I agree. Blaster is the best. Make sure you add flying to your powersets so that you can hover above the bad guys as you attack. It makes it harder for them to hit you.
Originally posted by Warstrike Assuming that by "best", you mean "Most powerful", then I suggest Fire/Dev Blaster, and then take FireBreath/FireBall/Rain of Fire. Then fight nothing but large groups of Minions.
Hardly. They may do the most damage, but they're not the most powerful. Before the update, I've never seen a blaster be able to solo Monster type mobs in the Hive. I was able to do so with my controller however.
I will agree though, blasters are the easiest archetype to play as.
Well I like to say it depends on your play style. There's two melee archetypes if you like to get up close to the action and trade blows. Of the two, tankers are easier to play and they are hard to kill while scrappers dish out the damage (and can take it if built right.) But if you are starting out, pick a class where no one expects a whole lot of responsibility from you -- blaster or scrapper. With either one you don't have to worry about doing any other job but attacking something.
Tanks, everyone expects you save them when they throw around area attacks without thought and get themselves killed. They can also get dull to play after awhile (at least to me.)
Defender, they expect you to heal, even though all defenders are not healers (empaths.)
Controller, they don't know what to make of you so you can do pretty much anything. Controllers do best in parties, they can solo but you should know what you are doing.
Scrappers and blasters are more difficult to keep alive since they get so much attention dishing out that damage. So it takes skill to keep them alive.
But starting out I'd say tank for melee (just because tanks can take alot of abuse and is a more forgiving archetype), blaster for ranged attacks. Just be careful what you shoot at as a blaster.
Some free advice to whomever it applies to: If you want people to take you seriously in life, learn to spell.
My brother started as a scrapper (don't remember setup) and I started as an Assault/Dev blaster. Both of us settled in pretty quick, and my bro usually takes a bit longer to get used to it.
Just try to go with your playing style from other games.
Played: PlanetSide, Dark Age of Camelot, Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Runescape, Project Entropia (crap) Tested: Planetside, City of Heroes, Runescape
Originally posted by Skyless Hardly. They may do the most damage, but they're not the most powerful. Before the update, I've never seen a blaster be able to solo Monster type mobs in the Hive. I was able to do so with my controller however.
I will agree though, blasters are the easiest archetype to play as.
Are you being PAID to be an idiot?
Controllers are widely accepted as the weakest AT in the game- even by Controllers. Why is it that there's ALWAYS some doofus who knows NOTHING about the game that pops in to threads like this, and give the worst advice humanly possible?
Most Controllers can't even solo after level 20 or so. Unless you're one of those guys that thinks Sleeping a group, then spending 30 minutes Levitating and Dropping them makes you tough. You sir, have NO idea what you're talking about, and frankly, I sort of question whether you've actually played the game.
EDIT: I almost sort of regret the flame here, but geeze. This is like claiming that Monks are the best EQ class. Only worse. Statesman has spent the last couple of weeks acknowledging that Controllers aren't very useful, which resulted in possibly the lamest Buff I've ever seen in any MMORPG. Hey, if someone wants to play a Controller, fine, but don't be stupid. The guy asked which AT was the "best", and Controllers most assuredly aren't.
________________________________ They care. We don't. They win.
Weapon X- actually you are doofus the who knows NOTHING. I doubt you've leveled past 20 and if you have then lord have mercy. Next time instead of using Gravity as an example why not use Fire instead and sound even dumber than you do now.
"Controllers are widely accepted as the weakest AT in the game- even by Controllers. Why is it that there's ALWAYS some doofus who knows NOTHING about the game that pops in to threads like this, and give the worst advice humanly possible?
Most Controllers can't even solo after level 20 or so. Unless you're one of those guys that thinks Sleeping a group, then spending 30 minutes Levitating and Dropping them makes you tough. You sir, have NO idea what you're talking about, and frankly, I sort of question whether you've actually played the game."
My Gravity/Radiation controller couldn't solo much of anything after lvl 20, thats for sure. However there is no need to solo in CoH.
Some will aggree, others not, but controllers have the most powerful powers.
