Eisen's guide to everything you probably would like to know about Champions

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Eisen's guide to everything you probably would like to know about Champions (version 1.0)


I. Introduction
II. Frameworks
III. Stats and you
IV. Powers and Power Synergies
V. Advantages
VI. Tips and Tricks



I. Introduction

OK, so you've played the game for a bit. You've fought some Qularr, shut down ALL the beacons, yada yada. Then you got past the tutorials and realized...you have no idea what the heck you're doing. Or maybe you started dying on every fight, while other people seem to breeze by. Or maybe you noticed other people were always outdoing you on Public Quests, and you wonder why. Hopefully, this guide will give you some insight on some of the finer points of this game, and help you play better. What's going to follow is a HUGE wall of text with a lot of info that may seem overwhelming, but comes naturally after you take some time to get used to how things work in this game (as opposed to others you may have played before)

"Are you telling me to STFU and Learn to play, Eisen?"

Of course not. Look, the majority of people playing right now are newbies. You may be one of them. You haven't had the weeks or months of time beta testers did to get the hang of game mechanics and grasp the subtleties of how stats work. The goal of this thread is to try to help people who don't understand some of these things, so that they don't feel as frustrated. This game has a HUGE learning curve! Something I hope the Devs take into consideration in the near future, but for now it takes some time to get the hang of things.

"But Eisen, the game's unplayable!"

No, no it isn't. It's changed. Like any MMO, it has changed, and it will change again. Perhaps easier, perhaps harder, perhaps they'll paint us all purple and make us into lizards...who knows? But right now, it is what it is. And is IS playable. Just not as easy as it was in beta. The first time I asked a question about stats in the beta, do you know what I was told? "Doesn't really matter if you screw up, none of it makes a difference and the game's easy." At the time, that person was 100% right. Now, not so much. Whether you consider this a good or bad thing, again, it is what it is. And it IS playable. I and many others who regularly solo level without dying all the time can attest to that fact.

"Yeah, cause you use some OP, hybrid, flavor-of-the-month build. I wanna keep my concept character."

Who says you can't? Within reason of course, but we'll get to that. I make a point on most of my characters to avoid the "must have" powers many of the top dogs use. No regen (save testing it on one toon after the nerf), no resurgence, no Personal Force Field, no force sheath, no blasted Field Drones, and NO sonic device. And I prefer "pure" builds. Most frameworks have synergies that make the powers within them work better when used in concert with each other. I prefer to take advantage of that, rather than grab a hodgepodge of whatever's OP this week.

So without further ado....

(the rest of the posts are coming, so please don't post until I'm done. Thanks!)

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II. Frameworks


Frameworks exist for one reason only..to organize powers with a like theme. That's it. You're not forced to take all powers from any one frame. It DOES make it easier to pick higher powers from a certain frame by getting more powers from that frame, but only by a few levels. In the long run this is not crucial.
However, that doesn't mean there are no benefits to sticking to a "pure" build either. As I mentioned above, I despise hybrids generally. While this game does cater to the tankmage types (at least for leveling), I'm an old-schooler and love having one defined role and being good at it.

I don't intend to go over each frame here, or weigh the pros and cons of each. Frankly, as overall sets go, I find the choice is really subjective. When picking choosing what frame(s) you want, consider the following:

1) What type of gameplay works best for me? Do I like fast, light hitting melee types? Big bruising tanks? Slow but powerful blasters? Kiting? Dots? Root n' Shoot?

2) Is there a concept in my head? Do I want to recreate (insert comic archetype here)? Do I want to put my dream superhero down in pixels? What sets best fit his design?
Look at both of those, look at the power sets, and then map out a rough idea of what you think would fit both best.

A caveat on number 2 though: don't go overboard! Sure a sword/sorcery/darkness/fire/gun character might sound cool on paper, but when you start looking at stat and power synergies, you'll realize you're spreading him much too thin! Then you'll end up either ignoring half those frames for a few more effective ones (making the rest cosmetic and a waste) or finding yourself very, very underpowered. That's not to say it's impossible to play the game this way...but you will have a harder time.

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III. Stats and You

OK, a few important things to remember about stats. First off, for the purposes of raw damage, only your superstats matter! There are sort of a few exceptions to that as we'll see later. But for the most part, Whatever you choose as Supers is what determines your basic damage output. So, looking at it that way, it doesn't matter what stats you pick, right?

Wrong!

There's a LOT more to consider besides damage. First off, let's look at a brief (but not complete) list of what each stat does.

Str- Knockback resistance, knockback Distance, chance of knockback, and breaking tangible (physical) hold abilties (think Ice, for example). Please note the tooltips often say iit affects melee damage directly; however recent testing I've done seems to indicate that as of the current build it does not.
Dex- Affects Crit chance %
Con- Increases HP
End- Increases Energy
Int- Increases Pet damage, decreases end costs on all abilities
Ego- Affects the damage of ego weapons, increases how much a TK can lift, affects Crit damage % (NOTE: You can stack this all you want but with a low crit chance % from Dex it's basically useless), breaks non-tangible holds
Pre- Reduces threat for all roles save Defender. Increases threat for Defender (tanks). Increases healing done. Increases Pet health
Rec- Improves equilibrium (what your starting energy level is set to). Improves the speed of health and energy regeneration out of combat. Improves the amount gained by end builder abilities.

So now that you have a rough idea of what stats do, let's think about making that character of yours again. So, you want an Ice characer, huh? And I bet you noticed Dex and End were its recommended stats. Wanna know what determines those recommended stats? In the case of every framework that has a slotted passive defense or energy form, recommended stats are chosen because that passive scales according to them! In other words, the only reason Ice is Dex/End is because Ico Form is built to scale to those two stats. No other power in Ice directly scales in effectiveness based on those two stats. So, ask yourself: "Do I want a passive? Which ones?" Yes I said plural there. You can get more than one, and slot them depending on what build/role you're currently in. Now, lookng at Ice, it scales to Dex/End. And lemme tell you, having Ice form makes Ice a LOT more affective. In general, passive slotted abilities of any kind really, really boost your effectiveness. You should always have at least one.

