Abilities Discussion

[Killer Shrike]

Thought I'd start a thread for the discussing / commenting on the efficacy of the various abilities in CO.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Abilities Discussion

 

Thundering Kicks, slotted with Floating Lotus Blossom: I got this going on one of my characters and its proven to be a real performer for me. It grants a stacking dodge bonus very reliably, and I definitely am more durable using it.

 

Super-running: I've been pretty disappointed with this power. It just doesn't seem to be fast enough to compensate compared to say flight. I also experience a good deal of slip and slide on narrow surfaces, shooting off. The scaling speed variance makes it very difficult to gauge current speed. On the other hand I'm not sure how much of a benefit the Impact damage boost is, or how well the threat reduction aspect is really working. I have Acrobatics on another character and I like it much better overall, but I definitely seem to draw more aggro on that character than on the super-running character. Input welcome.

 

 

Bullet Ballet: this Munitions power is really cool, IMO. The animations are a lot of fun and just look awesome. I've been very happy with it.

 

 

Slotted Passives: I'm totally at a loss on the slotted passives. Some seem to be flat out better than others. In particular I've been very unhappy with Lightning Reflexes. Anyone have any solid input on this subject?

[Netzilla]

Re: Abilities Discussion

 

Random thoughts:

 

Having a Might-based character sucks in PvP combat against ranged enemies; especially if they have a faster or more flexible movement type than you.

 

Super Speed, Acrobatic Movement & Tunneling can make it a pain to reach rooftops. I'm not sure how Tunneling can be fixed but SL pointed out that Super Speed could have a 'Wall Running' effect added and Acrobatic Movement could add 'Wall Jumping'.

 

The TK grab is nice in general but completely worthless against bosses.

 

Bird Wings look cool but block my view of most of the battlefield all too often. (Okay, that's a costuming bit, not an actual Ability)

 

Teleportation takes some getting used to and you have to be careful if you're t-porting to a high place that you can reach your destination before 'warping back' or be quick to hit the 'T' key before you hit the ground. Possibly the best getaway power in the game though.

 

Eyebeams are nice.

 

Mines are scary.

 

Indomitable is really cool... until it runs out.

 

Some form of self-heal is almost a must if you're soloing or you don't have a group healer. Fortunately if you're willing to deal with Crafting you can build self-healing consumables.

 

The Gadgetteering framework seems just weird to me. Too many gonzo gadgets and not enough serious "utility belt" type items. Arms (and maybe Science; though I've not gone deep into it yet) crafting feels more like Gadgetteering to me. I think they would have been better off making the Gadgetteering framework have a few basic combat powers and have the rest offer different Crafting bonuses (quicker skill advancement, reduced resource costs, specialize in multiple areas, etc). Probably be harder to balance though.

[Certified]

Re: Abilities Discussion

 

Slotted Passives:

Invulnerability - Clean straight forward Damage reduction. At it's base level seems to knock off a quarter of the damage or so.

 

Regeneration - At it's base level this seems like an okay power. It's a bit hard to manage if you get more than a few enemies on you. I think I liked the Invulnerability better it was a flat damage reduction and you knew exactly where you were. Also, I have not advanced Regeneration yet because there is no highlighted data for level. This may be a simple description error.

 

Passive Support:

Resurgence - This is a nice boost for regeneration. Click power you see an immediate jump in Health followed by an overall increase in Regeneration amounts for a brief period. The difficult part here is judging when to use Resurgence for maximum effectiveness. With a base cool-down of 90 seconds it can be tempting not to use it when you may actually really need it. Also, you may use it too soon losing some portion of the initial boost.

[SvZurich]

Re: Abilities Discussion

 

Bountiful Chi Resurgence - Meh. Thinking of respecing out of it. Nice little heal, but it's only 10% of my total health over 12 seconds with a 20% debuff on my damage dealt. Can increase the healing or remove the debuff, but I am underwhelmed by it.

 

Flight (any of the forms of it)- ROCKS! Hover for AFK, scout, reach the top of any building, death from above (Havoc Stomp with advantage from altitude), and fairly fast.

 

Roomsweeper- FUN! I love making my foes fly, and seeing their health drop even more when they "land".

