Concept vs. Powers - What comes first?

Maybe this isn't the appropriate section of the forums - I don't know.

But my question needs some explaining.

When I make a character, one of two things happen. One, I come up with a powerset combo, or two, I come up with a character.

For instance, my Broadsword/Fire Armor Scrapper, named Demon Lord Katsu, stemmed from my want of something that has to do with fire, swords, and villainy. The concept came quickly after, due to being interested in demons and stuff at the time*. I find that a lot of my characters can come from a want to try something new, but my hyperactive imagination allows me to come up with a character and a backstory nearly instantly after picking my powers.

On the other hand, I can come up with a character and never know what powers said character will use.

So, what comes first for you?

*-Not a demon-worshipper of any kind.

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@Leetdeth - Virtue | MA Arcs(all challenge arcs): Big Magic Blowout! #369774 | Who Really Cares About This? Z! #509577 | That Meddling King! (teams recommended) #21450

Kinda varies. Some of my characters have been a concept that the power sets allowed for and just fit right. Others were trying different ATs and power sets and building a concept from what sounded appealing at the type. To that end, some of them have turned out nicely, others, not so much.

Like I really love my ill/rad controller werewolf illusionist mage, and there are a lot of goodies that fit into the concept well. It was a concept first and the powers fit together for it just right.

But I'm not so keen on my dual blade/invulnerability femme fatale mutant. The concept is sound, just not thrilled with the execution thus far, and likely to delete and reroll because I find myself letting her go longer and longer unused. She was an example of something where I looked at scrappers, looked at sets, then kind of threw stuff together til I was satisfied.

Conversely, I did the above with a plant/fire bird mage and I'm really enjoying the concept that I've developed from just experimentally trying out a plant/fire dom.

So, it just kinda varies. I've had a bit more success with taking a concept first and trying to fit powers to it, but I've still come up with some good & fun stuff taking power sets first and developing a concept out of them.

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Can go either way. Sometimes I have a concept in mind and I pick powers that fit it. Sometimes I want to play with a power set and the character is built for that. (Thus my Axe brute, "Let's Go Chopping")

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Concept ALWAYS comes first for me... my Time/Sonic defender doesn't have Shout for the sole reason of its lacking a hands-emission-point customization option.


Also, the entire Gravity powerset. I have three characters with it.

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I've always found it easier to fit powers to a concept rather than try to shape a concept around powers. That said, my one and only 50 is a Bots/Traps MM that I shaped a concept around. So, it's not exactly foolproof. What's really funny for me is how few of my concepts actually make it into the game intact. I'm currently playing a Fire/Fire Brute named Dragonflame who is a dragon girl who uses the insect wings. What's amusing to me about this is that in my head she was an Asian Fire/Fire Blaster named Firefly. The only thing that survived from my imagination through the character creator was the Martial Arts robe she's wearing and the insect wings.

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your = Belonging to you.
you're = Contraction meaning "You are."
Ur = The name of an ancient Mesopotamian city.
ur = This is not a word.

I have some characters which are characters first, then I pick powers to suit the character's personality. That's the reason Major Decoy (my Invulnerability/Super Strength Tanker) doesn't have Rage.

Some characters are metagame concepts. I've got Tanks that don't have toggles, one Invulnerability/Ice Melee, one Super Reflexes/Martial Arts.

But I'd say most of my characters start as picking power sets I'd like to play, and they develop personalities as I play them.

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Depends. Some characters I know the powerset combination I want to play so I write a story around that. Others a concept or costume or whatever strikes my fancy and I'll pick powersets that make sense.

Neither come first IMO, because they aren't ever mutually exclusive for me. Some folks have these extremely narrow concept which don't permit this or that power. I don't do that. The powers are part of the story of the character.

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The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.

For me, it's always and only ever concept that comes first. I've tried creating characters where the powers came first and I wrapped a character around them. Almost all of those have been deleted or rerolled as something else. I've tried creating characters where their costume came first and I extrapolated off there, and almost all of THOSE have been deleted or rerolled, as well.

For me, if a character has no appreciable story that I can get behind, then I play the character for a while until I get bored and never go back again. When I need another free slot, I just delete the character and start over. If it doesn't have a solid concept, it ain't worth crap to me, and if I didn't start with a concept, what I come up with after the fact probably ain't worth much, anyway.

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Wipe those tears from your eyes post coming!

After many years playing this game i have tried my best NOT to get into the hole looking at the numbers a powerset does when i create a character, but more look at how fun it'ld be.
For the last few weeks now i've been trying to create multiple characters [with some quite good concepts i might add] but after chosing the powersets/creating the costume, i always end up deleting because i keep thinking "hmm those numbers dont look that impressive".

