When and How to Pick your Powers

Part 1: Character Creation

Champions Online (CO) is a classless system like Ultima Online (UO) -- this means when you first join Champions you aren't asked if you want to be a Tank, a Healer, Crowd Controller or DPSer. You simply create your character and then choose any powers you want. You could choose almost all healing, all DPS, all defensive, etc... so the potential to "gimp" your character is there. In UO people would gimp their characters on purpose -- making a mule alt that would just mine minerals and make clothes. In CO that isn't an option -- CO is an action MMO that allows your one character to fill multiple roles.

When you go into the Character creator recall that CO was first a pen and paper RPG like D&D. People would spend hours or even days designing their pen and paper characters. The reason they did this was because of the freedom of their imagination they needed to focus their character. Before you start creating your character you need to do a bit of research. The openess is the beauty of Champions -- because you start with Power Armor doesn't mean you have to stay, you could do Power Armor and Martial Arts or Power Armor, Martials and Gadgets, etc... The combinations are endless. However, because of this openess there are consquences for your choices -- mostly on how effective of a player you will be.

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Part 2: Theory behind the Choices

This is a leveling guide, not an end game guide.  At Slashcry we consider every MMO (WoW, EQ, CoX, Aion) to be single player (with some grouping) games until end game.  So we are suggesting skills that will help you not your party.  We also believe that the harder you are to kill the easier life will be when soloing.  You might kill a bit slower, but you won't die as often and therefore should level easier.  We base this belief off of our WoW play time and how when I was a Paladin -- I rarely died or had downtime while leveling vs the Mages and Rogues who were pure DPS.  That is where we are coming from when we suggest you take a certain power type at a level.  We are only suggesting you take a power type, not which power because which power would only work if knew which frameworks you were going to work with -- you need to create synergy.

Part 3: Synergy

Since Champions Online is an open power system you can pick powers from any framework you want.  Right in the character creator you can do custom framework and pick an energy builder from martial arts and your first attack from might.  Creating and maintaing Synergy is the best way not to gimp yourself.  Many players like to pick a power from almost every framework and while possible, it is a sure fire way to lower your effectiveness.

When you pick the theme of your character and start picking powers you need to be aware of which stats benefit which frameworks.  That is how you create synergy.  Each framework has two stats that it benefits from.  This is similiar to WoW where Hunters and Rogues wanted Agility, Mages needed Int and Warriors needed Stamina.  Since CO is an open framework; in WoW it would be like combining a Warrior with a Hunter.  In Champions it is like picking powers from Martial Arts and Fire -- Right there is where we need to look does this Framework combo provide Synergy?

We will use Martial Arts Fists (MA-F) as our example.  Martial Arts benefits mostly from Strength (STR) and Dexterity (DEX).  If we stayed pure martials arts until level 40 we would want items with STR, DEX and Constitution (CON).  However lets say we want to break out of MA-F.  Well the obvious buddy powers are MA-Swords, MA-Dual Blades, MA-Claws -- these 3 power pools also use STR and DEX as their main stats.  So we are in line there with what we want to use as our Super Stat and which kind of items to equip.  However lets say we want to branch out of MA and into another Framework. 

First we would look do any of the other Frameworks use STR and DEX?  No (Click here to see Framework Stats).  Then we want to see which Frameworks at least benefit from STR: Might or Power Armor.  Then we need to check and see which benefit from DEX: Ice, Archery or Munitions.  So now we know we want to stay within those Frameworks when we branch out of our MA framework.  This will help us maintain Synergy.  If I choose MA and then paired with Electricity which benefits from Recovery and Endurance I would not have synergy.  My super stats would not be as effective and I would be torn as to which gear I should be equipping.  So this is the best way to make sure you aren't gimping yourself -- always pair up with powers that share at least one stat.

Part 4: Picking your Powers

You will want a defensive passive early on.  Sadly they aren't fun or cool powers.  They just do their job and make life a lot easier for you.  Also you will want an AoE early on because in Champions most pulls have anywhere from 3 to 8 NPCs in them. 

Advantage Points:  Our suggestion -- buff your AoE, heals and Defensive Passive.  Remember at 40 you can retcon.

Which Power type to Pick at which level:

Level 8: AoE: Champions Online has you fighting 3 to 8 mobs right from the start, so an AoE is important.
Level 11: Defensive Passive: Right now Regen is king for leveling.
Level 14: Ranged Attack: This will help with pulls if nothing is around to throw.
Level 17: Heal: Get a heal that at least heals yourself.  Notice by default most heals come with a debuff -- you generally do lower DPS while you heal.  So consider spending advantage points to remove that debuff.
Level 20: Block power  Get a power that buffs your blocking.:
Level 23: Attack: Pick another attack -- either single target or an AoE.
Level 26: Defensive Buff: Pick a power that gives you a defensive buff.  This will aid against bosses. 

Part 5: Tips

Stances: Remember to change your stance or build.  If you don't do well against a boss the first time around, try him again in Defensive stance.  Unless you're in a group with a predetermined role (DPS, Tank, etc.) you will almost always want to be in either Balanced or Defensive stances for leveling. The Defensive stance lowers your DPS, but as a tradeoff increases your HP (survivability) so it can be the difference in a boss fight.

Blocking: Remember to block or avoid NPC Tells.  CO is about active combat and a failure to block generally means you will fail against a boss.

Move: You can move while fighting in CO.  Remember to take advantage of Line of Sight. 

Crafting: Craft yourself Heal packs (Pots from WoW).  These are great against bosses.