Zect

Don't worry, because I toggled it on to judge your build; in my post, I even quoted the correct amount of rech you have with hasten (113.8%). Replacing all the rech IO's in your build with +5's, your hasten recharges in 145s (vs 129s with my modifications above). Your rage recharges in 89s (vs 66.55s with my modifications above). You actually have what I might call 1.5-rage instead of double-rage. It will actually be even less than that in practice, since hasten is not close to perma, so for a substantial amount of time you're going to have less rech than mids inidcates. So a +5, level 50 endrdx saves about 2.6 end per use of the power. I think it's fair to say that is not a significant difference. As for toe, you are using rad therapy in a crowd, are you? Getting the proc to roll on lots of targets each time is how you abuse it. I'm sorry if I sound like I'm talking down to you and telling you things you already know, but there are a lot of misconceptions in your post so I'm trying to be very thorough. As I stated, small amounts of defense aren't significant, at least not in the situations where your res and absorbs are not sufficient (which I should clarify are already uncommon to begin with). This presents an opportunity to scrounge up some slots by removing things like your GA+3 def. This is why I stated 0% def to all in build goals. Of course, feel free to keep them if you prefer, but I can tell you that any effect is more psychological than material. A placebo bonus, if you will. Have you actually been knocked back without it? Rad armor is among the (majority of) armor sets that have 10000% KU, KB res in its toggles in addition to -KB. This resistance further reduces incoming KB magnitude before applying -KB. In general you should not be knocked back by resistible knockback at all. If things are knocking you back, that means they either have an irresistible KB or you detoggled your -kb. I am traveling and without any of the machines I usually play from, so I'm unable to run tests; but if anyone has contradicting info, please do post it. I haven't killed a lot of revamped council, so I'm interested in the results. The purple sets in my example add +45% global acc (54% with the 5x adjusted targeting) that fully ignores ED. That's your nerve core paragon right there, without taking up the alpha slot. Resilient on its own is a good choice as I demonstrate, however, what I'm also trying to get across is the synergy of 1) resilient replacing res set bonuses which allows us to 2) slot purples and invest heavily in recharge, which then 3) gives us higher tohit and more procs in addition to resists, thus resulting in 4) greater defensive and offensive power. There is a panacea in health, though you can't see it in the image. PT is optional on sets with strong self-sustain like rad. It is better on sets that have a lot of mit but are poor on sustain, like invuln and shield. Nevertheless, I do know many people like them which is why I have graciously included unspent slots for you to place them if you desire. I think of everything. Comparing the benefits of melt armor and char to fireball is irrelevant, since usually these are taken along with fireball, so it's not an either-or situation. It seems what you're saying is that you're satisfied with the bonuses offered by char and melt armor, and do not want to invest in fireball. To me, that's fine; while there are optimal epic power choices, pools and epics are often a matter of playfeel so you have to pick what you like. Nevertheless, you are underestimating the value of fireball. The typical fireball slotting, 2x frozen blast 3x damage procs, is a 16 target, 22.5 foot radius (yes it benefits from gauntlet, a little testing with evenly spaced enemies such as cimerorans on the wall will reveal this), ~250 damage aoe while also muling a 15% slow resist bonus. You can compensate if you proc out your rad therapy though which still gives you 3 aoe nukes. As for "This is a tank, not brute or blaster", I've noticed that inexperienced players - especially tank players - tend to slant defensively in terms of build design, not knowing what they can handle. However, it can be worth to ask "Is it possible to build a tank that is also a brute or blaster?" because not only do offense and defense work in synergy the techniques and play skills learned can be very helpful in optimizing for defense as well, as I have demonstrated in my last post. It's also the best for you! Look, I wouldn't bother offering it if I didn't think it was materially better than what you're currently doing. Frankly, it's better if we can all cut the "oh, everything's an opinion" bullshit. Some things are a matter of playstyle, others are up to personal judgment, but there's plenty in build design that is objective, too - like 113.8% global rech being nowhere near a wash with 158.8%.

