Doomguide2005

I'll bet it's effective. Is that with or without DP boosting your health and how close to Tanker HP limit/cap do you get? The scrapper I mentioned above (Claws/SR) added about 800 to her max health and her regen is about the same which with her HP is around 32 hp/sec and she's very hard to kill.

Clearly the self buff portion would have to be significantly different from the ally buff mechanics of power. Particularly for AB. I totally forgot absurd amounts of endurance +recovery, maybe an entire spawn of Sappers would do something but that's like +1200% recovery without trying in a world with toggle supression and crashless nukes. Honestly I think that's a small part of Empathy's issues. All the often QoL, often small changes to enable characters in solo more easily, indirectly reducing the need for some of the buffs Empathy and other buffers could provide.

Okay dug around, HCwiki seems to be down, but CoD is working and Aid Self doesn't take To Hit buff enhancement or sets. My scrapper 3 slotted with, iirc, Numina's for the +max health and regen set bonuses.

Aid Self? From the Medicine Pool?

This ^ Anyone reading or following Empathy threads has probably figured out I rather like Empathy as a set. But this is straight up a really overpowered idea assuming no significant changes are made to the set or those powers. My builds would be at or extremely close to the softcap, IH levels of regeneration nearly 24-7, downtime on the Auras under 20 seconds (those 20 seconds or so being when I wouldn't be at IH levels of regen), global recharge around 300%, etc. I'm going to use Dreadful Wail, Blackstar, or other nuke about every 35 to 40 secs, etc.. Yes that's with set IOs but no Incarnate abilities while solo.. Scarier is how much most of that will not change all that much under an SO only build. Defense will still be pushing 32, I'd still have far more uptime at IH levels of regen than downtime. Gets a little dicey but still perma Hasten and perma AB ... this is what your 'buff buddy' is normally doing for you on a GM team. Now you just don't need them you're doing it yourself. So Tanker tough probably not but yeesh extremely tough yes.

Well no, no and sort of. The first was an Ice/Sonic controller. Created when Resonance first came out. I paired it with Ice in a Controller. Okay on teams but when I had to solo ... oh my. The second was for teaming with 4 friends in an a Dark themed 'static' team. Sonic/Dark, possible candidate for the strongest 5 man team I've ever played on. But more for the resist shields and the total package. Running against +4/×8 Arachnos in Faultline arcs and crushing everything in their path. We bored ourselves to death and while I finished him to 50th the team itself petered out in the mid twenties as we moved on to other things. Including the 3rd Sonic Resonance character. Again a static team but this time, well we called the group Hot Feet and Hula Hoops. Disruption Field (and Hot Feet) were definitely strong motivators. All Fire/Sonic controllers the group unfortunately never reached 32 as most of us moved on to other things outside of CoH. But I'd love at some point to recreate a similar group at a full 8 maybe 6 Fire/Sonic and 1 each Fire/Cold and Fire/Kin and wreck stuff As for the OP, rather make other tweaks to cast and animation times first. Changing the anchor and targeting mechanics would not be high on my list for changes to be made.

So the obvious question is why? Is it the debuffs, resistance based shields or something else (or all the above)? What, in general, would make the choice more difficult?