 

Beatdown- effective. Can interrupt as I spam it.

 

Iron Cyclone- effective. Can interrupt and knock down but the CD is a bit long.

 

Thinking of taking crippling challenge for Beatdown to remove block in PVP, but it sucks lacking ranged attacks in PVP. Also thinking of the interrupt advantage on my Clobber.

[Steve Long]

Re: Abilities Discussion

 

Bullet Ballet: this Munitions power is really cool, IMO. The animations are a lot of fun and just look awesome. I've been very happy with it.

 

OTOH, I'm so unhappy with Bullet Ballet that I'm ditching it in the free respec, if I can. I'm full Munitions and I have no HTH abilities to speak of; since I can go on shooting at people close to me Bullet Ballet doesn't do much compared to Submachine Gun Burst. More to the point, now that I've discovered the Pure Awesomeness of Mini-Mines, I don't need any other way to attack mobs that gang up on me HTH.

 

I'm loving Two-Gun Mojo. I've got Killer Instinct, a passive ability that gives me energy back for every critical, so once I load up a bit with Gunfighter I can crank off 3-4 straight bursts of 2GM before having to "rebuild." It's just plain fun.

 

I also love the dynamism of combat generally. I like that I can run and jump and continue to fire; I don't have to stand there and "cast" like I do in WoW.

 

I wish I could substitue "get new power" for "upgrade existing power" if I wanted to. By and large I seem to get by on just 3-4 powers all the time; the rest are wasted. I want those 3-4 to be really good; I don't need others. However, hopefully I can correct this a bit via the free respec.

 

Acrobatics: I haven't been real happy with this as a Travel Power. It's hellafun running and jumping over stuff, but it has some real problems. First, it doesn't seem significantly faster than Flight. Second, you aggro everything along the way. Third, damage from landing from leaps is IMO too high; leaping is fun and should be encouraged. Fourth, it's hard to reach rooftops and such at times; the setting design in places almost seems to assume you can Fly. Although I can't justify it based on character conception for my main toon, it seems to me that Flight is, as in most PnP RPGs, far and away the best means to travel and should be chosen if at all possible. It gets you where you want to go fast without aggro'ing a damn thing. It'd be nice if the ground-based Travel Powers were programmed so that while you're using them, you don't aggro anything.

 

Haven't tried Swinging yet -- anyone have any experience with it?

 

I've played my alts with the Force and Gadgeteering power sets up to 6th level and have enjoyed both sets, but I have no advanced commentary yet.

 

I think I'm going to pause leveling a bit to work on my Arms skill. I could definitely use some Healing Cannisters or other healing consumables. Edit: after looking at what each Skill was best for I've switched to Science and am now working on that. It's a shame, though, that something called Arms isn't much good for a Munitions character.

[SvZurich]

Re: Abilities Discussion

 

I've tried swinging, and it looks fun, but I haven't mastered the timing for the next button press to go higher and continue. Keep hitting the ground.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Abilities Discussion

 

OTOH, I'm so unhappy with Bullet Ballet that I'm ditching it in the free respec, if I can. I'm full Munitions and I have no HTH abilities to speak of; since I can go on shooting at people close to me Bullet Ballet doesn't do much compared to Submachine Gun Burst.

The character I like it on is my as faithful as possible recreation of an actual Champions f2f / pnp character, John Wrath, Solo Avenger!, a "retired" Silver Avenger. The PnP character is a superagent martial artist / pistoleer. I've gone with a custom framework and mixed and matched abilities to approximate him. Bullet Ballet captures his HtH + Shooty aspect very well and "looks John Wrath-ish", in the words of another gamer who played in that campaign that I was showing off to.

 

The flexibility to make such a hybrid character is a real strength of the game, IMO. I was unable to model JW properly in CoH.

 

I also love the dynamism of combat generally. I like that I can run and jump and continue to fire; I don't have to stand there and "cast" like I do in WoW.

Same! People probably think I'm spastic, but I like to move around in combat in CO if for no other reason than I can. It looks so much more dynamic / cinematic.