No other class can do things as drastic as a controller can. The really make a difference when fighting nasty stuff in parties. Being able to disable multiple enemies... such as my gravity controller. Being able to make multiple foes hover in the air defensless like a body bag for the tanks to punch without getting harmed is indeed a very strong power.
Also being able to shift over 10 enemies into another dimension where they can't damage you and you can't damage them when shit hits the fan is another very powerful power, for getting away or healing up. Or just buying time while you kill the other 10 enemies that made it through without being shifted.
Ice controllers makeing a sheet of ice that the enemies can't make it across... leaving them sitting ducks for the blasters is a great power.
These are just the tip of the controller power set and all these can be recieved while you are still pretty low level.
When City of Villians comes out Controllers will cause havok in zerg groups.
But anyways I think every class in CoH is an easy class... The main 3 I played were:
Rogue Protocol - Gravity/Radiation Controller
GRAFFiX - Empathy/Radiation Defender
The Frost Specter - Ice/Ice Blaster
Ice/Ice Blaster is kinda like a cross between a controller and a blaster... Didnt nuke as hard as alot of other blasters, but he could lock down the enemy and do crowd control pretty well.
I played a few melee combos... katana scrapper was boring same with the martial arts scrapper. Didnt try any fire or ice tanks but all the weaponed ones were boring... wanted to feel like a super hero, not like some EQ reject stuck in a world of super heros.
Anyways, I'd recommend either a controller, blaster, or a defender to start with.
Originally posted by Weapon-X Are you being PAID to be an idiot? Controllers are widely accepted as the weakest AT in the game- even by Controllers. Why is it that there's ALWAYS some doofus who knows NOTHING about the game that pops in to threads like this, and give the worst advice humanly possible? Most Controllers can't even solo after level 20 or so. Unless you're one of those guys that thinks Sleeping a group, then spending 30 minutes Levitating and Dropping them makes you tough. You sir, have NO idea what you're talking about, and frankly, I sort of question whether you've actually played the game.
EDIT: I almost sort of regret the flame here, but geeze. This is like claiming that Monks are the best EQ class. Only worse. Statesman has spent the last couple of weeks acknowledging that Controllers aren't very useful, which resulted in possibly the lamest Buff I've ever seen in any MMORPG. Hey, if someone wants to play a Controller, fine, but don't be stupid. The guy asked which AT was the "best", and Controllers most assuredly aren't.
Is your main level... 20? Because obviously you've never seen a level 32+ Gravity, Illusion, or Fire controller. Fire Imps for instance easily eat through groups of mobs. Do you know who solo's in the Rikti Crash Site? I can tell you it isn't blasters. Come back and flame me when you get to 30.
Controllers are widely accepted as the weakest AT in the game- even by Controllers. Why is it that there's ALWAYS some doofus who knows NOTHING about the game that pops in to threads like this, and give the worst advice humanly possible?
Most Controllers can't even solo after level 20 or so. Unless you're one of those guys that thinks Sleeping a group, then spending 30 minutes Levitating and Dropping them makes you tough. You sir, have NO idea what you're talking about, and frankly, I sort of question whether you've actually played the game.
The problem with controllers is that they make very difficult encounters easier.
This was all well and dandy when the most difficult encounters also gave the best exp. They changed that. Now you get more exp by blasting through hundreds of low level guys than you get by fighting a few hard guys.
They also changed things so that what were previously "hard" guys are now "IMPOSSIBLE" guys. There's a wall of power at level + 4-6 that you just can't get past.
Originally posted by Warstrike Let me get this straight. Some of you are arguing that CONTROLLERS are the best class in the game? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH...
*chortle* *gasp* Hokey Smokes, batman. That's just... silly. Again, I offer my open challange: you start a Controller on Freedom Server. I'll start a Blaster. The one of us that makes it to level 10 first wins. The loser shuts up and goes away. I feel even better about this challange than I did about my similar Scrapper challange.
