The Holy Trinity isn't. Advice for veterans of other MMOs

[JJDrakken]

Anyone can tank if you build for Soft Caps of Lethal/Smashing/Energy/Ranged Defense. Aka Black Scorpion Shield+insert recipes+other powers.  While obviously not as great as say a Tank/Brute, least not till Incarnate. Once your an Incarnate, stuff becomes trivial.

 

Masterminds are everything

DPS - Yes.  Tanking - Yes(Bodyguard Mode), - Control - Yes(To some degree or another). Heals/Support - Yes. But they have a much higher learning curve. Folks need to keep track their pets.  /macro BG "petcom_all Follow Defensive" That Macro will help in that department.

 

Sentinels, Scrappers, Stalkers can off tank to main tank(again depending builds). Yes they DPS

 

Tanks/Brutes - Beef Machines. Yes they can DPS, be it burst or sustained. Obviously a pissed/buffed brute going run faster then a tank, but tank is like an Angry Turtle. They'll get stuff down at a safer degree.  Yes they both tank & some forms of control via taunts or KDs, etc..

 

Kheldians -- Can cover DPS & Tanking & some degrees of control, though unless focused on specifics, they won't be the best at it.

 

Arachnos Spiders -- Walking God Machines.  So long people remember this, TAKE TT: MANEUVERS!!!!, They can do everything. Tank, DPS, Control, Support, etc... Get 3 Spiders together, other 5 players will feel Amazing, Get 8 together, aint nothing going slow you down, minus a cascade defense failure(those happen). But even then a Crab Tank spec'd right won't even noticed it.

 

Corrupters/Defenders/Controllers/Dominators - Doms will DPS most Controllers/Def faster(Minus Kins). But they can DPS, but yes they are Support/Control.  If spec'd right can tank too.(These include right powers/recipes). We all know 8 Defenders can break the game Same goes for 8 Corrs. 😛

 

Blasters - DPS....though HC have blaster hardons & gave them more control powers. They are still DPS, need Incarnate lvls for entry into Tanking/Off Tanking realm+Recipes. Seem to attract a lot of the uniformed/rude players.

 

 

Edited May 4, 2020 by JJDrakken

[Frostweaver]

Seems like the negative comments are just 'well akshually' nitpicking. This is a vital guide for everyone coming from another MMO.

[Hyperstrike]

Tanks can Scrap, Blast, Defend and Control.
Scrappers can Tank, Blast, Defend and Control.
Blasters can Tank (I"ve done it!), Scrap (Blappers), Defend and Control.
Defenders can Tank (anyone who can cap their own defense in the 140% range OUTSIDE OF INCARNATES, raise your hand), Scrap, Blast and Control.
Controllers can Tank (been there,d one that), Scrap, Blast and Defend.

Are each of these classes better in their specialty than the others?  YES!
But this is a SUPERHERO GAME!
Even "Meh" ability is fairly dangerous in relation to the world.
The specialist in their wheelhouse is just GODLIKE. 
Others complaining that they can't out-Tank a Tank or out-Blast a Blaster?
It's like a Crossfit addict complaining that they weren't World's Strongest Man-ready.

 

[Fire Chief]

Great OP I was just thinking I can't remember ever saying nice heelz playing the City I've always said "Nice Buffs" 🙂 much appreciated. 

[Gulbasaur]

On 4/1/2020 at 9:03 PM, JJDrakken said:

Arachnos Spiders -- Walking God Machines.  So long people remember this, TAKE TT: MANEUVERS!!!!, They can do everything. Tank, DPS, Control, Support, etc... Get 3 Spiders together, other 5 players will feel Amazing, Get 8 together, aint nothing going slow you down, minus a cascade defense failure(those happen). But even then a Crab Tank spec'd right won't even noticed it.

Widows are good too. 

 

Honestly, my fortunata is so good I started removing defence powers and bonuses just to add some challenge back into the game (I replaced Combat Jumping with Provoke because I'm a tank now). If you don't like pets but do like literally everything else, fortunatas are the build that you didn't know you needed. Slightly less tanky than spiders, they're still somewhere alongside the average scrapper but can mezz elite bosses indefinitely and have ranged attacks that are pretty near blaster values. I've tanked iTrial AVs with my fortunata. They're bananas. 

