Hello CoH! Advice sought from vets!

[Neiska]

Hello everyone,

 

First off, sorry if this is the wrong section. Its about AT help, but I haven't actually decided which AT to go with, and there is no overall AT general channel. So sorry if this is in the wrong spot but wasnt sure where else to put it.

 

I am hoping to make a kick-butt cyborg girl, but I'm not really sure where to start. None of the powers really jump out at me for supporting this sort of hero. And thats where I would like some help.

 

My only request is she be some sort of melee, but other than that I am open to suggestions and guidance. At the moment I am leaning toward claws, sword, or shield power sets, mostly due to the cyborg-like options which are nice.

 

As far as what i want it to be able to do? well, some soloability would be nice. and desired for parties would be nice too. I am not looking to solo +8 and so on, just enough to play in a group or solo at endgame if need be.

 

Thanks bunches in advance!

 

TLDR - would like some help picking a poweset/build for a cyborg sort of character please. Would perfer melee if possible! 

[Apparition]

Welcome to Paragon City and/or The Rogue Isles, @Neiska.  You have a couple of different options.

 

There's nothing specific to Cyborgs in game, but you could make a Claws/Savage Melee/Dual Blades/Titan Weapons Brute or Scrapper.  For secondaries... perhaps Electric Armor, Radiation Armor, or as you said, Shield.  The cybernetic implants gives off an electric or radiating aura.  Or you have some kind of super technology shield.  Now, you could go Brute, which has very high survivability and decent damage, or Scrapper which has very high damage and decent survivability.  That's up to you.

 

Oooor... you could go Arachnos Widow (and then Night Widow at level 24), with cybernetically implanted claws.  Night Widows do decent melee damage, and give off good team buffs.  Not as soloable as a Brute, but teams will love you.

Edited August 8, 2019 by Apparition

[PaxArcana]

So, if you want melee, you mostly have three choices:

Brute, Scrapper, or Tanker.
 

EDIT:  as was pointed out below, four choices.  Stalker is sort of a stealth-assassin approach to melee, but it's still melee.  And I always forget it even exists - their stealth must just be THAT blasted good, eh?

"Kick-butt" implies a higher damage output, which in turn means Brute or Scrapper.

Almost any melee set can work as a cyborg, really.  It all comes down to, "what kind of cyborg parts do you have?"

You could go with an elegantly-agile cyborg ninja (Katana/Ninjitsu or Dual Blades/Ninjitsu scrapper), or a big beefy unstoppable brute of a cyborg (Titan Weapons/, War Mace/, or Super Strength/ paired with either Shield/ or Invulnerability/), and so many more options.

What will make them a Cyborg, are:
(a) the costume
(b) a Technology origin
(c) your own decisions about HOW their cybernetic pieces give them the powersets you've chosen.

For example ... let's go with recent movies for an example: Battle Angel Alita.  IMO, she could be well represented as a Martial Arts / Super Reflexes scrapper.  Her signature fighting style, Panzerkunst, is explicitly a cyborg-specific martial art.  And she mostly avoids harm by being impossibly quick and agile.

Or you could go with something with less subtlety than a truckload of bricks: a Titan Weapons / Invulnerability Brute.  His cybernetics make him both strong, and tough, as half a dozen battle tanks.

Or, Fire Melee/Shield.  Fire Melee is explainable as the product of implants that can generate, and project, tremendous amounts of heat at very short range.

The possibilities are literally endless.  🙂

Edited August 9, 2019 by PaxArcana

[_NOPE_]

The only limits in this game - are your imagination...

 

 

 

...and 4GB of physical RAM, since it was written in a 32-bit environment. 😢

[Justisaur]

You left out stalker.

1 minute ago, PaxArcana said:

So, if you want melee, you mostly have three choices:

Brute, Scrapper, or Tanker.

"Kick-butt" implies a higher damage output, which in turn means Brute or Scrapper.
 

 

You left out stalker.  Stalker is probably even more kick but, but more one-on-one as opposed to wide area devestation.

