InvaderStych

Sort of: The game polls all applicable defense categories, picks the strongest one, and compares the hit roll against that. There is only ever one roll/hit-check. Generally speaking, if you're starting with typed, add more typed. If starting with positional (shield, etc) then add more positional. Edit: Emphasis on Generally, there are tricksie-and-false opponents out there with things like attacks with no positional component (usually Psi) and other exceptions out there. Some fire that isn't also smashing, for example, but not enough to worry about. S/L/N/E soft-capped is usually sufficient for typed def with some layers built under it. From hcwiki, emphasis mine: https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Defense

Great, now I'm waiting for the Furiosa/Squirrel Girl cross-over I didn't know I needed....

I like that at a glance. If you can find 2 more slots for GPB you can double up on VR %dmg procs: Hecatomb & Unbreakable Constraint. At the higher proc rate they fire reliably enough on my scrapper. Dropping one of the unique pieces from Health perhaps? You might find Drain to be sufficient to keep yourself in the Blue; potentially could just go with the single Panacea in there. Update us on how it goes! Edit: Just noted the iPower choices. Yeah, you can definitely afford to move those two pieces out of Health for more dmg in GPB. 🙂

I should probably not post in this thread, but I find @Diantane's assertion that people who play a toon past level 50 are simply "Grinding a Toon" to be beyond insulting, and I am not longer giving them the benefit of the doubt; when taken in aggregate with all of their other threads - this is obvious trolling. @Diantane I don't "grind" anything. I have 2 50s that I play with any regularity and only 5 or 6 in total have made the full run to 50. I play those two toons because I fucking love playing them and they are, if even only in my head, fully imagined individuals with backstories and personalities of their own. I don't really have the time/dedication to RP here, but I totally respect it and I always end up making toons from an RP'ers mindset. I've never understood the use of the term "grind." If it feels like a "grind," go do something fun, ffs. So this will be my final reply in your threads. I have been trying to help you out for nearly 15 months of this, and I'm done. If all the thanks I'm going to get is to be insulted and spoken down to, then I'm out.

Yeah, I know. And my attempt at a humorous response in this thread aside, I would really like to help them out. I've been trying to write detailed, helpful replies to these threads since Sept. 2020 - albeit with some, perhaps ill-advised, attempts at light forum humor sprinkled in there and here. Those likely worked in counter to my attempts to be helpful, but I'm an Old Sinner, and freely admit it, so set your expectations on my ability to be a "good forum denizen" on that. Still, I realize I am just parroting the same advice given back then. So at this point, I should probably admit the following: Yeah. Me too. 😛

Would you be willing to expand on what you consider to be "good things" in this game? Because, really, giving up on a Tank in the 30s because it "can't soak an alpha" is barely scratching the surface of what that Tank may have been capable of achieving. With minimal investment in commonly used Unique/Global IOs, and sets available below level 30, scrappers can be built to soak x8 Alphas at that age. Easily. There's also expectation setting. Trying to tank +4x8 at level 30 on just SOs? Yeah, that's not likely to happen without team buffs. Running teams +1/+2 at x(team size) is more realistic with a toon setup like that. The cold reality is that if you want to run high difficulty content/settings, start getting used to building with IOs as it will be a smoother and much more satisfying experience. This is not to say that it can't be done, but with that constraint more thought needs to be given to team comp and a little bit of thought before encounters if you want max diff at lvl 30 with no IOs. Floor will be eaten, but it is possible. If the desire is to only play top-tier sets for any given AT, then do that - but what is/isn't top-tier will not only change over time, but it can change based on content being faced as well. The Psi/SD scrapper I frequently use as example is completely useless in a BAF - Siege and Nightstar have 70% Psi resist, and during the Prisoner Phase her only useful powers are Shield Charge, Mass Lev, and Laser Beam Eyes. So she never BAFs. Does that make those sets "Bad?" Is she a "Bad" toon? I mean, I used her to successfully solo DASF on Malicious (in fairness, with some temp power cheese sprinkled on top for Ripplesurge and the last mission), so you tell me? Willpower's strength is its comprehensive base protections and it's similarly comprehensive anti-mez toggle. IIRC /WP has the only comprehensive toggle. The only other sets with protection is as many categories of mez have them as click-shields like Active Defense. Are there outlier armor sets? Absolutely, on both ends of the "tier" spectrum. Are there any "bad" armor sets on a Tank? Not even one. Sorry, not sorry, but if one is having problems with Tank durability in the current state of the game, it's not the Tank that is the problem. Absolute Immortality when built properly, and close to 90% of Brute/Scrapper damage depending what sets and how it is built. Tanks are the GAWDMODE of CoH at the moment. A tank buff was well deserved, but my, my, my the ludicrous things they can be built to do in the right player's hands. I know have suggested it in the past, but find a power-set combination you thematically enjoy, run it through the game gradually sprinkling it with Uniques/Globals/ATOs (for certain ATs) and pulling build ideas from here on the forum. Build as you go. There is no real reason to wait to 50 to start slotting things that will be in your final build, or things that might be but you're not sure and want to see how they feel. In other words, pull the most enjoyable toon you've made to date out of the stable and build it up to be as "strong" as it can possibly be. Then re-evaluate the state of the game. Maybe you decide the post-50 game isn't where it is at for you. Maybe you are one of the hundreds of players that prefer the mid-level experience, then choose your mission difficulties and build your toons to suit the experience you seek. Nothing at all wrong with that. But these wild, vague assertions based on what I can only assume are "in-the-moment" bouts of frustration aren't doing you or the forums any favors.

