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The artistry in crafting a build by following a recipe is in how the recipe is ignored. Some points I commonly follow: 1) I don't take more attacks than I need, unless there is something mechanically interesting/thematic about the sets/characters. For example: I find some Blast sets (Assault Rifle, the Archeries, even Beam Rifle) to have so many different attacks I find myself taking more than I need. I rarely take an 'extra' attack for set bonus reasons, unless it is in a power pool and can be used as a pre-requisite for a power I want. 2) I rarely take Hasten. There is plenty of global recharge to be had from set bonuses. Hasten is IMO a bit of a mental trap... many players who recommend it decide they want 'perma-Hasten', which leads to both burning a power pick (and pool) on Hasten, and then making a lot of necessary build choices to get the set bonuses to make Hasten perma. 3) I rarely sweat trying to 'soft-cap' defenses for 'squishies'... or push the limits of Resistances. I'm not ignoring the attack mechanics, and I do have certain ATs that (necessarily, for some content) exceed what the game has mechanically imposed... yet I find I don't need that build strategy to enjoy the game. It is rare I take the Fighting pool. 4) I try to have my character be 'complete' Attacks/Defenses/Utility for level 30 content (especially when exemplared down). Practically: this means that I often don't sweat incarnates or epic/patron powers (especially using many slots on power picks above level 32) 5) Single target controls get serious evaluation before I invest in them. These are IMO a mixed bag. Often they can be used as sources of damage (especially Holds, via %damage), but they are single-target... which makes for relying on one of these to clear enemies a bit of a slog. Usually I land on slotting them for the control aspect, and sometimes for a desired set bonus. Often a temporary attack used on a controlled enemy is more reliable!

The combo mechanics (for whatever sets) are IMO a bit of a mixed bag. My Street Justice characters generally don't pay attention to try to build combos, except when facing a hard single-target. Super Reflexes is a top-tier defensive set, and it was constructed in a very "natural" way... meaning that each new power effectively adds something that benefits the build. Resistance-based sets (especially for Tankers and Brutes) often have toggles that aren't needed for certain content. Defenses work against (pretty much) ALL enemies, because of the game's attack mechanics. With a Brute's high HP and the scaling resistances, you may find the SR Brute affects your perspective of how combat affects player ATs. Also keep in mind that at low levels especially, Defenses are doing a LOT more to mitigate damage taken than any similar-level resistance power.

This will vary based on the AT, but generally I don't take both of the first picks from a primary (especially not if those are both attacks) and rarely will I end up taking both of the first two picks from a secondary... at least not right away. As a character levels up and slots attacks, it is rare that both a T1 and a T2 are needed for an attack chain. There are rationalizations for taking both a T1 and T2 attack of course, and I expect a variety of replies explaining why certain folks do exactly this. Usually the first two (offensive) picks of both the primary and secondary are single-target affecting, so there isn't a lot of runway to allow both of them fly. For defensive sets, usually a character doesn't need both of the first two powers early in the career. The most obvious exception is probably Stalkers, which excel with Hide so depending on the second defensive power they may want that sooner rather than later. The temporary (attack) powers as well as the prestige attacks from the START vendor provide enough offensive options for me for lower level content. These cannot be enhanced, and work with the base damage scales of the AT of course.

From my memory: there was an effort to micro-transaction costume pieces and emotes (as well as power sets)... but because they were unlocked per account, and IIRC subscribers could cash in tokens (or whatever they were) to get those things, it wasn't going to be a great financial windfall. The standard costume creator was pretty freakin' incredible, even at launch. I'm pretty sure the Incarnate path was seen as the way to keep people paying, at least prior to the sunset announcement. I smirk when I encounter one of those early blue-side arcs that has me going all over Paragon city... and later, the Shadow Shard... because I remember how absolutely grindy the Incarnate stuff was. The (Live) Incarnate game was pretty much a perfect example of the type of MMO I didn't enjoy.

Thankfully it has been a long time (several years) since I've seen any in-game chat mocking ATs. *That* was a behavior I couldn't understand, given the game and how easy it is to team up. The only recent conversation in General chat I can think of was when during a weekday a player self-identified as having changed shards explicitly to farm (during the middle of a North American work day) , and got weirdly aggressive in chat that nobody was taking him/her up on an offer to join their farm. After those comments, there were a number of shard regulars who understandably wanted to know why *that* player was acting that way.

