There are MMOs where one group of mobs is very much like the next. They fight the same way, are countered the same way, and die the same way. The rotation you use against one group is the same that you'll use against the next and the next after that. If you ever do have to change things up it's probably a boss fight.
City of Heroes is absolutely not one of these MMOs. In CoH every enemy faction has its own distinct strengths and weaknesses, and the best way to handle them depends not only on your archetype, but often on which powersets you've chosen for that archetype.
As a dominator I don't have the burst damage of a blaster (or stalker) to take out priority targets in the opening seconds of a fight, nor do I have the debuffs of a defender or a corruptor to reduce the amount of incoming damage I'm taking, and I certainly don't have the resilience of any of the melee archetypes to survive that incoming for long. What I do have is a selection of crowd control powers that enable me to take some enemies out of the fight until I'm ready to deal with them, but I have to pick my targets carefully.
I can hit Clockwork with an AoE immobilize, because while all of their attacks are ranged they aren't long range – the ones at the back can't reach me while I work on the ones at the front. The same AoE immobilize on a group of Destroyers* is far less effective since their attacks have at least the same range as my own, so the only way to neutralize them is with an actual hold, of which I have exactly one at the moment, and it's single target only.
So I'm constantly switching back and forth from target to target to keep the controls up on as many enemies as possible, and making sure it's the right controls on the right enemies. All the while I'm doing this I'm moving in and out of melee range to make the most off my damage powers while staying out of range of those enemies I don't have under a control. It's a very active playstyle.
*The Destroyers are undoubtedly the toughest group I've ran into so far, mostly due to their bosses being an absolute nightmare for dominators on account of having very high resistance to crowd control effects. Even with Domination up it's hard to keep them cc'd for more than a few seconds.
So far it's went well – so much so that as I head out of Nova Praetoria and toward Imperial City I find myself thinking about my difficulty settings. Maybe I should raise my notoriety, just a little bit.
I really shouldn't. I said as recently as two days ago that I won't be raising my difficulty on this character until I'm out of Praetoria, because I know what's coming - but it's still tempting, because this is City of Heroes, and it's really good at making you feel powerful.
Comments
Post a Comment