Labor Day weekend is past… the time spent watching movies and playing games. The game of choice was still Champions Online, and my main is still far from level cap — sitting at level 32. I’ve taken the time to play two other alts, Archery and Darkness users, as the 30′s content is a bit lacking right now — you can easily be doing level 34 missions at 32, hoping those will be enough to get to 33 without needing much mob grinding. Throw in the changes coming to Telekinesis users in the next patch and… well, it’s best to wait and see. I’m hoping the free full retcon will be around shortly (or at least with the patch) in order to help me plan out the character better. Even with a basic understanding of stats and the skills I’ve still managed to screw things up. It’s perfectly playable and solo’able, but not as efficient or good as it could be. Thankfully my alt experiments are doing much better!
First up is Archery. The character is currently around 11-12 and still very newbish, but I have seen enough to get a feel for the basics of the framework. It revolves around two things: Crits and AoE. The two primary stats for Archery are Dexterity and Intelligence; Dexterity provides crit chance, Intelligence provides shorter cool downs and lower energy costs. To make the most out of these two you’ll need to Talent and Gear for Ego and Endurance/Recovery — I recommend Endurance. With Dex/Ego at respectable levels you’ll be looking at rather nice crits pretty often. Combine that with AoE attacks and you can see lotsa damage popping up all over the screen. The Archery abilities seem to cost a good bit, though it is likely the lack of Endurance right now. To help with the energy costs, Archery users have Quarry — a slotted offensive passive that provides a stack of buffs to reduce the energy cost of abilities. If you’re solo’ing — might want to find something different to use, something that will keep you alive. Grouping, however, can make excellent use of Quarry.
As you can guess, Archery is excellent against packs of henchies, not so much against Master Villains/Super Villains. The Taser Arrow does help some, though, provided it works against them. Not all holds do, so it’s iffy. The best bet I’ve had with strong single mobs is to keep distance with flight and hold them as much as possible, if possible… you won’t have to worry about any of their minions, at least.
Next up is Darkness. This is a Sorcery-esque framework, using dark magics to hold/kill(enemies)/heal(yourself). The suggested stats for this build are Constitution and Endurance, the two stats that effect your maximum status numbers. I find this to be excellent for soloing. This character, like the Archery one, is in the early teens, still a newbie but just big enough to get a feel for the set. What I’ve noticed so far is a relative balance of abilities — this character does not really excel at any particular function, except maybe single target nuking. I went ahead and ranked Shadow Blast, the Tier 0 charged nuke you get at the start, to 3 — maxed it out. The damage, currently, is enough to pretty much one shot any henchie and take out Villains/Master Villains in a few shots. For the energy cost (pretty low), it’s damn good. Add in Shadow Form (offensive passive, slotted) that increases your damage (paranormal and ego), reduces paranormal damage (can be useful, all in the situation) and looks awesome (very awesome) — you’ve got a pretty awesome character.
The point to stress on the character is really the balance in abilities, to me. I’ve got a nice cone effect that deals good damage, a high damage single target nuke, a life drain that damages and heals (with an advantage it seems to have a chance at AoE heals, for some added group effects), an AoE hold that is very nice, a block replacement and passive slotted buff and active buffs… it’s got a bit of everything. If you really want to solo — take this build, or at least try it out.
My darkness character is focusing more on group support right now with the AoE hold (Grasping Shadows). To really make this work well I’ve been getting as much Recovery equipment as possible, going to have to get Talents too, in order to cast it fully at equilibrium. It should be noted that Grasping Shadows’ charging breaks when damaged — casting in combat is not always easy to do. To make up for this impairment is the AoE nature of the hold and that you can damage the targets while they are held — manage a good cast and that group of mobs just became fodder. I have not gotten to use Ebon Rift yet (basically creates a small rift/wormhole in the space some feet away from you, drags mobs to it) so I can’t say the useability of the Rift and Grasping, might work really well.
Offense is the best defense on my character, but with Constitution as a main stat it’s possible to find something else more suitable to your tastes. Increasing Recovery to make better use of Grasping Shadows would also help with other powers (Regeneration, perhaps…). I tend to hold and kill most things, bigger baddies I just try to nuke down as fast as possible. It’s a pretty simple framework to use.
And that’s that — more to come later.
