Design Director and Executive Producer Bill Roper has released his weekly State of the Game Address, and this one focuses mainly on explaining the four main Roles currently in the game. The Guardian Role is balanced, while the Avenger and Sentinel are made for offense and defense, respectively. Players who would rather support their teammates should look into the Protector Role. You can check out bulleted lists describing the pros and cons of each Role in Roper's full address after the jump.

In addition to the Roles discussion, Roper lets us know the Powerhouses are now live in beta, which is where you go to train, test and change your powers. He also emphasizes the importance of defensive powers and clarifies that players can "easily solo their way to the level cap if that’s how they want to play." You can also view a screenshot of an in-game action figure at the end of Roper's address. Keep reading to see it.

Things are abuzz here at Cryptic Studios as we drop in the last major components to the game. This week sees the Powerhouse go live. We JUST missed getting the UNITY missions working for the Omega system but we should have them live to beta testers ASAP. What else is happening, you might ask? Well…

What’s My Role?

Unlike most MMOs, Champions Online doesn’t have rigidly defined classes. Players can choose the focus of their hero by the powers they choose, what advantages they put on them, and the statistics on which they concentrate. Another key element to this is what Role the hero elects to take at any time. Set through the Builds interface, here are the four main Roles currently in the game:

Guardian (Balanced)

• Standard Damage
• Standard Bonus Hit Points
• Potency of Healing powers are standard
• Potency of Hold and Root powers are standard
• Resistance to Hold and Root powers are standard
• Power decays at normal rate
• Energy generated when blocking incoming attacks is standard
• Standard Threat generation
• 1 Versatile Passive slot

Avenger (Offense)

• + All damage is increased by 20%
• - Bonus Hit Points are reduced by 50%
• - Potency of Healing powers and effects are reduced by 20%
• - Potency of Hold and Root powers are reduced by 20%
• - Resistance to Hold and Root powers are reduced by 20%.
• + Power decays at 50% normal rate
• - No energy generated when blocking incoming attacks
• Standard Threat generation
• 1 Offensive Passive Slot

Sentinel (Defense)

• Standard Damage
• + Bonus Hit Points are increased by 25%
• Potency of Healing powers are standard
• Potency of Hold and Root powers are standard
• + Resistance to Hold and Root powers are increased by 20%.
• - Power decays at twice normal rate
• + Energy generated when blocking incoming attacks is doubled
• + Bonus to Threat generation
• 1 Defensive Passive Slot

Protector (Support)

• - All damage is reduced by 20%
• - Bonus Hit Points are reduced by 25%
• + Potency of Healing powers are increased by 20%
• + Potency of Hold and Root powers are increased by 20%
• + Resistance to Hold and Root powers are increased by 20%.
• + Power decays at 50% normal rate
• Energy generated when blocking incoming attacks is standard
• Standard Threat generation
• 1 Support Passive Slot

Speaking on Defense

One of the things we’re hearing is that people simply aren't aware of the significance of defensive powers. We’re going to be doing more in-game to highlight this all-important aspect to building a well-rounded hero, including ensuring there is a defensive power in every single framework (some were being shared across similar disciplines, such as Martial Arts). In the meantime, we encourage our beta testers to get those defenses up.

The Lone Wolf

There was a BIG miscommunication in a recent interview where the writer made it sound like there wasn’t enough content for solo players to get to the level cap. While we have been putting a greater emphasis on getting group content into the game, players can easily solo their way to the level cap if that’s how they want to play. We hope this clears things up.

Welcome to the Powerhouse!

The Powerhouses are live in the beta test. The /retcon command will no longer work so you’ll need to head to the powerhouse to train, test, and change your powers. Also, being a new addition to the world, there are undoubtedly a few bugs associated with them, and we’re already working on the ones we know about. On our list of things to address:

• All Powerhouse contacts currently have the same costume. There are variations on the way, and we’re also adding regional flavor to reflect the different locales.
• Retcon shows up as Respec in the contact window.
• Respec shows up as an option above Train in the dialogue window.

Baby, Baby, We’re Up All Night

The Champions Online beta will be available for play this weekend starting at 10:00 AM on Friday July 24 and running through 10:00 AM Monday morning. That’s a full 72 hours to get your hero on, testers!

Action Figures Defined

There was some confusion generated on exactly what I meant when I talked about action figures in last week’s update. These are in-game devices that spawn chibi-style figures that follow your hero around. They say a picture’s worth a thousand words, so check out the image below!