 

The VEATs are like Greatest Hits compilations of about five different power sets each.

[Hew]

On 7/7/2020 at 7:31 AM, Gulbasaur said:

Widows are good too. 

 

Honestly, my fortunata is so good I started removing defence powers and bonuses just to add some challenge back into the game (I replaced Combat Jumping with Provoke because I'm a tank now). If you don't like pets but do like literally everything else, fortunatas are the build that you didn't know you needed. Slightly less tanky than spiders, they're still somewhere alongside the average scrapper but can mezz elite bosses indefinitely and have ranged attacks that are pretty near blaster values. I've tanked iTrial AVs with my fortunata. They're bananas. 

 

The VEATs are like Greatest Hits compilations of about five different power sets each.

This is all very true. I really enjoyed my "huntswoman".

 

But they are not, in any way, flashy. Maybe crabs? but banes, not flashy. widows, not flashy (I cant even see the darts I throw!!!). The weird psychic widows? Maaaaybe a little flashy.

 

If you are looking for solid in everything though, they are fantastic at that. They are like the ultimate corkscrew. Gets the cork out of any problem!

[Furiant]

As a veteran MMO player of around twenty years, much of which has been spent raid healing and tanking, my opinion is that the safety, damage output, and aggro of the group is everyone's responsibility. No single person is (in most cases) entirely responsible for a win or a wipe.

 

Every role has ways to contribute to each component. Whether it's situational awareness, split-second decisions on who gets the last heal, dialing down your dps for a moment,  keeping an eye on the squishy beside you, or simply not standing in the fire -- every person on the team has the power to influence the outcome in ways that go beyond their job description. It's just a matter of knowing that and applying it.

Edited October 9, 2020 by Furiant

[JJDrakken]

I tank on my Earth/Sonic Controller and DPS. Just go to Excel, ask about Soundstone.

[Hyperstrike]

On 6/18/2020 at 12:04 PM, Fire Chief said:

Great OP I was just thinking I can't remember ever saying nice heelz playing the City I've always said "Nice Buffs" 🙂 much appreciated. 

Play on a couple of well heeled Fire/Rad superteams.

You still don't have to say "Nice Buffs".
But you'll learn what "Nice Buffs" are.

[Doomguide2005]

On 1/10/2021 at 12:51 AM, Hyperstrike said:

Play on a couple of well heeled Fire/Rad superteams.

You still don't have to say "Nice Buffs".
But you'll learn what "Nice Buffs" are.

Doesn't even need to be a superteam just an an all support team to get an idea of how potent these teams can get.  Just a random call out on the RO network to do a Master STF led to a 6 defender, 2 controller team obliterating the Patrons and the rest of the tf.  I don't think any combat attribute on that team was less than near or at the hard-caps.  Regen yes, resistance yes, defense yes (or at least so far beyond soft cap who cares), recharge yes (AB, SB), recovery yes, damage yes (8 Assault, multiple Forts, and a Kinetic), -resistance 'lots', total mez protection (multiple CM), to hit well beyond 'plenty' (8 Tactics, multiple Forts).  And enough debuffs to make the foes whimper for mercy (Sonic/Sonic and Cold/Archery, multiple Dark Blast).  And all this was way before Incarnates was released ... IO sets had barely been around long at that point.  

[Rokkeb]

There is absolutely a holy trinity in this game, its just that instead of healer, tank, dps.. it's scrapper, scrapper, aaaaaand scrapper 😄

[Hyperstrike]

16 hours ago, Rokkeb said:

There is absolutely a holy trinity in this game, its just that instead of healer, tank, dps.. it's scrapper, scrapper, aaaaaand scrapper 😄

Sorry?  Can't hear you over all the sizzling from my fire/rads.

[Dz131]

It's not there because the difficulty doesn't demand it.  

[Doomguide2005]

15 hours ago, Dz131 said:

It's not there because the difficulty doesn't demand it.  

Got very little to do with difficulty but a lot to do with the potency of buffs and debuffs in this game.

