MonteCarla

Yeah, +Damage is the one that's intriguing me right now. I'm sure I've seen people on the Blaster forums say they slot for it. It would make most sense on a Blaster or Stalker, or Scrapper. I've got a KM/Nin/Psy Stalker lined up in my head. Looking here: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Category:Sets_with_Damage_bonuses - I could get: Apocalypse, Coercive Persuasion (Blinding Powder) and Superior Assassin and Superior Stalker's Guile: +16% Obliteration, Sting of the Manticore and 3 x Mako's Bite: +15% 5 x 2% bonuses (Red Fortune, Adjusted Targeting): +10% for a global +41% damage. Hmm. Tier 4 Musculature gives you 2/3 (after ED) of 45%, so another +30%. For comparison, Call to Justice is a +40% damage boost to Stalkers, and I always make sure I get that ASAP. It could be the difference between dropping a Boss with an Assassin Strike and quick follow up, or not. ( And I might be shooting myself in the foot by choosing Kinetic Melee.. 🙂 )

Not all IO set bonuses are created equal. Dishing out some advice in the Defenders forums I realised I have a very set in my ways approach to them, like a mental checklist of what's worth pursuing and what isn't. What set bonuses do you chase? These are mine, in order of how much I follow them: Recharge - almost always. This will typically stack up to 2 or 3 extra SO's worth, or more. 90%+ of my characters do this. Defence - usually positional, but typed for the right armor sets. 66%+ of my characters have done this? Resistance - definitely a build goal for the right armor sets - on Tanks, Brutes and Epic ATs with the higher caps. Accuracy - usually get a single SO's worth at least by accident. I've occasionally not accumulated this, shrugged and moved on. Run Speed - did this once, and got noticeably high unsuppressed run speed. Quite fun to do as a one-off. (This was before the Thrust unique IO) Fly Speed/Jump Speed - never done Slow Resistance - did this on my main Dominator once to help preserve perma-Dom, as per forum advice. KB Protection - I used to use uniques instead, now use START vendor buffs Recovery - accidentally get this, but don't think it makes a big difference due to low numbers Range - never more than two Bombardment sets in cone-heavy sets. Is there an extreme teleporter case here? Max End - never deliberately chased, except for one character who had 125+ Energy with accolades, and I just wanted the number to go up 🙂 Max HP - never chased, but I believe people do? Damage - never chased, but I believe people do? Regen - never chased this. The healing procs seem more effective (Panacea in Health, Power Transfer in Stamina) Healing - never chased this. Mez effects eg +Confuse - never chased Mez Resistance - never bothered Does anyone have any good cases that differ from this pattern - eg chasing +Damage or +Health, or making a super-ranged expert?

The 6% Healing Bonus at 4 pieces will apply to all healing powers, including the Medicine pool. I'm not sure if chasing healing bonuses will change things for you much, compared to say the Ranged Defence and Recharge bonuses at 5 and 6 pieces, but it will have an effect.

Archery/Sonic Defender. Your ability to protect yourself will be terrible: - 24% resistance from Sonic Dispersion - Single target stun in Stunning Shot - Liquefy on a long recharge. Your only other secondary power you can us is Sonic Siphon, although... you could use Sonic Cage here. You could still make this work, but it'll be an uphill battle!

Vazhilok with their -Recharge toxins seem especially egregious at the lower levels where you encounter them, when you don't have much of an attack chain built up.

Every character I make gets: - both sets of ATOs if I want them - Panacea +HP/End in Health - Gladiators Armor and Steadfast uniques if they fit - as many LotG +Rech as they can fit - any other non-purple/non-winter sets I like (Basilisk's Gaze, Unbreakable Guard etc) - all three P2W buffs topped up continuously while I level. After 50, I buy them per task force. I don't worry unduly about them running down if I'm roleplaying, at the market or a hanging around chatting. - all the teleporter temps, Return to Battle, some Resuscitators, and the crafting table if I feel like it. I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it. 🙂 I have a bunch of 200 million emails sitting in my inbox always and pull one for each character, which usually does them until they're 50. If I need to grab a second one, so be it. Crafting from the task forces I run on the way to 50 will often generate 2 of these emails for me, so I don't really worry about my wealth when my income is this good.

Cross Punch from Fighting is good, especially with Boxing and Kick. It's base damage is just a smidge higher than Broadsword Slice or Energy Melee Power Crash, and it gets a 15% bonus to base damage for you having either Kick or Boxing, so +30% if you take both. I've not been disappointed using it with Superstrength or Martial Arts, where it fills a gap quite nicely as a second AoE. It is the third pick, but I'd usually be taking Tough and therefore Boxing/Kick anywy on my melee-ers.

