New with a couple questions...

For any that are already saying TLDR: New guy... still pretty unfamiliar with a good portion of the game... any tips are helpful

That could likely be seen as stupid. I've played for collectively three months and I still feel like there are quite a few things I'm not really comfortable with for whatever reason.

I played WoW for 4 years or so but before anyone decides to point it out, I do understand that this is an entirely different game which is one of the reasons I've come to love it. I really wish I'd given the game more of a chance whenever I first tried it but I had already been sucked into WoW. Anyway, there are a few things I'm still trying to adjust to.

First, I'm working on a defender and before I join a team and get us killed I want to make sure I have a good handle on things. One of the things I got accustomed to in WoW were mouseover macros. Basically all of my healing or support spells were set up to where I could move my cursor over the person I wanted to buff/heal hit the button and the spell would cast allowing me to keep my main target as whatever we were killing at the time. If this is not possible can anyone suggest a viable alternative?

Secondly, as far as enhancements, outside of the basic "woohoo they boost my stuffs!" I'm not sure I understand all of the mechanics around them. Any information here is going to be more than I already have. I've tried to read up on single origin etc... but honestly I feel like it's way over my head.

Lastly, I've finally come to the realization that this game is not a rush to the level cap to get to endgame and while I do think it's awesome this does raise two other questions for me. What does endgame consist of? I'm not asking if it's fun, I'm sure most think it is or the game wouldn't be successful. Also, while again I realize it's not a rush to the lvl cap I've seen people talking about farming toons...is there an advantage to taking a toon to 50 ASAP for that purpose? If so what is everyone's opinion on the best AT/build for it?

Ok... I didn't plan on this being as long as it is. If you've read all this, thank you!

I don't have all the answers but I'll give you what I got.

First one of the best information sites we have is paragonwiki which you will want to make use of in addition to the forums.
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Main_Page

It has links to the other awesome sites under Titan network and Utilities so it makes a nice one stop beginning location for things.

I am sure some of our bind/macro kings have developed binds to help speed the buffing of teammates but I don't think you can work it with mouseovers.

A short comment on enhancements. All enhancements serve the same purpose to boost your performance (usually of just the power they are slotted into).

There are training origins which you can slot if they drop but are never worth buying. Dual origins require you have at least one of the two origins and single origins have to be the same origin as your character. All 3 of these types degrade and expire as you level but you can combine them to keep them going. Check out enhancements on paragonwiki for more on that.

Then we have our invention enhancements. Then never degrade or expire and with set bonuses and special ones you can boost your performance beyond just the power they are in.

As far as rushing to 50. I don't see any advantage in doing that until you get to the point where you know the base game and are bored with it. Yes, a 50 hero unlocks Kheldians and a 50 villain unlocks Soldiers of Arachnos but that is it. The only reason to have a farming character is if you want to farm for drops at level 50 but there are plenty of methods to get invention drops outside of that (excluding the PvP and level 50 purple recipes) like merits and AE tickets.

I'd say take your time and get to know the game. You can always rush it later.

1) About the healing mousover thing. There is no way to 'target' just by mousing over in COH. However, you could do what I do whenever I play defenders is target through people. All you have to do is click on the team mates name in the team window and you can immediately attack the target he is targeting.

2). Not much I can say about enhancements besides get out there and try them out. For the beginning of your hero career, just focus on using SOs. Those will get you through any part of the game. Read the guides section for more info on the stuff =)

3). A great resource I used to learn more about the game is ZombieMan's Guide to Guides
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=122411
This is jam-packed with useful information. Granted, a lot of the builds and powers guides are well outdated now, it still is helpful to learn how the game works.

