Character Building Advice/Enhancements

[ApistoNate]

Hi,

 

I was a long time player when the game was originally developed years ago and have since rediscovered it. I used to be very adept at most aspects of the game and likely will be again at some point; I wanted to ask the community if they’d be willing to help me relearn the enhancement system.

 

I know this is a super broad question because answers can vary based on your hero/villain type and what your end game goal is. 
 

Are there any enhancement universal truths or pieces of wisdom you all could bestow on me lol. I figured this might be helpful for others rediscovering CoH as well. 
 

Anyway, anything enhancements, slots, or character building related items I would be all ears for!

[Greycat]

Aside from "You really don't need to be defense capped or perma-whatevered" ...

 

I'd generally point *to* the individual AT forums for build ideas. But if you want to play with builds, the two things I'd point out are:

 

1. Mids. (Has its own subforum.) Much cheaper to move play enhancements around in a builder before committing to something, and

 

2. While you *are* playing around and experimenting, remember the rule of 5. You can only have 5 (active - 6th or beyond won't do anything, but you won't be stopped from placing something that gives it) of a percentage of something in set bonuses. (In other words, you can have 5 "3.5% noodle defense" set bonuses from any combination of sets stacking. A sixth won't add anything. A "2% noodle defense" will, a "3.5 mozzarella defense" will.) 

[Ukase]

So, as you mentioned, this is a bit of a mixed bag, as slotting advice would hopefully lean into a player's preferences or desired outcome from a build. 

But, in broad strokes, I'll do my best. There are a ton of useful guide on this stuff in the Guides section, but since so many people are so helpful, it can be difficult to find what you're looking for. 

So, nowadays, we can get SOs at level 2 (the SOs would be level 5) 
But before you start trying to buy those at level 2, you'll likely notice without assistance from a higher level alt of yours, or a gift of influence of some size, you probably can't afford these. 
But, I felt I should point out the option. 
As you may have noticed, there's an upgrade button at the lower left of your enhancement management screen. I suggest you only do this after you've made enough influence to afford blowing through a relatively large amount of inf, given the level you're at, especially if you choose to play with 2xp, no inf, an XP buff from the START vendor. 

For most folks that don't have a sugar daddy alt to help them, they take two approaches: they use the market to get what they want - and there are many, many ways to do this - again, see the guide section. Or, they simply do without. 

There's a mechanic in play you may recall, called "Beginner's luck". In a nutshell, it means lower level characters get a toHit buff that declines 1% each level. Read about that on the HC Wiki here.  So, slotting for accuracy at levels 2-10 or so isn't THAT important. It certainly won't hurt - except it can, in a fashion. You just don't have that many slots! It's a player's choice between the usual enhancements - damage, accuracy, recharge, end reduction are the big 4, but there may be cases for other choices. Just depends on you. I usually just slot damage until level 7 when applicable, since it's going to take me a couple of levels to get two more slots to put into my attacks. But that's my way, and I dare not suggest it's optimal or anything close. Just my habit. 


I see a lot of folks share builds in these forums. A lot of people think something is good, they share. It's nice of them. But, just because these players share a build doesn't mean it's a good build for me, or anyone else. 
There was one player who would share his builds on a discord channel I belong to. He would play sub-50 content, but always on a 50. He would PL every character to vet level 9. And then he'd start to do anything he liked. And I did try some of his builds, but the powers were always out of order on his mids file because he picked 'em at 50. Never played them as a level 12. or a 22. (most were not that good, until I reached 50) 
When I reached 50, they turned out to be quite nice! 

Every one of his ranged characters would follow a formula of sorts: 
1 Panacea +Hitpoints/Endurance
1 Miracle: +recovery

1 or more Performance Shifter + Endurance  
1 Kismet ToHit
1 Blessing of the Zephyr 4pts kb protection (if no other armor provided it) 
1 Shield Wall 5% res (all) 
1 Glad Armor 3% def(all)
1 Steadfast Protection 3% def(all)/Resistance
As many Luck of the Gambler 7.5% global recharge as he could fit. 

He never had any characters at the soft-cap 45% defense you hear about. Rarely died. 
He would use chance for damage procs, and chance for resist debuff procs if he could. Most of the time, he never did the math from what I could tell (because I would and see lower than 50% chances of firing in single target attacks)  

I would ask him about the lower defenses, he would remind me of the utility of Defenders, Corrs, Controllers and MMs. 
 

I think universally, at least half of the folks that can afford them use these specific IOs as soon as they can. Some folks might wait until 50. 
I know at least two folks that refuse to use any IO and just use SOs. Mind you, they don't do much besides level up to 30-40 and make a new character. But there are folks who play to 50 that way and have a lot of fun doing it. One guy tells me he doesn't have time to pore over mids and develop a build strategy. He just "listens" to his character and slots whatever SO he thinks he'll need and he just vendors all the invention stuff he gets, unless it's purple. Then he just sells it on the AH. 

So, there may be some "universal" paths some folks take, but none of them are mandatory, and none of them are going to make THAT much difference, until you get to the end game, where some content is pretty challenging for SO only builds. But by and large, of the folks that do use set bonus invention enhancements, most of them will have at least a few of the ones on that list. 

[Maelwys]

The shortlist @Ukase provided above is a great starting point.
A Panacea Proc in Health, a KB Protection IO in your Travel power, and a Celerity: Stealth IO in Sprint are all potential game changers at low-level.


To add a few things :

If you're coming back from aaaaaages ago then check out this thread . Particular standouts are stuff like Enhancement Diversification (Issue 6), the Invention system and Auction Houses (Issue 9), the Flashback/Ouroboros system (Issue 11), the Inherent Fitness Pool and the Incarnate system (Issue 19) etc. etc.

Regarding Financing IOs. Certain players will actually give you a big handout of influence for your first toon if you're new and don't have billions saved up... but assuming that you want to work for it, there are plenty of cash-building guides on the forums here. The usual methods are: collect merits via exploration badges and story arcs (you can repeat arcs via Ouroboros - Freaklympics is extremely good return) then exchange these for enhancement convertors/boosters at the merit ATM... or play the Auction House... or get a Tanker to level 50 and Farm AE missions.
 

Edited June 4 by Maelwys