I assume you already have the Shield Wall and Reactive Defences uniques This page gives you all the sets that improve Energy Resistance through normal set bonuses: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Category:Sets_that_improve_Energy_Resistance (you can sort by value, and look at the slots) Gauntleted Fist is a no-brainer. 4 x Shield Wall in Invincibility gives a good bonus Unbreakable Guards are good - you can fit multiple sets. Adjusted Targetting in Rage/Build Up? 3 Force Feedback in some attacks You'll have fluctuating values due to the Reactive Defenses scaling buff and up to 3 +7% stacks of Might of the Tanker's proc bonus. Don't also forget: Rune of Protection (+18.75% for 1 min out of 3) Wedding Band temp power (+30% for 2 hours) Base Empowerment Buffs (+5%) P2W Buff (+7.5%) Orange pills, which are very cheap on the AH! Getting to a flat 90% always on with Invulnerability is very hard, but there's lots of ways to be at 90% when you really need it.

My TA/A Defender had the Lockdown and Devastation % chance to hold procs in Ice Arrow. It was probably overkill having both, but it meant I always held bosses in one shot.

If you have a lot of inf, talk to the START Vendor and get the Defence Amplifier under Buffs->Amplifiers. It's expensive, but it gives you Mag 4 protection to all mezzes.

Team Teleport: Tier 3 power in the Teleportation pool. Does anyone use this power, and if so, when and how? Looking at it in City of Data, it looks like it teleports you and any teammate within 30ft to a position up to 25ft from your current position? I'd always figured it worked like Assemble the Team, but looks like that's not the case. It seems kind of useless with that radius. I haven't taken it because I discovered the Summon Teammates power from the level 21-25 Bank mission, which lasts 24 hours of game time and thus tends to last until I'm 50.

Oh yeah! I love having the ability to teleport between groups when the team splits. I've done this a lot with support characters (the 'Port and Fort) - must try it with a tank next! It's even handy in say Council bases to just piggy back on a teammate as we run to the next room. Another power that changes the game for me : Confuse and Deceive. Your enemies look different if they have the potential for them to work for you. You even start to like Tsoo Sorcerors and Malta Sappers.

I don't. My standard bind file sets up F1 for accuracy inspirations, F2 for damage, F3 for luck etc, so I don't have to worry about where they go in my tray.

No. A controller stops the enemy fighting back with their first move, or second if its a boss. This is the difference between a damage class and a crowd control class. Damage - you can take that enemy down in N hits but they'll keep fighting back all the time. Control - you can take the same enemy down in N x 4 hits (or whatever multiplier) but they stop fighting back after the first or second hit. Its a classic risk vs reward choice. A controller is safer but slower.

This is me at Level 43 today. Boxing isn't in my tray, just there to boost damage on Kick and Cross Punch. Physical Perfection is getting another Power Transfer + Chance to Heal once the market pops it for me. I'm getting 90% S/L resistance, 51% E/N, 45% F/C/Tox and 38% Toxic. Next up is slotting my resists and adding Psi uniques maybe? And if I go beyond 50, Haymaker, Hurl and Cross Punch get purpled to boost F/C resists.

Cross Punch is awesome. It does more base damage than most melee cones, and that's before getting boosted by 15% for taking Boxing or Kick on the way, or double that if you take both. I've found it really handy on a number of melee characters to boost their AoE damage, most recently on an Inv/SS Tanker.

Yep. Ice, Earth and Electric Control are all very low damage. All have the two single target powers (Hold and Immobilise) doing basic damage, and an AoE immobilise doing very light damage. You can add damage procs - like Cold Snap takes 3 of them. You can take Arcane Bolt or other power pools attacks, or wait for your Pet and Epic Pool damage powers. I've played Ice Control once with the express intention of making a low damage Controller who'd need a team to get anything done. And I feel that's just how it should be - some powersets should lend themselves to team-centric builds.

Martial Assault on Dominators is the ultimate "dancefloor emote" powerset, as you can do Spinning Kick and Dragons Tail without a target.

I'm playing it for the first time (Psi/KM Tank), and it's nice for a change and feels a bit less powerful than it could, like 80% of what Energy Melee feels like. Looks and sounds great, and it's good enough to be enjoyable. I think some bad design decisions were made though: 1) Many melee sets have three starter attacks with recharge of 4, 8 and 10 seconds. Kinetic Melee gets 3, 5 and 7 seconds, with damage scaled accordingly. Once you're in your 30s the recharge on these doesn't matter - you're rarely waiting around for them to come backm but using othert powers and getting limited by animation time. So you're left with three starter attacks that do less damage for similar animation time. 2) Siphon Power as a replacement to Build Up isn't great. It takes 3-4 stacks to accumulate the same damage bonus as Build Up, so you fire off Siphon Power, then the first three attacks to build up stacks, then Concentrated Strike as the big payoff. And its got a longer recharge, just to be annoying. 3) Concentrated Strike has a long animation that hits late. Animation time has often plagued CoH as not being factored into the power balancing. And this compounds here with the weaker starter attacks to make the whole set underwhelming. I'm going to try it on a Stalker next. Having Build Up and an extra big hitter should make it a lot better.

