Hrm.
So I’ve been doing more looking at various builds, whilst playing CO solo (what little duo play we’ve been doing has been on a hypothetically mysterious and intermittent game that I can’t talk about). My current solo character is Force of Will, a TK blades character.
I’m reading through guides, and reviewing build suggestions, and making notes, and figuring out what I want to take at different levels. And I finally got to another power level with her, and glanced at those notes, and …
… and WTF?
All the guides are all, “Hey, gotta have that Passive Defensive early and often,” followed by bitter debates about which is best (which is, as far as I can gather from the tenor of the debates, Anything But Lightning Reflexes). Well, that’s all well and fine, but the TK Blades guides are also all full of debates about which is better, Ego Form or Shadow Form — most people prefer the latter, but there’s a vocal and vehement minority that argues the former. And, hey, there was Ego Form, ready for selection. I should give that a try …
… um …
It’s a slotted Offensive Passive … and I can have only one slotted Passive thing at a time. Which I choose depends on … which build I’ve selected.
So, to have both the oh-so-critical Defensive Passive, and the oh-so-critical Offensive Passive, I have to be also toggling between builds.
Let me say, that’s probably one of my least favorite bits of CO thus far. Okay, I like the variety of approaches you can have, both within a framework and from outside (vs. the comparatively much more channeled CoX power choices). But I find the Build mechanic to be one more decision point than I want to have to make. And so I’ve been basically ignoring it — only to discover now that, um, I actually need to make use of it if I’m going to achieve golden heroism?
Now, I’m sure that people do get soloing and making that choice. And I’ll get along without it. I just find it … annoying. Part is my own ignorance, part is the lack of decent player education. Yeah, if I was using a character builder program, I’d have probably figured this out, but …
Harrumph.
I played around with the multi-build thing and I found it to be….odd. Mostly I think this is because of my general desire to make a Balanced character no matter the game/system. So I have a Balanced Build on all of my toons and I am happy with that.
As to Passive Defenses?
Gaz has Lightning Reflexes and yeah….it is a bit underwhelming as a defence.
G’i has Personal Force Field, which a better than Lightning Reflexes, but not much better.
Ciunas and Catka both have Regeneration, which in my book is the best passive defence going.
That said, none of my toons are an actual framework and all are off of the Hero Framework and are a mix of many different Powersets, which is the thing I love about CO, the ability to build a toon however I want. 🙂
Oh, the flexibility (but the ability to stay within a general frame if you want) is swell. I just find the Offensive/Defensive/Build thing to be annoying. As you said, I want to have a balanced character all the time.
But I want a character who has both PD survivability and PO attack capabilities. And I don’t want to have to purchase extra powers that are only available to me some of the time.
I’ve actually used a number of the Passive Defenses on different toons. Kitsune has Lightning Reflexes, and I think it does a good job. Regen does seem pretty darned good, and I’ve used Force Field as well.