Man. you die a LOT in this game compared to COH

[doc7924]

Maybe its because I only have the free AT's but I made a sword fighter and before that I had the Behemoth and even up to level 25 they still would die so many times doing alert missions. Even my blasters in COH were not this squishy.

I have a level 25 Radiant that lives longer then either of those melee ones I made.

In COH my tanks and scrappers could take on 8 or 10 or more guys at once, no problem.

Is it because I am not using Mods properly or something.
I am playing this more now as I miss COH and between this and DCUO this one is more like COH to me.
Probably got spoiled playing COH for 8 years and expecting the same things in this game.

[Vee]

I know I died a little inside when I tried to play it.

[Blackout]

Yeah, unfortunately the free to play archetypes can't really ever be as strong as the freeform characters but I think they are still strong enough to get through the content of the game (at least I think/hope so.) That said there are parts of the game where free AT's will get obliterated no questions asked. Any of the stuff where you have to go up against proper bosses, stuff like Operation Demonflame and Project Viper...yeah as fun as it is freeform its awful as free to play

[Xev]

*shrug*

I had the opposite experience when I started playing CO. To me CoH is already pretty easy staying alive-wise for the most part and that CO topped that. I couldn't believe how mobs melted like butter to my aoe's when I first played CO. I even raved about my AT's in my early posts (for like a year??) due to I couldn't believe what I was getting for free. I'm sure that attitude helped me out as well as picking one of the better built (for my playstyle at least) AT's right from the beginning. I even Gravi'd with my Unleashed just to show off to someone here... hehe. Man I loved my Unleashed until I went FF and he's still pretty tough for high dps and light tank duty and I still run him in Alurts including the high-dps-needing-many-can't-win-it-but-I-got-1-of-the-first-Firewing-AF's-with-my-AT-in-it Forum Malvanum.

AT's can be trying. You're locked into a build for the most part and most likely don't have a heal. My first suggestion is that you stock up on healing (the ones you can buy with Recognition are good and the vendor ones are decent) And defense devices. Devices can pick up a LOT of slack for an AT - and a FF as far as that goes. It definitely pays to do some shopping.

If you're playing an AT, I have found, it pays to get into the head of the person who made the AT and see where they were trying to go and go with that. If the build doesn't fit you then the AT might not fit.

Another thing about AT's... They are generally late bloomers. Generally you're waiting on a power or two that don't show up until near/at level 40 to make you a lot more functional. This can Especially suck when you're solo.

All AT's are not created equal and it also has a lot a lot a lot to do with your playstyle. I'm playing an Automaton off and on to get him leveled and it SUCKS. Inferno used to be lowest on my list for leveling due to it pulls agro and can't handle it but Automaton has taken the crown due to it's a DPS build with crap dps. Compared to what I'm used to...szo far, at his current level which is in the low 30's.

If you die playing a Mind you probably are playing the wrong game.. *snicker* Actually, Mind is a decent AT to learn on. It doesn't have a very complicated role and it's very hard to kill and it makes a team very hard to kill. If it only had a res.. Radiant has a res and it also has an excellent cone heal that Mind lacks but it has a weaker passive for defense and no bubbles. I think I never or very rarely soloed my support toons due to the low dps boredom factor. They can whiz through team content tho as long as there's some dps.

Errr what else.. Make sure you're in NORMAL mode not ELITE hehe... You want tough, pop things up to Elite and hop into a lair.. You won't get a reward for it except a harder fight and dubious bragging rights..

AT's are good for a lot of reasons I won't get into due to time and this is getting long already anyway but once you go FF... oi... Good stuff. And then a whole other mini-game unfolds, too. The Build Game. I have lost many many many hours to The Build Game...  : )

GL! Hope everything works out, we're here for ya.

Edit:

I was going to skip mentioning gear due to it seemed a no-brainer that better gear is better.. but... even though CO gear isn't very sophisticated, it does pay to gear the gear that is best for what you are trying to do and that matches your build best. Dodge chance, Avoidance, HP's, Crit chance, Crit severity, Offense, Defense, raw HP's, energy management, recharge speed, superstats of course, and more (CC resistance.. what else..) are all things that can be enhanced or not by gear and change your capabilities. The AE doesn't always have the best gear and mission rewards won't always give you gear that matches what you are trying to do best either.

