Frozen Burn

Happy to give some advice. @ZorkNemesis has some good advice too, but slotting for ranged defense only is only good for those blasters that stay at range. However, even a ranged blaster gets overwhelmed by melee mobs and some secondaries lean towards being in melee range anyway where a more robust build is required and you'll need to also focus on melee and AOE defenses and/or typed defenses -- primarily smashing, lethal and energy (and others, if you can). Yes, CJ, Tough, Weave, Maneuvers, Scorpion Shield, Hover, ...anything you can use to get more defense is good... but I also do not believe in sacrificing key primary and secondary powers just to take a ton of pool powers, either. (Only you can decide which powers are key to you and your playstyle.) Some builds, I slot for resistance over defense -- sounds, crazy, I know! --and use a resistance shield from the epics. But this is generally due to themes, but you can be just as survivable with a resistance build and lower to moderate defense. Don't feel like you HAVE to be soft capped on defenses -- if you can, great! If not, get as close as you can. Don't feel bad about using inspirations! 1 or 2 (depending) small purple insps generally will fill in defense gaps. Same with oranges for resistances, especially to survive defense debuffing. A big thing that most people ignore in their builds is +HPs. I cannot tell you enough how getting max or close to max (1847 HPs) is. It can allow you take a couple extra hits when your defenses fail (and they will -- thank you 5% rule! 🙂); it also gives you more time to eat some inspirations; gives another chance for your Preventative Medicine +Absorb proc to fire; or give you a chance to click one of those "OH SH*T" powers like Rune of Protection, Hibernation, Force of Nature, or etc. Generally, after a battle and I see my fallen brothers' and sisters' empty HP bars and I'm still standing... I see they're at max 1400-1500 HPs, while I'm generally at 1750-cap (1847). Alpha strikes are key, kill as many as you can quickly with AOEs, use control powers (including KB) to keep things off you and control pesky bosses and LTs. Cycle between targets keeping 1 boss mezzed while you work on another. Many will also skip either a T1 or T2 attack in their primary to get a more efficient attack chain, higher DPS, or for slotting a pool power, or etc. I always take both T1 and T2 attacks because when I do get mezzed and I'm out of break frees, that extra attack can be the difference between life and death -- and it has saved me over other blasters at times. To make a Blaster survivable, it is not just about the build and capping a defense area... Again, you don't have to be capped at anything... A well-rounded blaster (Def/Res/+HPs) and using techniques like kiting, controlling, and ambushing -- and a few insps here and there -- will make you extremely survivable. ....To each their own. There are other philosophies out there. But these are some of mine and they haven't let me down yet. Hope this helps some!

I would say, in no particular order: Scrapper, Brute, Sentinel, Tank, Widow, Operative. These, you really don't have to worry about TOO much to keep them alive and can just focus on "wrecking stuff" like you want. Stalker could be an option, but they have fewer AOEs compared to the above so that's why I left them out. Sentinels do lower damage out the above, but they're good for chill playing and survivability, if you want to shoot stuff as opposed to punch stuff. If you are leveling up and doing story content, Tankers may FEEL like they're going slow given their offense powers are secondary. As for "Fun" builds.... There are Blaster, Controller, and MM builds that I think are fun, but I don't think they would meet your "chill" requirement as these ATs tend to take a little more work to stay alive compared to the above listed. ...but that's the "fun," for me at least - in addition to story content and wrecking havoc. Blasters - I'd ALWAYS rather be playing a blaster over any AT and I build them to survive and play them as the offensive juggernauts they are (I hate Sentinels - even though I have an incarnate one - but again, they do provide a "chill" blasting experience, but you trade off damage output for that). Blasters are MY goto when I want to just do random stuff, street sweep, solo content... well, do all the stuff you listed. But not everyone is like me. 🙂 Most (not all) Controllers would be difficult to solo until you get higher level and even then, some will just take forever to kill anything. MMs can be fun and there are many great builds out there, but again, you may have to do some work to keep them and your pets alive.

Some alternate methods for some of these.... Some of the PVP badges - use an alternate account and you can get some of the PVP badges where you need to defeat X number of opponents and other basic badges that you only need 2 people to get. (obviously, the tournament badges, you will need more people - or many many accounts.) Being Mezzed badges - Sapper missions kept crashing / kicking me out after about 10 mins of being AFK. So instead, I again used my alternate account with a toon that has a hold... went into the arena and just let it perma mez me with the hold on auto-fire. Got all badges in 1 or 2 overnight AFK sessions while I slept. Damage taken badges - I had trouble with the Mercy Island fires killing me after being AFK a bit. Again, I wanted to be able to have this go overnight while I slept. So I went into a Carnie Ouro mission and let a minion Fencer wail on me while I rested and had Rebirth RADIAL (for the +regen) on auto-fire. I had to try a couple initial attempts to see if even-con or +1 or +2 was the right level to give as much damage to me without killing me in the long haul (can't remember where I ended). I'm a blaster with not much resistances from sets, so after about 2 overnight sessions while I slept, I had all damage taken badges. If you have a lot set bonus resistances or auto resist powers (like Invulns), rest won't drop them completely so you may need to have higher level foes and/or multiple foes wailing on you. Just work to find what you can handle without them overpowering your regen while resting and you'll have the badges in no time.

