New to game, extremely indecisive. :(

Hello everyone. I'm new to the game and I've just been having such a hard time deciding on a weapon, movement and power to use. I've made and scrapped about 30 or so characters now, having gotten no higher than level 10 simply because I end up switching powers or movement or weapon. I've switched from melee to range so often because every time I go to look up the answers I get go back and forth. Melee does more dps; range is safer and better for raids.

I was hoping for some advice or some insight so that I can hopefully finally pick a power, weapon, and movement that is perfect for me and can keep me entertained as I experience the game.

So far this is what I know I like

Allignment: Hero
Origin: like all 3
Weapon: Hand Blaster, Dual Pistol, Bow, Martial Arts, and Dual Wield
Power: Electric, Light, Quantum, and Sorcery
Movement: Acrobat, Super Speed

Now my only other real experience with MMOs is playing WoW for the past year and half or so and being a warlock for about 80% of that time with 10% being mage and the last 10% being a monk, but all my raiding experience is with warlock, though before this when I had been playing more off and on I was maining a Death Knight for some time before I went shadow priest/hunter and then the eventual warlock that I stayed with the longest.

I guess my biggest issue would be the fact that I'm torn between melee and ranged combat since every game I have is melee heavy games while a few offer a ranged option (and only a couple where range is better than melee) so I guess I'm more use to playing a melee type character, though I enjoy playing ranged when I can as it changes things up, though even as range I still tend to be in a melee range of enemies (though usually not by choice).

I'd like to be able to play a class that does good damage so I don't hinder the raid, and also does well with it's secondary role when I want to switch things up. Apologies for such a long post, as you can see, I'm really having a number of a time figuring out my character. ;_;

well weapon choice isnt really a big deal with time you will have enough skill points to use all the weapons if you want. and even power and movement can be changed if you want to pay for it. dont worry so much about everything you read, all powers can be good once you master them and all are fun to play with. just find something you like. You will want to think about what support role you might like such as do you think you want to heal or tank or troll as they are each totaly diffrent play style but all can DPS.

over all tho just have fun and get to know the game and what ever power you do pick you will probably want to look through the guides for that power to get a good idea how it can be played

Powers are a personal choice honestly, they are all viable in their roles. So for that I can't really give you advice, just pick which you like.

Out of the weapons you listed, I'd say go with Dual Wield or Martial Arts. They both have decent melee damage and decent ranged damage. Dual Wield is faster. Though you can respec your weapons at any time after level 10 so don't worry.

If you're looking to melee... I'd say use Super Speed. It is a nice fast movement then can get you in and out of battle easily.


This game is extremely different from your generic MMORPGs like WoW... So while some of the basic MMO stuff you know will apply, nearly all of the mechanics to this will be new and fresh, so you'll have a learning curve and will need to practice. DCUO has the most advanced combat system out of all MMORPGs I've ever played (quite a few) and does take practice to master.

Which server do you play on?

This game is a 100x more flexible than WoW, when it comes to your toon. If you are looking for range, DoT DPS, then Nature is probably your ticket. Luckily Nature doubles as the best healing class in the game, in case you want to play a support role. As for movement, I always recommend Superspeed, the pros far outweigh the cons of the other movements.

If you find you don't like Nature, you can get a power respec token for $10 or using loyalty points, so don't feel boxed in. The Developers have done a great job of allowing maximum flexibility.

If those are what you really like to play as, I will give you my personal experiences. Keep in mind I have seen, I believe, every combination of weapon, power, and movement in this game turn out successful. It's not about what you are, it's more about how you play the game. Also, keep in mind that this game is very in-depth. You will successfully create a character, you will successfully get to level 30, and probably successfully get to level 30. You will probably not top off any DPS/healing charts, though. It's just how the game goes. I am on my third character, and I finally have enough of a grasp on the entire mechanics of the game to really and totally kick some ****.

Of course, I might just be slow.

Given what you have to work with above, I recommend the following (organized by power)

Electric Power
If you want to be a DPS, I recommend melee weapons. Electric has a LOT of stuns, especially since it's not a controller, and a lot of the powers require you to be close anyway (Voltaic Bolt, for example). My favorite so far for this was One-handed and martial arts, but I imagine dual wield would work as well.

If you want to be a healer, it can go both ways. You need to be closer to the allies than the other healing powers, so you'll likely be right up next to the enemies anyway. Of course, if you have ranged DPS'ers, a ranged weapon would work for you, too.)

Light
I have never played light. I think it's stupid. But I will tell you what i have seen in others:
As a DPS, I have seen a LOT of light users using two-handed and bow. I understand that's kind of one of each, but the two-handed weapon is slow and hits hard. The bow is ranged and hits quick. You can make either work, and I cannot say my personal fav with this power as I do not play or have an interest.

