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Ok, perhaps this might sound silly at first, but please think about it.

Now that we are nearing the end, and several of us have been around since the beginning...

1. Looking back, considering everything, which was your favorite archetype in the game?

2. In possible contrast, when it comes to your favorite character, what kind was it? List AT and the two main sets.

3. What AT did you evolve to enjoy over the years that you disliked initially?

My answers:

1. Defenders have always been my favorite. If you run a team for awhile and then toss a defender into the mix that is built right and knows what they are doing, there is a night & day difference. Defenders are the oil for the team's machine, and is the glue that keeps it together.

2. A fire/fire scrapper. Weird eh?

3. Dominators. I could not stand controllers and still dislike them. Dominators on the other hand, I grew to love and they are freaking nasty when built right and have permadom. Permadom is far easier to get than hitting the defense cap with most characters. Tankers get an honorable mention here as well.

1. I'm not really sure. Probably one of Defender, Controller, or Corruptor. Or maybe Masterminds. Defender's basically where my heart was, but I always found the blasts to be a little too anemic on that AT and I think the others worked better in terms of pairing with their non-buff/debuff set... yet it still doesn't feel right citing any of the other 3 as a favourite. Possibly that's just sentimentality because my first character was a Defender (much like I still thought of Victory as my home server even after I'd moved 95% of my activity over to Virtue and Freedom).

2. My Crab Spider was definitely my favourite character. The main reason I don't list Crab Spider as my favourite AT is purely because there's much less scope for (different) alts within that AT compared with conventional ATs - once I had one Crab Spider I never really felt any inclination to create another.

3. I don't think I really have an example for this question. I always preferred the buff/debuff type archetypes, but I still played the others to some extent (though in the case of Tanker that was a very limited extent), and that was pretty constant for the whole time I played. I guess maybe Stalker, though that was more due to the changes/buffs it received than me "evolving".

1. Looking back, considering everything, which was your favorite archetype in the game?
Tanker, though closely followed by blaster. Tanker as this was 1 of hte first, probably one of the last, where you truely feel being a tank, being the hero that can take tremendous ammount of beating before going down.

2. In possible contrast, when it comes to your favorite character, what kind was it? List AT and the two main sets.
Stone amor / superstrength from tank, by far. It was Granite that made him, that gave me all the reasons to play the stone armor tanker, being close to invincible. Second would be ice/nrg blaster, but thats more because it was the first blaster i ever hit 50 with.

3. What AT did you evolve to enjoy over the years that you disliked initially?
i think overal the villain side, the only one i initialy enjoyed was MM, but in time i quite liked the corrupter (offender but from nature) along with brute (as tank was a bit too weak on offense).

1. Looking back, considering everything, which was your favorite archetype in the game?
Scrapper!


2. In possible contrast, when it comes to your favorite character, what kind was it? List AT and the two main sets.
Succubus Kali, my Dark Melee/Invulnerability Scrapper. Powerful, destructive, and sexy. Making builds for that character, making outfits, playing the chracter, it was all the most fun for me with her.

3. What AT did you evolve to enjoy over the years that you dislikeank, bd initRe: Favoritesially?
That's hard to say. I enjoyed them all, some more than others. I can say the only one that I never enjoyed over these 8 years was the Tanker AT. I think that's a pretty good track record for the developers from my perspective.

1. Looking back, considering everything, which was your favorite archetype in the game?

I've always been a Blaster at heart. My first toon (in Beta) was an Elec/Elec
that also became my main when the game went live, and my first L50 around I-3.


2. In possible contrast, when it comes to your favorite character, what kind was it? List AT and the two main sets.

No contrast for me - My E3 Blaster is still my favorite toon, hands down.
That said, I like my Fire/Nrg and Nrg/Nrg blasters as well. Of characters that might
be contrasts, I also liked Stalkers (various blends) and PB's too. The stalkers I
run have a lot in common with stealthy blasters, and that's pretty much how I
played them. The PBs are a bit of an oddball, but then, I always like Nova, so there's
the blaster link-up there also.

3. What AT did you evolve to enjoy over the years that you initially disliked?

I'd probably have to say an SS/WP Brute or Fire/Ice Tank. Both of them ended
up being way more powerful than I'd ever imagined, and a lot of fun. The Brute
was my first toon that could solo a Pylon with impunity, and the tank could thumb
his nose at Lusca . Initially, I thought both would be pretty tedious. Much to
my surprise, neither was.


Cheers,
4

1. Looking back, considering everything, which was your favorite archetype in the game?

I'd have to say tanks even though I have a character of each AT that I enjoy.

2. In possible contrast, when it comes to your favorite character, what kind was it? List AT and the two main sets. Fire/SS for a mix of insane survivability and over the top damage. Elec/SS for being immortal with respectable damage. (Pve) for PvP I've always loved my Fire/Energy blaster even after i13.

3. What AT did you evolve to enjoy over the years that you disliked initially?[/B]
The AT I wanted to love since it first came out was the human form WS. I ran one to 50 when they still had the -res debuff in human form and got mezzed every step of the way. It wasn't until incarnates specifically clarion that I dusted it off and really enjoyed how it played.

