Well I decided to try a new topic for people who have questions or are looking for advice about character building in Champions Online. I find discussing things of this nature in the catch-all threads to be confusing because of the different topics being floated around. Making a good character in Champions is not a simple task and there is alot of misinformation out there.
Unlike most games these days that make it impossible to fail you can actually gimp yourself in CO to the point where your character is no longer viable and you don't have enough resources to respec back far enough to fix the problem. Personally, I think this is a good thing. It encourages people to think out their builds and what type of character they want to play ahead of time. You cannot succeed in this game by just randomly picking powers that sound good to you when you hit a new power level. You will reach a point where the lack of direction in your build will make soloing a painful chore where you can only fight enemies a level or two below you. Conversely, making a powerful build will allow you to solo missions meant for 3 characters a level above yours. (I solo'd Fight Club quest at lvl 16)
I'm already being wordy but there's really no help for that. The system in CO is one of the most unintuitive and poorly documented systems you'll run across. When you make your character you are often forced to make choices that will have HUGE ramifications later on down the road. You aren't really warned about this so it is easy to just pick something that sounds good and then 15 levels later realized you completely screwed your character by picking a Presence superstat when the rest of your build leans towards recovery.
So this is a thread for build questions, guidelines, and overall strategy which may or may not be used. I wouldn't have bothered with this if the CO official forum weren't so....sh*tty. Finding good info on them can be needle in a haystack hard.
So I'll start out by making some posts throughout the day going over the basics of making a character. (sadly even the most basic concepts in character creation are undocumented)
This is a great thread, but I have to post a couple corrections.
Ego: Determines how effective your pets are, the severity of your criticals, and the strength of your holds or ability to resist ego based hold attacks.
No, ego has no effect on strength of your holds or pets.
Dexterity: Dex has a minor effect on everyone's ranged damage. Also determines dodge % and critical %
Dex only innate effect is to crit %. It does not affect dodge or ranged damage. If you have Lightning Reflexes, it scales based on Dex, but there is no innate affect from Dex on dodge.
Thus, it is in your best interest to choose your two superstats wisely and then pump them up at every possibe opportunity. Your talents should all feed into your superstats as well as your gear. The higher your superstats the better. Spreading around bonuses in your gear or talents is only going to make you gimper, not more well rounded.
Now this is just my opinion, but I disagree that you should emphasize your superstats with gear. Gear is where you pump your third stat, and almost everyone will be better off if they do so. If your gear only goes towards your superstats, your character is likely to be overspecialized. This is going to depend somewhat on your superstats are though. Someone with say CON/END superstats will probably care less about their third stat than someone with EGO/DEX.
Strekos wrote:This is a great thread, but I have to post a couple corrections.
No, ego has no effect on strength of your holds or pets.
I may be wrong about the pets but I am almost positive that ego has an effect on the strength of your holds. I know for a fact that it used to. Did they change it? There's no telling with how poorly documented their various systes ar.
If it affect holds it must have been a long long time ago (I've been playing since March). It was recently confirmed by a dev to have no innate affect on hold strength. I can dig up the post if you want.
Strekos wrote:Dex only innate effect is to crit %. It does not affect dodge or ranged damage. If you have Lightning Reflexes, it scales based on Dex, but there is no innate affect from Dex on dodge.
Ah, I worded that poorly. DEX does have an innate effect on dodge, it determines your damage mitigation when you successfully dodge. So someone with a higher dex will take less damage from a successfully dodged attacked.
I will have to test to double check in the powerhouse, but I am reasonably certain that DEX will only affect your avoidance if you have Lightning Reflexes slotted.
Strekos wrote:Now this is just my opinion, but I disagree that you should emphasize your superstats with gear. Gear is where you pump your third stat, and almost everyone will be better off if they do so. If your gear only goes towards your superstats, your character is likely to be overspecialized. This is going to depend somewhat on your superstats are though. Someone with say CON/END superstats will probably care less about their third stat than someone with EGO/DEX.
