Shred Monkey

Devices is good. TA is really good, but I'd skip the arrow powers because... well.. if you have a beam rifle, why are you drawing a bow?

But Sentinels don't have to go into melee. That means they can beat scrappers by a mile in durability. A hover blaster is easily up there in competition with tanks and brutes.

I think there's 2 key things the OP said. 1. They like their sentinel. 2. They don't need an ultimate endgame build. With those 2 things in mind, I'd say go Sentinel. Personally, I go for ultimate endgame builds which raises both the blasters durability and damage by so much that sentinals feel underwhelming in damage and like overkill in durability. I think where sentinels shine is if you compare them to tanks. Sentinels do more damage with bigger AoEs then tanks (that's true isn't it?), and they have similar levels of durability... in fact if you hover-blast on a sentinel, you are probably more durable then most tanks.

I'd remove the level setting in the difficulty slider and make all pre 20 missions +0, level 20s misisons +1, all level 30s +2, all level 40s +3, and all 50s +4. Then I'd remove the xp from AE and remove XP boosters from P2W. Then I'd do a player-wipe so we can all start over again and play the game for real this time. I feel I should also point out that I'm also ok just leaving the game as is.

This is how I feel these days. The "golden rules" of gaming are very important to me. I abhor anything that is "pay to win." And "power-leveling exploits" are next in line in my hate list. And LOOTBOXES!!! Ugghhh... don't get me started. But this game is so far gone that all of that now gets a pass from me. Essentially CoH is no longer a game. It's a broken game. It's a sandbox. It's a creator mode game, not a survival mode game. This is also fun, but not in the same way.

What I meant with my statement is that getting very high ranged defense from IO sets gives energy defense. Plus using scorpion shield to get smash/lethal also gives energy defense. Therefore, if you are going for smash/lethal (using scorpion shield) and ranged (using IO sets) you will get good energy as well.

Just going to add, I find that a combination of smash/lethal and ranged defense covers almost everything. Plus, given that many classes have access to scorpion shield in their epic pools which gives smashing/lethal and energy defense, and the fact that there's an overlap between ranged and energy defense in IO set bonuses, it's pretty easy to add a ton of energy defense for free to a lot of builds. This is great given that Energy is the most common damage type after smashing and lethal.

I'm sure I'm not the only one thinking this, but in today's world, not having a streaming and YouTube presence is a pretty big deal for a game. I personally, was hoping whatever is causing this restriction wasn't going to last very long. Equally, I believe it speaks well of the player base of homecoming that we have been responsible enough to accept and respect this restriction.

The math is basic. By using build-up you skip an attack. If the added damage from the bonus is less that the damage from that missed attack, then build-up hurt you rather than helped you. Brutes, have a low base damage, so the bonus from buildup is multiplied by a relatively low amount compared to other damage ATs. On the other hand the skipped attack is boosted by fury. Thus if fury is high it is very possible that missed attack out damages the build-up bonus. In the end, Brutes, benefit the least from buildup of all ATs. And in some cases the Brute doesn't benefit at all.

Yes while leveling up. I use it when I am tohit debuffed, and I don't have endurance efficiency to run all the toggles I would be taking anyway. No in my final build. If I want the Gaussian set or proc, I put it in Tactics or Focused Accuracy.

Posi 1 and 2. If you ride DFB up to level 16-17 then do both posi's you'll be really close to level 22. 22 being the magic level where you can get decent IOs. Also, Air Superiority. It works on any AT. Give it 2-4 of those Patron IOs from the P2W vendor so you can perma-knock a single target. This should make it easy to solo missions on any low level toon.

But what happens when you move a toon between servers? Do all of the alternate universes from the original server get destroyed? Or does their previous existence get erased?