"Isn't it true only Defensive passive using characters can solo?"

No, no it isn't. It tends to be MUCH easier for them to solo certain content however, much in the same way hybrids in other games tend to solo well. They can do enough damage to kill things, and heal themselves after. However, a pure offensive character can do more damage, if properly set up. It's possible to take a "the best defense is killing them first" approach, but it means focusing on doing just that. This is tougher to do, and some fights will require real strategy to win. So, often times, the easier, balanced offensive with defensive passive design will get along better. But it is by no means necessary.

So, decided on a passive yet? Great. Now let's decide what to make your Superstats. So let's take Suzy Slashurface. She wants to take a defensive; in this case, Invulnerability. And she loves swords. So, let's think about that. Invulnerability scales to strength. Bet I know what Suzy's first superstat will be! But what about the next one? Dex is never a wrong choice for a DPS-oriented character, since you're not only increasing your dps, but your crit rating (which will increase your overall dps that much more!) Some people love Ego too (espeically Force users or hybrids who take PFF) since Ego improves how much more damage you do when you Crit. Here's a quick and dirty guide to when a certain stat makes a good Superstat:

Str: Anyone that takes Invulnerability, Or either wants to do a lot of knockback, or not get knocked back a lot themselves.
Dex: All primarily damage builds, anyone who wants to use Ice Form or Lightning Reflexs
Ego: All primarily damage builds (who are already raising dex), anyone using Ego Form, or Personal Force Field
Con: Tanks, anyone who just wants a large health pool, users of invulnerability.
End: Anyone using Ice Form, Electric Form, Ego Form, Personal Force Field, or just wanting a large End pool.)
Int: Pet users, and those with issues handling the end costs of their powers.
Pre: Pet users, Tanks, Healers., and anyone using Fiery Form
Rec: Anyone using Regen (not recommended as Rec scales poorly into Regen, but it DOES scale) Electric Form, or Fiery Form

Personally for Suzy, I'd take Dex as the second Superstat.

"So Eisen, should I just stack my superstats and ignore everything else?"

Not a chance! Overspecialization is a bad idea in this game. If Suzy stacked nothing but Str and Dex, she'd have a low health pool and probably even lower energy. She'd do LOTS of daamge, but she'd never survive! Also, as of the current build, there's a hard cap of a 32% damage bonuses per superstat (212 in each stat at level 40 will reach the cap.) The best bet, from what I've seen, is this.
1) Pick two stats for your superstats
2) Pick two additional stats as "secondary" stats.
3) Gear and talent so that you primarilty raise your Supers, but don't neglect secondaries! My personal recommendation is make sure at least 50% of the stat gains you're getting from talents and gear is for your Superstats (but no more than 75%), then divide the remaining up evenly between your secondaries. These are rough estimates not exact math, and you'll probably find your mileage will vary. But this rough formula has worked well for me so far.

Going back to Suzy, I'd pick Con and either Ego or End as her Secondaries. Con for the obvious health pool reason (plus it also helps Invulnerability!). Ego will augment her existing crits, or she can improve her energy pool with End. It's really up to the player at that point. Knowing how Momentum works on blades, I'd probably choose Ego. More on that in the Powers section.

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IV. Powers and Power Synergies

You've probably heard me ramble on about Power synergies for a while, and wondered what the heck I was talking about. Their existence is the major reason why I advocate "pure" builds over hybrids. Put simply, a power synergy is when one or more powers work together to augment each other. Here's a few examples.
1. Fire attacks can often create the Clinging Flames debuff, which adds a dot to enemies. And Advantage to Fire strike causes refreshed dots and a small aoe explosion every time a mob with Clinging Flames is hit with Firestrike.
2. Ice creates the Chill effect, which slows down enemies. Certain powers in Ice either augment Chill, or do more damage to chilled targets. In addition, enemies frozen in ice cages or walls can take heavy additional damage when the ice is hit by Shatter.
3. Many melee abilities create Momentum. Among other things, momentum will cause a player to gain energy every time they hit with several of their powers. The overall effect is the attacks feed themselves, and a melee character who knows how to create and maintain momentum never needs to worry about running out of energy!
When you're picking powers, look at the special effects they place on your enemy, and see how other powers in that and other frameworks might mesh together. Also look at what the powers DO. How many cone aoes do you need? Maybe a root/stun would be more useful? Maybe adding a heavy single-target attack would be more efficient for 1-on-1 fights than another aoe? And of course, don't forget if you wanted a concept character, making sure it is workable within your concept and still helps you play!



V. Advantages

Don't forget these! And don't make the mistake of think they're just there to rank up your powers! Yeah adding 10% more damage is nice, but what if I could make a single target attack a cone instead? Or make an attack cause knockback, or any number of other cool effects? Many of the "oddball" advantages offer things to help you change up your powers...and often add cool effects that really make a difference! Also remember Power Synergies when looking at advantages. Many of them mesh with secondary effects like Fear, Chill, or Momentum, just like powers do.



VI. Tips and Tricks

This is just where I want to add little things that might help make gameplay easier and more fun for you.

1) Block! No, really, block. Seriously. There's a reason that was one of the first quests you got. The developers were trying to tell you something. Which is, "Learn when to block. It WILL save your life" Also, get a block power when you can spare it (I'd say somewhere after your first Tier 3 power, or earlier if you have nothing better to put in). They really do help.

2) Think before charging in. Is your main damage power a short-range area of effect centered around you? You'll want to do whatever you can to get baddies in close. Knockbacks might not be a good idea. On the other hand, Force-heavy players will be doing everything they can to keep the enemy away and on their butts..but be careful not to draw adds by sending a buddy flying by them!

3) Ask questions, and use the Powerhouse. Look, respecs suck right now, so it's better to make sure something is going to work, and work WELL. before you're stuck with something that turns out to be not so good. If you can get past the griping these forums have a wealth of information, and other players in game are generally helpful.

4) Craft! Crafting is there for a reason, and that reason is to help you. Crafted items (especially once you get to the enchancements stage) are often better than normal or quest drops. And don't forget consumables!

