Bastille Boy

There are a lot of ways to build, but I usually have two priorities on a corruptor or defender. First, I want both softcapped range defense (45% or higher) and softcapped defense to either melee or S/L. Then I want to build for global recharge, so that my nuke and my best buffs are up as often as possible. There are other ways to build. You might not care about having two softcapped defenses if you always stay at range or if you always play on a full team with lots of defense buffs from teammates. I like to get into the fray, and I play all my toons both solo and on teams, and my reflexes are lousy, so I value defense.

My ice/nature corruptor is 50 now, with only a couple of veteran levels. The damage is very good when Overgrowth is up (which is most of the time). It doesn't feel as if it's going to be a tank-mage. It's more survivable than, say, Thermal, but it's not going to be able to solo the hardest content (at least not in my unskilled hands). I consider Overgrowth, Wild Growth, and Wild Bastion the most important powers in Nature. Spore Cloud is good. I took Lifegiving Spores but don't think it's essential.

Ice is indeed a solid set. It has excellent single target damage and a powerful nuke. It's a bit lackluster on AOE damage outside of the nuke. It has useful secondary effects and some potential for procs (though on a corruptor, you're unlikely to have much space in your build for procs unless you pick a secondary like Time that mostly covers your defenses). My go-to primaries for defenders are Water and Sonic. I would advise against taking Sonic on a corruptor; much of the damage comes from the -res, so you want to go defender with that set. Water is worth considering for a corruptor, though I haven't tried it yet. It's sort of the opposite of Ice: lots of AOE, weaker on single target damage. It also has useful secondary effects and room for procs, notably including multiple places to slot Force Feedback +recharge. There are a lot of blast sets I haven't tried because I don't like them thematically (e.g. Fire, which is obviously a good set, for corruptors especially). Beam is a good set, though it's arguably better for defenders because of the secondary effects. I want to like Psychic Blast, but the lack of solid AOE is a problem. (It is even more single target focused than Ice.) The corruptor/defender version is arguably better than the blaster version, since it has a cone, an immobilize, and a better version of Will Domination.

My one level 50 corruptor is an Ice/Thermal. Thermal is a great powerset on teams. The +res buff for teammates is especially useful if you have other squishies or defense-oriented melee characters on your team. Six of the nine powers require an ally. Though the T8 and T9 powers are great, I don't recommend Thermal for soloing. The lack of self-protective powers is a major drawback. I'm currently experimenting with an Ice/Nature corruptor (now level 45). Nature has AOE +res, +regen, heal/absorb, +dam, and +tohit. It's too soon to say whether this will be a good endgame toon, but the damage numbers in Mids are shiny. If you want a corruptor with a "healing set," and you're planning to solo more than occasionally, I'd recommend Nature or Pain over Thermal.

The game can be balanced around SOs at base difficulty and still present an interesting challenge to IOed players at +4/8. Different enemy groups scale up differently. Council at +4/8 is easy-peasy on an IOed team or with an IO build designed for soloing. My big goal in the game for the past several months has been to solo Linea's AE 801.2 at max difficulty. (I think I'm almost there...my SR/WM tanker can do it at +3/8 and doesn't have lores yet.) This is a notoriously difficult mission, yet it's designed to be beatable at base difficulty on an SO build. I think it's a good idea to keep the bulk of game content balanced around SOs at base difficulty. I think that's necessary to keep the game accessible to new, casual players (including new players who aren't being tutored by a veteran player).

I'm not sure how much the auction house data tells us. Some people have lowball bids for IOs (perhaps for multiples) all the time. Some people only bid when they're building a new toon. Some people have bad cases of altitis. Some people focus on their main.

Congratulations on your first level 50 character! The key to a solid build for this combination is having softcap (45%) defense to ranged and smashing/lethal. On some other powerset combinations, you can go for melee and ranged, but that's not going to work for this pair. After that, you have choices. Global recharge is a priority for most builds. For Pain/Sonic, global recharge is helpful because it helps you keep up Haste and World of Pain, and it gets you your nuke more often. Darkir helped me out with my Pain/Sonic build. Here's the thread: In my final build, I chose not to slot Boxing for recharge, so that I could distribute those slots elsewhere. There's some risk in doing that, since it takes the build farther away from perma-haste (which means there will be more moments when World of Pain isn't up). But I really wanted some of those slots elsewhere. The Reactive Defenses unique is good to have. Easy changes you could make, with either Darkir's original or my slight variant as a base: If you like Scream better than Shout, that's a simple substitution. If you don't care about having Rune of Protection, you could drop Sorcery and take Combat Jumping or Hover plus a travel power of your choice. Combat Jumping is low endurance, so if you go that way, I'd two-slot it (Luck of the Gambler, global recharge and defense). That frees up two slots. If you're starting with Darkir's original, I'd put one slot on Maneuvers (for the Reactive Defenses scaling resist) and one slot on Health (moving the Panacea unique there, but keeping five slots on Soothing Aura). I'd probably take Assault or Vengeance for the last power. You might want to shift the order of the powers, e.g. taking a travel power earlier. If you don't have the funds for purple sets yet, you can put five Obliteration in Dreadful Wail (giving you 5% global recharge rather than 10%). If you're slotting Boxing, you can do five Crushing Impact (same numbers). You can fill in the purple sets later.

