Doomguide2005

More stealth as has been pointed out is at 47th level unlikely to make a noticeable difference in your overall stealthiness. Snipers will perceive and aggro at 149ft. Stalker Hide at 47th is 150ft. The distance at which you'll be perceived is 149 (their perception) minus 150ft (your total stealth on Hide alone) = -1 ft. Anything at 0 or less and nothing will see you. Except things that ignore stealth where the above becomes 149 minus (ignored) = 149 ft. Fortunately there are no Snipers who ignore stealth currently. Stalkers stealth cap is 300ft at 50th (but probably caps much lower (~32nd but idk for certain) But 300 vs 150 not sure there's anything currently that makes the difference matter. If there is it's probably in Hardmode where some foes run a version of Tactics and their base perception is 66ft. I just don't know how their version of Tactics work. One other thing to note is Cimerorans who use or otherwise get buffed by Shout of Command. CoD doesn't seem to list a perception buff outside of the text description but Sonic Resonance's Clarity and an Empath's Clear Mind both buff perception in characters. If Shout of Command or their Tactics mimics the character powers steathiness just went bye-bye basically while the foes are buffed that way (or stack the team with Grant Invisibility and/or Flash Arrow/Smoke). The only question is more about Limits on both and how anything above those limits is calculated.

No, player triggered I'm fairly certain though I'm not super familiar with how it's done it has to do with where the various characters are when the ambush is triggered. And in this case timing as well as you'd need folks completing all the missions/content (in Synapse and Crimson's arc) at the same time so the ambushes all spawn where you want them to spawn. There's a mention of how in the HCwiki article entitled Babbage. I believe it works similarly with the Kronos Titan. Worth noting the Babbage article was last updated in 2013

This ^ Would be the other factor unaccounted for mentioned in my posts. If I recall correctly at least for Illusion Control's Superior Invisibility it doesn't get to full effect (200ft) until 32nd level. I suspect if tested you'd find a similar effect at work with Hide. This is one place where the in game numbers displayed when mousing over a power and adjusting the level slider is more accurate than either the wiki or CoD. There probably needs to be a wiki and CoD entry that indicates this somewhere in the information (after confirmation, of course). EDIT: Found the info in the HCWiki, but while there's nothing directly in the article on Stealth and Perception it provides a link to the Limits article which spells it out. And yes the cap scales by level starting at 49.5 at first rising to 300ft at 50th. PS: I've always wondered why Superior Invisibility is better than a Stalkers Hide and the Limits article helps explain that as well. Controllers and most other ATs cap at 200ft so stacking more stealth on the Controller doesn't do much if anything (counter acts debuffs maybe?) but you could stack more on on a Stalker though I'm not sure where in game you'd gain a benefit unless it's Hard Mode where their perception is boosted and they're using "Tactics". The question for me is does their version of Tactics buff their perception and if so how much.

Yes he would. But same strategy pretty much. Pull to thin his support then focus fire on him while ignoring the pets. Interesting way to buff the little frantic glass cannons though.

He's landing on his heels and not the balls of his feet is what looks particularly odd/off putting to me.

Dreaming of league-sized Monster crunching getting multiple Kronos (Kronii? 😳) and Babbages to spawn in Kings Row atop a Paladin or 3 (during a Winter event Winter Lord spawn 🙄).

Well it's not really like the whole game at all levels isn't a numbers game. The AI isn't renowned for being particularly smart. And truly smart AI is not a simple task to create. It took literally decades to create a chess AI that could compete with Grandmasters much less beat them. And comparatively (to CoX) chess is very simple game with precise rules in a very rigid and structured small space. Making it smarter in a truly significant way is a tall order.

Or run Tactics. It has both protection and resistance to Confuse. SR, Shield, Willpower ->> only Armors with Protection vs Confuse (outside of t9's I might have missed) so Snipe with extreme prejudice unless the Tanker decides to Taunt you 🤪).

I am a Huge fan of SR. But Invulnerability is right up there and probably has the edge because ultimately SR's DDR while potent is going to be off set by the Max Health an Invulnerability can manage plus as long as Invincibility's aura is kept reasonably full it will tend to buffer against the increased risk of cascade failure from lower DDR. Either would be hugely helped towards 'tankiest' by Dark Melee's Siphon Life. Invincibility also has the to hit buff which against certain foes (Cimerorans) can help cut through their defense buffs. Bottom line though is the real difference is going to be in who's at the wheel playing the build.

