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!)

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.

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.

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!)

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.

This is a great read, thank you!

...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.

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