One things: It is trivial to level up, without stepping foot in an AE. Another thing; I don't equate "new player" with "asking to power level". I want to believe that a really new player wouldn't want or need to "power level", since content pretty much scales with the powers available to the character.

I few of us show occasional sharp edges during play, but I haven't seen much toxic behavior. Mostly it is jovial joking and just running content.

My gaming rig died at some point and I couldn't play CoX with my replacement PC (for a year+), but I kept my subscription active! When I finally rejoined with a PC that could game, I found there was nothing I needed micro-transition wise. The subscriber rewards either gave me everything, or pretty close. The only thing I can think of in the old Live model was the limited number of character slots per server might have been a motivation (for a time) to have multiple subscriptions.

I find tackling AVs solo to be such a slog, I'm impressed when players set out to do it with something like a Controller... especially without Incarnates. I want to say I had a Dark/Dark Controller that was able to beat at least one, hold off others, but fell to many... before I stopped trying. The biggest issue I remember was reliable/correct damage typing for the different AVs.

The initial red-zone arcs are IIRC more generous in giving merits. My villains usually outpace my heroes in merits at early levels. The common explanation is that this is a slight effort to get more players to start red; as a practical matter there is simply much more merit-granting content blue side.

If you check this page, you can see any single Enhancement piece with the "global" tag will work (down to a level equal to the lowest that the enhancement bonus works at) even if the power is not available (because Exemplar) or being used (i.e. toggled off, or not used after the duration of the effect has expired).

Alternating between builds is probably the easiest way to have a "no obvious powers" build. Other options: widows can go multiple ways, and/or lean into the Leadership powers for one... but then you are limited in the types of attacks in a way you may not want. Something like a Traps primary/secondary could be somewhat "civilian-like" for non-Blaster options.

CoX definitely did not fit the Korean mold (at the time, I cannot speak to *now*): The game didn't require/drive the type of all-day farming that was typical for that market. Also: Standard subscriber rewards were pretty generous, and in-game purchases weren't necessary for the most part. I got the sense that the game was more than paying for itself (including development) just that it wasn't going to show the sorts of crazy growth that NCSoft wanted. While I *hated* seeing the game sunset, I didn't like what the Live team was doing with the Lore at the end... specifically driving development on the Incarnate path. I know many players were tempted by the siren song of MOAR POWA, but getting new primary/secondary sets and sub-Incarnate content were IMO a much better thing to focus on for an engaged player base.

Only rarely do I mix IOs and pieces from Enhancement sets. There are occasions, but when I do, it is usually because there is only one attribute I want boosted and there is no set that offers more than one piece that only boosts the same attribute. For example, if I want to only boost the defense of something like a Force Field Generator, I may start with the Global recharge piece from LotG, but after that the set only has one Defense (only) piece. I may as well use only a IO Defense piece. For attacks, generally a mix of Accuracy, Damage and Endurance is important. MMV depending on the inherent Recharge time of a power. Sets let you get those, plus bonuses. Another thing: sometimes the only way to increase the attribute of a power is with a set. Mind Link/Link Minds will not take recharge reduction IOs, but you can slot the Recharge piece from the ToHit set to improve recharge times. (Hami-O/Dsyncs that include a recharge reduction can be slotted, but they don't improve the recharge times, because they act like IOs)

As I noted in one of my long-ago posts in this very thread, I'm not a huge fan of heals-for-others powers, but it is silly to come down hard on another player that clearly has a different opinion.

I have an Energy Blast / Time Manipulation Corruptor that is a "faux Peacebringer". The final build is posted below, but it was plenty of fun leveling up.

I haven't found a Stalker combination that I didn't like. One thing about building Stalkers that stands out to me: I almost always see a single pick from and Epic/Patron pool at level 35 that can well-supplement whatever I'm wanting to do with the Stalker... but nothing is necessary to make the Stalker play well... as opposed to other ATs where an Epic pool is usually needed for a resistance/defense toggle. Even though there is the overlap between Scrappers/Stalkers at the Epic level, something always makes me think the Stalker has a light edge (in terms of how to leverage Epics/Patrons).

