COH/COV: Worth it?

[Foxboy]

As soon as you get set where you can stand it from the tutorial, take a moment to input this slashcommand:
/chanjoin "the legendary"
That will take care of getting you into the "network" and the folks online can help you get your other 'toons caught up on that.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Kokuten]

*groan*
OK, Fenspace is invading my brain. I read that, and my brain say "Ah, that's how I join the Global Frequency!"Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[The Hunterminator]

Well, Leather, being a villain, would probably be a Super Strength/Invulnerability Brute, but yeah, she definitely has a lot of the fitness power pool.
Oh right, quick explanation, power pools are powers that anyone can choose to pick instead of a power in your specific powersets. The fitness pool, for example, includes powers that permanently increase running speed, jumping height, health and endurance.
Oh and since I've started on it, might as well, explain the villainous archetypes.
-Brute: Sort of a mix between the scrapper and tank, a brute's strength and defense increases the longer they fight and gradually returns to normal when not in battle, so a brute tends to rush from battle to battle.
-Stalker: Stealth specialist with assassination strikes that cause severe damage if you're hidden. They are the game's equivalent of Rogues/thieves/assassins/whatever they're called in EQ.
-Corruptor: Sort of a mix between blaster and defender, with a chance of critical hits that increases the more the target is wounded. They're a bit... odd to play, I tried a few times but haven't found a powerset I like yet.
-Dominator: Mix of controller and blaster, a dominator has a domination bar that increases with every kill and, when full, they can temporarilly increase their damage and hold efficiency, I think. I never played one yet so this is mostly second hand info.
-Mastermind: My favourite villain archetype, a mastermind is fairly useless on his own but they have many buffs and posess the ability to summon minions to fight for them. In PvE, a mastermind is awesome, but in PvP, most players go straight for the player.

[Ebony]

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-Corruptor: Sort of a mix between blaster and defender, with a chance of critical hits that increases the more the target is wounded. They're a bit... odd to play, I tried a few times but haven't found a powerset I like yet.

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I, on the other hand, find Corruptors great fun. Of course, it may be that the Sonic/Dark combination that makes up Baron Bedlam (who was originally going to be called Dirge) is a lot of fun. Especially now that I've started picking up the non-buff/debuff Darkness powers and I'm about to get into the non-attack sonic powers. That, and knockback is truly amusing when used on mobs.Ebony the Black Dragon
Senior Editor, Living Room Games
http://www.lrgames.com
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com

"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."

[Kokuten]

WAUGH!
finished a 290mb download, installed it.. and facing a 38mb download!
WAUUUUUGHH!!!!
TORRENTS, guys, and monolithic installers.. and yeargh!

-WG, frustrated. Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[Kokuten]

in.. random, intermittent lockups.
believed to be nonthermal, suspect drivers.
downloading now, we shall see. Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[jpub]

What's your machine like, K?--
Christopher Angel, aka JPublic
The Works of Christopher Angel
"Camaraderie, adventure, and steel on steel. The stuff of legend! Right, Boo?"

[Kokuten]

Lian-Li pc-somethingorother, fans in all stock slots (2x80mm in front, 1x 120mm in back, power supply, top 1x80mm.
case side off
GeForce 8800gts/640
2x 20.1" widescreen flatpanels
Core 2 duo e6600
2x sequentially serial numbered Hitachi Deskstar E-series 500gb SATA drives in raid 0 (mirror) config, 1x Memorex DVD superdrive.
Windows XP SP2

I got the new nVidia drivers, and also kicked it over to windowed mode. Runs fine on 1680x1050 windows desktop as a maximized window, good enough for now (I'm due for a windows install).
I have one toon right now, 'House Kat', I made me a victim of the catgirling machine. VERY cool game so far. Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[Acyl]