Eventually you'll get a feel for what fits you best and is the best to provide whatever that is.

Another thing about gear. It is vastly improved at 40 vs., say.. 1-30ish.

[hurple]

Try a Night Avenger favoring ranged powers.  I LOVED playing mine and went from 0-40 fast with very few "deaths"

[Brou]

Alerts can be really challenging to new players. Things to watch for are opportunities to rank your first power as soon as possible and going for a cone or other aoe as soon as you're able. Combat is mostly about eliminating the minions first(charged or maintained AOEs are great for this) then cleaning up the villain and higher rank enemies in the pack.

A lot of teammates will kid themselves into thinking they can "tank." be really careful around them. I was on my laser DPS and no one could hold aggro except for characters that were in actual tank role and using challenging strikes.

[LaughingAlex]

Play either the savage or a freeform with any defensive passive and then you'll see why I consider CO far, far easier than CoH.  Especially with regen.

Think the words "God mode".  Literal, god mode.

But CO see is pure pay to win, and archtypes are intentionally gimped and left as weak as possible as an artificial way to make the game hard while enticing people to spend money on it.

[hurple]

Alerts can be really challenging to new players. Things to watch for are opportunities to rank your first power as soon as possible and going for a cone or other aoe as soon as you're able. Combat is mostly about eliminating the minions first(charged or maintained AOEs are great for this) then cleaning up the villain and higher rank enemies in the pack.

A lot of teammates will kid themselves into thinking they can "tank." be really careful around them. I was on my laser DPS and no one could hold aggro except for characters that were in actual tank role and using challenging strikes.

It's funny... other than Alerts, I have NEVER played on a team in CO.  Ever.  And I have 3 level-40's

[Mistress Bloodwrath]

And considering every hit is an autohit, meaning you can't miss at all, it's no wonder that either enemies or your character can die so rapidly depending on build. Be sure to hit the shift key to block if you're not already, it sometimes makes all the difference.

But really, this game is trivially easy. You can sleepwalk through most of the content with only a few gimmicks here or there to keep you awake and concentrating.

[Xev]

Be sure to hit the shift key to block if you're not already, it sometimes makes all the difference.

Excellent point. Sooooo much faceplanting can be avoided with blocking.

Haven't got a good way to dump agro? Block.. Pop even a storebought heal device and then hit block again. Keep doing this until....someone else has agro. You aren't going to keep agro forever if you aren't doing damage and are just standing there blocking and healing/shielding yourself. Get some range, too, if you can. If the agro'd mob(s) aren't following you (such as an agroed Alurt boss) when you back up a few steps with Block still on - then keep backing up until you're no longer in the one with agro (in the mobs target).... and then go back in there and get some more!

This won't help you solo as much but it works wonders in a team.

I Still always think of me posting about 'How do I tank Warlord, he keeps shredding me' and Brou posting something like, 'you'll want to block those Fire attacks'. It was just that simple.. I raaaaarely die to Warlord since then. I felt so stupid.

Suck up those glowie buffs too. Soooo many players slowly die right next to a green glowie and I'm like...ohhhh.

[Xev]

archtypes are intentionally gimped and left as weak as possible as an artificial way to make the game hard while enticing people to spend money on it.

Nooooo no no no no no..

: )

My AT's kick ASS. Some better than others.. *cough* deleting Automaton unless he gets way better *cough*

Some players, believe it or not, actually prefer AT's and some of these people play them spectacularly.

It's not a waste of time playing them in the beginning for sure. With an AT you can learn about the game first, and builds second. Just walking into the game and building a Freeform toon can be intimidating and real easy to do badly.

AT's have their place. They can even be considered Advanced Mode toons due to they do not suffer from Diminishing Returns like Freeforms do. AT's will tell you things about your FF's, too. I still reference the stats on my AT's attacks for my FF's due to I know I have screaming dps with them on my AT's. I used to reference my Mind for support stuff until I deleted him. I reference Tree stuff on my AT's too and AT's use about alllll the trees.

I lost weeks of playtime when I got my first Freeform (nose buried in facts and figures..) and after all that I ended up with a single and not very great build. I had a blast for months before that... actually playing.