 

Op mentioned sword and shield.  Check out broadsword/shield stalker thread on the stalker board, it looks pretty good, and hits like a truck.   If you don't want the stealth and hitting like a truck, then I'd probably go with that combo on a scrapper.

 

[Neiska]

thank you for the replies! Appreciate the imput!

 

I just want to make a theme that fits, and that is good, and not useless or unwanted at higher levels. I do better with a powerset that can heal in some way, because i always take damage and can get overwhelmed fairly quickly.  Do like how invlunerability looks as a secondary though. is there anything that pairs with that one particularly well?

 

Thanks bunches again!

 

P.S. - (someone posted while i was typing) - Whats the difference between a brute and a scrapper? Arent they more or less the same?

Edited August 8, 2019 by Neiska
Added a PS!

[Apparition]

As I posted above, Brutes do decent damage and have very high survivability.  I'm going to draw all kinds of aggro fire with this, but they have (for all intents and purposes) replaced the Tanker AT as the tank role for City of Heroes, but also deal a decent amount of damage.  Scrappers do a very high amount of damage, and have decent survivability.  They just can't deal with as much punishment as Brutes and don't aggro as well.

 

You can't go wrong with either.

[_NOPE_]

12 minutes ago, Neiska said:

I just want to make a theme that fits, and that is good, and not useless or unwanted at higher levels. I do better with a powerset that can heal in some way, because i always take damage and can get overwhelmed fairly quickly.  Do like how invlunerability looks as a secondary though. is there anything that pairs with that one particularly well?

This is one truth about CoH that's not necessarily true of others MMOs: ANY team structure will work, with the right strategy. You NEVER  "have to have X" or "shouldn't have Y" on your team. They designed the AT system well so that all times, all ATs contribute just fine to ANY team. So, play whatever you want, and have fun with it. Because, in the end, that's the point of a game, to have fun, right?

[Robotech_Master]

52 minutes ago, PaxArcana said:

For example ... let's go with recent movies for an example: Battle Angel Alita.  IMO, she could be well represented as a Martial Arts / Super Reflexes scrapper.  Her signature fighting style, Panzerkunst, is explicitly a cyborg-specific martial art.  And she mostly avoids harm by being impossibly quick and agile.

I actually ran into a Battle Angel Alita-based toon the other day who was built as a Titan Weapons/Willpower Brute.

 

To the original poster: most if not all Tanker, Brute, and Scrapper power sets have self-heals or regeneration boosts of some kind built into them, because these characters are meant to be largely self-sufficient and able to keep going on their own even if there's not a healer on the team. So you don't really need to worry about that.

 

Also, it kind of helps to think of Brutes as sort of being halfway between a Scrapper and a Tanker. A Scrapper does a lot of damage, but is the flimsiest of the melee classes. A Brute does nearly as much damage as a Scrapper, and is nearly as tough as a Tanker. A Tanker doesn't do so much damage overall, but is very tough.

 

A Brute can both Scrap and Tank pretty well, but a Scrapper can't really Tank too well, and the typical Tanker can't keep up with Scrappers for damage.

Edited August 8, 2019 by Robotech_Master

[Oubliette_Red]

1 hour ago, Neiska said:

Hello everyone,

 

---==snip==---

 

I am hoping to make a kick-butt cyborg girl, but I'm not really sure where to start. None of the powers really jump out at me for supporting this sort of hero. And thats where I would like some help.

 

---==snip==---

 

TLDR - would like some help picking a poweset/build for a cyborg sort of character please. Would perfer melee if possible! 

Cyborg can really mean almost anything, and you could almost justify anything. Do you have a backstory for your cyborg girl? That may help folks provide suggestions.

 

For instance, back in Legacy I had a cyborg character, really just a brain in a mechanical body that was Fire/Elec, name Thermocouple.

You could do a Fire/Rad and call her Chernobyl. <.<

[TheOtherTed]

I don't know if I'd recommend this for a first character, but there are also "Blapper" builds that might work for your concept.  Blappers (a mash-up of Blaster and Scrapper) are Blasters who focus on melee attacks in their secondary powerset.

