Crater Kate

Or Mystic 1/2, there's one of those two that has a sort of faerie wings vibe going for it! Edit: actually, not Mystic, Ornate. I think.

Something that I've heard people bring up in regards to why there's so few VEATs is: once you have a VEAT, you don't need another of that VEAT. Like, talking Widows - sure there are differences in how you want to tweak your build, but ultimately, you can do one of two things with a Widow - Night Widow, or Fortunata. And you can do both on the same character. Take that versus a Blaster, where there's a huge variety of combinations and no two are going to play exactly the same - some are going to be melee focused, some ranged focus, some *control* focused, some can survive the world, some operate on kill-or-be-killed... and then across that mechanical variety, you have a huge range of flavor varieties. Basically, what I'm saying is that more people roll more alts of other ATs. I would bet good money that if we had a way of measuring AT-per-human-player, VEATS would not be unpopular in the sense that people aren't rolling them. I think people just don't often roll multiple of them.

Slow team, you run on And say holy words in chat: "ATT to boss?"

Ooooh Mind/Savage sounds fuuuuun. grumble grumble altitis

The irony is Energy Cloak is extremely skippable, so that's not even a great reason to hold back from the set 🙂 I love Energy Aura. It really does give you so much mileage *and* looks so damn good! If I had to leverage some criticisms vs the set on Scrappers, these would be mine: - The Stalker version of Energy Aura gets a flat +20% recharge on Entropy Shield, vs the less potent scaling recharge on Energy Aura. Also the whole AT is a Stealth AT so the Energy Cloak friction is more palatable for those who don't like Cloak (but again, it's a very skippable power so) - Brutes are a good chunk tougher than Scrappers, and the big health pool makes the layered nature of EA really shine. Scrappers have to work a lot harder to get that kind of performance with the set - The psi hole is absolutely gaping and almost impossible to patch. There's a butt-ton of psi late game, so EA hurts then. .... but with all that said, the set is still incredible to the point where none of the above really matters. You're still getting lots recharge, you're still layering quite well, you have great End tools, a good self heal, and look awesome. The psi hole sucks but almost everything's weak to something, so that's just something to stomach.

More fuel for the fire! As a callback to Page 1 of the thread, ran a few runs with my Street Justice/SR/Body Stalker to see how I was stacking up. T4 Musculature Core, T3 Degenerative Core, T4 Assault Core untoggled. Results: 2:41 - missed about half a dozen from-stealth Crushing Uppercuts, Combo 3 Assassin's Strikes, etc. Then got knocked twice by the Pylon through 59% positional. 1:50 1:44 - pretty sure this one I ran hot with -res procs 2:03 1:56 So.... outliers on either end aside, I'm getting a fairly consistent bit-under-2-minute time. On an iSoftcapped Stalker. Yeah, I'm proud of this one!

I have a "main" Stalker who's conceptually basically what-if-Batgirl-had-magic, and she's Street Justice/Super Reflexes/Body. It ticks all the boxes: - Very satisfying, thwacky sound effects. This is the most important part, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. - Excellent offensive potential - *Incredibly* durable for a SR Stalker, which misses one of the scaling resists - Nearly infinite end. I run ALL the toggles. And Tough/Weave. And Assault. And Sprint. And Ninja Run. Doesn't matter. - Because of that, she's very very fast. I feel that speed is underrated on melee DPS by a lot of people, but it helps a ton. So StJ/SR/Body is a combo that dishes it out well (as any Bat-disciple should), dodges like mad and can take a *reasonable* hit every once in a while (which fits Batgirl's fighting style), can fight forever, and can do so while sneaking and doing backflips everywhere. It's awesome and highly recommended for Bat-knockoffs.

An Energy Aura Tanker is like, all I want in this world. You can even nerf Regen if that's what it takes! Buff Titan Weapons! Nerf Mind Control! On Controllers! Whatever it takes! Give me pretty tanker!

If I'm understanding you correctly, I am actually working on something very similar to this as we speak...

Gonna echo chatty and fun! My preference when teaming is generally something where the whole team is relaxed and feels like they can contribute, while also feeling free to talk a lot in chat without faceplanting. This does mean I tend to prefer lower difficulty than many people (I'll default to +1 when leading a TF, and will usually only pump it up to +2 on my own volition), because my mindset is "if the weakest/least experienced person on the team is having a good time, then we all are". I only push difficulty aggressively when the team can really handle it. Of course, the other extreme is also not really fun either - 8 Incarnates on a team dropping a T4 Judgment every 15 seconds is not only not difficult, but it makes gameplay frustratingly fast. I feel like on those kinds of teams we end up speedrunning even if no one's trying to, just because things get nuked so quickly. Now, suddenly, I don't have time to talk in chat either, but it's for the opposite reason. So yeah. Big low level teams are great, mid-size medium-high level teams are great, and pretty lean Incarnate teams are great. That's kind of my speed - big enough that things aren't really a grueling challenge, but small enough that we don't turbo through everything either. (I really like the ~lv40 mission range for this reason, incidentally) In terms of playstyle, I like being very in-your-face and in the thick of things. Which, cleverly, does not at all help my goal of talking a lot in chat 🙂 Melee ATs and Epics tend to be most of what I play... but I also have a terrible soft spot for Mind Control...