You see power as the ability to kill. The controllers power is not for killing which is why they seem week. But the magnitude of their powers is far greater then any other class. With this little race to 10 crap, I can see that you are stubborn about this, have not made it to the higher levels where stuff will kill in 2 hits, and so I am not going to waste time argueing with ya about this.
I will tell you what makes controllers suck though... there are too many of them. A party needs lots of blasters and scrappers, even tanks. A party with too many controllers is useless, near invulnerable, but useless since they cannot kill with any sort of speed.
The Info given about them even states my points:
Controller
The Controller specializes in manipulating the actions of foes, causing them to stand immobile in battle, or controlling their movements, or even turning them against their allies. This is perhaps the most challenging archetype to play, but potentially one of the most powerful. Controllers have very little defense against enemies not under their direct control.
A Controller who wishes to adventure solo must do so with extreme caution. The archetype really comes into its own as part of a group.
Race to level 10 shows how ignorant you are about the class. Controllers aren't like blasters, scrappers, tanks where they get attack power after attack power after attack power.
Contollers don't really begin to even shine until after the 20's. Also, as stated in the description, they are non a solo class, and the question isnt the best solo class.
Guys guys guys. You can't discuss things with Weapon-X and Warstrike. They are waaaay to self-righteous. It's like trying to reason with Hitler that Jews ain't so bad.
Warstrike, you don't see your challenge as asinine? Maybe the original question wasn't necessarily about power for the "best" class? He didn't say whats the most damaging class . How about I challenge you to take your level 7 blaster and walk into the middle of a mob of level 9 Skulls in PP vs my level 7 Illusion Controller and see who lives longer? Or maybe a challenge of level 32s, your blaster vs my Fire controller in Rikti crash site, see who lives longer? Or when PvP comes out, your blaster vs my controller, all the fireballs on the planet won't help you when I get a blind on you with my Illusion controller. Or heck, forget about Controllers, your blaster vs my invul tanker against a mob of consigliers 4 levels higher than us(sp? geez thats a tough one to spell)? "Best" is incredibly subjective. It's just that YOU are a powergamer and see "best" as strictly "who kills the most and gets to 50 the fastest".
Can anyone give me some help? I may make a tank since they sound fun and they are powerful [as said in the guide]. What kind of tank should I pick? Sorry to get on topic but I want to stop this flaming AND get my answer replied to.
-----------------
"Aim at the King and you better not miss"~Omar "The Wire"
"Whoever controls the media controls the mind..-'Jim Morrison"
"When decorum is repression, the only dignity free men have is to speak out." ~Abbie Hoffman
We can answer questions, but the original question was vague. There is no "best" in general. There IS a best in damage, a best in damage mitigation, a best in crowd control etc.
If you were making a tank, the most popular in general is probably an invulnerability/Anything tanker. Invul is very popular because its all about defenses and you can become invincible (basically). The other popular flavor is fire tankers, they can solo pretty well.
So I would say if you want to group, I would vote playing an invulnerability tanker. A lot of the other types of tankers have...issues of one sort or another. Just my 2c.
Originally posted by Kiamde Can anyone give me some help? I may make a tank since they sound fun and they are powerful [as said in the guide]. What kind of tank should I pick? Sorry to get on topic but I want to stop this flaming AND get my answer replied to.-----------------"Aim at the King and you better not miss"~Omar "The Wire"
About any tank is good. You should pick something that sounds like fun. Use your imagination to make up a cool origin and pick the powers from that. If you have difficulties with that you could just try a fire/fire tanker (they got nerfed but still are powerful) or a invuln/superstr tanker and I know a few of them that do quite well. The difficulty in playing tanks, though, is that you burn through endurance like fire through a stack of paper. You have to learn to balance your abilities to try to last long enough to survive the fight.
Thing is that you should pick something you enjoy to play. Asking people what you think you should play will only get you conflicting views especially at a place like this. They got in this arguement on who is the most powerful which is what you didn't ask and they didnt' think of what would be the most fun for you to play. If you judged the most powerful as the one that does the most damage, then yes controllers are far from the most powerful. The problem is that is such a shortsighted and narrow viewed opinion which was expected from the likes of the ones agueing against. Controllers are the crowd controllers and some of them are the healers. If you like to get into groups, I hear people speaking over broadcast looking for controllers for their task force team or regular team. They are much prized for a big group because missions scale up in numbers and you are fighting up to around 20 at a time. One of my regular partners is an illusion controller and he always turns a near impossible fight to a rather easy one.
