I've given up on Praetoria and Villain start

I'm one of the players that start with a concept then work out what their power set should be. After that I decide on which side or faction they should start as (save for my poor now-blue Widow, who had to start red). Sometimes that concept is difficult to play on the chosen side (i.e. a gold-side blaster) but luckily I have someone who I can reliably team with and we seem to be good at finding combos that work well together.

I'm sorry you got shoehorned in to starting on blue. On the bright side, there's the alignment system and some of the content on red around level 20 is better than the lower levels (at least in my opinion).

[Side comment: No, no. The Enriche blast character needs to be the healthy and fit woman from the ads all over the place. Actually, I think B.Viking is seriously pondering making that character.]

My character would be an actor genetically re-engineered kid focused mascot that failed horribly and relegated to Powers Division where he would hopefully die swiftly in the line of duty. And it was all that healthy, skinny girl's fault.

Praetoria would've made a good 20-30 zone, but not a starter zone.

To review the enemies in starting areas, starting with heroes:

Hellions - Have a single melee and a single ranged attack each. LT's have one attack.

Skulls - Uh .. same as Hellions

Vahzilok - Euch .. at least you can choose not to fight them

That's heroes. Nice and easy, sets a nice, somewhat relxaed pace to get a feel for your powers.

Villains you get uh ..

Longbow - Once again, minions with only one ranged attack and one melee attack. The LT's, however, have two ranged attacks, one of which does KD and a melee attack which does a surprising amount of damage. It's very possible to get beaten by a single LT.

Legacy Chain - Nothing much to speak of here.

Infected - .. Same here as well.

None of these groups (Including the hero ones) have any sort of proper DeBuff effects. Maybe -Def, but that's about it.

Now, Praetoria ..

Resistance - We got Energy damage left right and centre. Basic minions can Stun and have several attacks. The LTs aren't as bad by comparison, and the Bosses are just stupid. Oh, and they can all Stun in melee. Stunlock anyone?

PPD - Actually pretty easy if you can keep out of melee, but all their ranged attacks can KD so easier said than done.

Destroyers - Can remove themselves and die. Blast Masters with high-damage fire patches (Ruins MMs), LTs that are .. eh, quite tough, but manageable on their own, but can become stupid resistant to Mez effects. And Bosses that cheat by using Hurl and Boulder and use Foot Stomp. I mean, really guys?

Clockwork - Regen/Recovery DeBuffs for everyone! Energy damage for all!

Syndicate - Only ones of note are the psychics whose Mez powers have about two seconds between you breaking free and them Mezzing you again.

Seers - Psionic damage. ALL the Psionic damage. All of it. At low levels. Yeah ...

Now, the Praetorian mobs on their own can be a challenge, but can be overcome. The problem arises when AMBUSHAMBUSHAMBUSHAMBUSH or if the game decides to spawn everything at one level higher, where, in Praetoria, one level can be the difference between winning or losing, or if all the mobs decide to group together, making it hard to pull them apart one by one.

It's the reasons mentioned above that prevent me from making a Praetorian character. Villains I can do, since content is run somewhat regularly, or I can just get a boost. Heroes ... uh .. heroes .. nothing needs to be said there.

I've made it through Praetoria three times, twice on Masterminds and once on a Scrapper. The thing those AT's have in common is they're very forgiving at early levels. I made the mistake of trying to go through Praetoria on a Controller once... I can't remember if I even made it through the tutorial!

The biggest issue is that gold side takes place in a level range that's already very random, with AT's relying on powers that might only hit 40-60% of the time. Combine that with unforgiving mechanics and you have 20 levels of enemies who may or may not kill you because the RNG decided to make your power not work in a clutch situation. If they sold SO's from level 7, I contend that goldside would be much better. As is, it's a bunch of great story arcs and mechanics barred behind difficult challenges that seem to be designed with more robust, higher level characters in mind.

I've never actually played a character all the way through the Praetorian content. I think, for me, the biggest problem was not being able to team with my non-Praetorian friends at all.

But I think maybe I should make it one of my projects to play through Praetoria once. Is it possible to continue through First Ward and Night Ward without leaving Praetoria?

I think the main problem with Praetoria was it was designed for higher levels, but Positron's bosses at NCSoft probably told him to make it level 1-20 instead.

Whoever thought the solo player Morality missions was a good idea had a screw loose. Enemy factions that are nastily difficult when you start spawning them in larger group sizes combined with a new game mechanic that FORCES groups to split up in order to complete Solo-only missions. It made Praetoria ridiculously penalizing and unfriendly to grouping...in an MMORPG...Praetoria would've been fine as a single-player game.

Hey, Posi, get Paragon Studios to make a Freedom Force knockoff set in the CoX universe!