes. And it is a pretty nice axe, if it were 380 fun bucks I'd pick the set up for my troll noble HW alt.

Also since it isn't obvious from the screenshot, the first weapon in the second image is named a "mace" in game, and has four prongs in a cross-shape.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2011 21:43

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Jan posted:

Until they add an electric guitar as a wieldable costume option for Heavy Weapons, I'm not buying any weapon set.

If only.

Actually, I was kind of hoping there'd be more "gimmick" weapons in the pack. That's one of the few things City of Heroes has over ChampO in terms of customization at the moment.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2011 22:19

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Grandpa Pap posted:

Being stricken with the curse of alt-itis, I've been dicking around with my Sentry ripoff. Most of my characters are knockoffs of Marvel/DC guys. I initially felt bad for being rather unoriginal, but after seeing three identical Hulks, a near-perfect Flash and even Galactus all in one night, I no longer care.

In fairness, Sentry is a fairly transparent ~~ripoff of~~ homage to Superman, so it's not like you're the first there. :v:

Grandpa Pap posted:

And using his eye beam powers on some fool.

I also wish eye beams didn't suffer the Power Armor Toggle Curse, since they're a pretty awesome and (I believe) unique SFX, in being the only powers that emanate from the eyes. It's arguably worse than the other power armor toggles too, since they're intentionally middling damage and no-cost in order to be stacked atop the other toggles, but that means they're pointless to use alone. :argh:

# ¿ Jul 15, 2011 08:20

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

doomfunk posted:

You left out Concussor Beam, which is the worthwhile hand slot power. Really the big issue with Power Armor is, I think, not the fact that they have such dumb rules regarding what takes up which slot, but how lovely most of the powers are.

You can charge Chest Beam up when you've got minigun and concussor beam going, but it costs so much end you're unlikely to get a full charge off. The bread/butter for most players is going to be micro munitions, minigun, and concussor beam regardless of situation, because those three are awesome.

Any situation where I could have used Chest Beam on my PA character, I used Orbital Cannon instead and used the warmup time to cycle on micro munitions, minigun, and concussor beam to greater effect. It's also pretty kickass looking.

Yeah. This is the real problem with Power Armor: you're intended to be using a power from multiple slots simultaneously, and using powers from every slot when you want to alpha down some big enemy. In theory this isn't that bad! In practice however, the result is that each power does somewhat poor damage on its own, since they get a penalty to damage due to being able to be stacked (and Eye Beams gets an extra massive hit due to having no energy cost). Actually using every possible toggle eliminates your energy in seconds unless you do a very careful build. The Slot system works out poorly because all the "good" powers are stacked onto a single slot. And of course, if you have any non-toggle attacks, and even PA itself has Chest Beam and Beam Sword, it means you have to cancel all your toggles to actually activate them.

The set "works", in that you can build a PA character that's incredibly effective, but it's just awkward in every respect and meshes poorly with non-toggle powers even in its own set, let alone others. I've tried for months to try and get a satisfying build going but it's really just impossible, and really it's probably safe to consider the set a failure as an experiment and hope Cryptic revamps it. :sigh:

And yeah, the energy builder advantage is absolutely worthless. It it worked more like the one Sparkstorm has, where it didn't interfere with other power usage (or at least, non-hand-slot power usage), that'd be one thing. But having to deactivate your energy builder to use another power in exchange for constant middling damage is not an "advantage".

# ¿ Jul 15, 2011 17:46

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Yeah, Behemoths are definitely one of the better archetypes. Might in general is an amazingly fun set, and it gets one of the better solo defense passives (Defiance, which not only makes you tough as nails but grants energy when you're hit) and the most fun power in the game (Roomsweeper) early in. Inferno isn't bad, but the energy sets in general are somewhat squishy; manageable if you know what you're doing, but trickier for a newbie.

And yeah, that's a big failing with the costume creator UI. The drop downs at the top of each category aren't immediately obvious, and there's some categories that don't appear at all unless certain other categories are set (such as Bracers not showing up unless you have Hands/Short Gloves set already, for example).

Asimo fucked around with this message at 02:19 on Jul 16, 2011

# ¿ Jul 16, 2011 02:17

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Rocketlex posted:

Roomsweeper is amazing, but I think Mighty Leap is my current favorite power (at level 14). Being able to dash between dudes quickly, stun them, and knock their buddies away (I got the upgrade that does that) is really fun.

Wait until you get Roomsweeper to rank 3, and then go pick on some group of mooks lower level than you. :allears:

But yeah, the charge attack is hilarious too. Might's a bit heavy on knockback for a melee set, but most of the powers that do that much knockback either cripple or kill minions they hit, so it's not like it matters.

quote:

Also, I did some Hero Games for the first time today. My take away: Behemoths are useless in Cage Matches and awesome in Zombie Apocalypse. I'm debating whether I'll be doing enough PVP to make the "Pinned to the Ground" advantage worth it.

