Zect

You can debate what build goals to shoot for, but assignable slots are a finite resources, and thus everything comes at the cost of something else. Wasted stats damages you by detracting from building for useful stats elsewhere. Ideally, everything in a build should be chosen with purpose - whether that be to satisfy a concept, to improve playfeel, to optimize build resources, etc. The better one can do this, the more one benefits in every way. Now, I don't expect to convince you because your mind is closed - you've decided what is what, and facts will not sway you. I leave this for the intrepid builder who stumbles across this decision.

I’m on mobile, so I can’t look at the build currently. However, the best way to look at granite is to see it as way of trading off defenses for dps. You can get the majority of your mits from granite, then that frees up the rest of your builds to be devoted to damage (procbombing). If you aren’t doing something like this you’re likely better off with a non-granite build.

If using the @Hyperstrike builds, you should note that they have a flaw in that they use a lot of reactive armor. Reactive armor is often a bad choice for invuln because the 2-piece set bonus is wasted - invulns don’t need SL res. It is very hard to beat unbreakable guard for invuln unless you need something specific. When you are not softcapped you may build in a way so that you can easily cap using temporary resources when necessary. This concept is known as “slack”. A common example is how some unarmored toons build for 32.5 ranged def. A small purple insp (+12.5 def) then puts you at the softcap. However, my personal build goal for invuln is approximately 40% with a single foe in melee. This is not an obvious breakpoint, but is based off my extensive real-world testing vs +4x8 Cimerorans (my benchmark for -def mobs). This is approximately the defense needed to prevent them from easily un-softcapping you when combined with ageless radial and causing a defense cascade failure.

My take is there's always a very simple answer to this question, which is: the way you treat others is the way you'll be treated, and the measure you deal to others is the measure you'll be dealt. If you dual box on people's TF's without notice, then you should be fine with people dualboxing on yours without notice. And if you quit TF's, then then you should also be okay when other people quit yours. And as long as that's the case, you can do whatever you like, subject of course to the rules. As for tripleboxing specifically, I have nothing in principle against the concept, but it feels like a hassle to me. Why do I have to log in 3 toons just to get max loot? It irritates me because I do use character items a lot (where items from Super Packs go to, not the normal email folder) and the 3 accounts don't share the same email inventory. Just ban tripleboxing and give 300% reward rates, and this limited form of legalized botting will become unnecessary.

elec/ss/mu resilient core tank. The fightingless, procbombing, end draining, double-rage stacking, hardcapped resistances dps machine. Just make sure they all get in footstomp range before dropping the mu immob (almost as much damage as dark oblit and much better rech).

I think your build goals need more elaboration. Under what conditions do you want to solo AVs - are insps allowed, are temps allowed, how about lore pets, etc. There's a big difference in AV soloing to enlarge your e-penis and AV soloing because I'm triple boxing this week's WST.

There are ways to further optimize your build for rech/def, but most nature builds do not have true perma-overgrowth. True perma-overgrowth requires no less than 325% rech in overgrowth. With a basic double +5 rech common slotting this is approximately +229% global rech, decreasing to +204% if you get 3 FF procs. This amount of global rech comes at the sacrifice of other build goals and generally isn't worth it. Most builds will settle for 5-10s of downtime.

The answer to your question is IO's and incarnates. Once you properly leverage all the power creep that has happened between 2012 and now, you'll be enjoying builds that easily dominate anything on live. But in general, support is wasted in piss easy content like ITFs, PI radios, AE farms, MSR, whatever this week's strike target is, and so on. If you play content where support isn't needed, then obviously you're going to feel useless.

