Ironblade

I did say *TRY* for a more useful effect.

Wow, some of these things are so subjective.....


Couple of keys to keep in mind as a new player:

1. Mez sucks and a lot of mobs have it... Scrappers and brutes have mez protection. Tanks do too but they lack the dps and are over survivable when playing solo.
True, but so what? To completely avoid the possibility of being mezzed, you have to rule out... what, 9 out of 14 archetypes? That's absurd. Getting mezzed is not a death sentence to fun. It's really only a significant concern if you're solo AND playing an AT with no mez protection AND fighting enemies that have mez AND forgot to bring Break Frees.


2. Redraw sucks so keep that in mind selecting your power sets. Pairing Broadsword with Regen is probably not a good idea. Regen has a lot of click powers that will force you to redraw your broadsword for each attack and regen is only survivable when using the clicks.
Completely subjective. To me, redraw doesn't really matter. Furthermore, my first, favorite and most-played character is a broadsword/regen scrapper. It's a very powerful combination. Actually, regen is a good secondary for most sets because it gives you a second endurance recovery power and can make 'END management' a non-issue. (Willpower does this also.)


3. IMO, having more defense is better than having more resistance.
No argument here.


4. Lastly, and probably the most important, take a travel power at level 4, you will regret it if you do not.
BIG argument here. I have plenty of characters that too *NO* travel power at all. And I had some that did this before Ninja Run existed. Now that we can get Ninja Run and/or Beast Run for the entire account, getting a travel power is a non-issue. If you WANT a particular travel power, great. If you can identify 15 other powers you want FIRST, no problem whatsoever.

Raise the Vortex off the ground. That vertical wheel is a full circle, not just the part above ground. I have mine up on columns and arranged the rest of the room to make it difficult to get under the Vortex where you would see that the horizontal portion is invisible from underneath.

So.. um, they need to nerfly nerf this nerfer like a mothernerfer?

I don't even know how many I have and I haven't used a single one yet.
I haven't used any catalysts either.
I really should look into these things. They're just accumulating.

Just addressing the questions that have a wide variety of opinion for responses. The 'cut and dried' questions have already been answered.

2. hows the PVP? (open-world? faction based?)
If you're MAINLY interested in PvP, this probably isn't the game for you. It was not designed with PvP right from the start. It was added later and, in the opinion of many people, not really done well and the attempted fixes made things even worse.

Lots of people, myself included, would not be here if the game had PvP everywhere. Just not interested in it.


3. Gears aside, are there any cookie-cutter PVE (for farming?) or PVP builds?
errr... yes and no. There are builds available, but you can argue all day about which ones are best. There's really quite a variety of archetypes (classes) and powersets that are good for farming. Many of these are better against one particular type of enemy. There are MANY missions available that you can farm, so you can pick and choose who to fight. Also, even when solo, you can choose to fight enemies up to 4 levels above your level and you can have the mission spawn enemies for a team size of 1 to 8 - even if you are alone. So, while many people look down on farming, this game is actually pretty good for it.


4. say for a newb to start off, PVP probably won't be recommended right away... so what is the best way to go to start farming/gearing up?
Maybe I'm misinterpreting, but it sounds like you're thinking you need to farm and gear up in preparation of the 'real content', i.e. the 'end game'. This game isn't really like that.

Yes, there is 'end game' content. It's called 'Incarnate Content' and you need to be level 50 (the level cap) and a VIP (subscription) player to access it. But plenty of people don't. Even as a VIP with two accounts, I don't bother with the Incarnate content on most of my characters. I have 30 characters at level 50 but less than a third of them have done the Incarnate stuff. More often, when I hit 50, I start a new character. I just like playing the game and, once I hit 50, there isn't really a feeling of PROGRESS, so I make a new (and different) character and start at the bottom again.


5. lastly, are there any benefits for VIPs upon character creation? IE: if im not VIP, i won't be able to make the most optimal PVE or PVP build?
Well, to make the "most optimal" builds for anything, you need 'IOs' (Invention Origin) enhancements. You can play the entire game fine without them, but if you want to kick it up a notch and create an uber build, you need them. In order to be able to use IOs, you need access to the Invention System. This is included in VIP membership or $2 per month for non-VIPs. From a practical standpoint, you would really also need access to the Auction House (where players buy and sell stuff to each other). This is also included in VIP or $2 per month for non-VIP.

A huge resource for this game is ParagonWiki.com. You might want to review the page detailing types of accounts and also the Paragon Rewards System. Short version: as you spend money on the game, you get access to more and more stuff for 'free'. Earning 8 tokens in the Rewards system gives permanent access to the Auction House - free forever from that point on. You'd need 27 tokens to get permanent free access to the Invention system. As a rule of thumb, you get 1 token for every $15 spent on the game. If you subscribe (which is $15 per month), you get a token every month. If you're premium and buy points to use in the market, you get a token for every $15 worth. In both cases (subscription time and direct point purchase) larger purchases get a discount.

Since you seem focused on high-end play, you might want to be free for a few weeks, then pay for a month subscription just so you can experience the difference. The links above go into excruciating detail about this, but I don't think it's quite the same as experiencing the difference firsthand. It's hard to tell from a text description how important a particular feature might be to YOU.


edit: if there are any buys that would help me out greatly @ creation, i wouldnt mind shelling out some dollars
thanks!
hmm..... Hard to say. I've never been free or premium status. If you want to experiment with different characters, free players start with only 2 characters slots TOTAL. VIP players get 12 slots EACH on all of the FIFTEEN SERVERS. (Is it fifteen? Maybe fourteen.) In either case, you can buy more character slots. I had to have two accounts because I was playing before we could buy more slots and 12 slots on my 'home server' wasn't enough.

Yep. Two minutes. I seem to recall it being longer years and years ago, but I could be wrong. But for sure it's 2 minutes now.