Linea

I'll put the Beta one on live as 801.9 ... soon(tm). 801 has evolved a lot since pre-shutdown. The ones on test are pre-shutdown versions. 801.2 (live) is my current armor standard. You should be able to solo it +4x8 and complete it in less than 2 hours. My Empath and Blaster can both do that with insanely extreme difficulty. (once and only once with the empath and blaster, all other runs are +1x8 and that is probably a more fair rating for them.) Re Beta: Ah, those are really old ones I pulled as "unplayable" 😜. Those are the very old ones from pre-shutdown, that eventually 'devolved' into what is 801 on live here. The only thing I have that can handle what we'll call 801.9 is Lucy SD/RadM. She managed 25m to 30m one day when seriously challenged by someone else. That challenge gave me the motivation to work my ass off and survive, including phasing as needed when I got debuffed too deeply. It's not pretty, and I'm really not sure how well it's designed, it honestly was a mistake, but since it was difficult I kept it and used it to poke holes in armor. The newer 801s are a much better design, but also much easier as I aimed for 801.2 to be soloable +0x0 on SOs by a defender or controller (piloted by me), but still challenging to as many builds as possible solo +4x8. Obviously there are upper limits when you also impose the lower limit of +0x0 on SOs. 801.3 (live) and up break the lower limit rule. 801.5 (live) and 801.F (live) should be survivable by any tank armor set except Regen. Kiski (Time/Fire) can generally surivive +4x8 about 15 minutes, but eventually she blinks. 801.5 kills 95% of tanks that join me on runs, but at the same time I've had at least one of every armor type do an excellent job of team-tank (with the exception of regen), and All my tanks handle it fine. I warn each group ... even then, 1 in 8 people rage-quit, and the tanks are the worst for rage-quitting, despite all the warnings. I've had teams go through 4 tanks, and had to beg friends to join mid-mission just so we can finish because all 4 tanks rage-quit and I wasn't currently on something that could do the "team-tank" job (there are 4 tanks, why can't I play squishie today?!?). People just don't believe it might be a challenge, and when it is, they meltdown. 801.f (live) is both harder and easier than 801.5, hence the different designation. If you are careful it can be easier as you can see everything coming. If you are not careful aggro explodes and it's more difficult. F is 6 so this is another way of saying 801.6 since it's a completely different design and doesn't play the same as the others.

I don't have his build, he went a different direction than I did. But see the following: You can also search for "Burke" and "Strauss" as keywords. Those were the code-names for emp builds I did for others. You should probably make sure to look through the archives as well: MRB: https://tinyurl.com/y6akcwre MRBU: https://tinyurl.com/vnhnjlo Mids Archives: https://tinyurl.com/wsn5v4j

Unless you play like a Linean Lunatic. But I'd agree for 99% of content and playstyle. And Traps will even let you take out AVs (with relative ease) while you're at it. Traps is very very nice.

Here are three variants out of the archives, I ended up building Dark/Rad for this project, but the build may still be helpful in some way. Dark DP - Beta Template 1 - [i25].mxd Dark DP - Beta Template 2 - [i25].mxd Dark DP Dark Defender - Stellina Template 1 - [i25].mxd

A) Almost any defender. It's just figuring out the build and playstyle. B) Listed in order of ease of play and/or lowest cost FF - Classic Offender, particularly if combined with Hover-Tanking, and a blast set with a heal. FF/Water for instance. Traps - Another Classic Offender, see FF above. Eafn - Cheap easy build if you can keep your pet alive and play at low notoriety settings. Sonic - This one is much harder than FF. Time - This one is a little trickier early on without status protection, but amps will fix that. It's a beast end-game, absolute beast. Nature - This is another more difficult one, but endgame, and/or with amps and a good IO build can be very nice.

No easy task, no matter how you go about it. It's much easier on almost any other build. ... famous last words.