5) Watch out for devices! There's a number of handy devices that get dropped that you might never notice went straight to your "C" bar. These can be anything from heals to summons to ping-pong ball guns, and can really change an otherwise tough situation.

6) Realize that anything you come up with could be buffed, nerfed, become Flavor of the month, or be removed entirely the next time there's a major update. Accept that change is the only constant, and don't sweat things. Whatever just got changed will probably be changed again before too long. This too shall pass.

7) Relax, and have fun! If you're not having fun, what's the point? Maybe the build/character you're playing isn't right for you. Maybe the game isn't right for you. Or maybe the stuff you're using recently got changed and what you once liked just doesn't work like it used to. Change what you can't accept, accept what you can't change...but try not to stress. It's only pixels.

I'll update this regularly as I can, so stay tuned. To those who might post here feel free to discuss and debate as much as you like, but let's try not to spiral down into flaming and insults. Whether you like the game as it is right now or hate it, abuse and insults won't help. So if you can't keep it positive, at least keep it constructive. That's all I ask.

(Whew! all done Have at guys!)

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I have a question!

Which Space Marine are you?

Other then that good guide!

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I have a question!

Which Space Marine are you?

Other then that good guide!

Heh, thanks.

I haven't recreated the Marine since the beta wipe, but it was a muntions/gadgeteering/power armor build. And horribly gimped. I wanna redo it right, but haven't decided exactly what I'm going to take.

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This is a great read, thank you!

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[B]Eisen's guide to everything you probably would like to know about Champions

...but were afraid to ask because it would probably get changed the moment you had a handle on it anyway? :p

I kid! Good idea, and undoubtedly useful for some.

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...but were afraid to ask because it would probably get changed the moment you had a handle on it anyway? :p

I kid! Good idea, and undoubtedly useful for some.

LOL no kidding about it! Anything I said could totally change. That's how MMOs roll. Hopefully I'll have the patience to keep up with it and update it as things do change.

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...but were afraid to ask because it would probably get changed the moment you had a handle on it anyway? :p

I kid! Good idea, and undoubtedly useful for some.

Just feed them lots of sunchips and they shall be undoubtfully happy!

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Let's hope this gets a sticky, I had to help 3 people today and explain how everything works with stats and what not... this game REALLY need to teach these things, it's pretty tricky.

I remember seeing a couple people complaining about how the game sucks now and w/e, so i find them and watch them fight... they charge into a group of 4 mobs 1 of which is a villain, and he's using his energy builder and tapping his main attack (not charging it) every now and then... doesn't block.. faceplants..

CMON..

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Wow. Thank you so much for posting this up and taking the time to do it. Very very helpful. Should be a sticky.

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Just do what I do and Eisen did (if I mispelled the name sorry) and stick the link in your signature like I did. It will make things alot better and get more of a chance to sticky

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Eisen - just saw this - will read it tomorrow (about to face plant on my keyboard I'm so tired). Really hoping some of the info will help me with my now gimped main. Anyhow, thanks for taking the time to write this up.

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I support this guide 100%.

I think it is an important starter guide, and I wish I would have had read this when I first started playing.

This game can be pretty unforgiving as you learn how things work because of the open skill system, so information like this can really cut some of that learning curve off so you can evolve your own concepts.

I know people want to make their concept characters right off the bat. I would advise new players though, to go ahead and make your costume, but then just make a test character. Go ahead, pick an existing framework to start with, and get into the game. Go through the tutorial, and crisis zones. Learn how different abilities work. Learn how combat works, as it can be pretty different than some other games. Learn how equipment works. Etc Etc.

It took me 6 times through the tutorial and early crisis before I really felt like I had a good handle on everything and felt like I was ready to proceed. I think people jump in thinking this is like any other MMOG, make their burning concept character and then get frustrated when they struggle. When in reality they are potentially big things you just don't know about.

I started before the big opening day patch, and when I first played I died all the time. Every time I went through the tutorial I would learn a bit more about what I was doing and how things worked. With more time and experience, I had a solid foundation. On top of that each time through I took a different powerset. So by the time I decided what I wanted to do I had a good amount of experience with a number of different powers so I could have a better foundation for my main character.

I know people want to make their main concept character and go with it, but for a lot of people they will be better off spending some time learning the game at the beginning and investing a few days or more into this part of the game. Then with this knowledge build your concept character.

Sacrificing a few days play for a game you might want to play for months or years is nothing. It will also likely save you a lot of time and aggravation in the long run.

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Thanks for doing it I was half way doing this myself

This must get sticky and eventually get ingame, I would wish all this information was coherently available when I was rolling my characters in the past and hope new players retconning players and players having problem find it useful.

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"In a game like WoW where there is MILLIONS of players, the forums is a minority. In a game like CO where there is maybe 100,000 players now, not so much." - Junkbox the Barbarian

Why does this come in my mind? "If you kill one... that is a tragedy. When you kill ten million... that is a statistic." Joseph Stalin.

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Wow, great guide. Just got this tonight despite all the flak I've been reading. Love it so far! Yeah, it's difficult, but so what? I have tons of questions still that are not in this thread's scope, but I really am grateful for this post. I guess I could see how someone would be a bit frustrated with the fact that maybe their concept build might not cut the mustard (especially for some old school PnP Hero players who want to convert their fave character to this game). But look, if you want to recreate 'Mazing Man or Ambush Bug, don't expect him to live long. I managed to create my target hero, and so far he's working out well. It's a "mini-mech" based off the old Shogun Warriors. I've had to eat dirt a few times, but, eh, I forgot to block. Heh, good thing I have the energy shield power. Just need to remember to use it.

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Cool guide, small thing though. You mentioned Ice Form together with DEX, but END is much more important for Ice Form as it is END that scales the damage up.

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Good guide, that will help people.

The MTV generation version

Superstat Con/End
take AoE
take CC.
take Invul.
Profit

A side effect of the blanket nerf is that (viable) diversity has diminished.

Pro tip 2 stop leveling around L26 27 so when they put the experience nerf back you have some content left to take you through the 30 barrier. If you go all the way until you hit the content gap even if they revert the exp back you still will have nothing left to take you through.

