What do you see the ATs you play as?

In my mind, my Peacebringer stands toe to toe with the strongest beings in the multiverse. A Superman, an Ironman, and a Green Lantern all rolled up in one interesting package. A living generator of cosmic energy, a Star given flesh. Too much energy for any one being to handle, so much energy he built a suit to absorb all the excess he gives off just doing what he does. A soldier in an endless civil war with his peoples darker side. A beacon of hope, a light in the darkness, a HERO through and through.

Course...whats in my mind and what happens in reality are two completely different things unfortunately.

MMs: Field Commanders or rather ascendant entities who divide up their power between themselves and their mooks because that much awesome should never be contained in just 1 being
My experience: lvl 50+3 Bots/Traps/Mu with all VR abilities + lvl 18 Merc/Traps

Scrapper
Melee dmg specialist or think of a Tank with reversed priorities
My experience: lvl 50 Ma/Regen/Dark App + lvl 35 Ma/SR

Brute
The best compromise between Tank and Scrapper, choose this AT over a scrapper whenever your powersets give you the chance to be above 75% res to any dmg type without external buffs and especially if you get a dmg aura secondary
My experience: lvl 42 DB/Fire/Fire(Acceptable in terms of concepts but awful mechanically thx to redraw) + lvl 28 SS/WP

SOA
A little bit of everything
My experience lvl 31 Huntsmen (Wolf/bane)hybrid

Experimenting with
lvl 15 Arch/Kin
lvl 12 Widow
lvl 10 Plant/Ice Assault
lvl 6 KM/Nin Stalker
lvl 4 NB/Nin Stalker


Experimented with
Fire/Fire tank rerolled as the DB/Fire
Stone/Stone tank rerolled as A Dom
Ma/Nin stalker
Nrg/Dev blaster(big mistake in all ways but concept)
Fire/Elec blaster(pretty good for a blaster but I have grown to hate blasters)
and more

It's a funny question (in a good way)...
I find that I don't normally think of the ATs in this way, so much. Mainly because I've found a lot of versatility within ATs and I've never been one to pigeon-hole much anything.

First off, I am a concept creator, role-player and those are main aspects of my enjoyment. The concept and staying true to such things are most important, so we're similar in that regard, I think.

And, while I enjoy just about all ATs that I've tried so far, Blasters are my favorite (although, I'm not sure I like the standard mash'em up AoE damage glass cannon Blaster that many others seem to).

Electric-Knight - Elec/Elec/Elec Blaster (hands-down, my favorite character to play) I can see having some of what I might consider a blanket Blaster AT vibe... The confident (cocky) ace fighter pilot type... Live on the edge, blast the blazes out of the enemies, have no fear because if you pause to fear, you're likely kissing dirt. Failing is generally not an option, but the only way to ensure that is to dive in and take them out as quick as you can, because that's your best bet. Now... with these powers, however, that includes multiple single target HOLDS and multiple target Endurance Drains, so it's not all damage for him. Lots of mini-control. Then he leaps in and uses electrically charged melee attacks and anything and everything at his disposal to wipe them out before they have a chance to recover.
Most (good) fights end with E-K's health bar low... but his opponents defeated.
With a few tricks to spare, when things get too intense (kind of like Dechs mentioned above... I am similar in enjoying a character/powerset that can prevent a team wipe and/or remain standing through anything... "With a Blaster?" you say? Mhmm...) I have EMPulse to stun everyone and buy us time, more endurance draining, holds, purple and green inspirations, nuke(s) and, of course, more damage to prevent team wipes and outlast any and all encounters.

Sorry, I may have digressed there as I love talking about playing that character...

So, that's one Blaster (and my desire to live through all encounters and hopefully help the team is a desire a carry through all my characters, as a player), but another favorite Blaster of mine is The Loyal Guardian.

The character concept was clear. I needed a somewhat traditional super hero who could fly in and save the day, no matter the odds.
He's really big, super strong, comes from another planet and has very powerful cosmic powers along with his immense strength and durability.
A Tank, to me, is often a character who puts others above himself and does whatever he can to shield them by taking the brunt of attacks.
However, I couldn't get the cosmic feel that I wanted with a Tank (I wanted ranged attacks and some psychic type of abilities that extended beyond himself... and laser eye beam close to level 50 wasn't good enough).
Defenders and Controllers didn't feel right either... He needed to be in the thick of things and seem tough...
Blaster? Blasters... tough??
Mind/Energy Blaster, focused heavily on the Energy Melee attacks worked out fantastically.
He wipes out the enemies without any notice that he's got very little defense and hitpoints. And the energy melee attacks are some of the best at showing off immense strength, with all of that knockback and such.
Telekinetic Blast, some cosmic/mental powers, plus Tough, Weave and the Force Master Epic Powers (Temp. Invulnerability and Force Of Nature for the toughness and Personal Force Field plus Repulsion bomb) all add more of that ooh nifty cosmic power alien super hero guy feel that Blaster seemed to be the best suited for.

