Im new here..and excited! lol

Ok..my intro is complete..kinda. But anyway, Im new to CoH/CoV, as of this writing i am downloading the latest patch(s), i ordered online and downloaded the Mac Client. But on to my questions..

1. I am coming from WoW ( very bored with that game ) and was always the tank. In every instance i was the tank...i am freaking sick of being the tank...I am looking to be DPS on this game, with at least my first char. Any tips on what sets to use? Im still very noobish..right now as i havent even played the game yet, but i have Paragon wiki pulled and am reading but i would also like to hear some tips straight from u guys who are active right now..so with that said..thanks for your patience and im a fast learner...

If you're playing blueside and looking to be the muscle, Scrappers and Blasters are the most damage-heavy archetypes. I'd recommend going with a scrapper first, as it is the easiest archetype to pick up on while you're getting your feet wet. Blasters are {usually} bigger on the AoE potential, but are also a lot squishier. Of course, with the amount of character slots you have available, you can roll a bunch of characters and try everything out.

Oh, and welcome to City of Heroes - both the game and the forums.

An open letter to NCsoft

Welcome to City of Heroes!

The very first thing I'll say, which will be repeated quite a bit by others, is that you should forget about WoW's Tank/Heal/DPS trinity. Doesn't exist here. Not needed. Silly concept.

Second thing I'll suggest, is joining the Mentor Project. This is a group of veteran players whose only purpose is to assist new (and returning players) in learning the game and answering their questions. There are mentors on every server in the game that will be glad to help you out. Just click on the link in my sig if you'd like to check it out.

Welcome to City of Heroes!

First and foremost, you need to forget everything you know about the holy trinity. Similarly, we don't have "healers." It's almost a curse word around here. There are defenders with heals, but no healers. That's because buffs and debuffs rule this game.

I've done Task Forces (like raids) with a team of all tankers and with a team of all support characters. Both were amazingly fun, but the all tanker team was harder to accomplish.

If you want something DPSish go with a blaster, scrapper, dominator or brute depending on melee/ranged flavor. Pick any primary and any secondary. I mean it. It is very hard to gimp a character in this game.

You may want to check out the Mentor Project. We've got tons of helpful people more than willing to answer any questions you might have.

LOL

A few themes seem to repeat

welcome
role diversification / buff/debuffs > heals
Mentor Project
scrappers, brutes, blasters, doms

Welcome to the game and to the forums!

As others have suggested, a Blaster or a Scrapper might do you well. While the Scrapper is the easiest to learn on, I'm going to take a different tack from the others, and suggest a making a Blaster for your first character. For two reasons:

1) It's the most different from a Tank. Yes, they have melee attacks, but their focus is on ranged damage, as opposed to the Scrapper, whose focus is on melee damage.

2) You can make a TON of different characters here. Don't worry so much if you make 100 characters that never make it past level 10, then you delete them to make another one.

Back before I bought the game, I was looking into all of the powersets and stuff based on their description, and thought that I would love Defenders. After making 7 or 8 of those, a couple of Blasters, and some Controllers that never made it far, I finally create my namesake character, an Ice/Ice Tanker, and I stuck with him until level 50. Never thought I would like Tanking until I tried it.

So feel free to make some of every archetype (AT), and find what you like to play!

Welcome!
Its nice to see new players coming.

here's this from this very morning:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=231907

it may be relevant idk

Welcome Welcome!

In direct answer to your question:

If you are playing blue side (hero) and don't mind playing a squishy, a fire blaster is serious dps. He's a glass canon, like fire flingers in fantasy games, but his defenses get better with time. I've spent a lot of time soloing with my fire/ice blaster.

When picking a character, be aware of the inherent secondary effects of your powers. For example, if you choose an energy blaster he may require a bit more focus at times on directed shots. That's because energy has an inherent knock-back power, which can drive targets away from a cluster around melee teammates. That's not to say its a bad set, quite the contrary, and one of my most popular level 50 characters proves it. It just means you line up a wall-shot to blast targets into a wall, or focus on taking out the opponent's high-dps which is out of melee range. That sort of stuff.

Scrappers are fun. Two of my six Fifties are scrappers. I've not seen a scrapper set yet I didn't like. My personal favorite is Martial Arts, but you may want lots of AoE action, for example, in which case a spines scrapper might be your pick.

And in other news:

• I would add to the other comments on the "trinity" by stating that it can work in the game, its just not required. I've been on lots of teams where there is no tank, for example.
• I should also like to point out that "Pick Up Group" or PUG is a dirty word in some fantasy games. Here, its a good thing. You meet lots of nice players and get to try out a variety of team configurations. Join a few of the global channels players have set up for finding teams. Of course, super groups and villain groups, the "guilds" of our game, as well as coalitions (super groups aligned together) are also great for finding teams.
• Be aware that many types have a growing endurance drain that leaves your character panting alot. Many players opt to take Stamina, which greatly relieves that concern. Stamina is first available at level 20. It has a requirement of 2 selections from its power pool set, so you'll need to pick your first of the two selection by level 16, and your second at level 18, if you wish to aquire stamina by 20.
• Likewise travel powers are first available at 14, but have a single prerequisite from their pool. Those prerequisites are first available with the opening of pool powers at level 6.
• Elsewhere, you've probably had one or two characters and deeply focused on them. Here, we have serious alt-itis. I'd encourage you, as you start out, to deliberately make and break several types. Train them to level 10, which goes pretty fast, and then decide if you like that or not. None of my first characters still exists. They were all experiments that led to the creation of my first great character.

