Build help for newb

[Xilak]

Was looking for something that would make me a great up close fighter, with decent range. Think Aquaman with his trident. Suggestions?

[Snarky]

5 hours ago, Xilak said:

Was looking for something that would make me a great up close fighter, with decent range. Think Aquaman with his trident. Suggestions?

Sooooo Range in this game is a deep subject.  Like...What is Ranged?  (anything 8+ feet....) And how to build for it is not just an easy walk in the park, unless you just take a Sentinel or a Blaster.  

 

A Great up close fighter.  I personally love Brutes.  Heavy armor, great health, mezze protection, very good damage.  Scrappers are also very good, Stalkers, once you learn the craft, excellent.  Recent changes to Tanks make them a good choice as well.

 

Getting true ranged attacks on any of these ATs will be tough.  I have a friend who made an Elec/Shield AoE Stalker.  Really good!  I ran a Tank using Kinetic Melee.  Danged thing fought mostly in the 10-20 range.  Kinetic Melee is a clunky set without a lot of great stuff going for it besides the odd range though.  

 

I am unsure what you want to do for attacks.  Weapon sets with Melee ATs tend to be very solid choices.  Titan Weapons are very good, although momentum mechanic is not a choice that is popular right now.  I think it suffers in end game.  

 

If you had not mentioned Trident... I will just throw out that Energy Melee is incredible right now.  Energy Melee Invulnerability Brute would be a hoot to run 1-50.  A platform for a very strong build 1-50 and at incarnate level.  

 

Super Strength, I ran for years.  Great set.  I too finally tired of Fury crash every two minutes.  But danged. it is a good choice.

 

Good Luck!

[ForeverLaxx]

5 hours ago, Xilak said:

Was looking for something that would make me a great up close fighter, with decent range. Think Aquaman with his trident. Suggestions?

There are melee attack sets that have some ranged options, like Claws, Spines, Staff Fighting and Kinetic Melee (though I hear KM is only serviceable on a Stalker). However, these sets are 95% melee and usually contain only one, maybe two, actual ranged powers (excluding Taunt/Confront/Placate). I'm not sure if that's exactly what you mean since it sounds like you want a melee weapon that has reach on every power, which isn't a concept the game currently utilizes, though I suppose there's nothing stopping the devs from designing a weapon set with a melee attack range of around 10 feet. That said, it doesn't exist currently though the closest might be Titan Weapons since it has so many cone attacks to simulate the large cleaving effect you'd get swinging such a big weapon around.

 

There are also some Ancillary Pool Powers that are ranged attacks, like Arcane Bolt, but these tend to be themed to the set in question and might not fit your character concept. If that doesn't do enough for you, though, the Epic/Patron Pools you unlock later in your character's career, for a melee AT, will usually have one or two ranged options to pick from in each Pool.

 

On the flipside, you could roll a Dominator or Blaster, though you'll be pretty squishy defensively for a long time. Dominators have attack sets that mix melee and ranged attacks, but their Primary is full of control powers. Blasters have a full Ranged Primary with Secondaries that are stuffed with Melee attacks + General Utility/Control. While this might give you the playstyle you're looking for (melee/range mixed fighter) you will, again, have low personal defenses against anything you can't outright defeat or lock down until you pick up defensive options elsewhere, such as Tough/Weave/Maneuvers/Epic Pool Armor and combine them with Set IOs for a complete build.

Edited November 1, 2021 by ForeverLaxx

[Carnifax]

5 minutes ago, ForeverLaxx said:

though I suppose there's nothing stopping the devs from designing a weapon set with a melee attack range of around 10 feet. That said, it doesn't exist currently though the closest might be Titan Weapon

Actually Staff DOES have extended range on all of its attacks. It's 9 feet rather than the standard 7 for most of its attacks. 

https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=stalker_melee.staff_fighting.precise_strike&at=stalker

https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=stalker_melee.dual_blades.moderate_opening&at=stalker

 

 

 

[The_Warpact]

38 minutes ago, Carnifax said:

Actually Staff DOES have extended range on all of its attacks. It's 9 feet rather than the standard 7 for most of its attacks. 

https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=stalker_melee.staff_fighting.precise_strike&at=stalker

https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=stalker_melee.dual_blades.moderate_opening&at=stalker

 

 

 

OP I made a aquadude clone hes Bio/Staff tank with minimal fx on the Bio, and has the trident as his staff.

 

Thanks, for this Carnifax.

[ForeverLaxx]

4 hours ago, Carnifax said:

Actually Staff DOES have extended range on all of its attacks. It's 9 feet rather than the standard 7 for most of its attacks. 

https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=stalker_melee.staff_fighting.precise_strike&at=stalker

https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=stalker_melee.dual_blades.moderate_opening&at=stalker

I should probably check CoD more often, then. I stand corrected.

[Carnifax]

11 minutes ago, ForeverLaxx said:

I should probably check CoD more often, then. I stand corrected.

