Mantidae

Thanks for the tip @PLVRIZR! Sorry it took so long to get back to you.

Hello again Tankers! I’d like to ask about Incarnate strategies for Tanks in general and Bio in particular. Warboss give me some great suggestions but this system is new to me so there is much more to learn. I’ll take Alphas as an example: Warboss offered Musculature and Cardiac as options starting out; easy enough to see why after looking at them and I've been trying them out. However, when I looked at various other builds I have also seen people using Spiritual (which makes sense for a recharge-hungry primary like Bio) but not Resilient which I would have thought useful for a primary with mixed or mostly defense (as opposed to resist) abilities. I also didn’t see Vigor which I would have expected if people wanted to lean into Bio’s regenerative strengths. I thought it could be that people didn’t care for the secondary and tertiary effects of those Alphas but wasn’t sure. So, I wanted to ask about what people’s “philosophies” are when building out Alphas. Are the Alphas’ other effects also really important to you or are they a side-note? Do you prefer Alphas to cover the shortcomings of a build/powerset, push a primary’s strengths as far as they’ll go, or take a mixed approach. Inquiring minds (mind?) want to know.

Thanks PLVRIZR and Sovera! It's good to know I'm on track for what I want. I have also seen a Bio/Stone build Sovera suggested elsewhere so between the two will probably be able to cobble together a build. If I find myself forced to also play a Fire/EM tank I'll know who to blame. I didn't mean to give the impression that I wanted to go with SOs/generics only, just that I've been relying on them until now. Sorry for any miscommunication. I'm perusing some guides on gaining inf now and previously received a grant via Yomo's generosity so I'm set there.

Hey Boss thanks for your reply and invite. My first ITF was glorious chaos!

Hello all! I need some help. I’m among the filthiest of casuals with crippling altitis (even back during Live) so I’ve never had a level 50 character before. I have looked at various builds here but the process is not familiar to me. I’ve never even theorycrafted a build before! Suddenly I find myself about to play with the big kids so I’m a bit lost. I’m not sure what to go for numerically but I do have some goals in mind. If the community could give me some guidance here I’d really appreciate it. Unfortunately, I don’t even have a provisional build to post. Concept: this character is just a swamp monster that pounds on enemies. I’m limiting my pool choices based on that theme so I want to avoid powers like Hasten and Char. Travel power: I use Teleport because it fits my idea. Ideally, I would fit both Combat Teleport and Fold Space or Teleport Target into the final build. Taunt: I need it because this is the first Tank I’ve played seriously since about I3. Fighting: I assume I need Tough and Weave. Bio has been pretty durable so far but I imagine those would help quite a bit. Epic: Energy fits best. I hate Blind effects so I’ve been using Focused Accuracy. I also took Physical Perfection. Role: I’m ususally the off-tank when running with my SG. I PUG a fair bit as well. Incarnate: I have no idea. I never even read about that system until a few days ago (see above for my playstyle). Cost: This is a big limitation because I only have around 45 million to play with. I’ve dipped my toes into farming and marketing but I don’t care much for either. I’ve been using SOs and generics along with a few pieces of Doctored Wounds I picked up somewhere. I don’t have high expectations for what can be achieved for that amount but I’m sure the Tanker community could spend it wisely. I’m not looking to be a super-star with this character, only to do my job the best I can so I don’t let the team down. Any ideas of how to start?

The one where you get to blow up the Layer Cake cave map.

The HC team is better than some teams on retail games I've seen (better by far in some cases). 👍

Thanks for your reply @Falsey, sorry it took me so long to get back to this. I haven't had a chance to try this yet but at least I know it isn't a terrible idea.

I have a character concept that would fit this well so I was hoping to get some playstyle and building tips. Ice Armor is a well-known set but I have little experience with tanking. I found TW to be a torturous experience on Brute but it seems tailor-made for tanks. I figure an Ice Tank would more easily survive all of the attacks that occur during those long wind-ups and Chilling Embrace would keep mobs from ruining the attack chain by running away. Also, Tanks don’t need to maintain Fury on top of Momentum. My searches didn’t turn up anything specific about this combo for Tanks. I’d appreciate your input.

No. People need to stop telling other people how to play.

Rage doesn't need a -def. It doesn't need another nerf in place of -def. It needs to be fixed so that it works as it did before.

Wow. I always have to settle for "doesn't suck too badly."

Get thee to the AE and create this. Then we can run an all-Stalker team to murder it.

/signed I only played Gold once and I wasn't willing to slog through it long enough to escape.

