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I am a pretty experienced CoX veteran, but Brute is one of those AT's which for some reason have never clicked with me. And combo-builder powersets in general are outside my comfort zone, too. But I signed up to play a DB/fire brute on a themed team where set-IO's are not allowed unless the pieces happen to drop from killed arrested mobs, which means I have to "build" with no set bonuses in mind. So in order to suck a little less than I already do, the question to this forum is whether I should chase DB's various combos (Empower, Weaken etc.) or just string together my highest-DPA attacks and not worry about combos? Thanks in advance. PS: I have tried to search this forum to see if this has been answered before, but did not find anything. If I missed a post about DB combos, perhaps someone can just point me to it - thanks.

Great idea! As usual, I have no idea whether this would be a relatively simple fix for a dev or a prohibitively huge change, but a feature like this would be very handy.

You had me at "...down the line button pushing..." 🙂 I like an easy-to-use rotation. And I, too, would like to continue to use my E/E in general play as well, so this works out nice. Thanks!

What is your attack rotation when farming? Some of the PBAoE's seem to slotted as IO-bonus mules rather than for active use, but maybe I am overlooking something there. I am hoping to learn something here to use my own elec/elec brute better, so any feedback will be appreciated, thanks.

@Lindharin While the oft-repeated statements are both true - yes, you can play whatever AT you want and yes, you will always contribute something to your team whether you feel confident about it or not - I assume you would like something a bit more concrete than that, otherwise you would not have started this thread in the first place. So here is my advice on the simplest/most straightforward ATs to play while you get familiar with CoH. These are listed in order from most simple to least simple, but all of them are pretty straightforward to play: a. Blaster, sentinel, stalker and scrapper are the most simple choices. All you do is use your attack powers and hit the enemies, and that is all your teammates expect you to do. Stalker and scrapper play pretty similarly to each other, so don't fret too much over which one to try first. Sentinel does a bit less damage than blaster but is more survivable, so a good choice for a beginner. b. Corruptor is a good compromise AT. Even if you all you do is use your primary powerset and attack the enemies, that is enough to contribute meaningfully to the team, and pretty soon you will start using your secondary powerset (buff/debuff) as well, which means contributing even more. Some secondaries are more popular with teammates than others, but that is a concern for later when you want to join "elite" teams, so don't even worry about that right now. c. Tanker might sound a bit intimidating, because teams sometimes have high expectations for their tank. But again, that is for higher levels and more difficult content, so don't let that discourage you from playing a tanker early on. By the time you are expected to be an experienced tank, you will have learned enough to be just that 🙂 For a new player, tankers have the advantage of being nicely sturdy, so if you screw up you might still survive. Re. your question no. 3., it helps to tell the team you join that you are an inexperienced tanker - that way no one expects too much of you, and very likely they will give you advice along the way to help you improve. d. Bonus info: Arachnos widow is seldom mentioned in these advice threads, but at its heart a night widow is just a scrapper with some team buffs and a few utility powers which you can simply choose not to use until you have gotten familiar with your widow. I LOOOOOVE widows, so take this advice with a grain of salt, but it is definitely worth trying the Way of the Widow. Maybe not for your first/starter character, though 🙂

By "offensive oriented builds" do you mean the build in your post named "StJ Ena WaterSpout - Alpha T3"? The "Waterspout" build takes 6 attack powers from the primary, one more than the "ShadowMeld" build. Is the additional power just for a set bonus or do you use all 6 attacks in your usual attack rotation?

Your Tankers probably would not take nearly that much damage, because they (presumably) have much higher resistance than your defender, so most of the damage won't reach them.

Very true. But then again, does anyone really know what this thread IS about? In fact, CAN anyone ever really know what a thread by this OP is about? (The latter might be a more philosophical/existential question than a practical one).

@Maelwys, this post is amazing. No matter how many upvotes, likes and smileys your post receives, it will not be as many as it deserves! I enjoyed the trip down memory lane of reading the old Diantane threads you were so kind to link, all collected in one convenient place. Thank you!

