MonteCarla

Doomguide! Moonsheep! 🙂 Interesting. There's a few cases where I'd slot an attack for secondaries rather than damage. -Short Circuit. It does hefty -End (35% , 70% slotted). In practice I've usually ended up with +80% damage or so anyway thanks to Frankenslotting. (Other Electric Blast powers like Ball lightning do like 7%, slotting them to 14% isn't really worth it compared to doubling their damage.) - Dark Blast for -To Hit. I've not actually done this one but I can see it making a reasonable difference. There's plenty of sets where you can't slot for secondary effects like Sonic and Fire. I'll always slot my attacks for damage, and to get global recharge and other goodies that make me a better supporter. Radiation's an odd one. You'd really slot Defence Debuff over Damage in Irradiate? My take on this - most of the time my team are hitting 95% of the time anyway, especially with unslotted -37.5% defence debuff. In those rare cases that they don't (eg Paragon Protectors who pop their god mode, big Spawns of Nemesis with 4 stacks of Vengeance) we have yellows, Aim and Build Up, Call to Justice and other tricks for temporary boosts, or better tactics like holding the PP's before they pop. So, most of the time, the extra Def debuff is wasted, whereas the extra damage never is. A quote I remember from the old Blaster forums seems to apply here: "Death is the ultimate debuff" 🙂 Is this a hard mode thing again? I know enemies get a big defence buff in 4-star mode.

As an Empath, I always prioritise global recharge, and slot fortitude up for max recharge and Defence. See the guide in my sig. The thread also contains a really good discussion on Absorb Pain vs Heal Other, which enlightened me a lot.

It gives you a lot of time to blast. 🙂 It gives you the best self +Defence, just squeaking in on Time there, so it's a good set for building a "Sentinel who buffs" character.

At level 50, Cosmic Burst does 76 damage unslotted, so 150 damage slotted. You're doing it wrong. 🙂 And your nuke does about twice that to multiple targets. And lead with Anguishing Cry slotted with a Achilles Heel -Res proc, and you can multiply those by an extra 40% or so. I've got like 18 Defenders to 50, of all different powersets. Even my Empathy/Archer can solo if I need to.

As well as comparing Defenders vs Corrupters, you have to compare the Res debuff of Sleet vs those of other powersets. Should Cold Dom (a bit of a Swiss Army Knife set) have a better Res debuff than say Sonic Resonance, which is meant to have Resistance debuffing as one of its core features? I'd say no. Buffing the Defender Sleet instead of balancing the other versions would just create another disparity, this time between sets.

Both Fold Space and Wormhole are listed as "+410% Teleport" on City of Data, so I'm guessing they're equally incapable of teleporting high level bosses and such. Wormhole is still a AoE Stun though, even when the teleport fails.

I got my first level 50 by street-sweeping.

This had me, a veteran player, completely confused today. I used my Mission Teleporter to get there for the Defend the Portal Corp mission, which I had to auto-complete due to the infinite boss spawn bug. I then gave up when the PTS mission was doing the same for me, and went to do something else. I'll try using a jetpack and following your suggestion Rudra, but this is far from clear.

Hmmm... I'd put Electric Armor even with Rad. Rad Armor doesn't have a damage aura. I know you can turn Ground Zero into a mini-nuke with procs, but you're missing out on the zero-animation-time, zero-attention-from-you damage field that Elec (and Fire and Dark) get. I don't have any numbers to back up what the damage aura does when you're surrounded by enemies, but my gut feel is that its significant. Out of the big 4 exotic resist sets, Rad and Electric have the best resistance holes (Cold and Cold/Toxic respectively) and Dark has the worse (Energy). Any of them can be built to have 90% resistance to most damage types, which is an experience that absolutely rocks! (See my guide for numbers breakdowns) What are you planning to do with your Brute? I'm assuming not farming, but what? Soloing AV's? Hardmode Task forces? Soloing +4/x8 missions? That might help determine what's best?

AE enemies often have access to Aim or Build Up, which will eat through Defence with the +to Hit bonuses. I found this in the early days of testing AE with my Super Reflexes scrapper, not sure if its still the case.

Yeah. Short Circuit saps 35% Endurance and -100% Recovery for 10 seconds Ball Lightning (and other Electric Blast powers) sap 7% Endurance and do -40% Recovery for 5 seconds. It saps 5 times the amount of endurance. Its the only power worth slotting for End Mod to increase the drain. ANd its the only one that floors recovery and an keep it floored. And yeah, Short Circuit has a painfully long animation and requires melee range. This was a big problem on say a Kin/Elec Defender or a Blaster, but much less so on a Sentinel with capped defences. Trying to build a sapper with the powersets available is still an uphill struggle, but a melee-range-living Sentinel is the best I've had so far. If you really want to stay ranged, you have Thunderous Blast - that does huge end drain and -recovery. Work on it's recharge, as a Sentinel you an probably get it going per group on a tough team.

