New to the game and having fun

[ChapelC]

I had a couple of questions. 

 

I made a Fire/Dark Brute as my first toon to level.  I figured that would be a great farmer toon for pbaoe missions/farming for money and "gems".  I know gems are called something other than gems, but honestly I don't remember the name sorry.  (Whatever those round things are you slot into your skills are called.) Sorry told you I was super noob!  (Maybe I should name toon that!!) 

 

The question is:  Is fire/dark a good combo?  I seem to be having a lot of fun with it.  Can it farm well?  Is farming something I should be shooting for with my first toon?  I assumed I was on the right track, but I have no idea.

 

Any help is appreciated.

 

Thank you!

[marcussmythe]

Fire is a very strong AOE Attack set (others are stronger, but have costs in other areas)

Dark is a very strong resist based set with a PBAOE DOT aura that will help in killing crowds.

 

I think you will end up, with time and investment, with a solid character who is capable of farming large amounts of influence.  It will be weaker in this role than the classic Spines/Fire or SS/Fire or Rad/Fire Farm Builds, but be harder to kill and have a broader toolset in exchange.

 

Having a character able to farm is useful - things cost money, and its very handy to have a high level character that can 'feed money' down to alts, or other characters worse at making it.  However, farming is (for most of us) not the purpose of the game, and if one spends all ones time making the money counter go up or gearing out awesome alts, without spending time playing them, just to have it.. then one is a rich guy with nice cars and a huge bank account that never drives his cars or spends the money on things he then enjoys - because hes so busy making money.  Some may find this rewarding, however - amassing having everything you want and more than youll ever need and then not doing anything with it is a common human pass-time.

 

I think you will have fun with your character, and I predict you will enjoy it at least -slightly- more when you walk into the Portal Corps Plaza/Under the Atlas Statute and do not find yourself surrounded by a half-dozen or more exact clones of yourself.

 

 

[ChapelC]

Thanks for your analogy about the rich guy that doesn't drive his cars, it made me smile and is true.

 

I am not sure what toon I want in the "end game". 

 

I assume there is not a great pbaoe power set and a great single target set.  Meaning if I went say fire/fire, that would be a great farmer set for a blaster(or whoever) and if I changed a few skills around it can also be a great single target dps machine? 

 

That way I would not have to level a farmer and a single target guy?  I would assume that doesn't exist, but thought it might be worth asking.

 

Thank you again for your help.

[Rylas]

If you're looking for a pure farm toon, then I'd suggest SS/Fire. Spines/Fire seems to be a new favorite around these parts, and I'm sure it's a fun one. But from what I keep hearing, SS/Fire is still hard to beat in farming terms.

 

That said, being new to the game, I might recommend also leveling up a toon that just sounds fun to you while you level your farmer. Might as well learn how to play regular content and how you like to play with teams (if you care about those things, that is) while you build up a bank to make your ubertoon.

 

Also... WELCOME TO COH!

[ChapelC]

Thanks! Having a lot of fun!

[marcussmythe]

Well, NOTHING is going to be best at EVERYTHING, even with a respec.

 

I personally have a preference that runs to 'does reasonably well at everything' rather than 'does one thing perfectly'.  I think Fire/Dark Armor is a good approach for this.  Fire Melee has solid AOE and Single Target Capacity, and develops early. 

 

The only set that I can think of thats better at BOTH develops very late, and is very much focus, endurance, and stress intensive in exchange.  So fire is great for what you want to do.  It gives up secondary effects to get that damage, but TANSTAAFL, yannow?

 

Dark Armor, interestingly, offers several things that Fire -lacks-.  Its got a great self-heal, a DOT toggle to raise your AOE performance even higher, solid resists without a hole to ram psionic damage through, and two other toggles that offer fear and stun flavors of CC, at least against minions (and may offer some cool possibilities with late game incarnate stuff that your not worried about right now).

