Doomrider

I'd like to see them make a comeback in some form. Maybe let the spawn by default on L50 council missions? 😂 But seriously, adding them to the ouro difficulty options seems like a no-brainer. Then they're entirely elective which should keep the complaining to a minimum. That being said, I did like them when they were a random encounter...

A few reasons: 1) Mez protection isn't really inherent to the class. Dwarf form can give you away to escape mez, but it won't reduce the duration of the mez just make you immune while in Dwarf. Using Dwarf form as mez protection can be a bit of a trap IMO. Dark Sustenance can't really be relied on as mag 1 mez protection granted per control AT in your team is still not enough to rely on and certainly doesn't help you solo. 2) Break Frees exist but aren't inherently part of a build so they wouldn't show up on a mids export. 3) Clarion is an option, but will only benefit you in the post 50 range and exemping down to 45. Even clarion is not perfect though, you can still be mezzed when the power is close to expiring and/or before you have a chance to reapply. That being said, incarnates are a bit of personal choice and opinions vary. Not everyone chooses to include specific incarnate picks as staples of a build export but some do. 4) As for Rune of Protection, well... there are probably more cons to using it on a Warshade then there are pros. It's going to give you mez protection with roughly 50% uptime +-. It is not possible to make permanent. The problem with taking it however, is the additional damage resistances it provides you will be overkill in circumstances where Eclipse alone is already capping your damage resistance to all types. You could make an arguement in favor of RoP in instances where you don't have multiple enemy targets present in which to maximize Eclipse. That being said RoP still requires you to take 2 pre-requisite powers that you're unlikely to use, on a class that is already slot starved, and has an abundance of more ideal power choices as well as optional powers to choose from, nevermind power pool picks. As for your question about acrobatics, well mag 2 hold protection won't stop you from being held on it's own. Is a toggle so it won't play well with Tri-form buiilds. Human form builds already run multiple toggles and have no inherent +recovery powers. Running too many toggles can often run you out of steam if there are no bodies around to Stygian Circle off of. That and the mez protection granted can easily be slotted into the build through ios. Shadow Step and Shadow recall, both inherent powers can take Blessing of the Zephyr KB protection giving you mag 8 protection at the cost of 0 additional slots. I know mez is a big sticking point for a lot of people trying Warshades out. Especially if they come from playing any of the melee AT's. It's something you get use to countering through other means (usually break free macros at least in my experience) the more you play. It's unfortunate that not having easy access to mez is sometimes enough for people to shelve the AT entirely soon after trying it.

I don't think balancing the game around incarnates is really the intent of the OP, unless i've wildly misinterpreted it it's talking more about looking at incarnate powers' and there impact on non-incarnate content. As far as procs go, they're actually less complicated than they are made out to be honestly especially with current mids. You don't have to be a mathemagician to know how to use them effectively. There's still much of the game that is pre-incarnate level to play so I wouldn't worry too much about Incarnate level play (or players) infringing on your ability to just play the game on an relatively even footing with other players for a vast majority of the content. Now, or in the future.

Nor would I really. The clearest example of this however, or at least the first example that comes to mind is comparing say Blaze vs Cosmic Burst. Blasters Blaze dealing 170 base damage over 1 second vs Cosmic Bursts 132 base damage over 2.07 seconds. Not only does Blaze deal naturally more base damage than Cosmic, as it should per it's inherent side effect but Cosmic Burst is dealing 77% of the same damage Blaze is dealing, but in just over twice the time. Obviously this 1 for 1 comparison is only a small piece of the puzzle but to some this would almost seem like Blaze is double dipping in performance vectors, OR rather, that Cosmic Burst's damage should remain the same but the animation speed should be adjusted so the chasm in performance is not so great.

The reason Fire Blast is not OP is the same reason that makes it the outlier when damage is the main consideration when choosing blast sets While it's damage values are high due to the added dot inherent to most of its powers and likewise the damage type being less resisted, unlike other blast sets, Fire blast is not gated behind slow animation times. You can add damage procs to many of the other blast sets, more so than you can with Fire Blast, you can min/max to your hearts content, drown your build in global recharge but you simply can't change animation times. This will also be the stopping point for many sets when it comes to Damage performance. I know you know this Sai, I just figured i'd add to it. I feel like animation times are seldom talked about when Fire Blast is brought up in regards to damage performance.