 

Something like @HyperstrikeFRads or the PuG team in i9 I mentioned above move into whatever mob and the mob just starts dying while virtually nothing happens to the characters.  +5 incarnate mobs (of your choice) would barely slow the i26 versions of those teams down.  Heck they'd barely threaten the i9 versions because of the crazy values of their cumulative buffs and debuffs.

[Hyperstrike]

5 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

Got very little to do with difficulty but a lot to do with the potency of buffs and debuffs in this game.

 

Something like @HyperstrikeFRads or the PuG team in i9 I mentioned above move into whatever mob and the mob just starts dying while virtually nothing happens to the characters.  +5 incarnate mobs (of your choice) would barely slow the i26 versions of those teams down.  Heck they'd barely threaten the i9 versions because of the crazy values of their cumulative buffs and debuffs.

Don't think so.
At +5, the ability of the team to hit becomes significant and imparted damage drops off sharply.
Meanwhile, the ability of the enemy to hit, even through heavily capped armor values more or less erases such a team's safety margins, while the damage boost becomes ruinous.

[Doomguide2005]

1 hour ago, Hyperstrike said:

Don't think so.
At +5, the ability of the team to hit becomes significant and imparted damage drops off sharply.
Meanwhile, the ability of the enemy to hit, even through heavily capped armor values more or less erases such a team's safety margins, while the damage boost becomes ruinous.

At +5 they'll hit slightly more often (accuracy goes from 1.4 to 1.5, no change to base to hit) and hit harder yes and those debuffs will be shorter.  But ruinous to the safety margin I don't think so.  Those health bars barely move against +4's (+4 AVs), I doubt the extra damage is going to be anything like ruinous.  It'll probably hurt the teams kill speed the most, not survival.  

[Call Me Awesome]

Eh, stack up 8 sets of Leadership toggles, some buffs and debuffs and watch the mobs melt as fast as you can walk through the mission.

 

One of the most fun super teams I was on was when my group started a new set of characters on another server.  We had 2 Kin/Sonic defenders, 2 Fire/Rad controllers, 2 Ill/Rad controllers, one Rad/Rad defender and a Fire/Fire blaster.  At level 25 we took out Lusca in IP by ourselves in under 5 minutes and by the time we hit 50 we had the Master of Statesman's TF in a 30 minute run.  Yeah, 8 Fire/Rad controllers might have been faster but we never ran into anything that slowed us down... except for our suicidal Fire/Fire blaster who seemed to use ROTP as part of his attack chain.

[Doomguide2005]

Indeed 8 Tactics at "mere" controller strength and totally unenhanced is already sitting at +80%.  Your Base To Hit would need to be under 15% or the foes for that not to be clamped at the 95% ceiling.  That's enough to cap hitting +6 mobs.  And that's without considering enhanced tactics, accuracy or any other powers.  A full GM team on SO's is going to have a To Hit buff of easily in excess of +150 ... Hitting is a total non issue they're right off the charts.

 

The issue for such teams is doing damage.  Against +6's damage and debuffs are only 0.15 as strong, for example.  +4's on the other hand are sitting at 0.48 and are going to crushed fairly quickly by the incoming damage generated by a superteam.

[Shred Monkey]

In CoH combat there are 2 things that matter:

1. Removing enemy hitpoints

2. Protecting self & ally hitpoints

 

Note that buffs, debuffs, and controlling enemy position with taunts and controls can contribute to role #1.  Similarly, tanking, controls, buffs, debuffs, and heals contribute to role #2.

 

Nearly any group of 8 players will succeed in these 2 things.  In fact its more likely that you'll join a group of 8 players and find you're not contributing either of these 2 things because there's so much overlap of roles in a team of 8.  At this point, you should ask yourself, "Do I care?"  If you don't, then keep going, and have fun.  If you do care and it bothers you a lot that you're not contributing then change something; join a different team, make a different toon, play exclusively at low-to-mid levels, respec to focus on a different aspect of your toon, solo or play on smaller teams.  These are all great options. 

 

And *THAT* is what sets this game apart from other MMOs.  The options to do what you want, be what you want, look the way you want, and play the way you want ...are endless.