Very briefly for now with caveat -> I'm limited to this phone for internet so I can't create and upload or download to look at anything in Mids. For HA, HO, RegenAura and AB I'm going to use either Doctored Wounds or Panacea probably to 5 slots (recharge set bonus). One of the powers will get 6 slots to hold a full set of Preventative Medicine (HA or HO doesn't really matter). Probably doesn't matter but whatever passes for my OCD wants to swap Fort and Dual Wield. Can't think of any exemplar reason why it would matter. There's a bazillion ways to slot up Fortitude. Anywhere from 3 slots to a full 6. Really comes down to where you really need those slots to be. Recovery Aura -> my preferred slotting is 2 endmod/recharge and 1 recharge IO. The base buff is huge though and you could easily trim it to a pair of recharge IOs (any and all of which could be boosted to +5) Clear Mind -> present in build. Doesn't really matter what's put in the base slot. I've often used a range enhancement as there's always someone waaaaay over there it seems like. But yeah merely having it and using it is the important thing here. Resurrect -> if/when I take it I usually recommend putting an endred in the base slot. Reason is because seems like when things go sideways that's also when your RA is down and your own blue bar might be struggling to pay the 26 end the power needs so add this to the savings Vigilance is giving you. And AP skipped -> which works for me. Things I'd probably try to change up barring theme and concept reasons. Move AB to 32 or at least a whole lot closer. It's a t9 worthy of the title. Hasten. I'd really miss the 70% recharge buff of perma Hasten as Empaths really like that recharge for those Auras. I'd take Assault over Maneuvers as a one slot wonder. Heck given it is the only Leadership taken I'd probably drop it for Hasten. But I really want my Assault and Tactics ideally. Back later. Been way too long since I leveled a DP character so hopefully someone else will drop by.

Agreed. It's a theme and roleplaying catch for most. Probably the same for Force Fields. They're classics. The chart also doesn't give any weight difference between reached 50 and gets shelved (or put on follow on some farm map) and those Emps which have spent 100's if not 1000's of hours playing at that level outside AE farms.

Yes, exactly why I responded with "Truth!" to Amerie's post. The equation you state at the bottom is still a simplified version. Both the To Hit and Defense portions are simplified themselves. To Hit is the net effect of To Hit Buffs and To Hit Debuffs as well as Defense being the net of Defense Buffs and Debuffs. It's why the equation on the HCwiki says "DefMods" rather than just Defense. And we still don't see the bottom 😉 And I agree Accuracy mods are on the outside of those inner nested portions so characters can't counter those via defense. A +5 AV (such as the not uncommon +4 AVs many a sidekick has faced) will have rank (1.5) and level difference (1.5) working in its favor. Maybe the power itself has increased Accuracy as well. And then add in the purple patch and that sidekicked Tanker might find Rommy or Recluse or any of a number of endgame AVs bit more painful than anticipated particularly if the particular damage is against a damage they don't resist near cap. I still remember watching a couple of SG mates running Brutes early on after Villains released. Now granted this was pre IO but these were also a new foes. They carried -resist in pretty much every attack. Few foes blueside were even remotely similar. Wailers shredded them. Or similar things happened an issue earlier when Heroes encountered Red Caps the first time with Archery's innate Accuracy mods and proceeded to turn into pincushions.

Woopsy duplication.

Truth! Most of the time it barely matters on teams particularly radio missions at base difficulty. And becomes as close to essential as anything in this game if you want to start soloing +4/×8 and AVs Edit: And I'm certain @siolfiris aware but it isn't until you run into +6 mobs that the base to hit goes up by +5% effectively moving the softcap to 50%. A +5 mob is still at 50% base to hit. Only their accuracy mod has increased (to 1.5). And purple patch and ... Truth!

And as someone who has yet to ever get a tank to 50, but had two Brutes to 50 on Live one with and one without Taunt I'd concur with the above. Taunt was more about saving movement or pulling an annoying ranged foe in closer typically. For example Duray flying around off the platform. For getting him to come down after me (and to the team) inside the 'hangar deck' taunt was quite a useful application. Otherwise damage and smacking things was usually quite sufficient for maintaining aggro control typically.

My best one wasn't so much a typo as be aware of what you key you bind to what key. Newbie player just starting to key bind my scrapper realized two things. Autorun was inconveniently placed and I wanted to rebind the 'r' to something more useful. So moved auto run to 'p' well away from my movement keys and rebound 'r' to target nearest. Short time later the team is fighting Pumicites in the Hollows and predictably having a rough go of it. And I typed in chat: "maybe we should trying p(ulling)" ... and off I went like a bullet towards the mob in question! Oops

I probably should have added I was writing down the arcs I had particularly enjoyed. Many of them became incorporated as content I did while varying how I leveled a given character.

