The first part of GooGaming’s character creation guide for Champions Online covered how to choose your superstats and talents when planning and building your super hero. The second part of the guide is going to cover crafting and gear. Unlike more popular MMO’s. gear doesn’t make or break your character, the powers, superstats, talents, advantages you choose in addition to gear does.

This is one aspect of Champions Online I really enjoy and where I felt other MMO’s were lacking. Personally I don’t want to spend hours raiding to try to get the best gear or PvP for hours on end to become all I can be. Rather proper planning and building of your character and of course playing your character well and leveling is what should make a player’s character strong not that I grinded for 100 hours to get an epic drop. This methodology just rewards the players who have an uber amount of time to play.

So there are three methods you can choose when determining what type of crafting would best fit your Champion. Of course these are just general suggestions take these ideas and mix and match as you see fit.

1) Use crafting to boost super stats.
2) Use crafting to boost secondary stats.
3) Use crafting to boost both super stats and secondary stats.

The first method always seems to be the best choice. Players want their super stats extremely high because it links to their damage. Well the only disadvantage to this method is the game has a hard damage cap. Meaning you can’t go above a certain level. So maxing out your super stats sounds good if all you care about are the secondary effects they give like health, crit chance, etc… because eventually you will hit a damage cap and you may be able to do that with just talents or one piece of gear by the time you hit max level.

The second method is beneficial especially if you want a well rounded character. Your talents and super stat bonus should be able to take care of your damage output while your secondary stats should help round out your charcter with either more health, better energy regen, etc…

The last method is very beneficial as well but is a bit more complex. If you can pick a crafting area which covers your super stats and secondary stats than it’s a no brainer, all the items you craft will help out all your stats and you are good to go. However if you can’t cover all your stats you may need to supplement by either buying gear or getting some quest gear, which really isn’t hard either.

After deciding which method you would like to use you need to know which crafting specialty givse you what types of items and enhancements you are looking for:

Arms:
• Utility: No PRE
• Defense: No EGO, END, INT, PRE
• Offense: No PRE

Science:
• Utility: No PRE
• Defense: No DEX, REC, STR
• Offense: No PRE

Mysticism:
• Utility: No CON
• Defense: No CON, DEX, REC, STR
• Offense: No CON

So that’s all for this portion of the guide I will be working on finishing the last pieces regarding powers and advantages. These can be much trickier choices. The first portion of this Character Creation Guide can help you decide on what super stats and talents to choose when building your Champion.

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Champions Online character creation is very detailed and coming up with a sweet looking costume isn’t all that hard. Most gamers have no issue with that part of the game, but what I am seeing more and more are players asking what is the best build for my character, what talents or characteristic focus (super stat) should I take. After those decisions than there are power choices, crafting and much more. So in this first post I am going to explain how I choose my super stats and talents for my characters and in later posts I will explain crafting choices, powers and anything else that makes sense.

So lets begin, if you already read my post about characteristic focus or super stats than you know that most powers damage output is tied to these choices, however there are a few powers which scale based off of specific stats. If you know from the beginning that you are going to choose a power like Fiery Form which scales with recovery and presence than some stat decisions may become a lot easier.

Above are all the super stats and during your leveling you will be able to choose two of them. These stats will than increase as you level so they are pretty important choices and retcon is not very cheap. When planning my character I usually plan four stats to focus on, sometime three is possible but just focusing on two stats may leave your character lacking in health or energy. I tend to want to make my characters well rounded.

In most cases the choices below make sense for the role or how you plan to play your character but of course different power choices and other factors may make other stats a better choice. I didn’t want to give advice on stats for specific power sets because your character can have powers from all different sets, so by role or play style will be more useful.

Solo: For super stats I usually choose Con/Rec for survivability and Dex/Ego as secondary to have strong critical hits for dps or int/pre if I want help from pets.

Melee Damage Dealer: For super stats Str/Dex for strong consistent hits and high crit chance and Ego/End to increase crit damage and end to have a bigger energy pool. You can also go super stats Dex/Ego and than Str/End if you like big hits with bursty damage.

Ranged Damage Dealer: Super stats Dex/Ego makes for a high dps character and secondary Rec/End for energy regeneration. However the beauty of ranged damage dealer is no single stat buffs its damage like Str does for melee so in most cases your super stats gives your damage potential. Dex and Ego help with crits but if that doesn’t matter to you than you can take some healing stats like Pre or pet stats like Int/Pre and fill two roles in a group.