Moral of the story? Try to pick what you think would be fun to play.
I have to admit, blaster is the best starting class (that was the question, wasn't it?) You can get a feel for the game and strategy and you can basically stay in the same place and shoot-shoot-shoot... however, once you get some skill, you may want something more challenging (and more versatile, and more powerful) in which case, you may want to go the range route (controller and defender) or the melee route (Scrapper and Tanker) any of which can be a lot of fun and are almost always much less boring...
Many people who continue to play the best starting class burn themselves out without experiencing more challenging and advanced options...
Also, "Best" is clearly subjective... and "most powerful" doesn't really matter when you're talking about a group class... imho, stopping the enemies from attacking is more important than hurting them... if the enemies are in a constant standstill, killing them is no sweat, blaster damage just makes it quicker... I believe the only thing blasters really qualify as is the "fastest levelling class" honestly... I really don't see them as having any other category exclusively...
---------------------------- City of Heroes Fanboy Future Game Designer All-around bad mutha-shutchomouf
All classes have potential soloing abliites. Blasters are great killing machines, but the threat of being defeated is a constant. Controllers (fire and illusion) have great pets that do repectable damage. A soloing controller can immobilize large groups, buff their pets, debuff the mobs, and then basically sit back and watch as their pets own all. The only problem is getting to level 32 in order to get your pet. A controller between 10-32 is going to be dependant on teaming in order to level up. Now tankers are alomst never in a threat of being defeated, within reason. You just have to be prepared fpr a slow fight as you slowly widdle down the mobs HP. I cannot really comment on scrappers and defenders since I haven't played those ATs much.
Also last time I checked the Rikti Crash site was limited to level 40s and higher not level 32s.
I think the Blaster is the easiest to play and get used to. I started with melee guys and got bored of them quickly, but after playing several different classes and getting into the game a bit more, I came back to my melee guys and had a lot more fun with them.
Controllers and Defenders are support chars, no doubt, but these are the classes that make the big battles do-able. A group isn't very good unless it has a controller and/or defender in it.
Like others have said, it depends on your style of play. Luckily it takes very little invested time to play a character enough to get the feel for what it will be like so you can decide within a few hours whether you want to stick with a character for a longer haul.
Superstar Sam COH Triumph Server Blaster Girl, The Enchanted One
Superstar Sam WoW Cenarion Circle Server Hansola - Tauren Druid
I've played every AT to a respectable level, I'm in a guild of crazy power gamers and have grouped for hours on end with every possible combination of powers (thou minimal amount of defender experience, defenders are marginal at best except for Empath defenders going on a trial)
Definately the easiest and most powerful AT out there is the Blaster, best friend has just about every AT over 35, and his latest was a fire/devices blaster, took him a very short amount of time to get to 40, he's a crazy powerleveler, the sheer volume of mobs he can take out is amazing.
Inferno-jump to next group
Tripmine-Fireball-jump to next group
Time bomb-jump to next group
Its his blitzkrieg method, and the only limiting factor is how many mobs he can find.
My highest is a fire-rad controller build for crazy fire monkey damage and he rocks, thou after the next 'patch' he will be pretty hampered, I can't kill as fast, but I can hold my own and it's pretty satisfying to be able to power level a bunch of guildies with a controller.
IMO(I only play for a week): Scapper, Anything(I love Broadsword because I dont like superheroes) and Regeneration. You will be very solo able, and will still have a very great attraction to others. If you want to powerlevel(which I never do on purpose, only did once lately in IP) just group someone that make it so you take almost no damage in fight(many controller or defenders) and duo to get awesome XP, you can get a level an hour easily with the right duo ally, raking wastes in the game. Dont waste time to get travel oriented stuff, the controller or defenders will haste you permanently which is all you need...with the right duo partners, wasting pack of reds with 1 purple wont even qualify as hard althought going a little lower is more efficient. Of course you can go the controller or defender way, but it mean you need to find someone, and dont ask me which paths are good, if it work, it is good!