Quantum
Quantum looks cool as hell with hand blasters, because everything flows together. The problem is that hand blasters can be pretty slow, but have good AoEs. I have seen a lot of Quantum+Dual Pistol users top the DPS charts. COnsidering Quantum just came out, you'll be among the roughly 30% of the gamebase thats using these powers.

Sorcery
Sorcery as a DPS is rare, from what I have seen. When I DO see it, they're usually pretty good. I have seen a LOT of sorcery (whether DPS or healer) using staff. Maybe this is simply for aesthetics (wizard + staff?) but i see it a lot. Sorcery is great as a ranged power, so Dual Pistol and Bow would probably work well for you on this power. For this, I actually went with the shield weapon.

Sorcery as a healer is common, and I see them everywhere with the same weapon suggestions from above.


Again, these are just opinions. I would say to try it out and form your own opinion instead of having us do it for you, because normally you would enjoy it better that way, but that apparently didn't work for you. I know I have done the same. I have created upwards of 50+ characters that got scrapped before they even got to level 10. Hope you find a good one!

Currently I play on USPS3 PVE server since I don't think my computer could really handle the game as I've jerry rigged it to it's limit and would have to buy/make a whole new one. Yeah, I have noticed the game is drastically different from WoW and playing more like the other games I play. As much as I like Super Speed, one thing that annoys me with it is that the graphical effect with it doesn't change color based on power or costume color for me it tends to clash and I end up scrapping it because of it.

Also, would you recommend a ranged weapon or is it just better to be melee and learn when to block/dodge/run/evade boss attacks?

Oh and if it helps any, my overall gaming experience consists of:

Monster Hunter (Freedom Unite, Tri, 3U)
Devil May Cry
Final Fantasy 1-13 (except 11)
Zelda
Mario
Sonic
Donkey Kong Country games
Tales of ______ games
Star Ocean
Bayonetta
Kingdoms of Amalur
Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
Fallout 3
DooM
Duke Nukem
Dead Space

and various other games that are similar to the ones I've listed.

Okay, so with your gaming experience, it is clear to me that you really don't mind if you're a squishy spellcaster, a badass gun-wielder, or anything really so long as you enjoy the role you're playing and the game story itself.

This game is perfect for you. Learn the mechanics, learn the powers and weapons, then play the game. Then, learn about CR, SP, the Tiers, the raids, PVP vs. PVE gear, etc. It all comes as you play the game, so no worries.

I agree about superspeed. The only thing it looks totally awesome with is electric. It is difficult for me to remind myself that the electricity is not actual electricity, but static and interruptions cause by use of the speedforce spectrum.

As far as learning when to dodge/block/evade, etc. you'll have to do that either way.

Melee weapons can be blocked, which will leave you on your ***. You need to learn how and when to block break and learn to do it quickly, as well as when to block yourself.

Ranged weapons can be interrupted with a lunge, which will also leave you on your ***. You need to learn when to do a quick attack and when it is safe to do a longer, interruptable ranged attack, and also when to block if you notice the slight tick in the other player that indicates he/she is about to lunge.

Either way, you need to learn that fundamental.

Well to be honest the powers I've listed are just the ones I keep switching between as I don't want to be a tank at all (extremely bad at being a tank in any game I play) so I'm open to other powers, it's just out of all the research I've been doing all those powers (minus sorcery) are the ones I see most common along with gadget, but I'm more for "magic" type characters over tech unless I can mimic Megaman, in which case I'll play it from dawn to dusk, lol.

Ideally, of the weapons, my absolute favorite is Hand Blasters and I've been killing things the fastest with them over the other ones I've listed, but my problem is that all the info I find is that hand blasters are the weakest weapon and should only be used for healers/controllers for power regen and so that is were the bulk of my constant switching comes from since Hand Blaster is my first choice but have to change since it seems to be worst weapon. Though all the information I can find tends to be about few months to a couple years old and could never find anything recent that says things have changed.

Ideally I tend to like burst over damage over time, though I'm always up for DoTs if they look cool rather than just being invisible. As I may or may not of mentioned earlier, Megaman is my ideal character, with mage/summoner/wizard being second and then knight/warrior/paladin being last.

Lol, yeah the melee aspect I've been having issue with since the creatures I've started to experience them with (trigun's demons) seemed laggy as I would be blocked and sent knocked down several seconds before they showed the block animation. Also had issues with the lunge (and the attacks that follow it) happening long before the animation actually showed and I end up really confused on that aspect.

I expect to be doing dodging and stuff as either style, though I've been reading about bosses having these one shot aoes and stuff which to be honest kinda terrifies me as playing a melee type since in other games with one shot moves it tends to take me a couple lives to get the hang of it.

