Neiska

I get those too, sometimes there is an error in the HTML and it says I sent it to myself. I get emails from banks and other organizations I have never done business with. And since tax season is around the corner I am already anticipating waves of claims from fake IRS agents.

I always play test my builds. But my concerns may differ from some - 1. Is it self-sufficient, or does it rely on temporary effects to work? I generally treat inspirations akin to potions. They should be there when you need them, not to make the build possible. (100% purely personal preference, and I have nothing against those whom play/build differently.) 2. Does it "flow" well? Is there a constant flow of actions and motions, or are there gaps and periods of too much or too little activity or effect? There can be such a thing as too much recharge in a powerset or build. 3. Is it enjoyable? Even if a build is ridiculously strong, if I don't like playing it, then I will shelve it. If I am not having a good time then what's the point? 4. Is it consistent/reliable, or are their high and low periods? I generally dislike brief windows of "OVER 9000 POWA" with the rest being subpar. Which means I tend to dislike "bursty" builds and AT's. Again, not insinuating bursty builds are bad by any means, they can often be the highest DPS setups, I just don't find them as enjoyable. There are other considerations as well. Theme, style, and so on. And sometimes, it can be a simple "I'm just not feeling it" or "Gosh I LOVE this" even if it might overcome other considerations.

Only a matter of time until someone makes a SG meme around this. "Completely legit airlines" or similar.

About once a week I get spam to the tune of "Your Facebook has been hacked!" or "You are about to delete all your contacts on such-and-such site!" When I have never had a Facebook account or anything of the sort. I generally avoid social media. But I still get their emails citing the contrary. Honestly its kind of funny.

I am beginning to wonder how profitable they believe this is. There are certainly better ways to make money. But it must work at least sometimes or else they wouldn't keep doing it, similar to those telephone scammers. "Yes, I am a foreign prince. I want to give you this pile of money but you have to pay the import fees. Send X to this account please. This is legitimate, I promise." PS - I just noticed that all these different supposed Airlines all somehow seem to have the exact same phone number. That's not suspicious at all whatsoever.

I think an AV with the player version of Stalker's Hide used by a good AI could lead to bad or interesting things.

Well, I know who I won't be buying tickets from, in any case.

I have found it sometimes helps to focus more on pet support if that's the style you are favoring. With robots specifically, it helps if you CC a bit, web grenades/bonfire/AoE time slow and so on. Another option with robots and mercs is flying. Group fly is fantastic for them as all your pets are ranged, and as a bonus they get little rocket boots when they hover around. But seriously, group fly on a robot MM can trivialize some content. If they don't have any -fly powers, they are more or less boned. And your healing more than makes up for what ranged powers they do have. Not in all cases mind you, but a surprising majority.

Not to come off as crass but, do you honestly believe you are the first to think of that precise power slotting in a game older than the vehicles most people drive? The game came out in 2005. It's 2023 now. The game is old enough to legally vote. I expect the originators who thought of such slotting (not that it isn't obvious to begin with) have likely left the game long ago. Just a bit of food for thought.

Depending on my setup, I may or may not have Chrono Shift fully slotted. It largely depends on what I am missing. But most often, I 5 slot it with Panaca for a boost in healing as well as recharge. But if I am tight on slots, I have dropped it down to 2 with just Recharge IOs before and it did just fine. Usually, I am more concerned with Farsight and Mending as far as slotting is concerned, as I almost always use those powers more often, and even when barely slotted Chrono can act just fine as a panic button for when things get hairy. It largely depends on what primary pet set I am running as well as what Epic slots I picked. Some pairings have more wiggle room than others. It also depends if I intend on Tankerminding/Being stuck in melee or if I plan on hanging back and letting Distortion field/Web Envelope slow things down and play it more of a ranged style. So ya, it can depend. The same with any other power be honest.

For me personally, I have had the most success with Bio/Savage and Bio/Energy Melee. Both are fantastic, each for different reasons. Honestly the Savage was a surprise as that one began as a theme build.

All true, but I tend to put the Tanker AT proc enhancements in my damage auras, that way they auto-stack without me worrying about it. Its like 16% free resist that's automatic. For a single enhancement and a single slot, I am hard pressed to find a comparable effect on a build through a single slot.