4) As for a Farming AT/build. Can't really go wrong with a Fire/Kin. My experience with them is, you feel like crap until you get stamina, then you just feel crappy.... then you finally get Transference at 35 and you start feeling at least slightly useful. Fulcrum Shift makes you happy, and when you finally hit 50, you are a power house. Note: Fire/Kins have great AoE potential against certain mobs. But if you walk outside of your farming environment, you suck.... (In my own experience)

I first started casually farming on an Ice/SS tank... so I would imagine that any scrapper or tank worth the bits they are stored in can farm to some degree.

Thank all of you very much! The one thing about this game that I find most impressive has nothing to do with the game but the community. I'm sure the game has it's share but I have yet to see the random argument over one of the chat channels or someone getting into a flame war on the forums. In fact the one "argument" I've seen over the forums was one of the most civil disagreements I've ever read/heard.

A wonderful resource on how the game works is ParagonWiki. Like many wikis, it's a player maintained site, so while I find most of its main-stream information to be excellent, be aware that the information on it may be incomplete, out of date, or in error.

Here is a page from that site on Invention Origin Enhancements, the more complex but also more powerful enhancements for your powers. Near the top are links to the more basic enhancement types.

Another program for your character building enjoyment is the very excellent Mids' Hero Designer. There's very little Mids' planner doesn't do. Unfortunately that makes it kind of complicated. However, it's quite fantastic for exploring tweaks to and variations on your characters. Some folks spend more time fooling with Mids' than they do playing.

Finally, all these resources are likely to spawn more questions. There are lots of helpful people around, so don't be shy about asking more questions.

There's not end game content here so much as there are in some other games. That's actually one reason people are often relaxed about the leveling. There are some fairly challenging Task Forces (or Strike Forces for villains) and a couple of raiding activities that call for 45+ characters (and for which being 50 is much better). They are Hamidon raids, where 35-50 people take on a giant multi-part foe, and Rikti ship raids, where a mass of players fight with level-capped (level 54) dimensional invaders on top of a crashed ship. Of the two, Hamidon has more concrete rewards, giving either special enhancers or a fair chunk of Reward Merits, while the ship raid only offers Vanguard Merits which can be spent on less "loot-like" things. The organization required for Hamidon is much higher compared to a ship raid, however.

I should also mention that my gaming experience increased dramatically for the better when I joined a good Super Group. And it grew even more when I joined the global channel Triumph Watch.

So I would suggest finding a supportive and active SG, and find your servers global channel that does broadcasts raids and tfs and the like.

It's good to have at least one level 50 character. It unlocks the Epic Archetype and becomes the 'sugar daddy' for your other alts (alternative characters).

Here are things that can keep a level 50 occupied: paragonwiki.com/wiki/Level_50_Hero_Content

I still play my main level 50s regularly.

Rather than muddying up the forums anymore with another thread, I do have another question.

Regarding the difficulty lvl change that came with I16 how does it work? For example if I want to solo my missions as if I'm in a duo does it increase the lvl of the mobs the number of them or both? Is it safe to assume then also that it increases the xp as well?

Mouseover doesn't work in this game.

However, for easy buffing, here's my bind setup:

I use numpad1-8 to select each teammate (I use numpad9 to do a general "friendly" targetting for non-teammates or for pets, etc). Then I use all the outer numpad keys bound to a specific buff.

So to buff teammate #1, I just hit numpad1 and then whichever buff I want to place.

---

/bind numpad1 team_select 1
/bind numpad2 team_select 2
/bind numpad3 team_select 3
/bind numpad4 team_select 4
/bind numpad5 team_select 5
/bind numpad6 team_select 6
/bind numpad7 team_select 7
/bind numpad8 team_select 8
/bind numpad9 target_custom_next friend alive notteammate

/bind numpad0 powexec_name "(BuffName1)"
/bind decimal powexec_name "(BuffName2)"
/bind numpadenter powexec_name "(BuffName3)"
/bind add powexec_name "(BuffName4)"
/bind subtract powexec_name "(BuffName5)"
/bind multiply powexec_name "(BuffName6)"
/bind divide powexec_name "(BuffName7)"

(for most toons this is more than enough and I often use divide,multiply,subtract to activate the veteran reward attack powers)

I keep this basic setup in a bind file, make the buffname replacements as needed and just do a /bind_load_file c:\cohbinds\teambuff.txt on each new character.

