Hardboiled Hero

It's late (or really early) as I'm writing this, so sorry if I ramble some. I notice a lot of people saying that Opportunity activation should be uncoupled from t1 powers, but what about making opportunity activation make those powers actually good for that one shot. For example, what if the activating shot automatically hits? what if the offensive opportunity, while still on a t1 power, not only automatically hits, but is also a critical on the activating shot? What if the defensive opportunity automatically hits and provides a significant burst to health and endurance on the first attack.. like giving 20% of the character's max right away? (and these effects in addition to the current offensive and defensive opportunity effects). I'm wondering whether people are really complaining about having the activation tied to certain powers, or are they really complaining about having the activation tied to powers that those people don't actually want to use.. if it's the latter make the powers so that people will want to use them. (and personally I don't think any sets should have powers that people just don't want to use. One of the cool things about sents is that they have reasons to use some powers that other AT's can't or don't use.) Also remember that, while a single sentinel's attacks don't stack debuffs, each sentinel on a team stacks debuffs with each other sentinel on the team. Conceptually I think this is great, but in practice, I've been playing many sentinels on many teams over the past two weeks or so, and I've only been teamed with another sentinel twice.. IIRC, it's the third or fourth least played AT.. the point here is that I think the devs were expecting a group of sentinels debuffing their bosses and AV's by 40%.. or more realistically 3 sentinels on a team debuffing the boss for 15%.. this without activated Opportunity.. but in practice this rarely happens. I really think the value of passive opportunity could be increased to -10% per sentinel without too much trouble. Finally, increase the Sentinel's range. Honestly this is something I notice far more when soloing then I do in teams.. In teams I want to stand between the melee and the other rangers so that I can see when mobs are peeling off toward the rangers and I can be there to stop those mobs. (I'm not sure whether sentinels are good at off-tanking like this now, but it's something I feel sentinels should be good at. People who play sentinels want to put their defenses to good use) However in soloing or small teams, the Sentinel lacks the aggro control needed to tank, and they also have a lot of trouble pulling because they often can't stand close to cover and still shoot a mob. Where most rangers could simply peak out from behind a corner, shoot a mob, then duck back into cover, the sentinel will often have to stand in front of the cover, shoot the mob and then try to run back behind cover.. giving the target just enough time to make a ranged attack, which grabs the attention of other enemies so the whole group will come around the corner at the sentinel. Furthermore, if the sentinel is meant to make up the damage gap through having better "time on target" by not being as easy to mez and whatnot, the range difference between a sentinel and blaster completely undoes that. I honestly don't really see any problems with the sentinel that can't be pretty easily fixed. It's fine to have activated opportunity work off of two different attacks.. just make those the best attacks in the power set.. at least when they're actually being used to activate opportunity. Beef up the passive opportunity some, taking into account that there will probably only be one or two Sentinels per team. Give the Sentinel normal ranges.. I understand they were going for kind of a mid-range skirmisher kind of idea, but the idea seems problematic.. if they really want to hold onto the idea, then they need to plan on the sentinel getting mobbed like a brute does and beef up the sentinel's defenses accordingly.

I'm not that big on stalkers, but I'm trying out a savage/regeneration build right now and it seems fun. In the old days I remember people talking about stalkers being god-like in soloing missions because they could just sneak around everything and kill the boss or get the objective.. But somehow when I played my stalker I always seemed to get escort missions or "kill everyone" missions. I would also point out that enhancements in general aren't important until about level 22 (when you should try to keep some IO's slotted), since the stalker is "skipping past" a lot of "content", they're not generally making as much inf. as they should or getting as many salvage drops as they should. that's not to say they can't.. it's just that's not how most people want to play stalkers.. but that's my old experience from Live.. I'm not sure how it really goes these days.

