New player group content build suggestions

[Lindharin]

Hello!

 

I played CoX back in the day on live, but mostly did storyline quests solo or with a small group of friends.  I never really got into team content, taskforces, etc.  I'm starting up again on Homecoming, and I'd like to explore the team content more.

 

I'm looking for a build suggestion that would meet these goals:

1. Group friendly - I want to contribute to the team effort.
2. Inexpensive - I am willing to do crafting and such, but don't have a lot of influence to work with yet.  The build has to be affordable and not rely on rare enhancements, at least initially.
3. Newbie friendly - I don't know the team content, so shouldn't be filling any roles that particularly require familiarity.  Presumably that means not a tanker, since I assume they work best when they know the tricks of the bosses, etc.  But maybe that assumption is wrong?
4. Straight-forward gameplay - while I do like a complex powerset sometimes, for this character I want to be able to pay attention to what's going on around me so I can experience and learn the content, not be focused on micro-managing my powerset.
5. Anything I'm missing?

 

My personal preferences generally don't like classes that have to manage a bunch of pets, though a single pet is okay.  Other than that, I am okay with almost anything I've tried.  I enjoy both melee and ranged.  My mains back on live were a tanker (Inv/EM), a Rad/Rad defender, and a NRG blaster.  Yes, I enjoy knockback!  But I know not bring it to this specific new character...   🙂 

 

Second question:  Any recommendations on what order to do things in?  What's the best way to level up through team content and learn the ropes in the process?

 

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

[Forager]

If you just want to contribute, almost anybody can do that.

 

If you want to be certain you are contributing, blasters and scrappers only have one job that anyone is expecting them to do and it's very simple.

 

I often struggle with worrying about contributing or worse messing things up... especially with all the endgame content that wasn't there when I played on Live. When I play a blaster I don't worry much.

Edited July 6 by Forager

[Scarlet Shocker]

If you wanted to play something more team oriented I'd offer a couple of choices with solid debuffs and great attacks -

 

a Poison/Water Defender - great for debuffing enemies, especially AVs and water gives a very good attack chain

 

If you wanted something offering more control a Poison/Dark Controller - again the excellent debuffs and the Dark gives you a some solid holds and -ToHit. You haven't mentioned PVP but this is very solid that way and both can be built relatively inexpensively

 

If you want to buff your team then anything with Thermal is very useful, but less easy to play solo than the previous options. I'd especially recommend an Earth/Thermal controller for its top class controls and excellent team buffs. Rocky is also a very solid [sic] pet

 

 

[Greycat]

Honestly...

 

Don't worry about a "build." Yes, people can find them fun, but ... long as you're there clicking buttons and doing stuff to the bad guys and/or your teammates, you're good.  If you're going to be playing your way up, there's not much point to a "build" for a while anyway. Just get some acc, end reduction and damage/holds/whatever in your powers and worry about getting fancy later. You'll get a grip on the game just by playing. It's not that complex.

 

No, you shouldn't avoid a tank. You don't really need to know enemy "tricks" for the most part - just pay attention to what's going on. (Most don't really have any "tricks," and the ones that do are pretty quick to pick up, and often broadcast. For instance, Protean has this AOE that heals him... but you get a big "Back away from his siphon!" on the screen. So... back up.)

 

But... yeah, there's very little I'd say "avoid if you don't want gimmicks." Maybe titan weapons, since momentum's ... just annoying, at least to me. Obviously hold off on the epic ATs (PB/Warshade/widow/soldier.) Tanks, brutes, scrappers are fine, sentinel's good for being able to seee what's going on with ranged damage and armor...

 

*shrug* You have 1000 slots per shard. Don't be afraid to use them in order to find something that clicks (or lets you just change things up from time to time.)

[cranebump]

Play a tank. For those times when you leap blindly over a metal container in a warehouse map to land in the middle of a mob. By yourself. On a +3/x8 mish. At L16. 

 

(PSSSSsssssssssssssss.....The sound of a squishy making a rookie mistake).

[Doc Spectre]

Can’t go wrong with a Corrupter imo. I found Dual pistols/Trick arrows to be a lot of fun. Pretty much any combo is an asset to a team though. Just bear in mind controlling your AoE knock back if your set has it. Most players like mobs in tight clumps for nukage.