Here's the only Inv/ build I have handy. You'll have to translate it to StJ, but it should give you some ideas. It's durable enough, but feels a bit light on damage, and wrecks the blue bar, dropping like a rock vs sappers. Inv RadM - Prototype E 7c - [i25].mxd

The way I play, pets are perma-dead, even Singy and Stoney. Fully Buffed Resist Capped Stoney goes down in less than 10 seconds. (The way *I* Play. No one said you have play /that/ deep in insane.)

Alpha Concept Character Armored Builds ... I never built any of these, something else got the pick for that project. Grav Martial Dom - Mattea Concept 1 - [i25].mxd Grav Rad Dom - Mattea Concept 1 - [i25].mxd Grav Rad Dom - Mattea Concept 2 - [i25].mxd Grav Savage Dom - Mattea Concept 1 - [i25].mxd

In my tests ... Sentinels do objectively live up to their design intent when compared to "average" scrappers. The problems as I see it are: Subjectively, its very different. (and) Who wants to be the "average" scrapper. ... The subjectively damage on demand of BU+Crits is just incredibly strong. Subjectively, no one really notices the extra AoE damage, it's there, you can measure it, but just eyeballing it you don't "see" it, it's not flashy or obvious enough. Sentinels do have one of the least variances best to worst, that's definitely in their favor. But Scrappers variance is 2.5x or maybe greater. That means if you hit average, there's a really really big difference in Top Tier and Average, so large that the sentinels that hover around average-scrapper will never scratch the bottom of top-tier-scrapper. But if you buffed them, then they'd be superior to more than half of the scrapper options, and that wouldn't be a good thing either. It's all a bit of a mess, and a Great deal of that mess isn't the sentinels fault at all. Which is going to make it very interesting to "fix".

I'd suggest 801.1 Moderate Length, Easier Maps, ... or ... 801.3 Moderate Length, Harder Mobs, Harder Maps ... or 801.0 if you want really short really easy. Just be aware the shorter versions won't push your dps vs durability, and you won't have to face all the various buff/debuffs. To be shorter I had to remove some things, so I tried to remove what I felt like were the easier buff/debuff challenges, but that 'easier' may not be true of all builds, players, and playstyles. I could have inadvertently removed the one enemy you would have otherwise been vulnerable to. 801.0 is the shortest and easiest. 801.1 Moderate Length, Moderate Difficulty. 801.2 Standard Setting 801.3 it's harder mobs, but easier and shorter maps. 801.4 Hardest mobs, hardest maps, longest maps. Exactly. That's why I put them in distinctive armor. If you play the higher level versions 801.3 and 801.4 watch out for the gold hued armor. Several of my builds ignore the greenies, and instead have to target the sappers first. But yeah. That Destroyer can hit for 4.3k damage for instance. I pulled a short log in test mode: 15k dps spikes (rarely), 5-8k dps spikes (frequently), 2k dps all day long.

Defenders are the most versatile AT in the game. That makes them very hard to define. No most of community just don't get it.

Absorb proc is a 'grant power' It'll work so long as it's in the build ... but may require the power to be usable (power level - 5). I don't remember. Power Boost is short duration, if it's a toggle 10 seconds later you lose it. Power Boost + Fortitude however, will last until the Boosted Fortitude is over-written or expires.

That sounds about right. I don't use OwtS often, once or twice here and here when other things are out of pocket at inconvenient times.

I'm very happy with SD/. Full T4 Incarnates (can) Almost double your offense. Grab a P2W:Recovery Serum, pop it a bit before your OwtS crash, or it's pretty long duration, maybe just pop it when you use OwtS. I use Rune/Hybrid/Rune/Demonic, Owts, Kitchen Sink. Rune is up I slowly gain health, Rune is down I slowly lose health. Switching to offensive hybrid would definitely make it faster, but also stress Rune/OwtS more. I'd have to run it both ways and compare. I've done both in the past but don't really remember, Lately I'm in 801.3 so much that I just stick with Melee Core most of the time.