Force Field defender/corruptor, so you can help out all those people who aren't defense capped yet.

yeah.. shirts and (sleeveless) jackets tend to have the problem that they can't carry patterns, so any pattern on the miniskirt can't be continued to the top. That's in addition to the fact that none of them are really flush with the miniskirt.. but I might be able to fix that problem with the right belt (I haven't looked at that, given the other problems I have with this costume design). Furthermore, while both of those options allow a "chest" Category.. That "chest" category generally seems to remove "spectrum" from available options. It's also possible to use the "tight" Category and choose a "spectrum" top with a "chest detail" which includes armor and corsets, some of which can mesh with the mini skirt (meaning that those tops end where the bottom begins), but none of which can carry a pattern or look particularly appropriate to 60's and 70' fashion choices. (Miniskirt into Barbarian corset, roman armor, or hi tech armor doesn't really create the look I'm going for.) It's almost as if mini-dress is specifically not allowed for some reason, and spectrum under anything but an armored top isn't allowed for some reason. I'm actually playing around with costume design as I'm writing this and I found I can get an effect that looks like a Pattern able mini-dress using the "robotic arm 2" category, but obviously that has cyborg arms instead of spectrum arms.. it's making me wonder whether creating "spectrum arms" in that category would be possible.

I know it's a touch late, but why not try a Brute (for Dad) and a Sentinel (for son)? The Sentinel seems like it might be good for the kid since it doesn't have to be the focus of enemy attacks, but still gets some strong defenses and good damage. I suggest you go into the Sentinel forums and read @oldskool topic on his "year in the trenches".

Honestly though, that's kinda how I see it too. Dominators aren't just about utterly destroying the body and mind of others.. They're all about the warm fuzzies they feel while destoying the body and mind of others. Believe it or not, some people smile when they're in a fight, even if those people generally try to be peaceful. I will say though, that players should have options. P.S.: and there totally needs to be a "Rainbow Domination" primary with a supporting "Lollipop assault" secondary. Of course the Lollipop mace is the big scary eye-catcher, but it's the throwing lollipops that you've really gotta watch out for.

You really want to set your "friend" straight, play an energy sentinel, they can get faster attack speed than energy blasters, in order to be extra annoying. In answer to the question though, I must be a horrible controller, but people rarely complain. Generally speaking, poor controls is better than no controls.. sure it can make fights take longer, but it still stops people from dying, and dying repeatedly makes fights take longer as well. Then again, I rarely play controllers.. Dominators all the time though. I just don't get how people can stand playing a AT that seems to have so little killpower in it.. maybe that's a result of the fact that I've never actually played CoH with friends though. (I'm livin' the pug life)

@oldskool So for some reason mids reborn doesn't seem to be accepting your data. I tried in both IE and edge and browser doesn't seem to make a difference. @Hyperstrike 's data imported just fine (and thank you Hyperstrike) That said I got level 50 just now and I'm going to try to finalize my level 50 build. As for leveling, it was generally fun. I tried not to get into teams in which I felt like I wasn't contributing.. there were times that I was definitely glad to have others around, but rarely felt like I couldn't have been on my own.. I just prefer playing with teams and it was easiest to get into/work with radio teams. I've got a lot of other sentinels made, so I'll try to let everyone know how the leveling experience for Archery/Invuln compares to those.. and maybe work on archery characters for other AT's to compare to.

So maybe I'm just having trouble finding it, but I've got a character that I want to use "spectrum" for the tights, but she has boots, gloves, and miniskirt all with the cellular pattern.. I think it's looking pretty good, but I can't seem to find any tops that would match up with the mini-skirt and still allow for spectrum tights underneath (and bare arms on the top, so the spectrum is seen on the arms.) Am I just missing how to do this, or is it something that could be added in? I'm trying to create a disco dress (real world, not costume designer disco) kinda thing with spectrum "skin" Thankis

Last night I joined a Level 50 mission team and got myself up to level 40. There were some key situations in which I felt like I contributed a lot, but through most of the run I was feeling like my damage was negligible. I also found several situations in which my defenses seemed to be holding up really well for 15 seconds or so after I had gotten aggro (Usually from purple bosses that were running amok on the squishies), then I would suddenly get knocked out before I could even hit my self heal. That seems pretty weird considering that I'm running invulnerability. With that said, I also haven't respecd or changed my enhancements since I slotted in those IO's at level 22. The character is still worth playing. No one complains about me in groups or anything (But I kinda doubt I'd find that with this community). After I level more characters I'll have a better idea of how the leveling experience actually compares to other builds.

