Utility toons
By
BlazingTiger,
Posted on: 2009-06-18 18:48 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
I think I have a slightly different idea of utility toon. I have two that exist for a very specific purpose.
1. is a mind/emp controller who exists only to patrol Atlas, Galaxy, and Kings giving away free fortune readings and a heal or two to new characters in need.
2. is a lv 1 FF defender that exists only as a bank and a transfer point between my two accounts.
Not quite as useful as yours but very specific.
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
My Earth/Storm was for KHTFs. My Plant/Rad and Fire/Mental were for duo-boxing Positron. My Ice/Kin and Sonic/Sonic were for Cap SFs.
@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
I have a couple merit/ticket "farmers" locked in at various levels. They all have a concept of some sort but since there is no way to specify the exact level of a random roll except have a character at that exact level I'm stuck "farming" because the options are worse than this "solution".
The devs seem to be trying to move away from forcing this type of "abberant play style" on the player base but since the choice is lock in at level 37 for random rolls at 25 merits a pop or spend ten times as much on a non-locked toon to get the desired level the choice seems pretty clear to me.
When the devs fix this problem those characters will be free to progress again.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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I have a couple merit/ticket "farmers" locked in at various levels. They all have a concept of some sort but since there is no way to specify the exact level of a random roll except have a character at that exact level I'm stuck "farming" because the options are worse than this "solution".
The devs seem to be trying to move away from forcing this type of "abberant play style" on the player base but since the choice is lock in at level 37 for random rolls at 25 merits a pop or spend ten times as much on a non-locked toon to get the desired level the choice seems pretty clear to me.
When the devs fix this problem those characters will be free to progress again.
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The devs probably consider your playstyle to be the abberant one.
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I have a couple merit/ticket "farmers" locked in at various levels. They all have a concept of some sort but since there is no way to specify the exact level of a random roll except have a character at that exact level I'm stuck "farming" because the options are worse than this "solution".
The devs seem to be trying to move away from forcing this type of "abberant play style" on the player base but since the choice is lock in at level 37 for random rolls at 25 merits a pop or spend ten times as much on a non-locked toon to get the desired level the choice seems pretty clear to me.
When the devs fix this problem those characters will be free to progress again.
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The devs probably consider your playstyle to be the abberant one.
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I'm not the only one that does this. I know several folks that do the same thing for the same reason. I build to exemp. That means I don't outfit all my toons only with level 50 IOs.
If it were possible to get recipes at a specified level rather than being locked into what ever level the toon is for Pool Cs (this is the only recipe class that operates in this way, Pool As drop at mob level and Pool B drop at exempted level) this would not be seen as needed.
The main reason that some folks do this is due to the dev decision on set bonuses and exemping. It's just one more of those situations that a dev decision causes an abberant playstyle because of the way things are set up to reward players. No different than badge farming and merits and tickets have compounded the problem since you can carry them over to a level other than the one you earned them at.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
I have my trio of pirates who i made for MoSTFing. Defenders One Sonic, One Cold, One FF. Other than that not really i play things i think might be fun granted i prefer AoE chars
Virtue
--Blazing Tiger-- 50 Invulrn/Fire Tank
<<Virtues Tankiest Kitty>>
Try my Arcs: #4892 and #112548
@Blazing Tiger and @Aqua Fox
QR
Yep,I have 3 corrs for various needs./kin,/therm and /cold.
Like most my SG mates we have all the buffers/debuffers.We can always field a team with whatever is necessary.
Of course I have many toons,some more fun than others.Really like playing my ice/cold corr for most teams.Course my invul brute is super fun to.
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I have a couple merit/ticket "farmers" locked in at various levels. They all have a concept of some sort but since there is no way to specify the exact level of a random roll except have a character at that exact level I'm stuck "farming" because the options are worse than this "solution".
The devs seem to be trying to move away from forcing this type of "abberant play style" on the player base but since the choice is lock in at level 37 for random rolls at 25 merits a pop or spend ten times as much on a non-locked toon to get the desired level the choice seems pretty clear to me.
When the devs fix this problem those characters will be free to progress again.
[/ QUOTE ]
The devs probably consider your playstyle to be the abberant one.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm not the only one that does this. I know several folks that do the same thing for the same reason. I build to exemp. That means I don't outfit all my toons only with level 50 IOs.
If it were possible to get recipes at a specified level rather than being locked into what ever level the toon is for Pool Cs (this is the only recipe class that operates in this way, Pool As drop at mob level and Pool B drop at exempted level) this would not be seen as needed.