@Unclemarty In my view, this is a multi-layered question. By "most damage" do you mean Single target? Vs Elite Bosses? AVs and Giant Monsters? Aoe? Are we taking damage types/resists/built in debuffs into account? I am by no means a big name in the Tanker community, but I have played several and I will add what insight that I can, as Tankers are my second favorite AT after Masterminds. I think everyone would agree that it goes without saying, pairing a primary set with a secondary set that boost damage would be the forerunner. So, off the top of my head, for armor sets that immediately puts Shield, Bio, and Fire as the primary Armor sets. With Radiation also being worthy of consideration. Here are their highlights, focusing primarily on damage since that is the focus. Shield has the fantastic Against All Odds, as well as Shield Charge for a hard hitting AOE that pairs very well with secondaries without a hard hitting AoE, but no damage aura. Damage auras do build up, particularly if you slot them with damage procs or other effects. Downside about shield is there is no heal in the set, but often it doesn't really need one either. Bio Armor has offensive stance, and a damage aura, and can be kitted out many ways. Personally, I find focusing on recharge best with Bio. And its built in -regen debuff shouldn't be neglected where hard targets are concerned. The downside about Bio is a bit clutch to level, until you make that breakpoint in recharge where you can juggle your defensive active abilities. Until that point it can feel more like a moped than a tank, but once you reach that point you can be godlike. Another downside about Bio is that much of its defensive power is dependent on how many targets are hit. So against single targets your buffs won't be stacked as much. Fire has build up and a damage aura, but personally I am not a fan of Fire Armor. (It's solid, I just dislike its flow. But that is entirely personal preference.) Radiation has Meltdown for a damage boost, it also has Ground Zero for an Aoe which can hit like a truck. It does have an aura, but its more for debuffing than damage. But it does have Radiation Therapy as well, making it an Armor set with offensive tools as well as defensive. Now for secondaries - For single target Energy Melee is the top pick bar none. For AoE, Dark and Fire Melee For a more "balanced" approach, I would say Radiation, Savage, and Super Strength are good or better in both aspects. Super Strength is strong if you don't mind the rage crash, but that can be mitigated with procs. To me it feels clunky though. Energy Melee is second to none in the single target category. It has a build up as well, and is also energy based. The Aoe isn't "that" bad either, whirling hands loaded with damage procs is plenty for trash. Dark Melee is fantastic, particularly on a tank with the increased area of effect with shadow punch and a tankers increased target capacity. It also has a few good AoE powers as well, but no real single target hard hitters either. But it does have Soul Drain which stacks very nicely with Against All Odds from Shield, as well as Meltdown. Fire - I can't really provide Indepth insight on this one, I haven't played it since it was updated. But by all accounts, its quite good. Radiation is pretty well balanced. It's energy based, with a build-up, and a mix of AoE and ST. It also has contaminated which isn't bad, but i would consider that more of a bonus than a feature. The downside of Radiation is it can feel slow, like Titan Weapons with long wind-up powers with long animations. But it does feel powerful though. Savage I think is deceptively good. It has a semi-build up, has a fluid playstyle, has a leap attack, a single target attack chain with AoE to spare. The downside is the numbers can be deceptive, as its a spam of dots and bleed damage. So you won't get a single big hit of 600 or anything, but you will see a steady spam of 30-40. The downside about Savage is Hemorrhage is kind of flaky, and it's also a physical set which is the most commonly resisted. But when you compare clear times with other sets, it stands right next to the other popular sets and even exceeds them in some cases. But any of these pairings would perform well. The bigger question is how they prefer to be built (set bonuses vs damage procs), what you are fighting (lots of targets vs fewer harder targets vs one BIG target) and their damage types vs your targets resistances. But here are some of my best pairings were Bio/Energy Melee, Bio/Radiation, Bio/Savage, Shield/Dark, Radiation/Radiation. If I had to narrow it down, I would suggest Bio/Savage or Bio/Energy. Hope this helps, happy tanking! PS - One combination I wanted to try but never got around to, was Radiation Armor and Energy Melee, as they would complement each other VERY well, at least on paper. EM has all the ST and build up, Rad Armor has even more damage with some AOE tools and even heals in the kit. It looked extremely promising in MIDS, but I never actually got around to making one in-game.

Yes, I respectfully disagree. But I never said they want to entirely shut down one style of game. Only encourage some and discourage others. If they wanted to remove the AE, they could fairly quickly. But I suspect the big brains would then just figure out what ever mission was the next most expedient thing to do, and that would be the new "farm." And musing further, I suspect it would turn into a game of whack-a-mole, which given the limited resources of the volunteer staff, I doubt they would sink overly much time into. Again, I never claimed or said they wanted to remove it entirely, but they certainly have made strides to put a carrot on a stick for other activities, and as far as I can tell never paid much mind to the voices or feedback from the farmers. But let's not re-open old forum topics. I would sooner not necro old arguments that are better left buried. I only brought the original point up for context, as far as why some might not like the current state of things. Which I hope that no matter what your stance is on the issue, you would agree is a normal state of expectations on any given change. - Some will like it, others won't, even others still will be indifferent.

My build is a little out of date, or I would post. But my Bots/Electric wasn't my strongest MM, but it was the most versatile, which in itself is a kind of outstanding feature. I could farm with it, solo with it, play healer with it, be on +END and status duty with it, go GM hunting with it, and more. This was all pre-change to the robots, however. And I doubt I could do the same things I could before, at least not without rebuilding. But I suspect it is still quite a good pairing. It won't stand out damage-wise, but it will stand out in nearly every other way.

