There is no 'one' build, but if you don't want to gimp yourself there are some things that should be taken right away. Pet summons and upgrades being among them. Completely ignoring your secondary also can easily gimp you. And I've seen people do just that.
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." Lord Acton
Madam Enigma's History
The problem isn't when a build is sub-optimal. It's when a build is out and out bad, and the character is performing way below their potential.
The Thugs/Poison I described... we were fighting purple conning Paragon Protector Elites. Nightshade, at that time, was still an all SO build (I didn't start playing around with IOs until very late) so I'm not claiming to be a powerhouse, but who do you think was contributing more to the team - me with Envenom, Weaken, Paralytic Poison and Noxious Gas? Or him, with Dual Wield and Empty Clips?
I don't consider myself a build snob, but, especially on a small team, a couple of team members like that can make any mission a lot harder than it should be, and the next time I saw that person in broadcast putting another team together I... well I decided I was in a soloing mood that evening.
Back in March of 2005, I snapped because of stuff just like this. I'd like to blame the Hollows for it, but it may have been before that. I started working on a basic game play guide for new players. It turned into the thing in my sig that I can't link to because the forum software insists on taking out the URL code it supplies and replacing it with html code tags.
Anyway. This guide grew. A lot. The target audience is that group of people that have never even seen the game played, and the goal is to get them up to speed on the basics of how to do things. Part of this includes summaries of the powersets. Since I can't play them all, I had to rely on people that do for information. I've been learning a lot more about MM's in the last few weeks, but those changes are not included in the current version. I'd love some feedback on the MM sections.
Primaries: http://home.comcast.net/~coh-tog/boo..._pri_index.htm
Secondaries: http://home.comcast.net/~coh-tog/boo..._sec_index.htm
I'm working on a completely new version of it now, but most of the text was copied from this one. Some things may have changed, but I would welcome any corrections to any of the information presented.
My first short story (detective fiction) came out in Jan-2012. Other stories and books to follow, I hope. Because of "real writing". COH was a big part of that happening.
I'll admit, my Tanker(SD/WM) didn't have anything but the first attack and Taunt for a long time(35 levels, to be exact). Mainly because Shield Defense called for me to take everything in the set Defense-wise, along with Tough and Weave, but also because my AoEs were later level. However, I did alternate to a Solo build for when I wasn't on a team. Now my Tanker is 41 and has plenty of decent damage flying about along with being very sturdy(Which with everyone farming Lvl 52 Bosses goes a long ways). As for AE, it's a lot like the Winter Lord back in 04(?), where you had lots of Lvl 20 players who didn't know what Stamina was, but I wouldn't say it's particularly harmful for the playerbase who know what they're doing.
What makes me sad about AE is... that there's so many people who think it's main function is to PL to 50.
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." Lord Acton
Madam Enigma's History
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I'll admit, my Tanker(SD/WM) didn't have anything but the first attack and Taunt for a long time(35 levels, to be exact). Mainly because Shield Defense called for me to take everything in the set Defense-wise, along with Tough and Weave, but also because my AoEs were later level.
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Stuff like this is what I use my 2nd build for. Low-level and solo builds get more early attack and sacrifice some defense. Then once I get to the right level I choose my second build and redo it for the "best" powers and higher level attacks. This also gives me an "old" build to switch back to if I Exp or Malf with someone much lower level.
Just my 2 Inf.
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I'll admit, my Tanker(SD/WM) didn't have anything but the first attack and Taunt for a long time(35 levels, to be exact). Mainly because Shield Defense called for me to take everything in the set Defense-wise, along with Tough and Weave, but also because my AoEs were later level.
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Stuff like this is what I use my 2nd build for. Low-level and solo builds get more early attack and sacrifice some defense. Then once I get to the right level I choose my second build and redo it for the "best" powers and higher level attacks. This also gives me an "old" build to switch back to if I Exp or Malf with someone much lower level.
Just my 2 Inf.
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At level 18 (I think) my ice/mace tanker has only 3 attacks, but then again I do use those attacks frequently.
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." Lord Acton
Madam Enigma's History
I've been only playing for about 3 months, now (can't w8 4 the trenchcoat!!!) and I have 2 lvl 50's already. Yes, it's obviously from pl'ing and farming, I started my account about 5 days before the AE started, and I was pulled in easily. what's good about it is that it gave me a chance to try a bunch of diferent at's while frantically trying to learn the ins and outs of the game. I'd say I'm pretty knowledgeable about cox now even for a couple of months, I love the game, and imo teaming with ppl on regular missions is way more fun than hours of ae, but don't get me wrong, I love running into hordes of baddies to see if I survive as well.