The good: 100% slow res No deceptive shit like claiming capped resists with meltdown at 19% uptime toggled on The bad: Low rech (113.8%) Resists (strongly recommended to close the neg hole; nictus, BP are major endgame enemy groups) Some puzzling slotting - endrdx in rad therapy? Aegis when you haven't maxed out on impervium armor procs?? Botz??? I want to hear the reasoning behind the last one. Half-hearted defense slotting - I see what you're going for with the diamagnetic and -tohit from beta decay, but from experience the amounts you can muster are unlikely to matter against truly dangerous critters, where res and absorbs alone do not cut it. Def is good if you can get it from a parry set (eg storm kick), barrier, purple insps, or ally buffs, because these offer huge amounts of def for relatively few build resources. It's less hot if you need to contort your build to get it. Wrong alpha - nerve doesn't boost any of the stats you want (rech) or can get easily (res) so it provides bad value I really dislike telling people to pick different epic powers since it is often a matter of playfeel/concept, but taking fire mastery and then skipping fireball is like building a mansion then deciding not to buy a roof to go with it. Build goals and breakpoints for building a rad/ss: 90% SLENF res with 1 stack of ATO1 proc. It's 1 stack because if res is your primary mit layer you do not want to sit there spamming jab to try and keep up 2 stacks. 0% def - putting it here to make it clear. You will just let mobs hit you 100% of the time. Trust me, it's fine. If you really feel unsafe, take barrier. Or eat insps. Or use knockdowns, or just kill more stuff. Double-stacked rage (~65s cooldown on rage; this lets it come off cooldown just as each crash is ending) 85%-100% slow res As much damage as possible End, lots and lots of it. Double-rage SS gobbles blue like nothing. Key concepts: Recommended alpha: resilient core paragon. Resilient has good value on res tankers because they have high res values to begin with. This will nearly singlehandedly meet your resistance needs enabling you to avoid devoting set bonuses to res. Building for resistance with set bonuses is extremely slot-inefficient because res set bonuses are tiny (the tradeoff being that res is far more reliable mitigation than def). This also buffs the tohit from rage. Double-stacked rage gives nearly +60% tohit. This is huge considering that base tohit vs +4 foes is only 48%. This massive tohit crushes enemy def bonuses and powers through enemy tohit debuffs. It saves a slot from not needing kismet +tohit. It takes care of all your acc slotting needs. 3-5 lotg mules for rech are recommended. You only have 2, which makes your rech very low. Again, I hate to tell people to change their pool picks but if you can stand being stealthed it's worth changing your travel power to infiltration, which takes an lotg. This is how you might put the above advice into practice while keeping all your current power choices except trading SJ for infil. Rage recharges in 66.55s, haste in 126s, 95% slow res. Finally, you have summoned me in particular for advice. While this is flattering, you should not view me as some kind of authority on rad/SS, or builds in general. I strongly encourage you to seek out contrasting views and builds, to challenge the received wisdom, to look, compare, and try to outdo me. The pleasure and fruits of success will be all yours. (That said, good rad/SS builds all look fairly similar (differing mainly in their pool power layout, how hard they proc and where they mule the rech bonuses).)

Scrapper; passive anti-CC and good dps even without gear. Brutes are also good solo AT's but some people (certainly not me, but some other people) may expect you to 'tank' as in take point. Nobody ever wants anything from a scrap, so it's the perfect unga-bunga class. Primary: any. The melee powersets are highly homogenized and coh toons do not have complex rotations like most other MMO's. 2ndary: willpower; passive mana regen, passive defenses, no clicks to manage. Absolutely not important; some people haven't learned how to build competently after playing for close to 20 years, and they do just fine. You can respec very easily; you'll get a respec (type /respec) every 10 levels, more are sold on the cheap, and there is no limit to how many times you can do it. Sentinel; ranged, but with the anti-CC and defenses of melee classes. Blaster; the other classes typically recommended are very handholdy, as in they insulate you from most of the challenges that exist in the game. Blasters have little anti-CC and defenses, so they quickly learn to identify and deal with threats, to conserve resources and build situational awareness. A brute will carry you, a blaster will teach you how to play. This AT is for the new player who does not fear knowledge and growth.