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I would add one more tip:

"Use the Champon Builder (aka talent calculator) to plan ahead".

It's been a great help to me. And maybe another one:

"Do not neglect crafted consumables".

Healing patches are easy to make, the materials are common, and having an extra 2k heal on you will turn the tide of battle more than once.

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This guide is quality. Bravo and bump.

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Good guide but shouldn't End be recomended for people with ice form?It increases the damage which is the most usefull part of ice form.

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Mods: sticky this in help-section for the newbs? =)

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Thanks for the replies all. And thanks for pointing out that I missed End on Ice Form. Corrected.

I might add something in the near future on crafting, it IS extremely helpful.

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Thanks again for another great guide. I can attest that the stats section is right on. Even though ive made some wierd character concepts Ive found that by setting up my stats much like Eisen has described has made them all very playable.

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Nice guide.

One thing I would point out though is that people shouldn't take ego as a super stat unless they take dex as a super stat. Dex on it's own, even if you focus on it as a secondary stat with talents and gear, is very hard to raise. By 40, if dex isn't your super stat, your crit chance will be extremely low. So despite having all that crit severity, it generally wouldn't be worth it because you won't be getting very many crits.

Ego on the other hand is fairly easy to raise. So you could take Dex/End for example and still have a moderately high crit severity if you focus on ego as a secondary stat with your gear.

Also, the innate talent for ice framework is no longer End/Dex. It's End/Recovery. They removed the 12 End/Dex innate talent from character creation completely for some reason.

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Should mention the "build" function (default bound to keyboard "B" button) and the affects it has on your character, survivabiltiy can increase greatly or tank right into the toilet depending on how it's set. :)

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bump this really is important.

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What a great post, Eisen! This deserves a sticky, or at least constant bumping.

You're a benefit ot the community.

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Hey Eisentank I agree with most of your post... But INT is not just for pets. It is a good stat for any power hungry build as it lowers the power cost and also lowers the cool down of powers.

And yeah I also wanted to build me a space marine but have yet to work on one becuase I was failing at trying to get a sisters of battle look from the character builder.

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I agree some power armour powers do not reach even half the slider if INT isn't high.

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My personal experience with Int is it hasn't scaled that well. Althoguh I'll grant you the base end costs for most t3 powers is ridiculous when you get it. Amended.

Thank you all for your support and your information.

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Information so useful, it should have been included in the very thin manual.

Exceptional job here, Eisen. A wealth of information that would be of use to literally anybody playing Champions. Pointing people to this thread could save so much time as opposed to recycling the explanation over and over.

I sincerely hope this helps out many players who find confusion in the game, and it helps them understand it a bit more.

Funny, though, that this explanation is more clear and concise than any type of tutorial or guide actually within the game itself. I sort of see that as a shortcoming by Cryptic, but oh well.

Thanks again,
-Dragon

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I woul agree that stat explanations from Cryptic could be a little less....you know.

Added a few tips about crafting and Devices.

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eisen thanks for the guide.

Complete noob here. My concept for my character was a western cowboy dual pistol, dual blade guy named Eastwood, original eh? :)

Well I am level 11 and so far it is very fun as I have a couple munitions abilities and a couple dual blade skills including an aoe. Now I am at a conundrum of what direction I should go in next. My superstats have been str and dex and I have been neglecting any secondary altogether.

I still don't quite understand passive defense abilities that you speak of and I am not sure what would work for this type of character.

Also some of the munitions abilities dont fit within my concept like the machine gun for example. Its a tough line to follow because if I lean to far in either direction he becomes a samurai master which I dont want or a Rambo type character which I dont want either.

Is this a typical example of a character concept getting in the way of creating a balanced character?

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eisen thanks for the guide.

Complete noob here. My concept for my character was a western cowboy dual pistol, dual blade guy named Eastwood, original eh? :)

Well I am level 11 and so far it is very fun as I have a couple munitions abilities and a couple dual blade skills including an aoe. Now I am at a conundrum of what direction I should go in next. My superstats have been str and dex and I have been neglecting any secondary altogether.

I still don't quite understand passive defense abilities that you speak of and I am not sure what would work for this type of character.

Also some of the munitions abilities dont fit within my concept like the machine gun for example. Its a tough line to follow because if I lean to far in either direction he becomes a samurai master which I dont want or a Rambo type character which I dont want either.

Is this a typical example of a character concept getting in the way of creating a balanced character?

Well..your problem is like MANY munitions players you wanted a gun fu/Equilibirum/Matrix type gunner, but Munitions jumps all over with machien guns and such. The lack of more pistol pwers has been frustrating a lot of people. If I were Cryptic I'd think about adding a TON more powers and making gun fu and Munitions two different sets *cough*hint Daeke*cough*

And yes, your concept and the reality of the game don't mesh. It WILL happen to many concept players.Best you can do is accept what you can't change and change what you can't accept.

As to the stats...Dex works well for DB and Muni both, so good choice there. Str will be fine as well, since as a super it augments both for damage. Dual blade powers are rarely end-heavy (save sowrd cyclone, which I HIGHLY recommend), And neither are most of teh pistol powers if you stick with them. You might want to think about Ego (get more out of your crits) or Con (health is NEVER a bad thing)

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they'll paint us all purple and make us into lizards

That's it, I quit.



Great thread, eisen.

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Hopefully after the new test server patch for tonight goes live that'll no longer be the case, as they said it'll scale much more effectively :)

Rec: Anyone using Regen (not recommended as Rec scales poorly into Regen, but it DOES scale) Electric Form, or Fire Form

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Great thread

Bumping for great justice!

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Can we get this sticky, it is worth it.

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Str- Directly affects all melee dmg (except Ego Weapons), knockback resistance, knockback Distance, chance of knockback, and breaking tangible (physical) hold abilties (think Ice, for example)

It's my experience that Strength actually does NOT do this unless it is a Super Stat.

Your two Super stats (whatever they may be) contribute towards all your damage (melee and otherwise) but Strength does not appear to enhance melee damage if it is not "super".