This is very true depending on the type of character your are making. For someone making their first character though I'd recommend keeping it to two stats and pumping them up. The flat improvement of dps will probably help more than a higher secondary stat. I'm trying to start this thread out simple and then work around to the finer points later on.
Well, I still disagree You don't do any DPS if you're dead, and you're not doing very much DPS when you're running your energy builder attack. So if CON or END (or REC, to a lesser extent) are not one of your superstats, the effect of pumping one of them via gear is going to be more noticeable than just adding more to your DPS.
Does anyone have any team-based experience? My main character is part of a 2-man team exclusively, so we both try to complement each other. However when it comes to open mission bosses, we definitely see the need for a tank/healer combo. We have attempted the legendary bosses at the graveyard in the Desert and Viper-X at City Hall, both of which just slaughter us even at level 25.
Most of the game is fighting numbers with the occasional super villain, which is all the same. Bosses however are a totally different story. There is little crowd control that affects bosses, and presence is so little-used in most of the game that chars built for soloing just can't handle threat.
Something that I've noticed is a lot of people building up only their framework first. The highest powers require 5 non-energy-buildling powers from their framework or at least 8 of any framework. I imagine for many people it's more appealing to pick a framework and stick with it, while only branching out to pick up shortcomings. All frameworks being equal, if Power Armor is focused on single-target DPS, then stick with it and pick up whatever helps on the side (crowd control, heal, etc.).
Last paragraph I swear! In each build you can choose what items to equip. I haven't used the builds yet because everything is pretty much the same so far. I assume you need to put items you equip in your inventory. That takes up a lot of space, and I also assume when you switch builds your items go into the first available bag space. Trying to keep your bags organized to make sure you don't sell them or uncraft them seems like a lot of work. Inventory management tends to slow down a fast-paced game like Champions.
Does anyone have any team-based experience? My main character is part of a 2-man team exclusively, so we both try to complement each other. However when it comes to open mission bosses, we definitely see the need for a tank/healer combo. We have attempted the legendary bosses at the graveyard in the Desert and Viper-X at City Hall, both of which just slaughter us even at level 25.
I've done 5-mans a few times -- the Teleios Tower twice and Dr. Destroyer's Factory twice. It feels like playing City of Villians, where the team tries to dominate with overwhelming firepower and all the other stuff such as CC, healing, and tanking are secondary. It's been fun but I've died a lot. I think more specialized builds would compose more effective teams, but the game encourages soloing so much that it seems people are building generalists. I'm hoping there's more group content at higher levels and that one effect of it will be more specialized, team-oriented builds.
Last paragraph I swear! In each build you can choose what items to equip. I haven't used the builds yet because everything is pretty much the same so far. I assume you need to put items you equip in your inventory.
Yes, the inventory items for your other builds are stored in your bags. And if you don't have the inventory space to switch to a particular build, it won't let you switch.
Well, I hope the way the endgame content is made doesn't require the ancient trinity of tank/support/dps. Especially since leveling a true tank or support is pretty painful to do and with the way retcon works you can't "level as shadow and respec to light." The openness of the character development system is fantastic and I hope that the content requires tactics to beat, not builds.
This is all excellent information. Especially about how superstats work.
Thanks a lot guys.
Some notes from my experiences so far:
- Maybe not with your first character, but consider doing a full retcon as soon as you leave the starting area (i.e. when you reach the powerhouse for the first time.) It should still be fairly cheap to do at this point—easily affordable if you sell off junk loot that you acquired during the starting area. Doing a retcon at this point does a couple of things for you: First, it allows you to try out a bunch of different powers to see how they feel, look at the descriptions in detail, play around with them on the target dummies, etc. Get a feel for the pace of how they're going to work, basically, and really think through the interactions. Second, it gives you the option of choosing a power builder and a level 1 power instead of a power builder and a level 0 power. (I've heard of this being done for Might, for example, because apparently some Tier 2 powers are much more attractive for "bread and butter" use than the tier 0 beatdown power.) I wouldn't recommend it in all circumstances—a lot of the tier 0 powers can be pretty strong—but it's worth considering.