I often sell superior winter-O's on the AH (these generally come from respecs of old builds) and mail the inf around. Inf is easily convertible to whatever I want. Enhancements are considerably less so. Obviously, if inf is a concern your calculus will differ, but for the wealthy it's the difference between going shopping with a Mastercard, as opposed to having to dig up one of my 498 treasure stashes of pirate gold.

Of course not! That's all me. Jests aside, there is no way to deny it is a major component of the problem. The ability to add ED-busting, AT scalar-busting, damage cap-busting dps in significant amounts has significant balance implications, which deserve to be closely examined and acted on. The PPM system is actually not fundamentally broken wrt damage procs (which is what it was designed in mind for). It needs a balance pass, which it has never been subject to, and aspects like set bonus rech not being factored in the PPM formula deserve looking at. But ultimately, the idea of being able to trade set bonuses for damage is a beneficial one, one that has increased build diversity greatly. The problematic cases are the non-damage procs, things like toe +end or gaussians's or tanker ATIO1, which in certain cases can be finagled to produce impact far beyond what a single slot should ever be able to offer. We're talking things like completely refilling the blue bar with a click, or installing build up with something like 33% uptime with a slot. All non-damage procs need to be re-coded to have their own independent rules for firing. Prevmed is an example of a proc that is built this way and as a result, is both valuable and balanced. There is no need to invoke the fear of the dark ages, when supersition and savagery ruled the world, and heathens ran rampant among the ruins of Rome. Done properly, balance changes ultimately increase both fun and build diversity. People cried doom when bugged burn was fixed, saying it would make FA cease to be viable, yet today FA is more versatile than it ever was, and still does ridiculous amounts of dps while tanking the hardest content in the game successfully. Similarly, the typed defense overhaul (which I admit I never thought any dev team would have the political will to pull off) led to a revolution in typed defense builds as mitigation overnight became a far more subtle and enjoyable problem to solve than sticking kincombats in every hole. Personally, I eagerly anticipate a revamped PPM system which will force me to redo all my builds; I know HC team won't disappoint.

I have a different perspective on the whole aprocalypse thing. I generally think that you should not let fear of nerfs impact your ability to enjoy powers in the here and now. On the contrary, as it is far better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all, one should enjoy them while they last. I ruthlessly abuse procs in many of my builds. If procs are nerfed, then not only did I enjoy the finite time they were available, but I also did my part in pushing for beneficial balance changes by raising the profile of proc balance - the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and all that. if procs are not nerfed, then I continue to enjoy grossly overpowered builds that achieve power levels the game was never designed for. Whoever loses, I win.

Procs are immune to the rule that they stop working when exemplared below (IO level - 3). You can get a mako proc or tod proc to fire when exemped down to level 1, as a quick jaunt to your local AE farm will demonstrate. What may have gotten mixed up here is that procs do stop working, if you exemplar low enough that the power they are slotted in is no longer available. But this is simply a consequence of the fact that procs require the power they are slotted in to activate for they themselves to fire. No power, no proc.

This intrigued me so I went and looked up this person's suggestions. Among them are: CoH being free is bad and Homecoming should charge for it In general OP seems in favor of p2w mechanics, which puzzled me until I realized they are from Russia; they're probably scarred by Soviet-era Communism. Lowering the value of your height slider in character creation should give stealth radius, raising it should give +maxHP Intriguing idea. I propose that on female toons (and only females) increasing the bust slider should increase your number of enhancement slots because you can install more enhancements. In the interest of gender equality we can take this opportunity to install a bulge slider for men. Mastermind upgrades should be autopowers Excellent comedy, I had a great laugh! Try fifty-plus. Tab-target MMO players are older than the general gaming population, and CoH is like, old old (predating WoW by 7 months).