Invuln should try to hit 90% SL res and perma-dull pain. Kat should try to have dual -res procs. You miss out on a lot of powerful bonuses because you're not slotting a lot of unique IOs that give attractive boosts for few slots. However, it may be that you're constrained by budget. Try something more like this: Note the brute's fury ATIO split up into 2 sets of 3x, getting the 5% SL def bonus twice. Since we don't need the SL res, this is a better way of using it. The empty slot in invincible is for you to put a gaussian's BU proc. I don't put it in invincibility on my own builds since I know it will be fixed some day (same with putting it in Tactics), but this isn't about my preferences. Ageless radial is for the -def resist and endurance, since this build is not yet eps stable. You can add more defense, damage (procs/musculature) and the epic of your choice. Personally, I wouldn't go past 40% def or 50% non-SL res on a brute, but that's up to you.. Brute (Katana - Invulnerability).mbd

No, because interface debuffs are flagged ignores enhancements and other boosts.

That's because drain was specifically nerfed against AV's and EB's in i27p3 (source). Compelling, but unlikely. Homecoming, for all its numerous virtues, increasingly becomes about dps to the exclusion of all else. The things that people want and which are added are either dps, or dps with additional steps (e.g. -res, which was added to FF; there are now only 3 buffdebuff sets with no -res in them, and they all have +dmg instead). This is not an issue exclusive to HC, and in fact most MMO's have it far worse, but I tend to notice it more here because this game has never had strict dps checks and has always featured a diversity of playstyles. If you don't believe me on this, here's a thought experiment: what would it take to make the next blast/melee set added both 1) the lowest dps one and 2) popular. Q.E.D.

You want enough mitigation to survive the threat environment you fight in, plus a bit more for margin of error - any extra is a waste. If you are unsure, then for a general-purpose build, my recommendation is at least 1 primary mit layer capped (either 45% def to all or 90% res to all on a brute) and your armor set's survivability tools adequately slotted: they all provide something extra, like heals or maxHP or debuffs (even SR has scaling resists) so following this advice never leaves you completely dependent on a single mechanism. Adjust up and down from there as you see fit, based on your play experience, skill level, the sophistication of the threat environment, and of course your powerset. I don't cap res or def on my bio armors for example because the set natively has so much healing and absorb. In general, work with what your armor set provides you: if it has def, add def. If you have res, add res. If it gives positional def, like SR, add positional def; if typed def, like EA, then typed. The reason is that both def and res in coh, contrary to common sense, good balance and sensible game design, show accelerating instead of diminishing returns. If you are at 50% res, and add +10% res, it now takes a fifth more damage to kill you. If you are at 80% res, and add +10% res, it now takes twice as much damage to kill you. So it's more effective to chase the cap of whatever you are closer to - but if you're there and still determine you want additional survivability you want to branch out. If you're positional defense, you can ignore psi defense, because most psi attacks have a positional vector. If you're typed defense, you still want to ignore psi defense because there is very little slot-efficient psi def in the game. Most of it comes not from IO sets but from +def to all powers like weave. If you're resistance, you can ignore cold, toxic, and psi to various degrees. The first two are rare, and tend not to appear in threatening amounts when they do (but the one set with a toxic res hole, elec, has literally 0% tox res outside of the ult, so you need to be a bit more knowledgable in identifying toxic threats). Psi is reasonably common at endgame, but most psi enemies have lackluster dps because there aren't many strong psi attacks in game. Psi tends to hurt when most of the mobs in a spawn deal psi damage, as you sometimes see with certain wisp-heavy (or even all-wisp) Rularuu spawns, the psychic clockwork mission, and the mission that's all IDF Seers; or with certain specific mobs like tarantula queens (TK blast and psi wail) or penny yin (who actually gets full-fledged psi melee). Decide how much res you need depending on how capable you are in identifying, adapting to, and neutralizing these threats,

Scrapper+ Much better ATIO Scales better with +dmg (kins, musc alpha etc) due to higher damage scalar Better epics (in particular, access to epic snipes - brutes can't get zapp, psi lance etc.) Scrapper- Less base & max HP Low resist cap AT name doesn't sound as cool as brute

