WHY is your favourite toon your favourite?

[Scarlet Shocker]

many many many of us here have many many toons. Why not? This game spectacularly encourages altitis, and it is arguably one of the strengths of the game and has been historically. I don't believe even the Devs on live appreciated the power of it - but that's another story.

 

But when it comes to all of our toons, what I've noticed is that many of us seem to have our favourites - even if we don't play them that often, even if they're not the best at what they do, even if they haven't had a respec since hitting lvl 50 at Issue 7 and don't have IOs or Incarnates or any of that cool stuff.

 

But then there can be favourite favourites, and unfavourite favourites, favourites we know why, and those we are less sure of why they're favourite, but they just are. We can categorise them, we might have a favourite blaster, or favourite tank, but overall controllers are our favourite AT etc

 

I'm appealing to the basic philosophy of the game here - but I think it's an important question - because even if you don't believe in "souls" per se, there's always a bit more of us as human beings, invested in our favourite characters, yet others, perfectly competent, capable, even perhaps better performing, just remain a suit, an name and a set of statistical algorithms, that just don't get our juices flowing.

 

So the question is "why is X, Y or Z your favourite, not what or who?"

 

 

[TemporalVileTerror]

I can't say.

 

I mean, I can't say the whole reason.  Violation of the Code of Conduct to get in to the knitty-gritty, you know? *coughs nervously*  ANYWAY.

 

So, short answer . . . roleplay.

The best, soul-revealing, and personally meaningful roleplay I've ever had.

 

And there's something satisfying about taking down -super- threats and watching all the bullet casings fly as a Natural-Origin Mercs/Traps Mastermind.  "Dakka dakka!"

[Placta]

There are two types of characters I gravitate toward in RPGs: lightning mages and magic knights (mundane knights are okay). Driving home from buying the game, I basically imagined the former as an electric blaster for my first character, and that's what I made, and she's been my main all these years. At this point it's the memories that make her my favorite more than anything about the character (I can't imagine spending three months leading weekly MoKeyes attempts until we finally Avoid the Green Stuff on anyone else, and hopefully hanging out in Atlas Park with my friends waiting for the clock to strike midnight and the servers to turn into pumpkins was a one-time event... and even if it's not, it'll be the same character who does it again).

Edited May 25, 2021 by Placta

[Luminara]

3 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

So the question is "why is X, Y or Z your favourite, not what or who?"

 

Legionette, my Staff/Willpower brute, is my favorite because everything coalesced.  The powers, the look, the bio, it all came together perfectly in a way none of my other characters did.

 

I like Staff Melee because it has two cones and a PBAoE, and I can chain them without relying on Hasten.  There's no target juggling with her.  She also has a fully functional single-target attack chain, so she's not sacrificing anything to gain a complete AoE chain.  I also like the animations, the subtleties of little things like the way her ankles flex when she's leaning back to hammer something with Sky Splitter, or how her body repositions itself when she's transitioning from Guarded Spin to Innocuous Strikes, and the sounds have a satisfying solidity to them.

I like Willpower because there's no unnecessary key mashing.  I don't have to frantically search for a heal, I don't have to watch a timer, the set just does what it needs to do and allows me to do what I want to do, that being AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH with Staff Melee attacks.  It somehow feels more effective than other toggle-based mitigation that I've used for other characters, like Invulnerability and Energy Aura.

 

The look is small, slender, not powerful or indicative of strength.  Roman armor, Roman sandals, very Amazonian, but sharply contrasted by her slight frame.  Simple hair, simple adornments, nothing fancy or flashy... she's plain, but it's a plainness that works well.  This ties in with...

 

The bio portrays her as being under-developed in respect to others like her, and, consequently, thought to be incapable of doing what she does.  But she's stubborn, determined and, even though she's frightened by many things and realizes that she might be humiliating herself, she's brave enough to face her fears, and she's confident enough in her abilities to put herself to the hazard.  She believes in herself, and to me, that's the greatest power anyone has.

 

Legionette is my Wonder Woman (i said that in another thread...).

[The_Warpact]

My favorites are the ones that I can envision myself being. 

My main is a robotic menace cold and methodical this is me at work.

My one troller is a sadist bent on making the biggest threats suffer, I hate bullies my lil brother was constantly picked on and I started beating on them.

My only hero(Vigilante) is a patriotic throwback to when things were simpler and is a woman. This is my respect to women and national pride.

Etc, etc, so that is why these are my favorite they are representations on me and my beliefs. 

The list goes on, if I cannot put alittle of myself into my creations then they don't last long.

[KauaiJim]

Because it’s the one I enjoy playing the most. Deep question and I gave it some thought and finally settled on that very simplistic answer.  What makes this a little more difficult is that Homecoming has allowed me to enjoy so many different characters that I honestly now have several. Which is a good thing in my book. 
 