This build has adequate def (except for the phalanx issue which has already been pointed out), but disregarding your FF proc in lightning clap, the rech is really poor since you are hasteless due to concept. Even as a hasteless build, it is still worth getting AD close to 60s recharge to double-stack it, yes it does stack. This significantly increases your DDR from 66% to 88%. Shield tankers are the only shields who can consider not taking ageless radial to buff their DDR. Some points for further improvement: Firstly, thunderstrike does KB, a lot of it. Me, I personally enjoy knocking enemies out of tar patches and sleets, but I am guessing from the sudden accel you have slotted in lightning clap that you do not. In that case, you may want to rearrange your sets so that you can get an overwhelming force unique in there. Secondly, on shield tankers deflection is usually slotted for resistance, not def. The reason is that tankers naturally have an excess of melee def due to the types of sets they have access to (as evidenced by your 58% melee vs 50% R/aoe def). So on most builds, it is a gain to slot deflection for res and then rely on your set bonuses to make up the melee def, resulting in an overall gain of SL res. This in turn could allow you to cut SL res bonuses elsewhere. It also means you can think about dropping a piece of oblit (losing 3.75 melee def) to fit in a desired proc, like the one I mentioned above. In general, when you have significantly imbalanced defenses like this, that is usually a good sign that you can optimize further either by cutting down on the excess defense or raising the lower defenses to match. It's difficult to discuss any tanker without a comprehensive discussion of incarnate strategy, because tankers stand to gain so much from incarnates, so this is where my advice ends. For now, think about what alpha you should slot and how you can use it to cut even more defensive slotting to invest in dps and rech.

Conserve power doesn't work on the rage crash, at least not directly. It does help by reducing your overall eps, but it doesn't reduce the amount the crash deducts (which is flagged to ignore enhancement). Ideally, you want some recovery buff as well. For endgame IO tankers at least, all the issues with rage are somewhat addressable. SS will not do damage directly during the crash, but SS is one of the best procbomber sets and procs do damage just fine even during the crash. We have considerably more means to deal with the end loss such as harmonic mind or survival amps (even before deploying incarnate endo management tools like ageless). And the defense loss is much less significant given tankers' incredibly high base defense and strong ability to stack resistance instead.

Personally, I have always found TW too swishyswooshy and lacking in powpowkblam, so I support your proposition. I suspect that rejiggering animations is unlikely to happen though. I especially like that you brought this up: For anyone who doesn't know, powers in coh neither apply their effects at the start of the animation, nor at the end. There is a field in power data that indicates how far into the animation must pass before the effect is applied, appropriately called Animation Time Before Effect. Powers, especially damage powers, with long ATBE will feel very sluggish and unresponsive compared to powers with short ATBE, even given the same total animation time. I think a lot of Paragon's newer (post-GR) damage sets fall victim to this, as any beam rifle player can attest. To illustrate how bad this issue is on TW: Seismic Smash Cast Arcanatime: 1.716 sec Animation Time Before Effect: 0.833 sec (48.5% of the way through) Rend Armor (slow) Cast Arcanatime: 2.508 sec Animation Time Before Effect: 2.267 sec (90.4% of the way through) All I have to say is lmao.

I write gigantic posts where necessary, and rarely have trouble with people not reading the whole thing. If what you have to say is truly valuable, people will listen - as for the ones that refuse to, it's their loss, so why should you care?

I want Orbital Strike. You can copy the fx from keyes.

True, but being able to efficiently utilize ancillary resources like insps, temps or active incarnate abilities is arguably also one of a build's virtues, unless you specifically design for a threat environment where those don't function (4* or e-peen challenges, basically). I used to be very strict on the "no inspirations" thing, for example, until I had an eureka moment and realized that leaving this constant stream of free stats that rains from the sky is actually suboptimal. It is very likely more optimal to design a build to get the greatest benefit from insps without burning them faster than they drop.

Tanks get around this, because tankers are overpowered: you just build for 65% def to softcap despite the crash and continue raging away. I call it cold fury. Out of the box, an ice tank is softcapped with just the toggles, both +3 uniques, weave, and 1 more def pool power (CJ/hover/maneuvers/stealth). So you just add some set bonuses and energy absorption on top of that (which gives around +10% def to all) and not even rage can un-softcap you.