Why I would somewhat advice against a Blaster...now a Blaster is not bad, but you need to fight with style, to prepare every fight, and if it goes wrong, it goes wrong fast. A Blaster is a good choice, but it is not as easy going as a scrapper would be. If you are caugh off guard, you usually dont care much with a scrapper, with a Blaster it can get nasty fast, walk into 2 purple boss with a Blaster and tell me...do that with a scrapper and enjoy the XP if you are a powerplayer(oky less efficient then planned, but can do anyway).
If you plan on grouping, so many options I dont know, but controllers, defenders and tankers are mostly designed to work with others.
- "EQ2 or WoW? I wont touch it! Not even with a stick!''
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
You also may want to consider a empathy/rad defender with an AoE heal and the 1st 2 radiation attack powers. This will allow you to heal yourself as you go, deal out an ok amount of damamge (each shot is low in damamge, but the recharge rate is really, really fast so you will kick out a bunch of it), and be highly desireable for pick-up groups. With the new endurance cost reduction and the ability to heal yourself you can have less down time which = more action. More action = more fun. When you eventually get endurance aura coupled with hasten (and you will have hasten, it is just too good to pass up) you and your group will have nearly 0 down time.
Comments
The best class to start as would be a Blaster. They are ranged attackers and have high offense but weak defense.
A Trial area is a zone where you have to be a certain level to enter it.
I agree. Blaster is the best. Make sure you add flying to your powersets so that you can hover above the bad guys as you attack. It makes it harder for them to hit you.
Playing: WoW
Retired: EQ, SB, EVE, SWG, CoH, EQ2
Hardly. They may do the most damage, but they're not the most powerful. Before the update, I've never seen a blaster be able to solo Monster type mobs in the Hive. I was able to do so with my controller however.
I will agree though, blasters are the easiest archetype to play as.
Well I like to say it depends on your play style. There's two melee archetypes if you like to get up close to the action and trade blows. Of the two, tankers are easier to play and they are hard to kill while scrappers dish out the damage (and can take it if built right.) But if you are starting out, pick a class where no one expects a whole lot of responsibility from you -- blaster or scrapper. With either one you don't have to worry about doing any other job but attacking something.
Tanks, everyone expects you save them when they throw around area attacks without thought and get themselves killed. They can also get dull to play after awhile (at least to me.)
Defender, they expect you to heal, even though all defenders are not healers (empaths.)
Controller, they don't know what to make of you so you can do pretty much anything. Controllers do best in parties, they can solo but you should know what you are doing.
Scrappers and blasters are more difficult to keep alive since they get so much attention dishing out that damage. So it takes skill to keep them alive.
But starting out I'd say tank for melee (just because tanks can take alot of abuse and is a more forgiving archetype), blaster for ranged attacks. Just be careful what you shoot at as a blaster.
Some free advice to whomever it applies to: If you want people to take you seriously in life, learn to spell.
My brother started as a scrapper (don't remember setup) and I started as an Assault/Dev blaster. Both of us settled in pretty quick, and my bro usually takes a bit longer to get used to it.
Just try to go with your playing style from other games.
Played: PlanetSide, Dark Age of Camelot, Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Runescape, Project Entropia (crap)
Tested: Planetside, City of Heroes, Runescape
Are you being PAID to be an idiot?
Controllers are widely accepted as the weakest AT in the game- even by Controllers. Why is it that there's ALWAYS some doofus who knows NOTHING about the game that pops in to threads like this, and give the worst advice humanly possible?
Most Controllers can't even solo after level 20 or so. Unless you're one of those guys that thinks Sleeping a group, then spending 30 minutes Levitating and Dropping them makes you tough. You sir, have NO idea what you're talking about, and frankly, I sort of question whether you've actually played the game.
