Post by Galeforce on Apr 6, 2011 15:34:49 GMT -5
What this guide is: A general instruction and introduction to building freeform characters for those who might be worried about making the wrong power choices or looking to improve their builds. This guide focuses on soloing in PVE. For better information on PVP and builds effective therein, see the PVP forum. I will not be going into specific power choices here but rather going over general categories of powers and how powers work together.
What this guide is not: A list of specific builds or an introduction to power gaming. None of my characters can solo cosmics but they are all fairly good at soloing most content even on the Elite difficulty setting.
Who am I and what credentials do I have for giving advice on character creation: I am a long time player, starting just a few days after the game launched. I currently have 32 characters, not all of which I play on a regular basis but to which I am too attached to delete, though I occasionally force myself to do so when I get a new concept I want to try. I have played to one extent or another every framework in the game and used, also to one extent or another, every power in the game with the exception of some of the t4 powers.
Ok, introductions done, let’s get to the guide.
Creating a freeform character in Champions Online can be a very daunting prospect. But can be made a lot easier by simply paying attention to the details of the powers. I’ll get into how the different powers work together to increase their effectiveness later, for now, what general powers does a good build need?
A freeform character will have 14 powers once he reaches level 40. One of the devs posted that a well designed character will have powers along the line of the following list. His list has been modified slightly by me but most of the basics are there:
1. An energy builder - you can only have one and they all work basically the same way with various special effects.
2. 3 or 4 attack powers - including a single target high damage power for taking down tougher opponents, an area of effect power for taking out the trash, and maybe a power or two that place useful buffs on you or debuffs on your enemies to make your attacks more effective. Many people also take a “show opener,” a power that they use specifically at the beginning of a fight before they aggro the group, used to either weaken the group as a whole or to eliminate one or more opponents before starting the fight. (an example of a “show opener” would be Sniper Rifle)
3. A slotted passive power - This includes powers such as Fiery Form, Invulnerability, and Aura of Radiant Protection. They come in three basic types: Offensive, Defensive, and Support.
4. An active defense - These are powers that you can click for a quick boost to your defensive capabilities, often a lifesaver when things get hairy.
5. An active offense - Like the active defenses but these give a temporary boost to your offensive capabilities, very useful for taking down tougher opponents.
6. A healing power of some kind - Almost mandatory, these powers will keep you from having to fly back from the respawn point on a regular basis. Most are treated as regular powers, but one, Resurgence, counts as an active defense and will activate the shared cool down on all other active defenses you may have.
7. An energy return - This does exactly what it says, returns energy to you allowing you to use your powers more frequently when a certain set of conditions are met. Conditions that return energy vary by power.
8. A block enhancer - One of the various "shield" powers, these increase the effectiveness of your blocking ability and also frequently have special added effects such as the ability to damage your opponents while blocking like with Electric Shield.
That is the bare skeleton of a decent freeform build. That only includes 10 or 11 powers, leaving 3 or 4 for you to flesh out your character in other ways. You may notice from this list that many of the archetype characters are lacking in one key area: a healing power. Without this, those archetypes will have a very difficult time soloing the more difficult content. I’m not saying they can’t, just that it will be a challenge. The archetypes as a whole are very good builds that mostly follow the guidelines above.
Offensive, Defensive, or Support?
Your first concern is deciding what you want your character to do. Do you want to be a brick, capable of taking tons of damage, defeating your enemies by out lasting them? Do you want to be a cannon, doing massive amounts of damage and taking out your enemies before they can do any significant damage to you? Or do you want to be able to buff up teammates with auras and healing powers? As this is a guide that focuses mostly on soloing, I won't get too much into the last option, but answering these questions will help you determine what kind of slotted passive you will want to take. The pros and cons of each passive have been covered elsewhere but they are all fairly good in their own way for what they are designed to do.
Synergy
How do you know which powers to pick that will work well together? This can usually be done by simply looking at the power descriptions… but not always. Some powers seem like they should work well together but don’t. For instance: Fiery Form boosts all elemental damage; Fire, Ice, and Toxic damage are all considered elemental, but Electricity is not. Electricity is considered energy damage. So powers that boost your effectiveness with elemental damage or that lower your enemy’s resistance to elemental damage will not affect electrical powers. Also try to find power combinations that work well together and pay close attention to the advantages that can be purchased for certain powers. A perfect example can be found in the Fire power set: Fire Snake will lower the elemental resistance of enemies near the snake, the Unstable Accelerant advantage for Fireball will debuff targets to take additional damage from powers labeled as “Burning,” and the high damage from Heat Wave, a “Burning” power, gets pushed even higher when combined with these two.
