High_Beam

I know a guy I know a guy who knows a guy in Jersey who might be able to help you out. He's what they call a sanitation engineer if you know what I mean.

The laptop that I use for laptopy stuff and CoH dual boxing is HP DV7T from 2011 with a Core i7 and an Geforce GT 650M. When you notch down the graphics settings it runs real well but anything above medium actually starts to stress it and it becomes herky jerky. But it is pretty old and is due for a refresh since the semi-infamous "ballpeen hammer dropped on the keyboard" incident has now rendered seven keys on the right side useless. I probably wont be getting a replacement that will play CoH on cause the big rig I have lets me run two CoH instances with ease. Then again . . . shiny.

I like that thinking.

Monterey Jack Cheese, you can never go wrong pairing that with anything. I'd go Psionic for a theme of a mind ripper kind of character.

I find this to be interesting in concept, like the Last Action Hero . . . especially when Danny realized he's the comic relief sidekick.

BLUF: By the time I have run a character to 50, they are generally exactly where I want them to be, have RESPEC'd several times in the process and now allow me to just be heroic with no fuss or muss; Sets, Slots, all good to go so the only thing is the Incarnate stuff. I have a process built around weather or not its a play often, play occasionally or no longer play. But also framed around several axioms: - Build for overall play not specialized activity; no 10 Star Ultra ITF build or speed runs in the Pocket D Slalom. Half the fun comes from being challenged (not tortured). - No Purples. I have nothing against them, you are more than welcome to use them but when I get them I sell them, period, without hesitation. I made the decision that I didn't need them in any build to be happy with my character and it has saved me so much pain (and money) and I am happy when I play. - Don't play for the prize, play for the fun. On Live I was an OCD Badge hunter, one of the top on Freedom at the time, but to do that I had to do un-fun things (grind, afk heal, etc). I would have gone insane over the Prismatic Aether deal if I was still that person. Sure badges are fun to earn, but you aren't going to see my blaster with all of the heal badges, I am over that crap Johnny. So with that in mind no longer play have all of their IO's stripped and stored and an optimized RESEPC performed then they are shipped to Everlasting, or in some cases, outright deleted. No-Play Keepers are generally due to having cool back story or whatever. Play often are for lack of a better term (to me at least) perfect. I don't need to mess with them unless something messes with them (good or bad). Munitions Mistress was perfect until they changed Mercs for the better and I needed to respec to take advantage. Taking the ToHit Debuff out of throw sand in Martial Combat was stupid (thematically and mechanically - sand in the eyes makes it harder to see, i.e. aim but you stun - inane?) but as long as I don't respec Di Di, the proc from Cloud Senses still fires (at least for now). The middle ground guys, they are the ones that are the alts that are moving up or the alts at 50 that I play when I want to play. I have some that are exclusively for SG events only, others that are relegated to thematic runs (a villain working through all the villain content in flashback, or only doing magic-centric arcs in flashback). There I will often find a "mistake" or realize something no longer works for me in how I want to play.

And Cherry Pie is best Pi.

We got it all here on UHF!

Domani, I will get ready domani.

Regarding Scorpion Shield - You have to temporarily go Rogue or villain to get scorpion shield (Epic Patron) which you can do by talking to Null the Gull in Pocket D. Often its simply a matter of waiting for someone to announce they are doing the last mission on a Patron Arc and inviting. You have to be in their zone to join their team and to do that you have to be able to go there so full hero wont cut it. Vigilante will let you pass through. I am also seeming to remember that its the presence of the earned badge from the mission that triggers your being able to select villain pools on respec. Once you are done you can Null the Gull back to your old alignment. But remember if you have Force Mastery then regardless of unlocking you cannot have Scorpion as well - you are allowed only one active epic power pool. Temp Invulnerability - If you are staying with Temp invulnerability then you kind of have to keep PFF because of unlocking requirements. All good, you can have it as an oh sh1t power. Since that is your decision there I would suggest notching down the slotting a little from that full six to say four and slot in unbreakable Guard or Titanium Coating in order to get some multi-use Set IO bonuses. Which IO's have Procs - In the build you posted you have procs in a lot of powers (Chance for X). But do you mean where to find the information on Set Bonuses (i.e. 2 slots gives 3% x and 3 slots gives Increased Y). Either way, Mids does a lot of the explaining and is where you would fine tune and tweak obviously. The other place of good information that isn't deep in the weeds of min-max optimization is the Homecoming Wiki: Homecoming Wiki - Main Page Of course play and time are also the best ways to figure out but having good tools makes it a less bumpy ride. Hope this helps.

Its like my dryer and the fact that all dryers when activated open up portals to a specific alternate dimension. There the inhabitants are all hateful because the only thing they do is steal from you. They only speak the binary language of ones and zeroes. Their hatefulness is so pronounced that they don't steal anything of real value but rather complete utility to us bipeds; socks. They steal only 1 sock however (the aforementioned binary aspect). This forces us to wear mismatched socks resulting in general discomfort and embarrassment among our friends, family and peers. They are a malevolent enemy the Binary Sock Thieves of the Kenmore Dimension, worse than the Rikti.

