Jade_Dragon

My Kheldians are evenly split between Virtue and Pinnacle. I have one of each, PB and WS, on each. My Tri-Form WS on Virtue is quickly becoming my main (out of the Kheldians I mean) but I have an SG on Pinnacle, and so I will likely be playing those Kheldians from time to time.

I have characters on all servers but the EU ones, though. The highest levels of my characters are on Virtue, Pinnacle and Triumph, with some midlevels on Freedom, Infinity and Guardian. Actually, my first two mains used to be on Freedom, but I moved them to Pinnacle and Virtue recently, and I plan to eventually move them back. (It's pretty much the only place where I was able to get BOTH the names Jade Dragon and Blue Diamond)

And then there's Joe, who like my signature says, is mainly on Virtue, but actually exists on like five other servers, at one level or another.

Well, given that recommendations for episodes to watch have been given, I thought I would give a comparison of the Doctors, so you a) know what to expect and b) can tell which you would like for being closest to Eccleston, and which you might like for being totally different.

First Doctor - It was said in The Five Doctors, and I believe it, he really was "The best of the Doctors". He can be grouchy and grumpy at times, but that's probably due to his age. He really has a grasp of the situation and a mind for plots that really doesn't come up again until the Seventh Doctor. I would call him more irascible than sarcastic. This is also prior to the revelation of his background, and so he acts more like a intelligent but eccentric human than a mysterious alien genius.

Second Doctor - The Second Doctor is usually described as "a clown", primarily because he was the first to act strangely or ramble in order to throw foes off guard. He would tend to be more of a sarcastic type, but doesn't have the harder edge of the Eighth and Ninth Doctors. As mentioned previously, though, when he goes off on his "geez, I can't believe you are all this stupid" mode, it's hilarious.

Third Doctor - The Third Doctor is very much cut in the mold of 1960's secret agent movies, as that was the time period in which it is made. He reminds me at times of John Steed of The Avengers, or Napoleon Solo from The Man From UNCLE. He can be very flamboyant (a trait the Fourth Doctor later inherited) and extremely active, moreso than most early Doctors. Actually, the Ninth and Tenth Doctors do engage in fisticuffs and swordplay a lot, so this would definately be similar. His personality seems very restrained, though, he's more serious and down to earth than later Doctors. (But this is the Doctor I have seen the least of, so I could be wrong about that)

Fourth Doctor - Well, if it's true that "You never forget your first Doctor", this was the one for me. The Fourth Doctor has a great deal of the Second Doctor's wit and charm, while having the adventureous spirit and active nature of the Third. He also is the best at seemed to be bumbling along, and then all of a sudden you realize he had this all planned in exquisite detail all along. I wouldn't call his style sarcastic, but it is definately quirky, and even a bit mischeivous. There is almost none of the later darkness, this is the Doctor that spares the Daleks when he had the chance to destroy them, because he doesn't feel he has the right to take their lives, a decision he later comes to regret.

Fifth Doctor - The most human and emotional of the Doctors, he is not sarcastic or even quirky at all. He's somewhat eccentric, but only about small details, like his love of cricket. He seems more intelligent, but only because he's letting his plots show as he forms them. And things seem to go wrong for him more often, this is where the darkness starts to show up, as he takes his failures very personally, and worries about his companious. It's almost like the magnitude of what he has doing has finally hit him, and he's starting to hestitate and question himself. He doesn't yet have the anger of the later Doctors, though.

Sixth Doctor - Although most people say they hate this Doctor, I actually really like him. I like to refer to him as a failed Regeneration, though. He's sort of stuck halfway between the Fifth and Sixth Doctors, he's lost the humanity and compassion (at least outwardly) that the previous Doctor has, but has not yet regained that steel trap mind that the Doctor is supposed to have. This is also the most arrogant and convinced of his own superiority Doctor, even in the face of obvious failures. He actually IS quirky and sarcastic, he has some absolutely hilarious put down lines in Trial of a Time Lord. He comes off as such a jerk, though, that it kind of falls flat. Underneath it all, though, there is a darkness to this Doctor, almost as if he is trying to recover from the destruction he has witnessed before, and return to what he was.