 

I wish I could substitue "get new power" for "upgrade existing power" if I wanted to. By and large I seem to get by on just 3-4 powers all the time; the rest are wasted. I want those 3-4 to be really good; I don't need others. However, hopefully I can correct this a bit via the free respec.

 

I had this exact conversation last night w/ WilyQuixote over dinner. I wish that leveling up granted points into a common pool and I could use them to purchase Powers, Advantages, or Talents as I saw fit. Some characters I want lots of utility powers, but on many a couple of very tricked out abilities is all I need. You really just need 1 Attack, 1 Defense, 1 Movement, and an optional Utility ability at base; branching off into more depth in any particular area is nuances.

 

Acrobatics: I haven't been real happy with this as a Travel Power. It's hellafun running and jumping over stuff, but it has some real problems. First, it doesn't seem significantly faster than Flight. Second, you aggro everything along the way. Third, damage from landing from leaps is IMO too high; leaping is fun and should be encouraged. Fourth, it's hard to reach rooftops and such at times; the setting design in places almost seems to assume you can Fly.

This matches my experience. It looks so cool and is in-character for so many character concepts that I really want it to work. Hopefully they'll make some tweaks to it.

 

 

I've played my alts with the Force and Gadgeteering power sets up to 6th level and have enjoyed both sets, but I have no advanced commentary yet.

My force character, an attempted recreation of Rook, is REALLY BUFF. The Force powers seem pretty advantaged; I wont be surprised when they get nerfed.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Abilities Discussion

 

Bountiful Chi Resurgence - Meh. Thinking of respecing out of it. Nice little heal, but it's only 10% of my total health over 12 seconds with a 20% debuff on my damage dealt. Can increase the healing or remove the debuff, but I am underwhelmed by it.

 

I tried out Bountiful Chi Resurgence also, and retcon'd out of it pretty quickly. It was just too little too late, even if I was on the button and chained it as quickly as it cooled down. In fact, I think it actually caused me to get defeated when I was using it, because I just couldn't seem to put a mob down fast enough thanks to the damage debuff and they kept beating on me in the meantime.

 

I replaced it with Masterful Dodge and its been much better. There's been several fights that I know I made it out the other side only because Masterful Dodge allowed me to stay in the fight for a critical few more seconds to put down the main threat and get some glowies to keep going to polish off the minions.

[Steve Long]

Re: Abilities Discussion

 

The character I like it on is my as faithful as possible recreation of an actual Champions f2f / pnp character, John Wrath, Solo Avenger!, a "retired" Silver Avenger. The PnP character is a superagent martial artist / pistoleer. I've gone with a custom framework and mixed and matched abilities to approximate him. Bullet Ballet captures his HtH + Shooty aspect very well and "looks John Wrath-ish", in the words of another gamer who played in that campaign that I was showing off to.

 

I can definitely see where Bullet Ballet would work very well for certain concepts (assuming at least balanced levels of damage). In fact, I may try to use it that way some day. I just don't think it's much use for a pure Munitions guy... or at least not for me, given my style of play.

 

 

I wish that leveling up granted points into a common pool and I could use them to purchase Powers, Advantages, or Talents as I saw fit. Some characters I want lots of utility powers, but on many a couple of very tricked out abilities is all I need. You really just need 1 Attack, 1 Defense, 1 Movement, and an optional Utility ability at base; branching off into more depth in any particular area is nuances.

 

I agree with your general idea; a pool of common points would be awesome (even if it came with some restrictions, like "only X points' worth of Talents can ever be purchased"). However, to your list I would add "1 area-affecting attack power." Given that most of the the mobs are grouped in 3s and 4s, I've found an area-attack to be really, really useful. I definitely don't want to go back to playing without one, and I dread the day they get around to nerfing Mini-Mines.

[ajackson]

Re: Abilities Discussion

 

Generally speaking, a soloist is going to want an energy builder, a primary damage power, an area damage power or other means of dealing with crowds, a passive slot, a block enhancer, and a self-heal. What you get beyond that is somewhat flexible; a hold effect is good, power boosters on cooldown are possible, pets are possible but marginal on many builds. In general, your 1-7 slots should be plenty.

[ajackson]

Re: Abilities Discussion

 

I definitely don't want to go back to playing without one' date=' and I dread the day they get around to nerfing Mini-Mines.[/quote']

That would be 'this patch'; mini-mines + wall of fire is reduced 30%.