Yeah, Piercing Rounds bites the big one. In addition to al of the things @oldskoolmentioned is the fact that the cone, is narrower than the gaps in my hard wood floors and doesn't even seem to want to hit the guy right behind the guy I shot . . . in the face . . . like three feet away. It is the very definition of style over substance and while that is what DP is about, the rest seem to work as I currently have 3 DP blasters (MC, Rad and Ninja), a DP Corruptor (Kin), a DP Sentinel (Energy Aura) and god help me a DP Defender (Time) which I hate . . . and will likely delete to make a DP/Time Blaster . . . or drive a pencil in my ear. I don't take Piercing Rounds, not since I was burned the first three times.

Yeah but the cost per friend at Wentworth's is seriously prohibitive. I suspect market arbitrage not my unwillingness to be flexible and generally strange sense of humor.

Sadly there were friends I played with in game back on live who were in their late fifties so you know that some of them passed before being able to once more play. Pours one out for the original Doctor Finetush, my best friend in game.💔

Hey there pile of Fascist 5th Column creeps. I know you cant see me right now because stealth (an narrow-mindedness) so let me explain what's going to happen. I am just gonna saunter in to the middle of your hateful circle jerk, you wont even notice even though I am wearing Combat Stilettos (again stealth). then I am doing to fire off drain psyche. You are fascists so there isn't a whole lot going on in your minds but hey, biolelectric energy is bioelectric energy. You will respond but I will be firing Psychic Wail which will kill most if not all of you but then for fun and profit because I am both awesome and secksi (you saw my costume right) I will also fire off Psychic Shockwave. Cool right? Nothing to say? Oh right, you are all dead and my green bar is untouched because you are all dead and stealth, and slotting and cute boots.

Love me some Martial Combat. my go-to Blapper Di Di Guns is a DP/MC Blapper and she's super fun and I haven't even sat down and tried to optimize her, that much fun and that survivable in large danger close ouchie circumstances without eating a bunch of purples and base pre-buffs (though they are nice to have baby). Bang bang bang, sweep, high kick distract the enemy with panty shot, shoot shoot dead! yay Di Di!

This is good stuff to read and timely too because I had reached my limit of un-fun with my Time/DP Defender and rolled one of these puppies up. We shall see.

I have a Water/Time Blaster named Tideway; currently level 40. Like @tidge, I use the Build-Up from the secondary (Chronos) as my "Buff Before Snipe/Alpha" power in large part because if I use Tidal Forces like a traditional BU then it kills the many bonuses in the other Water Blast power, especially Water Burst and Geyser (and Dehydrate). The impact on those two powers when there are orange rings are up when they fire is massive (in my eyes). So for general burn I fire Chronos for normal circumstances (debuffed, etc). As for slotting, I slot them with one ToHit Buff or 1 Recharge (depends on my mood), the down time seems unnoticeable to me. Also regarding Water Jet. I find the power underwhelming for some reason. But even though it is one of the powers that gets the buff from orange Tidal forces, I almost never burn it on that power, unless it just falls in the cycle.

Power boost for me is dependent on the mode you roll. If you are going Blapper, PB is a nice buff to those disorient skewing Bone Smasher and Total Focus shots, Nova as well. But if you aren't, I'd drop if. Beam didn't Blap so I dropped but the OP wanted the melee attacks so I didn't say drop. As for picking Force Mastery, I totally was the same way. When the Ancillary Pools became available I took it because it best fit the theme for Beam. Of course when I took PFF I didn't read the fine (or bold) print about no actions. Early Beam was long before Set IOs or City of Villains and Patron Pools (i.e. Scorpion) and chasing Defense was just not a thing so you took the resist to mitigate, its why they are all there and no evolution to some being defense. I even took Repulsion Bubble for a while and also rocked Force of Nature for a minute but when IO's came into play, I backed out there. Kept Temp Invulnerability (though downslotted) and hardened the ranged defense and the enemy closing in mitigation. I hover-blasted, kited and used Energy Torrent like it was intended, knocking back creeps who wanted to touch the goods without my permission. To the OP, one of the things that will help you with a lot of your builds (not just this one) is having a good sense of what you want to do with the character, jack of all trades or specialist. A specialist isn't that far off from a jack, probably 1 or two less powers or slotting decisions different. For Example, all three melee powers means you are skewing toward blapping but didn't take Stun which is your fast recharge, low endurance cost stun. Pure range, drop several powers from secondary to shore up ranged defense. Beam was a ranged shooter to the core, I actually had zero melee powers on the ultimate mature version of her. But I have a DP/MC (Di Di Guns) who is a full on Blapper because that was what I wanted her to be from the jump. Got another who is a hybrid Blaster, also DP but using Atomic (Runeslinger) who is mostly ranged until she rolls in to pop multiple PBAoEs then pop out. There are no bad blasters and no correct ways to play blasters but there are ways to make them better. Oh and totally have fun.