I would: Slot DNA siphon, abalative carapace and parasitic aura heavily: these extremely powerful abilities are the bulk of the set's sustain. In particular abalative should be maxed on absorb - it effectively increases the amount of damage needed to 1-shot you and grants more time to respond to bursts of damage. Another advantage is that unlike heals and regen, it can be used preemptively, before you start taking damage. Remove some slots from passive +recovery/+health powers: they contribute little survivability Judiciously use enhancement boosters to save slots (eg can 2-slot hasten instead of 3-slot) Pursue a focused mitigation strategy: you go after a random mix of various resistances and defenses, but don't really hit any breakpoints. A breakpoint is a local maxima of performance beyond which further investment yields little benefit, such as the defense softcap (45) or resistance hardcap (90). So you either shoot for some such breakpoint, or cut the investment if possible. Slot all low-hanging fruit (both +3 def uniques, both +res uniques, panacea proc in a passive, touch of essence proc in DNA siphon) Slot double -res procs and take whirling smash to increase both ST and aoe damage. TW/bio can fit two -res procs in its ST rotation and on top of that add more -res (rend armor, evo armor) Slot environmental adaptation more fully - it's the main source of ENFC def, and bio is designed to counter SL with res and ENFC with def Drop defensive swing and take crushing blow, the usual starter for the 5s momentum window. However you may prefer the safety of a parry and take the dps hit, so file this one under playstyle differences. Try to find a better home for armageddon than genetic contamination (low dpa aura, toggle = low procrate + wasted rech enh) Consider musculature radial instead of core (you lose a very small bit of +dmg for the equivalent of an SO in all your endurance powers, which could be a lot of slots saved) And finally: Consider a different epic. So, epics are very often a matter of concept or playfeel, but bio doesn't get a lot from energy epic. Different epics may add high-dpa attacks or offer access to powerful, slot-efficient set bonuses. My personal favorite is mako's and arctic air. The key is to think of it as something like shatter armor: a -res power you can load with procs and wreck AV's with. Stripping out the 15 commons you slotted in all your passive regen/recov powers loses you 9.46hps and 0.9eps. A single panacea proc, fitting in the default slot of health, is 3.23hps and 0.375eps, or a little over a third as much. So that's 1 slot, versus the 15 you invest now. You can take a look at these for ideas on minimizing your slotting of your passives. https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/19022-hpregen-proc-cheat-sheet/ https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/8892-slotting-for-endurance-recovery-a-cheat-sheet/ The touch of essence: chance for +end proc in DNA siphon is completely overpowered, and I will not stop preaching this until I get it nerfed into the ground. It rolls and checks to proc separately for each enemy hit. When used in crowds of enemies, you can get upwards of 50 end per power use. In fact, since corpses are valid targets for DNA siphon, you can use it on a pile of corpses, and get a full blue bar back (normally DNA siphon only gives recovery, not +end, from corpses). Here is an example of slotting for def and res in a more focused way. Your barrier has a 2m cooldown and always gives at least 5% res and 5% def to all for 2 min. So it can be thought of as a perma-5% def and res click. That brings this build to ~90% SL res and 45% ENFC def. You don't need psi res because most psi enemies do shit dps, unless they are called penny yin. Edit: I just noticed your offensive adaptation (and hence the self -res malus) is not toggled on. So you're still actually 7.5% SL res from the hardcap. This could be a useful exercise for you - think about how to close the gap yourself, if you like. The usual suspects are aegis, mako's lotgs, and celerities (in sprint/prestige sprint).