I hope that long read actually translated a bit of what you were asking... I figured you may enjoy pulling it out of all I had to say about those specific examples.


I think the game is so diverse, even within ATs, that I don't find myself thinking of ATs as set... arch types... haha, at least not conceptually so. Playing-wise... yeah, I know that, as a blaster, I need to focus on taking them out before they take me out with a lot more urgency than when I am on other ATs.


I was going to say more about other ATs and other concepts, but I'll spare you all the scrolling for now!

EDIT: Meant to say... I do see further/future proliferation possibly tripping me up in regards to basing things around concept. It just hasn't yet for me.
The more things are ported across, the more the decision may come down to which AT works better... I just can't think of any examples of that for me... not yet.
Also... on reading through this after posting... was not long at all. Now it's a tiny bit longer... and even more so now... annnnnd....... :P

Sam, I apologize for this slight derail ahead of time, but I have to make a comment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Electric-Knight (kind of like Dechs mentioned above... I am similar in enjoying a character/powerset that can prevent a team wipe and/or remain standing through anything... "With a Blaster?" you say? Mhmm...)

I've seen this guy play, he's not kidding. Even on SOs (as I'm pretty sure that's all he puts in his characters), EK is living proof that there is more to survival than the softcap and hitpoints. Active mitigation and quick thinking can survive just about any onslaught.

I started out with Scrappers and Masterminds but now have at least one of almost every AT (I don't own a PB and at present I don't have a Dominator).

For a long time I was into support toons.. Defenders and then Controllers but after avoidiing them for a very long time I'd have to say I really enjoy playing my Blasters. I must when you consider I have 8 incarnate toons that have at least a tier 3 slotted in all five powers and three of those are Blasters. LOL It gets worse.. My Crab Spider, that is my main toon and my badger, is pretty much set up as a Blaster and a mini Master mind (with 4 different pets including the one's from Lore). And of course I have an MM with bots that primarily is a debuffer but also has al of her ranged attacks.... BASICALLY if we team together I'm the one behind you doing a tremendous amount of damage.

I really only have one melee toon that's incarnate... my SD/SS tank. While I started with scrappers I think over the years I have just gotten tired of having to be able to maneuver myself into position to do any damage.. much faster and easier to aim and fire away. My 50 (+3) Widow would be the exception to that with a load of melee attacks but even she has 3 (now 4 with judgement) ranged attacks she can use if she can't get in close quickly.

My support toons have changed as well. I used to be mainly a buffer/healer.. with several Emps (both defenders and controllers) but now find myself much more partial to debuffers... Rad/Rad, Plant/Rad, and even my MM is Dark Miasma. I think the main reason for that is while buffs and heals are good with a lot of the power sets the buffs affect everyone except me so I was the one constantly being held, immobbed, or killed. Debuffing makes anything I attack, even when soloing, easier to defeat so its become a favorite.

I look at powers and think of how each one plays - then I run an alt up to see if it actually does what I want it to.

I try to break the game or to play in a manner not considered.

Turn a Fire/Dark corruptor into a tank and take Provoke using all of the -to hits as armor.

Take an Ice/Storm controller and while never doing any damage solo - I can stop everything in sight.

Take blasters and ignore all armor or status effects, ignore all deaths and become a pure killing machine that goes - BOOM - and as the smoke clears I decide if I need to hit Rise to Battle. Take IO's that boost recharge and damage and live like a true glass cannon - who needs defense - I have 8 break frees, 4 awakens and the rest all reds. My team can heal me - I am killing stuff.

Use Electric Controllers to herd, drain and sleep multiple groups so my team can slaughter them and listen to the lamentations of their women.

Stalkers/Corruptors: Weirdly enough, these ATs occupy the same little niche in my mind. These are my go-to classes for 'Natural' style characters. These guys don't have the raw power to win through overwhelming force. They can't overcome their direct competitors that way - they have to use guile to win. Their style is about controlling their opponents, creating the perfect circumstances to set up the victory. They fight smarter, not harder. I use these ATs most often for cunning fighters that have no superpowers, or for characters whose powers aren't enough by themselves to win.

I realize that these ATs aren't conceptually limited to this, but it's how I most often use them in my own stable.