Seventh Doctor - This is my favorite Doctor. I agree with the previous poster who called him a "Chess Master". This is the Doctor going back to his roots, the eccentric genius who cuts through the diabolical plots of his enemies, figuring out exactly what they are up to, and countering with his own. He's not as violent as the Sixth Doctor, or the later Doctors post the Time War, but there's still a darkness to him. You get the impression he could plot something dastardly if he had to. He does try to keep Ace's more violent tendencies in check, though, and as she tends to be somewhat destructive, this takes a lot of his time.

Eighth Doctor - Eh, just one movie isn't enough to form much of a picture. He seems very like the Seventh Doctor, and started out as the Seventh, at the start of the movie. As he spends most of the movie in Regeneration, he really is experimenting with his personality more than having formed it.

You could always say your super power is the creation of ammo by psychically reshaping other materials...

The question of whether a Controller can do more damage with its Primary or a Defender can do more damage with its Secondary is a controversial one. The truth is, probably a Controller CANNOT do more damage with its Primary. The advantage that a Controller has in damage dealing really only comes into play once you get into Epic Pool attacks, and with the additional damage of pets.

The truth, though, is that a Defender's Kinetic powers ARE stronger than a Controller's. According to City of Data, if you go through the psuedo-pets summoned by Fulcrum Shift, you find that the stackable portion of the damage buff is the same for both Defenders and Controllers, at +25% per target. All of the rest of the effects are proportional to the AT modifiers, though, with Defenders having a -25% debuff of the target's damage, and a non-stacking +50% buff to their damage and those around them, while Controllers get a -20% debuff per target, and the non-stacking buff is +40%. So you are talking about yet another implementation with a psuedo-pet which is not strictly in the ratio of the AT modifiers of the caster. This is a known issue and a problem, but it is not universally true.

I'd be more concerned about Corruptors, which have exactly the same Kinetic powers as a Controller. Of course, Corruptors have their ranged attacks in their Primary, and an Inherent that doubles their damage, although not to the extent that Controllers do. Still, there are certain Blast sets, such as Sonic Attack, for which I would say the damage of either a Corruptor or a Defender could be comparable. The unfortunate thing is that it comes down to comparisons of individual sets to each other.

All of the above is true, but IMHO it comes down more to the differences in the Inherents.

A Scrapper will Critical occasionally, which will add really good burst damage to his already high damage. In other words, occasionally a foe will just fall over dead with only a few of the hits it usually takes.

A Tanker has Gauntlet. This is a basically passive ability that draws all enemy attention to the Tanker, even when he's solo. It's as if he's running around shouting, "Come get me, weaklings!" with every punch.

The Tanker's lack of damage in his Inherent, and his much higher hit points are really the factor that makes the Tanker the tougher of the two, and the Scrapper the more damaging of the two. Although there is the order of the Power Sets, the Brute on the villain side also tends to be tougher in general than the Scrapper, and he has the same power order. So while the balance between offense and defense can be "tweaked" with IOs and your choice of powers, the Inherent always really sets the "feel" for the way your character acts in a battle. Or so I feel.

I think the original concept was that they would be very similar. If you look at the icon for a Stalker, it looks like the crosshairs of a sniper rifle. And I've compared the Assassin Strike to a Sniper attack before, it's really the same thing, only performed in melee. You NEED stealth because that's what allows you to perform the windup for such an interruptable attack at close range.

If you note also that Blasters are the only AT with two build up powers, that pretty much makes Blasters the kings of burst damage. They have other features as well, but the Stalker basically concentrates on that aspect. The problem is, it becomes too tedious, either you are running in and out of combat too often, so you can go back into Hide, or you're staying and scrapping, with all the risk that entails. The devs decided that Stalkers needed a little more HP and a little more damage to make that risk worth it.

So I would say currently Stalkers are like a hybrid between Blasters and Scrappers. They do high burst damage like a Blaster, but lack the Blaster's AoE damage. And they can stay in the melee a lot more like Scrappers, but lack their ability to tank in emergencies. Like a Blaster, a Stalker really has only one role on a team, damage dealing. He has no secondary role. On the other hand, he can't really do just massive damage, like a Blaster can. So he gets somewhat more resiliance.

The ranged fighter with no melee attacks is called the Corruptor. The Hunter-type pet user is called the Mastermind. Both are on the villain side.

