MonteCarla

I moved to Champions Online. After not being super-impressed with it at launch, it had really picked up by the time I went back. The lack of content compared to here wasn't great, and the support powersets were a bit lacking (although being able to cast 6000 hp Protection Fields with the right build was cool) but it made a very good substitute for CoH. There were a number of things it did better than CoH, which shouldn't be surprising since it was a second attempt by many of the same people. I met some cool people there, had some of my best roleplaying experiences ever, and will always look back fondly on my time there.

Ice, Earth and Elec are probably the lowest damage primaries. That said, its not like it used to be, and you can make any of them solo-able with say the Sorcery pool's Arcane Blast and Sands of Mu, Plasmatic Taser and other free powers. Earth is a pretty good choice, in that it adds a lot of -Def to help those temp powers hit. (But doesn't let you slot Lady Grey or Shield Breaker damage procs, which would have been even better.) Out of the secondaries you listed: Cold is great - you can use everything except the ally shields on yourself. A procced-out Infrigidate becomes your snipe, kind of. Electric likewise, if you take the pet to bounce chains off. Force Field is better than it used to be, with -Res in Force Bolt and Repulsion Bomb these days, and obviously the best self protection set out of these. Pain and Poison are both decent. I'd choose between Earth/Cold and Earth/Poison if you're planning a solo and duo character. (Empathy is the ultimate duo powerset btw, but tied with Sonic for the worst solo set)

Oh yes! You'll sometimes get a message saying TARGET BLOCKED but most of the time if you're in range, you can port to your target in another room. I heard of Green Machine - they're what inspired me to try Empathy duos. And to be honest, in both cases we stopped playing somewhere in the 40s because it was too easy. Double Manouvers and Power-Boosted Fortitude put us near the defence cap, we had insane regen and recovery, full mez protection and capped S/L Resistance from Tough and Temp Invuln. The game just became too easy really. 🙂

Good write-up on Empathy, Doc. Agreed, recharge is everything on this set. Slot for it however you can, eg Luck of the Gambler unique plus 5 x Red Fortune in Fortitude. Take Leadership to get Manouvers and Vengeance for two more LotG's, and so on. Use the P2W boost and the Supergroup base boost if you can for an extra 35% Recharge all up. As to who to Adrenalin Boost - I usually look at it from a Recharge point of view. Blasters will get more nukes in, Controller will get more AoE mezzes. This often precludes AB-ing the Tank, unless they're a Shield Tanker. But like you say, it's also a case of watching people's health and energy bars and seeing who needs help. One other option is if there's another Empath on the team, shoot them a tell and see if they're up for mutual AB-ing. This can lead to perma-double auras, and double Fortitude all round if you're both good. (I've played dedicated Empathy duos with a couple of special friends, and that is a very fun project!) One thing I'm keen to try on my next Empath is to use teleport binds. bind q "powexeclocation target Teleport" This means when your team split, you can keep supporting both groups. See someone's health dip? Shift+<Team Index>, Q, Heal, maybe Fortitude if they need it, and then select another teammate to return to your previous group. Maps have to get pretty big for this not to work. It also allows you to keep Fortitude order. II try to keep the next teammate in my head for Fort-ing, and often target through them once Fort is recharging, so I can hit it as soon as its ready. It always annoys me a bit when teams split up and make this harder, 'porting may be the answer. The old Port-and-Fort! 😄

Yeah, I'd just drop a Recharge in Combat Teleport. I'd never add an extra slot to it.

I've taken 15 Defenders to 50, and counting. I think the biggest surprise for me was Jenny Foxgloves, Nature/Ice Blast. Entangling Aura and Freeze Ray let me hold entire groups plus a boss very quickly. And then Ice Storm and Blizzard are perfect for taking them all down without anyone running away. Both sets work for bigger tougher groups where you're going to be in one spot for more than a few seconds, allowing you to make the most of Nature's recovery/regen patch.

I had a great time in Champions Online - some of my best MMO fun ever. CoH narrowly beats it due to: 1) better support powersets and 2) better teaming experience 3) more content to play through. But Champions was a great attempt at updating the CoH formula

I remember this being a "feature" way back on live, in that I could stick the Ragnarok: Chance for Knockdown purple in Crushing Field and spam it to keep knocking enemies over. (Back then procs had a flat chance of proccing, 33% in this case) These days, it's just annoying, and I agree it should be changed.