I don't PVP and probably never will, but you definitely want Crippling Challenge for both PVP and PVE. Whether you toss it on Mighty Leap or Defensive Combo's a matter of preference, anyway. While it's a taunt, if you're solo it's not like this matters, but it breaks through and temporarily disables blocking (not a big deal in PVE even if there's a handful of enemies that do it, but of obvious PVP use) and also drops a 20% damage debuff on the target. Since Defiance can hit 75% damage resistance at max stacks, this gives an even crazier amount of reduction. Definitely worth the three points, just be careful with whatever attack it was in late-game PVE grouping if you aren't the designated tank.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2011 02:52

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

I'm unsure if Challenging Strikes' debuff (the AoE version; extra threat, no taunt, -5% damage) stacks atop that or not, I'm sure someone more knowledgeable can chime in there. But yeah, Cryptic really went out of their way to make it easy to do a tank, even if you really have to spec for it to actually hold aggro over some of the damage monsters freeform chargen can spit out.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2011 06:01

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Aphrodite posted:

Sort of.

It might work, it might not. There's no way to say for sure "2 copies from retailer X will not both work".

Except maybe Walmart. Walmart's copies had 500 free points with them, so if anything is blocked from multiple activation it's probably those.

Amazon's don't seem to work either, although I may just have gotten unlucky with my $5 experiment. Trying to enter the code put in an "you have already entered a code from this retailer" warning. It's probably safest to assume multiple boxes from one retailer won't work, sadly.

Aphrodite posted:

My mistake, it's 2/5s for efficiency. Not 1/5s.

Yeah. If you've never leveled a tradeskill, the rate of skill gain drops drastically past 200, and goes almost glacial past 300. Since I have no interest in grinding out the travel power item things I've not really put much effort in, but even there I've never gotten much past 340ish with casual despite playing since release... mostly because I kept trying for 5/5 until recently. :downs:

# ¿ Jul 18, 2011 21:04

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Really though, the bigger lesson is that there's no real reason to level tradeskills in ChampO outside of the travel devices and a handful of costume pieces. You'll have better gear from quests while leveling than you will from your skill, since it will invariably lag behind, you can just get the bags and devices off the AH, and there's nothing really at the endgame that farming elite lairs or adventure packs isn't superior too, especially if your super stats don't mesh up to something any of the tradeskills favor. I mean there's no real reason not to have and level one, and there's a handful of upgrades that are incredibly difficult or impossible to find as drops, but... eh, almost all the use is in maybe throwing gear at alts.

At least the game's intelligent enough to pull reagents from the bank while you're crafting.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2011 22:08

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

FlyinPingu posted:

Uses for crafting: Bags, consumables, customizable gear to help your alts out (as by the time they'd be useful for the character crafting them they'll have outleveled them,) mini pets, and unlockable costume parts.

Eh, by the time you can make bags worth using you have more than enough ~~gold~~ resources to buy them off the AH. :ssh:

And leveling gear generally isn't a problem from quest rewards and the like, and as mentioned you'll make little useful while leveling the skill yourself. The pets and costume parts are viable though. And...

doomfunk posted:

Crafted dodge/avoid primary defenses until you can get a lucky blue/purp from a lair or adventure pack.

Yeah, this is one of those upgrades that's a pain in the rear end to find as a drop. Above and beyond the tradeskill discussion, these are good to have in general if you have anything resembling a dodge focus at all. And there's a handful available from quests if you keep an eye out.

EDIT: Also, since it came up in game chat, what the hell does "+X% to Minimap Radius" on an item actually do?

Asimo fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Jul 18, 2011

# ¿ Jul 18, 2011 23:20

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Bloodly posted:

...Seriously?

Yep.

There's basically no reason to carry that crap around.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2011 00:48

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Rocketlex posted:

This is the best MMO ever...made.

ChampO has... a lot of issues, and a lot of unresolved bugs and the like, but they really did do a lot of things right. Enough so that I've been spoiled for a lot of other games, and I'm still messing around making silly alts in this long after I've quit WoW.

Allatum posted:

Especially power replacers.

Yeah. I love the idea of those, since it's a fun way to make interesting effects and throw on fun weapon gimmicks. But the lack of stats is often crippling, and the fact the weapon replacement powers are at the item's level (at least for the munitions types, rather than the "chance of effect on hit" martial arts types) means they go obsolete incredibly quickly unless there's some unique damage type or effect, and even then they don't have much lifespan. Just kind of sad really.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2011 02:41

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Yeah. Even scaled to solo, the boss fights of the comic series and the adventure packs are pretty grueling. Unless you're custom-making a build to farm certain low-level items for resale, you're usually better off waiting until the 20's, where you have a more solid build and probably several utility/defense powers now that you've filled out the core competencies. Archetypes... well, probably depends on which archetype, but may just be better off with a group really. None of it is unbeatable or unfair, but it's definitely tuned a lot higher than content you'll run into at lower levels.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2011 03:33

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

I'm not all that fond of Teleport honestly, even if it is incredibly effective. It doesn't "feel" faster than flight, and while you go from zero to full without a charge, there's also the annoyance of doing so and getting hit by combat at the wrong moment and having to stand around for ten seconds while it recharges. You also can't just point and laze back with autorun like you can with a flight power, and if I can't do that I may as well just take Super Leap or Swinging. They've also finally fixed the semi-exploit of being able to block while zipping off using it too, I believe.