 

Martial Combat is pretty much made for exactly this, and gets a self-regen and a self-heal a bit later on.  I haven't really given it a fair shot myself, but it seems to be popular, and might work for a "street samurai" type of cyborg.  Energy Manipulation is still my favorite Blapper set - so many melee attacks heavy on stuns and knockbacks - and I made it work thematically on a "natural" martial artist (with an Archery primary).

 

I don't have much familiarity with the other Blaster secondaries, but it looks like almost anything but Devices or Tactical Arrow could be used to blap.  A little imagination (as Philotic Knight and Oubliette_Red pointed out) and a little quality time with power color customization could make anything cyborg-appropriate.

 

But, again, blapping might be a bit rough on a first run.  Scrapper and Brute are safe "CoH 101" bets; blapping is for full-on, no-holds-barred, skin-of-your-teeth offense.

 

Edit:  stray parentheses

 

Edited August 8, 2019 by TheOtherTed

[AkuTenshiiZero]

For AT, I suggest Brute.  Good offense, good defense, perfect for the sort of brawler-type character you are aiming at.  As for powers, you could justify anything by the power of color customization.  There's the obvious "non-elemental" sets like Super Strength, Martial Arts, and Street Justice for your generic punch/kick action.  Then there's weapon sets for a similar effect.  As for the "elemental" sets, you have the obvious electricity and energy for a more classic robot.  But really, anything can work with a little imagination.  Fire?  Turn it blue and call it plasma.  Dark?  Nanomachines, son.  Ice?  Stone?  Hardlight wireframe projections.  I've seen it all.  I love that a powerset doesn't have to be what it appears to be, just a little recoloring and a quick description in your bio and you can do anything.

 

Though for my part, I like Energy Aura, energy shields are a classic staple of robots and cyborgs, go full Android #17 with it.

[mousestalker]

I second the recommendation of Night Widow. The major problems with it is that they are rather rare and there aren't a lot of guides for them. Small children can generally play most archetypes, but Widows are the hardest class to play so I would not recommend anyone under eight playing one. 😄

 

If you want to play a blapper, as discussed above, my suggestion is to play a Sentinel. You still get the ray beam shooty goodness, but you are a bit tougher and can take more punishment than a blaster.

 

My suggestions are for a straight forward hit things hard build, go Brute. For a slicer 'n dicer, go Widow. For shooting at point blank go Sentinel. As for what power sets to go for within each class, you have to work pretty hard to gimp your character in CoX. Pick whatever sets appeal to you for primary and secondary and run with it.

[Eva Destruction]

Brute or Scrapper are both solid picks.  Brutes tend to solo better at lower levels than Scrappers, because the damage buff from Fury makes a massive difference when you don't have a lot of other damage buffs yet, and they can hold aggro while most Scrappers can't.  On the other hand, Scrappers don't have to worry about maintaining Fury or being expected to tank, you can just go kill stuff.  They're both fun ATs to play, both solo well throughout the game, and the AT most desired by teams is usually the one that sends a tell first unless the team wants something specific to fill the last slot or two, so I wouldn't worry about getting onto teams no matter what you choose to play.

[GavinRuneblade]

I think some of the differences between brute, scrapper, and stalker have been over simplified so let me start there, because I think a little more info might help you.

 

Brutes have a mechanic called rage which means the more you hit and get hit the more damage you do. If you stand around waiting or resting, your rage will diminish and you have to build it up again. So brutes are best if you want to keep smashing and smashing like a tireless engine of destruction. Brutes also have mechanics to gather aggro which means in a group more enemies will be hitting you.

 

Scrappers have high chances to crit for bonus damage. This means they are more steady damage if you start and stop a lot since they don't have rage to worry about. And sometimes you get surprised by a hugely damaging crit which is a lot of fun. Scrapper players are famous for a mentality known as "scrapperlock" where they lose track of strategy and keep hitting things when they should maybe back off and rest. Meaning they act a little too much like a brute hehe.