I use (almost) 'Resist Capped to All' Stoney primarily now, and the defender version stays in the stable. You are misreading the defense. It's "+75% defense enhancement" like an IO, or as if granting an Incarnate Defense Alpha slot, or similar to Power Boost ... I'm not sure of the actual durations either. It's complicated and hard to decipher. Easier to test it on a pet and use the combat attributes monitor than dig through the files and try to figure it out. Chains (roughly): Heavy support: Heal, absorb, Heal, Blast Once, Repeat. Heavy Control: Control, control, control ... this chain never ends. Heavy Blasting: Blast, Blast, Blast ... this one also never ends. Tanking I: Send in the Clowns, I mean Stoney: Heal, Absorb, Heal, Summon, Heal, Absorb, Heal, Blast, repeat. Tanking II: Teleport, Resist, Sleep, other buffs, Nuke, AoE Blast, Heal, Absorb, Heal, Pray the pet lives for bouncing buffs, Heal, Absorb, Heal, Blast, Repeat.

Yes. It is very busy. I can support, blast, control, or tank (leveraging the pet(s)). But only one of those at a time.

Ran a short 5 minute run naked in test-mode. 2k dps average, 14k dps spike max, with lots of 7k-8k spikes. You do NOT want to run in there naked. ... on the other hand it was hilarious watching the Destroyer [Energy Transfer] himself to death. That's 4.3k damage if it lands vs no resist. 😉 Re: Inspirations Varies by build. Start +0x8 in 801.0 (easy) if in doubt. My Inv/Radm hardly touches them +4x8 801.3, meanwhile the Kat/Bio sucks them down hard and fast. Every build is different. As for rules. I suggest "If you use it in normal play, it's fair game." It's not so much about X is better than Y, we are way too far into play-style, player-skill, active mitigation, tactics, etc for any meaningful comparison of builds. It's "I know my X inside outside upside-down backwards, and I /know/ not only what I'm doing and how, but what I /can/ do. ... I might not always remember to do it or react fast enough ... !@#$ sapper ... but I know and am capable, even if I didn't. Push both yourself and your build to be better.

Crimson Prototype is "Linea Approved". I've soloed him +4x8 on multiple builds, ... usually with extreme difficulty. He's a Beast. This is spot on. There is no one answer. Every build has it's weaknesses, I've never seen a perfect build. There is no one answer, same fight same build, I might take it on 4 or 5 different ways each time, adapting as I go. When you get here the build is important, but also what you the player do is just as important if not more-so. Dancing, ducking, strafing, candy, temps, Parry, Heals, Stuns, KBs, Incarnates, Incarnate Pets, Airburst Void, Target-Teleport-Cone-Reverse, the multitude of choices and active mitigation choices and tactics ... Lucy (SD/RadM): Sappers, Blinds, Slows, -Fly. She got corned once, physically surrounded, blinded, and multiple sappers ... SC was on recharge. She was going down long before SC would recharge. I had to Teleport out, and phase. I was going down so fast that The teleport drained me and toggle dropped me. I had to run for my life and phase. That's the closest she's ever come to dying. But we all know she's a beast, literally. She's a shape-shifter. Skylark (Inv/RadM): Sappers, Blinds, ... oh god, Sappers. Oh god, sappers, did I mention sappers? One walked up to her the other day, she was distracted trying to keep mobs off a blaster... and she just fell over, *Splat*. ... On the other hand, She walked out of a team run last night having not used even 1 inspiration. All my other alts are ready to stab her in the back in her sleep. Someone I know takes this even further with -to-hit and -damage incarnates as well as -to-hit -damage APP, and other things I haven't done, at least not yet. Those are not choices I would normally take. I was going to try an alt -damage -tohit APP, but the current build huffs and puffs too hard as is. I don't think I'll ever do that one. But, to each their own choices, their own strengths, their own weaknesses. Dahlia (RadA/Kat): I tried her first on a Res/Def build. It failed. I retried her on a pure resist build pushing HP/S as hard as possible. The latter balances down to -35% defense indefinitely. I can take spikes of -40 or -45% defense if I'm careful. -50% defense or more and I'm going down, it's just a matter of time, that time however might be a while, and might be long enough to either dance, duck, run, phase, or kill the target. More than -35% defense is rare, you probably won't see that more than once per run. If you do, you better suck down a whole line of Purple Candy and even that might not be enough because you are cascading hard. *IF* you see it coming, load up on candy and take out the problem fast, then run if you have to. If it sneaks up behind you while you're already fighting, you are gonna be hurting and hurting bad. Kate (Kat/Bio Scrap): She can withstand just about anything for short bursts, but if I walk in armor down, I just fall over. 801.3 Solo she has to be very careful and tactical, or suck down candy like a fiend. A single spawn can strip both absorbs in series and drop her to half health, heal, ... and that's just the alpha. I've had some alphas drop me to 10% or less and that with the absorb proc in the build too. Once you survive the alpha and the heal and regen kicks in, you have to go full offense on the most dangerous targets as fast as possible, ... because you are not out of the woods yet. Nope, I've dropped down to dregs more than once just praying for a heal or absorb to recharge. I come out of each fight completely exhausted by the skin of my teeth. Then there are 27 more fights like that to go. *face palm, head desk, falls over dead in the floor* And I could go on like this for another 20 builds. Each is different. Inv RadM - Prototype E 7c - [i25].mxd Kat Bio Scrapper - Alpha 3 ITF - [i25].mxd Rad Kat Tank - Radicat II - Mu 3f - [i25].mxd SD RadM Tank - Alpha 5b - [i25].mxd

