Nighmarisly bad builds: hall of fame.

My first char, an elec/elec blaster. But from what I hear, it's just about any elec/elec blaster.

I think one thing that just about everyone's done when they first get the game is slotting up inherent powers that really, really don't need slots. I have a few specific instances of very poor decisions that I made...

My first Tanker! Second character every, and first without any help from my friend who introduced me to the game. I picked Stone/Stone. At that point I only really played my first character while duoing with my friend, so I tried soloing on my Tanker. So I skimped on primaries, and by the upper teens I had all the attacks I could get, but notably I did not have Rooted. One day I teamed with my friend and fought some Circle of Thorns, and ended up respeccing more or less on the spot. However, that wasn't the end of poor decisions on that character! When I made him, I decided he'd have super speed. So he did. And no other travel power. Yes, I got to level 50 considering myself a serious Tanker whose only option when facing a six-inch-high wall was to turn off Granite and Rooted while I had a full mob's aggro, jump over the wall, and hope I could turn my toggles back on before I was dead. Shortly after I hit 50, I chose a couple powers I would be happy with getting rid of, and got Teleport. I still stubbornly kept Super Speed, though... and after Stamina went inherent, I finally picked up those couple attacks I'd lost back when I got Rooted.

My first Stalker! City of Villains was brand new, and my choice for my first Stalker was Energy/Energy. I was pretty experienced by this point, I thought, but I hadn't played Energy Melee before. So, after looking at the info for the powers I had available, I decided that Energy Transfer was just too risky (keep in mind... this is pre-nerf, when ET was godly.) Because I didn't feel I did enough damage, I picked up Barrage (keep in mind... this is pre-buff, when it did absolutely pitiful damage.) I lost interest in the character around the level 18, and he sat there for about six months while I decided that I just didn't like Stalkers. Then one day, I was talking to a friend who also played an Energy Melee Stalker, and when we got to talking builds, he was appalled... a quick respec later, and my opinion of the entire archetype changed, and after not too long he was 50. Sure, later on they made Energy Transfer a more reasonable power, but to this day that Stalker is one of my favorite characters, but Stalkers are my favorite Villain AT.

Lastly, although this is more of a case of stubborn resistance to change than newbish misguidedness, for a long time after ED... on my Empathy Defender (my first 50, and longtime main character), I kept my heals slotted with six heal enhancements, because I wanted to do as much heal as possible with them. A friend of mine kept needling me about it, saying that I could do more healing if it recharged faster or I had more endurance to work with than the over-cap enhancements would help, but it took a few months before I'd even compromise down to five heal enhancements. (Don't worry, nowadays he is very happy with his Numina and Doctored Wounds sets.)

Randi McMan, the old-school "Iron Man" brawl-only controller, who used no pool powers save Aid Self (only out of combat) and ones that were generally seen as worse than nothing (such as taunts) or teammates only (on a solo character).

Got to either 16 or 20 with her. I don't remember how, or why.

On Monday I got my only truly intentionally gimped character to L36. It's been a slow slog but he's still trundling along.

His build you ask? Pool all the way baby!
I took an MA/SR scrapper with Storm Kick, Cobra Strike, FF and FS until 6th level. After that I took only pool powers (I started this before Inherent Fitness). When IF started I dusted him off and vetspecced him.

His pools now are: Leaping, Fighting, Superspeed, and Leadership. His attack chain is now - Cobra Strike, Storm Kick, Vet SMaul (usually enough for minions), Kick, Jump Kick, Punch, Flurry (ok I don't actually use Flurry because I don't like NPCs laughing at me). He has a grand total of 10 toggles (not counting travel) but I rarely run more than FS, FF, Assault, Acrobatics, CJ, and occassionally the hit buff toggle from Leadership (cant remember the name right now).

The crowning moment of irony is that he will be taking Vengeance at L38, a highly situational power....just like most scrapper secondary Tier 9s (though of course this one is weaksauce in comparison ).

PS: I never intentionally inflict this character on PUGs but have teamed with friends on occasion so they could see this goof in action .

My first character was a Mind/Empathy Controller. I didn't take Fitness. Did I mention this was before Containment? The character still exists on a server I no longer play on. I logged into him a little while back, took one look at his build, and promptly logged him back out. I remember thinking to myself: "No wonder I hated that character."

Burning Chick, one of my very first toons, a week or two after release.

I knew that the Speed Pool was good for fire tankers, but took Flurry instead of Hasten.

Skipped Burn.

No Stamina.

Was late in realizing that Sprint was not a substitute for a travel power.

Shelved until the devs gave out the first free-spec with I3.

OMG, bad.

******* about how bad tankers were compared to defenders, rolled a bubbler.

******* about how FF's Final 3 powers didn't gel with CoH's overall go forth and zerg vibe.



I'm apparently a slow learner since it took me until I4 or so and my dark / dark defender for me to understand CoH and how powers come together.

I can remember my first 'main' who was an AR/Dev blaster.

My main foible on that character was that I had someone gotten the idea that since I was using a gun, endurance wouldn't be an issue. After all I was using ammo, not my own energy right? Thus I never worried about fitness pool or slotted for endurance reduction. Needless to say, this didn't work out all that well.

Once back in the day, I saw a build where a scrapper had taken Jump Kick, Flurry, Punch, and Kick. Not sure about if they were all slotted, but I definately saw them being used. Though I was, in fact, guilty of having flurry myself back when I started, but to take that many power pool attacks, you'd have to be skipping over primary powers.