Brutes: Demigods. If I want to make a character whose power level is over the top, the sort that can go toe-to-toe with the most badass enemies the game can throw at me, a Brute is my first stop. They can be both immortal and dangerous at the same time. Other ATs can reach this point, too, but Brutes are the easiest to build with this goal in mind. So, if I want to make a character who I see as being powerful enough to go blow-for-blow with Marauder, Statesman and the like, I'll pick Brute at creation.

Dominators: I use these for characters that might be able to pass as Blasters, except they have much greater control over the element they're manipulating and can use their fire, ice, energy, etc. to do much more than blast things. Blasters have intensity, but these guys have variety.

As I remind many PUGs I join, I occasionally forget that I'm not playing a Scrapper...

Scrapper: Default
Blaster: Scrapper
Defender: Scrapper
Controller: Slow Scrapper
Tanker: Slow Scrapper

Brute: Scrapper
Corruptor: Scrapper
MM: "Fetch me some XP, boy"
Stalker: LOL
Dominator: I have no idea, never got the hang of them.

I kind of envy people who are really story-focused. I find that I only come up with stories after the fact, but my friends who work on it from the start come up with some awesome stuff. They'll say that they have a character idea, but need to think of what powersets to use. I'll have a powerset combo that I want to try, but I can't think of a good story for it. I think I can get there, when it comes to a good backstory, but it takes me a lot longer.

Let's see if I can't give a better answer for the archetypes...

Blasters: Obviously, their powers are in the form of blasts of some kind. My blasters tend to have less complicated origins for their powers... usually the secondary attacks are just using the primary attacks in a slightly different way. One specific subversion of that is my Energy/Devices Blaster, who is young and inexperienced, so he uses some unrelated tech to help him be effective. Overall, they usually have an uncomplicated view of their abilities: "Hey, I can shoot energy blasts! Cool! I'll go do that!" They are all about charging in and going nuts.

Controllers: Most of my controllers have had their abilities their whole lives, and are very comfortable with the subtleties therein. They're very focused on mastering their special niche. The few that gained their abilities later in life did so by training very hard, for a long time. Overall, they're not so much people who can exert control on other people, as much as they have incredibly control over a certain element or such.

Defenders: I have a very hard time getting over the whole heroic helper kind of ideal for Defenders. Almost all of mine are good people, who selflessly run out to help others, even if they alone might not be able to stand toe-to-toe with the enemies they face. Usually, most of the depth that I put into my Defenders' backstories comes from how they found themselves motivated to do such deeds. (Notable expection to all the of the above: my Traps Defender, who will be a villain, is pretty much just a crazy terrorist. So... yeah.)

Kheldians: By chance, my Kheldians all have rather silly backstories, so there's no too much depth there for me. They mostly are still trying to figure out how to be an entity with two parts. I've tried mixing it up by having a Warshade mostly motivated by profit and revenge, a Peacebringer who melded with a robot, and is struggling to make that unconventional mix work somehow, and possibly a crazed religious zealot who thinks he's the chosen one.

Scrappers: Primarily, my Scrappers are pretty uncomplicated. They may or may not have some sort of superhuman ability, and decide to fight with some sort of weapon or ability. Why they choose to fight runs the whole spectrum of hero to villain, but no matter where they fall, they simply choose to fight in the most obvious way they see.

Tankers: My Tankers are weighted down either by some sense of responsibility to help others, or an arrogance that they are more important. It doesn't seem like those goals would work in at all the same way... but the more heroic ideal is trying to gain attention in battle to assist weaker allies, while the more villainous ideal wants the attention because he feels he deserves it. Either way, they feel they should do more in a battle than simply fight. The majority of my Tankers have superhuman abilities to allow them to sustain the incoming damage, but there are a few that are human but just crazy tough.

Soldiers of Arachnos: Well, the story's rather tightly written already... a member of Arachnos who rebels for their own glory. I try to make my characters different by giving them various motivations for why they joined Arachnos in the first place. Some are in it for the standard lust for power, but some just happened to live in the Rogue Isles and despite the EXTREMELY deep flaws in their government, want to assist because of a sense of patriotism. (Not unlike some of my Praetorian Loyalists.)

Brutes: It occurs to me that I really have defined Brutes for myself mostly based on the fact that they're mostly villains. They tend to be the tougher, heavier fighters... somewhere between the simple fighters of Scrappers and the center-of-battle attitude of Tankers. They don't care so much that everyone is looking at them, as much as they are entirely confident that they can take whoever is fighting them right now. Because I mostly have villainous Brutes, they're mostly motivated by power or greed... the few heroic Brutes that I have don't really have any gut feeling that separates them from Scrappers or Tankers. In the future, where the only difference is playstyle, I'll probably defer to making a Scrapper or Tanker over a Brute simply because I enjoy the way they play more.