Something else to note from that same Archvillain paragon wiki page... "Archvillains are also noteworth for having strong debuff resistances that scale by level. As of Issue 9, this resistance applies to -RunSpeed, -Recharge, -Endurance, -ToHit, -Defense, -Perception, -Regeneration and -Recovery" Notice something missing? It's -Resistance, which is incredibly valuable and it's performance in difficult content should not be downplayed. Much more valuable than +dmg buffs alone but obvious better when both are present. Also, since many -regen powers come in such heavy helpings (-500% benumb, howling twilight, heat exhaustion, etc) a single application can often enough to shut down AV regen. Not something to sneeze at. edit: Not to mention, damage caps can be hit relatively easily for many AT's in full teams, however hitting the -resistance cap is incredibly difficult. Basically, having 1 kin on a a team can be great, but more than often doesn't provide any tangible difference in clear speed where as more -res has no such limitation really.

Can we get -fly added Solar Flare while we're at it so I can stomp fliers out of the sky? 😄

Agreed. The way built-in mez protection currently renders most melee classes essentially mez immune compared to the limited ways to mitigate mez on classes that are less fortunate has always been a bit strange to me. That being said, if every AT had some way to passively mitigate mez (make it not affect them at all) what point is there for enemies to even have CC abilities anymore? Idk, maybe i'm misreading things, but it seems like some players that typically gravitate towards melee classes, wish they could play their squishy classes without fear of being mezzed or rather, without having to actively mitigate it. Only speaking to my own experience, coming from mainly playing classes without built in mez protection, i've gotten use to using Break frees as a sort of 'stun break' so the whole mez thing is not as big a deal to me personally. I know others feel differently about inspiration usage though but that's a whole other topic entirely.

I think it depends on your definition of a blaster. Many may consider a Blaster primarily if not wholly ranged focus, while others accept that their secondaries (Blaster's) have melee powers and thus hybridize or even favor melee. Human Shades really want to be in or near melee range as many of their best powers (Gravity Well, Sunless Mire, Eclipse, Quasar, Stygian Circle, Orbiting death) require you to be in melee range. That being said, most of those powers have a 15' - 20' radius so you can operate close range rather than right tight to your enemies.

Cross punch is great for both PB's and WS's and Human form Shade is no exception. Shadow Blast, Gravity Well and Cross Punch make a decent chain with CP helping to close gaps. Human Shades thrive in melee. I have a human build on test at the moment that utilizes this and it works well, using boxing for filler (sadly) because it still has a better DPA than Bolt or Eye.

You're feeling the sting (or reality) of the sacrificial defenses that come with Pylon Armor. The energy hole is real in Bio, and one of the places it's sorely evident is the Bright Novas on the ITF (-def and energy damage to boot, ouch). It's a great set for getting top notch pylon numbers, but it just doesn't hold up when -def debuffs are in play as you've noted (and I agree). Bio didn't live up to the hype when I finally got around to trying it either. If I was gonna have paper defenses, I'd rather have them with more robust resistances to fall back on when the inevitable -def debuffs come knocking.

There really is no reason to slot them, even if that still worked. If you're looking to save on slots you can take any resist/rech pieces from any level 50 resist set plus 1 acc/rch piece from an endmod set and boost them to +5 using enhancement boosters to max out resist/recharge/accuracy enhancement values for very few slots. Or alternatively use a 4 piece set of Unbreakable Guard, taking all pieces that enhance recharge, plus an acc/rch +5.

Posi 1 Posi 2 Synapse Sister Psyche Moonfire Citadel Ernesto Hess Twilight's Son Katie Hannon Manticore (or Manti) Mender Lazarus Numina ITF Dr. Q Sara Moore Faathim or Justin Augustine Lanaru or Faathim (yes I know that's confusing) STF (because it used to be Statesmen's Task Force) LGTF Mender Silos That's generally how I see them in LFG on Torch anyway. Usually using the contact name to identify the task force (with a few exceptions) is the easiest to know which is being advertised. Edit: and likewise when I'm forming the team, I tend to use the above names as well. The only acronyms I typically use for Task Forces are ITF, LGTF and STF and that's mostly out of habit.