It should be noted if you're messing with characters... we're getting weapons customization next issue - that is, you'll be able to select from different types of broadsword, katana, claws, etc, etc. Want to hit people with a pipe? A shovel? We'll be able to, shortly...
They'll count as costume options, mind, and you can have multiple costumes for the same character.
This is reasonably important, since a major complaint about CoH is...despite the massive array of visual customization, thus far we haven't been able to customize the look of our powers. A radiation blast will always be green. A fire melee character will always shoot red/yellow flames.
So you may find that there are powersets you don't wanna play, just 'cause you don't like the look. I can't play an /Electric Armor brute, f'example, even though the powers are sweet to me... 'cause the flashing electrical arcs give me a headache.
(If you wanna know how the different powersets look, especially at higher levels - which is something you can't know just by creating a new character, obviously - you can ask us. =)
Now, the devs have noted that given the way power FX works, we won't get the ability to change effect colours anytime soon. But weapons...
We're getting those.
'course, first thing you'll probably want to do is get a feel of each AT - Scrapper, Tank, Blaster, Controller, Defender, et all.
Though that's harder than it seems, since even within an AT, different powersets play totally diferently. As noted earlier in the thread, defenders have the greatest variety. I personally love the Dark Miasma powers, and I'm cool with Empathy, Kinetics, and Radiation. But I can't play Force Fields or Sonics to save my life.
So that's another thing we can help you with. If you wanna know what Scrapper set is best for single-target or AoE damage, we can tell you (Single Target:- Broadsword or Martial Arts, AoE:- Spines) ... so yeah, we can tell you how the different sets shake down. We've got a fairly large community going here, so between everyone we've probably played damn near every combination. =)
The official CoH forums are fairly useful in deciding what you might wanna play - there's specific forums for each character type, and an entire section of the boards devoted to Player-created Guides.
-- Acyl

[The Hunterminator]

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I have one toon right now, 'House Kat', I made me a victim of the catgirling machine. VERY cool game so far.

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*Thumbs up*
Glad to see you like it. And that's a neat concept. Let me guess, Science Origin Claws/regen or super reflexes scrapper.

[Kokuten]

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Science Origin Claws/regen or super reflexes scrapper.

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dead on, science claws/regen.

I think I may be turning into a prude- I still consider the 'long' skirt option to be short!Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[Morganite]

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Single Target:- Broadsword or Martial Arts

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Or Dark Melee. '.'
(Doesn't broadsword have a fair number of AoEs anyway? I seem to remember reading about builds that were focused on them.)
From what I've read, katana is basically the same as broadsword, except with different appearance and power names. (And at one point, the power names were the same...)
And guides can be very helpful in deciding whether you'll like a powerset. A lot of them will have sections on the tactics to use with the build they suggest, and if they sound like fun, there's a good chance you'll like playing those powers. At least, that's how it's generally worked for me.

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So you may find that there are powersets you don't wanna play, just 'cause you don't like the look.

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And don't forget the defense ones that pretty much hide your entire costume. Earth Armor and Fire Armor cover you almost entirely in earth or fire. Dark Armor isn't much better, nor ice armor. And with regen, you'd better not have a costume that looks bad with green highlights, because once you get up a ways you are *always* going to be glowing green. (I've had to redo costumes I've made for Eri several times because they looked fine in the costume maker, but bad once the green glowing came in.)
-Morgan."Mikuru-chan molested me! I'm... so happy!"
-Haruhi, "The Ecchi of Haruhi Suzumiya"
---(Not really)

[The Hunterminator]

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I think I may be turning into a prude- I still consider the 'long' skirt option to be short!

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Heh, yeah. I tend to think so too. Unless the concept warants it, I rarely make my female toons wear skirts.

[ECSNorway]

I believe the Katana attacks are faster than Broadsword, but do slightly less damage.--
"I give you the beautiful... the talented... the tirelessly atomic-powered...
R!
DOROTHY!
WAYNERIGHT!
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Bob Schroeck]

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If you wanna know what Scrapper set is best for single-target or AoE damage, we can tell you (Single Target:- Broadsword

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Oh yes, I happen to be a bit fond of this one myself. And just as a note, Broadsword has two cone attacks and one AOE in its repertoire, which come in handy.-- Bob
---------
One of the primary differences between the Left and the Right is their attitude toward the Future. The Radical wants the Future to have gotten here yesterday. The Reactionary wants the Future quietly shot and the corpse buried where no one can find it.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[jpub]

Oddly, I would have said MA for single target.
Oh well.

In general, classes tend to play *mostly* the same, but there's always some oddities.
The biggest one of note is the Controller Illusion primary, which is *very* different from the others.--
Christopher Angel, aka JPublic
The Works of Christopher Angel
"Camaraderie, adventure, and steel on steel. The stuff of legend! Right, Boo?"