EDIT: I almost sort of regret the flame here, but geeze. This is like claiming that Monks are the best EQ class. Only worse. Statesman has spent the last couple of weeks acknowledging that Controllers aren't very useful, which resulted in possibly the lamest Buff I've ever seen in any MMORPG. Hey, if someone wants to play a Controller, fine, but don't be stupid. The guy asked which AT was the "best", and Controllers most assuredly aren't.
________________________________
They care. We don't. They win.
"Controllers are widely accepted as the weakest AT in the game- even by Controllers. Why is it that there's ALWAYS some doofus who knows NOTHING about the game that pops in to threads like this, and give the worst advice humanly possible?
Most Controllers can't even solo after level 20 or so. Unless you're one of those guys that thinks Sleeping a group, then spending 30 minutes Levitating and Dropping them makes you tough. You sir, have NO idea what you're talking about, and frankly, I sort of question whether you've actually played the game."
My Gravity/Radiation controller couldn't solo much of anything after lvl 20, thats for sure. However there is no need to solo in CoH.
Some will aggree, others not, but controllers have the most powerful powers.
No other class can do things as drastic as a controller can. The really make a difference when fighting nasty stuff in parties. Being able to disable multiple enemies... such as my gravity controller. Being able to make multiple foes hover in the air defensless like a body bag for the tanks to punch without getting harmed is indeed a very strong power.
Also being able to shift over 10 enemies into another dimension where they can't damage you and you can't damage them when shit hits the fan is another very powerful power, for getting away or healing up. Or just buying time while you kill the other 10 enemies that made it through without being shifted.
Ice controllers makeing a sheet of ice that the enemies can't make it across... leaving them sitting ducks for the blasters is a great power.
These are just the tip of the controller power set and all these can be recieved while you are still pretty low level.
When City of Villians comes out Controllers will cause havok in zerg groups.
But anyways I think every class in CoH is an easy class... The main 3 I played were:
Rogue Protocol - Gravity/Radiation Controller
GRAFFiX - Empathy/Radiation Defender
The Frost Specter - Ice/Ice Blaster
Ice/Ice Blaster is kinda like a cross between a controller and a blaster... Didnt nuke as hard as alot of other blasters, but he could lock down the enemy and do crowd control pretty well.
I played a few melee combos... katana scrapper was boring same with the martial arts scrapper. Didnt try any fire or ice tanks but all the weaponed ones were boring... wanted to feel like a super hero, not like some EQ reject stuck in a world of super heros.
Anyways, I'd recommend either a controller, blaster, or a defender to start with.
- GRAFFiX -
Mostly Harmless Guild ♦ Youtube ♦ Sponsored by Mr. Beer
Controllers are widely accepted as the weakest AT in the game- even by Controllers. Why is it that there's ALWAYS some doofus who knows NOTHING about the game that pops in to threads like this, and give the worst advice humanly possible?
Most Controllers can't even solo after level 20 or so. Unless you're one of those guys that thinks Sleeping a group, then spending 30 minutes Levitating and Dropping them makes you tough. You sir, have NO idea what you're talking about, and frankly, I sort of question whether you've actually played the game.
The problem with controllers is that they make very difficult encounters easier.
This was all well and dandy when the most difficult encounters also gave the best exp. They changed that. Now you get more exp by blasting through hundreds of low level guys than you get by fighting a few hard guys.
They also changed things so that what were previously "hard" guys are now "IMPOSSIBLE" guys. There's a wall of power at level + 4-6 that you just can't get past.
Mostly Harmless Guild ♦ Youtube ♦ Sponsored by Mr. Beer
Guys guys guys. You can't discuss things with Weapon-X and Warstrike. They are waaaay to self-righteous. It's like trying to reason with Hitler that Jews ain't so bad.
Warstrike, you don't see your challenge as asinine? Maybe the original question wasn't necessarily about power for the "best" class? He didn't say whats the most damaging class . How about I challenge you to take your level 7 blaster and walk into the middle of a mob of level 9 Skulls in PP vs my level 7 Illusion Controller and see who lives longer? Or maybe a challenge of level 32s, your blaster vs my Fire controller in Rikti crash site, see who lives longer? Or when PvP comes out, your blaster vs my controller, all the fireballs on the planet won't help you when I get a blind on you with my Illusion controller. Or heck, forget about Controllers, your blaster vs my invul tanker against a mob of consigliers 4 levels higher than us(sp? geez thats a tough one to spell)? "Best" is incredibly subjective. It's just that YOU are a powergamer and see "best" as strictly "who kills the most and gets to 50 the fastest".
