laudwic

I haven't tried any of the end game Portal AV missions or Incarnate trials. What I can tell you is, I have been successful, playing solo, draining EBs required for the Portal Jockey Badge (except for Clockwork King) with relative ease. While also solo, I was able to drain two AVs in the Murder on 34th Street AE mission (highly recommend it) and was able to defeat them albit with help of the NPCs in the mission mainly due to the ability of this set to also kill recovery (without buying envenomed daggers) and boosting damage. I've had no problem draining the End from Giant Monsters as well. Short Circuit does insanely good at draining. I used the Synapse Shock set mainly for recharge and it adds some damage. You'll want to keep using this power ever time it recharges on an EB or better because not only does it kill end it has a nice -Rec component. Don't forget about the change to Aim (Charge up) where they added a scale 2.5 End Mod Str Boost that boosts your endurance drain (Blaster/Sent = 25% , Corruptor =27.5%, Defender = 31.25%) Couple this with Zapp for a good drain on a single target. I like the Power Mastery Epic Power Pool to grab Build up, and use that with Thunderous blast where they added a -30% bonus Endurance Drain vs Elite Targets (Main Target Only)

When I'm grouping, it is generally the second power I put up. When grouping, I'm finding that the best way for me to be of assistance is follow the insane tank or scrapper into the main melee, as they take the initial aggro, I fire off Short Circuit and then Faraday cage. Short Circuit nukes the blue bar of most things completely. If they can't do much, there isn't much of a need for resistance. Once I do that, I recharge Insolating Circuit to recharge the Absorb they lost and it is better to give absorb than healing in my experience as you can't heal over max, but you can add absorb to max. Then throw in empowering circuit to give a damage buff before hitting Short Circuit again. Add in healing and endurance adds as needed. After battle, make sure the insane tank or scrapper is maxed for absorb as they run into the next group. In some ways, you really should think of the improved sapping ability as a control power. If the enemy doesn't have endurance, they can't do much. Even if the EB or AV can do a basic attacks they are not doing the main attack. Also, pay attention to the powers with -Rec, such as shock, Galvanic Sentinel's powers, and Short Circuit. Those can replace the P2W crutch of Envenomed Daggers.