Yeah.. I was thinking that Doms seem to have a lot of DoTs in their arsenal, but I guess that doesn't actually mean they lose burst.. some of that feeling on my part probably is flavored by the fact that I've been enjoying /savage, which specifically DoTs things.

Yeah.. I kinda thought that the sentinel was a "selfish" AT at first too, but I would suggest the sentinel is actually doing more than they "feel" like they're doing. Some of the confusion with sentinels comes from a misunderstanding of "opportunity".. where I think many people don't realize that the sentinel has both a passive debuff that all of their attacks apply to their target AND a "triggered" buff/debuff. . The passive debuff.. it's -5% defense and +5% damage against the target.. which I would suggest is pretty decent teamwork. Then there's the fact that you're playing a class that has a defensive secondary (and possible heal/recovery through defensive opportunity) That will probably be standing somewhere between your ranged damage/support/control and the thick of the fight. It's gonna be very easy for you to notice when a mob breaks away from the melee to go after the ranged, and you have the defenses to take some attacks at least long enough for the ranged to burn the target down or the tank to regain aggro. I'm actually trying some sent builds now that go into presence pool in order to get both the taunt and pacify. I'm not sure that will work out, but I think the sentinel could actually make better use of that pool than anyone else could.

Okay, so I know you didn't mention sentinel, but I feel like you might be discounting the Sentinel's contribution to teams with their ability to off-tank for the squishies and their innate defense reduction and damage boost on their target. If you like scrappers, consider that a Sentinel can be somewhat like a ranged scrapper. Now with that said, I'm still pretty new to the game and unfortunately can't offer a lot of great build advice, I had actually considered both of those character types myself, but I've been having too much fun exploring the sentinels for now. Admittedly water sentinel wasn't my favorite as their attacks are kinda slow, so I didn't level it up very much yet.. Maybe when it gets more attacks it will feel better.

Generally yes.. the thing is, while I'm not exactly a min/maxer, my personal fun in any game is always directly impacted by how much I (feel I) contribute to teams and how often I die. Of all the sentinels I've played so far (Beam Rifle, Water, and Electric) Archery seems to have the most fluid attack routine, so I really enjoy that I can basically always attack, while still not generally worrying about my defenses too much. Endurance can become a bit of an issue, but is manageable, I just need to be a little picky with my toggles. However.. I just did the Protean fight and got kind of disheartened. I had to drop to -1 level difficulty in order to be able to beat him, and I think this might be starting to show a problem. When I fight enemies that are much higher level then me, my damage drops significantly, but I also don't do well against groups right now, since I've been building mostly for single target attacks. I feel like, when alone at least, I basically have to stick to +0 x1. That's something I plan on monitoring.

I can understand how people might get frustrated about that. I've been spending the past few hours and "looked" So I think there might be a perception that "this has already been discussed too much already", while the truth may be that it really hasn't been discussed much at all. People may have compared and contrasted defenders and Corruptors, but apparently force fields was never part of the discussion.. they may have talked about force fields, but differences between corruptors and defenders using force fields was never seriously discussed. (Apparition had a response in one thread that was similar to the response in this one.) Would it surprise you to know that no one in that FF/BR thread has mentioned corruptors at all, let alone discussed how a FF/BR defender and BR/FF corruptor might compare and contrast? There's not a single thread with "force field" in the topic in the corruptor forums. (There are only 16 threads with "force field" in the content.. none of those seem to mention defenders.) Same is true for the archetype forums (although I did a search for BR/FF and got 0 results, while BR/FF Corruptor returned this thread, so clearly something is wonky.) General forums have 3 threads about force field (none of which are also listed as mentioning both defenders and corruptors) There are only 17 posts in the Archetypes, General, and Guides forums combined which mention force fields, corruptors AND defenders. Meanwhile, there are 43 pages of returns if I just search for defender corruptor.. are you honestly expecting me to go through all 43 pages in order to try to find one post that might possibly be of value to this discussion? Knowing full well that the one post which discusses "Comparing and contrasting Br/FF Corruptors and FF/BR defenders", probably doesn't actually fully answer the questions? So, while some people may feel like they're beating a dead horse, the average person who wants to know about how forcefield/ beam rifle corruptors and defenders really compare and contrast, isn't going to find any thread but this one. Anyway, I don't guess this thread is really going to go anywhere. Maybe someday somebody else will try to start an actual useful and informative thread about Beam Rifle/Force Field compared and contrasted to Force Field/ Beam Rifle.