Sometimes it’s an awesome look and/or name. Sometimes it’s a build and what it can do. Sometimes I personally identify with them (feel a connection).  Sometimes it’s nostalgia or fond memories. Not any one toon or specific thing. Heck sometimes it’s the mood I’m in or a reflection or release of real life. Can be a lot of things for me and it can be fluid/fluctuate. I’m not very good at psychoanalyzing myself. (thank goodness)

[MTeague]

Because they're my kind of fun. 

My favorite, even if I don't play him that much on any given week, is always going to be my Mind/Kin Controller.  (also, my avatar, and the first character listed in the page my sig links to)

1. At City of Heroes launch, I came from EverQuest, and the AT and powersets were specfically chosen to be as close as I could get to an EQ Enchanter.  It made him feel like an extension of my EverQuest character. I mean, sure he wasn't a gnome, but enchanters are masters of illusion. Who knows what he *really* looks like, or what species he *really* belongs to?
2. In flurry of new people trying out a new MMO, people were doing Superman or Wolverine or Ironman or Batman knockoffs.  I made Cygnus specfically to be a "Hidden Hand" type of hero. NOT one who's probably going to make the evening news. Not one you'd see combating an alien invasion downtown.  But more like a Dark Watcher figure, before I even knew there WAS a Dark Watcher NPC.  Someone who might slip into the enemies lair undetected, warping what they see and percieve, and leaving them all trussed up and ready to be arrested without the bad guys ever even understanding what had just happened.  More of a teacher and a guide than a Man of Steel.
3. Both powersets are amazingly Click-Heavy.  I know that's a huge drawback for some, but it WORKS for me.  Anytime he's in a mission, my brain is rapid-fireing triage of what I need to do next. 

[starro]

strength and invulnerability.  Her costume is so basic - blue head to toe.  I learned to play the game with her, lead groups, support teams, learned enhancements,  architect and Wentworth tutorials.     This is my old go-to and solo or group she mostly never dies... mostly.  At relaunch I could not believe old muscle memory and the feels that showed up.  I was told you can never truly go home again, but COH like many things bends those rules.

[CursedSorcerer]

I guess, my favorite (and currently highest-level) character goes by the name of Sir Slasher, a Level 50 Broad Sword/Willpower Scrapper.

Why is he my favorite? I've had an interest in History since the 5th Grade, particularly Medieval history. And also, I don't believe there are TOO many medieval-inspired superheroes in the Media.

 

For reference: Sir Slasher.

Edited May 25, 2021 by CursedSorcerer

[Fire Chief]

The name more then anything...Kobolt, I brought the elec/elec blaster out of beta but since then he has been everything from a blaster to a scrapper (pretty much everything but a tank). Different looks for the most part but always elec/*** or a ***/elec. When I log on and get to my char list there he is up at the top and he just makes me smile and I think how lucky we all are to have this game back.

[Neiska]

For me its Synthetic Sins, simply because she was my tabletop character that I brought to CoH. I also have a DnD character of mine, but Sins I have played a long time. She is based on shadow run and cyberpunk. I have made many versions of her, because nothing felt "right" as in order to recreate her as close as possible id really have to take cross-set powers. But, more after the roleplay, appearance, and vibes anyway. Shes simply the one i feel attached to the most.

 

I do like her as a crabber, but her main build is a robotics/electric mastermind. Tabletop though she was a Street Sam with heavy cybernetics, and she made her own cyberware, with some rigging abilities.

Edited May 26, 2021 by Neiska

[DrInfernus]

Good question! For me it’s a bit of a chicken/egg situation. Dr Infernus, my fire/NRG/fire blaster is my favourite. He’s veteran level 82 without ever setting foot in a farm. Poor my many people’s standards but remarkable by mine. 
 

However, whether I’ve played him so much because he’s my favourite or he’s my favourite because I’ve played him so much... well that’s anyone’s guess! 
 

I do love fire blast. It’s fast, it’s frantic, it does great damage, the animations are satisfying, and the AoE is great. Dr Infernus has a great build too. And NRG manipulation is highly versatile I find. So there’s all that. That said, I have about half a dozen fire blast characters with a great build and don’t love them like I do the Doc. 
 

I do think that practice with a character makes perfect, and that makes you enjoy it much more as a player. I’m faster with Doc than I am any other character I have. I need no time to respond to a situation in-game and know exactly how to get the best out of him. 
 

But of course, if a character is not great to play in the first place you’re not going to get to the well-practice stage with them, are you?

 

So, just to summarise... I have absolutely no idea. 

[MrAxe]

Shield Defence/Psionic Melee Tanker.

 

1. I love Tanks

2. I love telekinesis

3. Shield has tons of awesome stuff. Positional defence, resistance, high def debuff resist plus a cool attack and more. Also its the one tank primary that actually adds to your costume rather than hides it.

