Doomguide2005

2). If you got to 40 without sacrificing long term build goals (such as perma-PA or close to perma) you've got plenty. If for some reason you absolutely felt you needed that last 5% for a particular piece of content there's Defense Amplifiers or in the endgame Barrier. PA should be taking the majority of the aggro followed by your Trap pets. Things should mostly be ignoring you while you move about laying traps. But that said at level 22 you don't yet have perma PA or perma Hasten and 40 defense should serve you well until you get there.

A Nemesis plot, duh

Damn of course, Purple caves with layer cake, lava floors and fog (thinking of the SS TF). Edit: wonders if down sloping icy floors (towards the lava pits) and a good -fly power (unresistable) goes a bit beyond annoying.

I swear if and when I ever really learn to create content for AE I'm going to make phasing, sapping, knockback happy, super quick and speedy, teleporting, highly damage resistant, immune to all mez (except one randomly selected mez --> need to appear reasonable) with a bunch of autohitting debuff auras who defend a mob the PCs must rescue and lead out to safety whose rescue triggers near endless waves of ambushers (same stats) they (the hostage) will attack on sight with Brawl. Any suggestions on annoyances I've missed?

Generally runners don't bother me, but that's me. Of course it helps to be Claws ... I've yet to see anyone outrun Focus or Shockwave. They just get either knocked down, into the next mob or die "over there".

Never tried /Beam (computer died on me or I likely would have by now) but Cold makes for a strong debuffer, solid endgame choice. Few quick thoughts about the above OP build. I wouldn't put Kismet +6% in a Shield click power you'll only benefit for 120 seconds after casting (unless you want to cast the shield every 120 seconds or less). Similarly with the Numina's in Frostwork. The buff will only lasts 120 seconds after the power is activated (i.e. clicked). Both of those are better off in a toggle or auto power. And Benumb is probably good with a single accuracy IO (Given Kismet, Soul Drain and Aim to hit buffs and Colds other debuffs). Hard without Mids to know for certain but ... And I must sleep back later with other thoughts.

IIRC (dead computer can't check in Mids or in-game) you need a total of 275% for perma-Hasten. ~100% of that in Hasten itself and another 175% in global recharge to perma. Edit: Day job plus SG empowerment buff could add enough to put the BZB's over the edge.

Very much, that 750 hours to hit 50 was probably slow even for those days but altitis kicked in early, I was a complete newbie to MMO's in general and CoH specifically and I explored a lot ... I mean like dark areas on a map was bad explored. I think even without xp boosts and exploring every nook and cranny 750 would be near impossibly slow these days. It's a very different experience leveling these days.

This^ Spent ~750 hours in i3 and i4 leveling to 50 (my first way back then). Spent the next 3000+ hours at 50 wrecking things growing in power(creep). Knew she was powerful not while soloing AVs in Jenkins arc or taking on +4/×8 Malta and Rularuu (etc.), but when I realized she was leaping headlong into +4/×8 mobs that I knew had AVs in them without bothering to 'find' them first via tab target or even visually (i.e. an AV was just another foe in the mob ... it wouldn't kill her, it would just be left after the chaff died).

I'd tweak my Claws/SR to bring her build into i27. She was on Live (and will be again on HC once I've got a functional computer) a badass and able to solo and survive most anything this game could throw at her.

You know threads like this make me miss being able to fiddle in Mids almost more than actually getting in game. I've done a ton of /SR but computer death has kept me from trying Savage yet. But that last point by @Onlyasandwichis spot on. SR is very flexible, there's no damage Aura or other powers in SR that need certain slotting or effect the primary to any great degree. So you can basically use any SR set build as a template and what you have left for you can use for slotting everything else (primary, pools, Mastery etc.), if that makes sense. You also don't need to slot sets for positional defense bonuses to soft cap, power choices get you there which frees you up to use sets to chase other things be it recharge, damage resistance or +max health/regeneration (or even chase the incarnate cap).

Yeah I wouldn't want to skip either power. Not sure from your wording but Melt Armor is an AoE debuff (where as you said Heat Exhaustion is single target).

Melt Armor? I've not played Thermal in forever but I'm wondering about the lack of Melt Armor. Seems like a solid debuff with the potential to add several damage procs to add damage to a non-damaging debuff attack.

You need an effective defense of 75% vs foes using the normal base to hit (and buffed for Relentless) correct. How much To Hit debuff are you expecting to get out of Dark Miasma? I'd be concerned about getting the debuffs stacked quick enough to avoid issues not that Dark can't develop that much debuff. Especially against AVs, ambushes and extra adds from unintended aggro. What would you replace the TA with? Your choice of 4 certainly would have a lot of potential damage debuff in the group.

Love the discussion and builds. Back on Live, circa late i3 into i4 I was looking at blasters trying to find one that fit me and my playstyle and couldn't. Then I created Soulfire Lily and suddenly i couldn't get enough. She was the perfect blend of melee and range. I'd let loose with Fire while closing with a spawn and the survivors got the in your face treatment from Bonesmasher and friends. She hit 50 and went into semi-retirement a victim of being 1 alt among dozens competing for attention (including blasters that probably wouldn't have existed without her). Late on Live I finally got around to planning an IO build but it never got realized before Sunset. Never would imagine the difference between then and now in terms of Fire/EM and had no clue since I can't currently use Mids or even get in game (lack of functional computer) what it might do these days on HC. Now I do ... I'm going to have one hell of a backlog of characters to create when I finally can get back online.

