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Behind the Mask: Mind over matter
I have been hounded a bit lately for more coverage on the free aspects of Champions Online and the options available to free players. Fortunately, even before I wrote last week's article on the penultimate freeform tank, I was planning to cover the Mind archetype next. The Mind is the Silver answer to a dedicated support character, and it is perhaps by accident that she is also the most interesting and powerful archetype in the game. She combines team support, healing, survivability, DPS, and self-sustainability into one neat package that is literally unrivaled by any other archetype, free or otherwise. Unlike other archetypes, the Mind is too complex to be summarized by one article. She's an exceptionally varied creature with many options. Because the essential advantages in her build are pretty loose, she can get all of her key powers with a minimum of sacrifice. Hit the jump and I'll show you how playing the Mind is more like playing a freeform character and less like playing an archetype.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: In the case of Corruptors
From a design standpoint, the archetypes offered by City of Villains are just straight-up more interesting than the ones in vanilla City of Heroes. The older archetypes were designed to fill specific holes, but the villainous types were designed for filling more than one role at once. It's true even of the most vanilla of all the archetypes, the Corruptor -- an archetype perhaps notable for being almost identical to a Defender, except in reverse. But there's more to the archetype than just having a damage primary and a support secondary -- if everything were that easily summarized, I would have been finished with this series on the first week. There are a lot of similarities to Defenders, sure, but the devil is in the details, especially with this particular class. So let's take a look at the insidious and powerful influence of the Corruptor, whether you're new to City of Heroes in general or just haven't played the class before.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: In the case of Tankers
If there's one thing that's always bothered me about the archetypes in City of Heroes -- the vanilla game, that is -- it's that none of them has a name that's particularly evocative, even though there are tons of examples that each archetype can draw upon. Today's archetype is a perfect example, one that covers Superman, Colossus, Giant-Man, Captain Marvel, even certain incarnations of more variable characters like Iron Man. But the name "Tanker" fails to conjure up images of anything beyond a dry recitation of party roles. Yes, this week we're discussing the third of four melee-heavy archetypes with the Tanker, as was hinted at the end of the last column. It's also the archetype closest to its two predecessors, coming with almost identical power selections in a slightly different order. But the Tanker's powers get prioritized in a very different way, so whether you're new to the game or just the class, let's take a look at how to make your Tanker as tanky as possible.