 

 

[JJDrakken]

No the 3 Rs matter more. +Recovery, +Recharge,  -Regen.  Doesn't matter how DPS you are, if you got no blue bar, or if your waiting for your powers to come back, or that AV/Hero/GM/Etc.. is just regen over your DPS, doesn't matter.  Those are honestly 3 most important factors.

[Doomguide2005]

On 4/13/2021 at 7:32 AM, JJDrakken said:

No the 3 Rs matter more. +Recovery, +Recharge,  -Regen.  Doesn't matter how DPS you are, if you got no blue bar, or if your waiting for your powers to come back, or that AV/Hero/GM/Etc.. is just regen over your DPS, doesn't matter.  Those are honestly 3 most important factors.

     Yes and most "super teams" have those in excess.  So FRADS 8×AM checks the first couple, Lingering Radiation checks the 3rd ... 

     A GM team, silly amounts of Endurance from stacked RA plus AB checks the first, AB checks box 2, 8 Assault, stacked Fort handle the 3rd though without a Sonic Blast or two it can be a weak spot but we're still looking at near capped damage before any -resist consideration.  The target(s) need a lot of regen to handle 8 near damage capped characters.

    And most 8-player incarnate teams of support characters tend to check those boxes these days even without being a classic "super team".  You practically have to try to not succeed given today's game play.

 

[Pbuckley818]

On 5/13/2019 at 8:29 AM, VanValdenburg said:

Also mainly agree.

 

However, here my two cents.

 

DPS.

Not every Archetype fills that role, at all, imo. Yes every hero can deal some DMG. But not every hero is build to maximize DMG.

 

Agro management.

Tanks and Brutes do this. Scrappers can, but will fail most likely due to not enough defense/resistance.

Other Archetypes DO NOT manage aggro. Sleeps, holds, stuns, knockbacks, etc are NO aggro control. That's Crowd Control (CC) and should fall under the "Support" category imo.

 

Technically CC is it's own thing, older MMORPG's from back when people knew how to make them, had four roles not 3. CC is the forgotten forth pillar of the quaternity, and it's presence or lack there of in an MMO can be one of the single most important indicators of actual quality. As it's absence means tactics beyond tank & spank are likely not going to be a meaningful element of gameplay.

Edited July 14, 2021 by Pbuckley818

[Snarky]

One of the greatest (perhaps the greatest) strength in City of Villains, erm Heroes, is the ability to change and redesign a character from the ground up.  Sometimes you cannot get too far from the core design.  Other times you can get way the F out there and still be quite powerful.  Perhaps more powerful than standard/standard build.  

 

This fluidity in character design allows for tactics to evolve beyond Tank/Heal/DPS   Indeed, more than any other MMORPG CoX will see a team/league switch roles based on the fight.  It is actually part of the design where in things like Hami you need very specific functions that are not necessarily just the big three.  It shows its head in the varied damage types and the ability of a lighter 'DPS' role to 'Tank' something specific while the 'Tank' has to fade back due to a weakness in that fight.  You can play the game using the Trinity, you can also play the game using Single Origin Enhancers.  But when you start bending reality and surfing the content based on wisdom and practice you find all sorts of interesting niches.  

[hejtmane]

On 5/13/2019 at 8:29 AM, VanValdenburg said:

Also mainly agree.

 

However, here my two cents.

 

DPS.

Not every Archetype fills that role, at all, imo. Yes every hero can deal some DMG. But not every hero is build to maximize DMG.

 

Agro management.

Tanks and Brutes do this. Scrappers can, but will fail most likely due to not enough defense/resistance.

Other Archetypes DO NOT manage aggro. Sleeps, holds, stuns, knockbacks, etc are NO aggro control. That's Crowd Control (CC) and should fall under the "Support" category imo.

Poorly built scrappers yes

[Doomguide2005]

On 8/13/2021 at 2:37 PM, hejtmane said:

Poorly built scrappers yes

Indeed, if my scrapper (Claw/SR/Body) isn't controlling the aggro it isn't because she was dead or dying.  It was probably because someone with Taunt or a Taunt aura was on the team OR someone else was doing silly amounts of (likely AoE)  damage such as a well played and incarnated Blaster.  Sure as hell wasn't cause she couldn't handle the damage.