Outside of using Benumb (or something similar yet unnamed) high recharge to quickly stack holds is probably any controllers best bet. And actually that would apply to any character but I wouldn't expect any AT outside of Controllers and Dominators to manage it. Strictly speaking a perma-Dom is probably the most likely to be able to do this solo but that's still managing to stack 9+ holds on the AV of mag 6 each. And then there's Power Boost and its ilk to consider since that effects most mez as well. So ultimately a perma-Dom with Power Boost might be the best overall. When (or even if) using PB in your attack is more math than I can ... yeah. (the if coming from does the time used to PB result in too much time not stacking holds etc.) And in a total tangent is why in the thread about what a hypothetical team composed of our alts @oedipus_tex8 Doms was pretty much the only one that truly worried my Empath heavy team with the potential defeat ... as anything coming up against that would need to be protected against an opening alpha salvo of a cumulative mag 48 hold 😳. Maybe if I got to spam Clear Mind for a couple minutes pre combat 😜. And I was probably screwed when a few seconds later when a bunch more followed and like little dominos characters started becoming statues to get crushed.

I believe Benumb will do this although you wouldn't catch me on a stack of any holy book swearing to it. Benumb's 'special' includes a -93.125% to a number of things including Confused, Terrorized, Held, Immobilized, Stunned, Sleep. The next question then is this resistance debuff itself resisted, effected by the purple patch etc.. Honestly I've no idea but suspect the answer is yes and yes. I also doubt Benumb is the only power to do so but again I don't know. I'm only familiar enough with Cold to make time and age less relevant 😉

Basically when the Lockdown hold proc chance occurs it acts like an additional mag 2 hold on the target with a base duration of 8 seconds. When slotted in a hold which is mag 2 or greater it adds an additional mag 2 and anything with protection of 3 or less will be held. (And as usual the duration is tracked separately)

Gulbasaur explains it quite well. One detail to elaborate on with respect to stacking. The game tracks each power individually. So in his example of a mag 3 hold followed by a mag 2 the boss is held by the cumulative mag 5 but the game is tracking each hold's duration separately. And when, for example, the mag 2 hold wears off the boss is no longer held but still has mag 3 worth of hold on him. If the character hits the boss with the same mag 3 hold and the total mag is now 6 and the boss is again held (at least until that first mag 3 wears off ... ) AVs have what are called the Purple triangles of Death (PotD). You'll see a graphic of purple triangles moving around the AV. When those are moving (and pointing) upwards the AV gets a period where his mez protection is boosted by +50 against most status effects. When they are moving (and pointing) downward that added protection is not active. Most AVs have boss level protection without the triangles. Neither Sleep or Immobilize are included in the PotD protection. This is why having an Immobilize, in particular, is very handy especially against some AVs. It is possible to mez an AV through the PotD but you have to stack more than 53 mag and contend with their mez resistance in most cases. Definitely not a common occurrence.

I think regardless of what playstyle an Earth controller adopts Stalagmites is almost always going to be the go to opener when in direct LoS of the foes. It's a full mag 3 targeted AoE stun and although it roots and has a longish animation time it also has a very fast time before effect (0.773 sec) . It'll stun them almost immediately upon activating the power. At that point, outside of misses, all the minions and Lts will be stunned. Bosses effected by "Overpower" will also be stunned. Now Earth excels at placing patches from around a corner or otherwise behind cover. So I'll often open with QS, EQ or VG. Then I pop out and fire off Stalagmites (where because they're already aggro'd that fast time before effect becomes even more important). Freezing Rain is also commonly used for this behind cover. Often after I do this Rocky and/or Tornado also get into the act and unless I end up leading the charge hopefully teammates are also into the fray by now spreading the aggro and return fire over multiple allies. I use Stealth for several things. First couple are pretty obvious and straightforward. First simply bypassing mobs I dont want to fight to get to the mission objective. Second is recon, moving around freely to spot troublesome mobs i.e. Sappers or due to map layout mobs that may get aggro'd and turn into adds. I also use Stealth to 'drag' Rocky or Tornado into a mob when I want or need them to get things started. I wouldn't personally skip TC but I'd also almost never use it alone or first. It's only going to take out minions itself and unlike Stalagmites could lead to getting smacked before the effect kicks in. On the other hand its mag 2 combined with Stalagmites mag 3 is going to stun pretty much everything outside of EBs and AVs with triangles up etc.. It will neuter the mobs. Fissure isn't a 100% chance to stun (in fact it has chances for both a mag 1 and mag 2) and is a smaller radius but damage, procs, kd, etc. makes it good for keeping the pressure on (and it also activates and fires quickly). I don't tend to use Snow Storm primarily because I do have QS but yeah dragging and bunching them can be very usefully done with QS. Life calls back later.