 

Pick up taunt and pay attention to the CC in your auras, and youll be able to tank almost anything that wants tanking, eventually (Id probably still want the tanker AT if I was looking at an Angry Recluse with towers up).  Your AOE DPS will be enough to feed you influence.  Your single target DPS will be enough that 'Theres an AV in the mission' (eventually) wont mean abandon mission or stop and find friends (though friends are good!).  Your Mes Toggles in Dark Armor will give you ways to interact with the game that isnt just 'kill stuff and dont die' - CC is fun.  Debuffs are fun.

 

You may find yourself struggling with Endurance in the early run - I advise NOT running any toggles you dont NEED RIGHT NOW.  Most of the times the only ones you NEED RIGHT NOW are your Mezz prot toggle and your Smash/Lethal Toggle, turn the other ones (DOT, Fear, Stun, Fire/Cold, etc.) situationally, at least until your build matures.

 

At some point, youll want to sit down with Pines Hero Designer and figure out what you want to do at lvl 50 when you have all the phat purple lewts that this game offers, in the form of enhancement sets, the bonuses they provide, and the incarnate powers.. but thats not a problem for this week - youll get there.  Enjoy the ride.

 

And dont waste too much time second-guessing your choices.  If your having fun, you chose right, and as someone who played the game, those are NOT auto-self-gimping choices (Id tell you if they were, I promise!)

 

 

[ChapelC]

Thank you Everyone a lot! That really helps me. 

 

I am enjoying my choice and with your guys expert knowledge, I now feel like it's a solid choice later on too. 

 

Thanks again!!

[HelenCarnate]

Pure farming Spines/Fire is probably the easiest to level up.  You get your first damage aura at lvl 2, and your 2nd one at lvl 18.  On top of that you get Throw Spines at 32 which is a decent cone but does require some positioning to get the max number of targets. 

 

Rad/Fire is another popular set as it gets damage auras at the same levels but it does not get its other AOE attack until 32.  That AOE hits much harder, but is also on a much longer recharge.  Any other AOE attacks would have to come from epic/patron pools and they tend to be on long recharge timers as well so this one only really starts getting better than spines after a bit is spent getting some global recharge.

 

SS/Fire is the hardest hitting of them all.....eventually.  Until you get a ton of recharge (like 170%+) the other sets are better so this one takes the longest and costs the most to be great.  It is also its down sides as currently you get hit with a defense debuff when rage crashes.  For noobs that means you get hit more often ;).  So it takes some building to cover for that as well.  During the 10 second crash you also do almost no damage outside of procs and that can mess with the flow for some people.

 

Now /Dark has the bonus that it can farm stuff that would make /Fire users wish they made room for Rise of the Phoenix in their build and they are far more versatile outside of AE farms. The most important part is that you are having fun.  One fun tip for /Dark is to put in Theft of Essence proc into your self heal. 

 

One set I can think of that can do decent single target and AOE and is pretty durable is Rad/Dark.  Rad has some pretty hard hitting attacks.  Granted some also have long animation times but still solid damage. The down side is that it is an endurance hog.  I would have that Theft of Essence proc handy and get +endurance and recovery IOs as early as possible running that combo otherwise it will be less than fun.

 

I have not yet tried Titan Weapons but on paper it looks pretty solid on both as well.  Someone with more knowledge can comment on that one.

[marcussmythe]

I have not yet tried Titan Weapons but on paper it looks pretty solid on both as well.  Someone with more knowledge can comment on that one.

 

I have TW both with Bio (Scrapper) and with Dark (Tank

 

Titan Weapons 101:

 

You want damage?  It does that.  Single Target?  Yup.  AOE?  Bobs your uncle.  So much damage.  My Tank (in momentum time) feels like a scrapper.  My scrapper feels like something is broken in the game.

 

You want soft control?  Meet my knockdown.  SO much knockdown.  See those guys that were attack you?  See them fall on their butts?  Yup.  Gnite, Gracie.

 

You want to defense?  Did I mention the first attack isnt really an attack, its a buff to Smashing and Melee Defense, and not a small one? (That said, it ISNT an attack, its damage is non-existent, dont spam without reason)

 

Now, that's the pros.  Lets talk about the Cons:

 

It matures late. Most of the powers you take early?  Yeah, youll be respecing some of those out for the better ones later on.  So late.  The character competely changes every time a new attack comes online.