Macros can help a lot with effectively stringing together attack chains regardless of form. For instance, to help pull off double mire more easily (and quickly) I typically enter the mob in dwarf, trigger dwarf mire and queue up the following bind immediately after activating dwarf mire, in order to trigger sunless mire. The bind: /bind alt+e "powexec_toggleoff black dwarf$$powexec_toggleoff dark nova$$powexec_name sunless mire" If you're more mouse dominant you could make a macro instead: /macro MIRE "powexec_toggleoff black dwarf$$powexec_toggleoff dark nova$$powexec_name sunless mire" Since dwarf mire is so quick, with this bind it will almost seem like the two mires go off simultaneously. After sunless is finished I'll jump back, pop into Nova using another bind and cycle aoes, entering melee again briefly to Dwarf Mire again on cooldown. For single targets at range, I usually cycle Nova Ebon Eye and Dark Nova Blast, throwing in Dark Nova Emanation if I need a filler. Post 50 with a flushed out build, my attack chains usually get much more complicated and macro/bind heavy.

Given your stated build direction, if I were to "bling" it out further based on wanting more damage, I would likely make these changes... This will give you the same relatively high recharge levels but better ST damage in Gleaming and Radiant, and a stronger spammable aoe with procs in Solar Flare while retaining the same KB->KD as before. In addition to now having 95% slow/recharge debuff resistance; in conjunction with FFB in Solar Flare to further help mitigate incoming slows, basically rendering you virtually immune to slows and -recharge. As for incarnates, Destiny Ageless +recovery is nice for cushioning against end drain and recovery debuffs, likewise Barrier is nice for helping avoid those and Mez entirely for short instances and can be nice to have in groups. Interface is really up to you; Reactive and Degenerative are usually the go to for solo play but I'd ultimately pick whichever sounds best to you. If you solo a lot and want more damage go Reactive Radial, if you team a lot or do Incarnate Trials you may want a different, less popular damage option like Spectral for the Neg damage. Hybrid i'd go Assault Radial; Khelds have a lower damage cap and will hit that cap often, with Radial it will proc bonus energy for the duration of the buff and this will happen regardless if you are at the damage cap or not. Lore; up to you. Longbow, Warworks, Cimerorans are pretty popular. You could go Polar Lights for something more thematic though, or Rularuu because giant floating alien eyes are cool. Judgement; I personally like Void for the negative PBAOE and 50% -dmg debuff for a whopping 30 seconds. Very helpful to mitigate incoming damage for anything left alive. Ion or Pyronic are also good choices. and here are the changes I made to your build as described above... http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/download.php?uc=1775&c=791&a=1582&f=HEX&dc=78DA6D94CB4F135114C6EFB433D4B69452CAFB5D9EA58542E363638851F08114AD217167700A034C5229E914A24B17EE8D9AA0118DFE03AED4A5CFFFC0B551D08DA280C6078A9AF130E70B1D522621BF3BDF3D8FAF67EE65E4E260F183E3970F09A96C20AD1AC6585253C7B554569F99D2B2AE536A6E2EABA6053DBE814C4A4DE79ACFCCA9869A7591D26E0F1D3B3D39A9CD18FABC164BCC5DD0673273C6D8112A986BDB1135A815441DA60E2290CC64D2B1A19979DDD0537A5ACF5DF258CAE8ACA64DF8AD65425327B4AC31ADCF7AADF763697D6A3A27AAC9C901FADB54041E53160B844E59386E82B798F26D7091B9BA9523593942ECA7455C167F1448C254A46E87A515C5C05EE69E3E30CE8CBF972DAE53AE93EB49CE4F4E4BEB1DD9AAEB167F698F2D9A4279CD79FF4870A197AB83B5B630D8C5EC88303BA3207AF928D18D7AEE0AF66E523D2F346F54585A0BC5F9E0C967696E110703B4E747BC1F35A4222102F014E827C84E510EB66EB287D6DFE079EE1179C5EFDFA87F10F30C7649D68CBF9356817A151F7826D51FC115662D6655FF195C652E516215FC55C19F4CFE6A50AF669167517B87D9B8CC798D6BE4A781D8CFBE4257983FC94B1DEAD585D87B09CDA0015A037A28D4A3093D9A86B876F3089800EF3243F7E41D67A088725B90DBF284FD743D059F812F9811E4F43EE7F75FE4AF9D731DED51F6D211073738668362C2F01B1EE6BD1FA445A145F1BBD6488B418BE15B7C25AD0F5A1FB47A79FBDE48E21AFB29BD8E795A7B5B1FD434C3F9381A22FCDB35931ED167577AD849BC206A6F81B26F97BCC42E5A52DEBE9D42AA63CD5D4AB78E3573542EBC15AB1ECAC1A9940EF2495ECF6B9214E25FD37396E3D7ECF161EEF125AF39A4159E4ED93AB8C0A7CB2D6FDF70877242B66E58E5498EA91C667AF23192729F6F61E94BEEEFCDEF29CA1BC4BF05979825CBE03B66394E50B1BDF743688FC0C7882504319BA0C19E2BF29A1244CF106AB6A177277A47D0BB1BBD2BF3B97210FF09BA55709CD933016ACC2ABB073F7BA8CE6B52F02A6EC40D668D3DFEE8D689758BA4C73A11D6F74ED9D6AA6D7DCEB61EA60271FE76E67F29280820