Starting to think that perhaps I was a bit premature in my earlier post when I had highlighted that people started to disagree, but then agreed to disagree. Because I am starting to wonder which is worse, the forums or the discord. From where I sit, when a (relativity) small community such as this attacks itself, everyone loses. And besides that, there is never any "winner" in an online argument. It doesn't matter what the argument is, be it change XYZ, or AEs, or Farming, or grouping, it's always the same - two or more parties involved exchange banters until one simply stops replying. You can please some people all the time, or all people sometimes, but you cannot please all people all the time. I just wish that most changes didn't seem so uni-directional, or aimed to encourage some gameplay, and discourage others. I hasten to add that I said "most" which is a far cry from "all."

I haven't played much since the last big update. Some of the changes I was against, but I won't go into detail. But I have found fewer of my friends on as well, and my SG pretty much exists in name only. But the more they change, the less I find myself enjoying it. But that is my mere opinion. Others most likely enjoy them. And that is okay too. So yes, I have barely logged in for a few months now, but it wasn't only due to the latest batch of changes, but that certainly affected my desire to play. But I do hope that those who enjoy all the changes continue to do so. Change isn't always a bad thing, just these last few (namely with Masterminds) weren't for me, and neither was the dialogue/arguments that arose during the beta-peroid.

I cannot claim to be an expert on the matter, but don't some powersets still shine better on one AT vs another? As an example I have made both a Bio Armor/Savage Tanker and Brute, and that seems to perform far better on the brute, with barely noticeable differences in durability. I mean, there is many more sides to this to my mind. But tankers definitely favor target-saturation situations, where brutes seem to perform equally in most situations, so long as you are pushing that rage bar/playing at a fast pace. There are exceptions of course. But I do wonder what a full comparison of all melees might reveal as well, not just Tankers vs Brutes, or Brutes vs Scrappers, but a Tanker vs Brute vs Scrapper vs Stalker 4 vs 4 comparison. I would expect each would shine differently in different situations, even more so with different melee power/armor powersets. And I would be fine with that, as I expect many people would. Each having their own niche is more or less its own kind of balance. But back on topic. Were brutes over-nerfed? No, I don't think so. They can still do the things they could do before. Ranking them against tankers is a bit of an apples to oranges to my mind though, given the differences in target caps and the like. Instead of having a comparison of AT vs AT, a comparison of AT vs activity be revealing as well. I would still bet that Brutes beat Tankers on farm maps as an example. (not that I am arguing that should be used as a metric for comparison, only illustrating context.) TLDR - In order to have a true measurement, you would have to compare more than just AT vs AT, but a comparison of armor and melee sets as well, as well as different activities, which is far more than an X vs Y comparison. Personally I still think both are in a good place. I still remember a time before the tanker change where there were so few tankers being played that fully gearing one up was actually quite cheap to do. Just my musings and opinion on the matter.

I think the more important question is - Autobot or Decepticon? For Autobot - Forcefields, Time, Electric, Empathy, Thermal, Kinetics all fit thematically. For Decepticon - Dark, Time, Electric, Cold, Pain, Traps, Radiation. Even Sonic can work if you count Soundwave. I can't visualize Storm, Nature, Poison, or Trick Arrow really fitting the "Transformers" theme. But that's just my opinion.

My favorite /Storm was a Robot/Storm who focused entirely on flying and AOE knockdown strategy. Funfact: If you are flying, enemies who cannot fly themselves run directly under you, making it quite easy to target things with your AoE's. They even save you the trouble of rounding them up into a pile and do it themselves for you. Fish in a barrel, really.