I've made Blasters with 45% Ranged Defence early-on, on a modest-ish budget. 6% - Tough (Steadfast IO and Gladiator's Armor IO) 5.5% - Weave (slotted) 2% - Hover or Combat Jumping (1 slot) 3.5% - Manouvres (slotted) That's 17%, you need another 28% from set bonuses. Maybe go with: 3.75% - full set of ThunderStrike (x3) 2.5% - 5 piece Sting of the Manticore (x1) 3.75% - full set of Mako's Bite (x2) 4% - full set of Artillery (x2) (Gymnastics adds another 2% or so) The Blaster IO sets will also help if you've got enough money for them. You'll lose some opportunities for Recharge bonuses or other goodies. On more expensive builds I've been able to cap Defence to Ranged and Melee (Touch of Death, Unbreakable Guard and Obliteration) while taking a Resistance epic armor.

I have to admit I quite like Sonic Resonance. It's a set I play when I feel like I haven't been teaming enough. 🙂 I've done: - Sonic/Water Defender - Sonic/Radiation Defender (ultimate offensive debuffer, loved this one!) - Earth/Sonic Controller Adding 55% Resistance to everything except Psi to the whole team is huge, considering you're adding to everyone's existing resistances, and often capping people. I always got the feeling it was balanced with Sonic Blast, and came out underperforming compared to the overperforming blast set. When your blast set debuffs resistance better than your primary, something's up. If I could change it... 1) Sonic Siphon needs to do something else as well. Maybe a -Def debuff, which would allow us to slot Achilles Heel in there? Maybe add a radius to it like the Poison debuffs got? At the moment it often feels like a waste of animation time. Even just up the value of the debuff a bit, but make it more than a single target, no other effects version of debuffs many other sets get. Time and Pain, for example, get a once-per-spawn-with-good-recharge AoE -Def/-Res, whereas Sonic gets to ping at individual targets and still deliver less -Res if you account for the Achilles proc. 2) The Psi-hole kind of sucks, and feels very Issue 5. Clarity needs something else. Give Clarity a big +Psi Resist, 30% base maybe?

This sounds like it could be fun! I found a cool trick on my Symphony/Kinetics character (also combining Kinetics with a Cone heavy set) and it worked really well. Take Combat Teleport and set up binds to move in and out of combat quickly. I did: /bind q "powexeclocation target Combat Teleport" to close in on enemy ready to Transfuse/Transfer/Fulcrum /bind e "powexeclocation back:30 Combat Teleport" to back away ready to fire off cones.

Yeah, agreed. I'd absolutely worry about that for my own defence, since I solo sometimes and would like to halve my incoming damage when I do. Teammates defence values are less under your control, and I suppose I've relaxed a bit in thinking that my Defender is going to be the only source of buffs on a team. There's probably someone else running Manouvres on a Task Force team, or people are hovering or running Combat Jumping, or have their own set bonuses or something, making 40% as good as 45%. (Or you rock up and there's already a Cold Dom and Time Manip and everyone's at 70%+ Defence. That's happened often enough to me :D) And I see your point about the early access to Kismet, tidge. Nice thinking!

I'd swap the slotting on Dispersion Bubble and Manouvers. If you're going to underslot one of them, Manouvers has much smaller base values for Defence. (3.5% vs 10%) And the underslotting of ally shields will only drop ally's defence by... 5% or so? You're still going to be protecting your team really well despite the "selfish" build 🙂

I really do wish there was an alternate animation for Force Bomb 😄 I'm going to have to experiment with Rune of Protection for the Resistance Bonus. It's got a fixed uptime of 1/3, but there's got to be some interesting mileage in it either for mega-Resistance Brutes (one of my other hobbies!) or a Resist focused Defender with Rune, Epic Armor, maybe with Sonic Resonance or Pain Dom..? Hmmm...