^^This! ...But also have the holsters and scabbards should become "empty" when the weapon is drawn. Currently, this is an in-game function with Maelstroms' dual pistols. His pistols live in his holsters when not in use, but when he draws them to attack, his holsters are empty until he puts his guns away. The holsters in the current editor are static and even though we draw our guns, you can still see them in the holsters. 😞 Doing something similar where the sword(s) disappear from the scabbards when they are used and return when not would be great. However, arrow quivers should remain exempt from this as we seem to have an unending supply of arrows. 😄 But we definitely need more types of quivers other than "Tech Knight!"

Correct, you can escort an NPC to a clickable object by setting the "Destination" to the object. However, yes, YOU (the player) still has to click the object after the escort. So perhaps story-wise, you can have the NPC "instruct" the player how to download the info -- this is kind of stronger choice for your story anyway, as it helps the NPC start to "trust" and gain some "rep" for the player by having you do it instead of them. Maybe the NPC can be like..."Let's see how well you can follow instructions on how to enter this complicated sequence to download this info. Good! You're not useless after all." 😄

Yes, maneuvers would be a better choice here since the "invis" component of Stealth is not needed here.

If you're going to be in melee, you're going to want to focus on building your S/L/E and melee defenses and +HPs as best as you can. Yes, building ranged defense is good too, but neglecting S/L/E (the most common damage types) will be brutal when the mobs are in melee mode -- this is also where having a lot HPs (and any resistances you can eke out) will help. Since you are going Munitions -- i.e. not getting Scorpion Shield -- this will be harder to achieve the S/L/E softcap, but still you should be able to get a viable melee blaster. You may have to chew on a Luck inspiration frequently (which is OKAY, in my book!). Your extra slots in Stamina are wasted -- Kuji-In Toh will give you all the end you need: Slot the Perf Shifter proc in Stamina and KIT with Perf Shift E, EA, ER, and then Heal set (Prev Med or Numis) of H, HE, HR to maximize both recovery and regen and good +HPs bonuses. Health then only needs a Numi or Panacea special and the Prev Medicine +Absorb proc (this can save your life! ...it has mine on several occasions). Your extra slots in Stamina, put into Tough and build up your S/L resistances Slot Devastations, Apocalypse, and Shield Walls where you can for max HPs. If you can work in the Superior Winter sets, that is great too as you can get some really good defense set bonuses there too. And of course, slot your Superior Blaster sets (Blaster's Wrath and Defiant Barrage). Stealth is a wasted power. You can achieve invisibility with SS and a Celerity +Stealth IO in Sprint. Plus, Stealth's defense suppresses in combat, so you're not gaining anything with it. Then maybe you can take Aim much sooner than at the end of your build. And then perhaps pickup Choking Powder -- it does good damage and is a hold which can help keep pesky minions and lieutenants from debuffing you or whatnot.

I also appreciate the Manual installation method. Even though I used the default install settings for COH on my new computer, the modder still didn't work for some reason. I tried it several times and all attempts unsuccessful. However, I was able to get it done manually without any trouble. I also appreciate you listing the superfluous files that were no longer needed -- was easily able to just delete them. THANKS!

But all Brutes / Tanks can keep their teams safe with 1 power... Taunt! If they're looking at you, they're not looking at your team. 😄 Glad you're having fun with this. Keep on!

These are on Torchbearer.

Ah. Thank you for further clarifying. Then this seems OP / broken / exploit'ish, especially if MM pets also increase the chance rate -- a team of MMs who all had this would really be OP! lol

I agree with @Psyonico's slotting advice.... max recharge first, then layer in some Acc with Damage being the rest -- whether through straight up IOs/SOs, sets, or franken-slotting. You really want PA to be perma or as close to it as possible. When they're up, the aggro is on them and not on you! (mostly) 😄 Global recharges help here too, obviously, so be sure to work towards that as well.

@Generator, don't forget that there are also all the Hero/Vigilante story arc badges you can get through Ouro -- including the Vigilante-specific arcs that award different badges for taking the different options.