With all of the recent updates to Electrical Blast, I decided to make a EA/EB defender and had a great time. Since there isn't any information on Electrical Affinity in the "I need Healing" Defenders Guide, I thought I would post some of my thoughts here now that I leveled my EA/EB defender to 50. Electrical Affinity: A quick note about Static. You build static through the use of your powers, and it dissipates over time. The more static you have, the more targets chain off with your buffing powers. The initial target gets the most benefit and it reduces from there. When your working in a group, you'll have plenty of static within the first minute of the mission. Heck, you can shoot your teammates before you go in to build some up. Big thing to remember is that you are healing/buffing via chain lighting. If they aren't in the general area of the initial target, they are out of luck. Shock: Great little power that needs no additional slots. Put an Acc IO in it and your done. It is a nice little single target debuff, - DMG, drains some End, and hurts recovery. When soloing bosses or EBs, I would cycle this in whenever I was waiting for other powers to recharge. Harming their recovery makes your life easier. This is the only character I've never felt the need to pick up Envenomed Daggers to take down EBs solo while leveling up. Plus, it builds static if you need it. Rejuvenating Circuit: This is your shoot your friends to heal them power. Good amount of healing, good recharge time. When in a group, if you see health go down, shoot them. Galvanic Sentinel: A great little power with my only complaint is that it's duration is too short. While soloing, you can summon this little guy to debuff your enemies (think shock but an AoE), it is targetable so if an enemy is shooting it, they are not shooting you, and you can target it for your healing/buffs. When you target it, you can bounce your heals and buffs to heal and buff yourself. Also, for even more fun, put the proc in from the Energy Manipulator set to give your Sentinel a chance to stun enemies for you. Remember, stunned enemies don't shoot back. Energizing Circuit: Everyone uses too much End, this one gives you a way to give a boost to your friend, and to yourself if bouncing off a friend or the Sentinel. I wish it gave a little more, and it is a little annoying that you have to have End to give End, but minor complaints. Faraday Cage: This power is just wonderful. For this power alone you are a great asset to any team, not that they will realize what you just saved them from, but man its good. Ok, you create a dome of lighting around you, looks spiffy, lasts until you cast it again. It gives a nice amount of resistance to everything except toxic, but, here is the kicker, protects against status effects, knockback, minus recharge, recovery, and end. Your team isn't going to realize the pain your saving them, until they step out of the dome and are held. Great power. Empowering Circuit: Everybody likes a damage buff, so give them one. This one buffs damage and to hit. Doesn't last long, but recharges quick. Defibrillate: Didn't take it. Melee Targeted AoE Ally Rez. Hear it is great if you like this sort of power, to me too situational and bounce backs are readily available. If folks are staying in range of your absorb and heals, you really won't need this much. Sure, you may save a Mothership Raid that is going south, but it wasn't worth the power slot to me when I can get something else like a leadership power. Insolating Circuit: Another great power because this time your giving your teammates (and yourself if you bounce it) Absorption. That is free extra hit points. While it doesn't last long, the recharge isn't long. You can spam this to your hearts content, and its a great way to know if someone is out of range for healing. When soloing, I would bounce Insulating Circuit, Empowering Circuit, and then Energizing Circuit (to recover all End) before a boss or EB fight. Amp Up: Didn't take it, sure, great buff on someone else to double the effects of secondary effects of their powers, but haven't you given them enough benefit? Personally, take the Power Mastery Epic Power pool and grab Power Build Up. All the benefits of Amp Up but this time to you. Electrical Blast Charged Bolts: If your going to solo, your going to need attack powers. This one does damage and drains end, a great combination. Lightning Bolt: Same as a above but a little more damage with a little slower recharge time. Ball Lighting: Targetable AoE. Damage isn't great but the end drain helps. Short Circuit: PBAoE with moderate damage over time, but drains a ton of endurance and really hurts their recovery. My normal tactic while soloing was throw in ball lighting as you are running up, then hit Short Circuit. At that point, your enemy is almost completely drained. One shot of charged bolt or lightning bolt will drain the rest. An enemy without endurance can't do much. Anything below EB can't do anything, watching False Nemesis try to activate their defenses and fail is hilarious or enemies with scripted sayings monolog is great, EBs can do a minor attack while drained. An EB minor attack is far more manageable then the rest of their arsenal. I soloed my way to the Portal Jockey Accolade by this tactic without any real difficulties or using Envenomed Daggers. Aim: great build up power, it also helps drain end. Zap: fun sniper power, drains endurance well, especially when coupled with Aim. Consider the Executioner's Contract IO set because of its Chance for Stun proc. Tesla Cage: Decent single target hold that will do minor damage based on how much static you have. The additional effect is a little disappointing, but still nice to have. I found I really didn't use this power a lot compared to how often I normally use single target holds, its just that with Faraday Cage up, I really didn't worry about enemies holding me. Plus, I generally had them drained of End pretty quickly so most were not a danger to justify this over an actual damage dealing power. Voltatic Sentinel: A toggle that creates a ball of energy to follow you around and do some damage to your enemies. Nice to have, fun to put in another proc from Energy Manipulator to have even more stunned enemies. Its a toggle so you lose it if you are stunned or held. Thunderous Blast: Targeted AoE nuke. Love it. Against EBs, I would bounce my buffs off my Galvanic Sentinel, hit Power Build Up (epic power pool) and shoot this while running in after it. Once there, I would hit Short Circuit. At that point, every EB I've faught, with the exception of the clockwork king, was out of endurance. Then I just used Charged Bold, Lightning Bolt, Zapp to take them down. Occasionally throwing in another Short Circuit and Shock to hurt their recovery. The Galvanic Sentinel should also be hitting their recover too at this point. Other notes on tactics: When I group, I mostly just heal/buff. I follow the person who is running head first into groups, throw up a cage, and just keep healing and buffing. As long as everyone stays in the general area, everyone will be ok. Problems happen when someone runs off and you can't immediately target them for heal/buffs. I don't worry about attacks as much as others do more damage and things are generally defeated so fast that trying to drain the blue bar faster than the red is kinda pointless. That being said, I did do three encounters with Winter Lords, and I would buff my team before we went in, and then drain the Winter Lord's endurance. I could drain them completely of endurance, and while they would do the occasional minor attack, it was never one that would threaten anyone else in the group. This build solos well. I haven't set it up to do the insane +4/8 content, but I had no problem with the regular game content, and never had to resort to Envenomed Daggers or other tricks to defeat an enemy.