Hey tidge! I had a FF/Beam Defender a while back, and like you didn't take the Fighting pool and took Damping Bubble, and it all worked out rather well. My biggest question with your proposed powers is what are you getting from Sorcery? Often people build towards Rune of Protection for the mez protection, but you already have Dispersion Bubble giving you that all the time. I'd probably swap that pool out for Flight and Hover and free up a power pick. I found Aid Other really useful - your allies leak health very slowly with your Force Fields, and there have been plenty of times on teams when someone's dying slowly and I've patched them up with it. And that can hold your Preventative Medicine proc. (And Aid Other visually matches Beam Rifle as sci-fi equipment) You're missing Repulsion Bomb, which does area -Res debuff and knocks everyone over, so its a great opener on teams. (And take the FF +Rech proc, which makes your nuke and Aim come up faster). Its biggest downside is a long animation, and it looks like you're throwing a telekinetic beachball. 🙂 And you're missing Aim. Add in the Gaussian Build Up proc and this typically gives you +130% damage for your nuke. The extra +80% damage will trigger 90% of the time in Aim or Build Up, and only lasts 5 second, but it boosts your nuke. I'd been skipping Aim but respecced a number of Defenders when we were allowed to drop our Tier 1 blasts, and really noticed the additon of Aim with this proc. I'd drop the Leviathan Mastery Pool. Charged Armor and Power sink are great epic powers. Charged Armor protects vs Electric (very common) rather than Cold (uncommon), and Power Sink is the best end recovery tool for a FF Defender I've found. I've tried Victory Rush and always been a bit disappointed. Mu Mastery gets you these two very early, but Elec Mastery also gives you Thunderstrike, which is always fun with a KB to KD and the FF +Recharge in it. That's my 2c. Happy bubbling! You'll be a huge help to your teams whatever you choose! 🙂

I use the P2W Defence Buff to get Mag 4 status protection on all my "squishies", and it's utterly game-changing! (I really feel it when it runs out mid-mission). It costs (1000 * level * level) per hour. You can pick up 8 hours at level 1 for 8,000 inf, which usually lasts me till the early to mid 20's, so refreshing it for another 8 hours costs 4-5 million. Another refresh at level 40 maybe costs 12-13 million and gets me to 50. So less than 20 million while I'm levelling. At level 50 it's 2.5 million per hour, and I tend to refresh it for particular task forces, knowing that it'll pay for itself with the merits I earn. One of the downsides is that you do feel the clock ticking when you log in. It also gives you a decent defence buff and some resistance. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Defense_Amplifier

In response to your analysis of +Damage vs -Res in the original post: Characters typically run around at +100% damage anyway due to slotting. Add on top of this Blaster Defiance (maybe +50%) and Brute Fury (+150% ish) and bonuses from Aim, and Build Up for the big damage events like nukes and it may be more like +200% or +300% Adding 62.5% from Painbringer (for example), gets diluted by this to change your damage from 300% to 362.5%, which is only a 20% increase in terms of how much damage the enemy takes. -Res on the other hand mulitplies this base. So a character with +200% damage attacking an enemy with -30% res does 260% base damage. (200 * (100 + 30)/100) On a typical decent PUG Task Force team, you'll maybe have two other support characters doing -30% Res to enemies on average for 160% damage. Adding another set of this yourself increases team damage to +190%. And the way that resistance resists resistance debuffs means that -30% Res always means an enemy takes 30% more damage whatever their resistance. In short, -X% resistance debuff is typically worth +2X% damage, or more.

I posted about this in the Brutes forum, after making an Electric Armor Brute who hit 90% to six types (not Negative and Toxic). I'm still not sure if you could hit 90% to everything. But there's lots of numbers in my post that may help guide you. Here's some numbers where you 3-slot every resistance power and Tough, and add in the Shield Wall and Reactive Defence IOs, P2W buffs and Base Empowerment buffs. You can see the shortfalls you have to make up with set IOs. Tanker slotted with Shield Wall/Reactive Def IOs, P2W and Base Empowerments Powerset S/L F C E N Psi Tox Electric Armor 99.5 75.8 75.8 146.9 67.9 75.8 20.5 Fire Armor 91.6 162.7 36.3 67.9 67.9 20.5 83.7 Dark Armor 91.6 67.9 67.9 52.1 83.7 99.5 52.1 Rad Armor 91.6 75.8 32.35 91.6 75.8 44.2 99.5 Bio Armor 60 20.5 20.5 20.5 20.5 20.5 60 Willpower 79.75 20.5 20.5 20.5 20.5 20.5 52.1 Invulnerability 107.4 52.1 52.1 52.1 52.1 52.1 52.1 Electric Armor looks like your best bet still, although there's not a great chance still of closing the gap with Negative and especially Toxic.

