Beginner's guide to Paragon

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So, you've bought the game, installed it, and logged into a cool-sounding server. So now you are faced with a choice."Do I save kittens, or take over the world?" My advice would be to take whichever one sounds like more fun, but since this is called "A Beginner's guide to Paragon, I'm going to go with the assumption that you are playing a hero and make a beginner's guide to the Rogue Isles later. This guide is going to guide you through your first 10 or so levels as a brand new hero first learning the ropes of Paragon.

Origin/Archetype

Your first important choice is to choose your origin and archetype. These are both very important to your character, although origin only really starts to have an impact later in the game. Your Archetype, however, is immediately important to you, and I'll mainly be discussing it.

Origin

your origin is, in roleplaying terms, how you got your powers. In Gameplay terms, your origin affects what enhancements you can use, what your starting contact is in after the turorial, and the special power you get at the start of the game. The 5 origins and their respective powers are:

Science, which gives you Tranq Dart

Technology, which gives Taser Dart

Mutation, which gives Mutagen

Natural, which gives Throwing Knives

Magic, which gives Apprentice Charm

Archetype

Your Archetype determines what types of powers you can use, how much health you have, and your role in a group, among other things. If you've played any RPG's before, MMO or not, you are probably familiar with the class system. That is what your archetype is. The hero Archetypes and their roles are:

The Blaster, who uses ranged attacks to deal lots of damage to the enemy, but is rather squishy in melee,

The Controller, who uses control powers to hinder the enemy somehow(it really depends on the power set),

The Defender, who buffs or enemies or debuffs foes(once again, it depends upon the power set),

The Scrapper, who excels in melee combat, but can get overwhelmed

The Tanker, who specializes in keeping enemies off the rest of the team and also doing some melee damage.

There are also two Epic Archetypes, known as Kheldians, who are very similar, but as they are only unlocked once you get to level 20, I will only briefly cover them. First, they both take more damage from attacks, but have good resistances to make up for this.