Zect

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.

The reason you find dark difficult to survive on while leveling is that 1) dark leans heavily on dark regen and 2) has a few less-obvious weaknesses, such as lack of slow res and -KB. While leveling, you have neither incarnate end management tools, nor was anyone kind enough to explain the touch of essence chance for +end trick to you (unlike most such procs, it rolls and procs separately for each critter hit, so slotting it in dark regen can give a lot of end per power use). Rad is a lot more all-rounded and stronger out of the box, with built-in slow res, powerful end management, formidable debuff resists, and its healing split into 2 powers (rad therapy is 3.0x acc and particle shield requires no tohit check, so neither of them is likely to miss). Despite having less HPS on paper, rad feels a lot stronger on common's only and is simply overpowered in general terms. Most tanker primaries can be built to approximately the same, very high level of survivability. They differ in the investment needed to get them to that level, which is what is usually missing from these discussions. You can build a shield to have as much mitigation as a granite tanker, but it's generally going to require cycling owts and rune and whatnot. So that's a heavy cost in power choices and incarnate abilities. The stone just needs to turn on granite... but it does need to know how to deal with the movement restrictions (very easy now that HC added combat teleport).

I usually assume any brute build that softcaps only SL either hasn't been updated since the changes or is still doing some SL farm.

While most discussions tend to focus on procbombing builds, i.e. damage procs, the PPM system is actually reasonably fair - for damage procs. You can tweak the formula, tweak the proc amounts, but overall the idea of trading set bonuses and enhancement values for dps is not one I consider inherently problematic. I find the non-damaging procs to be far more harmful to balance, including cases such as gaussian's (can be abused in a variety of ways to give uptime far higher than actual build up ever can), touch of essence (refilling the entire blue bar with 1 click likely was never an intended use case for this proc) and might of the tanker (13-19% res to all incl psi from 1 slot while in combat, most actual tanker powers aren't even this strong). They all need to be redesigned to not follow the PPM formula and become globals with their own distinct, and more balanced, rules for firing. We already have examples of such procs: preventive medicine is one, and it's why it remains valuable yet balanced.

Based on my understanding: This means that 2 players using the same power on the same target stack. This means 1 player using the same power on the same target stacks. If an effect does not stack from the same player, but is intended to stack from different players, then it will have stacking is per caster and replaces existing effect. Example: infrigidate. You spamming it on an AV doesn't do anything more after the 1st cast, but 2 different coldfenders using it will stack (probably so people welcome duplicate AT's/powersets in teams). Nearly every selectable power in the game, including things like blasts and attacks and travel powers, is flagged stacking is per caster. I actually cannot think of an exception off the top of my head. The most well known "power" that does not have stacking is per caster is the achilles heel -res. In this case 2 different kat scrappers applying it do not stack (neither does one of them slotting it in every attack).

Yes. There is very little that is innovative about this kind of build. The SL def comes from scorp shield, the FC def comes from winter sets, and the EN def comes from a combination of ATIO's, winter sets, and misc other sets, depending on your power layout. These are all conventional options for blasters. The only incarnate power necessary is barrier, for the last 5% def: without barrier you cannot get close to permahasten. Which means such a blaster can slot musculature and assault like the dps blasters. You see what I mean when I talk about having 80% of two things?

I’m posting from mobile, so I can’t comment on the build itself yet. However, modern dark really doesn’t starve for end anymore. Just slot a theft of essence proc in dark regen and make sure to use it in a big crowd, and you might end up with even more blue than you started with. I don’t use it on my own darks because I optimize for sustain vs 1 foe much more than most people. But this isn’t about my personal preferences; I’m legally obligated to inform you what is effective whether or not I personally like it. Enjoy - before it gets fixed!

Effective HP, or, the amount of raw damage required to reduce to 0hp from full

Gaussian's in BU shines if you can dump a lot of DPA into the short window it's active. Especially wide area, high target cap DPA. Say, blaster nukes, or shield charge. If you're not that bursty but team a lot, tactics is better.