It was Staffs "thing" when it was released. Honestly is is nice without it being anything you'd really need / miss.

 

The PBAoE is also a 10 footer rather than an 8, but there's a few PBAoEs like that. 

 

I've no idea how the extra single target range interacts with Tankers and their "extra range on AoEs / cones", if it also applied to the single target attacks. I'd rando-guess that it does but since that is basically achieved by Tankers having a tweaked Range / AoE modifier it's hard to know. The range / AoE modifier is buried in the guts of the game with no Combat Attribs way of seeing the effect (that I know of)

[Icono04]

 

On 11/1/2021 at 11:41 AM, ForeverLaxx said:

I'm not sure if that's exactly what you mean since it sounds like you want a melee weapon that has reach on every power, which isn't a concept the game currently utilizes

@Xilak, if you are very new to CoX (<-- an assumption on my part), then this might be new info to you, but pretty critical to know re. the question at hand. 

 

So in order to have a melee fighter who also has ranged attack capability, the way to do that in CoX is to have a mixture of melee attack power and ranged attack powers. You can do that by making a melee AT and adding a few ranged attacks via the epic power pools, as suggested in this thread: https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/26025-i-wanna-pew-pew/. Whether you go stalker, scrapper, brute or tanker is a matter of personal preference. 

 

Alternatively, you can play one of the ATs which by design have a mixture of melee and ranged powers. Dominators and blasters as already mentioned, or Arachnos widows and soldiers, and perhaps also a human-only PeaceBringer? I have not played one of the latter. so not sure.

 

The third way is to play a ranged-attack AT but use your ranged attacks in melee range to simulate them being melee attacks. The tricky bit is, of course, that the ranged ATs are more fragile.

[0th Power]

I think a blaster would be most appropriate.  They are hardy enough and with the inherent, you don't have to worry about the lack of mez protection too much.  Primary - Damage, Secondary - More Damage.

[Lusiphur Malache]

My dark/martial blaster got great at melee after getting Burst of Speed and Reaction Time. Other primaries could work just as good maybe Sonic.

[Peacemoon]

Some blasters and dominators have good range/melee combinations. They are quite fragile without a good IO setup. Blasters rely on killing before they’re killed, and Dominators use crowd control to lock enemies down. 
 

Dominators are an unusual and more difficult AT to play and master. If you are a beginner I would try a Blaster (or one of the more ranged melee sets mentioned above).

[PyrioldFarm]

Dominator might be the class for you. The attacks are split between melee and ranged, the few area attacks that you might have tend to be melee.

 

While dominator will fit the bill, be warned that it's a class with a steep learning curve. You will probably die often while learning the ropes. A well trained and outfitted dominator can be a serious DPS machine, especially for single tough targets.

 

If you can live with low to no ranged damage, better try out one of the melee classes. They all survive much easier.

[Snarky]

35 minutes ago, PyrioldFarm said:

Dominator might be the class for you. The attacks are split between melee and ranged, the few area attacks that you might have tend to be melee.

 

While dominator will fit the bill, be warned that it's a class with a steep learning curve. You will probably die often while learning the ropes. A well trained and outfitted dominator can be a serious DPS machine, especially for single tough targets.

 

If you can live with low to no ranged damage, better try out one of the melee classes. They all survive much easier.

Doms are not highly effective in incarnate content...compared to other ATs.  A new player asking to be 'great' probably should not be steered to ATs ill suited to late game content like Doms or MMs.  My 2 cents

[Xilak]

Thank you everyone for your suggestions! Will take them into consideration! As far as this character goes, may use him casually and/or for roleplaying! 

[Uun]

On 11/1/2021 at 11:33 AM, Carnifax said:

I've no idea how the extra single target range interacts with Tankers and their "extra range on AoEs / cones", if it also applied to the single target attacks. I'd rando-guess that it does but since that is basically achieved by Tankers having a tweaked Range / AoE modifier it's hard to know. The range / AoE modifier is buried in the guts of the game with no Combat Attribs way of seeing the effect (that I know of)

I've got a SR/Staff tank. The extra 2 feet of range on the ST attacks isn't really noticeable in normal gameplay, but holy cow, the cones hit everything in sight. Plus the tank versions have a 10 (vs 5) target max on the cones and a 16 (vs 10) target max on the PBAoE.

[Icono04]

Generally speaking - and I say this mainly for the benefit of any inexperienced player who might read this thread in the future - a squishy character is difficult to play in melee when you are inexperienced. Or for that matter if you are experienced but unskilled, like myself. Squishies include blaster and dominator but also several other ATs.

 

Elite players are overrepresented here in the HC forum, so if you read the forums (fora?), you might get the impression that building a blaster/dominator to be tanky and non-squishy is as easy as making cereal. But for a lot of players, it isn't. A blapper-style character operated by a good player is powerful and tough. In the hands of an average player it is will be a rough ride. Rewarding and fun, but also difficult and sometimes frustrating.