[Acyl]

Defending my scrapper arguments there - I said Broadsword and Martial Arts are the best choices for single-target damage. I stand by that. Broadsword gets two cones and an AoE, Martial Arts has one AoE. They're otherwise high-damage and single-target focused.
However, Broadsword does more damage per attack - it has the highest damage numbers up front. MA can cycle them faster - MA attacks have faster animations and recharge. If the fight drags on a little, then MA might have an advantage. But Broadsword has more up front.
There's a reason Broadsword is favoured over MA for PvP.
Dark Melee is also pretty good for single-target damage. The main advantage is it does dark/smashing damage (with one pure dark attack). Dark damage is not resisted as much. However, Dark Melee only has four damage powers in the set - the rest are utility powers. Shadow Punch, Smite, Shadow Maul and Midnight Grasp is a decent chain. However Shadow Maul has a long animation, with the damage spread out over that animation. And Midnight Grasp only does about 60% of its damage up-front, the rest is applied in damage-over-time ticks.
Again, if you're pounding on one target for more than a few second or so, that's okay. But in a large team, it's likely individual targets may not last that long. For example, I can smack Midnight Grasp on a bad guy and have the damage happily tick away, and it will kill the enemy. Eventually. Given another five seconds or so. So my target is effectively dead. But since he isn't dead yet, it's likely some other player's gonna take a shot at him. They're not gonna wait for my Midnight Grasp to tick down. So it's a bit of wasted effort there. Mind, Damage-over-Time can be a very very useful tool, but in some situations it works against you.
It needs to be said, my oldest and favourite scrapper is Dark Melee - I love the set, but I don't deny the limitations.
The point is... City of Heroes is cool like that. I mean, all Scrappers wade into melee and deliver the hurt from up close. But how you deliver hurt differs. You've got the ability to do massive burst damage with Broadsword. Then there's the more tactical play of Dark Melee, and Spines, where you're basically an antipersonnel mine on two legs.
-- Acyl

[khagler]

Dark Melee is sort of a cross between damage and controller-like abilities. For example, Midnight Grasp also acts as a hold on its target and has a short range (as opposed to contact only), which is great for keeping that last enemy from running away and making you chase him all over. In a group, it's handy for keeping a bad guy who's gotten past the melee fighters from reaching the squishies (blasters/defenders/controllers).

[Morganite]

Hmmm. I admittedly do evaluate everything in terms of solo potential, so the DoT on midnight grasp usually gets time to go off. (Even on weaker enemies, since it's usually my first attack. But it's never wasted against bosses...)
(As well as high difficulty levels, at least for Eri, so most fights *do* take a while. I find a longer fight with a better reward much more fun than two shorter fights with lesser ones.)
As for number of attacks, I don't see why I *need* more. Shadow Punch, Smite, and Twilight Grasp (with a recharge in each one) will keep me going most of the time as long as hit them in the right order. (Which I don't always if I haven't played for a while, but that's my own fault.) Occaisionally throw in a life drain (whatever that's called). Not so much damage even slotted for it, but it's very helpful in the not-dying part of things. I suppose shadow maul would be nice if I was better at lining multiple enemies up in the cone, but I suck at it, so I dropped it.
The rest being mostly utility powers I like, because I've got as many attacks as I need. I'm not too fond of Touch of Fear, but it's apparently great for some people. The endurance restoring AoE is incredible, though overkill for a regen. In a nasty group, soul drain can give you the extra edge you need. A lot more useful IMO than more attacks.
Of course, I'd consider the choice of secondary a bigger factor than primary for scrappers, at least for soloing. They all operate differently enough that it makes a significant difference in how you approach a fight. Not to mention what sort of things you're most effective fighting, and what things you really want to avoid if you can. (Haven't played corrupters too much, but it seems like this might be the case as well... I know the /ice I have plays very different from the /dark even at low levels. And since I'm not enjoying the /ice very much, that's where it's likely to stay...)
-Morgan."Mikuru-chan molested me! I'm... so happy!"
-Haruhi, "The Ecchi of Haruhi Suzumiya"
---(Not really)