Yes. Part of the reason is some of your slotting choices are inefficient. When I say "inefficient", I am not making a value judgment on your build (unlike when I say "bad", "incompetent", or "amateurish"): I'm just talking mathematics. For example, you slot 5x dampened spirits in Darkest Night for 5% rech. This is 1.25% rech per added slot (discounting the base free slot). Looking at the available sets, we could slot 5x Panacea in Twilight Grasp instead for 7.5% rech, for 1.875% rech per added slot, or 50% more. In fact, 5x panacea 1x acc common offers comparable enhancement values to touch of the nictus, another set you slotted. Now, I know why you chose dampened spirits and touch of the nictus - you're also making an effort to build for res. Building for multiple competing build goals like this, and balancing rech, def, res, not to mention enhancement values and the locations of critical procs, is challenging; it's why inexperienced builders focus on one primary goal (such as survivability or ST dps). For you, I recommend focusing on the most important bonuses first. We can revisit our choice later if necessary and try to fit some res in. On the other hand, your choice of 6x cloud senses for fearsome stare is a very efficient choice; well done. You get 6.25% rech and 3.75% def for this, and even a damage proc. Both these bonuses are individually normally 5-6 slot bonuses, so you're getting a 2-for-1 deal here. The catch is that cloud senses is a lv 30 set, so its enhancement values are low. Consider using unattuned IO's and boosting them +5 to compensate for this. Secondly, you should focus on what aspects of a power need to be enhanced and how we can do this with as few slots as possible. For example, you slotted tar patch 6x pacing of the turtle for 3.13 ranged def. However, as a slow set it has low recharge enhancement, hindering you from double-stacking it (yes, the -res stacks). This power is also autohit so it does not need acc enhancement. So to focus on the most important thing we want out of this power, we can slot just 2x common rech IO's, boosted to +5. You can even add a slow common if you desire the -movespeed. (A meta consideration here is that slow sets typically offer weak bonuses, maybe with the exception of ice mistal, so we want to pursue slots in more attractive set categories.) Knowing which powers you can skimp on slotting while still retaining most of their potential is key to high slot-efficiency. Similarly, consider your slotting in Howling Twilight. This power has 3 uses: as a stun, a mass rez, and an autohit -regen power. Which of these uses are most important to you? Since you don't have any other stun to stack with it (not even opp gloom from the epic), we might assume the rez and the -regen are more important. Therefore, some rech commons or sets that offer desired bonuses such as absolute amazements might be considered. Thirdly, consider how well your build goals synergize with your powers and how your powers work with each other. You have a lot of -tohit in your build and some -dmg. How much defense do you really need? You could afford to live without the softcap. You have two -tohit powers in darkest night and fearsome stare. Will you really be using both of them every engagement? If you intend to prioritize one, you could slot the other less heavily. For example, if you decide that fearsome stare will be your main source of -tohit, you can slot darkest night with just a single enzyme and use it mainly on harder targets for the -dmg. This is also efficient since fearsome stare requires acc while darkest night is autohit. Hence, putting our set IOs in fearsome stare allows us to build in acc that the power needs. Doing the reverse (slotting DN heavily and fearsome stare lightly) might result in fewer savings. Finally, think about your alpha slot. The alpha slot is an absolutely massive amount of stats that will majorly influence your build. I frequently see builds submitted for critique that have no alpha slot which is a little like designing an airplane but leaving out the wings. You should think about how to use it even if it's just "I would like to keep my options open for now". Spiritual core would allow you to cut down on slot-intensive rech bonuses while boosting healing and stun, benefiting all of your recharge-intensive powers. Cardiac core would allow you to cut slotting resist enhancements (resist sets are quite weak outside of their uniques) while fixing your endurance issues - your build is on the end-heavy side. Intuition radial would strengthen your slows and -tohit and add damage. Think about how the right choice of alpha would allow you to cut even more slots from powers and invest them in set bonuses instead. I need to get going so I don't have time to do a full build teardown. I've input your incomplete build from above in mids with some suggested changes. However, as a matter of principle I do not provide complete builds; builds are a dime a dozen, so I'm sure you can easily find some to copy if you want. I have refrained from slotting any powers you did not slot in your original build. It's up to you to complete it yourself. Where will you put your unbreakable guard +7.5% HP? Will you add a gaussian's proc in tactics (it has a chance to proc for each friendly in range, even teammates and MM pets) or chose to put it in aim to buff your own dreadful wail? With the right choice of alpha and destiny, and some tweaks, you can easily have permahasten and 35-40% (45% with barrier) ranged/aoe def, or you might focus more heavily on damage by dropping the aoe def bonuses and investing in procs. The decision is yours. You need mids v3.6.6. to open this. banshee.mbd

