Gold Archetype #2
Oct. 25th, 2011 12:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
achtungexplosivAnother week, another sampler for the cash shop archetypes in Champions Online. This time it's The Void; a mage type that uses and abuses dark energies to channel fear and suck health from it's opponents, aided by pets.
Week 2: The Void
I've played alongside a Void before; a friend of mine splashed out on purchasing the archetype when he played CO as a Silver. I had a bit of an idea of what to expect: something akin to the unholy lovechild of an Inferno and a Glacier archetypes that combines resiliance and limited control with plenty of ranged damage. The pets part was something I wasn't sure about, none of the Silver archetypes having any of their own.
I decided I'd roll up a new character entirely for this venture, and created La Masque D'Argent as an elegant lady with a dark secret before setting off into the MCPD vs the Qularr tutorial scenario. The basic two starting powers are your standard energy builder (with added Fear effects) and a harder hitting energy consumer (with added Fear effects). Already I began to sense the control and the ranged damage themes. With Constitution and Endurance as super stats, echoing the Glacier but with the priority swapped around, the tanking and sustained combat roles were immediately apparent.
As expected, it seemed to be a bit more powerful than either of it's Silver archetypal counterparts initially. Inferno damage with Glacier control and toughness. Fear effects reduce the damage output of whatever it is that's feared, and of course Con means hitpoints and Endu means a higher max power. With the usual runaround of the tutorial area it was fun and powerful, though perhaps not quite as silly as The Savage had been last week. Minimal effort for maximum reward on the open mission to fire Ironclad up the spout of the alien mothership, and Black Talon seemed to forget it was his job to try and kill me when it came to the final confrontation. It was all very straightforwards to play: keep a bit of a distance, powerbuild for a bit, powerspend for megaDD, rinse and repeat.
Once in the Ren Cen, a good recearch specialisation was tricky to come up with; Mysticism fits the concept but Arms suits the superstats. In the end I went for mysticism for variety. Flight is a no-brainer travel power for ranged characters and I set myself up to hit Canada as I'd done previously with The Savage.
Once in Canada I found that the Void's damage dried up somewhat, dropping down to Glacier levels and I found myself hoping that it'd pick up again soon. Luckily the slotted passive power, Shadow Form, seemed to be rather good as a defensive boost. Sadly I noticed that the pet is level 17 and I wasn't really planning to play this character long enough to get that far. With low DD I decided to take the boss encounter carefully and pick off the wandering ice zombie shamans and their minions first. The nice thing about Shadow Form is that the more youg et hit, the faster you generate energy (and also heal a bit). The boss fight wasn't worth writing home about.
Overall it was a slow burner to begin with and perhaps it might pick up at later levels but initially at least, there isn't really any reason to spend money on this archetype over the free Glacier.
Next Week
From the 27th, it's the turn of The Master - a new unarmed combat archetype that's somewhere between a defensive brawler and a kung fu king.
Week 2: The Void
I've played alongside a Void before; a friend of mine splashed out on purchasing the archetype when he played CO as a Silver. I had a bit of an idea of what to expect: something akin to the unholy lovechild of an Inferno and a Glacier archetypes that combines resiliance and limited control with plenty of ranged damage. The pets part was something I wasn't sure about, none of the Silver archetypes having any of their own.
I decided I'd roll up a new character entirely for this venture, and created La Masque D'Argent as an elegant lady with a dark secret before setting off into the MCPD vs the Qularr tutorial scenario. The basic two starting powers are your standard energy builder (with added Fear effects) and a harder hitting energy consumer (with added Fear effects). Already I began to sense the control and the ranged damage themes. With Constitution and Endurance as super stats, echoing the Glacier but with the priority swapped around, the tanking and sustained combat roles were immediately apparent.
As expected, it seemed to be a bit more powerful than either of it's Silver archetypal counterparts initially. Inferno damage with Glacier control and toughness. Fear effects reduce the damage output of whatever it is that's feared, and of course Con means hitpoints and Endu means a higher max power. With the usual runaround of the tutorial area it was fun and powerful, though perhaps not quite as silly as The Savage had been last week. Minimal effort for maximum reward on the open mission to fire Ironclad up the spout of the alien mothership, and Black Talon seemed to forget it was his job to try and kill me when it came to the final confrontation. It was all very straightforwards to play: keep a bit of a distance, powerbuild for a bit, powerspend for megaDD, rinse and repeat.
Once in the Ren Cen, a good recearch specialisation was tricky to come up with; Mysticism fits the concept but Arms suits the superstats. In the end I went for mysticism for variety. Flight is a no-brainer travel power for ranged characters and I set myself up to hit Canada as I'd done previously with The Savage.
Once in Canada I found that the Void's damage dried up somewhat, dropping down to Glacier levels and I found myself hoping that it'd pick up again soon. Luckily the slotted passive power, Shadow Form, seemed to be rather good as a defensive boost. Sadly I noticed that the pet is level 17 and I wasn't really planning to play this character long enough to get that far. With low DD I decided to take the boss encounter carefully and pick off the wandering ice zombie shamans and their minions first. The nice thing about Shadow Form is that the more youg et hit, the faster you generate energy (and also heal a bit). The boss fight wasn't worth writing home about.
Overall it was a slow burner to begin with and perhaps it might pick up at later levels but initially at least, there isn't really any reason to spend money on this archetype over the free Glacier.
Next Week
From the 27th, it's the turn of The Master - a new unarmed combat archetype that's somewhere between a defensive brawler and a kung fu king.