In fairness to the OP, this time he actually read the replies to his thread and responded to some of them. That has not always been the case with his threads in the past, so I think we can at least acknowledge that Diantane has improved as a poster over the years. Trying to keep a positive outlook on things here 🙂

Not only that, but the majority of our attacks are in melee range. Anyone who needs a targeting reticle to hit a target which is within arm's-length distance, probably ought to find a different, non-combat-oriented line of work. I mean, if you need assistance to hit a melee-range target, how do you manage daily tasks like eating lunch or brushing your teeth?

Thanks a bunch, @tidge and @ZemX, nicely detailed information and just what I needed. Much appreciated. Now I need to dig into CoD a bit more and learn about the powers I already use on other chars without actually understanding how they work 🙂

I am trying to get a sense of the AoE damage potential of Electric Melee --> Thunder Strike. From what I understand, it is an ST attack with a percentage chance of adding some damage to surrounding targets as well - but what is the probability of hitting additional targets and for how much damage? I figure the answer is on CoD, but since I have never bothered to learn the terminology/format of CoD, I am not sure what to look for in the data sheet: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=tanker_melee.electrical_melee.thunder_strike&at=tanker tl;dr: Can a kind soul please explain to me how Thunder Strike works? Oh, and to be clear, I do understand that TS has other effects besides the damage, such as the KD, but those I mostly understand, it is only the damage part I am ignorant of.

Well, of course. That's a relevant reply no matter what the thread is about. Even *I* know that. If I knew how to find meme GIF's, this is the point where I would post a GIF of Alex Baldwin's "this is my serious face" from Team America: World Police.

Of course not. Like any troll and/or bully, the OP wants an activity that is fun and completely safe for himself while being awful for his victims fellow players.

So many people refuse to play the game of this thread - i.e. answer the OP's hypothetical question - yet they still feel that they should post a (non-relevant) reply in the thread. Guys, you are entitled to have an opinion on Fold Space and to post about it, but please do so in a thread that invites open-ended discussion, not a thread that is focused on a specific, hypothetical question. If you think the question in the OP was silly, then simply ignore the thread. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but this is a pet peeve of mine.

Elec melee for stalker has plenty of ST damage, don't worry. My currently (pun intended) favorite char is an elec/SR stalker. Elec's ST damage output is still better than its AoE; the gap between the ST and AoE output is just not as large on Elec as it is on other stalker primaries, that's all. I hope that answers your question. I have not played Energy melee since the Live days, but if the set's only AoE is a cone... well, personally I find that cone melee attacks suffer from the problem of having to position yourself to get the bad guys within the cone, and positioning takes time, and that time could be better spent punching mobs. Not a problem for people with good reflexes, but sadly I am not one of those people. Power Crash has a nice, wide cone radius of 120 degrees, which probably helps. But personally I still generally prefer PBAoE to cones. And to reiterate, this is just my biased opinion of a set I have not even played, so take it with a huge grain of salt. Still, considering the fact that no one else has responded to your OP, even a reply of dubious quality is still the smartest reply in the thread so far 😉

Well, ganja does have that effect on one's memory.

Is "Victory becomes a new, separate shard" different from "All the Victory players are switching to HC, and we are creating a new, separate shard named Victory for them to start on"? I assume there is a difference, otherwise the HC folks wouldn't have gone to the effort of making a separate shard. I just can't figure out what the difference might be. From what I have heard, Victory has been getting the same updates as HC, so in terms of gameplay there will be no difference between New Victory and all the current 5 HC servers - right? If that is the case, and if HC players are allowed to play on the New Victory shard and vice versa, then for all practical purposes New Victory is simply a 6th shard identical to the 5 current ones. What am I overlooking here?