I have a War Mace / SR scrapper and an SR / War Mace tanker. For solo play, I think this combination is better on a tanker. The scaling resists in SR are more helpful if your maximum HP is high. The tanker is my toughest tank and does solid damage. The scrapper is good on teams, but if I try to crank up the difficulty solo, I faceplant a lot. Of course, your mileage may vary. I don't have super reflexes, myself, and I like playing challenging content solo, so I prefer tankier characters. I took Weave on both characters, both to help with incarnate content (and its higher defense cap) and as a secondary form of protection against defense debuffs. No opinion on the relative merits of SR and WP for scrappers. (I have a level 50 WP scrapper, but I rolled it before I started using Mids for builds, and I haven't revisited it.)

I have a Willpower / Super Strength proc monster that can solo an AV at base difficulty without using envenomed daggers. It's a slog. I don't remember this toon's pylon time, but it's not great. I very much doubt that I could handle a +4 AV with this toon. The build compromises survivability for damage, which I think is a bad trade-off for a tanker. I'd much rather maximize survivability and run solo missions EB-only. The big weakness is defense debuffs. Willpower has some defense debuff resistance, but not much, and I haven't built in a cushion to deal with debuffs. So cascading defense failure can happen fast. Posting the build, but as more of a cautionary tale than a recommendation.

Time/Water and Time/Ice would both be good choices! Water is better for AOE. Ice is better for single target. Both have useful secondary effects and room for procs. I should have mentioned...if you want defenses way over softcap, you do that by combining Farsight with Power Build Up. If you just want to get to the softcap, any epic power pool will do.

Here are some thoughts on primaries. First theory, then personal experience. TL/DR: Time is amazing; Pain is underrated. For any defender, but especially a solo defender, I find I want soft-capped defenses (ranged and either S/L or melee). Some people have done impressive things with resist-based builds that don't soft-cap defenses, but I'm not skilled enough to play such a character well. It is possible to get soft-capped defenses on any defender powerset combination, but some primaries make this easier than others. Time and Traps give you big defense boosts. This allows for a lot of build flexibility. You can take a resist-based epic armor instead of Scorpion Shield. You can take an Alpha slot power that doesn't boost defense. There will be room in your build for recharge bonuses and procs. Force Field also gives you a pretty big defense boost. Cold, Dark, and Storm give you more modest but still helpful defense boosts. Electrical Affinity , Nature, Pain, and Sonic do not boost your defense, but they give you some resistances, so taking Scorpion Shield rather than a resist-based epic armor is less of a sacrifice. I think all of these are viable solo primaries. Other sets are certainly possible to solo with, but your build will be more constrained. Here are some thoughts on the defender and corruptor builds I've taken to 50: Time/Water defender: This is a great combination for three reasons: you can easily get your defenses well over the softcap (from Farsight), you have lots of AoE (from Water), and you can stay at range (since Water's nuke is ranged AoE and since you can use Distortion Field to slow enemies' approach). I'm still working on incarnate powers for this toon. It will almost certainly end up being my strongest solo ranged character. That said, I wouldn't use it to take on AVs. There's not enough single-target damage. Rad/Sonic defender: Described as the "classic AV killer." I find this toon solos well at low levels; the toggles provide good protection. At level 50, -tohit is no substituute for softcapped defenses. Achieving softcapped melee and ranged defense is possible without relying on Agility Alpha, but the build is tight. I recently respecced this toon and haven't fully tested its capabilities. I think the Time/Water will end up better for solo play. Rad/Sonic is ideal for teams fighting hard targets. (If you want to make the first mission of Katie Hannon go fast...) Pain/Sonic defender: Pain is an underrated set. With the combination of +res and the PBAoE healing toggle, you can build a tanky defender. You get a useful self-buff in World of Pain and a good debuff in Anguishing Cry. On a fast-moving team, Pain/Sonic is a great combination. Pain is less clicky than other "healing" sets, so it's possible to focus on the secondary most of the time. Playing solo, this toon's main limitation is the secondary: Sonic Blast is the best defender secondary on teams, because it's a damage multiplier for other players, but it's bad for soloing, since it does relatively little damage itself. With a different blast set (water?), I think Pain would solo well: not S-tier, but solid. Beam/Empathy defender: I rolled this toon for PVP kickballs. Beam is a solid PVE set. Empathy doesn't solo well, for me. (I know that solo emps have done amazing things.) Ice/Thermal corruptor: Intended for PVP but never used there. Ice is an amazing blast set; the secondary effects provide much-needed protection in the middle levels. It's arguably better on a corruptor than on a defender because of the rains. Thermal is a great set on teams (better than Empathy, I'd say), but it's not great for solo play. The "dark fire" theme is less distracting than the original animations.

