Nightmare Shaman

Street sweeping was all people did in the early years of the game. And, there was good reason: it was the best way to get xp. A couple of issues in, the dev's changed the amount of xp you get from missions essentially making missions more xp profitable than street sweeping. So, it went away forever. Some of my street sweeping nostalgia: 1) Running through the sewers with another person as the CoH beta server shut down back in 2004. 2) Sewers teams. 3) Perez Park street sweeping. (The go to lowbie strategy originally.) 4) Being on that same bridge in IP with a female inv tank tanking like a boss for the entire team. (Back when you absolutely needed a tank.) 5) And of course, Boomtown. Another one of those essential places. It just went away. Missions are just so much more convenient, interesting, and fruitful now. Especially with the convenience of radio mission.

It appears you guys either willingly or unwillingly confuse survivability with "tanking". To someone unfamiliar with tanking and/or the game as the OP appears to be, you're woefully misinforming him and possibly overwhelming him with unnecessary delineation about possible builds versus practical builds. All of which was covered in #5 and somewhat in #4 of my list of advice to the OP. You essentially did exactly what I said people mistakenly do on these forums - give overblown explanations of theoretical or very specific, expensive builds used in very specific situations. Of all things, an actual tank should be able to withstand most damage types, in most situations, surviving alpha strikes continuously from one group to the next with little to no downtime, while both maintaining aggro, and having the ability to grab aggro when it is momentarily lost. (mostly with taunt) Saying an x,y,z build can survive this or that, either from seeing it happen once or twice, or throwing out some wacky, atypical build from some majorly IO'd, expensive powerset combination and concluding that anything and everything is equitable for one role or another is just moronic. Scrappers can sorta tank. So can brutes. But, can they tank as well as a tanker archetype? No. Not inherently. So keep your opinions. I know you will continue to believe your foolishness. But, please stop telling inexperienced people such inaccurate information. It makes the game less approachable and muddies the water with endless obfuscation.

So just to be clear - In the tank section of the forums, where a person asked specifically about which end game tank build he should pick, your recommendation is to play an empath defender? There are clearly superior tank builds to others. There are clearly some that require very little investment in influence. There are clearly some that are easier to play somewhat passively and effectively. There are clearly some that require more decision making and tactics.

What "armored empath" can tank? There is an empath build that can take alpha strikes from +8/+4 missions consistently from one group to the next, and can hold aggro, and have the same or similar mez protection?

Here are a few things I forgot when I came back and re-rolled a tank: 1) Endurance draining enemies. 2) Psi damage. 3) The limitations of a purely defense based build. 4) The overwhelming noise and misinformation from farming builds as it compares to a tank for playing the game normally. 5) Almost every reply you get will have a build with hundreds of millions of influence (sometimes billions) and is an end game build assuming all incarnate powers and reaching a soft cap on some type of positional defense at the expense of everything else. 6) How some powers (and powersets) animate slowly and thus annoy me, effectively making an entire powerset unplayable for me. 7) Some builds are identical to what they were at launch and appear archaic compared to the new sets. For example, stone is one of the most iconic and recognizable sets for any comic book fan. Yet, the only way to play the build is to pick up teleport. (Or have someone with speed boost on the team.) Just think about that through the lens of a comic book fan. A melee tank, made of rock, who's only means of movement is teleporting? This really needs to be re-vamped with different stances similar to bio or something similar. Imagine if the hulk couldn't jump. Or if Colossus could only walk as fast as an elderly person. It's just strange and out of date. If you take these into consideration, I think it will reduce your concerns a bit.

It's easy to get caught up in the whole "smashing and lethal is the most resisted" blah, blah, blah, but the truth is...it really doesn't matter. You're either going to like the way it "feels" or not. Don't worry so much about the details. Just play it for a bit and see how you like it. Here's why I personally like it: 1) Fast firing, low endurance, fast recharge attacks. 2) 3 AOE attacks. (technically one is a cone) 3) The cone drops enemy defense. 4) As you gain blood frenzy, you gain a damage buff and an endurance reduction. Both are noticeable. After returning to the game two weeks ago, I tried A LOT of tank secondaries. Savage feels the fastest, least endurance heavy, and kills very quickly. Even at low levels. Just try to put the min/max, anti-smashing/lethal noise on the backburner. What matters is if you like how it "feels" to you. Good luck.

Okay, self-described noob. I had a grav/thorn dom during live. I made it mostly for zone pvp, but I still went through the leveling process to get there. Here's some basic facts for any dom: 1) The ultimate goal of any dominator is perma-dom. This will require you to both take hasten and slot just about all of your IO bonuses towards recharge. I know everyone wants a build nowadays, but it's really not that complicated. I believe you need 123% total recharge to get it. I just toyed around in the AE looking for cheap sets and was able to do it fairly simply. 2) Dominators are not like controllers who tend to sit back and drop debuffs and holds. You basically want to drop either a mass hold/confuse/stun then immediately get into melee range lighting up the enemies with your pbaoe's and hard hitting melee attacks. (This is especially true of /elec.) Seriously, don't play a dominator like a controller. You are there to MURDER enemies. Your damage scaling is in the top three of all archetypes. Pop aim and kill, kill, kill. Specific to Grav: 1) Gravity has a fairly weak amount of group options. You have Gravity Distortion on a 4 minute recharge and Wormhole. Wormhole is virtually useless except for as a novelty. At least that was my experience. You have no soft controls like many of the other sets do to fill the gap between grav distortion. (If you say you want to use Dimension shift, me and everyone else on Earth will metaphorically punch you in the face. Seriously, don't ever use this on a team.) 2) If all you want to do is solo, it's fine as a set. Especially if you don't up the difficulty of your missions. 3) Singularity has been buffed. I encountered one in a mission and the damn thing pulls you towards it hard. I was a tank with full mez protection and it still pulled me. I imagine this will make it a much more powerful pet. I say make the character, run a few teams in DFB and see how it feels to you. Remember, you deal really strong damage. Dom's are a very active set. Good luck!