One method I like is simply sending an e-mail to my global name and even after it is marked read, leave it in my inbox. Then, when I want to send Inf or something else, I just reply to that e-mail. That way there is no chance of mistyping the e-mail address. The first e-mail can be a test e-mail without anything.

Just a defeat badge for taking out Nemesis and Crey Snipers. Just seems to me that the Crey Snipers in PI are just working with too much impunity.

I usually solo, but I'm trying to team more with this toon. I started with multiple runs of DFB, and gained multiple levels on a yin. I only use it as a bounce when I'm not teaming. When teaming, I always just target teammates to either bounce heals/buff or just fire my attacks having them target for me. Where a bind would be helpful is when I want a boost to health or end it would be so much easer to hit a bind and fire off the power then find the little ball.

Can anyone give me some suggestions on slotting, using this power, and a bind to target it? Running an Electrical Affinity/Electrical Blast Defender. I used Electrical Affinity with a Mastermind and enjoyed it, and I thought it would be a fun combination with the changes to Electrical Blast. So far, at 24, this power seems to be a way to soak alphas and something to target and bounce heals and buffs off of. Is it worth slotting beyond the initial? If so, how? Just Endurance mods? Currently thinking Proc from Energy Manipulator (chance for stun) and three from Synapse shock (Endmd, endmod/rec, and endmod/15% run speed) I don't see anything else helping. Anyone have a good bind to target it to make bouncing heals and buffs off it easier? Any other suggestions for using it?

I'm with Frozen, and to continue to beat a dead horse, AoE sleep is almost useless in group play as AoE are flying around left and right. I understand the arguments about confuse enemies shouldn't give you xp because that isn't damage your doing, been there, read the posts arguing that ad nauseam, guess what, your still going to get complaints about using confuse powers in some groups as it reduces the xp awarded. (The IO/Proced out blaster is going to tell you that you only ended the battle a few seconds faster and they would have destroyed them anyways - then we can go on to the also very plentiful argument that Dominators and Controllers are not that useful in the later game as everything is destroyed so quickly that controls really don't matter.) So, two powers in the set can get you grief is you use them, one of the powers, Telekinesis is niche and right up there with Black Hole from Gravity as a must skip. Your top power is outshined by a T5 in another control set. (Yes, we will keep bringing it up as it proves the point of why Mind should be relooked at in light of how the game has grown and changed.) So, again, personal opinion, kill TK, move Mass Confusion down in TKs place, add a pet at as the T9. My dream would be being able to use the T9 as a confuse power to take an enemy as a pet with a duration based upon the type of pet - Minion until dead or zone, LT 5 minutes or dead, Boss 2 minutes.

I've been running a blaster and I've been running a blaster with Electrical Blast and I've been able to drain enemies pretty consistently. Most of the time it doesn't matter, but the drain improvements to Aim coupled with Thunderous blast kill all the lower levels and leave bosses drained or close to it. Short Circuit does a great job of taking up the rest. Drain when solo is workable, and I've drained both Winter Event EBs. On a team, well, its like everything else, they don't last long enough. Edit: just an update, made a Elec/Elec Defender, now 43, I'm finding that using Power Build Up from Power Mastery Epic along with Thunderous Blast and Short Circuit, I've been able to drain EBs in Tina Macintyre's Anti-Matter Collision/The Instant Army Arc and defeat them solo and I was able to drain a GM Snow Beast and keep it drained as the rest of my four member group beat it down. Note, they will do an an occasional attack, but no where near what they normally do. Oh, and draining Fake Nemesis to nothing is a blast, you have to keep shooting them but, man, watching them try and be unable to do the invulnerability shield is hilarious.

While I am against scaled-level mobs for most things outside of events, this is an event that should have them. I've started two new blasters to try the new primary/secondary and the revamped one. I was grabbing presents last night, and when the spawns were purple, well it was not a pleasant Gomer Pyle moment, 'surprise, surprise, surprise.' I would prefer if the mobs in events, especially ones that just appear, be scaled-level rather than being surprised by the level that pops up.