 

Stalkers are like your cyborg with therm-optic camouflage. They go invisible and get to do double damage with a single massive blow from invisibility. Called assassin strike. They also get crits like a scrapper, but are squishier. Stalkers can also exit combat if they need to and rehide. So they are beat if you like to be careful and pick and choose your kills. 

 

To describe the other two mentioned, a fortuna is based on elite troops from Arachnos who combine psychic abilities with melee attacks. They are fast and deadly, and all the npcs are female but you can make a guy if you want and don't have to be allied to Arachnos if you don't want to.

 

Blappers are super squishy. they are supposed to shoot at range which is why they are squishy, but you melee instead. These can do insane damage, but you will get knocked out more often than the other archetypes.

 

On powers, all the weapon sets have technology options. like there is a mace with a rocket in back that propels it into enemies, and one with a shell of hexagonal plates held together by energy. There are light sabers, energy blades, buster swords, force field axes, claws, etc. If you like punching and hitting you have four options: traditional martial arts, kinetic combat (has energy fields around your fists as you do fancy moves and project the energy a short distance), street justice which is less elegant and more brute force punching and hitting, then savage melee which is clawing and tearing to cause bleed effects. Then you have the energy or elemental styles like fire, ice, elecrticity or radiation, these can all come from your cyborg tech easily.

 

My own cyborg is a stalker (street justice/energy armor). I use teleport for my travel power. 

Edited August 9, 2019 by GavinRuneblade

[PaxArcana]

8 hours ago, Neiska said:

I just want to make a theme that fits, and that is good, and not useless or unwanted at higher levels.

As others have observed: that would be almost literally everything conceivable.  Any Brute, Scrapper, Stalker, or Tanker will be welcome on nearly any team.

 

8 hours ago, Neiska said:

Whats the difference between a brute and a scrapper? Arent they more or less the same?

Yes and no.  The difference is largely in their Inherent powers - the power that comes, for free, with your Archetype.

For Scrappers, they can occasionally get Critical hits for extra damage.

For Brutes, as long as they are fighting - attacking, being attacked, etc - they build up a special-to-them bar called Fury.  The more fury you have, the more damage your attacks do.  If you ever STOP being in combat, your Fury starts to drain away.

So, a Brute is going to want nonstop, constant battle.  Any significant pause in the action, actually starts to weaken them.

Scrappers, OTOH, will never reach the heights of DPS a Brute can put out - but their damage output is consistent, whether they've been in a fight for two hours straight, or just finished a six-hour nap.  🙂

[mrinku]

My old main is a Katana/Invulnerability Scrapper robot, and he's always gone just fine. Predates Brutes and Stalkers being Hero side options, too, but it's the right archetype for the concept anyway.

 

I'd put in a bit of love for Tanker as an option, though, especially if you expect to be teaming up. They can be a little frustrating to level up solo (a lot depends on powers), but do their designed job very well, and are the toughest archetype in the game. When Brutes and Scrappers are getting overwhelmed, Tankers are just warming up.

 

Scrappers and Stalkers don't draw the aggro that Brutes or Tankers do, though, so they work well if you like a hit-and-run style. The Stalker ambush power and lower defenses pretty much require you to operate this way; Scrappers have more ability to finish a fight in decent shape and take on another group. It's largely a style preference thing.

[Neiska]

Thank you everyone, I appreciate the input and advice from the veterans of the game! I have decided to go with what most people advised and make her a Brute. Reading up on the powers I am pretty sure I want Invulnerability as a secondary power just because it looks all around good and I can see that as being a cyborg trait of being hard to hurt. For offense I am on the fence between both Claws and Dual Blades. Both look like fast sets which is important to build fury with, but Blades has that special combination attack while claws is more streamlined.

 

Both sets have cyborg sort of visuals though, either laser claws or swords sort of looks. I asked in the Brute channel what people would recommend to pair up with Invulnerability.

 

Again thanks for the input everyone, it is appreciated!

 

Happy Hero-ing (or villian-ing!)