Did ... Did you ... Did you just assert that Tanks are a Bad AT? Because that's just ... ... I mean, I've been giving you the benefit out the doubt since your first posts over a year ago, but saying Tanks are Bad portrays an egregious lack of understanding about how this game works and the current state of the "meta*." Or it's just straight trolling. Have you played anything past 50 yet? "Tanks are bad." I ... I just can't even ... * - As much as I dislike the application of the term 'meta' to the part of a game regarding building characters, how abilities or whatever the analog may be interact, making mechs, or whatever, because those things are part of the game not something "about the game." Still it is the term we have, so I'm stuck and it's a semantic nuance anyway, which is a silly thing for me to bent about, and yet ... 🤣

Adam WarRock ... (even more nerd-core, I'm in a mood ...) ... Magneto Was Right ... The Weather (Welcome To Nightvale) ... River ... Laika

MC Frontalot ... (time for some nerd-core around here) ... It Is Pitch Dark ... I'll Form The Head (feat. Dr. Awkward and ZeaLouS1) ... Start Over ... Internet Sucks

They can be difficult to see if they're in the lava as they fade out, and he can definitely throw them out fast enough to chain them, which can be problematic if everyone is mobbed together or on him in melee as the fields will overlap on tightly knit groups or soloists. Not to refute the possibility of the dmg effect lasting longer than the visual FX in the slightest; I haven't perceived that in my runs, but I haven't made a point to badge DASF yet so entirely likely I just haven't noticed. I do not know if anyone has successfully done so, but it is supposed to be possible to solo CTT badge, perhaps even with melee but that would most likely take quite a feat of player skill to accomplish.

FWIW: Most NPCs love to follow Combat Teleport. Only recently after starting a redside toon and doing a few kidnap's did I see it fail to keep an NPC sprinting to follow. They might have a smaller "we see you and follow" bubble than others? I'm not certain exactly how the mechanic works; I do know that outside of Redside Kidnap Newspapers I've seen NPC sprint after me while using the full range of CT on long corridors and easily brings them around corners or gets them to switch vertical levels. If you're struggling to get an NPC to move, try CT. I've been using it for this since I noticed the behavior back when CT was still in beta. Double Edit: Ignore previous edit.

Geode a.k.a. Combat Rest

It's pretty hefty. It has an advantage over /DA in the endurance department in that Crystal and Geode can be slotted for endmod. Crystal's +recovery is 20% iirc, so less return on slotting than Stamina's 25%, but it's hard to argue with 3 Perf-Shifter procs. The Rad/Stone I tested did run Body pool, but might have been able to drop it for Moonbeam/Meld if I tweaked it more. Dark/Stone/Mu was totally sustainable, I likely over-built it for endurance management.