Ok, I think I understand now what is being said here -- thanks for clarifying, @Onlyasandwich I thought it was being stated that a larger team was causing it to proc more often (which is not true -- team size doesn't affect proc rate), but rather you all are stating the buff is granted to anyone on the team in range of the Tactics -- that makes more sense. My experience with the proc in a toggle is from Targeting Drone in Blaster secondary /Devices -- similar to tactics, but not a team buff. I had the proc in there for a long time, but it rarely proc'd while I was actually in battle. I noticed it proc more often out of combat and I decided to remove the wasted slot. However, if this is something that buffs a team occasionally, I can see it being somewhat useful in Tactics, then -- and especially for a MM as it would buff the pets too. Again, thanks for the clarification.

I thought it would be hilarious to make a tiny toon with a titan weapon. 😄 So I made a Titan/WP Brute pixie: Peace'blossom (a heroic take on the fairy name "Peaseblossom"). She's a small as you can make -- pictured next to Infernal to help show size difference. ...And a battle shot of her fighting Babbage. (My SG-mate loved the idea so much he made a Titan Weapon fairy too, also pictured.)

That's obvious that when they're the objective to save, you can't ignore them. But that wasn't what the OP was talking about in their example. And even if they are an objective to rescue, I am ok with them being aggressive -- if it fits their character / who they are / story content -- as it provides a better story and better challenge for game-play. ...but that's me. 🙂

While I understand your frustration with this case and this particular mission, not all in the game are set to "Aggressive." Some are set to "defensive" in other missions and other arcs. They all seem across the board to follow their own story/character on whether they would be aggressive or defensive. For me, when I come across an aggressive one, I ignore them and let them do their thing -- and if they get killed, so be it. And most of the time, they take aggro off me and i can work to complete the objective easier.

Earning "Master of" badges in iTrials already awards random rare drops. UG iTrial already guarantees a Rare or Very Rare upon completion, and Magisterium iTrial has an increased rate for dropping a Rare or Very Rare upon completion. Obtaining other badge achievements in the iTrials also reward random incarnate component drops. While I'm still on the fence about making one a weekly, there really isn't much gained here for it. There is also content in Dark Astoria that you can get incarnate component drops as well -- most people forget about the content there when they're trying to work up to T4.

Your Alpha Incarnate ability is like adding an extra IO slot of whatever the buff is into your powers that CAN ACCEPT that buff... so if you do not have a power that grants defense, you will not get that bonus. And the 20% Defense bonus is 20% to the POWER, not 20% to you overall... big difference.

I get where you're going with this and yeah, the extra toggles in DP, Bio, and Staff are kinda cool. But I think you've gone overboard for this concept. Right now, you can make a DP/Bio Sentinel and get 6 toggles to switch up your Attacks and your Defenses. Now you want to add on up to 6 more "Sentinel-based" toggles? That's way too much and all it would do is muddy up the AT. These types of toggles are within the powersets themselves and not inherent to an AT for a reason. I get that you're trying to elevate the AT and make it do more, but I see this as making it a "jack-of-all-trades and master-of-none" -- which Sentinels are already not even a "master of ranged damage" because Blasters are king (as they should be by not having a defensive secondary). This huge diversification just gimps Sentinels further, in my opinion. Sentinels can already go into Offensive mode or Defensive mode. I personally think Sentinel's inherent Opportunity power should be 2 toggles or clicks for the AT, instead of having to do a shooting combo to achieve either boost to damage or boost to defenses. That way, you have either at the beginning of the fight and not starting in the middle because you had to do some combo -- and if you miss, you have to wait even longer for the buff.

That is very nice! Glad my build inspired you -- and sorry it made you want to increase your budget. But you'll love how it plays. 🙂 You have Combat Jumping where I have Infiltration instead -- that certainly puts you on the soft cap on most where I cannot due to defense-suppression in combat. I considered doing this too, but I wanted total invis for character so I needed Stealth or Infiltration to add to my Stealth IO. But you also have way fewer HPs than I prefer to play with -- with my blappers, I prefer to play with at least 1700 HPs. Trade-offs!! 🙂 It's why I love this game -- many ways to do this!! As for Gaussian proc... Proc mechanics make them not work as well in toggles like this as compared to a longer base recharge of a click-power. Teaming has no affect on the proc. I too team with large teams often and there was no difference in the proc rate -- which remained very small and generally happened out of combat. (That was my experience.) But you do you.

As a player who writes story content in AE and likes to play it, we should not be punished for those who only use AE for farming. End of story. Farming will never go away. People will do it no matter what. If someone is not happy or concerned about low competency of players coming out of AE farms -- whether they are new to game, an AE PL'ed baby, veterans or whatnot -- we as a community need to help teach them to be better players. I run into veterans who played this back on live for years who still struggle with basic strategies and concepts. They just never had good mentors or a good SG to help guide them. We all need to help these players and not punish those who use AE for its intended purpose.

