Returning to the City

So, I have a lot of spare time right now. My department just cut hours for the summer and classes end soon (and no summer school). With the reduction in my other hobbies due to rising travel expenses I wanted to fill some of my time with something. I'd much rather be attending some of the 150th Civil War events, but i digress. I've been here before. Not for long mind you, but still. The mission architect was new (and exploitable). Going Rogue either didn't exist or was very mildly mentioned as a teaser.

The thing that drew me back was the new system and the playability of a Praetorian (did I spell that right... who cares). I'm actually excited to go through a tutorial... imagine that. I'm looking forward to my journey, hope it lasts longer than the last one.

As pumped as I am to start playing, I wanted to take some time and put some thought into my new character. I think thats part of what made it go stale last time. Martial arts scrapper: find enemy, kick enemy, win. I liked the simplicity of it. I didn't have to worry about much. I had plenty of time to look around take in all the scenery and story, but I found myself not caring about that character.

I wanted to put some deep thought into this character and make something I'm going to care about and want to stare at for hours at a time. I'm far from an expert on this and it seems to elude me. How can you make a character that's not just flat and uninteresting. My first foray was very one dimensional. With the new expansion and tutorial I see it as a chance for a new start and get something going I can really get into. Hopefully it's not as cheesy as the prison break...

I'm making it sound like rocket science aren't I? Either I'm making it harder than it actually is, or I need to re-tool my mind.

Now that I've got my rant out of the way I did want to ask one serious question before I wrap it up: Have the power sets been rated on any kind of scale. I'm not worried about power so much as difficulty. There were certain power sets I would not touch just because they were hard for me, and I don't want to spend the time fighting with the game mechanics. I'd rather focus on my character, as a person, rather than an artificial being I spend hours piloting so I can increase the size of the number next to his health bar.

Hmm, let's see if I understand:

1. Scrappers too easy.

2. Want something more challenging.

3. Not too hard though.

As for "care about the character," I think that's up to you. I went through several power sets when I first started until I found a combination of powers and character concept that worked for me.

Personally, I think a controller or a dominator would be good. Not too much "I win", but strong enough win with effort. The new power set Electricity Controll would be fun to try out, it seems debilitating in the right hands.

A mastermind would also be a good choice. Masterminds can be played on easy mode (let the pets do all the work). But they work best when you're actively healing, debuffing, and controlling your pets. The new Demon Summoning, with a Dark Miasma or Thermal secondary (both new or improved recently) seems like a good choice.

Not hard enough... wow. Never thought that might be the problem. You are recommending power sets that weren't there when I played last. Maybe I should go take a look at those. I know dual pistols were all the rage on the forums, and we hadn't even had a taste of them yet.

EDIT: Logging in and looking at the servers. The volume of players must have gone up while I was gone, and here I was thinking the advent of DC Online would stop this. Are there any "guidelines" to picking a server, or is it pretty much up for grabs?

As far as servers go, we aren't far off from being merged with the EU server list so this may change but as of now;

Virtue is still the unofficial RP server, and generally 2nd in population.
Freedom is #1 in population.
All others fall into vague categories like the drunken server, the unofficial Australian server etc.

Electric Control is SICK in the right hands. Dual Pistols on the other hand is rather meh, imo. Unless you have a gun-kata concept character, the jumping and spinning all around animations for DP just ruined it for me.

My suggestion is narrow it down to a certain AT you'd feel comfortable with, maybe even power combo. Then if your still having trouble fleshing out the concept let us know. Most of us can come up with a lasting concept pretty quickly based off powers/costumes.

My preference is Blasters. They come with the damage to kill quick but require tactics and skill to survive. Once you master the subtle variations in powersets, Blasters can be quite survivable. While avoiding the Click, Click. Target, Click Click ad naseuam burnout of scrappers.

Welcome back

"Care about the character," unfortunately, is ... really vague, and up to individual taste.

Some people "care about the character" in terms of going nuts with IO sets and coming up with the "perfect" build - that, also, being a matter of taste. They look at it as a project to squeeze the most of something (defense, best DPS, etc.) out of that character.

