avenger-role
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Behind the Mask: Fixing the glass cannons
There's a sharp divide between the Champions Online that I play and the Champions Online played by the majority of the readers here at Massively. I play the heavily customized, freeform game -- and even among freeform players, I am aggressive in my builds. I avoid T0 blasts like the plague (although Two-Gun Mojo is pretty good), and I pick my powers with the sole intention of avoiding waste. Most of you guys play F2P now, and there's nothing wrong with that at all. All of the Archetypes are viable, especially in team situations. In general, they can't quite compete with a polished freeform character, but they're not dead spots in a lair, and they work surprisingly well when teamed up with freeform supermen (and women). Solo, it's a slightly different story. Of the current 10 Archetypes, most solo wonderfully, easily meeting the challenges present in the Normal difficulty game. That leaves three... and all share one similarity: They use the Avenger role. The Silver Avengers (not to be confused with the in-game organization of the same name) are very capable Archetypes. I've mentioned in the past that Inferno is one of the strongest, and to wit, all three Avengers absolutely roll through most content, especially on teams. Outside of teams, the three Avengers are so squishy that they suffer a bit when taking on the big baddies -- Master Villains and Super Villains. This week, I sought to find out the answer: Can Silver Avengers solo?
Behind the Mask: It's all about the DPS, baby
There is a lot of pressure on me right now to write a review for the May 4th melee patch, but I want to delay it because the developers are already tweaking things. So instead of hearing a rant about how sad I am that Psi Lash is nerfed, I will talk about the toughest, most challenging role in Champions Online -- the Avenger. The Avenger is the "glass cannon" of CO. Avengers have fewer hit points than their Guardian counterparts, and far less than the tank-like Protectors. Avengers cannot use defensive passives, or even support passives to increase their survivability. The last straw is that Avengers cannot heal as rapidly as other characters. These tradeoffs come at a massive benefit: the Avenger deals far more damage than other characters. What's even more awesome is that the Avenger's role bonus multiplies on the effects of other damage buffs, meaning that extra 20% damage never goes out of style. This guide won't be covering just the Avenger, though. It'll also cover Avenger's new cousin, the Brawler, as well as all the other ways to play a DPS machine in lairs and team content.