I wasn't there, so I have no comment on good or bad play in this specific circumstance. However, a few things about the recruitment message you saw strike me as, if not red flags, signs that you're not going to get what's advertised. To start off, it's a pug 2*. For those not in the know, pug 1* and 2* tend to attract players who are inexperienced or for whatever reason not confident enough to do 4*. Now, there's nothing wrong with that - people have to start somewhere - but I find it odd that they also advertise 1h completion time and 100m in loot, since it likely won't be a very smooth or efficient run. Then, they say "know what you're doing". I never ask people to know what they're doing, and no serious leader I know of does, either. One may filter out a couple of the unconfident and anxiety-ridden (which conversely might turn out to be gems in the rough if given proper support and knowledge), but real problem players are never deterred by such messages - the whole reason they are bad is they think they know what they're doing when they don't. Then of course there are things like the lackluster comp and lack of communication. Good players can make suboptimal comps/builds work, and they all have ESP and can read each others' minds, but if you're running with pubbies, and especially if you know your team will attract the inexperienced, it pays to spend some time looking at these aspects. I am a huge advocate of frank and forthright criticism. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with telling someone that their performance is poor or that what they're doing is wrong. However, saying nothing the whole TF only to go "X you're blocked" at the end sounds like hilarious cowardice to me. Not only is this not criticism, at the very least, one should be able to get as well as one gives.

An elite squad of GM-ninjas paradrops into your home and uninstalls coh for you while your mugshot is sent to the report-er for gloating on social media. That'll teach you to say unflattering things about my costume. Muahahahaha. Bwahahahahahahaha! People can report anything they like; it doesn't necessarily mean you have done something wrong. P.S. I have not actually reported anyone.

Stone has the best mitigation out of the box. That is not necessarily the same as best, which is what OP asked and what I answered, or even toughest in certain situations. While both are extremely powerful in coh due to accelerating returns, res doesn't protect against irresistible attacks, nor def against autohit (or just annoyingly high tohit) ones, but healing, absorb, and regen work against both. In hard mode, where all armor sets operate near or at mit caps, a tank's dps output becomes more relevant than ever; every second the AV stays alive is a second more for someone to screw up and wipe, losing lore pets. The OP is asking for the "hero's hero". The tank that, and I quote, "makes AVs cry and minions arrest themselves". The OP sees attracted to the tank that they view as "subjectively the best for all content, including endgame". To me, it seems like the OP is looking for something other than the Great Meat Wall of China (though there's no shame if that's what you'd rather play) - something more like a tankhealermage. That's why I say, if you want the fastest hero, play the Flash; the strongest, the Hulk; but if you want Superman, play Bio Armor.

This build is competently made and covers all the essentials. The suggestions I can make to you are primarily minor optimizations, not fundamental changes to build goals or My preliminary thoughts are: Meteor needs -kb in it (But maybe you do want the kb; I think it's hilarious.) You probably don't need the entropic heal proc, since regrowth heals yourself You probably don't need that many slots in maneuvers (specifically, the acc bonus from 4x lotg) since you already have +tohit from overgrowth. Think about 4x shieldwall if you like or trim a slot If you are splitting up your ATIO2, one option for meteor is 3x scourging blast (DR, ADR, DER) + overwhelming force KB2KD. This caps damage enhancement and loses only 5.5% rech enhancement (less than a second more cooldown) compared to 5x ragnarok. The low acc is not a problem, since you have +tohit from overgrowth and will presumably use aim before nuking. Your FF proc should go in upthrust if possible. FF procs really shine in the spammable aoes, less so in nukes. With it in meteor, even with a hypothetical 100% procrate, you only get 1 proc (5s duration) every 45-50s. In upthrust, you have a potential chance to proc it every 5s for 5s. See what I mean? So I suggest shuffling your slotting as follows: Shatter: 5x apoc (all but DR, you don't want the R to reduce procrate), 1x achilles -res Entomb: 6x malice of the corr Tombstone: 5x manticore (all but AIR), 1x toxic damage proc - this still runs shatter entomb quick-tombstone Meteor: as above Rock shards: 3x scourging blast (AD, quad, proc), 1x ragnarok DR or posiblast ADE, 2x damage procs Upthrust: 5x ragnarok and 1x damage proc This has some minor gains and produces 2 free slots at the cost of about 0.53s longer cooldown on meteor, but the main benefit is what I believe are better locations for your FF proc and a kb2kd in meteor. The catch is that your scourging blast +end proc is no longer in an ST blast, but as a nature you already give near-perma endrdx so you have more freedom on where to place it without running out of blue.