Fenders usually run tactics because they get such good values for it. So that's tactics, a kismet somewhere in the build, and acc bonuses from 4x armageddons/4x ragnaroks/4x thunderstrikes/4x lotgs etc. I even have a build with acc from the epic (focused acc + scorp shield since I decided I didn't need spirit drain). So, as low as 23% acc enhancement is not a problem in most builds. That said, do use your best judgment and add acc in the power if you have trouble hitting +3's. Nucleolus is good. But remember that as a kin you can often cap your own damage. So it usually helps in long single target fights, and you can possibly do without it (simply dropping the slot if you like). I encourage you to try out different combinations and see which works best for you.

I downloaded your build again and it does show a steadfast res/end. So it may actually be my client that was not displaying properly (I post from several machines and not all of them have the latest mids). Oddly, everything else looks the same. On the subject, it is still worth it. 1) Firstly, losing the res/end piece takes you from 19.4% to 18.0% SL res. With all accolades and the steadfast piece you have 1758.9 EHP against SL damage that hits. With all accolades and the unbreakable guard 7.5% HP instead you have 1826.8 EHP against SL damage that hits, and in addition the bonus HP also works vs other damage types. Then consider that HP buffs are less common than res buffs so the unbreakable guard unique is a clear winner. 2) Secondly, if you do want a res/end piece in the power it should be a gladiator's armor res/end boosted to +5. It's a level 50 piece and pvpios never lose enhancement value or set bonuses (like purples). About filler powers, my suggestion is actually tactics. The reason is that on homecoming, snipes (psionic lance) in their quick form do bonus damage in their quick form if you have a tohit bonus, up to ~22% tohit. This is not documented in-game, but you can test it with some yellow insps on a dummy. Boosting the shields is whatever. I'm used to boosting the lotg: def piece to +5 since the loss of 10% regen won't make or break anything, but you should definitely keep the 7.5% rech piece attuned if exemplaring is a concern. About your epic, there is actually a strong argument for going +def shields on a cold (there's even a thematic ice epic pool with an ice shield now, if you like) in 4* because as a cold you cannot shield yourself and some groups won't bring another def buffer to shield you. Feel free to stick with it especially if you also have usability/playfeel issues with hover.

Define effective. Everyone thinks their builds are effective - that's human nature for you. But fire/kin/earth trollers were definitely extremely strong and very meta in the sunset days of Live, the age where controllers ruled the world. I find that in general, melee is usually good because this game is still strongly biased in favor of melee: most of the best attacks are melee. (It's not a coincidence that all the examples you list have a melee focus.) Playing against type is also nearly always good in coh, because in this game, 80% of 2 things is a lot stronger than 100% of one and 0% of the other, unless you have some specific task you need to specialize heavily for, e.g. farming, no-insps no-temps AV soloing. Doubly so if one of those two things you have 80% of is dps. For this reason, I play against type fairly often. I build tanky blasters, blasty fenders, and scrappy tankers. I build a lot of rainbow blasters, which are blasters with nearly-permahasten and 45% def to all except psi; they can't compete with the top dps builds, but the loss in dps is considerably less than I imagined (the biggest loss tends to be sustained ST damage, so they suffer more on pylon times, but much less so on clear times of regular content where aoe is involved). I also build a lot of DPS tankers and while they aren't as survivable in challenge content, they completely demolish anything the average casual player will encounter. The build that I found most unexpectedly effective is my Superman build. You know, the inv/ss tanker with flight and laser eyes. While both powersets are fine in their own right and SS in particular is a top 3 powerset, this specific combo has never been considered especially powergamey for a variety of reasons. However, a few years ago I managed to get a build that has perma-double rage (actual double rage, as in the crashes line up fully) permahasten 40% def to all but psi with 1 foe in range perma 90% SL res 90% non-SL res including psi with 75% uptime (In the quarter of the time the defensive buffs are down, it drops to 72% non-SL res) It is less tanky than a full turtle invuln is due to the rage crashes, and it doesn't compete with the best SS builds due to the lack of good epic attacks - it will never do 5 mins trapdoor runs. But it's remarkable how much of each it has, which is very fitting. When you need someone to be fast you call the Flash, and when you need someone to be strong you call the Hulk, but when you need the hero who can be both, it's Superman.