[Steve Long]

Re: Abilities Discussion

 

Well, if so, I haven't noticed any serious reduction in power as of yet, but I also haven't given it a serious work-out with hard missions either. As long as it remains an effective means for quickly eliminating trash mobs, I'm cool.

[GreyGuardian]

Re: Abilities Discussion

 

Teleport is an awesome escape travel power. It works as well as flight if you don't miss the t key when you are high enough to be hurt but close enough to not have time to recover and press the right key. Flight is better if you write long winded chats while traveling. Also, when teleporting you can't exactly tell what will be around you when you materialize.

 

Has anyone found a way to put a glow on jet pack costume pieces from one of the flight powers? I'd think jet boots would be the natural but it doesn't seem to allow placement other than on the feet. There are a lot of jet packs in the game so there should be a way to get them to emit a glow.

 

My experience confirms what I've read about lightning reflexes. LR is great against single big bad villain types, not as good against swarms of henchmen.

 

Personal force field is not good for a long fight as eventually it will drop.

 

Invulnerability is sort of the opposite of Lightning reflexes - great against swarms not as good against big attacks. I suspect with a good block enhancer it should be pretty decent against big bad singles assuming you manage to block at the right time.

 

I posted a link to what seems to be a really good what powers are affected by what stats note on the CO message boards in the stats thread on this forum.

[slikmar]

Re: Abilities Discussion

 

I like Acrobatics, especially once you get to tier-2. I feel like I run as fast as Tier 1 superspeed, and I can jump up on most lower level buildings easily.

As for Superspeed, in closed beta it was fast, I mean borderline uncontrollable fast, but the problem was, you would out run the server's ability to keep up, so you would run for a distance (depending on your machine) then lag while the graphics caught up. I guess there were a few powers with this problem, hence why they lowered the top speed of everything, but I suspect SS was the real cause, as straight out on a level playing field, it should be the fastest of the movement powers.

[Zed-F]

Re: Abilities Discussion

 

Mini-mines were so seriously OP before that they will almost certainly continue to be very useful even post-patch.

 

So far my main, Wild Huntress, has come out about even after the patch. Her Sonic Arrow got a big increase to energy costs, but her Force Shield got an extended duration linger to help offset those energy costs and she had ridiculous amounts of energy available on account of it before anyway, so the energy nerf is survivable, especially if she starts to stack REC to help with her Regen. The Force Shield linger mitigates less damage now but her Regen got a buff, so that comes out about the same as well. Overall she's handling herself quite well, and I expect that to continue post-patch. Her main weakness is a lack of a big single-target damage option, because I haven't decided what I want her to pick up yet since the higher tier archery powers seem very marginal.

 

My other two primary characters, Revenant and Cyber Angel, are not exactly where I'd like them to be. Revenant is doing fine power-wise due to heavy mini-mine abuse, but I'm not happy with the conceptual direction that's taking him. At some point I plan to respec him, but I want to have a better idea of what I'm going to respec to before I do. He'll be able to keep levelling just fine in the interim because whatever damage hit he takes on the mines will be offset by better survivability from Lightning Reflexes and from picking up Telekinetic Shield. His energy management will do nothing but improve post-patch, now that I know the TK shield linger effect can also help with energy regen, even though this isn't stated in the description. (Plus, TK shield is buggy right now and the linger effect provides excellent protection from the sides and back, as well as from the front... though I don't plan to rely on that bugginess as it's likely to get corrected.)

 

Cyber Angel is a bit of a mess right now because I didn't pay enough attention to energy management when I created her, and because I just don't like the way Power Armour works in practice that much. The PA toggle powers put global cooldowns on all other powers, making them difficult to queue properly and putting extra delays on getting energy back from her energy builder toggle. She winds up either using nothing but eye beam and wrist bolters, or pumping out bolter shots for several seconds and then launching a swarm of micromunitions (which are cool, but graphically busy enough that they make it hard to see an enemy winding up for a big attack.) I wanted to make her a Power Armour character with a melee secondary focus; now I'm thinking I should have gone Might to start with and branched into Power Armour later. I'm also thinking I should have ditched STR as a characteristic focus and gone with an energy management focus (say INT or END) instead... especially now that they've reduced the STR required to maximize non-superstat melee damage bonus. I'm going to make an effort to swing her around in the direction I originally intended, but before I do I'm going to try to do some more testing to really iron out the direction I want to take her and make sure it will work. I'm hoping the Energy Shield linger during melee will provide energy as TK shield linger has been shown to do.