A few thoughts. The first, I am glad to see this ship of a topic begin to flounder and start to resemble many others but then right itself. Not something we see a lot of and its refreshing, IMO. The second, not everyone is going to agree with what is "good" or "best." And that's okay. The third, "how" you say something is often just as important as "what" you say. If I see someone floundering, first I ask if they would like some input. Its only polite, and as is often the case, you might find out you, (the would be mentor) are the one making the assumptions in the scenario. Often enough, the person knows its not the kiss-your-elbow optimized, but they might just be having fun, trying something new, or theory crafting. You are only assuming they may not know what they are doing, when the reality is you are taking them at face value which can lead to you, yourself being the one assuming things. The fourth, is if people refuse your guidance, however well-meaning or mathematically superior it might be, then accept their decision. It's their character. You can't dictate or lecture to them how to play. Your goal might be to be as effective/fast/powerful as possible. But that's not everyone's goal. Other people might just want to have fun, or take powers they like, or be building on a theme (theme builds are often far from optimized). And your suggestion might only be the best in a specific situation or goal, namely beating the game as much as possible. Finally, for the record, I would sooner play with a new player who is polite with a bad build, than someone with the best possible build but who can be a jerk trying to tell me how to play, and how to build my character "their" way, and how I'm bad/newb/whatever if I do anything else. CoH used to be the "play your way" game. They even incorporated it into the game design, where nearly any team combined out of any powersets can complete all activities. The only difference is "how", the time required, and the difficulty. And lets not forget, that different people react differently to different kinds of instruction. Some learn best by reading. Others by visualizing. Others by actually doing and learning through trial and error themselves. And trying to force the issue can go south, fast. As we see in this topic. And honestly, a team full of kiss-your-elbow min/maxed meta builds full of purples and t4's can be pretty dang boring. But that's just my opinion. Mentorship is well and good, admirable in fact. But how you communicate as well as receive other opinions are just as important. Most of communication is actually non-verbal. Tone of voice, body language, gestures, facial expressions, and the like. And on the internet we loose all of that. All we have is text. It's impossible to tell if someone is telling a "hard truth" but in a kind manner. It's can also be difficult to tell when someone is being snarky. Unless of course, you are Snarky, then it's all the time. TLDR - Mentorship/Guidance can be awesome. It's like passing the torch and sharing your knowledge. But how you do so is important, and often can decide how well your proteges learn, more so than the information itself. My two cents, for what it's worth.

Bots/Electric was my main before the change. (Vet level 400 or so.) I have since shelved it. But I will help where I can. Bots are not as squishy as some others, particularly if you play to their strengths which is ranged. You can use things like Tar Patch, Slows, Holds, Bonfire, and/or things like group fly which overall results in very sturdy pets. Electric is fantastic with Robots (as well as thematic.) You don't really need to slot pets for END specifically if you have your energize slotted well. That alone was more or less enough to give me infinite END. The loss of -regen was a bit of a hot topic that I will not elaborate on as that argument was done to death. All I will say is, is that personally I would try to keep at least 1 of them for even a single watered-down effect useable on demand. I can't comment on maintenance drone, but for me Insulating and rejuvenating was plenty for me, so I would likely skip the drone. My pets defenses were around 35 IIRC, with resists in the high 60s. My own defenses were higher. My pools were leadership, fly, teleport, and flying. (teleport for fold space in case you were wondering), and Fire for my epic pool. (for bonfire.) Those defenses/resists are plenty if you are built around ranged combat, especially with your fast recasting heals and absorbs. I was trucking along in +4/8 just fine with little to no difficulty, the only issue I really had was once in awhile I would get hit with -fly and drop, sometimes this can put you out of bodyguard range. One thing worthy of special mention - since you have infinite END you don't need Ageless, and with Faradays Cage you don't need Clarion either. This means you are free to take Barrier for your Incarnate. Playstyle wise it was very sturdy, with infinite healing, end, and absorb for everyone, with status protection from cage. Group fly was more of a solo tool except for certain missions, as most other players dislike it, and its not really needed if you are on a team. Honestly the only MM I had that was sturdier than my robot/electric, was my demons/electric which had stupid levels of durability. More than some tankers, effectively. I would post my old build but it's outdated and I haven't bothered to update it. But I hope this helps.

Bit disingenuous Song, Snark never said he could solo Synapse. In your quoted topic he was speaking about group play, and in this one he said he has a friend who likely could. He never made the claim or insinuation that he personally could as you suggest.

"Icoulddobetter" Am I doing it right?

In my experience, tanks come in a few general varieties. Type 1. Large. Loud. Made of metal. Really terrible gas mileage. Most often armed with a cannon of some sort. Effectiveness varies according to country of origin and design. Type 2. Begins every battle by leaping Testicles first into the fray with a loud cry of "FOR VALHALLA". Doesn't wield weapons, only dual wields the corpses of his fallen enemies. Swings both them and his scrotum around in combat. Doesn't have blood, but molten iron runs through his veins. Is so metal that his very presence causes infants to sprout full length beards and 6 pack abs. Drinking buddy of Chuck Norris. Beat the God Aries in a Thumb War. Often dog lovers. Can often be identified by their Kilts and Beer Hat. Type 3. Leisurely strolls through the mission. Allows weaker enemies to wither and perish all on their own, pausing to occasionally bonk minor threats on the noggin, or best them with a finger flick. Whistling a minor tune, makes a mental note to pick up milk on the way home. Pauses to help the guard with a crossword puzzle on the way to the big bad evil guys room. Slaps them around and retrieves the plot mcguffin. Returns home only to remember they forgot the milk. Often great sources of insight to fights, and often have a calm good natured character. Type 4. Snarky. Both the English language as well as available space here are woefully insufficient to adequately convey. Please see appendix XVII, attachment 7, and reference 9.b.