Scrapper ice armor permanently ruined tanker ice armor for me because icy bastion is just that good.

Just to be clear, I do not actually think of winning or losing at the market, or view it as a form of pvp, even though there are clearly elements of competition. One would hope that a business transaction is at least somewhat mutually beneficial, or you just have economic coercion. My intent is to offer a hypothesis for what's happening to OP and at the same time satirize what the experience of using the AH feels like for some who are unused to it: a game with seemingly arbitrary rules where it feels like the only way to "win" is not to play. The whole conceit of a blind auction system is that you bid what you really think the item is worth. In practice, as implemented in the context of coh, I think it just gives rise to an information asymmetry that some players are more well-equipped to take advantage of - and I'm aware I am firmly in this camp. The idea smacks of Emmert-era Cryptic thinking: if you can't see the numbers, you won't worry about the numbers. As a trillionaire marketeer, I am very much in favor of a revamped market that simply displays all bids and offers openly. P.S. I also do not believe in the concept of forum pvp. I know most forumites are very hung up on who gets the last word in, who can get more kudos and likes and whatnots, who can fire off more witty ripostes, etc... all that is vanity. It's egotism. In a discussion it never matters who is right; it only matters what is right.

I like that you use the word 'mistakes'. You are clearly mentally strong enough to withstand criticism, which bodes well. You should replace the steadfast -kb with a botz -kb in SS (it's ok to lose some recovery bonuses since you get lots of end from near-perma heatloss). This will give you 1 extra slot to get an unbreakable guard +7.5% HP. In hardmode, HP is important to avoid being 1-shotted, which is why you see HP-capped builds with their malice of the corr split into 3 sets of 2x for the HP bonus - though I don't think you need to go that far if you're also building for general content. I also think you should replace the ice mistral proc in infrigidate with a toxic damage proc in will dom (the more frequently used attack). I suggest swapping your slotting a little: TKB: 5x Decimation, overwhelming force proc Will dom: 5x apoc, with or without gladiator's javelin proc from above. This is the slightly higher DPA attack so it's worth putting the stronger set here. This will not only give you kb2kd in TKB but also better overall damage enhancement in both attacks - but maybe you do want the kb in tkb. You should boost the lotg: def in your shields to +5 to make your buffs stronger. I have my doubts regarding the utility of weaken resolve in 4* (any -res is nice, but the duration is short) and I think if you take snow storm, you should slot it for slow instead of putting a damage proc in it. Procrates are low in toggles and much of the utility of snowstorm is preventing things wandering out of your sleet, so it's worth it to floor enemy movespeed. If you intend to play this as a general content build, then I am curious to know the reasoning behind your preference for psi scream over psinado. But in general these are either minor issues or questions of personal preference and this is a competently designed build, so good job. P.S. I usually go spirit drain with psi/, but that route requires a completely different build strategy, losing scorp shield and reconstructing the build around ranged/aoe def and hoverblasting. Something to consider for the far future perhaps if your concept is amenable.

I'm guessing these 'guardrails' include such things as preserving the game's ESRB rating (if you've wondered why you can't have naked tights, this is more likely to be the reason, not - or at least not just - prudishness), as well as other things that may have reputational and/or legal consequences for NCSoft, like the policing of hate speech and the ability to create clones of characters from other IP, given that NCSoft remain the legal owners of the game, source code, and IP. If I am right, it's really no surprise NCSoft would want to strike a deal - in practical purposes they have lost all control over the game now that the source code has been released into the wild, but this way they receive at least some assurance that what will be done with it isn't against their interests.