[gameboy1234]

The real answer is to play whatever interests you.  There's basically no bad builds in CoX unless you try really hard to make them bad.  Anyone is useful and playable on a team.  VEATs are a lot of fun both solo and on a team and you also get to play on the best side.

 

[Random Axis]

The anything works advice is good. If you want something more specific, pick a tank if you want to punch faces or a corruptor if you want to melt faces. 

[Techwright]

If you're thinking in terms of team contribution, something with ice might be helpful.  Ice slows, holds, and even completely freezes, buying teammates time to repair, recharge, and slaughter aggressively arrest.  Depending on the archetype, ice can disrupt an enemy group's rush at your team, especially if there's more than one NPC group that's been aggro'ed.

 

I personally love the polar opposite nature of ice & fire: one to slow/hold, one to do high damage.  I have multiple characters in different archetypes with this arrangement.  But that is me.  You play you.

[tidge]

As written by others: Pretty much any AT will contribute to teams. I'd start with something relatively simple and obvious like a DPS-oriented character to start.

 

Of all the debuff options, I  do not recommend starting with a Poison primary. A couple of things:

• Generally with debuff characters, I think it is hard for a new player to understand how the debuffs are working until you have some practice with how enemies behave while NOT debuffed.
• Poison as a primary (especially with Defenders, in my experience) is a really mediocre choice.

Poison is (again my experience) a fine secondary, so let me share my hot takes on the Defender primary.

 

Alkaloid: a T1 single target heal, with a 60 sec +Rex for Toxic. Nothing great, but boring for solo play and on teams you'll end up Single-target-spamming it for some content.

Envenom: An excellent debuff, but it has such a small radius that it is effectively single-target, It can take %proc, but it isn't particularly a great %proc power.

Weaken: Another fine debuff that will effectively be "single target".

 

Quick note about these first three powers: they won't really be that useful at low levels (YMMV when facing Vahzilok with allies) and you will have to take two of them as a primary!

 

Neurotoxic Breath is a cone slow. It has a decent range. AoE Slows are fine, and I use them, but they do relatively little in the scheme of things and cones are inherently trickier than other AoE slows.

 

Elixer of Life is rez that can be used as a mule for Enhancements. You'll take it, but rezzes are generally not necessary.

 

Antidote is a real stinker, because it is a single-target buff for teammates. It is a great buff, but it is a true PITA to try to apply it to all teammates AND debuff enemies.

 

Paralytic Poison is a fine ST hold that can also be leveraged as a single-target %damage attack. The secondary will determine which direction you go with it.

 

Poison Trap is a great AoE hold, but a somewhat tricky one to use because of its placement and trigger distance.

 

Venomous Gas is a T9 that I really dislike. It is a good debuff, provided enemies aren't murdering you while you try to use it. My experience has been that it is nearly impossible for a solo character to have defenses high enough to really leverage this for even-level large spawns. Against +N critters, it gets that much worse. If teammates don't know that you will suddenly be in teh mix and need looking out for, it gets really ugly. I just don't think this power gels with the rest of the set.

 

TL;DR: The Poison set has some good stuff, but it the powers don't synergize really well with each other and makes for boring play. I love it as a secondary, because I find it easier to pick and choose which powers will better compliment whatever fun primary I have chosen.

[Without_Pause]

Play a Stalker. People won't really have any expectations from you outside of taking out bosses since that's essentially what your job is. You can be helpful in ghosting missions and TPing the team to the end if need be. I like a number of options for a Stalker, but if I had to pick one, Ice/stone is stupid good. I need to get mine to 50 at some point. I also obviously enjoyed my ride to 50 with my StJ/ea Stalker. CU is just a fun power.

[Icono04]

@Lindharin While the oft-repeated statements are both true - yes, you can play whatever AT you want and yes, you will always contribute something to your team whether you feel confident about it or not - I assume you would like something a bit more concrete than that, otherwise you would not have started this thread in the first place. So here is my  advice on the simplest/most straightforward ATs to play while you get familiar with CoH. These are listed in order from most simple to least simple, but all of them are pretty straightforward to play:

a. Blaster, sentinel, stalker and scrapper are the most simple choices. All you do is use your attack powers and hit the enemies, and that is all your teammates expect you to do. Stalker and scrapper play pretty similarly to each other, so don't fret too much over which one to try first. Sentinel does a bit less damage than blaster but is more survivable, so a good choice for a beginner.