That's not the issue with this poorly-designed build. The issue is the build goals are unfocused and it's not clear what breakpoints, if any, are being aimed for. Even if we assume that this mishmash of low recharge and minor def/res bonuses makes sense, the build is hampered by omitting several powerful uniques, such as the unbreakable guard 7.5, and utilizing inefficient slotting. Of particular note is slotting 2-3 different sets in the same power, eg. you slot 3x doctwounds and 2x panacea in parasitic. This costs 4 added slots but gains only 3 bonuses (the weakest ones from both sets). While there are many situations where slotting different sets in the same power is beneficial, for example to pick up a convenient 2-piece bonus from a proc/unique already in the same power, repeating this unnecessarily across the whole build causes the disadvantage to add up. With only minor changes to the posted build, we can install about 28% more rech and 200 more max HP on it while keeping, more or less, all your original stats. This only scratches the surface of what proper application of build design principles achieves. However, I do give you credit for a few things: 1) toggling on offensive, and 2) improving the slot-efficiency - it is nowhere as bad as the last one I saw from you. It is clear that you have taken at least some of my criticisms to heart. What's relevant is that 2 builds for the Bio/EM tank can end up with vastly different performance even given the same build goals. This is why builds are offered and feedback is sought: the potential of improvement. Hence, be clear and objective in what a build offers - breakpoints met, strategies pursued, stats achieved and dps dealt, along with the target threat environment, mission profile and playstyle. If you choose to pursue a design direction that is not optimal, indicate that it is not optimal so that others can make an informed decison. And if you choose not to take advantage of increased performance (whatever the reason), let it be a conscious decision to leave that additional performance on the table while being satisficed. Decision, not delusion.

I am traveling so I do not have mids available to me, and I'm too lazy to run the napkin math; however, chances are good that you stand to gain a lot by dropping spiritual. It is very likely gimping your proc chances. Drop spiritual for resilient core paragon, cut a bunch of res bonuses, replace geddon proc in rad therapy with glad fury -res, slot 5x armageddon (all but R/A), 1x FF proc, and boost the commons in hasten. This should keep roughly the same res, put hasten within 10s of perma, and gives more average damage in tremor than your previous slotting, that's just how bad rech enhancement and aoes are for proc chances. With your FF procs in both single-target and aoe attacks, you will still be close to permahasten in combat if not actually there. You can also consider dropping all that extraneous melee def: I can see what you're going for with the DN from your epic, but you really don't need it. While we're on the subject, think about dropping all your useless cold and psi res too. I challenge you to actually die to anything doing cold or psi damage. Your seismic smash slotting did more psychosomatic damage to me than any psi mobs will do to a tank (change to +5 hecatomb D, D/E, proc + unbreakable constraint proc + 2 more damage procs, or 2x blistering cold + 4 damage procs). Upping your slow res might be more valuable.

I am away on holiday but I was intrigued enough that I had to arrange for someone to do this for me. (corr numbers.) Let no heathen doubt the sacred lore of the double tar patch! Unbelievers will be fed to the fluffies.

Fully saturated soul drain is slightly less likely on fenders than armored AT's, due to the lack of taunt auras to keep mobs tightly clustered around the caster. There is also some value in being able to buff at range and then go in only for the nuke. However, ultimately I'm just being very literal and assuming that OP only wants /dark and not /soul as a D3. Definitely try out soul if you like - it also lets you power boost heals.

D3 was very valued in the days before the softcap meta became dominant, because it very easily floored enemy tohit even without any gear. In the modern age, it is still an effective combo - it's not like any of the powers have stopped working - but what it offers is no longer anything special because +def buffs are everywhere. One recent development is the replacement of pbaoe soul drain with taoe spirit drain. I do not post builds, but here are general notes for constructing a highly efficient D3 that will be effective in all threat environments and mission profiles: Take tactics. Dark miasma's primary weakness is it does not have any -def, so tactics is your primary way of increasing team hit chance. Stack your tar patch (or be close to doing so). Endgame darks have Tar patch recharging in 22.5 to 25.0s to stack the -res against hard targets and increase your dps. This is a unique strength that several other support sets (rad, therm, time etc) do not enjoy. Skimp slightly on defense. Both your primary and 2ndary inflict -tohit, so there is no need to go overboard building for defense. Your target defense varies depending on comfort and your other build goals, usually ranging from 32.5%-40%. (In general, for most unarmored toons 40% is the new 45%; in team content maneuvers are very prevalent (I challenge you to get on a team with 0 maneuvers running. Yep, thought so.) to provide the last 5% and there is no point stretching build resources to go to 45% or beyond, while solo the last 5% is a defense amp away (barrier if you're poor) which as a side effect also deletes mezzes as a game mechanic). Take spirit drain. This is one of the main epic options for getting decent dps as a fender (another being procced GFS) and with a 15ft radius it will generally cap out at 5 targets for a nice +80% damage/+20% tohit. You have now installed build up on a fender, enjoy. Most of your build will be defined by your mitigation strategy. You can generally get R/aoe to 40-45%, or tri-vector to 35%-40%, and SL resists at 50+% (fightingless) or 75% (with fighting) depending on your pool power and incarnate configuration.

