Wednesday, August 12, 2020

City of Heroes - Analyzing my Character Choices

 

Golden Griffon (Brute) over Talos Island

A bit of introspection today - what kinds of characters have I made in this new incarnation of Paragon City?

Melee Types:

  • Tankers: 10
  • Brutes: 11
  • Scrappers: 10
  • Stalkers: 1
Well that's weirdly even. I was more of a Scrapper Guy than a Tanker in the old days, then once Brutes became a hero side option I dove into those pretty hard. For those not as into the game Tanks are the strongest defensively, Scrappers are the strongest offensively, but Brutes are almost as good as both of them in both categories. The "fury" mechanic for Brutes makes them probably the easiest class to play as they are almost a s tough as a Tank, and they gain damage output every time they hit someone -or- get hit by someone. They are quite a bit of fun because they feed directly off of doing what they are supposed to do. I like all of the melee types though. 

Stalker is a bit of a specialist, more about sneaking through enemies than a straight up fight but they are enjoyable for a change of pace. My one in play is a Crow homage so he's very much a theme character. I never played them in the old days so this is an area I ought to explore more.

Amazing Aluminum Man (Blaster) over Steel Canyon

Ranged Types:
  • Blasters: 11
  • Corrupters: 6
  • Defenders: 3
  • Sentinels: 4

Not a big surprise - my main is a Blaster and I tend to create a version of him on each server which pumps that number up a bit. Corrupters are a better fit for some concepts and I have explored a few different directions there. Defenders are great on a team, less so solo so while I do have a few and have some ideas for more they will always take a back seat to the first two. 

Sentinels are the new archetype on Homecoming. They were a concept in development on live and then completed between then and now. It's a ranged combatant primary power - like a blaster - but the secondary is a defense set which is something entirely new. It's an "armored shooter" type which actually fits my original concept for Aluminum Man better than Blaster, but I've been playing him as a blaster so long I can't change now. I did recreate American Ironhead as this type and he's been a lot of fun. I have a fire blast/fire armor character that's been pretty amazing too. 

Utinni Utinni (Robot Mastermind) wishing he could see over the counter... 

The Specials:

  • Mastermind: 5
  • Controller: 3
  • Dominator: 2
I did not play a ton of these in live and that seems to have continued. Masterminds are a lot of fun so there will be more at some point but I don't really want to duplicate the primaries right now. Theming matters so I would rather run one of them up to max level before I try running the same thing again. 

Controllers are cool but I am not a huge fan of running them solo - they are way more fun on a team, even a two-man team, so I tend to only run them with friends which keeps the numbers down. 

Dominators... their powersets are the trickiest for me to reconcile as a character. I get an occasional idea for them, and they are fine for solo play, but they just don't speak to me like a lot of the other options do. 

Conclusion

Well I'm sure all that says something about me but I'm not sure exactly what. I will say one of the reasons to have a large slate of character options is that whatever mood I'm in I probably have something that fits it perfectly. Charge in and bash heads, fly around and snipe, team up ... there are lots of ways to go - and I'll be going for a while longer. 


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