POLITICS.

Hibernate is a power that comes into play if you like to push the edge with the game mechanics. i.e. Trying to solo 4/8 missions, or farm, or take on Taskforces solo, and especially pvp. In regular play, it's rarely useful. Just a nice thing to have. I think I used it more often when getting sapped of endurance than anything.

I just reroll. Time for another alt.

What specifically is there to take advantage of? Just seems like positive changes across the board, not something that would drastically improve a specific set. Maybe I skimmed over the notes too fast? lol

I calculated the numbers two posts above you. If I'm calculating this right, it should look like this: Regular mobs +1 enemies: .05 X 1.1 = .055 (5.5%) +2 enemies: .05 X 1.2 = .06 (6.0%) +3 enemies: .05 X 1.3 = .065 (6.5%) +4 enemies: .05 X 1.4 = .07 (7.0%) Lieutenant +1 enemies: .05 X 1.25 = .063 (6.3%) +2 enemies: .05 X 1.35 = .068 (6.8%) +3 enemies: .05 X 1.45 = .073 (7.3%) +4 enemies: .05 X 1.55 = .078 (7.8%) Bosses +1 enemies: .05 X 1.4 = .07 (7.0%) +2 enemies: .05 X 1.5 = .075 (7.5%) +3 enemies: .05 X 1.6 = .008 (8.0%) +4 enemies: .05 X 1.7 = .085 (8.5%) AV's +1 enemies: .05 X 1.6 = .08 (8.0%) +2 enemies: .05 X 1.7 = .085 (8.5%) +3 enemies: .05 X 1.8 = .09 (9.0%) +4 enemies: .05 X 1.9 = .095 (9.5%)

I think it's truly a problem of perception. Prior to IO's and the now ubiquitous "softcapped defense" on every build, Ice was a solid tank choice and a fairly common pick for teams. Power creep and the reinvention of tanking since Willpower and all the newer sets have made Ice seem like kind of an outdated, weak set. (especially since it doesn't have positional defense) When considered as a whole, it's a solid tank with unique mechanics that have somewhat under the radar tanking benefits. It's a defense set, sure. But, you also have recharge slows, and movement slows build into two powers. You have a damage aura plus as you mentioned maybe the best auto-taunting ability with both chilling embrace and icicles running. You have a 40% enhanceable boost to hp which I believe can be made perma. (never tried) You also have a very fast recharge aoe endurance drain which significantly helps with running all the toggles. And, the once unique to ice, hibernate. I would take hibernate over most other tanker primaries just because it basically ensures you never die and can without consideration refill health and endurance at will. There's also something really iconic about freezing yourself in a block of ice to heal and recharge during a fight. I think despite it's old age, it's still a solid tanking set. Most people probably won't even consider using it because all City of Heroes' perceptions are strongly influenced by mids' builds and the God awful farming obsession that has taken over since brutes and the AE. I guarantee you can make it strong enough for any team to tank just about anything.

Thank you.

Okay great. So, let's ignore the incarnate modifier for a second. Here's my calculations from your info and the info from the link I posted: +1 enemies: .05 X 1.1 = .055 (5.5%) +2 enemies: .05 X 1.2 = .06 (6%) +3 enemies: .05 X 1.3 = .065 (6.5%) +4 enemies: .05 X 1.4 = .07 (7%) So this is strictly for regular mobs. There are additional modifiers for different ranks as follows: Lieutenant 1.15 Boss, Elite Boss, Sniper 1.30 Monster, Giant Monster, AV 1.50 Do you know if those are additive? As in: Lieutenant +1 enemies: .05 X 1.25 = .063 (6.3%) +2 enemies: .05 X 1.35 = .068 (6.8%) +3 enemies: .05 X 1.45 = .073 (7.3%) +4 enemies: .05 X 1.55 = .078 (7.8%) Bosses +1 enemies: .05 X 1.4 = .07 (7.0%) +2 enemies: .05 X 1.5 = .075 (7.5%) +3 enemies: .05 X 1.6 = .008 (8.0%) +4 enemies: .05 X 1.7 = .085 (8.5%) AV's +1 enemies: .05 X 1.6 = .08 (8.0%) +2 enemies: .05 X 1.7 = .085 (8.5%) +3 enemies: .05 X 1.8 = .09 (9.0%) +4 enemies: .05 X 1.9 = .095 (9.5%) Really appreciate the info.

I've been playing on and off since CoH beta and am somewhat familiar with soft and hard caps. I've read over threads about this and read over this: https://cityofheroes.fandom.com/wiki/Attack_Mechanics What I don't understand is how the game handles excess defense numbers when faced with higher level mobs and/or AV's. For example, assume I have an SR tank with 45% on all positional defense. Against an even leveled mob with base accuracy attacks, they have a 5% chance of hitting me. I get that. I also get that any defense above that would not bypass the 5% hardcap on the enemies' tohit chance. But, what if I'm fighting +4 mobs? Or an AV? Does having above 45% offset the accuracy increase? Like is it possible to have my defenses at 70% or 80% so that any accuracy increase from the mobs will assure I am always at the 5% hard cap? Also, although I know In the long run, I never want any mob or AV to have above the 5% tohit chance regardless of level. (Assuming I only fight +4 mobs) Any info would be appreciated.

WOW. Just to be clear - the changes to max number of targets + cones is only for tankers and not for brutes? Edit: I just checked in character creator and it's true. The increase in targets is only for tanks. This is a game changer.