Olly

Before I get into my 2 cents, I'd like to ask you to see things from a different perspective: that in CoH, *Solo* is the end game, and *teaming* is for relaxing and having a good time. Hear me out: I've ended up playing solo more times now, just because I find it more challenging. That is not to say I don't enjoy groups. I like the laid-backness I can play when I'm in one as compared to when I *choose* to tackle +4/*8 content. In doing this very many times, I realised an amazing thing about CoH. The solo content can actually be *a lot harder* than group content and be equally rewarding. This is counter to most MMO game design that makes raids and such the end game, and make unique rewards for it. For me, (and I suspect soon for many others based on the amount of "can this build solo" posts now) CoH is the opposite, and I am very happy it is that. I have issues with what people mean when they say "can this build solo"? This is a very vague question and as it stands cannot be answered in a consistent manner. In general, I'd answer yes to your question for any +0/+0 solo mission content blueside, yes, between levels 1-50, with right-level enhs, and given an "average" mission complete time not counting hunting for well-hidden glowies. I think from that perspective, yes, any reasonable AT build should be able to participate in that level of play. I apologise for the seemingly endless constraints, but it is an impossible question to debate otherwise. So I will skip some of your other questions that have this same level of unaswerability. To me, this is like saying Hawkeye and Hulk (or Spawn and Batman) should be able to defeat the all the same Big Bads. Whether intended or not, imo there's no programmatic way (or should there be) to "force" "min/maxers", aka those who solo +4/*8 to play nice when teaming. That is pretty much what you are asking for. Personally, I leave my min/maxer at home or use an alternate build when I'm teaming. The exception is MLTF/STF pugs or ITF speed runs where min/max is somewhat expected and appreciated. And yes, I've run into teams where you have that hotshot that runs off and does their own thing or "steals your kills". If it bothers you, add a note you don't like teaming with them, and move on. I'd rather we first try to collectively, as a player base, take on the question of (1) is this really a high-impact problem? and (2) how could the community better define it? rather than immediately ask "devs, please solve this social problem for us". Frankly, I myself don't see it as an unique issue to CoH, and imho it is relatively tame here compared to elsewhere. On the flip side, I once got called out for saying "the glowie is north of you" because someone didn't know how to use the map as a mini-map, and accused me of being an elitist because "not everyone has dual monitors [to use the map]".

Right. I forgot MO allows for insps. I'll have to add the extra constraints if I ever decide to run the "Frosti-Khan" aka the higher-constraint version. Now I'm really curious: what other builds are on that short list???

Lord god... yeah I was thinking it was in reference to an Ice Control Dominator >.< No wonder I was so confused....

It's definitely a "you must spend a zillion influence and be vet level 100" type of play. And I doubt ill/therm will out damage ill/cold. You can get around the end issues with incarnates though, so there's that. My point with ill/therm was to find another AT that could at least have the potential to MoKhan. It came down to a very short list of AT's with -regen, and all of them were controllers and defenders. /Dark also looked viable, but its -regen isn't as powerful; and /Rad seems even worse with no +dmg and less -res than therm. It would be interesting to see if some Cold/* or Therm/* defender would have a chance. Beam Sonic probably has the best chance, imo.

Which is why I asked. Cold Dom is a completely diff AT and powerset; it doesn't even have -regen powers. So I wonder what the comparison is.

I'm curious... how do you define "levels of soloability"? And how do you find Cold Dom to be at a higher level?

I rolled an ill/cold and an ill/therm in Brainstorm (Beta). what I managed: ill/cold: +4/*8 MoITF ill/therm: +4/*8 MoITF ill/therm: War Walker ill/therm: Solo Khan. Took about 3 hrs. Used temps, ranged summons and insps, but did not use any mail-in insps. Fairly certain build can MoKhan it, but I'll be damned if I solo Khan for the 6th or so time with the crawl speed of a Mo attempt. Maybe in a year or so. As I mentioned, fairly certain the trick is getting an AT that has built-in envenomed daggers, aka -regen; as well as having ill's PA as an aggro magnet. Bonus with therm was the Forge (+40% dmg teammate buff) and the team heal. I might run the ill/therm through a few more TF's, but Khan has been the hardest tf (outside of STF) for me, so I figure the ill/therm should be able to handle the rest.