Fixed it for you. 😉 @BlakeTheDrake Here is the link to Apparition's side-switching guide: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Apparition's_Complete_Guide_to_Praetoria And Redlynne's guide is here:

There is a badge for switching from Loyalist to Resistance or vice-versa once and another badge for doing it 5 times. So if you want both badges, you will have to do it 5 times. If that's still not enough for you, you can make a policy of side-switching every time you get the chance to do so, but that is only for personal satisfaction, not for a separate badge. I have done the switch-sides-EVERY-time thing on a few chars, but these days I agree very much with @Darmian's above statement. I have found that I enjoy it more when each character takes a clear path with his/her own moral choices. This is a matter of personal preference, of course, so I am by no means condeming anyone who takes the more completionist approach. If you do want to swithch back and forth between Resistance and Loyalist, there is a very detailed guide to doing that in the Guides section of the forum. Well, there might be several. One is by Redlynne, the other is by Apparition but I can't seem to find it right now. ...just remember that Loyalists are the shining beacons who uphold the glory of the Cole way, whereas Resistance are society-destroying scum. So every time you switch to Resistance, you must perform an act of penance to restore your moral balance. Just sayin'. All hail Emperor Cole!

It is not often that I agree with Ultra on anything 😉 but in this case I very much do: Teaming with PUG's is generally a good way to avoid that feeling of "I always play the exact same way on this character" (which is a frequent annoyance for me on all the various ATs). Because the team's behavior is unpredictable and changes often, it keeps you on your toes to have to adjust to them. As others have said, if you (the OP) have played hundreds of different characters over multiple years it is unlikely that any of us will be able to suggest a character that ticks all your boxes. However, that won't stop us from trying 🙂 So here are a few ideas you might try, if you haven't already: - Storm/Water defender: My own go-to a couple of years ago when I felt like you do now. Lots of controlled chaos, pretty good ranged damage output. I'll spare you the full sales pitch, as you might already have tried it, but for me this combo felt much like what a dominator should be, without the need to maintain Domination. Not my personal favorite char, but a good mix of controls, chaos and ranged damage, which might work for you. - Energy/ or Dark/ blaster. A bit more plain vanila, but both have knockback in several attacks, which is a soft control of its own and can be turned into KD if you are willng to pay the KB2KD tax. Dark/ also has a few other control elements attached to its attacks. Not a repetitive playstyle. because you have to choose your attacks depending on whether the situation requires a mix of control and damage or simply a max-DPS loadout. I personally have not had endurance issues with any of the above, but tbh that might be due to my builds or my slowish playstyle.

As MoonSheep says, a controller can do reasonable damage when properly slotted, but you are unlikely to ever be the biggest damage dealer on your team (and yes, I am sure someone will chime in with an example of how they solo +6/x12 AVs on their controller or something like that 😉). Which is perfectly fine and not a problem, as long as you don't go in expecting to be the Big (damage) Dog, your contributions to the team are less visible to the untrained eye but still very important. With that said, an all-controller team can be formidable in damage output, and is also tons of fun in an unconventional way. So if you and your buddies agree to all make controller characters and play those chars when you play together, I guarantee(*) that you will have a good time. Depending on whether you enjoy the controller playstyle or not, you might want to make one or more non-controller characters for those times when you are not teamed with your RL friends, but you probably would have done that anyway 🙂 (*) Not an actual, legally binding guarantee. I accept zero liability for any lack of good times you might experience. Your mileage may vary, past results are not necessarily indicative of future performance, etc. etc.

Good stuff, @Onlyasandwich, thanks a bunch! Looks like an improvement on my own version in several important areas, so this should be a step up in playability for me. 🙂 Of course, if anyone else feels like adding more thoughts on Rad/Rad, I would love to hear that as well. Cheers!

Un-freakin'-real. I had long ago given up hope that this would happen. Great job, HC team! What a great start to the new year. I hope that being renamed the City Council won't require you to behave like Robert Alderman the in-game City Council member. 😉 Like others in this thread, I am unclear on what rights and obligations being a Licensee conveys on HomeComing, but if nothing else, we at least don't have to nervously look over our shoulders every day, wondering if NCSoft will suddenly decide to serve a C&D order.