It's a fairly genius design. On the low end of builds, levels, playstyle, it's above average. On the high end of builds, incarnates, and playstyles it's limited by the last "Pet or Teammate" alive. This keeps it from being overpowered on the high end of the spectrum while nicely boosting the low end. I do both Eafn/Water and Earth/Eafn .... so long as at least one pet/teammate is alive, I'm usually the last to die +4x8. Solo it's much more difficult +4x8. So, where do you play? Do you play the extreme high end of Tier 4 IO Tier 4 Incarnate Builds Min/Maxing to the Extreme and Soloing Extreme +4x8 Content and Taskforces? Or do you play the very casual SO Only end of the spectrum? Or do you play somewhere inbetween with Tier 1 or Tier 2 IO builds, teaming, soloing moderate difficulty settings, and mostly just trying to enjoy yourself? If you are on the Extreme High, you man not like it. If you're on the extreme low, you should really like it unless it's just a playstyle thing. halfway between it breaks even and you should still like it, unless it's just a playstyle thing. It is a very good support set. Perfect for targetting through the tank. Great for Team Play. You may want to do something like (name him Sparky): /macro X petselectname Sparky ... or ... /bind numpad9 petselectname sparky ... this way you can quickly target him to bounce buffs back to yourself. Also /bind numpad1 teamselect 1 .... etc ... EAfn Water Defender - Alpha 1 - [i26].mxd Earth EAfn Controller - Alpha 2 - [i26].mxd

Endgame, CM is needed less as many pickup Clarion. However, it still comes in handy. And it's still very very handy if you ever Malefactor down and run lower level content. I never take Absorb Pain. It's a death trap. Ressurect is optional. Outside of trials you can use temp res powers. Inside trials, the hospital is usually close enough. you can also use Barrier +Ressurect. It's IS a sacrifice, but it's probably the lesser sacrifice. For traditional Empaths you'd want to look at my Harlequin Device, Burke, and Strauss builds. Depending on just which way you want to build. Harlequin Device is about as close to a fully armored (almost) Green Machine spec build I'll ever actually build. Burke and Strauss are more traditional Empathy Offenders, but for others not myself. Burke has lighter armor, less resist, Vengeance and Res. Strauss has heavier Armor and Resist, but loses Vengeance, Stun, etc. My 'main emp' build doesn't have CM ... but my main emp is ... a bit sacrilegious. You probably do not want to follow my example there as it was built for relatively heavy armor and offense in order to solo a +4x8 ITF. It was not built so to be anything resembling a traditional empath. Emp Sonic - Burke 6 - [i26].mxd Emp Sonic - Strauss 5 - [i26].mxd Emp Sonic - Harlequin Device 2 - [i26].mxd Emp Fire - Harlequin Octagon 2 - [i26].mxd Emp Fire - Combat Medic Concept 4 - [i25].mxd