Played this set on live, thank you for making it. I skimmed the prior 8 pages, didn't see this brought up: The -Def attacks are not putting on the defense debuf icons on enemies. Shouldn't they be? Edit: Shouldn't the listed damage for Shatter be Moderate instead of light?

You know, maybe Santa and his elves appearing in the islands to deliver toys to all the good little girls and boys, and we get to defeat and rob them. . . There is already a Scrooge badge, maybe a 'Ruined Christmas' badge.

I have a 48 grav/storm controller and a 37 Ninja/TA Mastermind that I alternate between soloing to 50. I predominately solo, so the comments are from that perspective. Both characters are very effective, have not had problems with EBs or large groups. I don't do AVs, I play to zone/relax for for a challenge (and to see if I remembered to pick up Envenomed Daggers.) I don't think you need any slots in Gale. It can be fun, when foes are flying back they are not attacking you, and shoving them in a corner is always good, I just think you can get better use of the slots. I haven't added any slots in it for my controller, and rarely use it when I want to shove foes I wormholed in back into a corner and close to their friend I put Enflame on. You are building a very healing heavy build. Why? O2 Boost and Aid Other seem redundant. One thing to remember, if some of your minions go down, you can quickly summon more. With the recent change to masterminds, the summon powers recharge very quickly. Sure, you still have to put the two boost powers on again, but that isn't a big deal. If your looking to be a party healer, ok, I guess I get it. Otherwise, you really don't need it. With my mastermind, I'm soloing at +0/x3 at 37 comfortably. I've got the mastermind sets, but haven't fully IOed the build. The only healing I have is green inspirations for both me and the minions and Spirit Ward (others only) from the Sorcery Pool. I have been soloing the Zig Breakout Event in Brickstown for fun. Personally, I went Sorcery with Arcane Bolt (its nice to be able to shoot something and FAR better than any ninja set attacks) Spiritward, and Enflame. Enflame is fun to put on a boss, or on one of your minions as a damage aura. Great slotting in Tornado - gives you the minion defense bonuses, and solves one of the problems with Ninjas. You still may want to consider Knockback to Knockdown in Tornado and Hurricane. Scattering all over is fun, but it will upset some folks teaming, but it will also have your ninjas running all over the place to fight foes. Occasionally, they will run into new friends and bring them back when your not expecting them to. I know you are concerned about cost, but they aren't too bad, and you could always buy one from the set that is far cheaper and try Enhancement Converter roulette. I'm a believer that minions exist to get attacked so the main character doesn't, so I don't see the need for Provoke. Its easier to resummon minions than run back from the hospital. If you are going to go into the Fighting pool, you should get both Tough and Weave. I prefer Kick to Boxing for the knockdown chance, not like you are going to use it often anyways. You can slot a Force Feedback Chance for Recharge proc if you want to throw a kick in occasionally. I don't use Vengeance, I guess it could be good if you have teammates that fall constantly, but I don't think it works on pets (The HCwiki says it doesn't). Your better off getting combat Jumping if your looking to mule in a luck of the gambler. I would look at better slotting for your stamina as well like Performance Shifter. Anything /damage in there really isn't doing you any good.

I've got it on my Ninja/Trick Arrow Mastermind (The combo is a lot better than it is given credit for after the revisions to TA) Arcane Bolt is a decent attack. Spirit Ward is great to put on a damaged minion. Great for a combo that doesn't have healing. Enflame is great to add extra damage. Highly recommend the Sorcery Power Pool!

I can just see it now: Poster: What will be in it? I'll even take 1/2 page....a paragraph! A Sentence! Give me a word....just a word! GM: One Word? Stuff TM

I generally solo a character up rather than farming so earlier characters fund later characters. Also, I generally avoid purples as I generally move on to other characters once all the incarnates are unlocked. I do IO set everything. That being said, the most expensive are either Dominators due to the need to get certain IO sets to chase permadom. Otherwise, any of the characters with a lot of defense or resistance sets as those IOs always seem to be more expensive.