In case this matters to your story, Rhode Island adopts the following definition of insanity (derived from the Model Penal Code): A person is not responsible for criminal conduct if at the time of such conduct, as a result of mental disease or defect, his capacity either to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law is so substantially impaired that he cannot justly be held responsible. State v. Johnson, 399 A.2d 469, 476 (R.I. 1979). (I am not a lawyer.)

I think you made a good call on EA v. SR. I have an SR scrapper I'm rerolling as a tanker. It was a fun toon and a good concept, but as a scrapper, it's too squishy. With no self-heal, low regeneration, and the scaling resists only starting to kick in at 60% HP, Super Reflexes benefits from high base HP.

I think there are five required powers: Radiant Aura Enervating Field Radiation Infection Lingering Radiation Accelerate Metabolism The other four powers aren't useless, but I prefer to take more pool powers.

One benefit of Rad is that you really only need to take five powers, which are all available by level 12: the heal, the two toggle debuffs, the -regen debuff, and Accelerate Metabolism. This makes a Rad/X defender great for exemplaring and for builds that go deep into pool powers.

I have two level 50 /Sonic defenders, a Rad/Sonic and a Pain/Sonic. Both are fun. The Pain/Sonic is not optimal but still contributes effectively on fast-moving teams. With capped S/L and ranged defenses, solid resistances, and steady healing from Soothing Aura, it's very tanky. The Rad/Sonic is probably better for tough AV fights, but it takes time to apply the toggles, so it's not so good for steamrolling teams. Here's my Pain/Sonic build (a slight variant of a build by Darkir). My Rad/Sonic build is out of date. If you're interested in Rad/Sonic, I'd look at this thread. No one has mentioned Time or Cold. They're also good choices. Zeraphia describes Cold, Kin, and Sonic as the top defender primaries for speed-running teams (along with the older, bugged version of Dark).

Has anyone on Homecoming ever obtained a name by persuading another player to rename a character? I would expect most emails asking a player to rename a character to receive either no response or a negative response.

I've been playing with corruptor and defender builds lately. This is what I've learned. (All this may be obvious to others, but I hadn't fully processed this.) If you want to build for two softcapped defenses, (ranged and either S/L or melee) it is easier to do this if your buff set gives you a defense buff. Time or Traps will give you a big defense buff and a lot of build flexibility. You can take whatever epic pool and Alpha slot power you want. You can get plenty of recharge and/or procs in your build. Dark, Cold, or Storm give you a more modest but still helpful defense buff. Force Field is in between. If your buff set doesn't give you any defense bonus, and you want softcapped defenses, your build will be tight. For some powerset combinations (e.g. Ice/Thermal), it's possible to achieve softcapped melee and ranged defense, but the build will be very tight, without much room for procs or global recharge, and you will have to take an Alpha power that includes defense (typically Agility). For some combinations, building for melee/ranged defense is simply not an option. You must go for S/L/ranged, and you must get some of that S/L defense from your epic power pool, which means no epic resistance armor. That said, some other sets give you other kinds of build flexibility. Sets that include resistance buffs make the choice of a defense-based epic armor less of a sacrifice. EA, Nature, Pain, and Sonic all offer resistance self-buffs. Dark does too, thought not to S/L. Sets that include mez resistance make it unnecessary or less necessary to take Clarion or Rune of Protection. These include EA, FF, Rad, Sonic, and Traps. Of course, none of this says anything about the other benefits you get from your buff set. You might want a set that doesn't provide much self-protection because of the other benefits it provides.

I'm on board with the proposal to release character names associated with players who haven't logged on in a very long time. (Six months? A year?) I'm also totally okay with the policy that character names can be released if a character isn't leveled above 1 within some number of days. I'm uncomfortable with the suggestion that regular activity on a higher-level character be required to keep their name. I have some characters I played a lot in 2019 or in early 2020 that I haven't come back to lately because I've gotten obsessed with new flavor-of-the-month builds. I've written posts about one of those characters in the roleplaying forum. Another one used to be my main. I do plan to play these characters again. I'd be sad if Herocatcher Jake or Mikey Iodine got generic-ed because I forgot to sign in to those specific characters in 60 days or 90 days or whatever.