The discussion on this thread made things clearer for me. (Read my post on it, for the tl;dr version)

My titan/bio is mostly retired, because i solo'd all the content i wanted for it. If you decide to go with that, here's my 2 cents: - yes, you can kill av's and gm's no problem. in fact, that's pretty much all i used it for (envenomed daggers temp is a must-have for scrappers for this) - it is maddeningly slow when it does its attacks, and with the i27 changes, the attack chain is now a little off. i don't play it as often, so i never bothered to rejigger my chains for the new changes - yes, you can farm, but again, it's slow. it's def not optimal to farm with (optimal are the fire brutes, of which there are many guides) - yes, it costs an arm and a leg - i felt like mine didnt bloom until i got at least level 3 of alpha incarnate (musculature) and ageless. so you will need a lot of patience leveling it up - a good resource is the 'scrapper pylon thread'. i think someone even put together a spreadsheet listing results. those will give you a sense of which builds can dps and survive. not to be taken as bible, but should get you some good ideas.

Fire/Fire/Fire blaster for ITF and general AoE meltage. Based on pug ITF runs with my tricked-out one, I'd say Fire/Dark would be slower. Mostly because Inferno + Hotfeet (with zero activation time and a -res proc) will generate a load of dps before you can even click on another power. And if using another power, then compare Burn's dps vs. Soul Drain. If I get lucky and there's a debuffer on the team, then my alpha strike is just insane.

thanks @RubyRed! I managed to extract a subset of powers info into a csv so that I could find my next alt to build and test. Currently scheming an ill/dark to conquer the world.

I'm assuming you didn't kill the shield gen... iirc it's at the northwest corner away from the main area.

When it comes to the harder solo content, I find the biggest barrier is regen. You can mitigate incoming damage a variety of ways for different solo-build AT's, but being able to out-DPS an AV's regen (like Khan, STF, or the incarnate trials) is such a bear. Particularly if you're running no temps (i.e. no summons, no envenomed daggers) like @Frosticus was. Even with -res, I'm not sure you could do it without some form of -regen. For reference, e.daggers apply -250% regen at level 50 per hit (source: https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Temporary_Power:_Envenomed_Dagger). For Khan, I read somewhere that you have to be throwing out the equivalent of 700 dps (damage per second) to get past his regen, for example. Not really a numbers person, but I would think those are the -res equivalent targets for building an Ill/TA if someone wants to do what Frosty did on their Ill/Cold. PS Re: War Walker -- if you don't know to kill the shield generator, his regen is really, really steep... just saying... for a friend >.>

You will need either super speed or Teleport. My notes on how to do it: "ITF AV separate -- the barrier for cut scene is right before the 2nd council soldier" Meaning, you want to stay hidden and get as close to the cut scene trigger barrier as you can, with SS or TP at the ready. Once you're there (and it has not triggered), either SS or TP towards Romy. The scene will trigger, and you will have a few seconds to get to where he is standing to soak up the nicti aggro. Once Romy appears, get his aggro, then run away to make sure you don't have nicti aggro as well. Let the aggro reset, then do a pull on Romy. (I usually go up to the roof or to the side) The nicti shouldn't follow. Note that this isn't exact, and it may take a few tries to get it to work. "2nd council soldier" = 2nd closest one from the cliff edge I use ITF +4/*8 for testing my ranged solo alts, like trollers and blasters, so I did a fair bit of testing and research to learn this. PS You will need to turn off stealth to get the nicti aggro prior to Romy appearing. So turn off arctic fog before you break the cut scene barrier, and SS if you are using it.

Holy smokes, it's Local_Man! You're a legend. I referenced that guide so much both in the old game and when I first started on HC. Glad to see you here in HC and in the Controllers forum.

Joined the club to +1 this request -- any chance of have a Notes feature in the current version of Mids?