Can anyone give me some help? I may make a tank since they sound fun and they are powerful [as said in the guide]. What kind of tank should I pick? Sorry to get on topic but I want to stop this flaming AND get my answer replied to.
-----------------
"Aim at the King and you better not miss"~Omar "The Wire"
"Whoever controls the media controls the mind..-'Jim Morrison"
"When decorum is repression, the only dignity free men have is to speak out." ~Abbie Hoffman
We can answer questions, but the original question was vague. There is no "best" in general. There IS a best in damage, a best in damage mitigation, a best in crowd control etc.
If you were making a tank, the most popular in general is probably an invulnerability/Anything tanker. Invul is very popular because its all about defenses and you can become invincible (basically). The other popular flavor is fire tankers, they can solo pretty well.
So I would say if you want to group, I would vote playing an invulnerability tanker. A lot of the other types of tankers have...issues of one sort or another. Just my 2c.
About any tank is good. You should pick something that sounds like fun. Use your imagination to make up a cool origin and pick the powers from that. If you have difficulties with that you could just try a fire/fire tanker (they got nerfed but still are powerful) or a invuln/superstr tanker and I know a few of them that do quite well. The difficulty in playing tanks, though, is that you burn through endurance like fire through a stack of paper. You have to learn to balance your abilities to try to last long enough to survive the fight.
Thing is that you should pick something you enjoy to play. Asking people what you think you should play will only get you conflicting views especially at a place like this. They got in this arguement on who is the most powerful which is what you didn't ask and they didnt' think of what would be the most fun for you to play. If you judged the most powerful as the one that does the most damage, then yes controllers are far from the most powerful. The problem is that is such a shortsighted and narrow viewed opinion which was expected from the likes of the ones agueing against. Controllers are the crowd controllers and some of them are the healers. If you like to get into groups, I hear people speaking over broadcast looking for controllers for their task force team or regular team. They are much prized for a big group because missions scale up in numbers and you are fighting up to around 20 at a time. One of my regular partners is an illusion controller and he always turns a near impossible fight to a rather easy one.
Moral of the story? Try to pick what you think would be fun to play.
I have to admit, blaster is the best starting class (that was the question, wasn't it?) You can get a feel for the game and strategy and you can basically stay in the same place and shoot-shoot-shoot... however, once you get some skill, you may want something more challenging (and more versatile, and more powerful) in which case, you may want to go the range route (controller and defender) or the melee route (Scrapper and Tanker) any of which can be a lot of fun and are almost always much less boring...
Many people who continue to play the best starting class burn themselves out without experiencing more challenging and advanced options...
Also, "Best" is clearly subjective... and "most powerful" doesn't really matter when you're talking about a group class... imho, stopping the enemies from attacking is more important than hurting them... if the enemies are in a constant standstill, killing them is no sweat, blaster damage just makes it quicker... I believe the only thing blasters really qualify as is the "fastest levelling class" honestly... I really don't see them as having any other category exclusively...
----------------------------
City of Heroes Fanboy
Future Game Designer
All-around bad mutha-shutchomouf
The Illusion of Choice
wow, thanx guys.
lots o' info here.
All classes have potential soloing abliites. Blasters are great killing machines, but the threat of being defeated is a constant. Controllers (fire and illusion) have great pets that do repectable damage. A soloing controller can immobilize large groups, buff their pets, debuff the mobs, and then basically sit back and watch as their pets own all. The only problem is getting to level 32 in order to get your pet. A controller between 10-32 is going to be dependant on teaming in order to level up. Now tankers are alomst never in a threat of being defeated, within reason. You just have to be prepared fpr a slow fight as you slowly widdle down the mobs HP. I cannot really comment on scrappers and defenders since I haven't played those ATs much.