Look, @loyalreader gave you some real good tips so I am not going to rehash the ones that that are good. Keeping in mind your no purples and your general desires here are my two cents, YMMV. I ran an Energy/Energy/Force Blaster on live from Issue 1 to shutdown named High Beam. She was my main and my first 50 and my favorite character. I am telling you with tears in my eyes on bended knee . . . dump PFF, pick something else. Its useless as a blaster cause you cant shoot when its up; its an OH CRAP button that to be blunt you should never have to use, and I am not talking about late game, incarnate-stuff rendering it pointless I mean ever. I took it and used it only once; to run around dangerous zones collecting badges. That's it. Wasted pick. Your slotting and the sets you've slotted needs work. For example, you have a single slot in Aim and Buildup, which makes sense essentially but then you have a gaussian in each and aren't even consistent there. The build up proc in the build up? With those two you don't need to slot anything other than a straight up ToHit Buff (single slot) is both and you can fire them off offsetting very often. Save the influence for those LotGs. Power Boost; one slot recharge and walk away, you got yet another slot to put elsewhere. Boost Range, that much of a big deal (I don't even take it) but if you want it, just one slot will do, boom another usable slot. You want to get some mileage there, when you dump PFF, put in Tactics from Leadership and put that Gaussian Proc there. Then again that's more toggles right. In Weave you have a tri buff slotted; recharge isn't your problem. swap that with the Defense/Endurance and you get higher percentages each of those. Also you don't really have a lot of recharge intensive powers so I would suggest removing one of those slots from Hasten and putting it elsewhere. Fly, save yourself the money and just slot a standard Fly IO. You aren't going to cut back the endurance burn that much and should be toggling it off to hover when Hover-Blasting. Here's where we come to the crossroads. You said build for ranged defense, but you have six slotted a resist set. You only took Force field for those two and if you toss PFF, then this epic is now rendered pointless. You can get similar resist shields from any of the the elementals and in general gain an additional shooty power to get that shield and maybe other helpfuls from some (hoarfrost or melt armor). Honestly, with the valid slotting you have in Tough with those Defense and HP you aren't really sporting a great deal of resistance but with those and the Set bonuses coming from the multiple Thunderstrikes and elsewhere means maybe let go of chasing resistance in any significant amount and lean harder into Defense. And if that's the case then I say go talk to Black Scorpion and get the Patron for the DEFENSE shield power. If you are going to run a shield toggle then run one that synergized. Dont even turn on Tough. Of course you aren't getting anything else out of that set (IMO) so use the pick for something that helps elsewhere, like maybe Evasive Maneuvers (which can mule a LotG or you could single slot endurance reduction). You've freed up slots so maybe slot up Maneuvers some more. Dont want to burn cash on Luck of the Gamblers, dont want to six slot for range from Red Fortune, pick Serendipity You have a lot of slots invested in Hover for what I feel is no good reason. You aren't going to be fast-moving with Hover and it burns very little endurance so slotting for speed or endurance reduction is pointless as is chasing those very low Set Bonuses. Dump Freebird (overrated song anyways) and instead slot in a KB protection from Karma and a second slot to mule a Luck of the Gambler Recharge then take that third slot and put it elsewhere. Personally, with no Melee defense focus, blapping is gonna hurt so maybe dump Energy Punch but keep the hard hitters cleanup for those stunned survivors of your alpha. That's a lot of slots that can shore up some of the weaker slotted powers (like make tactics 6 slot to get the defense bonus or whatever. Also how do you have Health and Stamina slotted, I am not seeing them on the build you pasted. Anyway that's my initial glance.

Once I saw this happen on the Skyway Safeguard. It said stop the weapons deal but no waypoint marker. I didn't bug it because, well I've done so many of them I knew exactly where the spawn point always is for that mission. When will the Lost learn.

The Girls of Nukem High (Excelsior) periodically run all Illusion Controller Team/League of just Nukems (we all have one for this) that we use to go out to Monster Island up north in Peregrine, kill a bunch then pull a pile to PI for others players to take down (we warn the zone well ahead of time and don't drag them to Portal Corps, we aren't griefers). But what's fun is when we are prepping in Atlas, like 12-15 of us and then we all cast Phantom Army mirrored as us and its like fifty school girls hanging out, its fun, funny and a little unsettling. Last time we did it was like 2 Sunday's ago. One of us!

Gonna have to go with Eddy Grant, he was all about rocking and a motorcycle. I mean really who wouldn't want that guy saving the day; far better than electricity and a slide.

Gonna have to go with Bono and Frank Sinatra . . . just bad all around Also Fire and gasoline . . . volatile Illusion and Empathy . . . and I have one . . . at level 47 . . . that I play . . . it's like shaving your legs with a cheese grater; you need to shave your legs and you paid for the cheese grater so you have to use it out of principal . . . several times. After the first flurry of nicks and cuts you say "damn I should probably not use this as it is totally the wrong tool combo" but you totally paid for it and are in denial over its sheer unusability and pain delivery ability so you use it several more times and soon become accustomed to the constant need to wear dark hosiery to hide the many cuts, band-aids and healing wounds on your formerly beautiful legs. You tell your friends that its actually a close shave; that the cheese grater system really reduces regrowth and what does grow back is finer and far easier to shave. But its a lie. You are lying to yourself. you are a lying liar in the land of denial with scabby hairy legs . . . aka Illusion/Empathy.