Some people "care about the character" by making it an actual *character.* This can be through RP with others, or just internally - you come up with a bio, you make decisions (even if you're not "RPing with a group" or whatnot) depending on what that character would do - would they make it a point to go after, or avoid, certain enemies, even if it's really inconvenient (or suicidal?) Have they got a vendetta?

Some people "care about" getting the most badges, or finding someone else to PVP with.

So - what's going to do it for you? That's something you have to answer for yourself.

Now, admittedly, part of it *is* what you pointed out - finding somethign that's not very challenging. For me, for instance, I almost got turned off of Masterminds because of my first one - a Robotics/Force Field MM. Very thematic for a "autonomous battlefield tactical unit" as that MM was... but boring as *hell* to play, to me. I went to the MM forums, described what was going on (which really boiled down to "I feel like a spectator when playing him,") and they suggested a few sets... which led to my Thugs/Poison, which was a blast getting to 50. It kept me busy with buffs, debuffs, healing my pets and teammates and the like. It was fun. (Still is.)

So, looking at your MA scrapper - what was the secondary? Something "set and forget?" Did you like it, or the scrapper play style otherwise? Then look into another secondary - Regen, for instance, being something you have to keep on top of. Or try them as a Stalker - different playstyle, lower hit points and different things to worry about. (My only 50 stalker is an MA/Regen, btw.)

(Personal preferences tend to lean toward (non-Illusion) Controllers, Dominators and Kheldians.)

See my Guides and Tutorials

Best two off the top of my head for middle ground busy/boring would be;

Fire/Ice Blaster - Best of both worlds. Great AOE damage with the survivability of Ice!

Dark Melee/Regen Scrapper - Regen has a bit of a learning curve, but once you get used to it a regen can do some amazing things. Most of the time you'll not have to worry much about your secondary but from time to time it's a very clicky set. Meaning you won't have a set-and-forget secondary, but still have good defense otherwise.

I got some time off work for the next couple of days. I was going to crank out some Blasters/Defenders/Corruptors. I have limited experience Red side, but since it doesn't make a difference now, why not. Blasters seemed to have peaked my current interest for some reason. I'm trying to find an updated guide on power sets. I'm also going to look into how they differ from a corruptor. All in all, I think this time I might go ranged. It would give me a new outlook on combat, and I'd be squishy, which would add depth to gameplay. I can't just ROFLSMASH my way through things. Now I just need to decide if I want to be a blasting DPS machine or take some support instead. I'm leaning towards support. I do like grouping.

Try a Fire/Dark corruptor. It's fairly simple. You drop debuffs on them then throw fire at them until they stop moving. It has a strong enemy targeted self heal that helps with survivability.

The difficulty would be having no inherent mez protection and playing a AT that has low base HP.

I'm surprised no-one has suggested it yet but I'd suggest creating a range of different characters

Go for your boring scrapper or a fire brute for those days you want to kill lots without needing to think about it.

A corrupter for when you want to play a support toon that is capable of dishing it out - mostly straightforward to play

Also a heavily team oriented defender - you need to think what you are doing here in most cases - very survivable and VERY popular on teams but hard to solo in some cases.

Tank or a tanking brute - needs thought to play well and control the aggro properly

A controller or dominator (or both)- both have lots of control powers but the controller is mostly a support character whilst the dominator is a damage dealer

I'd leave the blaster and stalker a few weeks until you get the others up to about lvl 25-30 and better understand the different mobs characteristics and how to limit the aggro you get - both can be very rewarding but need a bit more thought to avoid dying from the alpha strike.

Play each of them until you get bored with it then switch to a different toon. You'll soon find which you love playing and no doubt find others which you need to be in a particular mood for.


Lastly if you get bored with everything else (so in about 10 or so years ), are masochistic or just want a big challenge try a petless mastermind - just make sure anyone you team with knows what they are getting. I certainly don't recommend this until you have a lot more experience in the game though.