(This is a discussion on making Brutes (and Tankers) where you're chasing damage resistance as your primary goal. These will not necessarily be the best builds ever. 🙂) I normally default to making "tough squishies" - Defenders and Blasters with good defences through IOs and the Fighting pool. For a change I decided to make a super-tough resistance-based Brute, and was amazed with the results. By level 46, Optimadam (Elec Melee/Elec Armor) had 90% resistance to all Damage types except Toxic and Negative! As well as the sheer joy of seeing numbers turn blue in my Combat Attributes, this plays really well. I feel like Wonder Man from the Avengers, like I'm made out of indestructible energy and literally nothing can hurt me. Unlike Defence, Resistance really has no counter, since resistances resist resistance debuffs. You're taking 10% normal damage, but even if you get your resistance debuffed, you're still talking 10% of what you would without any resistance. (I intend to test this theory fully in Gaussian's arc, which is heavy with res-debuffing Longbow enemies) Defence based characters tend to take less damage and ignore most debuffs to boot, but have many counters such as To Hit buffs (Nemesis, Devouring Earth) or Defence debuffs (Arachnos, Praetorian Clockwork, Earth Thorn Casters etc) This got me thinking about the numbers for other resistance based sets. The Tanker values look like this, with all resistance-granting powers and Tough taken: Tanker Base values Powerset S/L F C E N Psi Tox Godmode Electric Armor 50 35 35 80 30 35 0 Fire Armor 45 90 10 30 30 0 40 Dark Armor 45 30 30 20 40 50 20 Rad Armor 45 35 7.5 45 35 15 50 20 Invulnerability 55 20 20 20 20 20 20 70 Willpower 37.5 0 0 0 0 20 0 30 (Fire Armor assumes two Toxic res boosts from Healing Flames are active) Slotted with 3 SO's or equivalent (x1.58) they look like this: Tanker Slotted values Powerset S/L F C E N Psi Tox Godmode Electric Armor 79.0 55.3 55.3 126.4 47.4 55.3 0.0 0.0 Fire Armor 71.1 142.2 15.8 47.4 47.4 0.0 63.2 0.0 Dark Armor 71.1 47.4 47.4 31.6 63.2 79.0 31.6 0.0 Rad Armor 71.1 55.3 11.9 71.1 55.3 23.7 79.0 31.6 Invulnerability 86.9 31.6 31.6 31.6 31.6 31.6 31.6 110.6 Willpower 59.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 31.6 0 47.4 And Brutes, getting 75% of Tankers values look like this with all powers slotted (and Regen added in for comparison): Brute Slotted values Powerset S/L F C E N Psi Tox Godmode Electric Armor 59.3 41.5 41.5 94.8 35.6 41.5 0.0 0.0 Fire Armor 53.3 106.7 11.9 35.6 35.6 0.0 47.4 0.0 Dark Armor 53.3 35.6 35.6 23.7 47.4 59.3 23.7 0.0 Rad Armor 53.3 41.5 8.9 53.3 41.5 17.8 59.3 23.7 Invulnerability 65.2 23.7 23.7 23.7 23.7 23.7 23.7 83.0 Willpower 44.4 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 23.7 0.0 35.6 Regen 32.6 14.8 14.8 14.8 14.8 14.8 50.4 83.0 (Regen assumes 2 Toxic res boosts from Reconstruction are active) Each set typically has good S/L, a hole in one type and a strong exotic type covered. Psionic resist was Dark Armor's thing, but crept into the modern sets too. And Electric Armor for some reason gets better resist values in its main toggles. I'd say that Electric is the set to go for if you want to try this yourself. Other common sources of resists: Shield Wall unique: +5% to all resists Reactive Defence Scaling resists unique: +3% to all resists at all times, increases to 13% by 0 health. These two uniques are a must have - put them in Weave or Combat Jumping or whatever defence power you might have. P2W Vendor Defence Buff: +7.5% resists. Costs from 1000 per hour at level 1 to 2,500,000 per hour at level 50. Very nice if you can afford them (like me) Empowerment Buffs in Base: +5% per type for 90 minutes per damage type, just costs cheap salvage and planning. ZONE-8888 has a empowerment station, all it costs is common salvage and some forward planning. Orange pills: +10%/+15%/+20% - these are the cheapest and least desired of all inspirations, but great to have when you're closing in on the 90% mark as you level. Use them for AV fights or double spawns or other tricky situations. Tanker and Brute ATIO's Slotting a full set of each gives you the following bonuses, which increase to +12%/+6% at level 50 when you catalyse them. S/L F C E N Psi Tox Variable bonus Tanker ATIO 10.5 5.3 5.3 3.8 3.8 4.5 4.5 21.0 Brute ATIO 9.8 4.5 4.5 4.5 4.5 0.0 0.0 The Tanker ATIO unique also gives you up to +21% resistance to all (3 stacks of 7%) while you fight, but this wont help with a first alpha, or be 100% reliable. As for other set bonuses... Smashing/Lethal You'll probably get a few of these in other sets you might slot anyway: Crushing Impact, Obliteration, Aegis, Preventative Medicine, Touch of Death, the ATIOs. For a Tanker, the two uniques and ATIOs get you to 90% for most armors, for a Brute you have to find another 20% on top of toggles, Tough and Brute ATIOs. This is pretty easily done, especially with the P2W bonuses. Energy/Negative This is one of the harder ones to get. Pages like this are handy (sort in order of descending bonus) https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Category:Sets_that_improve_Energy_Resistance Shield Wall at 4 pieces isn't a bad idea, since you're already slotting the unique. Tankers can pull the odd move of slotting Gauntleted Fist as 2 3-sets in different powers to get a great E/N res bonus twice (and forego the S/L bonus). This might be a good move for Invulnerability or Fire Armor looking to fill this gap? Fire/Cold Generally, the most abundant. A full set of Unbreakable Guard gives +5.25%. You can only do this once because of the unique +HP piece. Impervium Armor gives +3.75% per set at 5 pieces. The Winter pieces can pull 3% bonuses for very few slots. Purple sets nearly all give +6% for 3 pieces. Preventative Medicine gives +3% I put 2 Fury of the Gladiator and 3 Avalanche in Lightning Field to get +6.75% Fire/Cold. Not the best move, but if you're single-mindedly chasing resistances, it works. And Winter's Gift can give you +3.75% for just one extra slot in a travel power (but not a sprint) Toxic/Psi Sets often have a big bonus to this for six pieces, eg Crushing Impact and Doctored Wounds give +3.75%, Rare sets often give +4.5% Toxic/Psi for 6 pieces. Impervium Armor has the +4.5% bonus at six pieces, including the +6% Psi Resist piece, so each set gives you +4.5% v Toxic and +10.5% v Psi. You can slot this set 5 times! Aegis is similar, with its Psi Unique (only +5%) and a six set bonus. Any set with native Psi resistance can easily hit the 90% mark on Psi, even on a Brute. Most purple sets give +6% for six pieces, which counts as a different bonus from the Impervium +6's for the Rule of Five It's possible to build up say 4 * 10.5 (Impervium sets) + 3 * 6 (purples) + 5 (Aegis unique) + 8 (Shield Wall and Reactive Defences) = 73% Psi resist (and 44% Toxic) or so purely from uniques and set bonuses! You can probably push that to 90% vs Psi if you try, even on sets with zero natural Psi resist. My next project with all this will be a Regen Brute, with the following base targets to aim for, and then build on top of. S/L F C E N Psi Tox Regen w ATIO+Uniques+P2W 57.8 34.8 34.8 34.8 34.8 30.3 65.9 I've seen a number of threads about Regen Brutes recently, and I do like a challenge!