Seismic /Martial is a great combo and lots of fun. This is what I chose to make with the release of Seismic. I also have an Energy/Martial blaster that is also a lot of fun to play -- /martial makes everything fun! 😄 @InvaderStych has some really great comments above. You have a lot of wasted slots and enhs in unneeded places. In addition, your build is also more for a ranged blaster. If you're playing /Martial... you're going to want to be in melee and you're gonna need to build up your other defenses / resists -- and especially get more HPs! Otherwise, if you want to stay at range, then i suggest picking a different secondary like /Devices or /Energy or such. More suggestions for your build... Ki Push -- I LOVE THIS POWER! Best in the game! Well, at least it;s the MOST fun. 😄 But no real need to slot it up. Just an Acc or an Acc/Dam Hami-O is fine. This power is more useful as a control power to keep pesky bosses away while you deal with that second boss. Invest slots and sets in your defense toggles (Fighting, Scorp Shield, Maneuvers) -- these are what help you stay alive so don't skimp. All your attacks do not need to be 6-slotted to be effective. Invest in more HPs. Slotting Devastations, Eradications, Apocalypse, and Shield Walls (if you can) really really help. You're at 1500 (even with the Accolades toggled on) -- that's pretty low and 347 HPs below cap. As stated above... get rid of the Miracle in Health and put your Preventative Medicine +Absorb Proc there instead. This will free up Reaction time for better slotting. Reaction Time -- yeah, as stated above, get rid of all the procs. This is your end/regen sustain power. Drop your extra slot in Stamina and put your endmod and heal sets here -- you can get some really good HP bonuses here too! Inner Will -- I both love and hate this power. It's great having a free "breakfree," but I've also died many of times trying to click it because the mez wore off by the time I went to activate it and then I couldn't click and by the time i figured out what was going on, I was dead. lol But still it's a good power and useful while leveling up. And you should single slot it with a recharge. Unlike stated above, it CANNOT be made perma. it can get close though, if you invest in a crap ton of recharge into your build -- which is not worth gimping you in other areas. Inner Will has has a duration of 30s and base recharge of 180s. Even with all the recharge in the world and all the speed boosts in Paragon City added to you, there is a bottom limit to how low powers' recharges can go and it's 1/5 of the base recharge... so 180s / 5 = 36s... so there will always at least be a 6s down time for Inner Will. Given all that, you don't need to recharge that often. With your defenses, most mezzes will miss you and when it does hit, it'll be there for you. If you want to slot up with 2 recharges while leveling up that's ok... but in the end-game and with perma-Clarion, the power is useless and not needed at all and that extra slot can go elsewhere. Gaussian Proc -- pretty useless in Tactics. It doesn't proc often in a toggle like this and when it does, you most likely will be out of combat. That's what I have learned from personal experience. Put this in Seismic Force instead. It will proc almost everytime you hit the button and then you get the BU when you want it and not at some random time. To give you some further ideas, below is my build -- this is an end game build, and a high-priced build, but is highly survivable! I used this mostly as I leveled up. Really the only difference is, I used Inner Will while leveling up and dropped Throw Sand, and the power order in the 20s-40s was a little different, but all were there. Now as an incarnate, I have perma Clarion and don't need Inner Will anymore. If I EX down, I'll just use breakfrees like I do with all my other blasters. 🙂 Even without Agility (and pre-incarnate), I'm near the soft cap on S/L/E. I am also at 1807 HPs (40 HPs below cap). That's 307 HPs more than yours... so catch up! 😄 And no, my ranged Def is not capped nor near it.... it's not needed for a melee build as others may have you believe. Yes, it's nice to cap it -- always is... but when you get into melee range and start beating on mobs, they will switch from ranged mode to melee mode and attack you with their melee powers (and S/L/E being the most common types). Yes, there are always exceptions and for those mobs that want to still stay at range and shoot -- if it's S/L/E, they will still miss you. And then you can either shoot them back or close the gap and kick them! And no, Hasten isn't perma. Don't really need it and I needed the slots elsewhere for better set bonuses. ...but this is my choice, others may feel differently. And no matter what your defenses/resists/# HPs are.... you'll still want to chew on inspires occasionally to help fill in holes. 🙂 My end-game build.... and I hope this helps give you some ideas for your own..... https://www.midsreborn.com/builds/download.php?uc=1645&c=744&a=1488&f=HEX&dc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

There is no way to un-attune an enhancement except through the Auction House -- selling the attuned and buying the unattuned.

I don't think Stealth or Infiltration from the concealment pool will work with Field Operative. Also Stealth and Infiltration's defense suppresses once you are in combat, so not much gain there. Combat Jumping, Weave, and Maneuvers are probably the best options for you. CJ is a low cost toggle and provides good def + immob prot. Weave is a great Def to All, but can be a hefty toggle. Maneuvers provides a little less Def to All than Weave, but does stack nicely and has about the same end cost.