Actually I asked a few questions, of different types, and never implied that anyone else had the ability to make up my mind for me. "Would I be better off playing a Beam Rifle/ Force Field corruptor?" : This was prefaced by "So I began to wonder,".. which shows that it's a question I was asking myself, and which I don't expect anyone else to answer for me. It was meant as part of the exposition for why I'm asking the other questions, more than a topic of discussion in itself. I mean, if someone really wanted to opine on this question, that's cool, but I make my own decisions. "What are the actual Differences between the two concepts?": This isn't actually subjective at all.. (Well.. I suppose a person saying "I like x better than y would be a subjective difference between the concepts) There are numbers and facts that people could be throwing around if they so chose.. and @Apparition actually had a pretty objective response, but Apparition is also making an assumption (That most characters have their defenses capped end game, how do we know this?).. not only that, but one person saying something is "Unequivocal" doesn't make it so.. and yet no one else wanted to support his claim. Meanwhile, even the most "Unequivocal" of facts has it's skeptics.. and yet no one spoke up against the claim. I will say that, as far as I can tell, the evidence supports the claim as being correct and I'm truly thankful for Apparition's response (based on looking at builds here on the forums). Apparition only addressed one difference between the two concepts as well, nobody really seems to know or care how much damage either concept can do.. how survivable either concept is.. or any number of other differences that people could have mentioned. Hence, even if what Apparition said is truly "Unequivocal", that still doesn't necessarily stop any discussion about the facts that he didn't touch on. @Rathulfr also gave facts.. to be honest I'm a little insulted because these facts are something that anybody could read for themselves, and they're also not entirely true.. as we've mentioned a BR/FF corruptor may well be a better support than a FF/BR defender. I do at least appreciate that he responded. "How would the playstyles be different?": As if to possibly hi-lite the more Objective overtones of the previous question, this question involves some creative thinking. It requires both "subjective" and "Objective" thinking.. A person could subjectively say that there would be no difference in playstyle, but then the objective truth that Defenders and Corruptors have different "stats" would mean that one is simply better than the other at that playstyle. So this is an example of a question where the "facts" have some interplay with people's opinions. "Do you think one would be better for solo play?": Do you see yet how this was designed to transition.. Here I'm specifically asking for the opinions of others. You note also that I never said anything about how their opinions might impact my own decisions.. this is all about people giving free-form answers. "Is the other better for a group?": This just seemed like a natural follow up to the previous question, which should help keep the flow of thought going. "Anything else you can think of?" Again.. to encourage thought and conversation that could literally go anywhere.. and to me this was the real shocker about the lack of discussion so far.. I literally asked for any thoughts people had at all and still very few people wanted to say anything. Are Beam Rifle and Force Field Defenders/Corruptors really in such a bad place that no one even wants to think about them?