Trollers and Brutes rock!!

Fire/Empathy and Stone/Fire FTW-- two of my favorite all-time L50s.

And as to the AT evolution, I suppose I always thought Fenders were weak, but I managed to bring a dark/dark to 50 a couple years back and I still do play him occasionally, so I guess that's my answer.

1. My favorite AT has always been the Scrapper. Love to solo as well as team, and be right up there in the fight. Also, I tend to equip all my scrappers with some form of invisibility (usually superspeed+celerity:stealth) so they can pick their fights.

2. No contrast. I'd have to say I've got two favorite characters, both scrappers. Point of Balance is Dual Swords/Willpower, Edwina Eaglethorn is Street Justice/Willpower.

But I will put in a word for Mr. Murgatroyd. He was my second character concept, conceived during beta. He'd been an enforcer for the Baumton Family. It involved a lot of leaning on people who didn't pay - but also leaning on the other gangs that tried to muscle in on the territory. Rikti came, and Mr. Murgatroyd found himself working with heroes, saving the people who had been in their protection. After the first Rikti War, instead of switching to one of the other organizations, he tried the hero thing. I rerolled him a lot of times, a SuperStrength tanker, martial arts scrapper - but only after Freedom and I rerolled him as a Street Justice/WP brute did he finally play like I'd always imagined.

3. I can't say that there's any ATs that my opinions of really changed. I've had fun with all the ATs in groups, but not soloing.

Interesting to read the responses.

My wife will be proud that a couple of you happened to fall in love with DB/WP, as that was her main too.

1. My three favorite classes are Brutes, Masterminds, and Dominators, in no particular order. Depends on my mood exactly which one I play, but they all had aspects I liked. (Brute for pure HULK SMASH goodness, Dominators for a more subtle lockdown game, and Masterminds for when I wanted to just have my minions do the majority of the work)

2. My Electric Melee/Invulnerability/Energy Mastery Brute, based loosely on Black Adam. Level 50, all T4'd out. Not the best against single hard targets, but damn good against groups, and extremely durable. I really liked his costume, too, to the extent that I've never significantly changed it, even after two years. (I added a secondary color to the Tech Wired parts, and added the Electric Fists aura back when I hit level 30, but that's it)

3. Dominator. I didn't like them at first because they felt so vulnerable. (My very first Psi/Mind is still sitting on one of the servers somewhere, mostly disused) Once I got the hang of playing them, though, they quickly moved into being one of my favorites. I now have two L50 Doms, Gravity/Electric and Earth/Ice (the latter of which I created after the shutdown was announced and got to Level 50 only a day or two ago)

I was a Defender at heart - I had more level 50 Defenders and more who never made it than any other archetype.

My favourite character would have been Dr Harmony though - an Earth/Energy Dominator.
She was a rare case of having a straightforward character concept (transmuted elements of the periodic table) and being able to realise it fully in CoH thanks to power customisation.
She was also my main in the Hero League International - the best supergroup I ever fought alongside. And I got into the habit of leading numrous PUGs and taskforces with her with the ever-ready assistance of the Virtue LFG Beta channel.

I was surprised how much I came to love Brutes. My first few attempts never clicked, but my final ones really did.

1) Tanker, 100%. I have at least one tanker on every server, in just about every combination. There's something about being in the middle of 30 to 40 mobs, and surviving without any help (at the highest levels).
2) Again, a tanker. My all time favourite is Ion Thrust, my Shield/Electric tanker. He wasnt my first 50, but is certainly the most indestructible, and blows through groups of mobs like a boss.
3) The first Dominator I tried was Ice based, and was by far the worst survivable, least damaging character I've ever played. I have since started to really enjoy them, especially the Electric Control.

1. Looking back, considering everything, which was your favorite archetype in the game?

Prior to the release of City of Villains it would be Blasters, but afterwords it became Brutes *by far.* It's telling that my "final character" to enjoy the game for these last three weeks is a Brute.

2. In possible contrast, when it comes to your favorite character, what kind was it? List AT and the two main sets.

Perturbation, my Energy/Energy/Soul Brute. I've put twice as much time into him as any of my other characters. My "namesake" character Coulomb (an Elec^3 blaster) is a *very* close second - he's the first character I ever made, the first one I ever got to 50; I think the only reason he isn't my favorite is that I got him to 50 way back in the era when the only thing to do was go on Hami raids, so, for years, I stopped playing him. By the time there was real content for 50s, I was already very invested in Perturbation and didn't really go back to playing Coulomb until Death Incarnate. In fact, I was kind of surprised when I dusted him off to find he still had his *pre-ED* slotting - I don't think I'd realized just how long he'd been shelved. It's probably also no coincidence that a "recreation" of Coulomb is the first character I'm playing through CO with...

One aside, there is a third character that is very dear to my heart: my Inv/Axe Tank Lethal Guardian; I only played him in a team with my wife and some good friends. My wife lost interest in the game around the time the Incarnate Trials came out (actually, large-scale raid content to advance your character was such a turn off for her that it drove her away from the game), and I never really played him again (I just can't find Tanks very fun solo), but for a long time he was at the top of my list of important characters.