I'm a huge fan of the Resistance/Damage auras sets, so Electric Armor, Dark Armor and Fire Armor. Its pretty easy to get 90% resists to all but a couple of damage types. Resists are much harder to overpower than defence (a single Quartz emanator can neutralize any defence), and the damage auras work best when you can stand in the middle of a big group of enemies with impunity. The obtrusive graphics make them less Superman-y than Invuln or Willpower, but that's between you and your concept. Energy melee pairs with all of them well as the best single target damage set with the damage aura boosting the lesser AoE damage. Check out the link in my sig for Resist brutes - there's a lot of Tank info there too if you choose this path.

My tips for a new-ish Dominator: Domination gives you mez protection and the ability to one-shot hold bosses singly or groups, and also completely fills your blue bar when it goes off. It's amazing. Try to have it up as often as possible. I found I used to save it for a special moment which never quite came. I recommend putting it on auto-fire so it fires off as soon as its ready. Recharge is your friend, for both having Domination come up more often, and for your long recharge group controls. Take Hasten from the Speed pool, and fire it off manually whenever it's up. Slot your single target hold for recharge, hold and accuracy. (1 acc, 2 hold, 3 rech - it has high base accuracy). If you face a boss without Domination, you can Hold- do other stuff, Hold again and then keep stacking the holds until they're down. Or Single target hold and then group hold. Unlike Controllers, you wont have to slot this power for damage ever. You'll have a 90 second group Stun or something similar. Take it, slot if for Acc, Recharge and Stun (or Confuse) (2 of each, it has low base accuracy) and try to open with this on groups. Your 240 second recharge group hold is less good, but nice to have in your back pocket for dealing with a second group or for bosses when Dom is down. And once you have a good budget, aim for set IOs with global recharge bonuses. This way you can achieve the nirvana of perma-Dom where you always have Domination up once it's started. (See guide in my signature) But until then, keep Dom on autofire and enjoy the power of the best controllers in the game!

I've had this too. Specifically plain Council bosses - Archons (like Archon Lannert) and Adjutant Lieutenants in the robot mission were spawning at 25 when they should be much lower level.

I think I saw an analysis of resistances by damage type for enemy groups on the old forums, and Lethal came out worst, doing around 92% of the damage of other damage types. Which isn't that big a deal really. My Archery/Tactical Arrow Blaster blasted with the best of them (to within 8% anyway 🙂) And Carnies are vulnerable to Lethal, the entire group has -20% Lethal Resist.

I'd love to have Minimal FX options for group stealth powers. I'm thinking here of Shadow Fall, Steamy Mist and Arctic Fog, and worst of all, Fade in Controller's Darkness Affinity. The costume creator's a huge part of the game, and I'm not fond of abilities that make it hard to see your teammates in all their glory. I run with a group who do all-Defender and all-Corrupter Task Forces, and we're guaranteed to have at least two stealth auras running, making everyone hard to make out and showing bad clipping bugs like seeing your belt through your jacket. Fade is the worst though - its a mechanically awesome power, but I find myself not using it because of the cosmetic effects of making everyone almost completely invisible. Cold Domination shields got the minimal effect options. These powers could use it too!

True dat, Wavicle! 🙂 Conversely, debuffs only affect the mobs you hit with them. I'm thinking here of rezzing Freakshow, for example. If you have a single shot debuff like Pain Dom's Anguishing Cry (as opposed to a pulsing one like Sleet/Freezing Rain) then the rezzers are unaffected.

You probably already have your damage buffed, so you'll want to take that into account. Around +100% for slotting the power, plus any effects from Aim or Build Up, plus any red insps you've eaten. Plus Blaster Defiance bonuses (~40-50%ish?) or Brute Fury bonuses (0-200%) So say you're running at +100% damage, a +80% boost like Defender Overgrowth will increase your output from 200% to 280%, ie by 40% of what it was. Damage resistance debuffs resistance debuffs, so -30% Res will always lead to you doing 30% more damage, even if the target resists that damage type. And your powers will probably be the only thing debuffing resistance. As a general rule of thumb, if you want to compare a +Damage buff vs a -Res debuff, halve the Damage buff values to take into account everyone slotting their attacks for damage. If you want to take the "purple patch" into account, ie how debuffs get less effective against higher-conning enemies, then maybe multiple the -Res debuffs by 80% to simulate fighting +2 enemies. (Details are here) https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Purple_Patch

