Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

Creating a build for Champions Online can be difficult with the insane number of choices a player has. Fortunately for you, your friends at Ten Ton Hammer are here to provide a quick guide for a ranged dps build to help you unleash death upon your foes from a long ways away.

This ranged dps build is based upon several power sets, primarily the munitions, archery, and fighting claws power sets. There is also a little telekinesis and force power sets sprinkled in. Why are there some fighting claws powers, you ask? Well, despite its reputation as a melee power set, there are some excellent ranged abilities as well. Please note that not every power listed will be a ranged power. There will be a couple of melee attacks as well, and to answer your question as to why, the reason is that sometimes your enemy will get up to you and you’ll need something up your sleeve.

Creating a build for Champions Online can be difficult with the insane number of choices a player has. Fortunately for you, your friends at Ten Ton Hammer are here to provide a quick guide for a melee-style tank build for your superhero meat shield.

The build for this tank is based on a few power sets, mainly the gadgeteering, force, and might power sets. There is some dabbling in sorcery and telekinesis as well. Unlike other tank builds, this build relies upon Constitution and Dexterity. Most tank builds usually build upon Strength and Constitution.

Now that Celestial power set is available for every player, your friends at Ten Ton Hammer are pleased to provide a guide to this new set. For all the healing-themed goodness, read on!

For the overview, we’ll list each power along with any pertinent information. In addition, any advantages that can be purchased for the power will be listed. The tier of the power will also be listed. Newer players may be confused by the term ‘tier’ for the powers.

Creating a build for Champions Online can be difficult with the insane number of choices a player has. Fortunately for you, your friends at Ten Ton Hammer are here to provide a quick guide for a melee dps build based upon Telekinesis Ego Blades.

The build for our melee dps hero is one of the more popular builds floating around, the TK Ego Blade build. This build relies primarily upon the Telekinesis power set, with some dabbling in Supernatural and Darkness. To begin, we’ll look at the powers and advantage points that you’ll spend on this build.

Coming back for a second week of numbers crunching in Champions Online, Brian Urbanek, Systems Designer takes last week's discussion a bit further. Brian delves into combat factors, including energy cost, damage scaling, and survival. Learn the numbers behind your heroes in Mr. Urbanek's Systems Balancing, Part 2.

Damage (per second) only has meaning with relation to a player's ability to endure that damage. 400 damage per second per attack on average is amazingly powerful if everyone has 10 hit points, and kinda pathetic if everyone has ten million. This leads us to the single most important factor you can ever consider when designing a game, the factor to which all others must bow: time.

With the Blood Moon event for Champions Online well underway, Ten Ton Hammer reviews the good and bad of Cryptic’s first holiday themed event. In addition, the Blood Moon event also represents the first major content update for CO with certain aspects of the event staying around after the event (the celestial power set and Zombie Apocalypse PvP map). Was the event worthwhile? Read on!

Next, we look at the Zombie Apocalypse PvP map. This is a quick and fun rumble against zombies and other players. A group of heroes must fight off a zombie horde in a remote snowbound village. The wrinkle is that the zombies are led by an undead hero (a random player). If a hero is struck down, they, in turn, become part of the undead forces. The goal of each player is to be the last hero standing. The longer you can hold out (the zombie horde is always victorious), the more acclaim you receive. Overall, this is a great idea, and I’ve enjoyed playing it. The only downside is that it can go extremely quickly.

Ever wonder how the numbers in Champions Online work? Or have you figured it out, and wondered why they are set the way they are? This week, Champions Online Systems Designer, Brian Urbanek explains how energy equates into damage, and how balancing these numbers is just as much art as it is math. Urbanek reveals how the systems were worked out and the reasoning behind the choices.

Ten Ton Hammer is pleased to showcase Cryptic’s latest video for their superhero MMOG, Champions Online. Champions Online allows players to create super powered heroes, with an incredible amount of options, allowing players to create the unique heroes that they want to play. With features such as being able to pick from any power set plus the ability to create your own arch-villain to act as a nemesis to your hero, Champions Online really packs the punch into comic book POW!

During the Blood Moon event currently playing in Champions Online, players are able to unlock the newest power set up to two weeks earlier than its scheduled release date. To do so, heroes will need to free the trapped souls of 13 undead heroes. Fortunately, Ten Ton Hammer is here to help with an overview of this mission chain plus locations!