Haven't rolled one for the main servers, but some notes from various combos I tried during beta: Rad/Stone - Brimstone does not trigger on auras. Despite this, if one can get past the animations this is quite a combo. DS and AS get big bumps from Brimstone. It takes some substantial investment in endurance management, but it can be made to work. /Stone can fit 2 P-shifters, +1 more in Stamina. Dark/Stone - Endurance problems disappear after DC. DC/SD because of their large radius and quick activation get very low Brimstone dmg, but spread it nicely. Extremely durable combo with Siphon Life and Earth's Embrace. Savage/Stone - VS gets a big bump from Brimstone; "On-Demand" CritStrikes with Savage leap leads to lots of Brimstone Criticals with Rending Flurry. However, Savage Leap does not, at the time of this writing, trigger Brimstone dmg on Leap's AoE targets. The teleport target only takes Brimstone dmg. Lightning Rod is a little worse off, as there is no teleport target, so nothing takes Brimstone dmg from LR. Mace/Stone - Big Crunchy numbers with a Fire dmg proc. Good stuff; endurance issues that can probably be managed similarly to Rad/Stone, save no place for a Theft of Essence. This might need Body pool, missing out on a snipe/AoE or snipe/Defense combo. Kat/Stone - Didn't spend much time with this one. Kat is great, Stone is great. Save for the lack of synergy with DA (just drop it maybe?) due to typed defense nothing wrong with this one. Spines/Stone - Good synergy here, but because Impale is ranged and Throw Spines is RangedAoE, the brimstone dmg on those power suffers somewhat. Quills+Mudpots should make for some nice slows, but I was testing against Praetorian Demons quite a bit, which don't seem to be affected by slow? Main reasons I haven't been able to choose are: 1: Theme and 2: It's kind of good with everything.

You could, but I wouldn't recommend going Converters. Really the only reason to touch converters is if you are flipping enhancements for profit, or to sell the ones that drop on the /ah to those folks who do. If Unslotters are selling for >200K, you can do those, but that is a risky play and requires a high reserve price that might leave your goods on market for a while. Boosters are generally the most stable influence return on merits. Whatever route you choose, your return should average +/-20mil per 100 merits spent. So that 600 should get you +/- 120mil, not 40. I will also spend an inordinate amount of time on very few toons. I have probable 5 toons at 50, 2 of which see any regular play and those are fully kitted out. 1 of them is fully boosted with +5 sets to boot. The other three are riding set builds in various states. No farming, effortless marketeering, lots of teaming/soloing content for merits and paying attention the current WST. The barriers are so immensely lower than during live; there's no reason not to go ham, especially if you enjoy tweaking and experimenting with builds. Even just adding unique pieces, globals, or procs to your SO builds will be a big bump. That's how I level toons, SOs and select pieces.

Yeah... That all depends on what power you fire off before you realize you are confused ... *cough*Ground Zero*cough* ... reasonably sure no one actually died from it directly, but much floor was consumed shortly afterwards. 😄

Nope, nothing to regret in either. Enjoying the way the toon plays is the most important factor. No point building a toon for a specific "purpose" if playing it is going to bore or frustrate you the entire time. Both of those are great combos, and if you find that you want to farm at some point (completely optional, but also completely available, welcome back to the City of Endless Viable Options) either of those will do just fine against smashing/lethal opponents, and iirc there are farms aimed towards S/L just as there are for Fire.

Yeah, was looking for it or variations there-of with this thread open in a tab, lol. Pretty sure nothing of the sort. Is it too early in the AM for me to make a representation joke? 😄 (It's all love, don't burn me plz.) \m/

Is that an actual emote? If it is I would absolutely do that just for the effect. I've been mentally storing a name for a band-theme'd mm for a while. 😄

I find the lack of head-banging and punk po-go emotes disturbing. /Vader Moshpit Temp Summon, plz-k-tkx

Long Way 'Round Use every possible zone-zone crossing at least once; the old highway tunnels, swimming/flying between zones when applicable, etc.

I mean ... technically ... +to-hit is where it's at. 😉

Can usually tell by the smell if the pudding is off. Make a big show of eating in front of the puppy, then feed the puppy. And I mean a *big* show of it. Puppy might be waiting for the "alpha's" to eat if it has been trained that way.

Clearly WAI.