Nice work! How do you heal or avoid damage? That was my problem when I tried ill/cold.

I ditched rain of fire because it didn't do enough damage, scattered adds, and the only useful place I found for it was in AE farms. I switched to bonfire (kd->kb proc) + hot feet + burn combo which feels far more controlled.

I assume our mad scientists have fact-based answers but here's my take: I play a fire/fire/fire blaster that gives me access to inferno, burn, hot feet, fire sword circle, combustion and bonfire as short-ranged (i.e. melee) aoes. If I were to stay strictly ranged, I would lose the dps from any of those attacks I use, plus fire sword ST damage. It's not that the dps of melee-based powers are comparatively more powerful (though burn and hot feet would beg to argue) per attack, but that you can stack them on top of the ranged dps once you move into melee range. Or vice versa. Start at melee, jump out, and burn down any remaining adds from range -- something you can't do as a scrapper or tank. Blappers don't give up range for damage -- they add melee damage to the ranged damage they already have. I can't help but add my love for hitting bonfire (with the kb->kd proc) then jumping in the middle of the bouncing mob with hot feet, then popping an inferno to "one shot" +4/x8 minions. Throw in a burn and fire sword circle and the lt's and bosses are pretty much cooked. I only do it on speed runs or solo though. Otherwise other dps might not appreciate having no enemies to destroy.

The best way to test is to minimize as many concurrently running apps as possible then start to layer then in one-by-one. I'd first try running CoH without having any nvidia or gpu apps running. It may be that some of the gpu app optimization functions are causing conflicts with CoH, who knows.

I've used invisibility to run through these mobs before np (of course back then I turned Cauterizing Aura off). I'll remove the proc and see what happens then. Edit: Ok, I did Numina again. This time, no issues save for the "Locate Scout" mission; which are nemesis and makes sense that they see me due to some mobs having enhanced perception. I did it with the Power Transfer proc slotted -- no build changes from when I last had issues. My best guess is that I had a teammate who had poorer stealth stats and/or a damage proc running and thus were aggroing the mobs, which in turn broke my invisibility stealth aura. And it was NOT cauterizing aura bugging out. I will continue to test and keep an eye out for future Numina runs, but it seems that might be the likeliest situation.

no. I have 6-slot power transfer. also no damage procs -- what you see on my screen grab is what was on. Cauterizing Aura's power info indicates a small damage dot. I think that's what caused the problem.

i27 patch says: "Cauterizing Aura If you are concealed (from Stealth or a similar power) this power will not impact foes unless you are in combat (it will no longer accidentally break stealth)" Bug: I just ran a numina tf on my fire/fire blaster with others where i had invisibility and cauterizing aura on. the dot proc'd and broke stealth through several missions. No other primary or secondary powers on,

Yes. I changed my chain to pop it after Inferno. It then reliably procs (since cd is over 10s) and drops my Inferno cd from 38s to about 30s without Ageless. Nice tweak on the build. I 6-slotted flares since it's one of two attacks I use for ST. Interesting how you added Blazing Bolt instead. Let me know how it plays for you. My aoe rotation is: ( insps, BU+Aim, jump in) -> Inferno -> Bonfire (FF proc) -> Fire Sword Circle -> Fireball (to see what's left standing) -> (jump back) -> Fire breath / Flares (decimation proc) / Blaze / Fire cage / Char as needed ST: flares -> blaze

I went the glass cannon route with my fire/fire/fire blaster. I decided to max recharge and damage; which included adding procs for +recharge and buildup. I tinkered with my current build using some of the tricks I saw in yours and here's my glass cannon version. It's got 182% recharge (excluding incarnates and +recharge proc); and 39% damage bonus (excluding buildup and aim). I have consume and took it out for melt armor; not sure I'm going to keep it that way. Inferno at 38 sec cd, but that often comes down because of the FF proc on bonfire. Most people seem to dislike Acrobatics; for this build I'm fine with it and don't see any better value replacement. I used to use it for TF's, but it melts things so fast everyone just looks sad for not having something to shoot at. So it's retired atm unless I can figure out how to make my alt build solo the STF.