To begin, the 13 undead heroes can be found at the portals scattered throughout Millennium City. Each hero is found at a specific portal. To save you time flying all over the city in a vain attempt to find all the portals, we have a handy map located below showing all the locations.

With undead prowling the streets and wilderness of Champions Online, your friends here at Ten Ton Hammer are pleased to offer you a gallery of screenshots showcasing the undead goodness currently taking place.

The first 3 rows of screenshots capture the action during the Dawn of the Undead Heroes. This event, taking place in Millennium City, has you and the other heroes of CO attempting to free the souls of 13 undead heroes, who are under the control of Takofanes. Throughout the city, there are portals, that spawn at regular intervals, which spawn undead minions and who are guarded by an undead hero.

Cryptic’s first free update to Champions Online has gone live today, and there’s a lot to see and do. William “JoBildo” Murphy gives his initial impressions of all the things that make up Blood Moon. Be sure to check back soon for a comprehensive guide for all things Halloween in this new patch!

One thing that sets Champions Online apart is that your hero gets to fight against his own personal arch villain! Your friends at Ten Ton Hammer are here to provide an overview of the nemesis creation system in CO.

Villain. Let the word roll off your tongue. Sounds awesome, doesn’t it? Every hero needs a villain. Where would Superman be without Lex Luthor…Spiderman without the Green Goblin…Batman without the Joker? Throughout history to today, every great hero needs a mighty foe to test their mettle against, from Arthur and Mordred to Luke versus Darth Vader, villains are needed.

Cryptic’s Champions Online is a hectic-paced game. There’s no doubt about that. And amid all the chaos on your screen, you might find it hard to organize and keep up with your fellow heroes should you decide to form a team. William “JoBildo” Murphy gives out a few tips (and jibes) of what to do and what not to do when grouping in Champions Online.

Crafting has become an integral part of MMOGs in the last few years. Hated and beloved, Crafting is here to stay. Some games do it better than others. Our question is how does crafting in Champions Online stack up? Is it worthwhile or worthless?

To provide full disclosure, I do not usually like crafting in a game. I play a game to have fun, usually by busting the heads of computerized orcs or villains, or by throwing down in some PvP. I do not play a game to spend hours collecting materials from three different zones from a variety of sources in order to knit the Colossal Sweater of Neverending Doom and Gloom Upon Thy Enemies.

The Power Sets in Champions Online are designed in such a way as to be independent from one another, but that doesn’t mean Cryptic intentionally made it so players have to stick to one set and one set only. Just as there are powers in each set that compliment each other, some from different sets work wonderfully together. William “JoBildo” Murphy shares what to look for in terms of power synergy, and offers a few examples in this guide.

First time to the big city in Champions Online? Well, don’t stare at the majesty of Millennium City like a slack-jawed yokel! Your friends here at Ten Ton Hammer are here to provide a quick guide to this futuristic metropolis. Soon, you’ll be sipping lattes like a local.

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, so did Millennium City rise from the rubble of old Detroit. Once a shining beacon of industry, Detroit was destroyed by the arch villain, Doctor Destroyer, who left 60,000 civilians and numerous heroes dead in the destruction. In defiance of that fiend, a new city was built upon the ruins of the old.

With Champions Online’s launch behind us, it seems like a good time to look back and reflect on what could, and maybe should, have been present in the game at launch. Keep your burning torches and flaming torches away, this is just one crazy man’s opinion.

To start off with, let’s take a look at missions. The missions have been equal on par with the level that you receive them, and the missions have been the normal standard mission types (kill x number of bad guys or retrieve x number of items). I also enjoy the random missions in which a person runs up to you and offers you a mission. My big beef with missions is that there are too few.

Since the dawn of MMO-time, there have been two types of players: The Min-Maxers and the Conceptual Creators. The Min-Maxer likes to run daily-spreadsheets and TPS reports to find the most optimum build possible for their characters, while the Conceptual Creators prefer to let their hearts and souls guide their hero on his or her journey. In Champions Online, either way is a viable play-strategy, but is one inherently better than the other? William “JoBildo” Murphy tries to decide in this editorial.