Re: DDR TLDR: "There IS still a DDR skew. I've minimized it as much as is possible in 801 given the current limitations in AE." Incarnate To-hit is a thing. DRR is a thing. Defense Base of +50 is a thing. These are baked in dynamics of the game and they definitely skew things. It's unavoidable. It's the game we have. If there is DDR, there really should be an RDR to counter it. Such that Defense Builds get DDR, Resist Builds get RDR. Everyone else gets Nada DR of Either. The base 50% defense should really be eliminated or at least modified as well, if you really want balance between Defense and Resist Armors. Right now, from Zero To (+4x8) "Cimmie Test" .. there IS actually balance between Defense Builds and Resist Cap Builds, even though most players never realize it. The increased HP/S combined with 90% resist and roughly 8% actual to-hit with +4s .... works out to a fairly even balance. However, once you stress builds beyond the standard "Cimmie Test" and start pushing incarnates and higher incoming dps as well as other types of debuffs, the balance starts shifting more and more in favor of DDR. *IF* RDR was a thing, it combined with resist debuffs could be used to help keep things balanced. But it's not, everyone gets RDR for free: "Resist Resists Resist (debuff)". Because of this, I put in as much -resist as I could manage to help counter-balance the DDR issue, and then tested it extensively on various defense and resist builds. There IS still a DDR skew. I've minimized it as much as is possible in 801 given the current limitations in AE. That said, one of the builds I run is a "Resist Cap Only, to !@#$ with defense build". It can pretty much take a room full of these guys all the way down to -35% defense and still balance out indefinitely. At -45% or lower it starts hurting, but that will only happen if you Leroy a Room, and the Room has a pretty high number of defense debuffs in it. There will be at least one room like that on any given run, but there will also be lots of rooms NOT like that. The other side of Resist Cap Build balance is: *IF* you get defense buffs from your team, you can effectively be running around perma-T9 Armor, no penalties. Getting that level of Resist buffs from a team is much more rare and considerably more difficult. Which also comes back to the skew between defense buffs and defense bonuses and resist buffs and resist bonuses. So yeah, lots of seriously baked in long standing skews that would need to be addressed. The Cimmie Test: Grab your ankles for 10 minutes inside a spawn of 6 +4 Cimmie Bosses and friends. Make sure all 6 bosses are aggroed and stay aggroed. Use only defensive powers, no offense.

