City of Heroes: Choosing your First Archetype

Benajmin Sell’s guide to character creation highlights the pre issue-16 order of the character creator. In issue 16 you are given the option to jump to whatever step you like until you are satisfied with your character. My guide will expand and explain some of the specifics of, potentially, the most important decision you will make while creating your character: the Archetype. There are five basic Archetypes (or ATs for short) on each side of the game, hero and villain, as well as two Hero Epic Archetypes and two Villain Epic Archetypes. These last four ATs will be grayed out at the bottom of the list for new players and players without at least one maximum level hero and/or villain character.

click to enlarge

The rule of thumb is that new players should begin their heroics with either the Blaster Archetype or the Scrapper AT. For villains the suggestion has been that a first time player should begin with the Corruptor or Stalker Brute ATs. The City of Heroes developers have suggested the Stalker in the past. My feelings are that the Brute is easier to understand. For many people these are the most straightforward types of characters to play, they are mostly expected to damage the enemy as quickly as possible without too much direct concern for the well being of their allies (though ignoring them outright is also frowned on). Controllers, Defenders, Tankers, Dominators, and Masterminds are more specialized and are harder to pick up easily, though that task is certainly not impossible.

I’ve found that a good starting point to help people better choose their characters is through the conceptual. Especially with City of Heroes, where there is so much customization available to you, a general concept of a character might be useful. Do they have some sort of elemental control, like maybe fire or ice? Do they use a weapon or not? Can they take a lot of damage and stay on their feet? You could even give them a bit of an off-duty personality. Having a general character concept when you start might better help you figure out what exactly he or she does to fight or cause crime. The role a character plays is also important, but for the most part the following characters’ roles are similar enough to not matter significantly.

Ultimately, there are no wrong decisions and if you find that you don’t like the character you’ve created there is nothing stopping you from starting another one. For first time players I highly suggest playing your first character through to level 5, or even level 10. It doesn’t take that long to reach these milestones and keeping with your first character will give you a better sense of the game and how to play it. Generally I’ve found that when a player reaches level 10 for the first time they’ve got all the building blocks necessary to expand into the more difficult ATs.

Continue onto the next page to get a better idea of the Blaster Archetype and the sets you’ll be able to choose from.