Its a sad story [to myself anyway] and one i am trying to get out of, for example i want to create an arch/trick arrow corruptor and for some strange reason i have it in my head that those two arent that good. Now i know for a FACT that TA has some amazing powers [glue arrow, love that power when its used right!] but something in the back of my mind is always telling me to pick something better.

Pistols being another example, i love the animations of that set and have a great character in mind for it. However when i look at the numbers? I cant help but think i aint impressed and character gets deleted

Now on the other side of the scale i made a war mace/shield scrapper on freedom the other day because of the impressive numbers, didnt have much of a concept and thus its one of the most boring characters i've ever played low level [and i love low level content!].

So to answer your question, i dont know I want to put concept first but its hard for me!

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@Damz Find me on the global channel Union Chat. One of the best "chat channels" ingame!

For a character I love, concept *always* comes first ... and sometimes it leads to some terrible builds. However, we have access to one extra build (or two if you're an Incarnate).

With a second build, I usually make a team-friendly version for Pick-Up Groups and difficult task forces where power selection matters. I use basic IOs on these builds, SOs on a few.

On my Incarnates, I manage the third build as an "Incarnate Build", so I can still go back and play my "original" non-godly character when I want.

With extra builds (and some extra influence for SOs/IOs) no one should have to choose between concept over effectiveness.

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American Dawg, Starblaze, Neanderthal Joe, Shining Dawn, Tokamak Dragon, Stinger Incarnate, Burning Tyger, Dover Tornado, Big Roach, Dark Paladin, Archmage Wylde, Kings Row Hornet, Prancing Deer
Avogadro, Science Lord
Edgar Nightcraft, Doc Cicada, Chupa Macabre, Dr Forchtenstein, Blood Shrew

Every once in a while, a powerset combo will spark an idea, but otherwise it's always concept first for me.

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Where to now?
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It's perhaps close to 50/50 for me - some of my characters started as concept, some as powerset combos, and a few as both simultaneously. If anything, it's slightly shaded toward powersets, as it's almost *always* performance dictating power choices rather than concept (i.e. I don't allow concepts to get extreme enough to dictate skipping important powers).

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@MuonNeutrino
Student, Gamer, Altaholic, and future Astronomer.

This is what it means to be a tank!

Concept is King, but when the new sets come out I can always work up a concept on the fly.

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Agua Man lvl 48 Water/Electric Blaster


"To die hating NCSoft for shutting down City of Heroes, that was Freedom."

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In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

An artist is creative enough to make any method work...although I've yet to make every method work.

I'd like to say concept and powers must converge to make a successful character and if either comes first is irrelevant. I say converge because I tend to come up with both at the same time *then* go to make the character. Rarely do I come up with a powers combo then make a concept around that (although I have) and rarely do I make a character concept without actually thinking of what type of abilities said character has (hmmm, nope, never did this).

When I first started playing CoV, I wanted to make a Plant character and thematically gravitated toward Thorns. So I was making a costume for a Plant/Thorn dom and really took a liking to him so formed a concept and backstory. He's actually one of the antagonists of the only published AE arc I have, he favors the devouring earth, he's got a sister who's trying to kill him who happens to be one of my top incarnated characters and the strongest foe in my gallery...he just spiraled into a lot of other things, seamlessly with all my other characters.

But my main character, back when I first started making characters in the game, I made to RP with. The concept being he's a teen with no powers, just able to learn really fast and trained since he was a toddler so now he's pretty much a Bad *** Normal. Name, look, backstory and all along with his powers being "non-powered Bad *** Normal". For secondary, this was easy: Super Reflexes. For primaries, I had to make a decision so...I picked everything that was normal. He can fist fight (Martial Arts) and he can use swords (Katana) but I ended up focusing on him being the swordsman. Bam, Kat/SR is my main. RPing with him, he developed a personality and a certain way he talked, mentors, enemies, friends and so on. This all is apart of his background.

Speaking of his friends, even for them, I formed their concept and powers together, one being a trained martial artist who is part of a clan with a blood mutation that allows them to absorb and manipulate kinetic force. I made this concept back when I made my main so it was *way* before Kinetic Melee was even presented in this game. It just so happens Kinetic Melee resembles taijiquan which fit that particular character so I made him...with a twist that he's the Pretorian counterpart to this particular character (since the actual concept of the original is a pacifist).

And the other friend is a girl who was my main's training partner. Bad *** of non-weapon martial arts as well as a master of staff...I can't make her non-weapon version without her being a Melee/Debuff AT and a pressure-point debuff set...but I'll eventually make her staff using version

Yup, concept and powers tend to come together or else I don't make the character.