If you run the public quest in the starter area (the Ironclad Defense bit where you fight off the Qularr waves at the rail gun), you should be able to acquire a good chunk of booty and level up to level 8 if you're really pursuing this sort of strategy—enough to get you access to the tier 2 powers to experiment with. I can't confirm whether you'll have enough money to do a full retcon at this point, but level 5 or 6 will let you do it easily.
Edited to add: I just tried this--don't spend your time doing that. At level 6, you can easily afford to fully retcon. At level 8, it's way out of reach.
- Strength has an additional impact on melee (aside from ego blades) abilities, but you shouldn't let that scare you off from either taking melee abilities for a concept, or choosing non-strength super-stats. Strength has a 20% bonus ceiling on melee damage output, and as of the upcoming patch, the devs have said that they're aiming to make that cap easy to reach without having to super-stat strength. That means that a dedicated melee character can still take two other stats as super-stats and have strength be a tertiary stat—and may very well want to. And related to that, a non-melee specialist can definitely relegate strength to tertiary status (or worse) and not have those abilities be totally useless.
- In general, some of the needs for stats are very obvious, or well documented. For example, it's easy to see how dex and ego work together if you want to make a crit-heavy character. It's also fairly obvious why a character who uses the personal force field needs decent endurance and ego, or why someone with invulnerability needs strength and constitution. It takes a little bit more research, though, to see how some of the other effects work. The stat guide page mentions that ego and dex have an impact on munitions because of how Killer Instinct works. It fails to note, however, that a dual blades character may also want a high crit rate if they want to be able to use the advantage that puts you in a focused state when you gain a crit with your energy builder when they're not slotting their offensive focus passive ability.
Short form: there are going to be things you miss. Do your research, but don't worry too much if you're not perfect the first time out.
- Finally, I think there's plenty of room for concept characters. The more I look at things, the more I see that while it may take some effort to put the right abilities together to get the concept you want while being uber, it's harder to gimp yourself than I had originally expected. I do expect the retcon costs to go down—simply because I can't imagine the current retcon system holding together with the kind of patches an MMO goes through in its first year. (Excuse me... HOW many months of farming to afford a full retcon at level 40?) But even without that, as long as you learn the basics of what the stats do, you're more likely to come into a situation of "This doesn't work quite as well as I expected—I'd best try something a little different" or having to scrounge together some gear to maximize a stat you'd been ignoring for a while than you are to have your character end up completely unplayable
Good luck!
TheArtOfScience wrote:Strekos wrote:Dex only innate effect is to crit %. It does not affect dodge or ranged damage. If you have Lightning Reflexes, it scales based on Dex, but there is no innate affect from Dex on dodge.
Ah, I worded that poorly. DEX does have an innate effect on dodge, it determines your damage mitigation when you successfully dodge. So someone with a higher dex will take less damage from a successfully dodged attacked.
I will have to test to double check in the powerhouse, but I am reasonably certain that DEX will only affect your avoidance if you have Lightning Reflexes slotted.
I confirmed it in the powerhouse. DEX has zero affect on both avoidance and dodge chance unless you have Lightning Reflexes slotted.
INT will allow you to cast more powers on a full energy bar.
REC will allow you to quickly fill your energy bar and lets you start the fight at a high energy level.
END will give you a larger energy pool with which to cast from.Some investment in one of these 3 is almost mandatory if you don't want 80% of your time spent with your character watching them do the default energy gain attack which does the damage equivalent of harsh words. Which of the 3 you choose depends on the type of character you will play. If you are planning on using high energy-cost powers then INT or END are your best bets. If you're a tank and want to be long lasting or you're a blaster who wants a huge alpha strike then recovery is probably the handiest. It all depends on how you play your character.
I don't think having INT, REC or END as a superstat is required, but you will certainly want an energy building skill if you don't.
I play a MA with STR and DEX superstats. I just hit my energy building skill when I run low. It builds energy pretty quickly.