Tank: Pretty straight forward super stats would be con with either str or rec depending on the passive power you chose to tank with. Right now power armor, regeneration and defiance are the top picks and these powers scale with one or two of these stats.

Healer: Superstats are Pre and End since Pre increases your heals and healing powers tend to be on the hefty side for energy. I would secondary in Int to lower power cost and cooldowns than maybe rec or con for energy or health.

Pets: Superstats are Pre for pet health and Int for pet damage. Secondary is pretty open ended I would pick anything that will help with your characters damage if melee go Str or ranged for Dex/Ego. You can start to see how some builds can play multiple roles.

Now let me show you why I usually choose four stats to focus on. Two is your super stats and the other two I consider secondary stats which are important to round out your character. When it comes to talents you get seven choices while maxing out your character. If you choose four stats to focus on than choosing talents becomes this simple.

Choose the two talents which give +8 to super stats
Choose the one talent which give +5 to both super stats
Choose the four talents which give +5 to super stats
and +5 to secondary stats

I like examples because it helps solidify what has been explained. Lets say I was making a solo character I would choose con and rec for my super stats and than int and pre for my secondary because I want to have pets for backup damage and heals. If these are the stats I chose than my talents would be as follows:

1. Enduring +8 Con
2. Tireless +8 Rec
3. Quick Recovery +5 Con +5 Rec
4. Healthy Mind +5 Con +5 Int
5. Shrug it Off +5 Con +5 Pre
6. Negotiator +5 Rec +5 Int
7. Lasting Impressions +5 Rec +5 Pre

So this is the first part of the character creation guide for Champions Online. The second portion of this Character Creation Guide can help you decide on what crafting specialty to choose when building your Champion.

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Now that Champions Online have been out for a few weeks and we have definitely been able to put in some gaming hours. Its time to actually talk and give some information and insight on the game. GooGaming is planning to post often about different powers and there advantages, disadvantages and in some cases nerfs and buffs as they come out. The first power that I have found to be the most versatile no matter what champion build I go with is Force Eruption.

This power is useful in many ways. First its a close range area of effect ability. For gamers new to MMO’s the term aoe is used alot and it basically means its an ability which will do damage or heal multiple targets in a certain area. Personally I am a sucker for good aoe abilities. Force eruption is a close range aoe which means the bubble or area where the damage is done starts at your character and spreads out.

So enough about what aoe is, what makes Force Eruption a great ability? Well not only does it do descent damage to up to five targets there is also a knockback effect. This usually sends the enemies flying and can be used as an escape if used early enough in a fight. The longer you charge the ability the more damage and stronger the knockback is. Another plus is the damage doesn’t scale with a single stat its based off your chosen Super Stats which makes it very versatile.

Now this power really starts to shine when you look at the possible advantages you can take. For damage dealers gravitational polarity is a must, it creates a circle for 20 seconds where the player used Force Eruption. When the player who created it stands in it they get a 20% bonus to their damage, all types! This is huge and the circle appears whether you just tap the ability or if its fully charged. So for 6.5 energy you can up your damage per second by 20% for 20 seconds that’s just sweet! I have a feeling this may get tweaked down the line but for now lets enjoy it.

If you are in a tank role Challenging Strikes will give the ability some threat generation when using the ability. This can be a cheap way to get the aggro of 5 enemies around you. Force Eruption also has the standard rank ups and Accelerated Metabolism to help with energy regeneration if you plan to spam the ability.

So overall I recommend Force Eruption for all players for almost any build. Especially this ability is available to most players earlier in their levels because all you need is one power in force or two non-energy builder powers from an other power set.

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Since Champions Online didn’t ship without an instruction manual Cryptic decided to make one available online. So the Player’s Manual online isn’t too bad. Especially if you are first starting out, the manual may help you out.

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Lots of last minute changes to many of the character abilities in Champions Online led gamers to demand free respecs for their characters. The latest patch doesn’t include a re-specialization feature but there’s an easy way to do it anyway.

All you have to do is: Type /Character_UseFreeRespec in chat at your Power Trainer and have the dialog box open for this to work. It will remove all your powers without warning, so be careful. Enjoy remaking your super hero.

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