What do you mean? I have characters who never deal damage, honest! They were just walking through a battlefield and happened to point at some Rikti! The fact that those Rikti were torn limb from limb by a dozen demons from the Netherworld shortly after? That's completely beside point, MY character never did anything. *bats eyelashes*

Wait, what?! We're back up already? On a holiday weekend? Goddamn you guys don't get paid enough, well done and thank you ❤️❤️

*shakes fist* MALTA SAPPERS!

When buffing sets, I think it's important to consider what the set is good at or supposed to be good at. Luckily, Mercs already excels at something and if we go all in on that strength, I think the set becomes great, if not OP! It's a simple fix, and doesn't even require something as complex as adding more minions. So what is it that Mercs excel at that I'm talking about? What is Mercs' claim to fame? Why, SHELL CASINGS of course! Mercs is all about little brass doohickies flying everywhere as your soldiers kill nothing and die instantly. But killing nothing and dying instantly doesn't matter because OH MY GOD LOOK AT ALL THAT BRASS. I actually workshopped out this problem a little, and came up with a formula that I used to derive my conclusion: n = F = P Where n is the number of shell casings on screen, F is the net total fun YOU are having, and P is the set's absolute amount of power. It might not be apparent at first glance, but with a little math, you can determine that the more shell casings you have, the more fun you are having, and therefore the stronger the set is! So here is what I am proposing: One bullet makes TWO shells. I know, this idea might make me a radical. There is going to be a realist who comes along who tells me bullets don't have two shell casings, then Bopper is going to come along and tell me that shell casings don't actually improve damage and certainly don't improve survivability, but I am not going to be able to hear them because I'll be knee deep in brass. One bullet, two shells. Make it happen.

I'll bet it's Mender Derek who keeps letting the sub-level 14s through the Ouroboros Portal, too...

Is that... even possible? Gold side content stops scaling eventually, and even migrating to FW/NW requires you to choose Hero/Villain I think. How do you plan to get there?

My favorite CoX memory isn't a specific moment. It's a character, and two people. This story needs some preamble. ---- Now, I never played this game on Live. I never owned this game (and in fact would never have played at all if it weren't for Homecoming), but my best friend's dad growing up did. This can't have been far into the game's lifespan because I remember being young, but I remember CoV. So we would have been... 10? 11? Anyway for a 10 year old kid, learning about this game where you can make any super hero you want with any kind of powers you can think of, and then you get to participate in a world where other people are doing the same? It was the coolest, most ambitious thing I'd ever heard of in a game (incidentally I still kinda think so). For a 10 year old kid my mind was blown, and though I never played, I sure watched a ton. We spent basically a whole summer together where a good chunk of the day was just geeking out over this living world of superheroes we had at our fingertips. I've forgotten most of the characters we made together... there was an Electric Melee scrapper in a blue jumpsuit whose name I don't remember, there was also a ... I want to say War Mace? tanker... vague memories like that. I do remember the name of one character, a blaster named Finger of Death, after the classic D&D spell. My friend's dad was an absolute turbonerd and had every super complex board game/RPG pretty much ever printed, just shelves and shelves of the stuff. The name for Finger of Death came from him - I remember that being a running gag from some of the games we played where the dad would do everything in his power to get his hand on a Finger of Death spell, whether in RPGs or classic board games like Talisman. Point is, there was a lot of collaborative character building and imagination that summer. ...I really don't want to make this next part too dramatic, but that summer was so special to me because it was one of the last ones, or the actual last one, I got to spend with my friend. Just a summer or two later he lost his life in a completely sudden hiking accident. I gradually drifted out of contact with his family - our parents are still friends, but I'm pretty far removed at this point - but I can't imagine my friend's dad kept playing much after that. He passed away peacefully only a couple years ago. ---- So. Fast forward to me, this time last year, when I heard about this incredible, almost sacred, game from my childhood and learning it was back. I dived back in really heavily and have had a wonderful time in this game that's almost lived up to my memory in some areas and way exceeded it in others. (Seriously, if only the two of them could have seen what the game has grown into, they'd have been blown away.) As the immediate childish glee wore off, my thoughts eventually drifted back to my friend, without whom I'd never have learned about CoH and never shared that summer together. There has always been a part of him in my love for this game, and about seven months ago, I decided to do something to honor that. There were a dozen characters we had made on Live who ended their time on the servers with no one who remembered or played them, so I decided to fix that. This is Finger of Death, Homecoming edition. He's changed quite a lot I'm sure - I don't remember much besides his gloriously edgy black and red scheme, and I have many more pieces at my disposal now - but this is the spirit of my original time with City of Heroes. Finger of Death is Slot #1 on my roster, he's Level 2, and he's going to stay that way until I say goodbye to Homecoming. He's not mine to play anymore. He's a reminder of the two kids who spent that summer together letting their imaginations run wild, he's a reminder that no matter how deep I get into minmaxing characters, that I am in this game for its creative potential, and most importantly, it's a reminder of my friend and his dad. As far as memorials go, it's unbearably small and ridiculously pithy. But it's one that only I can give. Thanks for reading. 🙂

