Archived from groups: alt.games.coh (
More info?)
In article <Xns95FFD87F7BABthomasoadamsgmailcom@127.0.0.1>,
Thomas Adams <thomas.o.adams@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>In retrospect I think this sidekick thing was a waste of time. I felt
>like I couldn't contribute anything to the team's efforts. Why was the
>sidekick thing invented and who can benefit from it?
I believe it was invented so you could hang out with your friends who
levelled at a different rate than you, and so that you could finish a
mission or street sweep if you absolutely required a tanker/controller/etc
and there wasn't one of your level around.
In my limited experience, sidekicking works best in smaller groups composed
of {support chars} and {damage chars} and you are in one of those categories
and everyone else is in the other. Like being the defender for 2 scrappers.
Or being the tanker for 2 blasters. Clearly the 2 guys could do stuff on
their own, but they'll be *much* more effective with you around to provide
those critical bits of utility.
One (slight) advantage I've noticed is that the enhancement rewards that
your mentor recieves may be trash to him, but useful for you. If he's
already on DO's, the Training enhancements he recieves are just taking
up valuable inventory space, but are big bucks to you. Heck, you might
even be able to use them!
I had mixed success with sidekicking with my earth/kinetics controller.
Taking him to Bricktown at 14 with 2 scrappers for street fighting was not
real effective. I didn't have the right crowd control abilites to manage
agro in a way that my limited healing abilities could support. Taking him
to Talos Island at 18 with 2 blasters for a high 30's mission was much
more effective: I had more crowd control powers by then that made a real
difference keeping the other squishies alive. In both cases I made good
xp and cash -- well, ignoring the debt I got in the first case.
Since you didn't describe the details of the adventure (your levels, the
group's levels, ATs, mission, zone, etc), I can only speculate on why
your experience was so poor.
A worst-case scenario for sidekicking would seem to be something like this.
Seven L17 tankers/scrappers/blasters have picked you, a L11 controller to
help them with one of those "Defeat all Igneous" Hollows missions because
you're the only one online *right now* who has any relevant powers. The
mission site is in SE corner of the zone, no one has TP friend, and
everyone's waiting at mission door for you to show up. The run was dangerous
for them at L17, but it's horrific for you at L11 with no travel powers.
(You won't be effectively at L16 until you get within 200' of them.)
They're at L17, so they've got their main powers 5-slotted with DO 20's
(acting at ~190% efficiency); you're at L11 and have your powers 3-slotted
with Training 10's (acting at "only" ~121% efficiency). Because there's 8
in the group, you'll be fighting crowds of 10ish Igneous of roughly L20.
You, sidekicked to 16, will find most of them red or purple, and nearly
unable to affect them fast enough or well enough to do useful crowd control.
Your secondary abilities for healing will be stunningly ineffective against
the amount of damage they deal out, given how little crowd control you are
able to perform.
Alternatively, imagine the same scenario with you as the lone L11 tanker
for a group of L17 blasters and defenders. Your laughable offsensive powers
can't kill anything, your defenses are limited enough that the defenders can't
spam heals fast enough to keep you alive, and if you won't hold agro you're
just an xp sponge and dead weight.
A lot will depend on the group makeup, the levels, and missions. Swap out
a blaster for a controller in the first worst-case scenario above, and a
sidekicked bubble defender could easily spell the difference between success
and failure.
In the end, being sidekicked is neither necessary nor sufficient to being
totally useless to a group.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roger Bonzer | There's this guy. And he falls in a vat of
minotaur@hurloon.net | radioactive chemicals and instead of getting
| superpowers like you'd expect, he just dies.
| -- Ronnie, Zot #31