Corruptors: I find Corruptors to be much more cautious and precise than Blasters... more of a hidden sniper or combat medic/engineer than simply a guy who runs up and lets loose with damage. On the border between Corruptors and Defenders, I find that even when they're heroes, my Corruptors seem more focused on themselves than others. They'll make sure that they're okay first, before assisting any allies. To put it in a negative light, a lot of my Corruptors are pretty cowardly.

Dominators: Much more manipulative than Controllers. I'm more inclined to feel that my Dominators' abilities are based around controlling other people than simply mastery of elements, but there are some more focused on the latter, so there is some overlap. I tend to have character who are less adept at using their powers than Controllers, but more ruthless in using them in unusual ways to win.

Masterminds: Rather simple. They either control a squad of minions or they lead a team of allies, or something in-between. Most common motivations are greed, power, duty, crazed mad scientist style WORLD DOMINATION BWAHAHAhahahacough-hack-cough... or even a simpler self-preservation.

Stalkers: My Stalkers are motivated to get what they want, and no matter how prepared you are for them, you will not be able to stop them. Greed's the most obvious motivator, but I also have some duty-bound black ops types, and some looking for revenge. They will sneak in to your most guarded areas, but once they're there they will not shy away from a fight. Some even prefer fighting their way through, even if they could sneak past. They won't be stopped either way.

I hope that is more the response the OP was looking for.

Please forgive me for picking and choosing the ATs I speak about, but I try to stick to the ones I play, like and have some experience with.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patteroast Stalkers: My Stalkers are motivated to get what they want, and no matter how prepared you are for them, you will not be able to stop them. Greed's the most obvious motivator, but I also have some duty-bound black ops types, and some looking for revenge. They will sneak in to your most guarded areas, but once they're there they will not shy away from a fight. Some even prefer fighting their way through, even if they could sneak past. They won't be stopped either way.

Interestingly, I think I have only a single Stalker out of about half a dozen who's motivated by greed... And she's a hero In her case, I wrote her sort of like a mercenary with a heart of gold, or an unwilling hero of sorts. She's always after the money, but all too often she'll abandon her profits to save people in peril, and then as everyone's celebrating good's triumph over evil, she'll be lamenting about "All that money... Gone..." It's less of a FLAWED hero design since I've never actually had her do evil for greed, but more of a... Cheeky hero, let's say. "Whaaat? He's been dead for 1000 years. He won't miss that solid gold sceptre."

In general, my Stalker heroes tend to be a bit less straightforward than pretty much all my other heroes, as they tend to be motivated by darker desires, even if they're still driven by a pure and honest heart. In addition to my mercenary alien, I have an anthropomorphic cat who has a SERIOUS grudge against mages of all kinds and has essentially pledged her life to killing them whenever they cross the line into evil. She's still a good person and still saves people, but her mission in life is less to save and more to kill. Another is lizard lady in a similar position, having survived horrible genetic experimentation and found herself angry at the world at large. Her story is a constant quest for balance and a way to harness this anger and evil for good.

I honestly don't know why I keep writing Stalkers like this. In a way, my mind defaults to characters who fight ordinary fights, so for one to be skulking around and not attacking openly, there has to be some kind of reason. And since I don't want to admit that this reason is the character's just weaker, I come up with a storyline example of why the character's not interested in picking fights so much as winning them

And, yes, that's the kind of response I wanted. Thank you

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Let's put it this way, there's a wall

Stalker phases through the wall
Scrapper quickly jumps over it in 2 bounds
Brute charges through the wall
Blaster blows the wall up, and walks through the debris
Dominator grabs something near by and uses it to carry himself over (like a jet-board or whatever)
Mastermind has his minions carry him over
Defender beats the wall, heals themselves, beats it more, then politely asks the brute (who's spitting out brick from his teeth) to knock over the wall, and gives him a boostie to make it go faster.
Controller disassembles the wall with his mind, walks through, and reassembles it
Tanker slowly climbs over the wall, ending by falling off the top, then he punches a random hellion who got to close
Soldiers of Arachnos "borrow" an arachnos flyier to get around the wall
Corruptors blow up the wall, then apologize for their action

Donno about kheldians. They'd probably laugh, then fly over it, burrow under it, and phase through it, just to see the looks on bystanders faces.

There are ATs other than brutes?

Oh, wow...