An update now that I'm level 22.. The concept was great for the first ten levels or so.. the first few archery powers recharge fast enough that only having one attack set and a relatively passive defense set still left me pressing buttons fairly fluidly. Fighting Arachnos got annoying when they slowed my attacks and drained my endurance. I didn't pick up any enhancements until level 10.. At that point I gave all my attacks 1 accuracy, which seemed to work well enough. I gave each one damage, which again was okay.. then I started slotting stunning shot for 3 recharge. Stunning shot is indeed a great attack. Around 18 I got Blazing shot.. I'm less impressed with this, as it's animation is longer than I would like. Right now I'm starting to have some big endurance issues, as I have Leadership assault and maneuvers toggeld on. I've taken to normally have Unyielding on, but not Temp invuln.. Basically I feel that the combo of having several toggles and tricked out Stunning shot and Blazing shot (with recharge but not end reduction) is just too much for one character. The teams I've been on have not mentioned my damage one way or the other and I don't really die unless there's a full party wipe. As for movement, I got ninja sprint just for getting to missions faster.. since I don't need to see it all the time, it's okay thematically. The biggest issue I've had so far was in Positron Task force in the "save atlas park" portion where everyone else just flies over or teleports past mobs. I've picked up stealth to try to handle that situation. So far I haven't gone into fighting set at all. Further help/advice or people who want to offer their "Yeoman" builds are greatly appreciated. I'm hoping this can become a guide of sorts.. or at least that I'll be able to learn enough to make a guide if it turns out to be a "not too bad" Theme.

It would be kinda cool, but not necessarily appropriate to all character concepts, if Dark Armor powers actually looked like ethereal armor pieces. I don't have a lot to say mechincally, I'm only getting back into the game over the past week and even when I played Live I didn't have much end-game experience, as I started playing with the release of CoV and all my friends were quitting around that time because "Brutes are way too powerful.. I mean their tanks can do as much damage as a scrapper!" My first real character (after having tried the game on a friend's account) was a Super Strength/ Dark Armor Brute, who had been a Supegirl-esque hero, but was killed and was then raised by a powerful Necromancer to serve the cause of death. Like many of my characters, the concept was better than it actually worked mechanically. Not only is super strength relatively weak for a Brute, but Dark Armor ends up being one of the weaker Armor sets AND endurance hogs. Why do I say Dark Armor is one of the weaker armor sets? First please understand that I'm not saying Dark Armor is bad.. I specifically mean that Dark Armor isn't defensively as good as Willpower, Regen, or Invulnerability.. Dark Armor really seems more like a "middle of the road" set.. Unlike the more defensive sets, Dark Armor has an PBAoE dot which, combined with "middle of the road" defences is likley to get a character killed. Or at least that was my experience from Live. Invulnerability and willpower would keep my character alive, Fire would do tons of damage and kill everything that was trying to attack you, and Dark Armor would get you killed.

Sadistic. I'm pretty sure the goal was to make the Dominator feel like the kind of villain who toys with their prey before finishing them off. These are the guys (and gals) who want to trap a hero and give long-winded speeches about how the world is a horrible place and they just have to own it. The Dom isn't meant to be a DPS monster.. that's why it's not listed as either ranged or melee damage (despite having elements of both). They don't really have a damage pool.. they have a torture pool. In this way you might consider Dominators to be similar to WoW's Warlocks or Shadow priests.. your fighting style is to control and DoT. Eventually things will die, but you probably won't kill as fast as a blaster, a scrapper, or even an offensively oriented defender. While leveling, the "feeling" of the Dominator often seems to be "cat & mouse", but sometimes you're the cat, and sometimes you're the mouse.

I completely agree. Martial Assault seems fun, but it doesn't seem like it really meshes well with other Dom powers.. largely because the primaries are just.. well.. perhaps "unnatural" is the best word. Like, the AT has always seemed like it's completely against the "Natural" character origin.. how does one "Naturally" shoot fire or electricity? Then you put in a secondary that's actually a completely normal thing. I've always felt like Dominators should have had some primaries that involve throwing traps out or something. I believe people would be playing far more dominators if only their were a wider variety of themes for them. As is, I really think Mind Control is the only thing that really makes sense with Martial Assault. Although, as I was saying that I was thinking that "Gravity Control" could possibly be used to simulate Chi training or something. I'm sorry though, if I have the power to summon blocks of ice or fireballs from nothing, then I'm going to assault you with fire or ice. I can control plants with my mind, but I'm going to kick you instead of doing something truly horrifying. They really shoulda put more thought into the Dom before releasing it.. which is really sad because the potential for this AT to be simply amazing was there.