Having said all that I <3 buildmaking and my FF's and 99% of the time prefer playing them especially now that I'm finally getting the hang of making a decent build. Just had to stick up for the AT's a little,

[LaughingAlex]

Nooooo no no no no no..

: )

My AT's kick ASS. Some better than others.. *cough* deleting Automaton unless he gets way better *cough*

Some players, believe it or not, actually prefer AT's and some of these people play them spectacularly.

It's not a waste of time playing them in the beginning for sure. With an AT you can learn about the game first, and builds second. Just walking into the game and building a Freeform toon can be intimidating and real easy to do badly.

AT's have their place. They can even be considered Advanced Mode toons due to they do not suffer from Diminishing Returns like Freeforms do. AT's will tell you things about your FF's, too. I still reference the stats on my AT's attacks for my FF's due to I know I have screaming dps with them on my AT's. I used to reference my Mind for support stuff until I deleted him. I reference Tree stuff on my AT's too and AT's use about alllll the trees.

I lost weeks of playtime when I got my first Freeform (nose buried in facts and figures..) and after all that I ended up with a single and not very great build. I had a blast for months before that... actually playing.

Having said all that I <3 buildmaking and my FF's and 99% of the time prefer playing them especially now that I'm finally getting the hang of making a decent build. Just had to stick up for the AT's a little,

Nothing you can say will ever convince me they are a good thing when they've mislead people into believing the game is a generic holy trinity and then lo and behold the game became that with the fire and ice rampage to some.....when I had fun before when the game was still good and freeform only.  On top of the fact that back then enemies were challenging for freeforms before on alert and god mode with regen.......

[Xev]

They didn't mislead me about anything. They presented themselves as a superhero game and turned out to be one.

Even when there was just Gravi AT's weren't great for Rampages which comprise < 1% of the content in CO and reward you with gear that you won't need for the remaining over 99%.

[Thunder Glove]

My experience was that the game was incredibly easy... until it suddenly wasn't.   Two or three enemies would go down with little trouble, four or more would slowly overwhelm me, and many bosses (sorry, "Super Villains") would just wreck me.

And that was with a defensive passive.

[LaughingAlex]

CO used to be harder back in the day, but there was a LOT of power creep after a point and defensive passives all got buffed in some form or another(save regen);

All passives save Defiance: Scale on any superstats
Regen: Powerful as always, can and almost always out-regens what everything can throw at you on normal due to the above.  I regularly slaughtered 2-3 mobs worth of guys with this as of on alert.
Invincibility: Now provides very high damage resistance, nearly as high as defiance.
Personal force fields: Now benefits from damage resistances/blocking(it's still the weakest passive though)
Lighting Reflexes:  The most overpowered with bountiful chi resurgence and resurgent reiki.  This can equate to having regeneration speed healing and very high mitigation if your a melee toon using thundering kicks, or a ranged using evasive maneuvers or even using both, 100% dodge is achievable, though it has to be with a melee toon that abuses evasive maneuvers.
Defiance: Serves as a super battery and still scales with constitution, and still gives slightly higher resistance than invincibility.

Dodge rating is however a dump stat for non-LR users now, however.  Even with justice gear these days your better off just going for max defense and offense for the other defensive passives.

[Xev]

My experience was that the game was incredibly easy... until it suddenly wasn't.   Two or three enemies would go down with little trouble, four or more would slowly overwhelm me, and many bosses (sorry, "Super Villains") would just wreck me.

And that was with a defensive passive.

I dunno about you but for me in CoH it took forever to pick up on tricks here and there to be able to do bigger and bigger things. Didn't even know the game could be played how some people played it when I came back to it.

CO is similar in this respect. When I first started playing I saw what some people were doing and was inspired like I was by that claws/regen screpper (and others that followed) that dropped my jaw when I came back to CoH.

In CO I went from barely being able to make it to Warlord and then barely being able to survive the end fight to probably being able to solo the whole Alurt. And there is a long line of people that make Me look like a newb.... after over 3 years of effort to get This far!

I guess all I'm saying is what your post made me reminisce about is the more you stick with it the more you can do if this is your goal. Like CoH, CO seems really simple on the surface and it kinda is but, like CoH, there are a lot of nuances too..