It is a lot of form shifting yes, but intentionally so. I use macros for my attack chain so when I activate the powers, regardless of what form I'm in, it will drop me into the required form to activate that power, usually requires some timing and double or tripple tap to capitalize on the macros though but with practice it works well. I slotted Gaussian's and Power Transfer heal proc in Nova Form and weave Nova Blast in between every attack to activate those passively during my chain. It gives me some supplemental healing to minimize downtime of using other powers outside my chain and gives me a chance to roll Gaussian's about every 1.5ish seconds for the build-up. I sometimes see Gaussian's stacked so I keep my health/buff bar below my character so I can keep an eye on when the BU buff icon appears and try to time my Seekers accordingly. The build I used doesn't have any defense really, just Steadfast + Glad's armor (6% def to all combined) so the extra healing from PT on top of Capped resists from LF are enough to allow me to solo a pylon without really breaking a sweat.

Thanks Micro 😁. I'm just surprised I pulled this off without Cross Punch. Edit: Don't break out the champagne yet... Re-viewed my math again... time was 3:15 or 195 seconds not 189... derp. 324 DPS 😑. Just barely missed the mark.

Thanks, I was surprised I could pull this off without Cross Punch and FotG tbh. Attack chain is Radiant Strike -> Nova Blast -> Gleaming Blast -> Nova Blast -> Radiant Strike. Casting Seekers when up, immediately after casting Inner Light. All 3 attacks are proc'd out, Achilles heel in both Gleaming and Radiant for -res up time.

These are the changes I would make with a build like this: http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/download.php?uc=1714&c=765&a=1530&f=HEX&dc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wapped Radiant Strike to Hecatomb. The added damage proc really helps ST damage out. - Swapped a bunch of slots around with your shields. Thermal is honestly the last shield I bother with. Fire/cold damage aren't super common and running 3 shields plus any other toggles can get pretty end heavy especially if you're exemping. - Moved Kheld's grace over to Dawn Strike and added a KB->KD. Moved the Form Bonus io over to Dwarf Smite (yes the bonus works even if it's just muled in a power you don't intend on using) - Jammed an extra slot into manuevers and weave for the LOTG def/end and boosted it to 5 to get your Defense back to 45 melee. - Dropped the single recharge from Inner Light for 2 piece rectified reticle for the s/l def bonus. Power is still perma. - Swapped the recharge in Light Form for end/rch and boosted it +5 to get a little more bonus recovery when in Light Form. I made a build similar to this awhile back if you're curious, it's on the previous page called the "PB Brawler build" that might interest you if you're still planning on tweaking this build some more.

Thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying them. The incarnate choices in that build were not really chosen specifically for that, hence why they aren't actually listed in the "features" section of those post. Incarnates are fairly interchangeable, however I do enjoy Vigor Alpha on my Shade, it really makes Dwarf Drain's heal quite beefy and helps gives us some endurance reduction which helps in protracted fights like AV or GM fights where there are not a lot of minions to Stygian off of for recovery. That being said, I don't consider Musculature on Warshades to be very ideal, seeing as how the class already easily caps it's own damage through enhancement+sunless mire+dwarf mire, making the additional damage enhancement from Musculature to go wasted regularly. Ageless isn't a bad way to go, it's helpful when fighting Malta, Arachnos or Carnies where end drain is prevalent. At the same time Barrier can also help with this as a defensive cooldown which will also help us to avoid mez, grant def/res to our nearby teammates and our essences. I typically float between Clarion/Barrier/Ageless depending on what I'm fighting. Degenerative is alright, the -max hp helps a bit on harder targets by simultaneously debuffing their regen by way of the -max hp debuff and seeing as how Warshade's don't have the best ST dps, every little bit helps. I usually run Reactive however (while solo) for the stronger and more consistent Fire DoT. This slot is pretty flexible, even some of the less popular interfaces like Diamagnetic (-tohit) and Paralytic (-dmg) can be helpful for keeping your pets alive if you prefer a more defensive approach. Assault isn't a bad choice, but I would definitely suggest going Radial and not Core for the same reason we don't go Musculature. We have plenty of sources for +dmg and a lower damage bonus cap to boot which means we're often at cap both solo and on teams. This is where Radial really shines as the bonus damage granted is by way of a energy damage proc and is useful both at dmg cap or not. I haven't really considered it no. Kheld have been my main focus for most of my time playing CoH and this is where most of my knowledge lies. I could certainly give it a whirl for other AT's but I feel like those areas are covered pretty well by others elsewhere on the forum. Yeah, I put a lot of hours in using that build on the live server. It really beefs up Dwarf's damage output so even if you get mezzed a lot, you have decent ST dps and you're still 1 small purple insp from s/l softcap in all forms. Most of the Tri-form builds I've posted exemp pretty well to be honest. The key to getting the most out of them while exemping is making sure the dmg procs, LOTG 7.5%'s, Panacea, Glad Armor, etc, are all attuned. That's the beauty of Tri-form, you're a beast from level 6 onward.

Here's an idea... try making a build and posting it with requests for critique and feedback instead of spamming every AT channel with a "GIB ME GUD BLDZ PLZ" threads.

I'll take a peek at it as soon as I'm able. Currently out of town at the moment so my access to mids (and time to look) is very limited right now.

The budget Tri-form builds are fine to use for leveling in terms of their power order. What I typically try to encourage for slot focus while leveling are the following powers: Ebon eye and Nova Blast; 3-4 slots each. 2 acc/ 2 dmg. Both blasts recharge quickly and have relatively low endurance costs so no need to enhance recharge or endurance reduction. Nova Emanation and Detonation; prioritize these 2 powers with 5 slot each. You can slot Positron's blast here at 20 for the 5 piece recharge bonuses. Sunless Mire; 4 slots. 2 acc / 2 rch. Once you get Dwarf, prioritize slots in Black Dwarf Mire. 6 slot with obliteration at level 30. From there you can enhance Dwarf Smite and Strike with 4 slots; 2 acc / 2 dmg. A lot of the powers we take as mules (manuevers, vengeance, unleash or combat jumping, shadow cloak) are still valuable to take where they're slotted because we're going to slot Luck of the Gambler 7.5% recharge bonus IO's once we hit 25. Kheldians have far too many powers available to them to properly slot them all while leveling, so we need to focus on which ones we're going to slot for the early to mid game and which we'll wait to slot up closer to 50. Prioritizing Nova form and your damage buffs (sunless mire/dwarf mire) is probably the best way to go as Nova is really strong in the early game, granting you 2 ST blasts and 2 aoes by level 6. Once that foundation is slotted up, then you can start to decide from there which powers you want to slot up.

Well this is probably the highest DPS run I've seen/heard of on a Peacebringer... Did a run the other day on my Peacebringer ( no temps, no insps, no outside buffs, hybrid off) 3:15 but just tried the same run this morning with Hybrid Radial T4 on... 2:43 second finish... I think that's 392 DPS if my math is correct. 363 DPS. edit: DPS = 127.82 + 38346/time where time = 163 seconds. Still Not bad for an Kheld I think.