Building a Character

So this isn't so much a question about how to build a character itself, but rather the theory or know-how or whatnot that goes into character builds. I like this game, and other. I like a lot of things about this genre of games, but the one place there's always been a disconnect is character creation/progression.

I like doing missions (and more recently, dying in PvP). The gameplay and awesome costume creator are what hooked me. Then I hit this annoying thing called a "level up" and I'm stumped on what to do with it. I ran through most of my characters of late and almost all of them are what you'd call "broken," I mean seriously in need of some help.

I've thrown some posts around, but really all it's going to get me is a build I can copy and paste. Does that really help? Now I'm playing someone else's character. The main area I'm probing is "How do these builds happen?" What is the governing theory behind builds. Do I have to be a super math wizard to pull one off? Words like Soft-cap scare on confuse me and I'd be much happier to just hit an "auto" button (I miss my Neverwinter Nights). Call my cynical, or scared.

Hey, maybe I can learn something and actually learn to enjoy this building aspect, but for right now, I'm looking for something basic so I stop breaking my characters. Thank god for respecs! This is why I like Arachnos Soldiers, they're unbreakable up to 23.

invest in Mids Hero Designer, its free, so nto exactly much of an investment per se, but its gold.

Decide as you go into a build if it is to be a "Copy this as I level up" build or a "Change to this once I'm at XX level" build.

If you intend on normal slotting, or even frankenslotting, hop to it.

If you want to use IOs, set yourself a goal, do you want moar recharge, defence (what type?) Accuracy, regeneration, recovery, damage?

Be realistic, with you're budget, if you're unsure as to the price of an IO check in game, theres no point planning a build it will take you a year to afford, you won't have fun aiming for it.

Learn the rules, or atleast, The rule of 5.

erm, dont become addicted to mids at the expense of spending any time actually in game, I'm fairly guilty of that some days.......

Quote:

Originally Posted by VoodooGirl [*]Watching out for the Spinning Disco Portal of D00M!*

1. Get mids It's "cheaper" to play around with builds there than in game.
2. Don't get stuck in the "IOs, Ios, set set set" mindset - you're trying to get a basic grasp of "Why is this character broken?" it sounds like. Ignore IOs (outside of commons) for the moment.
3. Don't sweat about soft caps, hard caps, damage caps, baseball caps and the like. Save those for when you're more comfortable with what you're doing.

Inventions did change a lot in the game - unfortunately, I think we've become overly reliant on them, throwing them into build answers without really explaining why (or how, or how much.) More veteran players had to cut their teeth on "SOs were the best available until you could run Hami raids." Wanted KB protection on your Fire tank? Make friends with a Kinetics character or grab Acrobatics and work in the END cost. Play a blaster? No, you're not getting softcapped defense unless you're teamed with a few bubblers.

Now, you're not saying what characters, what levels or what you think is making them "broken." It's rather hard to make a truly broken, useless character (outside of "h34l0rz" with nothing but the first attack they HAVE to take and brawl. Those are truly useless.)

For more detail, really, you have to go into specifics -
- What AT?
- What powersets?
- What have you picked?
- What's your goal?
- Why do you think this character is "broken?"

See my Guides and Tutorials

Well, when it's time to level up, you can copy the character over to test, pick a power that's available, and play around to see how that power feels with your character. If you like it, take it to live, if you don't, copy your character over again and try with a different power. At the end, pick the power you enjoy most.

At levels where you can't find a power you want to add, take a power that leads to a power that you might want to have.

There is no governing theory behind builds, every person who approaches a power set will have a goal and a way they see to attempt that goal.

One person who wants to get 45% defense to Smashing/Lethal on an Invulnerability character will take Combat Jumping, Maneuvers, and Weave and slot 5 sets of Reactive Armour, 1 Mocking Beratement, 1 Steadfast Protection: Res/Def, and 1 Oblieration. Another will slot 5 sets of Kinetic Combat, 1 Perfect Zinger, 2 Reactive Armour, 1 Steadfast Protection: Res/Def, and 1 Rectified Reticle.

But honestly, it's hard to have a character so broken that they cannot contribute to a team. You can ignore set bonuses and just slot powers to get the most enhancement possible for the power and do well enough.

There are a lot of different philosophies as to what makes a good build or a broken build. But the universal one is making a character that can kill many things before it gets killed.

You also mentioned PvP. A good PvE build might be horrible for PvP and vice versa. Memphis Bill, for example, said that pure "h3a10R" builds are terrible. While I agree with him that an empathy defender with only one attack is sub-par for PvE, that is a standard and desired build for PvP. A PvP emp is not expected to do damage, but IS expected to keep himself and his team alive and able to see through stealth.

You don't necessarily have to copy builds, but you should certainly look at what other people post for the powersets you plan on playing. Look at lots of different ones and see what they have in common. Get Mids Designer and take on of those builds and play around with it. Make changes to powers, slotting, enhancement selection and see how that would change the build.