b. Corruptor is a good compromise AT. Even if you all you do is use your primary powerset and attack the enemies, that is enough to contribute meaningfully to the team, and pretty soon you will start using your secondary powerset (buff/debuff) as well, which means contributing even more. Some secondaries are more popular with teammates than others, but that is a concern for later when you want to join "elite" teams, so don't even worry about that right now.

c. Tanker might sound a bit intimidating, because teams sometimes have high expectations for their tank. But again, that is for higher levels and more difficult content, so don't let that discourage you from playing a tanker early on. By the time you are expected to be an experienced tank, you will have learned enough to be just that 🙂  For a new player, tankers have the advantage of being nicely sturdy, so if you screw up you might still survive. Re. your question no. 3., it helps to tell the team you join that you are an inexperienced tanker - that way no one expects too much of you, and very likely they will give you advice along the way to help you improve.

d. Bonus info: Arachnos widow is seldom mentioned in these advice threads, but at its heart a night widow is just a scrapper with some team buffs and a few utility powers which you can simply choose not to use until you have gotten familiar with your widow. I LOOOOOVE widows, so take this advice with a grain of salt, but it is definitely worth trying the Way of the Widow. Maybe not for your first/starter character, though 🙂

[Songseven]

my suggestion would be illusion/kinetics controller.

[Sovera]

While obviously a buffer and a debuffer will provide a lot to a team you need to consider they don't actually are necessary while leveling and the closer you to go max level the less they are really needed (which seems paradoxical but that's how it is). If you intend to 'just' do normal content then anything you bring is fine as long as your build is decent and you're hitting things. If you want to go into Hardmodes (CoH equivalent of raids for lack of better word) then specialized builds come up but that's 1% of the current content and not something a new player ought to worry about just yet.

 

 

- You can pick a Tanker and just be the first to jump into the thick of it. That's all a Tanker is required to do, no memorizing routes or worrying about cycling defensive clickies or etc. This is a simple game. Your damage won't be super amazing but it will let you defeat enemies well enough (Build-up + both AoEs = 90% of a group defeated) when you're soloing and you will be  s t u r d y. This is my advice for new players. The (near) immortal build in the signature is my usual recommendation. This solos and teams well and can do up the difficulty pretty early on.

 

- You can pick a Kinetics in whatever flavour you care. They give Speed Boost early on which grants recharge that is always welcome while also giving endurance recovery. Both those buffs are deeply appreciate in the low levels before IOs kick in. Later on they are less impactful (though usually desired nevertheless) but then you're also giving Fulcrum Shift and increasing the damage of the team. The ultimate buffer would be something like a Kinetics/Sonic Blast Defender. Corruptor is fine too but Defender gets the buffs earlier. Your attacks with Sonic naturally do -resistance so your team does more damage and your Kinetic buffs are buffing the team to recharge faster and hit harder. This is not as easy to solo and you might never really up the difficulty much more than mid level.

 

- Any sort of shielder. You will be invisible. No one notices you're around. But people will simply take less damage. The further you get to maximum level the less impact it has as people gear up, but non meleers will still be sturdier simply by hitting your shields every couple of minutes. Same as above regarding soloing.

 

- The basics would also be a Blaster. Okay, you're not buffing. and okay, you're not debuffing. Who cares? If you're hitting Build + Aim + your nuke you just killed a whole group of enemies. If there is nothing alive there is nothing left to hurt the team. Caveat, you only do this every 40-50 seconds so roughly 2-3 groups. This is just as squishy as the last two suggestions (until a lot of money is poured in though thankfully money is not hard to make) but might not be as hard to level by dint of doing a lot of damage very fast. Again, if nothing is left alive after the first seconds... For all three do consider picking up Flight and Hover to be hovering out of melee range as ranged attacks hurt less than melee ones.

 

- And just like the previous suggestion so will any melee character. Not buffing, not debuffing, but if defeating enemies at a good clip then nothing much left alive to hurt back the team. They will be squishier than the Tanker but hardier than the buff/debuffer characters. As a bonus they come immune to crowd control which the ranged characters are not. This also soloes decently well and later on will increase the difficulty easily once some money is poured. Higher difficulty = more money.