Also last time I checked the Rikti Crash site was limited to level 40s and higher not level 32s.
level 50 Fire/Fire Blaster
level 44 Fire/Kinetics Controllrr
level 36 Fire/Ice Tanker
level 50 Fire/Fire Blaster
level 44 Fire/Kinetics Controllrr
level 36 Fire/Ice Tanker
I think the Blaster is the easiest to play and get used to. I started with melee guys and got bored of them quickly, but after playing several different classes and getting into the game a bit more, I came back to my melee guys and had a lot more fun with them.
Controllers and Defenders are support chars, no doubt, but these are the classes that make the big battles do-able. A group isn't very good unless it has a controller and/or defender in it.
Like others have said, it depends on your style of play. Luckily it takes very little invested time to play a character enough to get the feel for what it will be like so you can decide within a few hours whether you want to stick with a character for a longer haul.
Superstar Sam
COH
Triumph Server
Blaster Girl, The Enchanted One
Superstar Sam
WoW
Cenarion Circle Server
Hansola - Tauren Druid
I've played every AT to a respectable level, I'm in a guild of crazy power gamers and have grouped for hours on end with every possible combination of powers (thou minimal amount of defender experience, defenders are marginal at best except for Empath defenders going on a trial)
Definately the easiest and most powerful AT out there is the Blaster, best friend has just about every AT over 35, and his latest was a fire/devices blaster, took him a very short amount of time to get to 40, he's a crazy powerleveler, the sheer volume of mobs he can take out is amazing.
Inferno-jump to next group
Tripmine-Fireball-jump to next group
Time bomb-jump to next group
Its his blitzkrieg method, and the only limiting factor is how many mobs he can find.
My highest is a fire-rad controller build for crazy fire monkey damage and he rocks, thou after the next 'patch' he will be pretty hampered, I can't kill as fast, but I can hold my own and it's pretty satisfying to be able to power level a bunch of guildies with a controller.
Anyways my 2 cents.
If you solo a lot or plan on soloing...
IMO(I only play for a week): Scapper, Anything(I love Broadsword because I dont like superheroes) and Regeneration. You will be very solo able, and will still have a very great attraction to others. If you want to powerlevel(which I never do on purpose, only did once lately in IP) just group someone that make it so you take almost no damage in fight(many controller or defenders) and duo to get awesome XP, you can get a level an hour easily with the right duo ally, raking wastes in the game. Dont waste time to get travel oriented stuff, the controller or defenders will haste you permanently which is all you need...with the right duo partners, wasting pack of reds with 1 purple wont even qualify as hard althought going a little lower is more efficient. Of course you can go the controller or defender way, but it mean you need to find someone, and dont ask me which paths are good, if it work, it is good!
Why I would somewhat advice against a Blaster...now a Blaster is not bad, but you need to fight with style, to prepare every fight, and if it goes wrong, it goes wrong fast. A Blaster is a good choice, but it is not as easy going as a scrapper would be. If you are caugh off guard, you usually dont care much with a scrapper, with a Blaster it can get nasty fast, walk into 2 purple boss with a Blaster and tell me...do that with a scrapper and enjoy the XP if you are a powerplayer(oky less efficient then planned, but can do anyway).
If you plan on grouping, so many options I dont know, but controllers, defenders and tankers are mostly designed to work with others.
- "EQ2 or WoW? I wont touch it! Not even with a stick!''
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
You also may want to consider a empathy/rad defender with an AoE heal and the 1st 2 radiation attack powers. This will allow you to heal yourself as you go, deal out an ok amount of damamge (each shot is low in damamge, but the recharge rate is really, really fast so you will kick out a bunch of it), and be highly desireable for pick-up groups. With the new endurance cost reduction and the ability to heal yourself you can have less down time which = more action. More action = more fun. When you eventually get endurance aura coupled with hasten (and you will have hasten, it is just too good to pass up) you and your group will have nearly 0 down time.
Kat Sacn: Lv 27 Emp/Rad Defender
Vangarse...out!