 

One thought I had is that the test shard could be invaluable for these sorts of things. As long as I don't use my free respec for a given character, my hope is that it will be copied to the test shard along with everything else, which is supposed to happen every other week. That means every other week I could try out a completely different build in more than just the powerhouse, until I find one that works to my satisfaction.

[SvZurich]

Re: Abilities Discussion

 

So far, block doesn't rely on facing, so the fact that TK Shield protects the sides and back doesn't seem to be a bug. I have the Might block enchancer Retaliation and see the same damage reduction on block no matter the facing.

 

Since I went Invulnerability on Kara, I grabbed Retaliation for the damage buff and use Defensive Combo for the Defiant damage resistance buff. I see it as a poor person's Defiance and Enrage power without actually taking those powers. No need to build my defenses up only to lose them if I convert to damage, and I can add to my defenses with one attack and block if I want to boost damage. Works out very nicely.

[Zed-F]

Re: Abilities Discussion

 

So far' date=' block doesn't rely on facing, so the fact that TK Shield protects the sides and back doesn't seem to be a bug. I have the Might block enchancer Retaliation and see the same damage reduction on block no matter the facing.[/quote']

The TK shield itself is supposed to provide protection from all sides. It's the linger effect that is supposed to only provide protection from the front, and not against DoT effects, as stated in the skill description. Not all block enhancers have a linger effect, so in that sense you can't really compare it with Retaliation (which doesn't get a linger, it gets a damage buff effect instead.)

 

Since I went Invulnerability on Kara, I grabbed Retaliation for the damage buff and use Defensive Combo for the Defiant damage resistance buff. I see it as a poor person's Defiance and Enrage power without actually taking those powers. No need to build my defenses up only to lose them if I convert to damage, and I can add to my defenses with one attack and block if I want to boost damage. Works out very nicely.

Taking Defensive Combo is definitely in the plan for Cyber Angel. So far I've found, however, that at the start of a fight, she tends to take more damage when she focuses on a single target with Defensive Combo, than when she just AoEs everything down with Micromunitions. Defensive Combo has really only proved worthwhile once the henchmen are out of the picture. I'm hoping with more melee attacks in her repertoire, it might prove more useful.

[slikmar]

Re: Abilities Discussion

 

One of the funnest things to have done so far is with my Martial Artist Trumpcard (might/dex) with his 90+ str. We were doing the Gimp their Ride quest in the desert and another hero flew up and started blasting one of the tanks I needed to destroy. I had already started picking it up, so finished, took it, tossed it into another tank (reducing that one to about half, destroying the one I threw) and the hero stood there for a second stunned, then says "that will work". I think it was the first time he had seen someone pick up a huge object and throw it.

My friend and i had discovered this technique with the Gadroon Eggs in Canada, how much easier the quest was to do when she just picked them up and chucked them. Sadly, you can't do that anymore, but the Gimp their Rides still works.

Anyone with a Might based character, and more importantly, strength. Look into picking up and chucking things at enemies. You do a lot of damage, use no endurance and if you choose things well below your strength level, you can do it quickly (Trumpcard loves throwing hoverbikes as he picks them up in no time and still does 100s of damage with them).

[Netzilla]

Re: Abilities Discussion

 

Anyone with a Might based character, and more importantly, strength. Look into picking up and chucking things at enemies. You do a lot of damage, use no endurance and if you choose things well below your strength level, you can do it quickly (Trumpcard loves throwing hoverbikes as he picks them up in no time and still does 100s of damage with them).

 

I do have a good time having Neutron chuck the scenery at foes. The size of the object makes a definite difference. Trash cans do cruddy damage but vehicles and frequently 'destroy the item' quest items are quite potent. I just wish they survived more than 2 or 3 swings when used as melee clubs. They also have the bonus of being area effect.