I'm a total noob, as far as seniority goes, lol, but imo you have to be totally retarted to not know what the moves do and how they work together. My first 50 was a FB/DM corr, and wat got me mainly up to 50? the beast combo of tar patch and rof of course. Heck, spend 2 hours on paragon wiki and you'll figure out all kinds of good stuff. (god I love that site <3) My MM right now is bot/DM, and I plan on getting all the moves in both powersets, might even io my pulse rifle moves just for extra punch, and then throw on the leadership pool. But yah, even a 2-month noob like me found that original story borderline disgusting.
First of all, Welcome to CoX. Here is what your traditional PL team does. Outside of AE it works as follows.
First you have a couple level 50's. One of them will be the mission holder, and is set to challenge level 5.
Next you add 3 people who are around level 46 or 47.
Finally you have the 3 people being power leveled. They are sidekicked by the 3 people who are around 46 or 47. This way they still get xp, and maximize the amount.
The next step is to select a level 50 mission with extreme amounts of enemies. The two level 50's go through and slaughter everything in the mission without completing it. Everyone else stands just inside the mission soaking up xp. Sounds boring doesn't it? It is.
AE added a new wrinkle to the mix. Now PLers can custom design a mission with extreme amounts of fairly easy to beat mobs with high xp gain. They then gather 7 lowbies and PL them all with the mission. No longer do they have to reset the mission since they can just repeat the single mission AE arc. It makes me sick.
We get a great tool that allows us to finally share our character stories with others, and these people can only see a power leveling tool.
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." Lord Acton
Madam Enigma's History
that is pretty sad, but the good thing is, those who play it just for pl-ing will definitely grow bored of it and stop playing once they figure out that there's nowhere to go after pl-ing to 50, because, chances are they won't have a clue how to get a TF going, or even how to get to the pvp map for that matter. I don't know how the other servers are doing, but on Freedom the farming runs rampid. I say if ya can't beat'em, join'em, just not completely....I like to pl up to 20 or so just to not have to kill 10, 000 snakes for the 34th time, lol.
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that is pretty sad, but the good thing is, those who play it just for pl-ing will definitely grow bored of it and stop playing once they figure out that there's nowhere to go after pl-ing to 50, because, chances are they won't have a clue how to get a TF going, or even how to get to the pvp map for that matter. I don't know how the other servers are doing, but on Freedom the farming runs rampid. I say if ya can't beat'em, join'em, just not completely....I like to pl up to 20 or so just to not have to kill 10, 000 snakes for the 34th time, lol.
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Not to mention that power leveling 30 levels I find leaves you without enough funds to enhance your abilities.
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." Lord Acton
Madam Enigma's History
People who powerlevel are usually the ones who buy their ingame money from spammers.
The first time you cheat makes the next time just that much easier
If the good guy gets the girl, it's rated PG;
If the bad guy gets the girl, it's rated R;
And if everybody gets the girl, it's rated X
- Kirk Douglas
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People who powerlevel are usually the ones who buy their ingame money from spammers.
The first time you cheat makes the next time just that much easier
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considering I PL'd my Defender to 50 to get a Khledian for a character concept and constantly /ignore buy influence spam in e-mails, you sort of suck at guessing what people do
better luck next time bro ~\o/~
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People who powerlevel are usually the ones who buy their ingame money from spammers.
The first time you cheat makes the next time just that much easier
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considering I PL'd my Defender to 50 to get a Khledian for a character concept and constantly /ignore buy influence spam in e-mails, you sort of suck at guessing what people do
better luck next time bro ~\o/~
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You may not but a lot of them do, the comment is reasonable, also a lot of people who PL a hero to 50 to get a kheld find them unplayable, may not apply to you, but seen it enough times.
It's true. This game is NOT rocket surgery. - BillZBubba
Ae's are slowly killing grouping in this game fosho'
on a side note... I got my thugs/Dark to 32 last night..the last buff makes my pets look dope!
I took a Wu Tang Clan theme with my MM so I have some nifty macros that Ole Dirty B%&*&*d and his possie say
lots of fun but sorta boring in comparison to my other AT's as my pets do all the work( dont have any attacks myself).. but quite easy to level and once I got SO's leveling went waaaay up..
I have to admit that it took me a bit to get him down, particulalrly in teams bodyguard is fantastic..
one more hyjack.. wtf is up with the Arsonist?
are they going to fix that? does he stay back with the upgrade? 2 attacks and he thinks he'sa tank and gets 1-2shotted lol!
crasy man with fire I tell you!