I would just like to say that the name made me crack a smile. EN res is the rarest res*. Scrappers don't have access to a lot of it. Your main options in approximately decreasing order of feasibility are: 4x shieldwall (you can almost always afford at least 1 set of this because you need the unique anyway), 3x adj targeting, 6x bombardment if you have an epic aoe, and 5x basilisk if you have an epic hold. I would be very surprised if you could get more than 40 without significant compromise to your other major build goals. Why not try to cap EN def instead? That should be quite easy with a few sets of eradications given all the pbaoes you have access to. * after SL, but most builds need less SL due to Tough.

Bio is best because it has everything. It has mitigation, sustain, and dps. Its mitigation is a combination between def and res. Its sustain is a split between regen, direct healing, and absorb. Its dps is a mix of self +dmg +tohit and enemy -regen -res. It even has strong debuff resists (missing mainly -def) and an excellent endurance economy. When you have this kind of layered, well-synergized defense and offense that is unlikely to be neutered by any single foe, and when you have high values in all three variables of the Tanker Equation (survivability = mitigation * healing * dps), you have the best armor set in the game. However, bio is not an afk set. You might need to press a button every now and then to live.

I don't play coh for the story, the comic book theme, the community, the missions, the pvp, etc. While all of these are pretty good in coh, I contend that they are common in the modern gaming landscape. There's lots of good story games out there, for example, if you know where to look (hint: not anything from a major, especially AAA publisher). What really strikes me about coh is the degree of agency it affords players over character builds. Modern games, especially MMO's where people can be ostracized for suboptimal or just non-meta character choices, are very afraid to let players make terrible builds. You can't screw up a build in most games, because the game systems will not allow you to. Stats are assigned automatically, key powers are given by default, and at most the player might have a minor choice between different equipment pieces, talent trees, or stances. On the other hand, coh is unusually willing to let players do things that in most MMO's would be considered self-defeating. Coh will allow you to theoretically make a toon that will run out of end and detoggle itself, for example. It will allow you to skip all your best attacks and strongest powers. There are some very basic guardrails: the game won't let you play a toon with 0 damaging powers. At least one of your level 0 power choices must do damage, even if you are a controller or mastermind. But in general the character creator is happy to let you do what you like, even if it's not optimal, even if it's objectively a bad idea, even if it won't actually work - and equally important, to try again for minimal cost. You can play a 0 def 0 res blapper and try to survive. You can try to solo the ITF with a petless MM or empath fender. Have you tried a high-dps, procbombing invuln tanker using unstoppable to cap res and unrelenting and ageless to mitigate the crash? Pointlessly high-effort, but startlingly effective. The game is still terrified of letting its players fail in general. The pve is laughably easy, and you can't actually fail missions, for example. "Failed" missions are just successfully completed missions with a different narrative ending. And the build design landscape isn't as varied and interesting as it could be: IO set choice still boils down to the big 5 potential build goals (rech, def, res, procs and enhancement values). But it masks these behind the illusion of choice presented by 24 power choices and 67 enhancement slots to assign. So, to me, coh is the game that still dares to offer players real agency in build design, comparable to what you might get in a tabletop game of Pathfinder or D&D. The only other comparable games I have found are Dungeons & Dragons online, and EVE Online where you get to design your own ship.

I once made a sample invuln tanker base with no purples or winter IO's (very few enhancements more than 5m apiece, in fact), that can be customized with your choice of epic or pool powers, and has about 40% def to all with 1 foe in range and 70% res to all with 1 stack of might of the tanker proc. It's for StJ, but you should be able to easily modify it to work with /dark.