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first AT. Then concept, then powersets.

I only like a few AT's so that comes first.

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Powers first. Then I will come up with a concept to fit it. Nothing worse than grinding through 50 levels with a subpar combo.

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Paragonian Knights
Justice Company

Concept all the way. Concept leads to interesting choices which can lead to challenging builds that still keep the game mechanics fresh for me.

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The hard things I can do--- The impossible just take a little bit longer.

If numbers are so much more important than a teammate who is fun to play with, forget about the game altogether and go play with a calculator instead. -Claws and Effect-

Depends on the character. Sometimes I go "Well, I haven't played that." Other times I go "Hey, that would be a neat character, wonder what would fit."

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Can go either way. Sometimes I come up with a concept a match the power sets to it which I think fit best. This route can sometimes lead to characters I think are great, but get hardly ever played because I found the power sets not to be particularly fun.

Sometimes I just create a character with a power set I want to try out (usually one that just got released), and the concept (and even costume) is made up and tweaked as I level up.

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@True Metal
Co-leader of Callous Crew SG. Based on Union server.

It took me a LONG TIME to realize it, but I have found that my characters that begin with a concept get pursued, and ones that I start purely to experience the powers tend to stall out by level 20 or so.

Now, if I get an itch to try a certain power set combo, I will not make the character until I have thought up a thorough concept featuring those powers.

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@Winter. Because I'm Winter. Period.
I am a blaster first, and an alt-oholic second.

Nine times out of ten, what gets me started is a name. I run across an available name I like, and it generally suggests a character. Eight times out of nine times out of ten, by the time I've checked to be sure the name isn't taken on my server, I've already got an AT and powersets picked out, and a costume three-fourths designed in my head. So I guess that qualifies as "concept" first.

Every once in a while I'll get it into my head that I want to play this powerset or that AT... sometimes I'll be able to fit that to a name/concept right away, sometimes it gets back-burnered until I can find something conceptually that works for me. Just for example, right now I want to make an archer and an ice controller, but I don't have ideas beyond "I want to make an archer" and "I want to make an ice controller," so those will wait until I do. I don't sweat it too much; I've got plenty of other characters to keep me busy while I wait for inspiration/opportunity.

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FUN FACT: That burst of light when you level up is actually the effectiveness escaping from your enhancements all at once.

Concept most of the time comes first.

Though on occasion I have made interesting combinations when I think that they would be cool together but I usually come up with a concept for why the character would have those powers.

Some examples...

Elkinarc started as a character that was going to stack the high resistances of an Elec armor tanker with the -damage debuffing of Kin Melee and the slows of the Arctic epic and then the -damage of the void judgement. Concept came from an Etrigan/jason blood sort of character with a bit of Captain Marvel thrown in there.

Troggle.. Inv/SS tanker that was modeled after a troll. Troggle only used invinciblity and slotted for knockback in her powers originally. Surprisingly worked well, though she was very much disliked by a few of my friends as I slotted Handclap for KB hehe.

Flickerflash.. Elec/Fire blaster. Started the character because of the ball lightning, short circuit, combust, and fire sword circle. Created an concept that was about a being of living plasma which moved around in a suit of power armor. Power Surge and Sparky were basically stepping outside of the suit and interacting as their real selves.

Controller Grav (my longest played character) is a Grav/Kin/Primal that took Kin because it meshed with the idea of a gravity manipulator. Purely a concept character and is the hero that I wanted to play from when I first heard about city of heroes and it having gravity control powers. The name was totally not intended to last as long as it has.. the name was originally chosen because I wanted to disconnect from the character in Beta and sort of remind myself why I was in beta (mainly to test rather then play). Then it sort of stuck in a Hero One sort of way. I've jokingly called her the first gravity controller after the alpha and omega gambit was used and a call for new heroes was issued... and that prob isn't too far from the truth as she's definitely one of the oldest Grav/kin controllers in the game.

and now I'm rambling so I'll stop now...

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There's no universal first step for me. Sometimes it's concept, sometimes it's powersets, sometimes, I think of one powerset I want to use, then a concept for that, and then the concept dictates the the second powerset. And then, in some cases, neither factors in, and I build a new character because I want another of a certain alignment, or to go with a costume I've designed a name I like (rarely on that last case, since I suck at names).

I have so many characters and I'm so varied in technique, that it'd be hard to say which is most frequent, but if I had to guess it's probably the 1st set -> concept -> 2nd set process that gets used the most.

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