Quick Beginners Guide

This section talks about things related to creation of your character

Firstly you pick your gender, it doesn't effect the game at all apart from your characters' appearance. This can only be changed after creation from the marketplace (requires real money).

Next you pick your body type, this is mostly your appearance but it makes you taller / shorter. It may make you harder to see in PvP in some instances and can let you fit through smaller gaps, but doesn't really make a difference. This can also only be changed later on in the marketplace.

After selecting your body type you are given the options, Custom and Inspired By, custom just continues with the creation, where you manually select everything, where-as Inspired By auto selects things to best suit a certain known Hero or Villain like Batman, Green Lantern, ect.

Next you pick your side, Hero or Villain
In terms of quests both Heroes & Villains both have almost identical. Most of the time they are in the same location or near eachover, and are similar. The main differences are that there are alot more heroes than villains, Queue times for instances as heroes may be shorter and the headquarters, armour and weapons look different. Heroes and Villains can't be in the same group together, do the same quests, but they can now do the same instances (if Task Force X is enabled in settings) and may both work together to defeat Important NPCs in the world. You cannot change your side after creation.

Select Personality All this does is change the way some emotes look, how you stand idle and how you run.

Select Mentor
What you choose here changes where your first few missions are, what order you do missions in and what final mission you are given as you reach around level 27 / 28 / 29.

Powers

There are 12 powers at the time of writing this guide, 4 for each role. I will firstly list each power and what I find they're best at, ect:

TANK- Ice: Uses mostly shields and every time a power is used your Defence and Toughness increases by 90% (not stackable). Has a ranged pull and can freeze enemies if you use certain powers.

TANK-Fire: Has ability to self heal and give yourself power. Every time a power is used, your total health increases by 60% plus 2.2 health per point of Dominance you have. Also your healing recieved is increased by 80%. Has area pull power that pulls all enemies near you.

TANK- Earth: Has pets, ability to increase duration of powers / combos if you will. When a power is used in tank role you gain 25% damage absorption, plus your Defence & Toughness is increased by 1 per ppoint of Dominance.

TANK- Rage: Has power that heals back all damage taken while active for a certain time, but if another certain power isn't used as soon as it ends, all health healed back will be dealed instantly, possibly causing your death. Has ability to self heal and each time a power is used in tank role, your health is increased by 2 thirds of your Dominance, for each nearby enemy.

TANK- Atomic: I have not really seen or played as Atomic at all yet.

CONTROLLER- Mental: Has alot of single target and multi target stuns / knockdowns. Can set enemies on fire, freeze, electrocute and transform,mainly ranged.

CONTROLLER- Gadgets: Has mainly single target stuns, a pet, can also set on fire.

CONTROLLER- Light: Has combos which can be used by one power to use another without losing power. Has single and multi target stuns and is mainly a mid / close combat power.

CONTROLLER- Quantum: Can teleport, lots of single and multi target stuns, some stuns cause enemies unable to be moved, is mostly ranged power.

HEALER- Nature: Uses Healing over Time with most of its powers which are stackable with eachover but not the same power, has shield, mainly damage over time, can transform to gain new attacks and buffs.

HEALER- Sorcery: Summons pets which damage and heal, stationary big area heals and a shield.

HEALER- Electricity: Shorter healing over time, a shield, 2 player heal over time.

HEALER- Celestial: Can use combos to use power in same location in opisite tree, can curse enemies so their attacks heal your allies, has ranged instant heals and heals over time.

All powers can be used as both their support role and DPS. As DPS you gain a 10% / 25% / 30% / 50% damage bonus for around 12 seconds after using powers. (boost is higher the further down the power tree it is)

Movement

All movements have skill trees which are mostly useless apart from stun resistances,
Flight could be considered the easiest since you can fly over enemies ect.
Super speed is slightly faster than the others while in combat, can double jump,
Acrobatics in combat moves slower than speed but faster than flight in combat but can also glide, grapple to top of buildings, double jump

Weapon All weapons have both ranged and melee attacks.

Bow: Mainly single target ranked attack with 2 multi-target attacks.
Brawling: Melee focused weapon, has alot of strong multi-target attacks, weak ranged
Dual Pistol: Alot of single target ranged attacks requiring alot of movement, has constant damage to all enemies attack, which doesn't do alot of damage.
Dual Wield: Fast melee focused weapon that has powerful single and multitarget attacks, has decent ranged attacks.
Hand Blast: Fast 'Pew Pew Lazers' that do both single and multi target damage. Most recommended for a healer and maybe controller
Martial Arts: Fast melee weapon with powerful single and multi target attacks, decent ranged attacks.
One handed: Fast mostly single target melee weapon. Good single target ranged attack
Rifle: Good for spamming. Can interrupt ranged attackers while staying at range.
Staff: Good, fast, constant stun combo for single target, very weak ranged.
Two handed: Strong slow multitarget attacks, decent ranged that also knocks down enemies.
Shield: A decent all around weapon with strong ranged and good single target melee attacks.

Stats

Health: Increases the amount of health points you have
Power: Increases the amount of power you have so you can use more powers before running out
Defense: Decreases damage taken from NPCs
Might: Increases amount of power damage
Restoration: Increases how fast you regenerate health with effects caused by you, like healing powers
Vitalization: Increases how fast you regenerate power with effects caused by you, like power over time and instant power.
Precision: Increases weapon damage and certain powers
Toughness: Decreases amount of damage taken from other players (PvP)
Dominance: Makes your control effects like stuns harder to escape, increases the damage an enemy must take before they can escape your control.

Healers should focus on getting as much Restoration as possible
Controllers should focus on getting as much Vitalization as possible, as well as a lot of Dominance.
Tanks should get as much defence, health and dominance as possible, (Ice mostly defence, fire mostly health, earth mostly dominance and rage mostly health / dominance)
Damage should focus on precision and maybe might.

There are currently 7 tiers.

To increase in tiers, you must increase your combat rating to a certain number to be a part of that tier, which then allows you to play certain instances and get better gear.

Most instances give you Marks of Victory which you use to buy armour and weapons.

The instances you can do that give you Marks are 1 player missions, duos (2 player missions), alerts (4 player missions), raids (8 player missions) and operations (also 8 player missions). All of these require you to queue up for them in the menu with what role you are, and you will be put into a group.

However most of Tier 3 and onwards becomes Pay 2 Win (requires either DLC, legendary) or becomes too time consuming.

There are 2 types of PvP in this game, Arena and Legends.

Arena: Regular PvP. You get rewarded with currency to buy better gear.

Legends: You play as DC Heroes or Villains which you buy by playing Legends.
At level 5 you get Robin (Heroes) or Harley Quinn (Villains).

With open world PvP and Arena you will need PvP gear with Toughness, Not Defence.