Mouse over the stat on a character who didn't take Strength as a Super stat and you will see that the tooltip box does not mention that it is enhancing damage.

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AWESOME job eisentank.. no really THANKS! this will really help.. should be STICKY!

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Thanks for this! CO is so much different to previous MMO's I've played. I re-made my toon after reading this thread and thing's are going much smoother this time around :)

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Str- Directly affects all melee dmg (except Ego Weapons), knockback resistance, knockback Distance, chance of knockback, and breaking tangible (physical) hold abilties (think Ice, for example)


Oups I missed that, sorry this is false.

Damage is solely dependable on Superstats, yes, that does mean you might have STRength based telekinetic abilities and INTeligent based MIGHT abilities, but that is how it is, only superstats govern how much damage you do.

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Oups I missed that, sorry this is false.

Damage is solely dependable on Superstats, yes, that does mean you might have STRength based telekinetic abilities and INTeligent based MIGHT abilities, but that is how it is, only superstats govern how much damage you do.

This is actually incorrect. Melee attacks get an additional bonus to damage -- ON TOP of the Super Stat bonuses -- which comes from Strength. There is a cap on the bonus damage Strength can provide, however, so there's no need to pump Strength up beyond a certain level. Also, once the current changes on the Test Server make their way to the live server, the additional damage will be capped at a rather low Strength score (meaning that you won't need to do more than make a decent effort at gearing some Strength to max it out).

Essentially, this is the way that melee abilities get a damage bonus compared to ranged attacks.

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Oups I missed that, sorry this is false.

Damage is solely dependable on Superstats, yes, that does mean you might have STRength based telekinetic abilities and INTeligent based MIGHT abilities, but that is how it is, only superstats govern how much damage you do.

I keep wondering about this too. Officially, the tooltips on all stat choice menus say it does. However, the menu on the "C" screen shows nothing of the sort. During CB for about 2 weeks the "imporves melee damage" tag was removed from every place it was present, and somewhere around the start of open beta it came back.

I rolled a quick level 1 and put a item on him from the first few quests, tested him before and after...while it's not conclusive, I noticed no change in damage whatsoever. So I'm forced to assume the note on the current tooltips is utterly false. That said, It GREATLY changes the possibilites for melee builds, especially the blades/claw builds. If Str really has no affect.

Jrut, have you noticed any solid evidence of that? without tossing a melee power on one of my higher level toons and stacking the bejesus out of str I can't reliably test it, but what I HAVE seen on starting alts makes me doubt it works.

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Jrut, have you noticed any solid evidence of that? without tossing a melee power on one of my higher level toons and stacking the bejesus out of str I can't reliably test it, but what I HAVE seen on starting alts makes me doubt it works.To be honest, I haven't done any research in-game myself. I'm going by dev posts here on the forums.

Particularly, look at some of the recent Test Server patch notes.:
* Changed the way Strength adds to physical melee damage powers. Damage bonus is still capped at 20%, but this cap is now much easier to reach, and can be reached just through some modest effort at collecting gear, without a Characteristic Focus in Strength. This change has NO EFFECT on damage added from taking Strength as a Characteristic Focus. This is a distinct and separate bonus.

The language in the patch notes seemed to indicate that the bonus was already extant in the current build, and was merely being altered. I suppose it's possible that the bonus isn't properly implemented at all in the game's current state, though!

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To be honest, I haven't done any research in-game myself. I'm going by dev posts here on the forums.

Particularly, look at some of the recent Test Server patch notes.:


The language in the patch notes seemed to indicate that the bonus was already extant in the current build, and was merely being altered. I suppose it's possible that the bonus isn't properly implemented at all in the game's current state, though!

I highly suspect it's supposed to, but isn't. Time or testing will tell. I might try a partial respec in the coming days. Or, if they give us head starters a full respec, I might take advantage of that.

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I'd like to add my thanks for writing this. Hopefully my family and I will be able to utilize pointers you include in your guide.

I also hope Daeke or another stickies this, although I know there is a dislike for stickies, there is value to well-written help guides.

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Honestly can we get this sticky? or at least not let it lost in the 2nd page?

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Nice guide. Hopefully new players will read it before blasting the development team and the quality of the game because they lack a grasp of basic game mechanics. Several points of clarification. The energy forms scale with different stats. Ego Form and the damage from the 2nd ID blade scales with endurance. Fire Form scales with presence. Other posters discussed Ice Form. I don't recall what stats scale Electric or Shadow Form damages, though I believe it's also endurance.

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"So Eisen, should I just stack my superstats and ignore everything else?"

Not a chance! Overspecialization is a bad idea in this game. If Suzy stacked nothing but Str and Dex, she'd have a low health pool and probably even lower energy. She'd do LOTS of daamge, but she'd never survive! The best bet, from what I've seen, is this.
1) Pick two stats for your superstats
2) Pick two additional stats as "secondary" stats.
3) Gear and talent so that you primarilty raise your Supers, but don't neglect secondaries! My personal recommendation is make sure at least 50% of the stat gains you're getting from talents and gear is for your Superstats (but no more than 75%), then divide the remaining up evenly between your secondaries. These are rough estimates not exact math, and you'll probably find your mileage will vary. But this rough formula has worked well for me so far.

One small thing with this, if someone is planning to tank (or possibly even solo) using a defensive power that scales off of two stats (like say invuln or PFF) it can actually be wise to do this, because they get survivability and damage boost simultaneously, with invuln your crit maybe be low (or possibly nil) and your energy bar might not be huge but you get a direct increase to damage and survivability for both stats.

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... shut down ALL the beacons ...


Woah ... Wait just a second ... ALL THE BEACONS?!?

Crap.

I've been stuck in the tutorial since last month ...

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Back to the top.

I'm probably going to do that testing I mentioned on strength today. let you all know what comes back

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Great thread.
It's nice to see someone speaking sense and not running around like a headless chicken.