Ok, that's Hilarious. 801 is a Series: 801.0 Easy, 801.1 Intermediate, 801.2 Hard (My Benchmark), 801.3 Harder 801.2 is the Standard I judge my builds by, and was the original. If you can solo 801.2 +4x8 with-in the 2 hour timer or less, you are officially Linea Approved. 801.3 is because I had some teams just stomping 801.2. 801.3 departs from the "Soloable +0x0 on an SO build" benchmark. It was rare to have a team steamroll 801.2 like that, but it does happen. 801.0 and 801.1 are for the teams that were struggling too much in 801.2. If there's need I may or may not work on an 801.4 in the future. The Spawns are very carefully balanced such that a Linea SO build can solo +0x0. No promises on what anyone else can do, but in theory an SO only team of Tier 4 Incarnates should be able to manage +0x0. Balance-wise there is at most 1 "Dangerous" EB at the center of each spawn. Then at most 1 "Dangerous" Boss. Then usually only 1 "Dangerous" Lt, however there is a chance to get 2 "Dangerous" Lts. There are rare "special" enemies: Sappers, Hard to Control, T9 Armor, Blind, ... etc. However, these "special" enemies are carefully limited. Because of the way AE spawns groups, (random starting index, then sequential) All of this has to be done with a special script that modifies the .cvg outside of CoH while you simultaneously edit the .cvg in-game ... or by using a text editor manually. I got tired of doing it by hand and wrote the script. (You can actually do this with in-game only tools, but it's so convoluted and time consuming I'm not even going to try to explain it.) The Scary Ones (801.2): Water/Atomic Blaster - +2x8 (I did it Once and Only Once +4x8 with the blaster, but I only officially rate this build +2x8.) Empathy/Fire/Souldrain - +1x8 (Are you tougher than a Squishy Empath? ... You need the //souldrain build for the offense to complete it within the 2 hours, but you need the armored build to survive it +4x8. You can't do both builds at the same time.) The Rest (801.2): Time/Fire/Souldrain Def - +4x8 Plant/Time/Fire Con - +4x8 Illusion/Rad/Scorpion Con - +4x8 Kat/Bio Scrapper - +4x8 DB/Bio Scrapper - +4x8 (This one is very hard) Kat/Ena Scrapper - +4x8 SD/Radm Tank - +4x8 Kat/Rad Brute - +4x8 StJ/Ena Stalker - +2x8 Dark/Rad Def - +1x8 Nature/Fire Def - +2x8 Fire/Nature Cor - +2x8 Melee Fortunata - +2x8 Dark/Storm Con - +2x8 Dark/RadA Dom - +2x8 Storm/Elec Def - +1x8 Huntsman - +1x8 Huntsman SO Only Build - +1x2 Water/Atomic Blaster SO Only Build - +1x4 Kat/Radm Tank - +4x8/+2x8 (I'm not sure she has the offense to finish it in time. It's close, and I've not put the time into finishing testing it. If you include offense, you'll have to rate this one +2x8) Inv/Radm Tank - +4x8/+1x8 (Definitely does NOT have the offense to finish it in time. If you include offense, you'll probably have to rate this one +1x8) Eafn/Earth Con - +4x8/+0x8 (This one is odd ... as long as one pet or team mate is alive, she very very rarely dies +4x8. This makes her very durable. However, her offense is terrible, and if she's solo her pets die too easily.) Eafn/Water Def - +1x8 (Same problem as above, but even more fragile due to lose of controls. However, this does at least have a bit more offense.) PS: Yes, I'm well aware of the one thing that (almost) just completely neuters them. And it's there on purpose as part of the balance. If it's ever considered too much of an issue, I'll adjust it; assuming adjustments are even possible within the limitations of AE while not breaking the "Soloable +0x0 on an SO Only build" standard.

I was gonna say, +0x8 should be less than an hour. pretty much a cakewalk.

You didn't specify difficulty, maybe it was mentioned elsewhere: +0x8 I wouldn't even need half my armor. +2x8 or below is an absolute cakewalk. +4x8, Jil (Emp/Fire/Souldrain) has right at 250 ST DPS ... that means 1 hour per +4 AV kill without lore or inspirations. I recommend you use both, otherwise it'll be a long day. Jil's +4x8 Solo ITF run was right at 3 hours as I recall. /Electric is lower dps: /Electric would be lower dps. I can tell you 250 dps (or lower) is absolutely maddening with the AVs running (it' not nearly so bad in anything OTHER than the ITF with the track-star AV). You make two steps forward, they run, you take 1.5 steps back, repeat. If I rebuilt as Emp/Elec/Souldrain ... I'd just gulp a bucket of reds when I hit the AV and take your money. Without the candy, but with lore, it's gonna be maddening. It would probably be similar to my 6 hour solo tank run. You make progress while lore is up ... ambush lose all the progress ... (make progress with lore, stalemate, lore, ambush, start over,), (lore, stalemate, lore, stalemate, lore, ambush, start over) ... finally eventually (Lore, stalemate, lore, stalemate, lore, stalemate, dead! ... and he ressurects! *head desk*). Welcome to a 6 hour solo run with a low dps build. (Note: Back on live, my first ever solo +4x8 ITF took 16 in-game hours over a period of 30 real-time days. Sanity is over-rated.)