FF Tips?

[Xev]

I hear ya on the holy trinity thing but I do want a tank because sometimes ya just need one - or at least, they make life simpler. And I wanna be that guy sometimes that stands there and says 'screw you' while everything is pounding on him, greedily grabbing agro everywhere I can, allowing everyone else to go full tilt gonzo doing their thing.

For toon building heaven to be complete one thing I would wish for would be to have even just a few extra powers to play with when changing builds. For example, Offense passives only could go in the Ranged build and Defense passives only in Tank mode, allowing me to min/max more..

The fact that I can even change builds and change roles is sweet enough that I can't complain *too* much : )

Yet!

hehe

[General Idiot]

I personally actually don't really mind the trinity. Especially as it exists in CO, where a good healer can make up for the lack of a tank and a good tank can make up for no healer. And five good damage players can make up for both. So it's there, but not strictly enforced like in some games.

And yeah, I wish they let us have different powers in different builds without having to dedicate extra slots to them as well. I have a darkness character that managed to do it, but everything else I've tried just needs too many powers to start for that to be viable.

[LaughingAlex]

I personally actually don't really mind the trinity. Especially as it exists in CO, where a good healer can make up for the lack of a tank and a good tank can make up for no healer. And five good damage players can make up for both. So it's there, but not strictly enforced like in some games.

And yeah, I wish they let us have different powers in different builds without having to dedicate extra slots to them as well. I have a darkness character that managed to do it, but everything else I've tried just needs too many powers to start for that to be viable.

I don't see CO as a holy trinity game because the holy trinity isn't enforced, actually.  When it's enforced then yeah you got a holy trinity game.  Holy trinity is enforced when both a tank and healer are absolutely required, along with damage with room for nothing else in the game.

[Xev]

I kinda don't like lunge for some reason and always opt for acrobatics/versatility.

Advice here, PowerHouse, the wiki, and some nicely made guides and shared builds were/are a lot of help. I even came up with a look I don't mind looking at and am looking forward to every power/spec level that comes..

It is *really* nice I can do a *full* reroll, too. I mean, I'm just starting out with this process so who knows, I may just want to do a complete re-roll.

Well... and I just happened on a no level-limit Nimbus of Force. If I couldn't do a complete re-roll there's probly no way this first FF would get it and especially not at lvl 8..

PS
I'm really glad I'm finally ready to play and done making decisions because it sounds like my neighbor is sawing enough wood outside my window to build a house.. And with one of those cartoony saws that they use to cut people in half. Or an airplane.

[Xev]

Test 1:
Fatal Error 1
Level 8

Loots:
AF + Helmet + Dinged 9

Yes *strokes imaginary wizard's whiskers* I am liking this process so far.

[JRVthatsME]

What have you decided to choose for your Block, Slotted Passive and Toggle Buff (form)?

[Xev]

I squeezed in Force Shield and went with Regen.

I've been using a guru build as a guide, changing things as I go. The guru build has no toggle power but 3 active offenses instead. I've been thinking to toss in Concentration as that worked out pretty well with my Inferno (Edit: and I have Ego as a SS and am using primarily Fire attacks for damage) but am sticking with his idea of dps for now.

I grabbed Devour Essence with Crippling Challenge for the taunt/debuff/dmg/get-a-heal and I combine it with Force Shield and Fuel my Fire from the Con tree for some Energy boost. None of that stuff was in his build but it's gotten me through Fatal Alert 1 and I can get agro and not lose stars in Alerts.  And I just dinged 11.

I tried Fatal Alert 2 and tp'd out of the CyberTard fight due to I kept getting knocked into a wall (/stuck /stuck) and I wasn't knocking his hps down much anyway.

I'm taking Strength as a SS and the Knock Resist advantage from the Con tree, I'll be bahhck. To judge your puny KB. Cybertaaaard!

[Xev]

This is just a highly, highly, entertaining process. I've got a long ways to go with this first FF but I've got a few 40's already so I've got an idea where this is going and (nerfs aside..) it seems all good.

I can pick out just about any name I want. There is no Generic look unless you pick the defaults. And how many combos of powers and specializations are there, and then add that with gear and builds.

I mean come on.. What? This is good stuff.

Any argument about any other aspect of the game aside. Character Creation in CO is badass.

[General Idiot]

I've been thinking to toss in Concentration as that worked out pretty well with my Inferno (Edit: and I have Ego as a SS and am using primarily Fire attacks for damage) but am sticking with his idea of dps for now.

You should do this, yes. Take it in place of the third active offense probably, if you have three of those you're probably going to run into shared cooldowns anyway.

[Xev]

I can keep them going 50% of the time - at rank 2 they have a 15 second duration (how long a normal fight takes?)/30 second shared cooldown that starts when they fire off. There is a per power recharge of 90 seconds, so, when that 3rd Active Defense finishes it's shared cooldown, the 1st one is ready to go again.

For long fights I've got DoT stacking/debuffing, too.

It's an interesting idea due to the Active Offenses can be used while in and to break out of holds/roots/'disable' effects, they have nice effects, damage boost, and, they take no energy which is another decent bonus for this build. 1 of them even gives energy back. 1 of them raises ego & crit chance way up, which would be nice for the heal maintain I took as well as the overall dps boost (criting conflags??), and for mega hold resist when combined with an Ego secondary + the Con advantage for Hold resist.

I might try it out just for grins.

Until I hit near 40 and can get all 3 Active Offenses, I've thought about picking up Concentration just as something to use in the meanwhile.

[Xev]

This is still a pretty entertaining process for me. I've ran into my disappointments, like, that I can't take/have everything at once.. And I realize now that sometimes a good ol' straight-up leveling build can be useful in leveling up a late blooming build that can be retconned in later.

I see the argument better now about how it sucks that KB protection comes from Str. Because most times, if you aren't using melee for dps, Str as a SuperStat is just there sucking up one of my SS slots to provide me KB resist. It is a pretty effective game mechanic to separate the melee from the ranged...and it points back as an example of the example disappointment above.

One main function of Str and Ego seems to be to keep ranged guys ranged due to they can't tank due to pinballing unless they take Str which in most cases will gimp them - and melee guys (that have kb resists aka Strength) up close due to that's where most of their attacks do the most damage.

Anyway...

Being able to completely re-roll every single thing except your name at the PowerHouse is pretty darn nice. Now, just give me 2-4 more power slots, a good KB device or two, and we'll be gtg  : )

[Xev]

Had to update this saga due to the edge of yer seatiness of the topic..

Nearly 3 weeks later and I finally have a final... draft of my first FF build. It somehow ended up as the original Kosmoz started out to be, with Fire and Ice, and there's some whirling blades in there too,

Hat's off to this process. Looking forward to finishing it and starting it again... Prolly ~ the time of the next z-store sale.

As a side note, I understand why this isn't true for a lot of people, but, in my situation I think it's awesome that FF slots can be bought. I can live with the fact that I can't color code my powers, but, I dunno how it would hurt the game if I could. Having people running around with cooler looking toons seems like better advertising to me. There are plenty of other restrictions to get around if you buy your FF slots rather than rent them/get them via LTS. I'm happy. Just a thought.