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One small thing with this, if someone is planning to tank (or possibly even solo) using a defensive power that scales off of two stats (like say invuln or PFF) it can actually be wise to do this, because they get survivability and damage boost simultaneously, with invuln your crit maybe be low (or possibly nil) and your energy bar might not be huge but you get a direct increase to damage and survivability for both stats.

It can be. But YMMV like my might tank is almost all STR/CON but I will still drop some gear into bringing my Dex/Ego up just so I do get some crits. They are not priority to that build but they are something an eye on just like I'll throw some gear at END/REC if I feel I'm running out of power to much.

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OK, random strength test over. This is what I did:

1) rolled a new melee toon (unarmed MA in this case)
2) went through the turotial grabbing every +str item I could
3) went straight to the powerhouse and started slamming a level 1 dummy.

At level 5, my character's base str was 17. When I added all the items I got in the tutorial, it was 38. That's over double his base, so it's a safe assumption that if melee dmg scales directly to str without a superstat, I'd notice, right?

It didn't.

100 hits with end builder on a level 1 dummy: With 17 str, the first hit was 9, all others did 5 damage, with the occasional 4. With 38 str...the first hit was 9, all others did 5 damage, with the occasional 4.

Just to test fairly, I then added a str superstat and went back. the moment I did his damage while geared for str upped by a few points.

While this isn't 100% scientifically accurate, it's a fair indicator that str does not, at the moment, appear to directly affect melee damage unless it is a superstat. Whehter this is intentional, or the result of a bug, remains to be seen. The information Jrut pulled from the test server's notes seems to indicate the latter.

Article on stats will be updated to include this.

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Eisen, thank you very much for the information and the time you put into getting it to us fellow players.

Greatly appreciated! :)

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Also some of the munitions abilities dont fit within my concept like the machine gun for example. Its a tough line to follow because if I lean to far in either direction he becomes a samurai master which I dont want or a Rambo type character which I dont want either.

Is this a typical example of a character concept getting in the way of creating a balanced character?
Yeah, unfortunately. I've got a similar problem with a hardboiled private eye - just pistols and punches (from the Might framework). Still got some concept-friendly selections left, and there's always unslotted passives, but I can see the writing on the wall.

Is there a reason to stay strictly with Dual Blades? Maybe consider branching out into some of the other melee sets, like Might or Unarmed Martial Arts. I'm not an expert on any of these sets by any means, but you might find some concept-friendly powers there. You wouldn't even have to make any stat adjustments to accomodate them. Just for fun, check out the Iron Lariat power from Supernatural - good for wrangling bad guys...

As for passive defenses, check out Lightning Reflexes (Martial Arts), Invulnerability (Power Armor (?)), or Defiance (Might). There are others, but these 3 seem like the most appropriate for your concept.

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Yeah, unfortunately. I've got a similar problem with a hardboiled private eye - just pistols and punches (from the Might framework). Still got some concept-friendly selections left, and there's always unslotted passives, but I can see the writing on the wall.

Is there a reason to stay strictly with Dual Blades? Maybe consider branching out into some of the other melee sets, like Might or Unarmed Martial Arts. I'm not an expert on any of these sets by any means, but you might find some concept-friendly powers there. You wouldn't even have to make any stat adjustments to accomodate them. Just for fun, check out the Iron Lariat power from Supernatural - good for wrangling bad guys...

As for passive defenses, check out Lightning Reflexes (Martial Arts), Invulnerability (Power Armor (?)), or Defiance (Might). There are others, but these 3 seem like the most appropriate for your concept.

The unarmed sets are still a bit sparse in the number of powers department. It's not unsual for people to branch out from them into other things.

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Just a friendly ba-dump-a-dump. Also, a request for anything else people would like to see added to this guide.

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Yes can we finally get this sticky?

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Yes can we finally get this sticky?

Daeke doesn't do stickies, and I don't annoy Daeke.

Honestly a seperate "guides' subforum would be nice..in addition to my own there's several others who have put together things like this.

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Really, somebody must.

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I'm pretty satisfied with my character as is but I was wondering if I wasn't gimping myself a bit. See, I actually have my 2 super stats and *3* secondary stats instead of 2 as suggested here. I'm DEX/EGO munitions, with REC/END/CON as my secondaries. I got high 80s/low 100s for DEX/EGO (at level 22) and mid-40s for my three secondaries.

Would it be better if I refocused one of my secondaries to increasing DEX, EGO or one of the otehr secondaries? And which one would be better to cut?

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I'm pretty satisfied with my character as is but I was wondering if I wasn't gimping myself a bit. See, I actually have my 2 super stats and *3* secondary stats instead of 2 as suggested here. I'm DEX/EGO munitions, with REC/END/CON as my secondaries. I got high 80s/low 100s for DEX/EGO (at level 22) and mid-40s for my three secondaries.

Would it be better if I refocused one of my secondaries to increasing DEX, EGO or one of the otehr secondaries? And which one would be better to cut?

Well..if I were to get rid of one, it would either be rec or end. Unfortunately both of them are very very useful and work together. Or you could keep both and get rid of con...lowering your hp which may be a problem later in the game. I'd say play around, experiment, see what work sbest. I realize this is ahrd to do with respecs as they are, but not sure what to tell you there.

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depends Munition does not need lots of energy so END can be omitted, if critical chance is high enough Killer instinct can recover energy quite good, high equilibrium is good to have on the other hand.

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You've fought some Qularr, shut down ALL the beacons, yada yada.
Best laugh I've had so far today. Thank you :o

EDIT: Also, very nice newb guide. Gave me a few new things to think about. Thanks again.

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Was disapointed in the munitions power as well. I love the powerset, mind, but I was hoping to make a pistoleer too.
Gifv gun fu and all that.

Besides that, lovely topic. Somebody really ought to sticky this(!!!!)

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Yeah, unfortunately. I've got a similar problem with a hardboiled private eye - just pistols and punches (from the Might framework). Still got some concept-friendly selections left, and there's always unslotted passives, but I can see the writing on the wall.

Is there a reason to stay strictly with Dual Blades? Maybe consider branching out into some of the other melee sets, like Might or Unarmed Martial Arts. I'm not an expert on any of these sets by any means, but you might find some concept-friendly powers there. You wouldn't even have to make any stat adjustments to accomodate them. Just for fun, check out the Iron Lariat power from Supernatural - good for wrangling bad guys...

