Returning after a long while

Hello everyone! I'm a bit of a veteran, playing from issue 2 until issue 11/12 or so, and I'm glad to have come back after nearly 6 years to see the community still active and seemingly thriving

Though I do have a a few questions about the "New," state of the game, as a lot has changed! It seems that since I had a previous account, I have a "Premium," account with limited access to archetypes and such, which is simple enough. I upgrade, get almost all of the features I used to have back (including access to all the same archetypes I used to be able to create), but do all of my previous characters become unlocked? It seems like it, but I'm not sure.

So anyway, what are any tips from players who were around back when i still played but still active today? What big things have changed in the subtleties in the game that can't merely be summed up in the patch notes? This game was one that constantly had some things changing, and I know just scanning through some wiki or patch note pages won't capture some big ways the "Meta" of the game has changed.

I mained a Katana/Regeneration scrapper. Regen used to be the end all, be all of scrapper secondaries, but after a few (justified) nerfs, it was bumped down a bit, but was still pretty darn effective. Is that still true, especially matched up to other secondaries that have since become available? Katana was not the best Primary for a scrapper, though it wasn't really weak either. Has it gotten an increase in power since then? Any nerfs? Has it stayed mediocre? What is the current power structure of modern scrappers?

Another big question is builds, how useful are they for someone like a scrapper, where I basically never considered changing my power choices unless some of them were changed, or when new powers were released. What is the relevance of them to a pretty straightforward DPS?

One last overarching question has to do with the option to be any archetype as either a hero, or a villain. I saw this coming a while back, and am glad to have seen it implemented, though I also saw potential problems then and those concerns still exist. Are Tankers outclassed by brutes in tanking in any way, or are they still king? Scrappers and Brutes seem even more alike than the Tanker and Brute, are they essentially interchangeable for most purposes aside from the very highest level content? Brutes and Scrappers power levels seem very close. I also preferred hero side, would it be wiser to re roll a character to take the place of my main as a fun vet still pretty effective Tanky-DPS instead of my current Katan/Regen Scrapper?

I know that I could probably get some of this information elsewhere, but I'm also looking for some contact from the best online community I was ever in, the CoX's reputation of being a pretty friendly and productive community seems to have stuck around even after all these years. CoH was my first MMO, and I was spoiled by the intelligent and responsible community that formed the game's population, and I've never found an online community that was as good as the one that existed here a few years ago.

Thanks for the help everyone

EDIT: oh, and when I started falling out of the game (Around issue 11), Invul was a pretty terrible on paper, especially compared to willpower when it first came out, IIRC, has invul gotten any buffs since then? Was I just misinformed in my assumptions that it was a bad tanking/scrapper secondary set?

I also didn't play long enough after invention enhancements were released to really get into them, how important are they late game? Most of my history had to do with either hamidon enhancements or just plain ones.

For that, you'll have to ask someone who plays those sets on a scrapper a lot. I just don't know. Shield Defense, Willpower, Dark Armor (not kidding) and to some degree Invulnerability and Firey Aura tend to be flavor of the month sets right now. Regen I'm sure is viable, it's just clicky, and I don't know the details of how how it stacks up.

P.S. You can read the other forums, right? Just not post? Here's a recent thread on Regen from the scrapper forums:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=283708

Brutes can be built up to have as much resistance and defense as tankers, but it takes more effort to get them there as the base values on the defense/resist sets are lower. Tankers also have better aggro control as their single target attacks taunt the target and up to four additional mobs near the target. Brute single target attacks only taunt the target, but that isn't too much of a drawback since brutes can still get an aoe taunt in the primary set and a taunt generating aura in the secondary. Brutes also have a slightly lower hit point caps. Long story short: Brute's aren't as good as tankers for tanking right out of the box, but they can be built up to do the job very well.

Scrappers can serve as off tanks on occasion if they take a taunt (and will have to go into the Presence pool to get an aoe taunt.) They can build defense up to tank levels (all AT's can for that matter. There are different hard cap defense amounts but they are so high above what is realistically needed or achievable that it doesn't matter) but have a resistance cap of 75% as opposed to 90% for tankers/brutes. They also have much lower maximum health. They are almost never 'main' tanks mostly due to the limited aggro control and many scrappers don't take any version of taunt.

As far as making 'proper' builds, that's a whole book worth of discussion.

IMO, Regeneration is a great secondary for a semi-casual player since it can be built to be effective at what it does without the amount of number crunching that some sets need to really shine. But I wouldn't tank with it unless you grab a lot of defense from other sources.

No scrapper is bad per se. I have two level 50 katana/regen scrappers. I don't play them that much these days, because regen is very clicky and defense is king in PvE. But that's coming from a VIP/IO persepctive -- Invulnerability for example is an excellent set when properly IO'd, less attractive without all the IO benefits. My Invul scrappers & brutes are softcapped defensively to smashing/lethal damage and usually to energy/negative energy damage, meaning very few attacks hit me, and when they do I have all of Invulnerability's resists to reduce the damage that gets through. That makes these characters incredibly tough.

For working with SO's though, regen or willpower are fine picks. As I said, there's no bad scrapper, and no bad brute either.

One of the most fundamental changes to old characters is the Fitness Pool. New characters or characters that never took a power from the Fitness Pool now get all the Fitness Pool powers at level 2. Older characters that have taken at least one power from the Fitness Pool will need to respec to get the remaining powers as well as freeing up the power picks that you had used on the Fitness powers you had.

Also the Power Pools associated with travel; Flight, Teleportation, Leaping and Speed; have been tweaked significantly as to when you can get which power. First the primary "travel power" is now available at Level 4, that's Fly, Teleport, Super Jump and Super Speed, as well as the previous pair of powers that were available at Level 6. Each set has had a new power added to them and that power and the previous Level 20 power is now available at level 14 (they still require two previous powers from the pool to be able to select them).

These two changes along can radically alter how you build your character and can free you up to section additional powers you skipped till later so you could get your travel power and Stamina as soon as possible.

Lastly the Ancillary/Patron Power Pools are also available at Level 35 instead of 41.

On a personal note I have a reasonably high level Katana/Regen scrapper and I haven't really noticed any changes in their play style after the devs stopped tweaking Regen all those years ago.

There is a somewhat vocal group of posters who dislike Regen because of the number of click powers for healing which is why most of them would recommend Willpower over Regen. They do have a point if you go into "scrapper lock" you may not be paying close enough attention to your hit points to notice when you should trigger one of your click heal powers.

Also one of the most useful Katana powers for survivability is Divine Avalanche for it's +15% Def Vs Melee buff.