Comments If you're running a fire farm with defense debuffers learn/figure out the typical value of their defdebuff is. Add the amount of the debuff to 45. If you can reach that value in defense you'll be much harder to initiate a cascade failure. Instead of 1 in 20 you'd still be at 45 and you'll be 1 in 20 times 1 in 20 or only 1 in 400 of potentially initiating a cascade failure and a cascade failure is how you go from okay to dead in the blink of an eye. Resistance does not suffer from cascade failure. Getting Resistance debuffed is resisted by your full resistance value each time you are debuffed. Some resistance debuffs are tagged as unresistable. 100% resistance means never getting resistance debuff except by debuffs tagged unresistable (you'll always take 10% damage unless unresistable comes into the picture).

Don't think I've ever tried the Confront on a Widow but it should help. Certainly there's a lot a conversation around taunt auras on scrappers to deal with runners. I suspect it works very well while solo but with teams you start having to deal with effects that cause Afraid and other potent debuffs some of which can cause foes to run. I've seen Recluse run despite the presence of a Granite Tanker. At first none of us in SG doing the STF had any clue why Recluse started running but eventually we decided it was likely caused by the Stormies Tornado and/or Lightning Storm both of which have an Afraid component. So Immobilize, once you get the mag over 3, should keep them in place 100% of the time as long as you keep the Immob going and the particular AV does not have or get effected by another source of protection where Taunt is probably a big improvement but not a 100% (ymmv). In the case of everyone's favorite runner Rommy I don't believe he has any additional protection himself but the bosses and other Cimerorans use Shout of Command which might free him if he's in the AoE. Shout will buff his protection but it's much easier to spam enough Immobilize to beat Shout's extra protection as long as they don't start stacking it.

What they said ^ I play mostly Empaths these days but yes when I cast my Auras I find a location near the scrum and just let loose. The most I might do is note who on the team, if anyone, is struggling with end or health and try to include them.

My understanding is its the same as for Bosses or 3. A lot of my Defenders started taking an Immobilize from the epic pools just for that purpose as they got tired of chasing Rommy (in particular) all over the place.

Just an FYI sleep and immobilize aren't effected by the PToD. Holds, Stuns etc. are so they will likely only work solo while the PToD are down (the purple triangles circling them) i.e. spiraling downward. While those are moving up they possess an additional 50 points of protection.

I've done a DM/Rad Defender as well as an Ice/DM Corruptor and its mirror a DM/Ice Defender. Enjoyed them all. I'd have created at least one Dark Affinity by now if the computer hadn't gone belly up. All we're strong but Ice plus Dark Miasma is very tough as both Defender or Corruptor as everything is slowed, recharged debuffed and can't hit when they do get an attack off.

Or start hopping into a series of mobs 'solo', those 7 teammates are nowhere to be found, knowing each one likely contains an AV without even thinking about tabbing through to find which AV, where it is or what other surprises might be within and finally realizing you've just found the one with Black Scorpion ... and just start clawing away.

I'd lean towards creating a build specifically for Hard Mode at least until I'm able to play around in Mids/Test and see what I come up with. Supposedly a new computer is on its way (!!!!). Targeting Drone is a very potent To Hit buff for a Blaster nearly equal to a Defender running Tactics or Fortitude from Empathy (18.5 vs 18.75). Tactics on a Blaster is 10.0. Burst >> can take the Achilles -resist proc. I'd use it especially in a team or hard mode build. Caltrops >> I like to enhance the range so I can throw them further than off the end of my toes. Typically a pair of Range/Slow IOs. Of all the theme and other builds my friends I ran on Live our group of all AR/Devices blasters was probably the one we ran the longest, 1 to 50 in fact, and was great fun. The size of some of the minefields we created and the numbers of foes we pulled into them was crazy at times (as many as 6 of us dropping mines). Often 60 or more I'd guess and 18 or so was routine with entire multi-floor rooms pulled into a mine choked hallway while we opened up with our blasts. One of us took Time Bomb and its main use became to initiate the above chaos. Boom went one spawn followed rapidly by snipes at other spawns pulling all to us.