The main reason that some folks do this is due to the dev decision on set bonuses and exemping. It's just one more of those situations that a dev decision causes an abberant playstyle because of the way things are set up to reward players. No different than badge farming and merits and tickets have compounded the problem since you can carry them over to a level other than the one you earned them at.
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I'm willing to bet that a few (if not many) of the Devs play in this so-called "aberrant" manner, or something that's very similar.
Now, it may be that one/(some?) of the other Devs might not like that the others do so (idk?), but this is the system they gave us...
Now, If they decide to change the workings of the system for random rolls, so that we could set the 'level slider' to the level of the recipe we want (and actually get it) instead of how it works at the moment - then I'm sure many/most people would stop this "aberrant playstyle"...
Which may not be "intended", I can't see how it matters to someone if others play this way?
Unless - possibly they prefer - rolling up new alts and leveling them up trying to get drops/rolls the "proper way", pass the recipes off to an alt toon, delete toon/re-roll and start over, rinse & repeat - ad infinitum. 
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
City of Heroes didn't fail, City of Heroes was killed. If a 747 dropped on your house, you'd say you were killed, not you failed to find a safer dwelling.
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I tend to do this on occasion - usually with characters that only exist to be played in teams. Most of my Defenders really fit this example, except the rare one or two.
Though, as a point... it's worth mentioning that you're 'can-openers' probably could have benefitted from being higher level, especially with the exemping system in place. While merits sort of reduce the need (though some of the stuff in those ranges still provides fairly good merits for getting specific things), especially if you set up a build *specifically* to function in those ranges. More slots at better values for the powers in question, and all. << But that's just an observation of how I'd go into it.
At the moment, my Bane Spider is slowly shaping up to be a very useful multi-purpose character. Running flashbacks quickly for merits in my Bane build, and my Huntsman setup for doing Strikeforces (with double leadership toggles as I go up) for a faster turnaround. Gives me a bit more flexibility on getting stuff I need for specific characters (like Steadfasts or KB-Protects).
I think the only other characters I have set up like that right now is my Rikti-themed Mind/Empathy, who's designed to make group functions a lot easier, and my Bot/Storm who's really just there to farm prestige until I can get a different character set up to do it.
I guess I had a "can opener"- a Force Field/Sonic defender who was locked in at 33 to do katies, respecs and Manticores- until I started playing with turning XP on, just a little, and got them to 34. Now I have to figure out whether 35 is worth locking in or not.
Yeah, it's abberant, but it's the only choice we have... and there are still relatively huge shortages of "Everything but max level."
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
Anyone else level up a number of characters for a specific, sometimes even very narrow purposes. I've rolled up a number of these in the past and still occasionally level them up. I call them "toons" as opposed to characters because they're built to fulfill specific requirements and get only as much investment of time/inf as necessary to fill them out. I contrast that with my characters, which I'll take to go through the content, get badges/accolades, spend quite a bit of inf to get IO'ed, etc.
So some of the utility toons I've had in the past and currently have:
Electric/Shield Brute (level 50) - villain farmer. Soft capped defenses, a little bit of recharge and she's all ready to farm infamy or help friends level up.
Fire/Kin Controller (level 50) - former hero farmer, now spec'ed as a buffbot for TFs. With the prevalence of AE boss farms, I think Fire/Kin's are fading as the prevalent toon for hero side farming (exception: the rare fire/kins that are extremely purpled with perma mez protection from the psi epic)
Illusion/Emp Controller (level 17) - Cavern of Transcendence "can opener". With superior invisibility and recall, designed to get the CoT trial done quickly. Sort of obsolete now with the merit system in place.
Sonic/Dark Corruptor - Tarikoss SF "can opener" (level 23) - with stealth IO, shadowfall, recall and super speed, a toon that was designed to get the Virgil Tarikoss SF done as quickly as possible. Obsolete now with the merit system in place.
Some utility toons that I wish I had:
Perma-dom Mind/Psi or Mind/Elec Dominator - a great toon to enable the sleep the Freedom Phalanx cheese for the LRSF.
High recharge Illusion/Rad Controller - best "tanking" character for the States TF.
Sonic/Cold Corruptor (level 50) - Not strictly a utility toon, but awesome to have on the LRSF since you can largely nullify Statesman's Unstoppable with benumb.
Kin/Sonic Defender (level 20 or so) - Best defender to have on the Positron and Synapse TFs since buffing teammates with speed boost makes up for the lack of stamina. For even more utility, take recall and invisibility to allow you to ghost missions.