Shred Monkey

Disclaimer: There are 100 ways to skin this cat, I'm not telling you what you should do, but here's what I do. Step 1. Calculate your attack chain. This tells you what attack powers to pick and how much recharge is needed in each power, and how much global recharge you're aiming for. It's also going to tell you if you you're going for so much recharge that Hasten is required. This I do in a spreadsheet. There are some tools out there, but it's a topic that is way deeper then this discussion. I just list it because, really, this is where I start when making a build. Once I have the chain, I add those powers to the build at their lowest available level. Step 2. Select the survivability powers from your secondary/primary pools and fill the in 3 slotted with their main state (Defense, resistance, or health... just use level 50 crafted IOs for now). Also add in your status protection power. At this point look at the survivabilty totals and it will give you an idea of what gaps you are going to want to fill in with sets and pool powers. Step 3. Decide what type of soft-capped defense you're going to do. Some ATs I might go for ranged defense only. Others I'd go for smashing/lethal. Ideally, I'd get either all 3 positions softcapped, or 6 of the 7 types softcapped there's a psi hole in most builds). Or, If neither of these are an option, Softcapped to both smash/lethal and Ranged is a very solid option. Step 4. Start adding pool powers for defense. Basically, this is Combat Jumping, Weave (with boxing & tough), and Maneuvers. Then I slot the two +3 defense IOs. In all my defense powers, I put in 3 slots and put in LoTG +recharge, Defense, and Def/end. With all these added, I look at where I am and how much more I need to get me to my soft cap goals. I'll also look at the epic set at this point as well for defense powers... but sometimes this is not an option or not required. Step 5. Add defense bonus sets to my attacks and resistance powers. I'm not going to list all the good sets here, you'll need to learn these as you go. (For example: Mako's Bite in melee gives ranged defense... Kinetic Combats in melee give Smash/lethal, etc... ) Many of the AT sets and Winter sets give really good defense bonuses, too. Step 6. Still looking to get to soft cap defenses, here... It's time to fill in some set mules. Epic sets and pool powers, etc, anything with a big bang for the buck. Don't forget to look at Winter set options here as well. Step 7. Once you've hit your softcapped goal, so you need to go back and check for recharge. You might have to swap a few sets around in your attacks if one of your attacks needs a lot of recharge while another does not (this is where knowing your attack chain at step 1 really helps). Step 8. Check your endurance usage. Slot the Numina's and Miracle uniques in health. 3-slot stamina with Performance shifter proc & Endurance, and then a plain Endurance IO. Then use this same three in any other power that takes them. You can use the Mid's calculations and a spreadsheet to figure out how much recovery you need, but generally, I just try to get as much recovery as I can, then tweak it back down after playing for a while and realizing my end bar never moves. Now, it's time to just tinker until it looks good. At this point you're probably out of slots, and have an extra 2-3 powers to pick. It all becomes a shell game at this point as you fine tune the build trying to squeeze out what you're looking for. You might shave off 1 slot from combat jumping by taking vengeance and putting the LoTG+recharge in it's default slot. You can grab your travel powers if you want some, or any other powers you want to have, but don't need to slot. You might throw some slots in tough if you're going to run it and not just use it as a mule. You might get more regen out of health or any other +regen powers you have. Theres lots of options at this point and they're all pretty specific to your chosen build, so just keep toying with it until you like what you've got. So that's it. That's what I do. Also, since I feel like I'm confessing my min-max-nerdishness here, i might as well go all in. I usually do a level 12 build and a level 22 respec build that just run optimal attack chains for those levels... then I do a level 32 build that gives an intermediate attack chain and sometimes a level 37ish build that stretches me to level 50 where I can respec into to the final build discussed above. Also, I have no qualms about buying attuned sets for my low levels. Especially if I know I'm going to use them in my final build.

There's a lot here to respond to but I'll just start with this.... the 5 mission minimum. I like it, but don't like it. Long arcs get tedious, but good stories take long to tell. Simple solution, keep a 5 mission minimum, but make part 1, 2, & 3, etc arcs. DA is a good example of this. It works.

I take it to help with that level 12-22 range as a single target control power to use when soloing. It will basically put one target on hold while you kill the others. But I respec out of it as soon as this is no longer needed.

I agree with the comment about splitting of the 2nd stalker set to double up the smash/lethal defense bonus.

Purple Triangles of Doom! Yet another of the many many things I once knew about this game that I have completely forgotten. Three months from coming back and I still find new "old memories" every day... good lord this is such a great game.

The incarnate system is a little confusing to a beginner anyway... the whole existence of shards just look like a mistake someone hasn't bothered to fix and eliminating them would clean up a large part of the confusion. In fact, I came into this thread hoping to learn that they really had stopped dropping.

Scrapperlock is when the rest of your team wipes, everyone respawns back at the hospital, and comes back to regroup at the mission entrance, and not only are you still alive and fighting... but you didn't notice they were gone.

You have the practice dummy cornered in an ally. You beat him down and smash his face in the dirt like he's Hitler's kid sister. Then, as you're about to walk away, he gets back up, puts up his fists, and says, "I can do this all day."