I tend to lead the charge with my Dominators, leaning into the Tank-y style of play described above. At the recharge levels required for perma-Dom, you can open on every group with a Mag 4 mez, taking down all bosses. No other archetype gets to do that. If you're facing a big group of Carnies with two Master Illusionist, a Dominator is the only way to stop them popping pets. A big group of Devouring Earth - if you get in first you don't have to deal with any emanators or Swarm summons. Then I help clean up with beefy melee attacks and AoEs. When I form a task force, I count and examine all the support sets first. I count Dom primaries as a support set, since having most enemies stunned or held all the time is a pretty potent defensive debuff 🙂

Thanks for the feedback, Frozen Burn. You and Moonsheep have opened my eyes to a different regime of playing Empaths from what I do - where you're playing content hard enough to need to focus on an aggro-magnet and keep them upright, at which point Absorb Pain becomes much better. I tend to dabble around in levelling task forces at +2, where the tank (if there even is one) is pretty self-sufficient, and I see my job as keeping the squishier teammates alive and boosted. That and attacking. That last one is a big deal to me, as I definitely play the Offender school of Defenders. I will never not attack and draw some aggro. I'll go amend the original guide around Absorb Pain now.

I love this idea!

I'll second this. I've got mine to the 40s now and she rocks - and lives almost exclusively in melee range. Great AoE and single target power, tough enough to survive and I think the best Sapper I've played yet, especially with the group immobilise to stop the drained enemies running off.

I've got a Electric Blast/Energy Aura sentinel, and loving it so far! For Defence powers - note how your active shields (Power Shield and Kinetic Shield) have much bigger base values (14% and 11.9%) than the passives Repelling Force (3.75%) and Hover (only 2%). Don't spend slots on the smaller powers yet - you can fill them out in your 40's when you have plenty of slots. (Even then, don't slot Hover beyond 1 Recharge) Damage powers should have 1 acc and 3 damage for maximum efficiency, with an optional recharge or end redux as needed. Your Endurance woes - my general advice would be to slot your attack for 1 acc, 3 dam and 1 end redux for the most expensive ones. However - Energy Aura gives you two additional tools: - Energize gives you a 30 second End discount equivalent to 2 end redux in every power. - And Power Drain can refill your blue bar every time its used with just 4 enemies in range, or 3 if you slot it with 1 End Mod. I would try something like this: 1: Lightning Bolt 3 5 7 1: Kinetic Shield 15 17 - 3 Def 2: Ball Lightning 3 5 7 4: Power Shield 17 21 - 3 Def 6: Fly 8: Zapping Bolt 9 9 11 10: Energise 11 25 - 1 Heal, 2 Recharge 12: Tesla Cage 13 13 15 14: Hover 16: Entropy Shield 18: Voltaic Sentinel 19 19 21 20: Charge Up 22: Short Circuit 23 23 25 24: Repelling Force 26: Thunderous Blast 27 27 - 3 Dam 28: Power Drain 29 29 - 2 Rech, 1 End Mod 30: Power Armor I dropped Evasive Manouvers - it only gives you a Def bonus when you're not in combat. All my fliers do fine without it. I also dropped Charged Bolt - you have three big single target attacks already.

One of CoH's real strengths is that you're rewarded for teaming. You get more XP for being on teams, but teams also naturally reinforce each other and perform better than the sum of their parts. This is important because forming teams is a little bit hard and requires social energy. If the game doesn't reward it and everyone's solo-capable, no one bothers. If you ever played Champions Online - this wasn't the case. The support powersets are OK, but not team-changing in the way that CoH's are. And nobody teams up to run missions beyond the Alerts there. Ally-only buffs play a big part in keeping CoH team friendly. This totally exists still - I play it most days and I'm not the only one. If it's not your cup of tea, that's cool. You make a whole bunch of decisions when you make a character. One of them is the Team/Solo axis. Team (Defender, Controller etc) or Solo (Scrapper, Stalker, Sentinel etc) Say I choose Defender. Team (Empathy, Sonic, Thermal) or Solo (Dark, Rad, Time, Storm) Say I choose Empathy. Team (Leadership, Res and Clear Mind) or Solo (Fighting) and so on. What's wrong with having these options available?

Buffing people is fun. Your targets are unpredictable, and run everywhere and hide round corners. It's like PVP-lite chasing them down compared to just zapping enemies. I get off on turning up to a team and knowing I'll completely change the experience for everyone - making them all invulnerable, or superfast and powerful, or whatever. I love it when I get a support heavy team together and we make a "mutant circuit" and become way more powerful than the sum of our parts. "Ally only" is a viable limitation just as much as "melee range" is.