 

It matures -really- late.  Until youve got a solid attack chain (I mean in your 20s) with good uptime on hasten and build momentum (even later on), its gonna feel reaaaaly plug and chunk.  Brief windows of murdergod followed by loooooooong animations while you make a sandwich and wait for the blow to land.  And then make another sandwich.

 

It eats your END. All your END.  The END costs are appropriate to the damage, and I think a bit more, and during Momentum bursts, you'll swallow your END like its not even a thing.  Only character where I buy BLUES on the way out of the Hospital, rather than purples.  And your best single-target chain has an AOE in it, so there goes more.  Slurp Slurp Slurp.  You know Conserve Power?  The thing that Incarnates and IO sets kinda killed off?  Youll be considering it deeply.  Or finding a defender to hug.  Hug your defender - they deserve your hugs.

It eats your animation time. Not in momentum, want to attack something?  EVERY attack, outside momentum, is a wind-up animation that makes Total Focus look quick.  Your not going anywhere for a WHILE, have a snickers.  And hope nothing bad happens while your swinging that big ole thing around, because if your desperately needing to CLICK TO NOT DIE, well, you wont be clicking.  Debt gives badges!  Yay badges!

 

It eats your attention. Attack chains?  You know where you look at your powers and figure out to do your real buisness youll need to press 1, then 2, then 3, then 2, then 1 again, and repeat, something like that?  Yeah, theres none of that.  Your 'Attack Chain' is 'what is the best I can fit in thats just finished recharging in the brief few seconds of momentum I have left so I can trigger the last attack while still in momentum time and maybe Build Momentum will be off CD by the time it finishes animating ohgod I had to stop to CLICK TO NOT DIE and now its all fallen apart time to start over'

 

WITH MY DARK, END was a problem thats slowly being overcome by slotting in every trick for end reduction the IO world offers, by being very judicious in which attacks I use (will a smaller, cheaper attack finish off that minion? USE IT, dont spend END on the big gun just to see the numbers.  Hit AOE nao or wait a second to catch more targets and also get a recovery tick?  Yeah, wait, more targets is more end efficient.)

 

WITH MY BIO - Everythings still a problem.  She needs a respec and some TLC.  I think 'Cruise Control for Cool' wont set in till early 40s, and there wont be any time where the looooong windup wont be painful when coupled with her CLICK TO NOT DIE secondary set.  At least its not regen.  That said, Bio Armor - in Offensive Adaptation - is the most +DAM to be found in Scrapperdom, outside of a Shield and an Audience... and power has a price, are you willing to pay it?

 

If I really wanted to do Titan Weapons, for its own sake (and not as one of marcussmythes crazy 'lets push the edges of sanity, game design, and stability' exercises), Id probably pair it with Willpower, most likely on a Brute, and enjoy my +Rec and otherwise low-management defense set while I devoted my life to the care and feeding of an attack 'rotation' that is only slightly less intensive than a Feral Druid in Wrath.  (If anyone else ever rolled that rotation in a raid, and reads this, you know what I mean)

[justicebeliever]

Nothing to add, but welcome to CoH!  ;D

[Zumberge]

I figured that would be a great farmer toon for pbaoe missions/farming for money and "gems".  I know gems are called something other than gems, but honestly I don't remember the name sorry.  (Whatever those round things are you slot into your skills are called.)

 

This is the most adorable thing I've seen all week and I've been watching videos of cats.

[EggKookoo]

I know gems are called something other than gems, but honestly I don't remember the name sorry.  (Whatever those round things are you slot into your skills are called.) Sorry told you I was super noob!  (Maybe I should name toon that!!)

 

Why, they're roundo-sloto-matics, of course!

[ChapelC]

Haha!!  "roundo-sloto-matics"

 

Thank you all for being so patient with the me!  #TheNoob. : )