3. What AT did you evolve to enjoy over the years that you disliked initially?

Stalkers. Every time I tried to play one, I just got bored. It always seemed like they were an awful combination of squishy with never enough attacks available to feel like I actually had much of an attack chain. The recent changes (i.e. addition of Assassin's Focus, etc.) completely revitalized them for me - I really found them fun to play after that... So it wasn't really an evolution so much as a positive change turned 'unfun' into 'fun.'

Never really liked Controllers or Masterminds, and never changed my tune on that. It wasn't for lack of trying - but I always got so very bored with playing them when I tried, and couldn't go on...

1) Stalker. I came to CoH looking for something that played like a ninja, it was love at first sight.

2) My first, main and favorite character is also my stalker (dual blades/regen). Being sick of relying on healers or healing items in other games, I thought regen would do away with my need for them. Once I had her build finished it was pretty fun, I could charge in and slice things up with hardly a scratch... most of the time.

3) I don't really alt but the first character I made on Virtue was a dual pistols/kin corruptor. I hated it, I was squishy, had to keep my distance and I didn't hit hard. Honestly, it was RP that led me to grow fond of the ranged type ATs and learn to be a team player with my abilities.

1. Looking back, considering everything, which was your favorite archetype in the game?
Corruptor. I loved dealing damage and buff/debuffing. My main toon is my Fire/Time Corruptor: I Burnt The Toast. It is my badge toon and my GO TO toon for TFs/Trials etc.

2. In possible contrast, when it comes to your favorite character, what kind was it? List AT and the two main sets.
I have always enjoyed playing my Earth/Kin Troller. I love the sheer control feeling of earth. Granted there were better damage trollers, but none felt as fun as I Wanna Rock You.


3. What AT did you evolve to enjoy over the years that you disliked initially?
Dominator. Initially I thought they were just meh; especially since they had no self heal, debuff, etc... About a year ago I leveled my Earth/Fire/Fire dom (I Drunk Dialed My Ex) to 50 and loved it ever since.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paladiamors I love you, I Burnt the Toast!

1. Blaster. I loved the glass cannon approach to being a Blaster. Hlaf the fun was trying to stay alive whilst dishing out a huge amount of DPS

2. Following on from that Fire/Fire (Blaster) was just so much fun. Firestreak was my 3rd level 50 character and remains to this day my 'main'.

3. Tanker. I discovered the joys of tanking years after I started playing.

Controllers. I really found them to be exciting, original and really really versatile. A troller doesn't necessarily need good damage but I've rarely found any that are bad to play or difficult to keep going under tough circumstances. Even better, it's always been really great to put together odd mix trollers just to be different from the ubiquitous fire-kin/rads. My Mind/Storm was an accidental revelation.

Scarlet Shocker. All Electric Blaster. She was my first (well technically 2nd toon) but she's the one I've had the biggest emotional connection to in game. In many ways, being all electric she was well under-powered, even moreso when electric proliferated. But she wasn't ever meant to be Uber. I always saw her as trying to fight the good fight with a limited arsenal and struggle was the name of the game for her.

Possibly Tank (surprisingly as I only have one) but I do still enjoy playing my one and only 50. I always struggled with melee toons, even after getting a brute to 50, and scrappers never seemed to work for me. Run around chasing targets to find that somebody's blasted them and knocked them out from under... but whereas Scrappers in my limited experience are squishy, and brutes under-powered, my tank can soak up a lot of damaged and still dent most things. If not a tank my SoA - but I enjoyed him from day one so by definition doesn't count.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

1) Scrapper. To me they are the superhero comic AT (brutes and stalkers do as well) in terms of defense and offense.

2) Truthfully, with 8 years of playing, I was still looking for the one combo that made me happy. It's why I rerolled my namesake so often. Dual Pistols/Time Manip may have come the closest if it wasn't for the lack of mez protection and the sad damage, but it gave me the Dual Pistols and Regen/Reflexes I wanted. I had such high hopes for i24!!!

3) Defender and Corruptors.

1) Dominator - Controllers and blasters were my two favorite AT's prior to CoV. Doms were just a combination of everything I liked about those two hero AT's.

2) My favorite characters are the ones where the costume, power sets, concept and game play all mesh perfectly. I have several I consider among my favorites, but choosing one... I guess my favorite character would be my Dual Pistols/Traps Corruptor named Kalenta. She was made as a joke and tried to incorporate all the cliches, space pirate cyborg ninja catgirl. She did it so well, I couldn't stop playing her.
There is also special place in my heart for my first 50, White Clover, an Illusion Control/Empathy Controller. Her power sets bore me to tears now. She has my most fleshed out backstory (including spawning several archenemy characters) and most time invested.

3) Masterminds - I originally thought of masterminds as watching the game in demo mode. When I finally got into them, I realized how much more complex and enjoyable their combat was. I found that an active secondary is what I needed to really enjoy them.