Sir Myshkin

There's an Illusion/Storm Controller in there +/- 5/s off 60/s (can't remember the exact time) following standard protocols. Funny part is that if it could keep Phantasm alive for the whole fight it'd actually be faster (probably 45-50/s) but the stupid thing melts faster than a tissue in a rain storm. Agreed. This is why I feel it's a more fair expectation to see a MM time from first summon to Pylon completion with no pre-prep to really gauge what it takes for them to truly tackle an HP bag like that.

Can confirm that the chat itself has slid down in fervor, but what I've noticed is it's less a lack of teams and more a lack of people vocally leading teams. I've also noticed an increase in new players that have been very bashful about leading larger teams, or just not really understanding the freedom of recruiting more to their cause. Joined up on two different teams the other day around the afternoon-ish time frame, plenty of people out and about, but the people leading either of those two teams were really super bashful/hesitant about recruiting and only taking up the occasional "LFT" that popped in LFG. Personally didn't care either way, it's their shindig. If I suck it up and actually set up a team or a TF, they fill within 5-10 minutes max and that's irregardless of what time of day. The chat will be dead silent for 15 minutes, toss out a quick "LFM for X TF" and the tells will flood.

Had me thinking there for a second, and I was like "huh... I wonder" and I know your build you posted was a bit different from the one I have on file, but I opened it up and was like "what's this thing at if I turn off Granite?" Funny enough, with nothing more than a 7.5% LotG muled in, with Weave and Maneuvers it still clocks in at 37% S/L/E/N and I was like "hey, that's actually pretty darn good for sub-27 content." Which had me back to going "Eh, maybe I should make one of these..."

Gotta piggy-back this with the possibly-missed-obvious for those reading in: PT: End Mod + Heal Proc set bonuses an additional 6% Regen, toss in Perf. Shifter +End and ride the wave of new 'Stamina Standard'. This has become my go-to slotting on Health and Stamina:

Yeah so, truth be told, not really worth it. I thought it'd be a fun way to add another layer of control on a MM early on and while the KD can be useful, it doesn't ever really seem to pan out well and apply the KD at a rate that's useful enough to accommodate the end cost it drains. The FF+Rech proc also pretty much never goes off as a toggle. As Hjarki said, you've got much better options in Water itself to take care of your character, and Time has more than enough utility to get you defensively squared away.

Play what you find fun and interesting. As a Defender you'll bring something to the team regardless so long as some buffs and debuffs are involved. In regards to the effects you're looking at all I can say is that you might find some of those sets less effective in Incarnate content (ST exclusive buffs like Fortitude), but worthwhile in regular team play when you can hit a few players effectively. Sonic Blast is going to stack on some serious -Res so long as you're actively tossing out attacks, and those debuffs will multiple an entire team/leagues impact on those targets. Empathy, Thermal, and Sonic are a dynamic shift through a microscope. Heals, Heals + Res, Res. Sonic you can get a toggle +Res, +Status bubble which'll benefit you and some good debuffs and group buff shields, but is very hands-off in its nature. Empathy is similar in having a few strong heals, but its +Regen and +Recovery auras can at least benefit you as well, but that's where it stops. If you're considering one side or the other, Thermal might be the best case scenario for you as you'll get a couple of good group-impacting +Res shield which will have immediate value for a wide dynamic of players (+Res is more likely to have favor across the board than +Def as so many already try and fit 45% in their builds), a good ST buff that you can stack up on several people at once, and a strong Debuff to help take down hard targets... oh, and a heal aura. The only unfortunate side effect of Thermal is that pretty much none of it benefits you, and is all geared towards team value. Given what you said about being team-centric and wanting that max utility "end game" however, I'd personally still suggest Thermal/Sonic Blast.

The MAN:

Item on my "Wish List": "Forge Master" (Blacksmith/Weaponsmith) Origin Pool that strays a bit from normal convention. No Travel Single Target Debuff "Tear Down" for -Def and -Dam (make it worthwhile), light damage. "You can easily see the weakness in craftsmanship on any armor or weaponry making it simple to weaken with just a few quick blows" Attack be a PBAoE (knife throw/slash) At least two powers focused on self-buffing (one toggle, one auto) +Dam (10%), +ToHit (5%), +Perception - "Years of experience have hardened your strength on the anvil, and your focus on the finer details." (Toggle. Marginally enhance ToHit, ToHit sets). +Res (3%), +Def (3%) - "Years of sweltering heat, molten steel, and the flame of your forge have toughened your fortitude and skin." (Auto. Take Res/Def sets, but no enhancement effect, purely mule opportunity). T5 Ability: Reforge - A Power Build-Up like effect that only impacts Damage, Resistance, and Defense (and yes technically being an intentional and controlled use of the buff bug when it comes to Res crossover with Dam)

There are level ranges you can try and stick to in order to maximize your potential to hit a certain sets, but the conversion process is, as you guessed, totally random.