You may wish to read the prior posts as my objections was because one of the Lead Game Masters said: "However, every situation is different, and we unfortunately cannot discuss any outcomes, including what actions were taken." Third post in, please feel free to confirm the quote. My post is directly after, the forth post in this thread, where I take issue at the quoted statement that the GMS are able to make a statement but are choosing not to. The same Lead Game Master later clarified that they are making a conscious decision not to share anything with anyone rather than some impediment, legal or otherwise. Your ALL CAPS came after the GM clarified. I thumbed it and then left it alone. Your entitled to your opinion, as I am to mine.

Ok, lets unpack this one. The main developer comes on and says the following: I take issue at the idea they they cannot say anything. I find those two statements contradictory as I do not believe any restrictions exist for revealing player disciple, especially if the information is revealed only to an aggrieved party. If that kind of information is not revealed to the aggrieved party, it is very easy for them to perceive, rightly or wrongly, that the GMs do not, in fact, take these situations very seriously and that they do not act on them. Another poster says there were all kinds of consumer protection laws that prevent disclosure. I've asked what those were, just give me the citations. To date, there has been no posting. You can certainly take the GM's refusal to provide any transparency on player discipline as a 'higher path' and I can still certainly believe that such secrecy is harmful in the long run. While your certainly correct that I know little about the role playing community here as I am not part of it. The remainder of your suggestion that I do not know much of this game is inaccurate as you clearly read the part of the post that you seem to be attacking. Lets look at it again: Hum, your post above does not know how to change global names (after a little research check the menu for Global Handle) but the part you seek to discredit me on is character name and server. You seem to have misread my earlier post. I certainly agree that the Devs are tech savvy, ethics is another question. I can't say the Devs are great, good, bad or terrible when it comes to ethics. The Devs can certainly deal with issues when they arise, unfortunately we will not know if they actually dealt with an issue or if they did so in a savvy manner as they have chosen silence. Without information as to how they have dealt with issues, no one can say with the slightest bit of certainty that the Devs have behaved in a savvy or even minimally acceptable way. Their choice, their game. We'll see if it is helpful to the long term community. What would have been helpful is if the GMs clarified their statement by saying why they can't (IF those laws exist this would be a great time to point to them) or simply say we believe it is in the best interest of Homecoming going forward to keep player issues confidential in all cases.

This is not my normal area, so can you give me examples from the United States Code of the Code of Federal Regulations that you are referring to? The cite alone is fine. It is my experience that businesses say that they can't do something when the simply do not want to. If there are, as you say, numerous laws that restrict such disclosure, I would be curious to see them. I'm especially curious as to confidentiality requirements that also extend to prevent notification to the person that lodged the complaint/victim. I am well aware of some that exist in the education sphere that would not apply here.

I do not understand this last statement. You certainly can discuss what occurred, what actions were taken and what the outcomes where, you are choosing not to. There is no right to confidentiality here, we are not dealing with a school or other protected area. I do not understand the hesitancy to inform the victim that, for example, someone has been banned for a week or for life or nothing has happened. To me, there is a difference to informing a victim than posting the results in a forum. I think a victim should get to know. If there are reasons otherwise, I am curious as to what they are. Also, it may make sense, and I'm sorry I don't know the technical side of this, to assist a victim in changing a global name or character names to facilitate avoiding an individual. A CoH Witness Protection Program if you will. Players can migrate characters to other servers and do name or costume changes on their own. It may make sense to suggest to people that want to do in character roleplaying that they go to Paragon Dance Party, a holiday event zone in the off season (or even the new event area), or the Kalisti (sp) Warf until it is completed. Think of Role Players park on Virtue in the days of live. You can role play, just stay out of everyone elses way. While I don't recommend it, you could differentiate from a PG-13 Area versus R. You know it is going to happen, this is a way to keep it contained. With that being said, I sympathize with the GMs as, no matter what, when people gather there are going to be a small subset of people that engage in greatly inappropriate behavior that diminishes the game for others. There is no good way to deal with this, or to fix inappropriate conduct. Its even worse when you consider that the individuals providing the game and additional contact are not being compensated for this headache.