Stats
Choosing which stats to pick for your Super Stats is also something a lot of new players find daunting. The answer to this dilemma lies in what you want your character to be able to do. I’m not going to go into great detail here about everything that every stat does, since that information is well represented elsewhere. Want your character to do frequent critical hits on your opponents? Choose Dexterity. Want those critical hits to be as powerful as possible? Choose Ego. Want to send your opponent flying with a punch? Choose Strength. Look carefully at what each stat does and choose according to what you want for your character.
Now, I want to dispel a rumor: Strength is not a useless stat to super stat. Many people will tell you that it is useless to choose Strength as a super stat because the melee damage bonus for strength only goes up to 70. While it is true that the melee damage bonus for strength only goes up to 70, you still get the super stat damage bonus on top of that and Strength is used for more than just doing damage, especially if you are a pure melee character. Where does a pure melee character have to be in order to do damage to their opponent? Answer: They have to be in melee range. Strength increases your resistance to knock effects, allowing YOU to decide where you stand rather than your opponent deciding for you. Strength also increases your knock distances, so when you punch someone with a haymaker without Strength super statted, they fly a few yards and take a little falling damage and when you do the same with Strength super statted, they fly into the next time zone and take a lot of falling damage.
How high do you need your super stats to be? Some people say as high as they can possibly be, but with the diminishing returns once you reach the soft cap, you may find it better to put points into other stats. What is the soft cap? The soft cap is the point at which you reach a 30% damage strength bonus with one of your super stats. At level 40, this is around 200 and it scales with your level. That means it takes a much lower stat number to reach the soft cap at level 15 than it does to reach it at level 40. Your character should be operating at decent efficiency to allow you to solo most content within 2 to 3 levels of your current level at the soft cap.
Holds
There is one power type that I have avoided mentioning so far… holds. I have on the whole left them out of this guide because I usually leave them off my characters. I find holds to be fairly useless for soloing in PVE for three reasons:
1. Low ranking mobs such as henchmen and villains die so quickly that using a hold on them is just a waste of time and energy.
2. High ranking enemies such as super villains are immune to holds.
3. Using a hold while soloing takes time and energy that could be used for dealing damage to the same mob you are trying to hold. Unless the hold you are using also does damage (such as the paralyze included in Heat Wave), this is, as above, a waste of time and energy.
That said, there is one power set that uses holds and hold-type powers frequently and has its energy return method keyed to holds and such. That power set is Telepathy. I have used the Telepathy set but I am no expert on it and not really a fan of it.
Conclusion
This is only the barest of outlines for making an effective freeform character and I am sure some people will disagree with me on certain points. There are several additional aspects to consider once you get the general concepts down, but I would place those all in "Advanced Character Building", which this guide does not cover. I may come back and expand this a bit later on to include more info on the stats... unless someone else wants to write that up. i'm out of time for now.
Ciao.
What this guide is not: A list of specific builds or an introduction to power gaming. None of my characters can solo cosmics but they are all fairly good at soloing most content even on the Elite difficulty setting.
Who am I and what credentials do I have for giving advice on character creation: I am a long time player, starting just a few days after the game launched. I currently have 32 characters, not all of which I play on a regular basis but to which I am too attached to delete, though I occasionally force myself to do so when I get a new concept I want to try. I have played to one extent or another every framework in the game and used, also to one extent or another, every power in the game with the exception of some of the t4 powers.
Ok, introductions done, let’s get to the guide.
Creating a freeform character in Champions Online can be a very daunting prospect. But can be made a lot easier by simply paying attention to the details of the powers. I’ll get into how the different powers work together to increase their effectiveness later, for now, what general powers does a good build need?
A freeform character will have 14 powers once he reaches level 40. One of the devs posted that a well designed character will have powers along the line of the following list. His list has been modified slightly by me but most of the basics are there:
1. An energy builder - you can only have one and they all work basically the same way with various special effects.
2. 3 or 4 attack powers - including a single target high damage power for taking down tougher opponents, an area of effect power for taking out the trash, and maybe a power or two that place useful buffs on you or debuffs on your enemies to make your attacks more effective. Many people also take a “show opener,” a power that they use specifically at the beginning of a fight before they aggro the group, used to either weaken the group as a whole or to eliminate one or more opponents before starting the fight. (an example of a “show opener” would be Sniper Rifle)
3. A slotted passive power - This includes powers such as Fiery Form, Invulnerability, and Aura of Radiant Protection. They come in three basic types: Offensive, Defensive, and Support.
4. An active defense - These are powers that you can click for a quick boost to your defensive capabilities, often a lifesaver when things get hairy.
5. An active offense - Like the active defenses but these give a temporary boost to your offensive capabilities, very useful for taking down tougher opponents.
6. A healing power of some kind - Almost mandatory, these powers will keep you from having to fly back from the respawn point on a regular basis. Most are treated as regular powers, but one, Resurgence, counts as an active defense and will activate the shared cool down on all other active defenses you may have.
7. An energy return - This does exactly what it says, returns energy to you allowing you to use your powers more frequently when a certain set of conditions are met. Conditions that return energy vary by power.