The beauty of DCUO is that the tank powers can be used very effectively at just DPSing. Truthfully, all powers have that option. You can spec to be either a healer/tank/troll or DPS. If you like Earth powers, you do not have to be a tank.

Mental powers, I have found, are great for burst damage as opposed to DoTs.

If you like hand blasters because of the damage, maybe try martial arts again. I found the martial arts weaponry to be quite strong and effective both at melee and ranged.

The one-shot AoEs can be avoided. There is a strategy to all of the newer seemingly impossible bosses. They'll likely get easier as more and more people complain that they're too hard because they don't want to apply skill and strategy but would rather just have it easy.

Welcome to the game. Choose something fun. That should be the reason anyone plays a game. Fun.

If used right, handblasters are very nice range weopons. You can clip them very well.
I started as a controller and made toons with every powerset. I play them all - just what i like at the moment. There is no best power, no best weapon - some are just easier to handle. The last role I started was tanking - and because its the easiest way to rotate shields I have chosen ice. But there are great fire tanks in this game too - by the way, I use handblasters on my tank...

I've been thinking and I was thinking since Megaman is my most favored character and the Megaman games are my favorite games to play, I would create a Megaman like character. So the idea is

Allignment: Hero
Mentor: Batman (to be a tech hero)
Weapon: Hand Blaster (to mimic the Mega/X-buster)
Power: Gadget (to mimic the various powers Mega/X would absorb from robot masters/mavericks)
Movement: Acrobat (since X's most common abilities, not from armor, are dashing and wall jumping and armors give more movement options)

Would this be a good idea or would I be gimping myself with the hand blasters?

Um...as long as you don't name him Melvin Pox and make his costume yellow and pink. I've already done that.

Well the problem I have as playing a tank involves my instinct to not take damage while a tank's job is to be the damage soaker. I end up dodging, running, and generally avoiding all I can to not take damage that I'd end up not having much aggro on the enemy and so others would end up dead. Like in WoW, when I would try playing a tank, I'd be so focused on minimizing the damage I would take, that sometime I would end up using a CC on an add or something and then forget about it, so it ends up going right to the healer or dps and killing them. Sure at the end of it all, I'd get the job done, but it would extremely messy and always resulted in deaths and people raging at me for being a bad tank, so I stopped trying out tanks and went to dps and healers which I excelled in both roles with doing a much better job as dps and generally always being in the top 2-5 on raids due to my OCDness of being the best dpser I could be.

Healer I did well as, but I always had a mana issue in that I would tend to use more mana than I should of since I'm extremely OCD about keeping people at max hp since most games I play usually have the characters die if they did not have max hp due to strong attacks that could 2-3 shot them.

Lol nah, I'd keep it the same name as I've been using for most of my characters (Renryuu, since it's the name I basically use for every single character I make that ends up as my main).

I'd use contemporary tech as a starter gear and would do a sort of blue/purple coloration Kinda like a reverse of


but Blue where the purple is and purple where the green is, with a lighter blue for the highlight/outline.

for movement type, acrobatics is fun but Super speed great for getting in and out of areas quickly before ads react and if you play a controller role speed drain saves you a power point (and works great).

All the power ytou picked are excellent, so it comes down to if you want to heal or control later own (your automatically dps for the first few levels and all make great dps toons) Quantum is great for especially for crowd control, Electic I like for healing when the group on the move and Socery for healing in boss fights. I like the supercharges in light but I will have to defer to one of our proper light controllers .
I am a firm believer in weapons synergy to role, like someone said above as your Sp grows you have more that you are spec'd into. I personal think every player should master a melee and ranged (unless your an archer they are good all around). Dual wield is fun but not so great if you in a healer or non-light controller stance. hand blaster an excellent troller weapon (quick on the combo meter than to pulse) but Bow, Martial Arts & dual pistol to be great all around weapons (soloing & groups)

You have LOTS of options, besides your first toon is just practice for your favorite toon.

Ok, after a bit more playing around and experimentation (and a few more characters, lol) I'm about 95% sure I've gotten my dude now that I can enjoy to level 30.

My character is

Name: Renryuu
Alliance: Hero
Mentor: Wonder Woman
Power: Mental
Weapon: Bow (can get the cerebral DLC so that it looks like I'm using a bow of psychic energy, lol)
Movement: Super Speed (haven't figured a way to explain having this as mental though)

He's Purple themed to match the mental (purple is actually my favorite color as well lol).

So if you're mental your next step would be to decide on whether you want to be a controller or damage. A controller is more of a support character dedicated to crowd control and supplying your group/raid members with power. Damage is well, damage. I've got a level 30 controller named Psispirit (also mental and wonder woman mentored) so if you have any questions feel free to friend request him and ask any questions.