My SS/regen has, I think, 65 SL res and 55 ENFC res. On top of this, I cycle barrier, melee core and rune of prot. Barrier is perma, and when it + either of the other big mitigation clickies are active I will have at least 87 SL and 77 ENFC res, then the heals and mog take care of the rest. You want to try and refresh barrier while both rune and melee hybrid are down, to get the most of the strong initial 30s. It's very tough, and it excels against certain enemies that have abnormally high tohit. Heals and regen work equally well against all damage types and don't care what enemies' tohit is. But I think all this really proves is that if you're willing to toss all your incarnate slots, a ton of power choices, and most of your set bonuses into mitigation (plus take a parry set like staff or MA on top, as most other regens are), anything can be made indestructible.

You're squishy because your build has bad DDR (no 2x active def, no grant cover) and somewhat low def (only melee capped). While you have high resists with owts, its uptime is too brief to carry the mitigation all on its own. Since you're not cycling owts > rune of prot > melee core, you need to ensure your def is sufficient for your mitigation needs. A shield brute should have: North of 45% def. The excess is a buffer against -def attacks and leadership from certain enemies. How much more is up to you, but I don't recommend more than 54% (i-capped with a defense amp). 70% -def resist before ageless. 91% with ageless radial. This is achieved by stacking active defense twice and taking grant cover (the -def res does affect you). As much HP and resists as you can assemble after achieving the above, without sacrificing offensive power Underwhelming Farce is very weak. Outside of the proc, it has only a few very niche uses. You're better off with one of the good pbaoe sets and slotting just the proc separately. Slotting phalanx fighting does not enhance the always-on portion. It only enhances the part you get when allied toons stand near you. Generally, the stronger enhancement should be in eg. weave, and you can mule the defense uniques in phalanx. Avoid heavy investment in phalanx where possible, because it is a lot of slots spent that you may not see a return on. On a related note, I think you are overdosing on acc bonuses especially since you already have focused acc and 2 purple sets. Usual lotg slotting is either 3x or 5x (for the SL res), occasionally 6x if you need psi/tox res. You can afford to trim some acc bonuses and compensate with a kismet +tohit somewhere. This means you only have 2 effective ST attacks. I am curious if this is a deliberate choice, or if you just ran out of slots. Of the 2 level 0 attacks, Hack is the better by far. The best BS rotation that does not use epic or other attacks is headsplitter hack disembowel hack (small gap) repeat, requiring about 304% rech enhancement in hack to be gapless. If you're a hasteless build, you can mix in parry (weaker but gives melee def) or slash instead. I wonder how important the psi/tox res from the 6th slot is to you. Generally, you do not need psi or tox res if you softcap positional def, since most psi attacks have a positional vector. Dropping the 6th slot would open up the possibility of putting offensive procs. Here's an example of how you can softcap while achieving the same or more resistances. 5 slots left to go. (Note the energy torrent replacing evasive. Despite the description in-game, etorrent does knock down, not kb. This is a good example of the power of set diversity - how having more categories of IO sets available to us lets us take advantage of the most slot-efficient options in each.) This build is still 35% or so rech away from double-stacking AD. For that, you need agility alpha, more rech, or hasten. The choice is yours. I would personally drop the unrelenting fury and settle for lower res, permahasten and double -res procs in the ST rotation. Making this really reminds me of why I prefer shield on scrappers. Scraps have the option of an easy 5% aoe def from their ATIO2 so there's just a lot more choice to play with. bsshield.mbd

1) I can't find this change in the patch notes. From what I've seen, HC does not do stealth fixes (they may not always explain their reasoning for a change, but they always report it). 2) If it was fixed, people would be whining about it. Very loudly. 3) It is explicitly flagged to stack in the game engine. (Pshifter +end proc does not stack. Panacea does stack, but only works if the target is friendly, which is not the case for powers like rad therapy and dark regen which target enemies - it won't fire even once.) You might be misremembering the change, long ago, to power transfer +HP, which IIRC was in the opposite direction - they made it so that multiple power transfers in different autopowers could proc independently. Regardless, feel free to correct me if you test it and discover otherwise - I'd be very interested in knowing if the proc's behavior has changed.