The Blaster really doesn't map to a ranged archetype from other MMOs. Others in this thread who have pointed out that there are different types of Blasters are right. Devices Blasters are much more ranged oriented, setting down traps, and using Caltrops to slow (or even cause to flee) foes that might get into range. Energy Blasters are the Blappers, their Secondary is specifically designed for getting into melee, so you might as well do it. The other options are somewhere in between, you tend to have melee attacks, but also an immobilize and also sometimes a weak AoE control power, like a slow. You've got a Secondary, though, if you're not going to use it, why did you pick a Blaster?

If you don't want to go villain side, you might try a Rad/Sonic Defender, or some similar combination. Although the damage is not quite as good as a Corruptor, it's closer to what you would think of as a Mage or Warlock. In short, instead of thinking about blasting directly, think in terms of what you could do to debuff your foes so you could do more damage. (Or, buff yourself)

There are also Controllers, which do considerably more damage than you would think, with Containment. At 32 they get a pet, so there is your hero side "Hunter" class. You don't have as much control over the pet as an MM's henchman, but you can always go over there and check out the redside anyway. And with Going Rogue it will probably be possible to have "heroic" Masterminds.

I'm afraid the question itself is too vague. (And I have to agree, smacks of trolling) No AT is "useless". Yet, any AT can be replaced with another. So what is meant by "useless" here? Are we talking about power, or are we talking about role on a team?

Does your wife want a pure concept build? Does she want a challenge? Is she looking for something that is easy and does not require a lot of focus and micromangement? Does she want to avoid having a serious responsibility on a team? If she just interested in doing what she feels like and not having people call out "heal plz!". Does she just want to throw out buffs and chat with her friends, but not be thought of as leeching?

For a concept build, I would so go with whatever fits your concept. If your concept is a Defender, then go with a Defender. But if something in the Power Set doesn't match your concept, skip it. I do this all the time, my main FF Defender didn't have the ally shields until he was in his 30's. He didn't team until he was in his 30's either, but I digress...

For a challenge, either a MAN build, or a conceptual limitation. Petless Masterminds make a great challenge. Or a melee Controller. Make a Blaster with only a few ranged attacks and concentrate on the Secondary and Power Pool. Avoid Stamina or (for a character that has no heal) Aid Self. Build a character around Flying (no other super powers) or Phase Shift.

If you just want to go kill things and not have to worry about the team harping on you all the time, you can't go better than a Scrapper. As has been said, no one says, "We need a Scrapper on this team", although I have heard "we need more damage dealers". On a team the Scrapper is usually left to do whatever he wants to do, although impatient Scrappers can cause a backlash from the team. But hey, if you want to play an impatient Scrapper, that would keep you from most teams too.

If you want an easy support role, either healer or bubbler. Bubbles don't have to be applied as often, so you have more time to chat or throw out some blasts, but Empathy would be the better set overall, if you don't use FF's knockback. While there are FFers that only take and use three powers, and do nothing else, I wouldn't call them any different from the Empaths that only take and use three powers, and do nothing else.

Personally, I think "useless" is getting away from the idea. If all your wife wants to do is have fun, then let her just roll up a character at random and have fun with it. It doesn't need to be "useless" to be just for fun. I have the most fun with so-called "uber" Power Sets that I just don't go out of my way to min-max to be uber.

Don't most leaders lead from the back? They're less likely to get killed there.

Tankerminds aside, most Masterminds don't lead the charge, their HENCHMEN lead the charge. Which tells you were the folks who lead the charge sit on the totem pole.

Seriously, I've always assumed that any AT can be a leader, that's why Leadership is available to everyone. Leadership may not be that strong with Blasters, but one of my Blasters has it, because in her version of my main team she happens to be the one that takes the lead. She's a detective, and pretty much the one who brought the team together.

And really, Defenders are the best at Leadership, then Controllers and Corruptors, then Dominators and Masterminds. Kheldians sit between Controllers and Masterminds, while SoA, I assume, are up there with Defenders. (Actually, their Def buffs are the same as Defenders, but they get Controller levels with Tactics and Assault)

Everyone else is pretty much on equal footing, and only about 5-10% below the MMs. So I don't look at it as leadership ABILITY as much as where you stand in the fight. The meleers are up front, and can't really see the battle as a whole, like the rear ranks can. And the Blasters are too busy keeping their butts alive.