Some Dark Blast attack chain data.... I'm not sure your budget. So here's a low budget attack chain with required recharge %s. If you put the ATO set in Umbral Torrent and Moonbeam, then you just need tiny amounts or recharge in your other powers: Umbral Torrent (80%) > Life Drain (10%) > Dark Blast (20%) > Moonbeam (60%) > Gloom (10%) > Dark Blast (20%) > repeat And here's a more expensive, but higher damage chain. You'll need a bunch of global recharge for this. Moonbeam (200%) > Life Drain (115%) > Gloom (170%) > repeat Neither is *AMAZING* damage. But the 2nd one is as good as I can calculate with Dark Blast and includes a self heal. Both are pretty easy on endurance relative to other blast sets.

If you can hold or stun sorcerers that's going to cover 90% of the problems. Add knock protection versus Ancient Spirits, but that's available to all using IOs.

So... they went to college?

What got me is he was diagnosed in 2016. So he's been aware of this for quite some time... I'm imagining all he did in the last 4 years while knowing he had cancer. I mean, Black Panther came out in 2018.

The downside I can think of for blasters not benefiting from lightning field is just that you're hittings so hard already with other attacks. after taking out that boss you turn around and see minions with a 20 of health left due to the lightning field and BOOM you hit them a blast for 250 points of massive overkill. But at the same time, maybe lightning field took out another minion while you used that blast. So it probably balances out. Agro management is no different than all AoEs. You should think before you jump... or in true blaster fashion, don't think before you jump.... just jump really really hard.

Superhero bows build up more and more power the longer you hold them drawn. I don't have an full explanation, but I believe it has to do with hammer-space physics.

As mentioned earlier nobody uses the LFG tab. You're high enough to run Posi 1, so when people advertise that in LFG, just send that person forming a tell like "I'll join." By the time you're done (about 20-30 minutes) you'll be high enough for Posi 2 (another 20-30 minutes). Often people just run both together so there is a good chance you'll be able to just run both in one sitting. Positron is in Steel Canyon, so that's where the team will meet to start both Task Forces. I'd also suggest when you join to mention you're a new player who's running the Task Force for the first time. Nobody will laugh or tease you. And they should let you know how not to trigger the ambushes in the last few missions of Posi 1, and help you get to Faultline in Posi 2.

I think what's really key here is that in exchange for all that "work" there's a real, measurable, benefit. You're rewarded for having player skill (or in some games, macro building abilities). A lot of games fail at this. In fact a lot of CoH powersets are examples of failures to reward the player for extra work. Sets with combos, or short buffs/debuffs have a "best method" of play that can take some practice to master. But rarely is there a big bonus for developing that skill. Sure, you can coax more damage from the powerset then not mastering the technique, but other powersets just out damage you and are easy button mashers so why bother? (i.e. why play water, savage, staff, kinetic melee?). Since we're talking about CO, ... the power armor set had some tricks to greatly boosting the damage output with very precise timing. It's one of the reasons I was drawn to the set myself.

There's a PTW buff that gives +damage, and you can buy. Also load up on red inspirations... you can buy higher level and team inspirations on the AH (or trade incarnate threads for them in ouroborus, if you have a toon that can do that). You can also mail yourself inspirations so you can reload in fight (i've never done this, but I hear it works).

I've always wanted an all throwing powerset. Grenades, Boomerangs, Stars/knives. Kind of a Green Goblin for good guys set. I'd love to pair it with the martial assault blaster secondary. I built something like this on Champions Online. I even used the flying disc movement power. Unfortunately it was under performing by my standards, but the concept was cool.

well... that explains it. I don't think it's 15 seconds, though.... seems shorter. OK... checked in game, the text info says can be used once every 8 seconds. That's what I was looking for. .... just to further confirm... I respec'd to a attack chain that takes 9.3 seconds.... then circle around water jet comes up just in time to use it. 8 seconds seems right. I suspect that does not include the activation time of the enhanced water jet power itself.

Online testing now. I'm seeing that this is not a tidal power issue, but an issue specific to water jet. I used build-up to recharge the 3 tidal power stacks instantly after using enhanced water jet and it shows circles around dehydrate and water burst, not water jet. but if I wait a few seconds and a circle shows up around water jet. If i do the same... use buildup after enhanced dehydrate, it shows the circle around dehydrate with no delay. My guess is that it has something to do with the instant cooldown locking out water jet from being enhanced for a short period of time.