The move to FTP

[Hermit]

Herm, PM me your @ over there and maybe we can thwart the forces of evil together on occasion.
My heart is still in WoW but CO calls on occasion.

Oh. I'll still be WoWing on and off, and I have other things to do besides CO so I doubt I'll be a regular on that ...
As it is a free to play situation, I only have two slots. Atomic Guardian@Hermit seems to be the one I'm doing better with.

[Zed-F]

Any new folks wanting to join the Hero Games supergroup, feel free to give me or any of the other officers/leaders a shout in-game and we'll be happy to set you up. IIRC you have to be online at the same time as one of us in order for the invite to be made, but otherwise it's not a big deal.

My current silver characters:
Frozen Shade@Zed-F - lv26 Glacier
Psi Temptress@Zed-F - lv33 Mind
Flame Temptress@Zed-F - lv22 Inferno
Patient Karma@Zed-F - lv15 Grimoire

[Enforcer84]

Well, I have a lifetime sub so I get great stuff...I was trying to help my FTP friends change the color of their powers, apparently they cannot. Sad.

I'm getting into it more. I have about 8 characters but no one above 13th level

[Certified]

Well, I have a lifetime sub so I get great stuff...I was trying to help my FTP friends change the color of their powers, apparently they cannot. Sad.

I'm getting into it more. I have about 8 characters but no one above 13th level

Westside's new story arc does help to get over the altitus hump.

[Kraven Kor]

I just downloaded and put together a brick; had enough time to get through the intro missions.

Playing with the Hero Builder as, yeah, I don't like the archetypes at all. If I had money I might sub for a month just to play around, but pretty involved in WoW at the moment having just transferred to a RPPVP server with some friends.

The gameplay is fun; hell, if I had money I might just pay to have all the costume options and use it as a much more functional way to put together hero portraits

[Enforcer84]

I've been doing that myself. it's a nice costume generator. And I got to hang with Hermit and Log for a while. And the FTP enabled me to get my girl-pal to take a gander. i think she loves the costume designer but actually playing with her comp is a pain.

[Kraven Kor]

OK yeah I'm a bit hooked, for now, we'll see how long it lasts. I did a 3 month sub because I just had to have the custom archetypes.

Got two characters through the tutorial: Hardcase and Elementra.

[Certified]

OK yeah I'm a bit hooked, for now, we'll see how long it lasts. I did a 3 month sub because I just had to have the custom archetypes.

Got two characters through the tutorial: Hardcase and Elementra.

So tell us about them? Sounds like you did a Behemoth initially what are the new characters like?

[Kraven Kor]

The power selection is a lot better than it was in Beta, for sure. And I definitely feel like they got "brick" right this time - I send guys flying through the air, none of this "Hulk clone love tapping some street punk for 10 minutes."

Once going gold, my first order of business - as it was in beta - was to try and make my official CHAMPIONS character, Hardcase. And so far, I am fairly impressed in comparison to how things were in beta. I didn't like the "Defiance" passive that is the main defense of the brick power pool; with the custom character, I was able to change that to Invulnerability from the Power Armor set, which makes sense and works much better - Hardcase is a cyborg and "invulnerable armor" both sounds and works better than "I get really angry when you hit me." In beta, I chose a ranged power armor attack, and the damage was so far below my HTH attacks because power armor was tied to INT or something, whereas now it seems ALL your powers are based on the super stat you chose. Could very well be wrong.

The archetypes aren't bad; just that for us HEROphiles, custom is for sure the way to go. Hell, I'm up to 6 characters now (making the NPC's from my CHAMPS game for purpose of showing my players who they are fighting) and all are custom but like 3 of them pretty much follow the archetypes so far (a dual pistols / dual blade build, ie. Specialist, and a Mentalist build.) Hardcase is up to 15 now and I am still having a blast - most of his powers are from the brick set, other than Invuln and Power Gauntlets from the Power Armor set.

My biggest sadness right now is the limit to one passive power slot. But at only level 15, I can't say exactly how things will look at 40.

Elementra I have barely messed with, but converted her to custom and am having some trouble figuring out exactly how to build her... Supposed to be a mixture between brick and telekinesis; she turns into Metal and can also telekinetically control inorganic materials - granted, CO can't do what HERO can but I'd like to be as close as possible. Trying to play with Hero Builder but it doesn't seem to enforce the same rules as CO does so far as what powers are available when, etc.

They also have the summoning stuff now, which I really want to play around with.

[Certified]

The following is just some general cometary about feel, function and how powers interact.

A few things that may help:
Invulnerability is king of wading through many a bad thing.
Defiance is all about standing up to the big guys.
Unstoppable changes the focus to dishing out damage This passive is also better if you're planning to go Brawler than anything else.
Enrage, either way, is your friend as a brick.

Not all powers scale with Super Stats but a lot of them do and this makes life a whole lot easier. For example a lot of Healing powers still scale with Presence.

One of the things I really like about Champions Online is that each of those powers feels good and Brick like. At the same time they feel like very different characters with different play styles.

One of the stranger thnigs about Champions Online though is that somehow Force generally makes a better Telekinesis set than Telekinesis, with the exception of the Telekinesis power itself. Most of the powers in the Telekinesis set seemed to be flavored around a Psi-Warrior and feel closer to a Martial Artist than a Mentalist. The Force set on the other hand offers some interesting protection powers and cool blasts and the like that feel very much like the classic Telekinetic. I've seen Force and Might mixed before for a Tank type and to great effect. The character was excellent at getting people away from weakened comrades and getting bad guys attention. However, I don't really have any good build advice for the build. (Ask me about an Ego Blades build though and I got you covered.)

Two very handy links:
Framework Summaries: A Guide to Power Synergies - The author gives insight into what a given Framework was intended to do and what powers form out of the Framework can enhance things. A lot of really solid advice but no real focus on keeping to as character theme. Still, a solid read and great resource for putting together custom builds.

Champions Online Wiki - More detailed breakdowns of powers as well as background details. This is a general go to guide if you're wondering how something works.

[Kraven Kor]

So, that framework guide was great, but he only mentions the one cross-framework synergy, for munitions and martial arts.

What I really, really want to go with is the brick / power armor route, if it is at all possible / feasible.

[Certified]

The poster Will Black, doesn't do builds like a lot of other people on the CO boards. However, he offers up some great advice.

Based on the guide and what I could find in the CO - Wiki I put this together. Hope it helps:

Power Armor/Might Hybrid
Super Stats: STR/CON, but build REC and END with gear
Preferred Passive: Defiance
Preferred Block: Retaliation or Energy Shield (w/ Laser Knight Adv
Key Powers: Aggressor (Toggle), Roomsweeper (Charge), Haymaker (Charge), Mighty Leap (Click), Micro Munitions (Toggle)
Secondary Powers: Chest Beam (Charge), Enrage (Click), Unbreakable (Click)
Out of Framework Powers: Bionic Shielding (Click), Support Drones or Munitions Bots (Pets), Resurgence (Click),