Thanks Soulwind, I'll have to try that out... I've actually been binding all my powers to my numpad for my blaster which means I'll have to rethink everything for a defender or just get used to different keybindings.

Edit: DER I can always use ALT and CTRL

Also to add:

Supersidekicking!

When on a team, when a mission is selected, everyone on the team is either boosted up to the mission owner's level -1, or exemplared down to the mission owner's level. So, when forming a team, the level range is much less important.

(Task Forces and trials work slightly differently, but we'll get to that later)

Please note that everyone can still get xp.

For example, my team is consists of a level 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50.

The team leader selects a mission held by the level 30 player.

The level 10 and 20 are "sidekicked" to level 29. They don't get new powers, or enhancement slots, and their enhancements probably aren't as good as a level 30, but they can contribute to success.

The level 40 and 50 are "exemplared" to level 30. They have powers they had at mission holder's level +5, or 35 in this case.

This is a great feature, as it allows you to easily build teams of very different levels, and everyone gets rewarded. Sometimes, higher level people don't like to exemplar down as they lose powers, and chances at higher level drops.

Everybody gets xp, except the level 50, who is level-capped. If exemplared, you have the option to not gain xp, but instead gain double influence. You can also shut off xp gain completely, if there is content you don't want to outlevel, or for any other reason you like. (yeah, levellling is that easy, and there is so much to see!)

Levels happen. Play the game, have fun!

Normally I try to keep myself to one answer per new guy, because I can't shut up. I'm going for two here: Enhancements and "the defender's job".

The "max of 3" guideline for enhancements is to avoid fairly simple math. It works fine as long as you're using single-origin enhancements or "generic IOs". The rule is pretty much "three SO's gets you to the softcap." Which is a little under the three-SO value, so 95% for most things and 56% for a few (range, dam resistance and defense.) If you want to do more complex stuff with IO's, ask and I'll probably not shut up for six paragraphs.

Small history note: we have two overlapping systems of enhancements, really. Training/dual origin/single origin was the only system for the first few years; then we added the Invention system, which can do everything the original system can do and a lot more. It is also much more complex. Don't worry about the invention system unless 1) you're comfortable enough with the rest of the game to learn new stuff and
2) You want to do more with your character for whatever reason (I MUST KICK TAIL or I WANT TO STOP DYING SO MUCH or WHY CAN HE DO THAT AND I CAN'T or I'M BORED or whatever.)

The defender's job: As I understand it, in WoW there's this sort of wack-a-mole game with other players' health bars. You're playing on reflexes and twitch speed. It allegedly looks something like this. Or this.

In this game, and you have to understand this, YOU do not kill THEM. THEY kill THEMSELVES. You have a variety of tools to make their lives easier, but defender guilt is for other games.

Buffs and debuffs are tremendously powerful in this game. I remember people talking about their Dark Defenders, and people asking what a DD is good for. The answer is "reading a newspaper in the middle of fifteen orange guys trying to kill you." You can get about a paragraph in before they hit you. To put this in Empath-specific terms: Fortitude means that your teammate gets hit, very roughly, about half as much. All by itself. Regeneration Aura means that everyone with range when you cast it heals THEMSELVES, with no work on your part, for an entire health bar in about 24 seconds. Adrenaline Boost means you've created a monster. There are occasional points when, yes, you will heal people. But mostly, from level 25 on, your team should be tough enough that you're doing mostly tuneups and not so much body work. "Who has the aggro" and questions like that are also less relevant in this environment.

Tanks in this game are ten times as tough as blasters. You will rarely need to watch the tank carefully. Watch the blasters. Watch them CLOSELY.