4. I love Tanks.

Edited May 26, 2021 by MrAxe

[Shred Monkey]

Lode Monkey, my Fire/EM Blaster (blapper).  The animations are fast and furious.  The raw damage, ST is huge, but the AoE is phenomenal.  I enjoy the costume and it works really well with beast run (a monkey in futuristic combat armor dropping into melee and going bat-crazy with punches and blasts).

 

But I think the real reason he's my favorite is tough explain when playing him.  It's when I'm playing something else, I (almost) always find myself saying at the end of a mission/TF thinking, "gee, that was great, but I really should have brought Lode."

 

 

 

 

[PyrioldFarm]

My Plant/Time controller. The costume somehow really got great, she can solo almost everything and every team she joins will be in god mode. Almost +30 def to all and +50 recharge are hard to beat, and seeds of confusion trivialize almost all content. Feels very powerfull, and controllers are my fav AT.

 

But i do play all ATs and really like most of them. I think sentinels need work and the kheldians have a lot of issues, but CoH is very fun with pretty much all toons.

[Rinwen]

My favorite character from a concept/RP viewpoint is one I created years before CoH, for a PnP game.

 

He is derived from X-Men lore.

 

************************

Archetypes: Tanker & Scrapper, EA/EM & EM/EA

Hero Name: Smasher

Civilian Name: Jacob Summers

Origin/Powers:

Cousin to Scott & Alex Summers, also a mutant.  Jacob's power is similar to Cyclops' in that it's the same ruby red, concussive force, solar powered energy that Cyclops shoots from his eyes.

 

However, this energy manifests through the pores of his skin, and unlike Cyclops, Smasher can control it.  For the most part it is only localized around his body.  He can project this energy as eye beams at range, but those eye beams are significantly less powerful than Cyclops' eye beams, as well as significantly less powerful than the localized manifestation of his powers.

 

Instead Smasher generates the energy to coalesce around his hands, which then explodes with concussive force when he hits something, or he generates it around his feet, and when he slams his foot down, the explosion propels him into the air in a controlled jump of varying height and distance depending on how much power he releases.

 

He also generates the energy around his body producing various defensive shields. 

****************************

 

From a which character do I enjoy playing the most viewpoint?   I have a top 10, of which both incarcerations, (Tanker and Scrapper), of Smasher are two, whom I tend to play equally. 

 

 

[Dahkness]

My Defender -Poison/Fire/Dark-.

Dahkness ❤️

 

 Legit beast. Teleporting god.  Most groups can’t keep up with him. Godly Debuffs with some really impressive dmg if you combo your procs with your Debuffs correctly.

Edited May 26, 2021 by Dahkness

[Bill Z Bubba]

Because deep down, I think most issues can be resolved through disembowelments and beheadings while dodging incoming attacks.

 

Plus, what's not to love about a cigar chompin prince of Hell magic-ing up a mortal body cuz he got tired of the bureaucracy of the Pit?

[Scarlet Shocker]

Some amazing and very interesting answers guys, thanks for all your responses.

 

I guess it's only fair I should reply myself. The question was prompted when I was asking myself whether I wanted to recreate Scarlet Shocker here, and if so, should she continue to be an all Electric Blaster?

 

Scarlet was technically my 3rd character (I think, certainly not my 4th or later) and the name came first, then the powers, then the costume, then the grind through those early levels - plus the creation of the Shock Tactics SG, and making some good friends and getting all the way to level 49 then a long pause while I dabbled with lower level alts. Remember this was back in 2006/7 when there were very few electric powers there, far fewer costume options and a lot less content. This was Issue 6 and then I7.

 

She became my favourite for many reasons but one of the most important is she does her best with the limited powers available to her. Let's remember that electric powers were pretty underwhelming back then (arguably most still are - though I've yet to really get to grips with electrical affinity) and -End is pretty pointless in PVE and next to useless in PVP. So she became something of an underdog hero, which is how I like my heroes. To me heroism isn't Batman or Superman who can beat anyone or anything with brains or brawn respectively. To me a true hero is somebody who goes up against the odds, and comes out smiling. Daredevil is a classic case in comic lore I guess. He's really only a normal blind guy with super senses and a massive amount of willpower but he can still beat Dr Doom, Kingpin, and just about anyone the Marvel writers throw at him - even though his life is shitty and made shittier by his own blind obstinacy (pun intended.)

 

So Scarlet spoke to me from very early on and remains my favourite CoH character even though seriously sub-par in terms of capability and power.