Have a primary Market toon, found it boring to always log in to that one every day to flip things around so just sent out seed money packets into my ATM (email) and picked them up as needed and started marketing on the individual toons since it doesn't take much to do it. Then I eventually started just doing each build from scratch with no seed money at all because it was more interesting and gave me an honest reason to try. Now even my characters I built from scratch sit with hundreds of millions of Influence for no reason. I probably have 4-5 billion in assets floating around because of it.

The build I posted above has enough Melee and AoE to pretty much ignore the crash in solo content. The crash, while it sucks, is truthfully a non-issue for IO building.

Honestly it’s really more a reflection of Force Users as “Jedi” is really just the philosophy of the character, but the idea of the build/powers are the same. Bringing a Sith into the equation is just the same, a philosophy of the character with a different colored blade. Even the idea of Force Lightning is technically viable between either. As Redlynne added, simply taking NB/Ninjitsu as a Stalker for Hide suddenly makes you a thematic Sith, got Placate even! But I’d still otherwise suggest building it the same as the Scrapper (Blade/Staff)/Nin and maybe toss in Mu Lightning for flair.

They are not decaying, but waiting to “activate” once the current proc event has concluded. The only thing I don’t know slash can’t definitively confirm is how many can be queued at one time because there are not many naturally capable abilities in the game that could assuredly stack that many opportunities in one shot fast enough to say “this is the count.” I think we’d only get that answer by looking at the code and seeing “yes it had a cap, or no it doesn’t.” My Storm/Energy “Mad King” is my most successful FF+Rech bender, and it can be anywhere from 50-75% uptime, but I’ve never managed to stack the proc to such a degree to see “constant” application. The reason I know my baseline is 50% is because Lightning Storm followed by Explosive Blast on a full (10+) spawn is 90% probability for 10/s of buff, and that can be done at least twice a minute. Getting a queue out of Gale is pretty easy too, but at the end of it I can’t achieve anything better than marginal overlaps of “triple” Tornado, and constant double LS because I reach my cap on those.

I actually came here to say this. Swapping Cross Punch for Haymaker with its ability to take the -Res proc results in better "DPS". What ends up making the scenario unfortunately hilarious is that taking Fighting to swap out Super Strength's abilities, and adding double stacked Rage means its doing ridiculous damage no matter which way you look at it. Here's a build that was designed specifically to take Boxing and Cross Punch (and is just insane in general) [Granite/SS/Soul Tanker]: However, what I think you're probably more inclined to imagining @jacehan is a build I put together and posted in my Defender Proc Monster thread a month or two ago called "The MAN", which is a Fighting Pool specific Defender build made to maximize the Defender Buff/Debuffs out of Traps under the guise of making a "Human" (as possible) character. Procs make up for damage shortcomings, and a couple of Assault Rifle attacks help give some AoE so it's not totally devoid of efficiency.

As was my experience with testing the proc back in... ... ... September? The effect of the FF+Rech proc was queuing (using this term specifically), not refreshing. Once I figured out the general necessity to get consistent procing on it in certain attacks I went through a lot of cycles timing the duration and I was definitely getting sets of 5 in the timers. HOWEVER! What I cannot say with definitive application is the terms of how many procs I could queue, as that was harder to really confirm given the types of attacks that I could manage to pull this off with consistently were already on their own 6-10/s cooldowns when I tested timers. In that particular test I was cycling Tenebrous Tentacles and Torrent which I could just get both in under 10/s of lapse time, and in total I was able to get up to 25/s (max length I knowingly achieved by recording) before I lapsed a trigger (no proc). ADDENDUM HOWEVER!!! When I designed the Super Strength Proc Monster builds for Tankers/Brutes I was using the FF+Rech in KO Blow, Haymaker, and Foot Stomp. During Pylon testing for [etc, etc, etc], KO Blow was pretty much my for-sure kicker, but I'd also occassionally get Haymaker in there as well, but I could snap shot any one given event and there are drops in there because the proc was going into effect at the start of KO's animation (which is a bit longer), and didn't carry through the entirety of the chain. The reason I bring this up though is that I cannot tell anyone--from a back end perspective--what was mechanically occurring during those proc triggers, and how many were effectually being queued up and/if there was ultimately negated and/or skipped trigger from a maximum queue limitation. Incidentally I did record those runs, and they technically predate the Homecoming video blackout. If someone really wanted the data to scour over I intentionally left the combat window open, and the video quality is well enough to read the screen and see the global recharge in the character stat window:

It basically is:

Back before Day Jobs were a thing I would often take my characters over to Croatoa if it was convenient or I knew I'd be logged out of them for a while. Croatoa is also probably one of the only zones I ever make some concerted effort to play the arcs from time to time over any other zone, and is the only story line I intentionally started up on Homecoming. If I count a trial zone separately, then I'd put Striga as that vote (or just a general second). Back on Retail I spent a ton of time there with multiple alts, and even had one character "solo" the Council base by starting at the tunnel (Wolf's Throat I think it's called?) and working my way through it.