It is a nice feature to have; however, it's grossly dependent on _how_ the list of enhancements in storage are a) stored, and b) retrieved. At the rock-bottom simplicity end, which is very unlikely to be the case, it's 9altering one SQL query to add 'ORDER BY' clauses. More likely, using the admission by the GMs that adding AH functionality while in your base would require loading the whole auction house database into the data structures for the base, the items in storage are loaded into memory when you enter the base, which means that the enhancements in storage are already in a data structure than may not be amenable to being sorted. I can think of at least four different ways that it could be done, and they all have annoying aspects to them, particularly as they would more readily be done client-side, since there could be several people in a base all looking at enhancements, and all sorting them differently. This adds complexity, as you would need to ensure that there are additional checking to ensure consistency. And the problem balloons when all of this has to tie back into the existing code. So, yes, it can be a relatively simple problem, but given that CoH is 8+ years of accreting spaghetti code, it's unlikely to be. Thank you. I was hoping it would just be a matter of tables but you may well be right.

Oh no what have you done BOOM Since there is no policy that this forum is for coders only your "replies" are unnecessarily dismissive and a good example of why many people avoid video game forums.

Arcanaville?! ::we're not worthy:: So, how bout that Dark Armor?

If your group is like mine then your base is overflowing with IOs that people have crafted and which might be useful someday. Alphabetical order is nice but I'd like the option to sort by level and type as well. I assume this would be relatively simple to do. Who's with me?

I've looked around the original forums and a few other places online but I can't find much information about this combo. I don't even think I've ever seen anyone play it on a Scrapper. Even though the base numbers look the same it seems like the Scrappers' lack of Fury and taunt aura plus the frequent crits could change the gameplay significantly. Has anyone here played the set? I'd be interested to hear about your experiences.

This appears to have gotten lost in the shuffle. I would ask people to keep it in mind - the fix isn't going away, so how can Rage/SS as a whole be made better, in your opinion? I'd primarily look at the -Def in Rage crash being made resistible. Currently it has a disproportionate effect on Defense based sets that could normally resist -Def thrown at them. If the -Def can be removed totally, I'd go for a global Endurance cost increase (reverse of Energize, basically) so that the increased damage/hit chance comes at a cost and still keep the -End/-DMG parts of the crash. Stacking Rage would severely increase the Endurance cost of everything you do which should be a pretty good opportunity cost to keep things in check. SS might need a slight base damage increase to offset the lack of perma Rage from lvl 18, though. This is an interesting idea on paper but it's still an excessive nerf to a power that doesn't need one. This would make a full tray of blue pez mandatory instead of purple.

Strangely I found that I'm the opposite: I can't stop rolling Brutes. I don't know why this is as I was always a Scrapper guy, I'd have to combine all of my other ATs to equal the number of Scrappers I played. My new Brute habit may be due to that extra bit of toughness and threat generation so I can tank in emergencies. Also Brutes have a high-risk/high-reward mechanic which interests me. There are times when I don't feel like chasing Fury though, I may rectify this as my Spines/Bio Brute could easily be a Scrapper although that means I'd have to fight the Skulls again. I'll probably reroll another as Electric/Electric to avoid the SS nerf. I've never seen an Electric/Electric guide for Scrappers so I will probably start a thread for it.

This appears to have gotten lost in the shuffle. I would ask people to keep it in mind - the fix isn't going away, so how can Rage/SS as a whole be made better, in your opinion? A useful reminder. My answer though is that "interesting and distinctive" is less important than "doesn't kill the user." If they can't remove the defuff without breaking something else then making it resitible in some way might help.

That seems..... As though they cut off their noses to spite their faces. I mean, it's one power and one set. Enjoy the rest of the game, come to the forums and make your case. I'd be willing to bet the HC team is flexible. Maybe your acquaintances are a bit.... Melodramatic? I'm not unsympathetic. I was playing a Regen scrapper during the period where Crypitc was continually nerfing the set. When Emmertt showed his recording of how Regen was "broken" and we discovered that Cryptic's internal testing was out of date with the live game, I left and didn't come back until he was gone. If I had that choice to jump to another company at the time I would done so in a heartbeat. I'm not going to go chasing down servers now: I don't have time, my friends are here and HC has done an Amazing (50) job in all other respects. However, I won't be down on anyone who chooses otherwise. This is true of course but that doesn't mean we can't question their decisions. I'm going to park my SS characters until I see how this all shakes out. That annoys me since I enjoy the look and sound of the set (Footstomp never gets old) plus it fits those characters well. Altitis will tide me over until then.

And yes the game should still be balanced around SOs because nobody starts at level 50. Any changes made should take the whole game into account. The point I was making here is that compared to other powersets, SS is *even stronger on SOs than it is on IOs*. So, if you want to argue for a reversal of the nerf on the basis of "balance", you probably don't want to look too closely at SO balance... Between IOed out builds, SS shares the top with a fair few others. But on a SO build, it's rather easy to herald SS as the king of melee. Best to pick arguments that help your desired goal, rather than work against it. Could you provide some examples? I've never heard anyone making this sort of claim about the set so I'm curious to see your math.

I did this. It was so awful that I wasn't willing to stick it out for the Grave Knight. I also maintain that zombies are the stupidist pets in the game. The worst is probably the MAN build, which I think was a Defender that only used Brawl as an attack and never used the primary set or pool powers.