Coming October 27th to Champions Online, the new Celestial power set offers players a wide variety of healing and support powers that have previously been missing from the game. William “JoBildo” Murphy takes a look at what’s been revealed of the set so far and offers his opinions on what it means for the game.

Bored with cage matches in CO? Well, then step up to the next level in PvP action! The friendly folks at Ten Ton Hammer are here to guide you through this slobber-knocking free-for-all.

What is B.A.S.H. exactly, you say? Well, put simply, B.A.S.H. is a straightforward free-for-all fight. There are no teams in this battle royale. Nobody is on your side, which means that everybody is against you. It’s you, and you alone, against the world (or more specifically, a bunch of superheroes).

The strongest heroes in Champions Online often need a hand, and that's why there are Supergroups. We here at Ten Ton Hammer understand the importance of player communities in online games, and that's why we've chosen to showcase a different Supergroup every couple of weeks. This week we delve into what makes The Kinship tick.

Holiday themed events have become a staple in MMOGs in recent years, but can new games, such as Champions Online, afford to divert the resources that can be used to create permanent content to make seasonal content? Ten Ton Hammer’s intrepid man of mystery, Mattlow, is here to explore this important issue.

An established game has very little problems when it comes to spending developer time working on holiday themed events. Those games already have a good deal of content, have had a lot of bugs and flaws worked out, and (hopefully) a solid subscriber base. A new game, such as Champions Online, is still working out those problems, especially content and tweaking for balance. They need to address their problems quickly so as to keep their subscriber base happy. Sadly, the developers have their backs against the wall usually as that most MMOGs are released in an incomplete state due to the high costs of making an MMOG.

The subject of reviewing videogames has long been a touchy subject among the hobby’s fans. More than console or standalone titles, MMOGs are extremely tricky beasts to review. There are around FIFTY reviews already out for the recently released Champions Online and it's just now a month old. William “JoBildo” Murphy urges the critics of the gaming world to think carefully before assigning their verdict to a newly launched world in this editorial.

Big things are coming for Champions Online players in October. Not only are some much needed improvements to how missions are shared between group members in the works, but later in the month the Blood Moon event is set to go live on the 27th. To help keep you up to date on all of the superpowered details, we've put together a short preview of what is sure to be an exciting month of updates to the world the Champions call home.

One of the biggest game changing elements set to roll out with the Blood Moon is of course the introduction of the first new power set since launch. Details on the first few Celestial powers have already begun to emerge, being described as a “support-based set [that] allows you to both heal allies and weaken enemies.” What impact the addition of such a heal-centric set will have on the game remains to be seen, but in the meantime new powers are being revealed as a part of the build up to Blood Moon over at the official Champions site.

Have you just put down the Qularr Invasion and headed to the atomic goodness of the Southwest Desert, but are confused on where to go and when? Then sit back and relax as your friends at Ten Ton Hammer provide an overview of the fallout-laden zone.

Within the Southwest Desert, there are a number of interesting locations (called ‘neighborhoods’ in CO) that vary wildly by level. We’ll glance at each one briefly, giving you the level range the neighborhood is for, and noting if there is a respawn point located at the neighborhood.

The strongest heroes in Champions Online often need a hand, and that's why there are Supergroups. We here at Ten Ton Hammer understand the importance of player communities in online games, and that's why we've chosen to showcase a different Supergroup every couple of weeks. This week we delve into what makes The WildCards tick.

The jaw-smashing world of Champions Online has not one, not two, not even three…but seven types currency! Fortunately, your friends at Ten Ton Hammer are here to provide an overview of the seven basic currency types in CO.

A total of seven different currency types can be daunting at first, but all the currencies have some similarities. The main differences between them is how you accumulate them (I prefer rifling through the pockets of unconscious henchmen), and what you can spend them on.

Confused by those pie thingies at the bottom of your inventory screen? Well, your friends here at Ten Ton Hammer are here to provide a basic intro to currency in Champions Online. We’ll give you the information you need to get a firm grasp on how currency works in CO.

Economics…money…bling…moolah…dinero…the invisible hand theory of John Smith, these are the backbones of superhero gaming. What? You thought that pulse-pounding excitement, bone-jarring two-fisted combat between the forces of good and evil, and the wearing of tight spandex were what constitutes a good superhero MMOG?