[Arkham]

Re: Abilities Discussion

 

Ooooh, yeah. With Bingo the Clowno, I always try to have him open each fight with a thrown object. Not only does it do huge damange for no energy cost, it also usually damages multiple targets too... Now if only you could pick up buildings...

[Steve Long]

Re: Abilities Discussion

 

Mini-mines were so seriously OP before that they will almost certainly continue to be very useful even post-patch.

 

What the patch seems to have done is changed Mini-Mines + Wall Of Fire from doing 200% damage to doing 140% damage of a regular single patch of Mines, if I read things correctly.

 

Though it's no fun to get nerfed, objectively I can't complain, because Mini-Mines + Wall Of Fire was simply doing too much damage to be balanced.

 

My experience leveling yesterday suggests to me that even nerfed Mini-Mines + Wall Of Fire remain plenty useful and effective, so no worries.

[Steve Long]

Re: Abilities Discussion

 

I started my first character last night that didn't use a pre-built framework. I gave him the energy-building Dual Blades power, and Two-Gun Mojo. So far it's been hellafun.

 

I got him up to 6th and got my new powers, which I'm looking forward to trying out. Seems like it's going to take me some practice to get the hang of Swinging (no pun intended ).

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Abilities Discussion

 

I used the respec on John Wrath last night and, among other things, swapped Lightning Reflexes for Regeneration (the PnP character has both insane DCV & Combat Luck so LR was the most in-character, but he also has some regeneration based abilities so I was able to justify it to myself as being in-concept ).

 

All I can say is WOW, major difference. Regen is much more effective, by an order of magnitude.

 

I did see that LR got "fixed" in the patch notes so I ran around with Wrath first to see if it really was improved, and did the SiniSister mission solo. Went down 7 times with LR. Went and did the respec then came back and redid the mission immediately after with Regen. Only got dropped once, fighting Talisman at the end and she was almost done herself. Respawned ran back in and gacked her on the second attempt. Spent the rest of the night running around doing Desert missions, and Regen continued to perform. I'm very happy with it.

 

I also swapped out Smoke Bomb (the MA one, not the Munitions Smoke Grenade) for Killer Instinct. SG was a good effect, but its long cool down was just too much. When I have time to play its for relatively brief windows of time, so my play style favors go go go; powers that I might feel the need to wait for before jumping into something are a detriment. I can't really tell if Killer Instinct is working or not because its really subtle, but my energy management seems a bit easier so maybe it is.

 

And finally I swapped out a might power whose name I forget for Breakaway Shot. The animation is sweet and works well with the jumpy - agile style I'm going for w/ Wrath, and the AoE damage is pretty decent. It worked very well vs mixed mobs of grondlings and irradiates; several times I was in close using Bullet Ballet and decided I needed some distance to let Regen tick off some green; slap Breakaway Shot and flip out doing good damage, and then flip around and plink with the energy builder munitions power until I had that healthy green glow.

 

EDIT: Leveled up and picked up Two-Gun Mojo on Wrath. It seems to work really well w/ Killer Instinct; sometimes I break even on energy and other times I even gain energy while actively firing TGM.

[Certified]

Re: Abilities Discussion

 

The Viper-X Debacle: A Recent Play Experience with Regeneration

 

While trying to save our beloved mayor the final challenge is to face off versus Viper-X a level 20 legendary villain. At level 20 I'm hovering around 2300 Health. Lady Night uses both Regeneration and Resurgence. In a normal fight, even versus a Super-Villain this works well.

 

However, it is important to note that the ability to regenerate damage means nothing if you can be killed with a single hit. That is to say once Viper-X took an interest in me I was routinely hit for 2700+ damage. Now comes the blocking question. Champions is good about offering a tell before a foe fires off some nasty attack and although not perfect I'm fairly good at the whole blocking thing. It would seem though that if only due to shear awesomeness I found myself completely unable to block versus Viper-X. For the purpose of this example I will assume I never managed to block as that kind of damage being post block is just really scary.

 

To sum things up, for Regeneration characters if you're going in against some of these big guns bring meat shields... uh... I mean friends.