You should just take a look over at this thread because it was already discussed at length:

Try going the other direction of lower level, larger group size. I found that amplifying the amount of enemies made it harder than increasing the general level difficulty. I've thrown a couple different things at it, mostly in a duo with a friend. My solo attempt was on TW/Regen Scrapper and running into little groups at +3 or +4/x1 didn't quite compare versus increasing the team sizing because of the debuffs. The custom enemies in those maps throw a lot of abnormal debuffs around, and there's a ton of Beam Rifle use for -Regen, and I think I remember getting hit with -Dam among some other weird things. Having 17 things hit you with -20% Regen versus 3-4... really changes the passive dynamic of things. At +4/x8 I felt like I was walking into a room filled with Crimson Prototypes.

Part of what makes the build work for Storm/Energy are the KB options in the blast set where we can put those additional FF+Rech procs. They won’t all go off every time in those attacks, but the goal is to maximize the opportunity to do so. Electric Blast isn’t going to provide this additive option—you could still play it at a lowered efficiency—so I’d suggest Dual Pistols or Water Blast if you wanted something flavorful you different but still keeps a reasonable amount of chances for FF+Rech to live. Between the few Storm powers carrying the proc and the blasts that build runs with 240% Global Recharge. It only drops when you stop swinging. Since the procs stack durations each time one triggers you can build up a good running tally, and that’s how it works so well.

Many IO sets can be slotted at 20 (a few earlier than that, but the mass amount start here) and work their way up, the next threshold is usually 25, with a few other exceptions around 30 or 35, and then Purple IO's at 50. Attuned enhancements can be slotted whenever their coordinating IO could have, and level up with you making them a good investment to level with. You also have the HO's which you can start collecting up from Hamidon Raids and LRSF/MLTF's. None of these options require you to level another character to slot them, they're all individually specific to that character. Typically I have most of my characters "fully" slotted with their permanent enhancements by around level 35-40, with the upcoming enhancements sitting in my trays waiting to be dropped in as the slots become available. I personally use attuned versions of everything to give maximum exemplar capacity and have taken a fair amount of characters all the way down to level 10 and maintained a significant portion of their bonuses.

To point out, because the idea of Titan Weapons being a money grab has been brought up several times, the team was forced into a "Free to Play" model as that was the direction the industry had been going at the time, but they still offered a "subscription" option that essentially provided all the content as expected just as they had been for years beforehand. For those who were long-term CoH players, most stayed on this and just continued their monthly support to play the game irregardless. The only situation where TW became a "micro transaction" was for F2P folks who wanted in on the set, and even then it was a minor offset cost (I don't recall, like $5-$8?). Given the direction that the "P2W culture" has gone since then, I personally feel Paragon Studios did a good job at balancing the options to never be greater in value than if you did actually subscribe, and there really aren't many companies that could say the same, nor more than a handful that still operate their game platforms in a similar manner. I'd sooner say that the nature of how the F2P system was designed for CoH it was more like discount options instead of subscription costs.

Kheldians, ~110 Hours logged I only logged time on one Peacebringer to get 50 for thematic/RP use. Tried multiple build styles and PB's nor WS's ever clicked right for me, I find them too much a "middle of the road" traveler that just doesn't quite know where its going or what it needs to be. Even tried rerolling both a PB and WS here on Homecoming, got both to ~20 each before their (imo) awesome Yin/Yang styled twin-costumes just couldn't make up for my lack of desire to see them hit 50. I'd rather play Trick Arrow.

My impression is mis-management of expectations. Invulnerability and Willpower are not "Resist" sets, but blended hybrids of defense and resistance together. The tactic with their capabilities is balancing the two in an appropriate way: Cap S/L Resists, and try and Soft Cap F/C/E/N as a simple base line. I can pull some resources from my Tanker PM topic for you here: This is what I call a "core" build, and this one in particular is for Invulnerability. It has high value S/L (near capped) Resists, and a base line of 32.5% defenses that Soft Cap at full Invincibility saturation. This particular core is also fairly cheap to build, and does not require any further expectation/investment to work reasonably well in the game: For full-on Resistance sets like Radiation and Dark Armors you can go two directions with them. One is to try and splash in Defense of some level to add to its survivability, and the other is to try and maximize resistances in order to hard cap as many as possible. A Tanker floating at 90% Resistance with supplemental healing will already be very difficult to kill, and yes there is a big difference between being at 90% value versus 50% value. It is possible to (again) get a mid-line core put together that will function well without breaking the piggy bank open. Here is a Dark Armor core: I run a Dark Armor Scrapper that's at 75% Resists and 45% Melee Defense and I barely ever touch Dark Regen in non-Incarnate content. You pointed out the ability for debuff on the defense to occur, and that can, but a Resistance toon can easily look past those short term issues in most cases so long as they have a strong foundation for their primary shield method. In some cases its possible to completely forgo defense at all like I did with this Radiation/Spines: That build completely skips out on defense, yet it still does really well and has no issues running most content, I even threw it at +4/x8 stuff and it held up fine.

Now is a Mad King: I did tweak a couple of things to get it there. Your accuracy was suffering without Tactics, I'd really encourage getting that into your build. I also happened to have a more survival-focused Elec/Elec build laying around if it might interest you; it does deviate from being a proc-fueled monster (to an extent):