You could try slotting Obliteration in World of Confusion, dropping the sixth slot from your powers with winter sets, and putting those slots in Combat Jumping: one more defense IO and two Blessing of the Zephyr enhancements. You might consider dropping Tactics, taking a travel power, and putting the two Blessing of the Zephyr enhancements there. Most Pain and Empathy builds don't build for melee defense. Many of them take Mace Mastery and build for S/LE and ranged defense. Linea's Combat Medic, an emp designed for soloing, doesn't go for softcap defense at all. I've been using a Pain/Sonic build that's a slight variation of a build Darkir made for me. It uses Scorpion Shield and hits S/L/E softcaps without Agility. It's 0.6% short of the softcap on ranged defense. With good resistance from World of Pain, and from Rune when it's up, it's very tanky.

Welcome back to the game! My experience is that every archetype and powerset combination is welcome in endgame pick-up groups. Brute and Sentinel are both good choices for a new player or for a returning player who's rolling their first toon in 8+ years. They play well both solo and on teams. Their role on teams is simple: do damage! A brute can function as a tanker (herding, taunting), but it's not expected. Though "play what you want, how you want" is generally good advice, there are three playstyles that can cause friction on a team: Being a "dedicated healer." Characters with "healing" sets like Empathy and Pain Domination are welcome. They're expected to attack and buff/debuff as well as healing. Using knockback, especially AOE knockback, unskillfully. Slotting knockback-to-knockdown enhancements on knockback powers is often a good idea. Knockdown is fine. Using AOE controls in a way that prevents the team's tanker(s) from herding. I don't think any of these would be a big issue for any of the brute powersets. For a sentinel or other ranged type, I might steer clear of Energy Blast for a first toon.

Good suggestion! Also a good suggestion. But devs, please don't change the badge titles that display below character names. A lot of the best badge titles for flavor come from exploration badges.

For me, I think the simplest way to adapt to these changes on my many alts is this: Go to Pocket D and find a quiet corner. Go mostly AFK for an hour. Yay! Now I have Long Range Teleporter. Alternatively, collect exploration badges from one zone (most likely Kings Row for heroes, Cap au Diable for villains). Don't bother with other exploration badges. This is only to get Long Range Teleporter. When it's time to zone, activate Long Range Teleporter, then use /enterbasefrompasscode as before. I can't see a reason to collect more exploration badges for Long Range Teleporter. It may be desirable to have additional zone travel powers for toons that are going to be doing fast task forces that involve zoning more than once every 10 minutes. But for casual play, this is fine.

All of my characters have biographies. I try to keep them short enough that people can read without scrolling. Most are three very short paragraphs (so way under 1024 characters). Though most of my toons are associated in some way with Port Oakes Penitentiary, the world's only minimum-security prison for supers, my best biography is a one-off: Scrapper: Ice Melee / Willpower Tim Sundae's ability to summon ice comes from a mutation he inherited from his mother. From his father, he inherited homosexuality and self-denial. I enjoy reading other players' bios, and I always look for them if there's downtime while waiting for a mission/event to start. I find biographies easiest to read if they're either short or formatted with paragraph breaks or other white space.

Pain and Empathy play very differently. I have a level 50 Pain/Sonic defender and a level 50 Empathy/Beam defender. Empathy has five buffs to keep up, if you are using Clear Mind preemptively. Pain has only three, including Enforced Morale (CM equivalent), and one of the major healing powers is a toggle aura. When I play my Pain character, I find that I can easily focus on my secondary--which happens to be what I want to do. I love healing sets for thematic/backstory reasons, but I don't play them as dedicated healers. I have little experience playing controllers and no experience playing Illusion. But I'd hesitate to invest in Ill/Pain before you've fully explored the possibilities of the toon you already have. Maybe it's worth a respec to put more emphasis on your primary. Take more of the powers--maybe all of them? Maybe get some procs in the hold powers? See how you like playing the toon with more emphasis on buffing and on the weird but interesting mix of tools that Illusion gives you. What server are you on? If you're open to trying out another server, it may be worth transferring this character to Indominable. Because the PVP community is on Indom, and emps are essential in PVP, Empathy toons may get a warmer welcome there, even in PVE. I didn't experience any anti-emp sentiment when I was leveling up my Emp/Beam. (I didn't play this toon as a dedicated healer, either. When I took him to a PVP kickball, and dedicated healing was expected, that was an adjustment!) If you prefer to stay where you are, I think you'll get a better reaction from other players if you stop billing the character as a "dedicated healer." It suggests that you're deliberately not using the features of your powersets that are of most use to your team. "Dedicated support" or "team-oriented controller" would sound better to my ear.