I'll start by saying 5099y_74c05's advice is very solid throughout. Next I'm going to tell you my Earth/Storm/Stone (two on Live, one here on HC) are what The Mighty Storm back on the Live forums called the Diso Queen and they thrive in melee range. Defenses on mine are incidental (and TMS was a pre IO forumite). Most of the mitigation comes from mezzing the spawn from the start on the Alpha and then keeping them that way. The Diso comes from disorient and the build uses 3 AoE (2 PBAoE hence the living in melee) stuns -> Stalagmites are the preferred opening stun, then the much maligned Thunderclap followed by Fissure with other attacks mixed in as needed especially Stone Cages to keep them from staggering all about. Rocky, LS, Tornado and Seismic Smash do the heavy lifting. My computer died before I could start working with procs in the build and likewise I can't post a build as I have only this phone for internet. The builds are all about recharge, keeping them mezzed, stunned in particular, and has a lot of stealth built in (SS+Steamy Mist+IO). But it is a fun, very aggressive up close in your face playstyle I'd recommend trying if you tend to favor playing everything like it was a Scrapper or Brute.

To add to what @5099y_74c05has said. You have the potential for a total of 3 different builds for a character. Your second build unlocks at lvl 10 and the 3rd unlocks when you complete Mender Ramiels arc and unlock your Alpha slot. (I'm unsure, the HCwiki may need updating but you may only need to unlock the Alpha in any manner rather than specifically doing so only by completing his arc). Only the primary and secondary sets are fixed and can't be changed. Your epics and pools can be different between builds. There is a minimum time between swapping builds and I believe there is a slash command so you don't have to be at a trainer these days. Each build must be leveled up separately and both require their own enhancements (enhancements aren't shared between builds). I don't use it often but it's especially handy for ATs and sets which don't solo well such as pretty much anything Empathy. In particular I built 2 versions of one of my Emp/Sonics. First a typical team oriented very high recharge team build, the second had capped range defense/hover and Fly while my main build used Super speed and had only incidental defense. There's an article in the HCwiki called "Multiple Builds" with further details as well. Edit: PS -> I believe he is talking about @Linea's build. She has several Empathy builds in the thread titled "Is Empathy dead" if I recall where I saw them most recently. Specifically it's the Emp/Fire/Soul that completed a +4/×8 ITF solo.

That's an interesting question. I've placed Miracle in HA on an Empathy build and as far as I can recall it worked even when I was full health and endurance when I clicked HA but ... Edit: more I think about it they must. Miracle +recovery works in HA last i knew (admittedly before the proc changes and on Live). The power heals but provides no Absorb or end recovery and works even when at full health. It has to work merely because it's a heal set in a power which accepts the enhancement set. There doesn't need to be any connection other than that.

They are both what are called (in the HCwiki) as proc 120's. In a toggle they should both be active as long as the toggle is on and active. They should be refreshing their effects every 10 seconds again as long as the toggle is active. The 120 refers to the buff effect lasting 120 seconds, but it doesn't stack with itself which is why the refresh every 10 seconds doesn't further buff you. This is also how they work in an auto power like Health. In a click power it activates then lasts for 120 seconds (or if you click the power sooner it will refresh the 120 sec buff period but again not stack). They always work, the chance to proc is 100%. As for why it doesn't display in the CA window I don't know but if you toggle is on it should be buffing you. It might be a display bug.

Right.