That said, it's still one of the better travel powers, and I certainly won't fault someone for abusing it.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2011 06:22

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Bloody Pancreas posted:

Earlier someone asked about a single blade/Darkness hybrid build, and I was wondering how a Dual Pistol/Darkness build would work? I would think DEX/INT would be the key superstats, but beyond that I can't see how the two would fit together.

Hmm. You'd probably really want to cherry-pick some of the utility powers from Darkness, since those in general tend to be set-agnostic. Unfortunately going dual pistols makes this a little trickier, since you can't exploit Gatling Gun's fear-Advantage and the like, but that's not insurmountable. Lifedrain would give you one way to heal yourself for example, Void Shift could be a fun charge power for Bullet Ballet after Breakaway Shot or Evasive Maneuvers (... probably the latter), and both Void Horror and Summon Shadows would work alright, although the second is probably better. Obviously you'd want to go for a damage-type agnostic passive like Quarry or Defiance.

There's probably someone who can make better suggestions here, though.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2011 06:48

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Bitchtits McGee posted:

and no less than three different(ly named) Hulks.

The only good Hulk-ripoff I've seen is H.U.L.C., the robo-Hulk I linked in the OP. It's almost uncanny. Sadly, I don't recall whose it was and I'm pretty sure they weren't a goon.

quote:

Completely unrelated n00b question: are Blade powers supposed to not make any noise, or is that something I should be ticketing?

That... yeah, they're not the most noisy powersets, but there should be some "whooshing" and "clanking" noises to go with the powers. There's a long-running but rareish issue with the sound engine that causes problems with effects only being audible from certain camera angles, and I think it can be fixed or worked around by setting your windows audio preferences from "surround" to "stereo" if they're set to the former. As for how to do that, uh, go poke around on the official forums. :v:

# ¿ Jul 20, 2011 09:25

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 14:27

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Aphrodite posted:

The Druidic Sanctum is really nice. It's a big change to the design of the Sanctum hideout.

The Cave one suffers a bit because they accidentally released all 4 locales, when each pack should have come with one. By already having the locales this ends up being just a furniture pack so it's not as cool. I was hoping they would just be additions to the current HQs rather than extra cost as well, but I guess they have to stay in business somehow...

The Djinn device just annoys me. It uses a bunch of existing powers mechanically, but with Wind animations instead. Why can't we do that, Cryptic?

Tornado Flight isn't flashy enough. You can't change the color of the tornado itself so it never stands out because it's brown. The effect is also diminished quite a bit when you move. It should have used the animation that the Djinn have naturally, but then I guess there would be issues with any animations that use feet.

drat, I was going to comment on this stuff this morning, but it wasn't activated yet. :argh:

That explains why caves had so many "looks" to them though, way more than the other HQs. As for power SFX, they've explained some things before that implies that changing anything besides the color basically requires making an all-new power (due to poor foresight when making the game engine I guess), which is why they're hesitant to do SFX change advantages like Giant Growth on Enrage out of worries of making things too complex on their end. Still, an elemental air powerset would be a nice addition.

Tornado Flight... I quite like the subtle effect, but it really needs to not fade when you move, definitely. The Djinn device meanwhile does explain why they added a "summon mystic flaming swords" AoE power to Sorcery on the PTR though. (And does anyone actually use those items? They're a nice novelty, but...)

doomfunk posted:

You're pretty much spot-on with what I'd advise, Asimo.

quote:

steady shot grants an on-next-hit crit buff

Be a bit wary picking this. Steady Shot at the moment is the only energy builder that fires every second rather than every half second. That doesn't sound like a lot, and it does mean each shot has a higher return, but sometimes it still feels like it takes forever and the crit buff isn't that noticeable.

Also, if you're taking advantage of Bullet Ballet (and you probably should as it's amazing, just be sure to grab its Advantage ASAP), you might want to look into Form of the Tempest. Enrage has higher boost to your damage since it'd work on your ranged powers, but you'll be critting quite a bit and the energy return from Focus is both reliable and easy, and the damage boost in melee is quite noticeable. Regardless, you almost certainly want to take Howl from Supernatural, as it both applies/refreshes Enrage for your pistols powers to exploit (although it doesn't stack it), but it also drops fear on everything around you (making your darkness powers better). Even with a 25ish second cooldown, it is literally perfect for a Munitions/Darkness hybrid build.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2011 21:33

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The MMO HMO > Champions Online: Zen and the Art of Power Armor Maintenance

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