And finally, there is a world of difference to me between a broken build and a highly optimized build. Some people will tell you unless you have perma-hasten or soft-cap defense or a perfect attack chain with huge DPS that your build is broken. I disagree. There are lots of very playable builds that can solo spawns and help their team steamroll through content

Anyway, good luck and have fun!

I cannot recommend Mids enough. It really is the most useful utility a CoX player can have. If you're unsure of what a power does you can fire up Mids and examine it. It'll tell you everything; damage numbers, activation time, recharge time, endurance cost, it's all there. It can help give you a much better understanding of your chosen powersets.

Another good resource are these very forums. The Guides section can be particularly helpful with regards to powersets, builds and slotting advice.

----- Union's finest underachiever -----
Farewell CITY of HEROES
The First, the Last, the One.
Union: @ominousvoice2059

First thing you should do is check out the old guides which apply to your character's AT and powersets. Those will let you know which powers are mandatory and which can be skipped, and some even go into detail about basic enhancement slotting.

Once you have your optimal powers slotted with the right SO's and/or frankenslotted(using IO's for their enhancement as opposed to set bonuses) you can then start delving into IO sets. The basic rule of IO sets is get as many useful bonuses without losing the basic SO enhancement values.

The first advice I can give you about IO sets is to look around and experiment with Mids, and don't be afraid to ask for critique.

Everyone mentioned MIDs so waste of time telling you that.

I will comment about playing another persons build. The reality is the wheel has been invented no sense of reinventing it. People smarter then me and you already figured out the game mechanics and the optimum builds. So trying to figure them out yourself is really going to cost you game money and wasted time.

You better off investing your time reading about the game mechanics and saving your money for the builds.

What I learned from playing this game is you really, really need a go to character. That character that can run on maximum setting to allow you to get drops and run ticket farms and do whatever you want when you want to do it without a team. This will allow you freedom to make those concept toons involved around the game mechanics for the fun of just seeing how it works.

For many years I made concept toons but was always struggling to make the effective. The minute I gave up some of my "concept" for better playability, it made a world of difference.

For example my niche is the Traps set. I use Traps to allow me to defense cap my toons. Currently I am working on a defense cap petless mastermind. Many would spew venom at me just saying that. But because I have the funds now or ability to obtain those funds I create that build just for the fun of it. To me it's my trash taking toon. That toon I can pull out and solo a 4/8 setting with no pets just to show some other guy who can't do it with a full set of powers.

The issue you will have is players will post builds that seriously have no clue or right posting a build. They will post builds and tell fantastic stories about the build and the build has no defenses, no resistance, no holds, no endurance. But some how they defeated 2 AVs, Hamidon all at the same time with a web grenade and caltrops with a knockdown proc.

This is where learning the game mechanics will help you discern between truth and charlatans.

Here are the links to info that have helped me understand the game mechanics and have made this game fun again for me.

http://dechskaison.blogspot.com/2011...important.html - Read it, reread it, reread it, reread it and keep reading until you understand it.

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Limitshttp:// - Know your limits for your toon. Why have 80 resistance when 75 might be the max.

http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Attack_Mechanics - Understand how similar defenses and hit debuff are and also how different they are as well.

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Ticket_Vendor - Eventually you will saunter into AE

http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Invention_Origin_Enhancement_Sets - Just the IOs all in one place.

I'm going to have to agree with everyone else here it's mids or bust really, it takes some time getting used to but it's worth the time investment imo. Especially since it give you a realtime look at the effects your powers and set benefits have in total on your build(except it still won't tell you how much def the Protectobots give you but that a minor issue for bot's MMs)

All the advice given here is good. My 2 cents: read some of the OLDER powerset guides. Understand, some of the info there is no longer valid, but it will give you an idea of some of the more basic concepts behind the powersets and the way they interact.

Once you can grasp that stuff, other concepts become much easier to understand in terms of the way this game works (as opposed to any other games).

If you are looking for something more basic, here's my rule of thumb for slotting:

1.) You start getting severely diminishing returns when you have 3 SOs slotted (~95%). So don't plan on slotting more than 3 of any one SO in a power.

2.) You'll therefore probably have 3 DAM SOs in your attacks. You'll probably want at least 1 ACC in there, maybe 2 if you are fighting higher level mobs. Long-recharging powers could benefit from some RECH SOs, END heavy ones END reduction.

3.) For armor toggles, this probably means that 1 END/3 DEF/DAM Reduction would be sufficient (depending on what you are getting out of the toggle, you could probably get by on much less . . . I wouldn't 4-slot combat jumping, for example).

4.) There's a pretty big shift around level 22 when you get access to SOs. Before SOs, I usually don't bother to slot damage in attacks, instead emphasizing acc, recharge, or end reduction.

5.) I tend to put the most slots in powers I use a lot. Some powers work fine with just one or two slots.

6.) Other folks have mentioned "frankenslotting" and I am a big fan of it, especially for when you are leveling up. Its slightly more complex than just using SOs, and to do it cheaply involves learning a few of the ins and outs of the market and crafting.

7.) And, as a last note slotting out your character can be expensive. A little time intelligently poking around the market forum can give you some easy tips on how to build a small bankroll so you don't have to worry about expenses.