I wrote a guide on Force Fields here. If you're looking for a kind of flying tank mage experience, I'd go with the following plan: Take most of the Energy Blast powers except Power Push, which is low damage, and Repulsion Bolt is better. Slot the 4 single targets with Thunderstrike set when you get to level 27. Its cheap-ish and provides +3.75% Ranged defence per set. Take Hover and Fly. Don't bother with Arcane Bolt or anything - that's better for low damage characters like Controllers. Work on building up ranged defence. To begin with your main survival tool is knockback, but as you hit your 20s you can start building up Defence to have decent passive survival. 1 Power Blast, <- 6 slot for Thunderstrike eventually 1 Personal Force Field <-- for emergencies 2 Power Bolt <- 6 slot for Thunderstrike eventually 4 Energy Torrent 6 Power Burst <- 6 slot for Thunderstrike eventually 8 Sniper Shot <- 6 slot for Thunderstrike eventually 10 Hover <- Single def 12 Fly 14 Repulsion Bolt <- does -Res debuff, so you do more damage to target after, and guaranteed KB 16 Deflection Shield OR Kick OR Aid Self 18 Insulation Shield OR Tough <- takes 2 unique IOs that add +6% defence to all together. OR Aid Other 20 Dispersion Bubble <- slot 1 end redux, 3 def 22 Explosive Blast 24 Weave if you took fighting? Manouvers? 26 Nova 28 Force Bomb <- does -Res so you do more damage, and knocks enemies over Your defence will be 12% from slotted Dispersion, 3% from Hover and +15% Ranged Def from the four Thunderstrike sets in your blasts. so 30% Ranged Defence. Enemy chance to Hit is 50%-Defence, so you're now only getting hit 20% of the time! Eat a small purple luck and you're scraping the 45% Defence cap against Ranged attacks. Level 16 and 18 - If you intend to NEVER team up, skip the Deflection and Insulation Shield. If you do team without these, expect some big disappointment from teammates though. Or for purely solo, start digging into the Fighting pool to get some extra Def via the Steadfast Protection and Gladiators Armor unique enhancements. (These will cost about 4 million and 8 million, so only do this if you can afford that) Or take Aid Other to get Aid Self, which works nicely with Personal Force Field. Slotting priorities are your attacks and Dispersion Bubble Hope that helps! 🙂

I try to have 3 levelling characters and maybe one Incarnate on the go at a time. Recently I'm up to 7 levellers, one of whom I haven't played for at least two weeks. Two are re-rolls of existing characters with tweaked power sets, just because I enjoyed being those characters. One's at 47, waiting for the right Task Force to come along and finish off at 50. Sometimes a character gets dropped on the way to 50 due to being squeezed out by others I'm more into. Sometimes I pick them up again, even a year later and get them to 50. eg Mary Alpha, MA/Dark brute, a parallel earth clockwork character, was abandoned at 39 for nearly a year. A thread in the tanker forum about Dark Armor made me pick her up again, and I had fun. And I've now got her to 50 and made two "sister dolls" of hers as new characters, and stuck them all in a SG together. I can think of two others in the high 30's/low 40s I might revive, maybe once I've cleared some of these levellers out.

Wow! I'm impressed. How are you doing that, Biff? Shield Wall is +5% to everything, Reactive Defences is +3% to everything at full health and 7% from Might of the Tanker puts you up to... 46% or so. Add in 5% if you're using SG base buffs? And the rest is like +30% to each pair of types (F/C, E/N, Tox/Psi) from set bonuses?

Yep. For F/C/E/N/Toxic/Psi you get 10% Resistance from the passives eg Resist Energies, Resist Elements, and 10% Resist from Unyielding. That's 20%, slot it, multiply by 1.58 and you get 31.6% Confirmed on both cod.uberguy.net and my current SS/Inv Tanker that I'm levelling up. Invulnerability's always been "max your S/L resists, small resists vs everything else, and you can max all your typed defences when you're in a pack via Invincibility." The only real change over time is that they've closed the Psi hole it used to have a little bit. It works because a lot of the heavy hits in the game are Smashing or Lethal.

Yeah. As a set-slotter, I usually have over 1 SO's worth of +global accuracy, and around 3 SO's worth of +Global Recharge. It more than makes up for what I lose in the powers themselves.

I doubt you could get anywhere near 90% to anything except Smashing/Lethal with Invulnerability. I did a big numerical breakdown on Resist sets here - Inv tankers get 31.6% Resist to Fire/Cold/Energy/Neg/Psi/Toxic just by slotting their powers, so its a pretty steep hill to climb to 90% from there.