I've played a Human-only PB. The crash from Light Form isn't too bad. It'll drop your health to half-way, and you can instantly heal that using either of your self-heals every time it happens. In between crashes, let's just say that you very rarely need those self-heals, since you're rocking 85% resistance to everything except psionics. (This was on a perma-Light Form build)

I make characters based around concepts, and powersets that I havent tried yet. I have a big supergroup and a few other groups of characters with common backstories. I have 58 level 50 on Everlasting to date, about 10 of whom got incarnated. (I made a big spreadsheet recently) The rest get dropped when they graduate in favor of a new idea, after I've turned all their merits into converters and crafted through them to make 500 mill plus from each character. I usually have between 3 and 6 characters active at any given time. I favour team supporters who can look after themselves. Australian evenings are quiet, so I usually plan on some soloing. I'm fantastically rich in game due to crafting and selling rare IO's, so nearly everyone gets all three P2W boosters all the time, even at level 50. I buy attuned IO sets starting in the low 20s, be default focussing on Recharge and Def. My squishies (90%+ of my characters) often have capped defences by level 40. Sometimes I have build plans in notebooks on my desk, with details of my def/rech values at each level. I usually solo up to 20 or so via street-sweeping Atlas (with Sands of Mu, Plasmatic Taser etc to help), KR radios, street sweeping Outcast bosses in Steel and more radios. I do my Hero Tips at 20 to get Call to Justice, and start running or joining Weekly Task Forces with randos from there, mainly on weekend mornings when the US is awake. I love PUG TF's - sometimes you get 5 or more support powersets and blaze through, sometimes you get a less than perfect team and figure out how to make it work. I'll join PI power-levelling teams early if I think I can contribute at low levels eg buffing Defenders. I nearly always solo Dr Q a couple of times when it's the weekly, and maybe Justin Augustine too. I'm almost always in character. I have some long term RP friends. It usually takes me about 24 hours to get a character to 50. I can't believe I'm still playing almost every day 😄

I played a Sentinel (Rad Blast/Regen), and very much enjoyed the survivability out of the box when I soloed. I can usually build this level of survivability up on other blast-y types like Defenders, Corrupters or Dominators, but for them it takes time - maybe by level 40 I feel as tough as a level 20 Sentinel? I run a lot of PUG TF's, and I have to admit, I get much more excited if anyone with a support powerset joins my team than a Sentinel. But that's like 110% excited vs 80% excited that someone's joined my team, you know? This is all working exactly as intended. Sentinels, Scrappers and Stalkers are self-contained solo-based archetypes - tough enough to survive and dish out great damage. The support powersets are weaker solo, and better on teams, and it says all that pretty clearly in the character creator. Anyone who moans about Sentinels publicly is a jerk. I'd certainly never say anything to a Sentinel who joins a team, because I'm still glad to have a team mate, same as a Scrapper or Stalker. I'm really glad the Homecoming team added Sentinels. They fill a big concept hole that we used to have to work around in all sorts of weird ways. I'm still not sure what my next Sentinel will be, but I'm feeling the itch to make another one...

My main is FF/Sonic, and I find that pair works really well - defensive primary paired with an offensive secondary. The sounds aren't awesome, but at least it's not Symphony Control 😛

All good points, Zect. Thanks! I skipped fighting on my "Consumate Supporter" character but took it on my "Sentinel who Buffs" partly to get to high def values quicker. Without Fighting I'd have had to wait until the late 30's early 40s to slot the two Unique IOs. But I agree, its not worth it for an end-game build. I hadn't looked too closely at the Winter's Bite set (or any Winter's sets). Huh, cool. Can't argue with that! And yeah, Soul Mastery is a better choice for getting the Power Boosted shields up more often.

I really enjoyed playing an Energy Blast/Kinetics Corrupter. Energy Blast provides some of the safety Kinetics lacks via mass knockback. Kinetics means damage cap and unlimited energy, eventually. Its a fun levelling build with frequent milestones. By the time I'd hit 50 I was pretty much soft-capped for all Defence positions, and able to run +4/x8 Council missions, opening each group with a Fulcrum-shifted nuke, then picking off the bosses, and then my nuke was recharged for the next group.