It's hard to comment on this build though it suggests you haven't played around with the IO system much. For example, you make some effort to build for res/def but don't pick up the res/def uniques, which are normally low hanging fruit, and I know it can't be due to budget because you have more expensive enhancements in the build (ragnaroks). I perceive a concern about endurance issues too. As a matter of principle, I do not give out builds. I personally think it's far more valuable for people to learn to design their own, and judge what are and are not appropriate build goals. However, in this case to show you what is possible I will provide an incomplete build that I perceive is close to your desired build goals. This is a permahasten, SL res capped, 40% R/Aoe def build that you can adjust for your own purposes. Epic shield can be any res shield. Travel power can be CJ/SS. Why 40%? so that barrier or a defense amp softcaps it (but you can reengineer to hit 45% if you desire). Wait, where's the build? I'm not posting the file - that would be too convenient. I want you to look at this picture, then right click on the slots in mids and find the sets that are displayed, mouseover the enhancements and select them one by one. Pay particular attention to the proc/unique in each set. This will help familiarize you with the bonuses available in each category of IO sets. If you see any you like better, don't hesitate to try them out too. And if you think you can do better than me, or build something more tailored to your particular purposes, then I am extremely excited to see what you come up with.

The whole softcap (and now, resistance hardcap) meta has been incredibly limiting to the game. However, as funny as a global increase to critter tohit (and the resulting tears) would be, it still would not resolve the problem nor encourage any alternate playstyles. It would just result in more build resources being required to cap, or worse, some AT's (i.e. tankers) being able to cap while others would not. The problem lies in the current tohit formula where hit% = base tohit + tohit mods - def mods (then modified by acc). This linear formula results in accelerating, not diminishing, returns which goes against every sensible game design principle. It makes breakpoints far too obvious, makes it much harder to balance dps vs player defenses, and results in potential wild swings in performance when playing close to the cap. This is already a well-known problem in d20 where AC starts to become exponentially more valuable if you can get enough of it so that your enemies only hit you on a nat 20, except in d20, there are far more ways around AC than there are against def in coh. Even D&D online, which was originally based on 3.5e, soon recognized this issue and reworked AC to a nonlinear formula - though I'm no longer familiar with the details of their system. Coh is only of very few outliers I can think of. My greatest hope is that at some point Homecoming team completely reworks the tohit formula into a nonlinear function with each additional point of defense further reducing hit chance with diminishing returns. The day I can stop saying "well, you only need X% defense..." with great certainty is one I look forward to eagerly.

The legacy export has not worked for a while now. Upload the .mbd to the forums directly.

I remember being annoyed at the whole mediporter thing when I was new. I always thought in a real superhero/villain game, when defeated you would either appear in your personal secret lair after a dramatic escape possibly with snappy one-liner (we eventually did get SG bases with this function, but still. The respawning, not the snappy one-liner), or trussed up over a vat of boiling acid and have to play a minigame to escape [respawn]. But I also dislike it when NPC enemies talk about killing: in my view nobody ever dies or gets raped or seriously tortured in superhero comics. The villains are only ever interested in capturing heroes to monologue at them or tie them to deathtraps. To me, the idea that death is both a serious and potentially achievable goal for the villains seems to draw the narrative too closely to reality. If death, why not any of the other fates that might precede it? Are you telling me that hellions who might be willing too burn a heroine alive might not be willing to sexually assault her if they knock her out? Or that the same crey who are willing to perform horrible experiments on test subjects might not be willing to waterboard some heroes in lieu of letting them get mediported away? Till this day, it irritates me when vazhilok talk about collecting body parts, or cot want to slay the intruders. I've come to accept that my vision of superheroes is too old-timey for this game (and also that the original Cryptic devs were more inspired by D&D and d20 dungeon crawling than comics, something readily evident in many areas of this game's design).

Firstly, hard agree that murder is the strongest and best form of mitigation. Tankers are also good enough at building for res that they will easily cap res without too much set bonus investment even without resilient alpha. So musc is a good option, but depending on 2ndary I've also been able to get better results by taking resilient and devoting more slots to procs/rech instead.