Welcome to the game Vicros.

Welcome

I'd suggest a scrapper for ya!

If you want something a little different go to villain side and try out demon and thug masterminds. Unlike other games these pets stay with you until dismissed (they even zone with you) and they are very entertaining and strong from lvl 12.

Well, the usual forum helpfulness has kicked in, so no need for me to go into detail, since the posters above me have said it all, really.

Still, my 2 inf:

1) Try everything, stick with what you enjoy.

2) Scrapper or Blaster blueside.

3) The journey, not the destination, is important.

4) The "holy trinity" is a myth. A team of all-Defenders can waltz through this game.

Welcome.... Welcome...

Welcome to City of...

I will chime in and echo Scrapper. Loads of fun.

The fact that your first post here mentions Paragonwiki being pulled up and you doing your research, I have no doubt you will catch on very fast.

Welcome Home!

~Shadow

Thanks alot guys or all the input and information. I will really begin tonite.. Im already really liking this community..a much nicer one than the "other" one lol..

A clarification on Stamina: A lot of people build with the assumption that you MUST MUST MUST get Stamina the second it's available, which is level 20. (A lot of people also talk on the forums with the assumptions that you are already level 50, that you have a ridiculous amount of money, etc. )

I would recommend aiming for Stamina between level 20 and level 24. There's a lot of good powers in the teens in most sets, and I'd rather have good powers and an endurance shortage than endurance and nothing to use it on. A lot of potential teammates have powers which increase your endurance recovery some or all of the time.

I try to keep myself to one topic per new kid thread, and I'm going to go through "gear, or what passes for gear".

There are two types of Enhancements: the original path (training, dual-origin, single-origin) and the invention path ("IO's"). For the first 3 years or so there were no IO's. They make the game more complex, which may not be what you need if you're new to it, and they produce improvements (small to large) in performance over SO's, and they can be two to a thousand times more expensive than SO's.

My recommendation for your first character is to go DO's (from level 12 on) and SO's (from 22 on) . It's simple, it works well enough. You need to replace them every 5 levels. I'm going to give you bad advice now, that is "good enough" advice. Sell every piece of salvage at Wentworth's for 1 inf; if it doesn't sell in five minutes take it down and sell it to a store. Sell every recipe at Wentworth's for 1 inf; if it doesn't sell in five minutes take it down and sell it to a store.

This is bad advice because you'll sell almost everything for less than you COULD get for it.

It is good enough advice because the few thing that are worth millions will still sell for millions- they'll just sell for 1.6 instead of 2.1 million, or whatever- and you only need 1 or 2 million inf every 5 levels for new SO's. And it's simple.

The market works by matching highest bid to lowest reserve (so the 1 million inf bid will go to the "for sale, 1 inf or best offer" selling price, then the 500K bid will go to the 5 inf offer) until there are no more matches. At that point every bid is below every offer- sometimes WAY below- but if you put something up for 1 inf you will get the best bid that is sitting around. Lots of people have lots of "lowball" bids sitting around; there are stories of people getting 50-million-inf recipes for 10 THOUSAND. But if you have all the money you need for your lifestyle, who cares that you made someone else rich?

Doubleposting because 10 posts went by before I came back to this window.

The best advice I can give to any new CoX player is this:

Play to have fun

Now, that might seem rather redundant. You're thinking something like "Of course I play games to have fun, why else would I play?". But from my experience, in many MMOs, it is expected that the fun will not come from just playing the game, instead it will come from achieving something, whether it's getting to level 50, or finding the Sword of Awesomeness or whatever. You play the game in order to achieve these things, rather than just playing for the sake of playing.

However, if you come into CoX with this kind of attitude, you're running the risk of being disappointed. I know I was when I first played. I'd come from playing other MMOs (partiuclarly EQ, but I'd tried a fair few later ones like WoW), and I tried to play CoH the same way. I picked a character I quite liked, then tried to get it to 50 as I thought I'd have to in order really experience the game (cos thats what otehr MMOs did). By about level 30, I was bored, and quit the game.

About 6 months later, I came back and tried CoH again. And this time something clicked. It didn't matter whether I had a level 50 or not. Hell, it didn't matter if I never got a character past level 20. What mattered was that jumping into a load of mooks and unleashing my superpowers on them was damn fun.

So, just do what you find fun. As others have said, teaming is pretty freeform, plus on top of this, the game isn't that challenging, so instead of playing a Radiation defender cos they're apparently good on teams at high levels (they are, but that's irrelevant), if what you really want to do is kick people in the face while being on fire, roll up that MA/FA scrapper. Sure, it might not be uber, but if you enjoy it, in the end, that's all that matters.