 

But she's not even my favourite blaster. That accolade goes to Snowfreak, an Ice/Energy blaster who has a great back story (lost an arm in a Rikti raid, then discovered her dad had been a villain back in Statesman's youth and had a few favours to pull in, got her a cyborg arm with a cryogenic function and a couple of high powered recoil adjusters for close quarters.... to get revenge on the Rikti and maybe redeem him along the way...) She rocked because she could hold her own in most fights.

 

Then came Huntsman Strauss. He is interesting for two reasons. Some of you may remember Ghost Raptor, the EU CC from the forums. He and I shared a mutual love of cricket but from different perspectives - him being Aussie and me being from the same land as his Monarch. Hence the name, which will also give the discerning reader an approximate date of creation. But he became even more interesting when I declined to fork - I didn't like (still don't) the look of Crabs and I didn't have any feel for mace so I stayed with the concept of a Huntsman with a gun. And boy does he do that most excellently delivering a sea of orange numbers, backed up by some formidable pets.  He was the first toon I soloed a Rikti pylon with and soloed the ITF (never could manage Lady Grey though, due to lack of holds, but the rest seemed like a breeze.)

 

Oddly I can't say any of my many many controllers have ever stuck in my mind as "favourites" but the honourable mention must go to Barbed Quarrel - who began life as a humble plant/TA troller in Nova Praetoria, and became the head of Praetorian Imperial Secret Service - continuing Emperor Cole's mission of keeping Praetoria safe, while recognising Cole's misguidedness and his obvious flaws. And she's super tough too - but not in a ROFLSTOMP way, but very very competent at surviving.

[Lens Perchance]

My favorite is usually the most recently created, but the last couple of months I returned to a low level Arachnos soldier I had made a year ago and made him Incarnate via story arcs and TFs. Made some Arachnos friends along the way.   

Arbiter Keys, "The White Spider", mace Bane. He's the only character I do a little RP with. Even at 50 I haven't exactly nailed his persona down yet, but he's become my main of late.

[lemming]

Out of the 70 odd chars, my favorite is still Ice Pirate.  A DB/WP Scrapper that was originally based on my PnP champions character that got written up way back in the 80s

[Heraclea]

I won't say I don't have favorites - some characters clicked more than others - but I don't have any one character that is my all time favorite.  Which character I will enjoy most also is strongly contingent on what content is being run; just as a for instance, I'm not a huge fan of playing masterminds, too fussy, but they come into their own on the BAF and ship raids. So....

 

Heraclea - the tanker's tanker, Invulnerability/Dark Melee.  If you dislike defeat and debt I recommend this combo, much more fun than Stone.   Can prevail over most content by sheer brute force.   Recently trotting her out more since the improvements to Dark Melee.  Another favorite tanker is Baroness Munchhausen (spines/rad); tuned for DPS, but still a tanker. 

 

Sabra (spines/energy) and Oya Iyansan (electric/shield), scrappers.  Been on something of a scrapper kick recently.  Scrappers with defense armor sets that also have taunt auras make me happy, and with those two considerations met I'd rather be a scrapper than a brute/   Sabra is a relatively recent creation.  Oya Iyansan was rolled two years ago and only recently piqued my interest.  Retiaria (staff/ninger) is a pure concept creation, an attempt to make a specific kind of Roman gladiator.  Concept characters are easier to build as scrappers than anything else for melee. 

 

Plaster Caster (archery/devices) and Ice Minstrel (ice/plants).  If getting played daily makes a character a favorite, Ice Minstrel is definitely my favorite, because she's been built for Hamidon raiding and as such gets played almost daily.  Plaster Caster is more general purpose. 

 

Elixabeth Bathory, poison/dark defender.  Took me a while to find a defender I enjoyed.  I like this combo mostly because almost all of the powers are aimed at enemies rather than at teammates, which makes her enjoyable to play.  If the call is for Barracuda or Kahn she's your best friend. 

[kikyoku]

I love playing support (controllers /defenders) but I get bored of them often because they depend on teams so much.

 

Both of my favorites here and on live were stalkers, katana/nin on live and psy/dark on Everlasting.

 

The feeling of independence is amazing, I can stealth to the important parts, and take my time setting up the fight. Or I can go nuts and bulldoze through the mission.

 

The methodical,  single target fighting is like a rhythm game, and stalkers always surprise me with how durable they are.

 

Plus, every good stalker is Too Cool For School. They have cool edgy names like Crisis Limit or mysterious ones like Day Dream. My inner edgelord teenager is alive and well.

[Lens Perchance]

>every good stalker is Too Cool For School. They have cool edgy names  

  

My stalker is Edge of Moon, a classic styled mystical ninja. Back on Live he was a force to be reckoned with in Siren's Call, when you could pop an accuracy insp, Aim + Teleport Foe into a pile of caltrops where your team lay in wait. Strictly TP only travel, before the travel power combat nerf. 

[cranebump]

Because his name is Acrobattle. What other reason do I need?:-)