Looking for Tips for Easy First Character

[TheMoncrief]

14 hours ago, tidge said:

I also vote against Masterminds as a starter AT. They are not hard to solo with, but it is very easy to make a LOT of mistakes with them and the Endurance tax will not give a new player an idea of the different things a player can do with a primary and secondary.

 

I'd also not recommend Brutes. The Fury mechanic is going to have a little learning curve, and (my opinion, YMMV) it is easy for new/solo Brute players to learn the wrong sort of lessons for team play.

 

My recommendation would be Sentinel, because the secondaries are different, and can be somewhat forgiving. The Primaries will have enough going on to learn the ropes of them. I'd then opt for either a Scrapper or Stalker, with the latter if you want to quickly get a feel for being "sneaky" in missions.

 

 

I have to disagree on your take on Brutes, especially when you recommend Stalkers over them.

 

Brutes play solo mostly the way they play in teams - get there in the thick of combat, get all the enemies attacking you while you attack them to build up Fury and do even more damage. It can lead to pacing issues, endurance management issues, and aggro tug-of-war when you have multiple Brutes and Tankers in a team, but the first two are universal to every AT in the game.

 

Stalkers, on the other hand, are encouraged to use the Hide and Assassinate style, even though it is often not even preferred for solo content and is almost never applicable in teams. They don't actually play the way you'd expect them to play from the description. It is far more likely for a Stalker player to learn the wrong lessons from solo play that will hinder their ability to integrate into teams. And they're also likely to learn the wrong lessons from solo play about how they should be optimally playing solo. They're not a bad AT by any stretch of the imagination, but they suffer from a dissonance between the AT fantasy and the AT reality that Brutes don't really suffer.

 

[tidge]

My assessment of Brutes and teamplay lessons comes from a different place. A solo Brute doesn't have to worry about aggro management so much... Whereas a Stalker is always having to pay attention to aggro (and from my experience worries far less about explicitly trying to always set up for an AS, even solo).

 

It has been my experience that players of less experienced Brutes can have aggro peeled from them by a wide variety of other ATs... Especially if the Brute is relying on a Taunt Aura. Experienced and dedicated Brutes can find themselves in a sort of 'aggro war' with other Brutes or Tanks, and a new player might not understand what is happening.

 

In contrast, a Stalker will figure out a lot faster if their AS isn't geling with a team.