Got wife to try game. Suggestions for complimentary char?

My first game was Guild Wars and that seemed hard at first, then my poor husband got me to play WOW. The first character I tried was a rogue and I could not figure out how to run her around someone and spin her the right way to stab someone in the back! I finally remapped my keys and trained my left hand how to move my characters around. It was awful for about two weeks, so I feel your wife's pain and so does my husband. The cussing (by me) was epic. I have very little patience and get frustrated easily... That was many years ago and I play MMOs more than he does now. It's most fun with him though.

My first Character in COH was a MM zombies/Dark I like a learning curve I guess.

I would suggest having her make a couple of characters and let her see which one she likes the best. Me I like WP/Mace tanks. They are tough so you don't die easily. Rise to the Challenge is fantastic; maces are great because when someone is stunned they aren't damaging you: and when you are a tank you can use the f key to automaticly follow your target. Tab for your target (I changed it in options so it is one key) hit f and you auto run right to them, when they are "dead" do it for the next guy. Very helpful in a hectic environment or for someone that has issues controlling their character... I know not a lot of people would recommend a tank, but I play everything and even though they are all fun, I personally find my tanks less stressful. Maybe I am weird but I HATE dying, with my squishier characters when a mob comes running at me, I am stressing out. With my fav WP tank and you have a group around you that healing is going to kick in and you are going to be just fine. (within reason of course)

This is just my two cents, and forgive any grammatical errors. It is 6:30ish Sunday morning and I have been up all night doing holiday quests with my way too many alts you would think I would know better at my age but I never seem to learn a damn thing.... sigh. The holiday stuff gets me every time! And every time I have more alts!

I've rebound the tilde key (~`) just above the Tab key to target nearest enemy on my default keybinds.

You might find this will help you or your wife since it puts my favorite 2 targeting methods handy, with no Shift/CTRL needed. Nearest is especially handy for melee chars. Although just double clicking powers often works great too.

When my wife was new we turned on "click to move" to help her move around, it let her mouse click where she wants to go, and get there, in the early days. It's easy to miss-click and end up where you didn't mean to be though... especially when you try to mouse target.

My wife was frustrated at first, but has now been playing about 6 years

On the subject of movement training.

I recall in my early days spending alot of time practicing scaling the walls of buildings in KR with nothing more then slotted up swift hurdle and sprint. Then learning how to stay on the roofs as long as possible. I always wished we had some kind of low level hang glider effect

Still if you gain enough ability to reliable ledge hop up the old buildings then you likely ahve got your coh legs under you.

Also dont be afriad of tab and f. I still tend to just rely on that in the thick of melee to keep my scrappers moving towards new targets.

Hover and being a ranged class can make that even easier.

Hocketown - if you want, try looking up www.repeat-offenders.net (global channel "Repeat Offenders").We play on Virtue, Freedom, and Justice mostly.

On an unrelated note, my dog is trying to smash my toes by dropping his tennis ball on them


Kinda ouch actually.

I would go with any Brute as a starting character. I've only played since Christmas, so can probably still count as an inexperienced player. I've played most ATs to around level 15 now.

Brutes do enough damage, and don't break easily, especially with regeneration. You get a panic button or two, but no complex mechanics with healing others, buffing a lot of crowd control, etc.

I think that for a new player, moving should be bound to the arrow keys (maybe on the keypad). It makes it easy as the symbols on the keys match what the character does. Add mouse look, turn of any form of auto run.

Put the 10 most used powers under keys 1-0, mirroring what the UI labels them.

When something dies mash the button two times to select and attack the next scary thing.

Then you also play a Brute, or something with a little more crowd control. Personally I like Time Manipulation on my MM, but a MM might confuse things.

That's all I can think of.

I concur with the suggestions to have your wife play the melee character and you play support.

A brute is a good character for a beginner, and you have the experience to run the support character to keep her on her feet until she gets the hang of things.

I usually play the melee and my wife plays support, but it's mostly because I prefer melee and REALLY suck at support characters. My only high level defender is a Rad/Sonic, and he's designed for soloing GMs.