How common is it for players to seek out Darkness Affinity (Controller secondary) users? AFAIK it's the only set that can give other characters DDR currently.

*slaps self* excellent point. I assume the boost lasts for the duration of the shields as long as cast during the power boost's effect. That's a very good reason especially on a small(er) team to go Force Field over Cold. Survival is the major hurdle to overcome not offense. Pretty much any foursome would put out enough damage to defeat the foes.

Yeah it's really hard to go wrong with any Defender pairing. Some sets like Trick Arrow I've played but only as either as Controller secondary or as a Corruptor. Ice/Dark was a very fun combo as a Corruptor and should be strong as a Defender. And my Illusion/TA was nasty even before the recent changes to Trick Arrow. Others I haven't tried yet but none jump up and say no way playing that would suck. We're right back at you've got thousands of character slots pick a couple and go, go, go.

Oh my ... Cold/Ice/Power - potent debuffer, frequent choice for endgame content on Live. Emp/Dark/Dark - my first Emp defender, lots of to hit debuffs to pair with Empathy buffs Sonic/Dark/Elec - part of the strongest theme team my friends and I ran. Empathy/Rad/Dark - my first GM. Kin/Dark Dark/Rad Storm/Sonic - inspired by one of the first defender builds I saw to solo AVs that wasn't a RadEm pre-invention IOs. Traps/Fire - made for a hard-core SG. Made it to 20th then over-aggro'd stuff and oopsy. Empathy/Sonic/Elec - experiment to complete the RWZ challenge back around i13. Doubt the Rikti would have a chance these days. Capable of a draw vs a lvl 54 3 boss mob back then. Just a few of my favorites.

Folks often recommend the Amplifier for getting more endurance recovery (and it's a great way to do it) but if you have access to an SG empowerment station you can also get 90 min (not the 60 it states in the wiki) of increased recovery via a base empowerment buff. Bit more tedious in terms of time and building but guessing even less cost than amplifiers. And they stack as far as I know. Also what I've been told ... but the base debuffs are already significant and if even one damage proc fires you're ahead on damage I'm thinking is the flipside to it.

Having true perma PA and very high or capped defenses is probably overkill, at least for solo work vs AVs and the like. PA has a strong taunt ability so unless your catching AoEs aimed at PA you should be largely ignored by the big bad. Add in your stealth, particularly Superior Invisibility, and you should be able to neuter most of a spawn without needing capped defenses. You've also got both Flash Arrow and Spectral Terror both of which debuff To Hit further reducing the need to cap defenses.

Indeed an excellent point. A few thoughts here. First it's a perception debuff, meaning those foes who ignore stealth are also Blinded and unable to see you. Second it effects your foes rather than you so all your allies are also benefitting and are unable to be seen. Third if you stack the effects FO, a stealth proc and another means of stealth such as Super Speed or the base empowerment buff you'll have sufficient stealth to get in range of things like Snipers with your Smoke Grenade. Technically you're there with FO plus stealth proc but with very little room to spare for things like you and the server maybe not seeing the same distance. I just wouldn't want to spend the time creeping closer while teamed checking distances repeatedly to ensure I didn't get too close. And one Sniper 3 spawns away popping you might not be such a big deal unless of course it suppresses your stealth from the spawn you're in the middle of toe bombing at the time ... oops.

1) Field Op is no where near as effective as Stalker Hide. In game info is incorrect if that's what it's saying. (35ft vs 150ft). 2) Field Op has two levels of Stealth component. At max it offers 35ft stealth. You lose (suppressed) 20ft of that if you attack, click on a glowie, or hit by a foe. The remaining 15ft are lost if stunned, held or slept. 3) The various stealth procs including Celerity provide 30ft of stealth. 4) Super Speed grants 35ft of stealth. As for how close you can get before they'll see you: Take their perception and subtract your total stealth. If that result is a positive value that's how far away they'll see you and likely aggro/react. If it is zero ft or less you can stand right in front of them and they'll be oblivious. Perception values: Minions 45ft Lieutenants 50ft Bosses, EBs, AV/Hero 54ft Turrets, GMs 100ft Sniper 149ft With FO plus a Celerity stealth proc (or other stealth proc) you'd have 65ft stealth and could tie the shoelaces on everyone shy of GMs, Turrets and Snipers without being seen. Then there are some foes who ignore stealth. Rikti Drones, Rularuu 'eyeballs', and Knives of Artemis are some common foes who ignore stealth. Edit: Note that a number of foes in the new Dr Aeon SF have enhanced base perception of 66ft. Some may? have or use Tactics/Tactics-like powers which would also effect their ability to note stealthy PCs.

One of my favorite create a minefield opportunities is in the Vanguard arc where you defend the conference and you trigger a huge Nemesis ambush and have to save Lady Grey. Teamed with friends once where we were all AR/Devices. A huge chunk of Nemesis vaporized almost immediately including those directly holding Lady Grey.

Kind of my reaction after I gave a detailed and as it turned out incorrect response to the question. Weee! Still learning stuff 16+ years later in this game that aren't actually new.