Thanks. Did you play Archery on a sentinel? I'm wondering whether Opportunities might change which attacks I should focus on, making one or both of the "starter attacks" more valuable. Also, with Archery's inherent accuracy, do you think it would be safe to reduce the number of accuracy enhances to make some room for recharge while still keeping the damage up? I'm not really that worried about the travel power.. I just don't want to make everyone wait for me in TF's and such, especially knowing that, as a Sentinel, I don't offer much utility to the team when I finally get there.. but if I really only need 3 powers or so from archery to have a smooth attack routine, maybe that would leave me some room to get leadership.. since I'm taking invulnerability, I feel like I should work on some other ways to get my defense up. That's another reason to possibly go into fighting too.

So I'm still pretty new to the game (or at least after not having played in over a decade) and I'm hoping some people will be able to give me some ideas and advice on a character concept I had. I'm sure I'm not the first person to want to try this, so any thoughts from those who have come before would be welcome. The character concept is "Yeoman", as in a medieval Robin-hood (in some versions) style Yeoman. I use a bow, I wear armor. I might be quick or willful (so I'm not discounting changing my secondary), but I don't know what a Ninja is. So to get us started, Is Archery/Invulnerability a good idea or bad idea? From people have tried it, or still use it, how does it work out? would you consider it newbie friendly and/or end-game viable? I'm also not really sure what travel power to get and I'm considering whether or not to go into fighting pool.. and specifically whether to grab some attacks from the fighting pool since sentinels have no melee otherwise. So I'm pretty sure I'm gonna stick with concept, but if some more experienced Sentinels could give me some ideas and advice on how to proceed, it would be greatly appreciated.

I'm starting a Archery/Invulnerability sentinel and it seems okay so far. Theme-wise the character is based on a medieval Yeoman, similar to robin hood.. and thus carries a longbow and wears chainmail armor. I decided that actual armor would be best represented by invulnerability. Although I'm still new, I'm kinda getting into Sentinels over all. The basic down-side (as far as I'm concerned) is that you only have 1 attack power pool, but I think Archery has a lot of fast attacks, so it helps the sentinel feel like you're always attacking. The up-shot (get it?) is that you don't die. I've only done a few TF's, but I've had some instances in which the "tanks" get dropped, and I can save my party by doing enough damage to finish off the bad-guys, while still being able to take a few hits. Granted, I don't think sentinel should be considered a "tank", they are just good survivors. I'm also not trying to say that invuln is the best defense to pair with archery.. I'm still trying stuff out I just mentioned the invuln as a way of maybe sparking some creative theme ideas. Archery/ Reflexes seems like it would be on point, but don't discount a "yeoman" build that uses armor, or perhaps some sort of mystic hunter that uses Archery/regen or archery/bio. I think there's a lot of viable themes possible with an archery sentinel.. it's just a matter of figuring out which themes really work.

I was really hoping to spark some more in depth answers, though I thank you both for your contribution. @Rathulfr gave a very basic answer, but as you might be able to tell from comparing the two answers, it isn't that simple. Let's say I want to play this character as a support.. If everyone is defense capped in the endgame (which most builds try to do), then being able to raise people's defense isn't very good support, but Mez protection might be, so if the corruptor has better Mez protection, then the corruptor may offer better support, even though it's support role is "secondary". This makes it seem like a Beam Rifle/ Force Fields corruptor should just be hands down better than a Force Field/ Beam Rifle defender, as the corruptor would theoretically have better support and better offensive contribution.. but just because something should be better doesn't mean it always is.. while we could assume the corruptor would do more damage, only people who have tried can actually know.. That's why I was really hoping that someone has actually tried some Beam Rifle and Force Field builds and could give a more in depth perspective.

Hello Everyone! I just found homecoming 2 days ago and I'm loving it. I played live so many years ago and one of my characters was a Force Field/ Beam Rifle defender (but I only got to about level 25 w/ that character. I recreated the concept, but as I was doing so I began to wonder, would I be better off making a Beam Rifle/ Force Field corruptor? What are the actual differences between the two concepts? How would the playstyles be different? Do you think one would be better for solo play (which was my problem with the defender in live)? Is the other better for group? Anything else you can think of? Thanks all.