For the purpose of this post I'm going to use the word "negative" aura. What I mean by this is it's the dark-umbral-blackish aura some powers have where they cover up everything in a dark tint. It can be colored somewhat, but it is mostly just blackness with a slight tint. It is in a lot of powers, and most sets have it as an option to some extent. Here's my scenario, but I'm sure there's others with the same problem.... I've got a Bio Armor toon... I like to run Offensive adaptation, but I really dislike the look of the "negative" aura on his hands. The other adaptation options put a negative aura more generally around the body, but offense is directly on his hands in a big poofy balls. This happens to be a stalker, so it's even worse when everything else on him fades and there's just these poofy balls running around. Minimal FX are not a given option for adaptation as they are on other powers. The only options are original or bright... bright isn't bright color options, it just lets you slightly alter the tint to the darkness. One option I've tried to find was a way to just apply a negative tint to his whole body using a costume aura, but I couldn't find any costume auras with the negative effect. Coloring flame and glow auras black doesn't work, that just makes it colorless (i.e. grey) and very feint. Does anyone know any tricks to either making these effects go away, or to giving the full costume a negative aura? So far, I have not found any. Even if I could give the negative effect to just his eyes, that would be better than the disembodied black-poofy hands.

I think dropping new contacts into the game makes sense. Kind of like, "hey... hero, I work for Longbow... we're contacting you because we need your help."

Just going to add, musculature alpha is by far the most common pick. More damage, is always helpful... whereas in most situations you probably do not really benefit from more healing. And you can get more than one of each. You can only have one slotted at a time, but you can swap them in and out when not in combat.

I saved this on my file of things I need to remember on each toon. Good write up. One question... you said there are "a few Chance for Build Up procs," I only know of the Gaussian's. Are there others?

This is true... but they're so adorable!

I think the gas damage from those little round nemesis bots exploding is non-positional... or maybe just auto-hit.

I built a DP/devices toon already. But if I had to do it over, I'd tweak it to DP/ninja. I currently use none of the device attack powers, but I would use a few sword attacks if I had them. The ninja buffs appear to be identical to the device buffs, so that would play out the same. DP/ is very strong AoE, and single target is more that sufficient to solo +4 AVs... Ninja would actually improve both single target and ranged damage when I move into melee. Plus, IMHO, jumping in and out of melee to line up attacks is a lot of fun... I'm actually really wanting to do this toon, now that I started talking about it.

Runners are annoying.

I hadn't really looked at the Street Justice set, before. Now that I have, I think this set was intentionally designed to fully leverage all the tricks and options of a maximally enhanced full incarnate stalker. Plus it looks cool. I started my StJ/Bio stalker last night.

It's ironic that, in general, the best content is in the lowest population zones. I think this is because the good content also tends to be a little more challenging. People gravitate toward the easier content, either because it's the path of least resistance, or because it's just easier to find teams in high population areas.

Quoted for truth. Also 2XP option. One Frostfire map gives like 8-10 levels with 2XP, so how many people are gonna be in the hollows when they out level the content just a few missions?

I was going to say that I'm pretty sure it is random, but after reading this post I am no longer sure.

Very often, in CoH enhancements actually increase numbers in the denominator of equations. If you are wanting to get into the detail numbers of this game, It's a good idea to really think it through and understand this concept. Example 1: Reducing something by 32% IS NOT: 100% - 32% => 68% of original value. IS: 1/(100%+32%) => 75.7% of original value. Example 2: Reducing something by 100% IS NOT: 100%-100% => 0% of the original value. IS: 1/(100%+100%) => 50% of the original value.

My feelings on this subject are this. I am really apprehensive about any new content. I want to play the old game that I lost. Granted, six months from now when I've been running old content for much longer than now time I may feel different, but I think the dev's need to be very careful about making changes and additions. We're not here because we love the new dev's idea of how the game should have been run. We're here because we missed the way it was. Don't get me wrong. I think fixing things that are obviously broken are wonderful. But what happens the first time this dev team decides it's time for a nerf. I mean, for example, Titan Weapons and Bio Armor are probably due for a change... but does the public really feel comfortable with the dev team tweaking those sets? Would people go somewhere else to play sets in an un-nerfed form? This is where things get sticky. I think a conservative approach is best.

Generally speaking, I boost all IOs and Purples (for all others, I use attuned sets). If influence is in question and you want to know what to boost "first." I would look at powers where you have 1 or 2 IOs and boost them. 2x+5 IOs is almost the same as 3 lvl 50 IOs due to the ED cap. Because of this I often plan to only use 1 or 2 slots in many powers. For example, all the Fitness powers (or they get a proc and 2 other slots). Hasten is usually 2 slotted. I often only 2-slot auto powers for their main stat since they don't use endurance, so auto powers I often boost to +5. And yes, they're expensive, but what else are you going to spend money and merits on?

Is it really true Papa? Did the sun really come back to us?

I think the answer to the question is the subject line is... "Yes, they should." I think you'll spark a huge debate (or maybe already did) by saying, "They currently do not."