@Heatstroke Truth. CoH encourages and makes possible a wide variety of builds. Many of those are quite capable while more a few others can be outright quirky and half the fun is making them work (looking at you Toggle Man, Pool Boy, petless MM, or my Staminaless AR/Dev, etc., etc.).

It has strong +regeneration and despite the descriptive text it also has mez protection not resistance of -8.304. No more half hour stuns from Malta. Those are the pros of having it always on. And unless healing yourself is relatively rare event (like once a mission or less) the uptime on the end discount is likely still greatly benefitting your overall endurance usage even if only getting used part time between heal usage. I know my SR scrapper on the rare occasion she tries to bottom out her end (long fights vs end drainers) can pop Conserve Power (same discount, and just the base slotted) and steadily gain end even while continuing to fight the end drainers. In other words unless your underlying end usage leaves you sucking wind in an extremely short time endurance use is the least benefit it provides and is not a reason to ensure you can perma run it. That would be (potentially) the mez protection and regeneration. At least in my "I've have yet to play an Energy Manip Blaster since sustains became a thing" opinion.

Yeah the damage and recharge is on par with Tough and Kick (slightly better without the synergy bonuses) but costs slightly more endurance. The real difference lies in the reliability of its secondary effect of KU vs the Stun or KB effects of Boxing and Kick. Between the reliability of triggering the knock effect and the near universal lack of knock protection on bosses, lts and minions ranks (bosses especially) Air Superiority is indeed a very useful pool power. I suspect, without advocating for, substantially upping the likelyhood of triggering the Stun and KD effects would greatly increase players viewing them as more than mules or an access tax to Tough and Weave. They appear to have moved slightly in that direction with the synergy bonuses from what I see in CoD. Personally I'm in the no need to buff them camp. Definitely other things I'd try to address first. Their utility as mules/stepping stones to Tough and Weave are enough for me.

A quick note about something rarely noted about the regen debuff in both Transfusion and Twilight's Grasp I was reminded of while rereading the thread. That debuff stacks with itself. Given duration of the debuff and recharge times they can produce some not insignificant total debuffs. The drawback is solo you don't get mileage out of this as you're not attacking while using them. On a large or full team though spamming Transfusion (same numbers on TG) ... --> duration 20 sec, base recharge 8 sec you do the math. It's not LR but it's not -50% typically either if you need it if the team somehow lacks regen debuffs or is between recharges on the big guns

No, not what I'm saying at all. I'm pointing out the term "all" is hyperbolic and or inaccurate. Doubly so over the long view of the games history. Even with the emphasis on the hard mode content in the last few pages there have been noticeable buffs to Electric Blast, Sonic Blast and Trick Arrow just to name what I recall off the top of my head. Presumably buffs across entire sets hasn't made solo play more difficult but just the opposite, at least for players of those sets. Expecting everything to be solo friendly is just as off as expecting everything to nightmarishly difficult for teams. And yes there's been a lot of push for something more challenging for endgame incarnate characters to do which for those folks wanting it was limited to AE until recent pages. I'm not a Developer and have no input there beyond what we all have but feel fairly certain the Devs aren't focusing only on hard mode content and are or will be creating new lower and mid-level content designed with solo play in mind as well as teams for all sorts of skill and ability levels of play.

I think I was about 6th when I was following the star for my first deep foray into the Hollows. Hopped a boulder he'd just gone over unaware the Gulch was on the other side. I was dead what seemed like milliseconds later after having a very purple Troll plaster me with a rock. Yeah there's no way I'd ever say this game has gotten even remotely harder over the years.

When exactly was it promised by anyone that all content, new or otherwise, would be able to be solo'd much less friendly to such endeavors? Is it desirable for most content designed so it can be done solo? Probably a good goal for normal content. Maybe even relatively easily at minimum settings for most of that content. But no not all and some should be nearly impossible to solo and arguably some content should be essentially impossible without a team. All content is not created or intended to be equal in difficulty across all players of varying skill and builds. If the complaint is more hyperbole related to how hardmode and incarnate content has been emphasized with recent pages, *shrug*. Well there's far more overall content relatively easy to solo and very little to even start challenging a full team of experienced players running Incarnates. So if a couple pages focus a bit more on the hard end of the spectrum, chill. The pendulum hasn't stopped moving yet.

Very much! Beware the early 20's. You start to feel a bit comfortable gaining enough powers and slots just as the foes start to hit a bit harder, use more mez and woops there goes that try.