Strength has an additional impact on melee (aside from ego blades) abilities, but you shouldn't let that scare you off from either taking melee abilities for a concept, or choosing non-strength super-stats. Strength has a 20% bonus ceiling on melee damage output, and as of the upcoming patch, the devs have said that they're aiming to make that cap easy to reach without having to super-stat strength. That means that a dedicated melee character can still take two other stats as super-stats and have strength be a tertiary stat—and may very well want to. And related to that, a non-melee specialist can definitely relegate strength to tertiary status (or worse) and not have those abilities be totally useless.
Is there a spot in the UI to check whether you are at the cap? I checked some of the guides and didn't see anything. I may switch to EGO/DEX super stats when the free head start retcon comes available.
Once I picked up my passive defensive at L14, it's been smooth sailing. I haven't tried to solo an instance that suggested three or more, but I've handled quests that suggested two without any problem.
Before getting my passive defensive skill, I died quite a bit against some of the villains. Now, I don't die very much. I soloed Poe and thought it was pretty easy. I don't hesitate to try a super villain a couple levels above me.
I sometimes have difficulty against multiple villains at the same time if I am a level or two below. But only a couple of the villain types - like the deputy robot cowboys. For some reason those guys were a bit tougher. A villain with some henchmen is no biggie.
I haven't fought a difficult SV in CO yet, tbh. I guess Poe was a little hard at first until he shot his wad with his holds. Has anyone come across a SV, or hell...ANY mission for that matter, that they NEEDED a teammate with?
Fight Club is the toughest mission to solo that I've come across if you do it at level or lower. Not because of a tough SV, though, but because it's hard to do manageable pulls of the spectators. I'm sure that there are plenty of common builds where doing it requires a teammate.
Missions where all the henchmen are Tough can be very difficult also.
Fight Club took a while, but it was certainly doable solo. I died a few times due to bad pulls, but the actual bosses were cake. The only Super Villain that's given me any trouble so far was Medusa and her summoned adds - I still took her down, but I had to kite them around the room for a bit while my regen kicked in.
However, I just rolled an ice character and he seems to have problems against SVs. Large groups of minions are no problem (the larger the better, thanks to Ice Wall + Shatter), but the lack of a defensive power really hurts during the long fights. He's still pretty low-level, but Mr. Zombie and Black Mist both kicked my butt a couple times. I'm going for END/REC as super stats, but now I'm thinking I should probably start collecting CON gear to boost my survivability a bit.
I don't think having INT, REC or END as a superstat is required, but you will certainly want an energy building skill if you don't.
I have a power armor toon that would disagree. Firing three or more attacks simultaneously will burn through energy in no time. I tried several versions of different superstat combos before settling with INT/END. Granted you could try and make up the difference with gear, but I feel more at ease with this build. Of all the builds I have tried so far, PA is the most energy hungry and you can gimp yourself pretty quick by not having a robust energy pool.
I have never found a reason to go with end over rec. I dont find that the end boost to over all energy to be more useful than just raising equalibrium. Why do you guys like end?
I have never found a reason to go with end over rec. I dont find that the end boost to over all energy to be more useful than just raising equalibrium. Why do you guys like end?
The answer is, as always in this game, it depends on what you're building.
I rarely go with REC over END because:
a) My builds have powers that can't even be cast at max charge without significantly increasing END. Of course, if you don't have any of these powers then it doesn't apply. If I had to worry more about cooldowns I might give INT some more consideration.
b) END scales the damage bonus from all energy forms except fire form. My main and my most active alts are using one energy form or another.
c) END gives more benefit to energy gained with energy builder than REC.
d) REC is most useful for alpha strike, as during a fight you will build energy far faster from your energy builder than from equilibrium. Alpha strike is far more useful in PvP than PvE, at least as far as I'm concerned, and I have no interest in PvP in this game.
REC is more useful if you take Regen, although currently on live the scaling is so bad that you can just ignore REC for this purpose. But once the test server patch goes live, its contribution to scaling will actually be significant.
Arghh Id Blade scaling off EGO instead of END is going live tonight (along with a zillion other changes, including free full retcons for everyone). Now I have to figure out how to best retcon my TK using main.