Not enough people know about the LFG-port, a feature that's literally been in the game since live. Just pay Penny or Manti a visit if you need to train, or any contact kind enough to stand next to a trainer. Cimerora not on the train? Ouro no go to Croatoa? Not a problem. Remember, LFG stands for Let's F***ing Go.

Oh, it's just the old 801 thread; I thought you'd invented some new test or methodology to gauge armor sets with. For the uninitiated, the linked thread is specifically about 801.A, one of a series of high-difficulty AE missions made before 'hard' mode was a thing to challenge players. The 801.x series has incoming dps and debuffs that are much higher than you will ever expect to see in anything made by a dev. Per the thread, "801.A is 5k sustained dps, with frequent 10k dps bursts, and some 25+k dps bursts, along with -300 defense, -300 resist, -100 to-hit, -endurance, -recovery, -recharge, and just about everything else you can imagine." The higher-difficulty 801s are also all-EB, which invalidates certain strategies and defenses. For comparison, most enemy groups in the 'normal' game at +4x8 do not do more than 1.3-1.5k dps. They can't, because if you raise incoming dps too high, you start making it difficult for the unarmored AT's to play, and that has never been Paragon's design direction. (And I'm reasonably sure, Homecoming's; though I can't speak for either.) The main exception are hardmode mobs. I have also observed Linea play in person, and their playstyle is very different from that of your usual coher. Linea is a lot more like Batman, and will use every resource available. This includes resources that some players consider verboten, like amps and base buffs. So what this test proves is, that in a specific AE mission under incoming dps and debuffs far in excess of what you will encounter in just about any reasonable situation, Batman playing a shield/DM or /rad will be the toughest. None of this is to say I disagree with you; under the conditions described, your conclusion is the accurate one. Rather, my point is to ask the typical audience for this kind of thread - the usual forumite fretting about which armor set is the best/most optimized etc: 1) do you think the threat environment and mission profile described above applies to you, and 2) do you think you are Batman, or at least Robin? If not, your considerations may be very different. If yes, Linea's thread has builds for you.

I'm very interested in your test and wish to subscribe to your newsletter. Please state your methodology, I'm excited to go and replicate some results.

DPS. The scrapper forums have always had a notable bias for sustained ST dps, especially of the kind measured by pylon tests, because this is the most easily quantifiable kind. How much it lags behind the other sets isn't really the point, because this is a symptom of a broader problem with balance. The coh meta has generally shifted towards dps to the exclusion of everything else. There is very little tolerance in the community, especially among its most vocal members, for sets that do not offer good dps regardless of what other benefits they bring. The changes that players support are ones that either add dps, or add dps with extra steps (e.g. procs, -res). It is fairly common to hear people opine that "reducing (dps) differences between sets will improve balance". Such utterances sound reasonable at first, until you use your brain and realize what they really mean: there is nothing a power set can offer that is worth a hit to dps.

You see, this is the kind of moxie I respect. When you make a suboptimal decision, and acknowledge that it is suboptimal but that you are comfortable taking the performance loss for whimsical personal reasons. Most of scrapper/stalker FA's issues are not insurmountable with good play and a little help, cough cough soul epic. However for me the lack of aggro aura ended up being a dealbreaker. If you are playing FA you likely want to enjoy Burn. I feel that not being able to keep stuff in the burn patch reliably has a good chance to put a dampener on your inner pyromaniac.