 

- With the exception of the last suggestion: the humble Sentinel. Decent damage, sturdier than the buffer/debuffer choices, less damage than the Blaster but also capable of doing the nuke combo under 30 seconds unlike the Blaster. As a bonus it is the only ranged character who is also near immune to crowd controls. They might be grumbled at because they don't do a tremendous amount of damage but they are a super solid first pick for a new player. There is no downside as later on any gear bought for them can be respeced out and transferred to other characters.

 

 

Also check the newbie guide for info and money making tips via easy selling of Merits. Making your own superbase is free and a good place to have your gear stashed for alts to pick up.

[Random Axis]

17 hours ago, Icono04 said:

a. Blaster, sentinel, stalker and scrapper are the most simple choices. All you do is use your attack powers and hit the enemies, and that is all your teammates expect you to do. Stalker and scrapper play pretty similarly to each other, so don't fret too much over which one to try first. Sentinel does a bit less damage than blaster but is more survivable, so a good choice for a beginner.

To add something to this, the sentinel also has a built-in power (Called the inherent power. All archetypes have one) of Vulnerability that debuffs the defense and resistance of a single target. Besides your ranged damage, you toss it on bosses or other tough enemies to help your team take them down. It's a good introduction to debuffing without needing to manage a whole powerset full of debuffs to manage.

[tidge]

I don't recommend a Sentinel as a first AT, only because *I* have high expectations about Sentinels I team with... namely that they use Vulnerability. New players may not know what it is, or when it makes sense to use it. Sure the Sentinel can survive without it, but if the goal is to be part of a team and the team never sees the glowing crosshair, that's the Sentinel not doing their thing.

[Lusiphur Malache]

I agree that some sort of Kin will get you on teams faster and more often.  I have a storm/kin corr and got blind invites all the time.  This does come with a drug pusher feel for me and the rest of the team are all junkies.  Blasters, Scrappers, and Brutes, are a dime a dozen, but do come with a very easy job  BIG ORANGE NUMBERS.  Controllers are good, but boring, for teaming.  Electric/Time has been good for me and teammates.

[Andreah]

Kins are easy to play, potent on teams, always welcome, and appreciated.

[drbuzzard]

Easy to play, cheap to build, and teams will appreciate- a forcefield/sonic defender. You can hand out softcap defense with just SOs using your primary and leadership (manuevers). Bubbles stay up and the team stays buffed for 4 minutes per application. In the meantime, stay near the squishies and debuff/blast things. Nothing is really demanding, and it will be well received. 

[Sovera]

16 hours ago, drbuzzard said:

Easy to play, cheap to build, and teams will appreciate- a forcefield/sonic defender. You can hand out softcap defense with just SOs using your primary and leadership (manuevers). Bubbles stay up and the team stays buffed for 4 minutes per application. In the meantime, stay near the squishies and debuff/blast things. Nothing is really demanding, and it will be well received. 

 

@Lindharin This is one of those options I mentioned above where the person doing it will be invisible. No one will suddenly say 'oh heck, I'm suddenly immortal' though they might say 'oh heck, I'm suddenly dying and don't know why' when the person leaves the team. It may not be glamorous but it will help everyone a lot.

[SeraphimKensai]

Team based....roll a Corruptor.

Ice or fire primary work really well for scourge.

Secondaries to look at: cold, nature, thermal.

 

That kind of character is also largely sought after for the higher tier hard mode content as well. Throw in flying and a single target hold and you've got a character for Hami as well.

 

Corruptors also do decent damage.

[drbuzzard]

2 hours ago, Sovera said:

 

@Lindharin This is one of those options I mentioned above where the person doing it will be invisible. No one will suddenly say 'oh heck, I'm suddenly immortal' though they might say 'oh heck, I'm suddenly dying and don't know why' when the person leaves the team. It may not be glamorous but it will help everyone a lot.

 

Yeah, unless people understand mechanics of the game well, you'll be rather invisible. However you can take teams from near disaster, to wrecking crew. 

 

The reasons I go with this is it is cheap. If you load your bubbles with lvl 25 or 30 IOs as soon as you can (and maneuvers as well), you can just sock away influence. You don't need to know any fancy play styles. You don't really need to understand mechanics particularly well. Just watch to see if the bubbles are all up, and keep them refreshed. Since you have status protection, you don't even have to worry all that much about yourself. Heck, you could play really cautious, and the team really wouldn't suffer much).