8. A block enhancer - One of the various "shield" powers, these increase the effectiveness of your blocking ability and also frequently have special added effects such as the ability to damage your opponents while blocking like with Electric Shield.
That is the bare skeleton of a decent freeform build. That only includes 10 or 11 powers, leaving 3 or 4 for you to flesh out your character in other ways. You may notice from this list that many of the archetype characters are lacking in one key area: a healing power. Without this, those archetypes will have a very difficult time soloing the more difficult content. I’m not saying they can’t, just that it will be a challenge. The archetypes as a whole are very good builds that mostly follow the guidelines above.
Offensive, Defensive, or Support?
Your first concern is deciding what you want your character to do. Do you want to be a brick, capable of taking tons of damage, defeating your enemies by out lasting them? Do you want to be a cannon, doing massive amounts of damage and taking out your enemies before they can do any significant damage to you? Or do you want to be able to buff up teammates with auras and healing powers? As this is a guide that focuses mostly on soloing, I won't get too much into the last option, but answering these questions will help you determine what kind of slotted passive you will want to take. The pros and cons of each passive have been covered elsewhere but they are all fairly good in their own way for what they are designed to do.
Synergy
How do you know which powers to pick that will work well together? This can usually be done by simply looking at the power descriptions… but not always. Some powers seem like they should work well together but don’t. For instance: Fiery Form boosts all elemental damage; Fire, Ice, and Toxic damage are all considered elemental, but Electricity is not. Electricity is considered energy damage. So powers that boost your effectiveness with elemental damage or that lower your enemy’s resistance to elemental damage will not affect electrical powers. Also try to find power combinations that work well together and pay close attention to the advantages that can be purchased for certain powers. A perfect example can be found in the Fire power set: Fire Snake will lower the elemental resistance of enemies near the snake, the Unstable Accelerant advantage for Fireball will debuff targets to take additional damage from powers labeled as “Burning,” and the high damage from Heat Wave, a “Burning” power, gets pushed even higher when combined with these two.
Stats
Choosing which stats to pick for your Super Stats is also something a lot of new players find daunting. The answer to this dilemma lies in what you want your character to be able to do. I’m not going to go into great detail here about everything that every stat does, since that information is well represented elsewhere. Want your character to do frequent critical hits on your opponents? Choose Dexterity. Want those critical hits to be as powerful as possible? Choose Ego. Want to send your opponent flying with a punch? Choose Strength. Look carefully at what each stat does and choose according to what you want for your character.
Now, I want to dispel a rumor: Strength is not a useless stat to super stat. Many people will tell you that it is useless to choose Strength as a super stat because the melee damage bonus for strength only goes up to 70. While it is true that the melee damage bonus for strength only goes up to 70, you still get the super stat damage bonus on top of that and Strength is used for more than just doing damage, especially if you are a pure melee character. Where does a pure melee character have to be in order to do damage to their opponent? Answer: They have to be in melee range. Strength increases your resistance to knock effects, allowing YOU to decide where you stand rather than your opponent deciding for you. Strength also increases your knock distances, so when you punch someone with a haymaker without Strength super statted, they fly a few yards and take a little falling damage and when you do the same with Strength super statted, they fly into the next time zone and take a lot of falling damage.
How high do you need your super stats to be? Some people say as high as they can possibly be, but with the diminishing returns once you reach the soft cap, you may find it better to put points into other stats. What is the soft cap? The soft cap is the point at which you reach a 30% damage strength bonus with one of your super stats. At level 40, this is around 200 and it scales with your level. That means it takes a much lower stat number to reach the soft cap at level 15 than it does to reach it at level 40. Your character should be operating at decent efficiency to allow you to solo most content within 2 to 3 levels of your current level at the soft cap.
Holds
There is one power type that I have avoided mentioning so far… holds. I have on the whole left them out of this guide because I usually leave them off my characters. I find holds to be fairly useless for soloing in PVE for three reasons:
1. Low ranking mobs such as henchmen and villains die so quickly that using a hold on them is just a waste of time and energy.
2. High ranking enemies such as super villains are immune to holds.
3. Using a hold while soloing takes time and energy that could be used for dealing damage to the same mob you are trying to hold. Unless the hold you are using also does damage (such as the paralyze included in Heat Wave), this is, as above, a waste of time and energy.
That said, there is one power set that uses holds and hold-type powers frequently and has its energy return method keyed to holds and such. That power set is Telepathy. I have used the Telepathy set but I am no expert on it and not really a fan of it.
Conclusion
This is only the barest of outlines for making an effective freeform character and I am sure some people will disagree with me on certain points. There are several additional aspects to consider once you get the general concepts down, but I would place those all in "Advanced Character Building", which this guide does not cover. I may come back and expand this a bit later on to include more info on the stats... unless someone else wants to write that up. i'm out of time for now.
Ciao.
*