As for passive defenses, check out Lightning Reflexes (Martial Arts), Invulnerability (Power Armor (?)), or Defiance (Might). There are others, but these 3 seem like the most appropriate for your concept.

Yeah at some point you have to pick something that isn't totally a mesh to your concept. You'll have to pick personally for your "Average Joe" type guys I like Invul or Defiance. I just think action movie hero's, these guys get hammered and yet are to mean and tough to notice the gunshot wounds and cuts. To many people get caught up in the idea that the game should adapt to them. As long as you adapt to it you can be viable with any concept.

On that awesome thread and this is my way to be relevant and bumpity! I am trucking along pushing 30 and still found out things I didn't know. Can I be your friend Eisentank? :)

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This fantastic guide deserves to be bumped up top permanently.

Kudos Eisen for taking the time to put together some very level headed advice for new and intermediate players.

[Edit]
One small request on my part would be a little information on energy forms.

I really didn't understand them at first. I managed to trawl some info from long forgotten threads, but energy forms are one of those odd things that are often mentioned but seldom explained.

Great work fella!

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Also, welcome to my sig. :p

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deleted....for being wrong about what I stated.

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I had good luck just picking things I liked and that fit the character concept (a gadget using character for the most part) - the only choice I made for "stats" as opposed to "character" was taking Super Presence, I was thinking I should have gone with Super Recovery instead. (The character is supposed to have above-average healing abilities)

I do get knocked out occasionally while soloing but it's not a constant thing, as long as I'm careful and don't rush or take on way too many enemies, I'm fine. I also hold my own in PvP. I'm not the toughest person in the cage, but I'm not the weakest either. Same as with soloing, as long as I remember my character isn't Beefy McMuscles and don't try to take on the whole enemy team by myself, I do pretty good. (Sometimes I forget tho. =)


I guess what I'm saying is, make a character you like and don't sweat stats and skills so much. But if you do take a power, *use it*. You should be using all your powers, including block (even if it's just the default block)

If you have a power just sitting there never being used, it's worthless. Imagine Superman walking everywhere, and when asked why, responded, "Oh I just forget I can fly." Or not using xray vision, ever. You'd think he was a moron. =D

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Little anecdote I'd like to add (feel free to toss it in your guide if you wish) about gearing for specific stats.

I used to gear for ego/pre (my superstats) almost exclusively, and while it was great to have 110% or more crit severity, I would never crit so it was useless. I have also recently obtained powers that have massive energy costs, so without endurance I could barely charge them up.

So moral is, definitely get some of your superstats from gear, but don't skip on things like recovery to raise your equilibrium, dexterity to actually be able to crit and endurance to raise energy. Those, of what I've tried so far, seem to be the easiest to drop a relatively small amount to get some effect.

Endurance seems to be 1 end = 1 energy
Dex is on a ratio that scales with level, but running 41 dex, at lvl 34, provides me with 8% crit, which is noticeable. (especially with dots)
Recovery, with I think 31, my equilibrium is at about the 2/3rd mark of my energy bar, which means I could fully charge my 1st attack power (ego blast I think) to start off a fight, if I wanted to just knock off a henchman before wading it, so to speak.

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You have something incorrect...Invulnerability is scaled off Con not Strength.....

STRength and CONstitution

STR gives you the defence bonus
CON Gives you the damage absorption.

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1) rolled a new melee toon (unarmed MA in this case)
2) went through the turotial grabbing every +str item I could

100 hits with end builder on a level 1 dummy: With 17 str, the first hit was 9, all others did 5 damage, with the occasional 4. With 38 str...the first hit was 9, all others did 5 damage, with the occasional 4.


I did a similar test and did in fact see a change—I went between 17 and 35 at level 3, against the Qularr pods, and saw routine first hits of 10 damage with 35 str but never anything above 9 with 17 str. This is a very small delta in damage, but consider that the contribution from strength is supposed to be capped at 20%—20% of 10 is 2, so it's easy to imagine that either I was going from +10% to +20% (+1 damage) or +0% to +10% (+1 damage) by going from 17 to 35.

The other thing to note is that the amount needed to get a certain contribution is going to be going up with level—so it's quite possible that a delta of 18 points gave me a visible difference at level 3 but 21 points gave no visible difference at level 6, considering again the very small numbers involved.

I may test again when I get home from work tonight—retconning back to the bare metal (i.e. dropping absolutely everything as soon as reaching the power house) should allow for getting down to 5 points in all stats, which should make it easier to test larger strength deltas.



Edited to add: In any case, my feeling from testing and what the devs have said is that while strength *will* give a bonus to melee, that bonus is going to be pretty minor compared to the super stat bonuses—particularly if they change things to require less strength. A strength superstatted character will pretty much always be capped in their str contribution, while a no-strength-superstat character might not be maxed out on that, or might have to spend a little work on gear or talents to get it, assuming they want it.

A melee specialist will of course want to squeeze every last advantage out, and will want to hit the cap of strength contribution—but non-specialists' melee abilities will by no means be gimpy.

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Heh, thanks.

I haven't recreated the Marine since the beta wipe, but it was a muntions/gadgeteering/power armor build. And horribly gimped. I wanna redo it right, but haven't decided exactly what I'm going to take.


This is what I did. And am playing atm. I went Ultramarines.

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The other thing to note is that the amount needed to get a certain contribution is going to be going up with level—so it's quite possible that a delta of 18 points gave me a visible difference at level 3 but 21 points gave no visible difference at level 6, considering again the very small numbers involved.
.
Interesting..but I've seen a delta of 20 make a difference at MUCH higher levels than 6.

I'll see if I can get one of my toons to craft some low level STR gear and load a little more on, see if it makes any difference.

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Little anecdote I'd like to add (feel free to toss it in your guide if you wish) about gearing for specific stats.

I used to gear for ego/pre (my superstats) almost exclusively, and while it was great to have 110% or more crit severity, I would never crit so it was useless. I have also recently obtained powers that have massive energy costs, so without endurance I could barely charge them up.