DevilStick wrote:I don't think having INT, REC or END as a superstat is required, but you will certainly want an energy building skill if you don't.
I have a power armor toon that would disagree. Firing three or more attacks simultaneously will burn through energy in no time. I tried several versions of different superstat combos before settling with INT/END. Granted you could try and make up the difference with gear, but I feel more at ease with this build. Of all the builds I have tried so far, PA is the most energy hungry and you can gimp yourself pretty quick by not having a robust energy pool.
The recommended Superstats for PA are INT/STR. It's perfectly logical to have at least one, if not both of those in a PA build.
The point I was trying to make was that I don't think INT, REC or END are universally required for all frameworks/builds, which is how the statement was worded. Unless/until you know what you are doing, you're probably best off going with the recommended Superstats for your framework.
I'd like to get some feedback regarding personal experiences with certain power/stat combos. The above general info on stats has really helped clarify things for me but I'd like some more specific info. I'm not looking to min/max, I just want different takes on effective builds.
My mid 20's character is a munitions, regen dex/ego/rec build. The combo of mini mines w/ wall of fire and the retaliation buff (from the strength line block) makes things almost too easy in most situations. I'll wade into a crowd with block up in order to get the retaliation buff, drop a load of mines and then watch everyone fall down. At level 25 one drop of mines with the buff will one shot level 27 villains. While completely satisfying it does get a bit old after a while.
Last night I started another character and I'm trying to stay as true to the character concept as I can. In other words I'm not looking to have a mish-mash of unrelated skills just because they do the most dps, etc. I'm trying to make a beast-type melee character just for a change of pace from munitions. He's a dex/str build and so far I've gotten the supernatural beast strike power builder, the health siphon melee power, the ranged chain strike that pulls the mobs toward me, lightning reflexes and acrobatics for travel. Until I got lightning reflexes I was dying like crazy but that skill has made all the difference in the world. I'm still debating between picking up some claw skills or just sticking with the supernatural line. While the wolf summon would be wonderful conceptually I have a feeling it would be virtually useless since I'm not actively putting anything into any stats that would remotely benefit pets. I also don't know anything about the aspect powers and how beneficial they are in combat. What I'm really looking for at this point is a good non-weapon close range AOE, maybe another single target dps ability since the siphon has a long cooldown, another means of healing myself since the health siphon seems fairly pitiful (as far as healing goes), and any other buffs that can up my survivability.
Last night I started another character and I'm trying to stay as true to the character concept as I can. In other words I'm not looking to have a mish-mash of unrelated skills just because they do the most dps, etc. I'm trying to make a beast-type melee character just for a change of pace from munitions. He's a dex/str build and so far I've gotten the supernatural beast strike power builder, the health siphon melee power, the ranged chain strike that pulls the mobs toward me, lightning reflexes and acrobatics for travel. Until I got lightning reflexes I was dying like crazy but that skill has made all the difference in the world. I'm still debating between picking up some claw skills or just sticking with the supernatural line. While the wolf summon would be wonderful conceptually I have a feeling it would be virtually useless since I'm not actively putting anything into any stats that would remotely benefit pets. I also don't know anything about the aspect powers and how beneficial they are in combat. What I'm really looking for at this point is a good non-weapon close range AOE, maybe another single target dps ability since the siphon has a long cooldown, another means of healing myself since the health siphon seems fairly pitiful (as far as healing goes), and any other buffs that can up my survivability.
If you want more healing while staying in concept, you could slot the Phlebotomist advantage on Devour Essence and look at the Supernatural powers that cause bleeds. Bite causes a bleed (no advantage needed), and Bestial Fury, Crippling Coils, and Iron Lariat all have bleed advantages that can be slotted.
The aspects read like they are damage auras, but they only cause damage on the initial activation. After that, you only get the added secondary effects. The procs were kinda buggy as well, but I don't know if that's changed lately.
For a close range AoE, do you not feel like Venomous Breath fits your concept?
Strekos you can probably retcon out of using your superstats so that should hopefully help out some of your problems.
Pages