Many good points were in the responses, but the walls of text make it hard for me to quote out what I think are the key points: 1) Enhancement sets (with multiple attributes per enhancement) help to reach and/or avoid the point at which Enhancement Diversification would make using non-set pieces a losing game... at least in terms of slot investment. Fewer slots to get similar goals means that there are more slots to go around. 2) Set bonuses *do* add up. Mileage varies on which bonuses to pursue. For example: I typically find that for non-Tanker/Brute (i.e. low HP) characters, chasing Regeneration doesn't make much sense. In contrast: +MaxHP almost always makes sense. Most characters can benefit from more Recovery, Global Endurance Discounts, and MaxEnd. Getting global Accuracy bonuses means that when facing those +4 enemies that also happen to debuff you, you aren't near the floor of ToHit chances.

At low levels, I don't find much of a reason to slot, or activate resistance powers. The percentages simply aren't there to make a difference. I suppose we can quibble about their value above level 15 or so (since the DFB boosts can last beyond that point), but at 10+ there are IO options to boost defense and resistance. I can believe someone could try to make a sincere case for a DfB/DiB resistance boost... but I think it would be such small potatoes considering the larger picture of The levels/time duration at which the boosts stop What else is a player doing if they have also planned to run DfB and/or DiB many multiple times? For players with other characters: selling a single level 50 recipe to a vendor is enough to get a level 1 or 2 rather significant 8-hour boosts from the P2W/START, plus some utility powers.

Rando comments: Takeoff is pretty great as part of the Force of Will set's Mighty Leap. It's fine as a joke-y sort of combat move, and it jives well with the Leaping. I almost always get to where I want to be PDQ. My one complaint about Afterburner is the longish down-time. I rarely get to where I want to be with it toggled on, even with Evasive Manuevers. Look elsewhere for my bad feels about the 4 (+1) toggles in the Flight Pool. I agree that Double Jump is kind of clunky. It's used exclusively when my Jump isn't quite getting me to where I want to be (or a suitable landing spot is not close by)... so I sort of see the point of the OP. Super Jump was my favorite travel power on Live, so I'm pretty satisfied with the relatively quick Mighty Leap (from Force of Will). My general suggestion when it comes to Legacy Day 0 power pools (so not just the Travels, but also Presence, Medicine) is this: Like the Fighting pool, there probably should be some inherent boosting of most of the power choices for taking more than one power in the pool. Folks can look elsewhere for my suggestions for Presence and Medicine, but for travel pools I think the most obvious things would be something like boosts to speed/range to the dedicated travel power.

I agree with 2-slots of LotG being a generally inferior choice, but I went with it because the build does take damage, so the little bit more Regeneration (even though it is paltry, and sort of past the point of diminishing returns) was an easy lean (because of the Global Recharge slotting). I simply didn't feel like putting Cyto's in this build. Endurance isn't much of an issue with well-used Energy Drain. I don't have tons of fun in Incarnate content (the Live experience really soured it for me) so I'm generally playing 1-50 content, mostly below 40. It's a common theme with my builds that I Don't consider Incarnates I want a reasonably complete character suitable for all lower-level content I typically consider late power choices for mules and don't consider them as "requirement" powers to make my builds awesome sauce. One of the things I like best about Energy Aura is that it is a very non-intrusive (graphically, except for idling with Energy Cloak) armor set... so it allows costumes to be shown off. Re: The Fighting pool and Rune of Protection... much like Hasten, I have come to actively look for ways to avoid making these choices. I'm motivated mostly by being iconoclastic, partially because I don't like giving up flavorful power choices for (generally) passive powers that don't directly affect enemies, and partially because I don't appreciate the (in my view) restrictive build choices I'm left with after pursuing two of those three common choices. I don't mind playing with my characters on the edge of knife. I do still make builds with those powers, but when I choose them it is typically either for theme or to cover an obvious gap and less to make the character moar betta. Not all my characters have to stand toe-to-toe solo against Lord Recluse! Don't get hung up on Maneuvers, as I wrote above, it's a mule and Infiltration can be used instead to be able to swap in a Winter's Gift slow resistance instead.

Hey... somebody dropped this list of stuff that does next-to-nothing at levels below 10. Imma leave it at the lost-and-found. Less sarcastically: The Recovery Enhancer is going to do more for the sorts of things on that list used by players at low levels than a +15% would.

There is no need to add merits to DFB. New players can hop around the starting zone to collect 5 merits.

El riesgo siempre vive.

On Energy Aura, I always skip worrying about Positional defenses.. whatever "OH $#!+" defense boosts usually cover everything. I also wouldn't build a Sentinel to be a "Hover Blaster", that seems like such (way) old school thinking. I think of Sentinels as Scrappers that happen to have ranged attacks, MMV.