It's worth noting you don't have to on Homecoming - click the chat bubble next to chat, 'Set Notoriety'. No more NPC hunting 🙂

Hrm... yes I see that now. That is... contrary to a lot of common knowledge about the Medicine pool. Alright, thanks for steering me straight!

Hi all, I've taken the Medicine pool for the first time for a character that needs the self-healing. According to the power description for Field Medic, taking Field Medic is supposed to remove the Interrupt on Aid Other and Aid Self. However, in game, enemy attacks are still interrupting Aid Self as if I hadn't selected Field Medic in the first place. Can anyone confirm that Field Medic is working as intended, or am I misunderstanding something? AT is a Stalker, if that's helpful.

AFAIK you can't for whatever reason. Despite being listed as an option it'll never show up on a non-Spider.

My favorite Stalker combo that I've played is still my first - Street Justice / Super Reflexes. StJ is a monster of a set in terms of dealing really competitive damage, having a good amount of soft control, flowing really well, and just being purdy. SR is great on Stalkers because you press Tab, F and charge at your next victim at Mach 7. It's basically Batgirl on superadine and that's just awesome

Assassin's Mark is a global proc, so its placement doesn't matter in terms of when Build Ups trigger.

Stalkers are my favorite AT. Tankers are my second favorite AT. Scrappers I like quite a lot. I HATE BRUTES. Why? I'm clearly a melee junkie, so why is it the melee AT with arguably the best ratio of damage-to-toughness is something I hate? THEIR CLASS FANTASY SUCKS. It's in the name. Brute. Brawny meatstick. Thuggish enforcer. Grande burrito bowl. Fury. I fight longer. I get angrier. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry. Brute smash. You wanna know something that you've always known but maybe haven't thought about? Every other archetype except Epics (who get a pass) and Mastermind have names that describe what they do. Controllers control. Dominators dominate. Scrappers scrap. Blasters faceplant. But Brutes, MMs, and Epics don't have names that describe what they do. They have names that describe what they are. What this means is that these ATs are prescriptive of something about the character. For Epics, this is fine because Epics are already specific in-universe character concepts. For Mastermind, it also works pretty well because they have such a unique focus on pets and commanding others, so the Mastermind label fits. But Brute? There are a million, billion superheroes out there that are both super strong and super tough. "Brute" is such a prescriptive, connotative label on the class that says to the world "No, this archetype isn't for the plethora of strong and tough characters out there. This archetype is *specifically* for Hulks. Solomon Grundies. The Things." You want to play a character who is defined by their toughness, but you want an experience a bit faster than a Tanker? Well I sure hope you like "ME ANGRY" because your supergenius in mecha armor is now the "ME ANGRY" archetype. Brute is the only archetype that is judgmental to you for your character concept, and for that I hate and resent it intensely. And literally all I've talked about is the name. Also Fury sucks and I hate it.

Not to threadomancy too badly, but I really like where you've ended up in the 3.x builds. SR is my favorite secondary and has a lot of weird misinformation about it out there - I particularly like the focus on healing and regen as that is the set's *actual* weakness, and Sorcery is a very clever way to get to some important slots while sidestepping Fighting and the completely dead Boxing/Kick. In fact, I like where this is at so much that I cannibalized it for my SR/Staff. Well, I say cannibalized. I used the shell of the build... and most of the white meat... some of the dark meat, too... really, the appendages have claws instead of pincers and that's about all I changed... but it's MINE damnit! (Look, I'm lazy, ok?) I took this out for a spin on the beta server and ran some +4/x8s vs. Carnies - ie, a pretty irritating enemy group that'll always give you something of a run for your money. It kind of... completely melted them? I won't lie, it was a little hair raising at first, having to get used to living in the red all the time. But once you stomach that and realize Your Health Bar Doesn't Mean AnythingTM - it was just a faceroll! They'd hit me down to 20%, 10%, heck even 5% health - doesn't matter, keep hitting things, passively heal to full lol. Every. Damn. Time. And staff was doing really - if not great - at least respectable dmg to everything. AoE blender as Staff does, and Serpent's Reach was really gnarly ST (which is maybe not surprising). But yeah. This way of building SR basically solves all the major problems I've had with the set. It's like, a *little* light on Def for Incarnate content out of the box, but given that this was built for MA with Storm Kick vs Staff with Guarded Spin, it performs really really smoothly in practice.