So moral is, definitely get some of your superstats from gear, but don't skip on things like recovery to raise your equilibrium, dexterity to actually be able to crit and endurance to raise energy. Those, of what I've tried so far, seem to be the easiest to drop a relatively small amount to get some effect.

Endurance seems to be 1 end = 1 energy
Dex is on a ratio that scales with level, but running 41 dex, at lvl 34, provides me with 8% crit, which is noticeable. (especially with dots)
Recovery, with I think 31, my equilibrium is at about the 2/3rd mark of my energy bar, which means I could fully charge my 1st attack power (ego blast I think) to start off a fight, if I wanted to just knock off a henchman before wading it, so to speak.



They seem to be re-evaluating how different stats scale on test right now, so holding off until we get some more definitive answers.

I would mention (And will be editing my posts to do so) that stacking ego for crit damage is nigh-useless without high dex first.

As far as end and rec as 'extra" stats: It's important to remember that different playstyles and build styles use these differently. for instance, Once I got the max needed end for Pyre on my fire toom (146 without any other modifiers), I stopped caring about End. And recovery...while I used it for fire form, it's hardly needed for energy recovery. All I have to do is stand in a fire and wait a couple seconds, and BAM! full bar. Other builds have other methods to, and so the exact usefullness of end or rec stacking (or int for that matter for power costs) really, really fluctuates by build.

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Bumping for justice!

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Justa head's up: I'm going to be without internet service for about 5-6 days, other than possibly getting in from work every now and then.

As such I won't be updating much, but I'll try and keep an eye on things. I understand the test server is working on some things that will fix a lot of how stats scale right now, so that may change the current dynamic (especially vis a vis str and pre) quite a bit.

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Completely random but eisentank if you every start up a space marine SG count me in you seem like a pretty cool guy.

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Very nice,I would add:

Plan your escape, there are several powers that allow you to get out of combat, pick at least one.

If you have a definate partner (or more than one), then it pays to coordinate your heroes, specialize at leaset one tank and one raw dps, and a healer if you have a team of 5 you can count on. Less than 5 and the loss of raw dps outweight the advantage of healing.

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STRength and CONstitution

STR gives you the defence bonus
CON Gives you the damage absorption.

as of last night the damage absorption increased when I increased my strength as well, just what I noticed when I used the free retcon last night and as I added my strength gear my absorption went up as well as my dmg resistance percentage. So either it is not working right or it is only taking strength into consideration because as I equipped my Con only items which increased my con about 40pts it did nothing to change the stats of my Invulnerability.

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GOOD NEWS!

My internet at home should be back up by the time I get home tonight, So going to start testing the last couple of patches and update where needed.

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Excellent guide! Stickie icki icki please!

Edit: I forgot to add: SPACE MARINES, ATTACK!!!

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Thank you very much for the guide and keeping it updated, it has been a load of help in creating my hybrid :D

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VERY awesome guide! Thanks for taking the time to write it up.


One slight variation that I do w/ my characters is I choose the two primary and ONE secondary focus. It works well, though you obviously are giving up some versatility for focus.

Example: Focusing on STR / DEX and then EGO on the side. You'll crit a lot, hit hard w/ melee, and do decent crit damage (but nowhere near as high crits as a dex ego char)

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VERY awesome guide! Thanks for taking the time to write it up.


One slight variation that I do w/ my characters is I choose the two primary and ONE secondary focus. It works well, though you obviously are giving up some versatility for focus.

Example: Focusing on STR / DEX and then EGO on the side. You'll crit a lot, hit hard w/ melee, and do decent crit damage (but nowhere near as high crits as a dex ego char)

That works well for melee builds. I've noticed for most ranged it does not however. This is mostly because the end costs for ranged powers are stupidly high, so you usually end up raising end, int, or rec to deal with it after raising dex for crits.

Honestly, all DPS should probably be raising dex somehow. Heck, probably everyone. There's just no way around it. And anyone with heavy cost powers (most ranged sets) should be raising either int or end).

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Very informative post! But do we have to use so many abbreviations? For god's sake the military doesn't use this many! I know it feels cool...kind of a secret club type thing. And its quicker and easier. But it makes my head hurt, and every once in awhile I find one that I have to guess at (usually withh hilarious results). I know I'm just being an old curmudgeon:mad:;), but my background is in communications theory, and I can't help myself when people are actually making it harder to understand each other.

Good post though!

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Great job man, words to live by, that thinkg must have taken a good few hours to write up. I'm gonna do my part to keep this post alive "que the signature".

Much love, keep up the good work!

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Very enjoyable read. :)

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Good read, thanks!

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This needs a sticky.



-np

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This thread gets Kitty Stamp of Approval. I linked to it on our supergroup's forum.

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Love the guide, but as a more-or-less brand new player, I could use either less abbrevatations or at least once case of each one in long form with the short one after in brackets. For instance, what in the world is PFF?

Other then that, I'm so glad I found this in a random forum search.

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You asked for it, you got it! Many of the acronyms in the guide have been removed. Please let me know if there's anything I missed or you'd like clarified.

EDIT: I've also updated the Stats section to mention the recent addition of hard damage caps on superstats.

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Good to know your keeping up on the guide here. I created a new character about 3 weeks ago with a complete custom framework build and honestly have alot of people telling me this and thats OP. Half the time I just tell them to read this guide because that feeling always persists that they dont fully understand about the powers and what stats can do =)

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Thanks for taking the time to spell out some basics... I found it too late to be of much help to me but still,

Good Work!


WJ

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Just reread this after a long bit and re cleared my thinking--thanks again for your work

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Bumping this for the new blood rolling in.

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This really needs a sticky.

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I wish I had noticed this a couple days ago.

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Before using this as a complete guide to CO, take note that it was last updated Sep. 30 2009.

Numbers discussions are most likely completely out of date and should be disregarded (especially the Super Stat caps). The general information about design, character building and playstyles should work well enough.

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It's sad, the intro says PFF and field drones are OP.

QQ

I miss my drones.