For role playing purposes, my Thugs are all ex-boyfriends. Ann and the Boys

Wind Control, while not implemented, is in the code and HC wiki. It was mentioned as it was being made at the demise of the game as an indication of what the direction the designers of the game were taking the game to. Interestingly though, the posts have gone from "Mind is special" {emphasis in original} to 'Mind Control is fine as it is just about". 'Just about' isn't fine. The limitation realizes that there are problems with the set. I've given my thoughts on both a minimum fix and what I would like to see happen. No argument has been presented as to how my suggested changes would be over powered, inappropriate or unwelcome. This thread comes up repeatedly, I'd rather ideas and solutions be fleshed out and discussed rather than the forum equivalent of posting a picture of a dog wearing a hat sitting in a chair telling you he is fine while the room is on fire. Personally, I'd make implementing Wind Control a higher priority than fixing Mind Control, it would have been a higher priority to me than fixing overperforming Titan Weapons too, but the Devs do what they want to do and we appreciate them for what they do and making this game available to us.

You forgot masterminds pets. If the argument is pets are readily available, then the actual pet class should be cited. You also forgot the unimplemented Wind Control which was also planned to have a pet at level 32. It also looks like the proposed level 18 power would have been better than Mass Confusion as Seeds of Confusion was with Plant Control. Homecoming hasn't implemented this set, but some of the other servers have. I hope Homecoming is able to do so. Each of the go red to get a a pet is a limited duration pet with a high recharge. None of them is anywhere near comparable to any of the level 32 controller pets. I pointed out, directly, how mind 'no one set pet' idea that you put across is inaccurate and lacking. I even gave a suggestion of a possible, I do not know enough to say probable or feasible (Although I would imagine it would be considering we have a good number of powers that add an additional effect if used in conjunction with another power, see gravity control, psy melee, or beam rifle), fix that would not need to add additional powers that I think people would be excited about. Instead of actually approaching what I was suggesting, there is deflection. Because I do not agree with you does not mean either of us is 'doing it wrong' or even doing it right. There can be disagreement. Just because something is available with a pet, that is available to every other controller and many other ATs, does not correct, in my opinion, the problems with this power set. Now, Minds cap stone level 32 power is surpassed by a level 8 plant control power. Even if Seeds of Confusion did not exist, Mass Confusion in its current version still lacking and should be reevaluated. At a minimum, the recharge time is too long. As it stands now, Mind is special in a negative way as it is an original power set that has not been reexamined. reevaluated, and updated based upon how the game has changed since the start.

I disagree, I would greatly prefer if mind had a pet. I would especially like if I could confuse an enemy and take them around as a helper, with no xp loss for the damage they do like every other pet, until they are defeated or I use a confuse power on something else. Limit it to a minion or an LT. Heck, make it so you have to do Mass Confusion and then Confuse the target. Make it something that makes the set stand out and be unique. Make 'no fixed single pet' special not blah. Mind suffers from early design that was not reviewed as the game grew. Right now, 'no fixed single pet' is not special or set defining. By the 'no fixed single pet' logic, Illusion has Phantasm, Phantom Army, and Deceive (Mind's no fixed pet) Oh, but you say, deceive is single target, Mass Confusion is mass! Yeah, still Plant Control has Seeds of Confusion as a level 8 power that is superior in a whole bunch of ways. If you could keep one and it's damage counted as your damage for xp, that would be something special. Even if it was only a minion or LT. Mind could use a little something special. Especially since folks will still complain about lost xp due to a confuse power.

I'm currently working a Grav/Storm controller up and have a 50 Grav/Savage Dom I agree with roleki completely. I skipped Hurricane and do not miss it. Remember also that wormhole does not need line of sight, it also does not agro the ones it left behind. I took the sorcery pool. While gravity is GREAT for single target attacks, adding Arcane Bolt was helpful. Mystic Flight is useful, but then you can get Enflame and Rune of Protection. Enflame is great fun to put on an enemy that you just wormholed into a corner with all of its friends. Add in Freezing Rain, Tornado and, maybe, Lightning Storm if you want. Or put it on your Singularity. Rune of Protections is also nice to break holds. Gravity I skip Crush, Dimension Shift and Crushing Field. Arcane bolt is more fun and does more damage than crush. Lift and propel get bonus damage when used Gravity Distortion.