Spaghetti Betty

I take great pride in knowing my henchmen only had half a clue what they were in for and still stuck through with only minimal complaining! Besides, how many opportunities do you have to run a 1 hour Yin? I only managed to get a couple of snippets of this week's chaos. This turned into a real room of doom for a minute! It was also the point most realized they weren't gonna have end for the whole TF. Nothing like fighting for your life against some Council! This is a good time to note that a lot of our damage was smashing/lethal! Unfortunately I didn't get a shot of Clamor going down. I was hosping back with some insps to save the day and they didn't even need me!

Fire Melee is now like that because of the revamp it got not too long ago. The vague descriptors are a relic from when the OG dev team insisted that not showing players any data made the game more fun. When the game was handed over to Paragon Studios, they kept the tradition alive and kept the descriptors on new powersets, but HC is doing away with them, at least on powersets they work on.

I'm in the opposite way a bit. I used to be a Super Jump purist. It's incredibly convenient, and I take Combat Jumping on all of my toons anyway, so it was always an easy pick up even in the early days. Lately however, I've been finding myself picking Mystic Flight a lot. Not because I like flying, but because Sorcery as a package is just insanely good. I hate flying!

I guess you could lump me in with the younger crowd. I've told this story before but I started playing CoH with my parents back when the Beta first opened. My entire family played up until shutdown. I'm pushing 30 now. My dad, sister, and her husband still play from time to time but it's mostly me that's still crazy about the game. My usual team consists of people my age, some older, and at least 2 "I'm older than you think, kid"s. I think it's great that the game is accessible enough to be played at all different age ranges!

Unfortunately, I didn't feel comfortable with the team I had to start up a Hard Mode (6-man was my minimum, 5-man was what we ended up with), so instead we ran a +4 Classic, Insps disabled. I totally should've made it enemies buffed That's not to say the players on my team were bad, but I think the only person that could've put up with that level of torture would've been @PLVRIZR. (Consider this a rain check) Instead, I converted some Tankers to the Church of Spin! The seafood boil proved no match for our comraderie! Woosh! Look at that Whirlwind go! Ka-blam! I was detoggled for most of this encounter, but we're not gonna talk about it. Somebody was in my ear groaning about The Spin, so I didn't get shots of Rom and Req. Take this shot of a protest against harmful technology as a consolation! Even Nictus Rom was no match for the winning of spinning! Clean up time! And the highlight of the entire night goes to... Pow! Right in the kisser!

I love Cross Punch! It might be my 2nd favorite pool power under Combat Jumping. So many melee sets benefit from adding an "activate more recharge" button to their rotation. As a Tanker main, Cross Punch is an incredible pick with inflated value that more often than not finds its way into my builds.

This is my answer. But I play a very Blaster-esque playstyle that involves moving into the crowd at opportune moments to dump damage. A majority of the Assault sets are at their best in close range.

Cross Punch also comes with the added benefit of not consuming your Combo. On top of the amazing benefits you get from proc-bombed Cross Punch, it fits neatly after StJ's usual filler chain of Heavy Blow/Rib Cracker/Shin Breaker to lead into a Crushing Uppercut. Doing this will allow you to have very high FF proc uptime, 2 -Res procs, and near guaranteeing you have another Uppercut ready to go after building your combo. Sweeping Cross just can't compare to that in terms of synergy due to it being a resource consumer.

In current CoH, the only real redundant currencies are Astral Merits and Shards. They were absolutely a product of their time but don't find real use nowadays. Does that mean they should go? I dunno! Maybe a recycling of some sort could be looked at. I think PAPs work as their value is 100% subjective. I know a lot of players that just simply don't care for the vanity costumes and others that treat them as gold (I have a friend that will literally farm Mini mode for every toon and has done so successfully). So I think they're working out. Could the cost of some of the rewards be dropped a bit? Definitely. But the price of them has already deflated massively since their inception and seems to be doing so again as October passes. It's hard to say. I wheel and deal Candy Canes! Remember to say hi for a free one!

It was shown that in theory one could multibox farm several 50s just for the Emps and convert them into Reward Merits and directly into inf. Then delete the farmed 50s and start the process over. So it was nixed. This sparked about a 30-page debate, IIRC.

You could run a +3 Synapse and that won't be an issue!

I think Ice Patch should fire an Orbital Laser at your location! And proc Force Feedback!

My spooky Halloween submission! Hamburger Time, Necromancy/Dark Miasma Mastermind

Devilish Hand, Bio Armor/Martial Arts Tanker Inspired by Spawn (Yes I know it's really hard to tell)

The Onyx Street Punk, Super Reflexes/Stone Melee Tanker

That was a fun Synapse! I always feel like Synapse runs are way more interesting with a small team. With a team of under 5 players, it's much easier to tailor-make your experience, as maps will be smaller as team size decreases. Shout outs to the Elec/Kin that showed up to help with Babbage!

I'm not opposed to this, but I'm also up to my ears in free costume changes. On top of getting a free one every ten levels, I do believe you also get a free one for doing each of the costume missions (I could totally be wrong on that though. It's been a minute.), and you have a good chance of nabbing some from Super Packs as well. I'm never opposed to more options, though!

Elec Melee is kind of starved for good attacks and Jacobs Ladder is actually a pretty serviceable AoE with the Tanker buffs. It's proc rate isn't too shabby and it's way faster than Thunder Strike which is why I chose to take it. Also as I'm sure you noticed I opt not to worry about slotting DEF so Thunder Clap is my soft mitigation and also jumpstarts my recharge thanks to its reliability in proccing Force Feedback. It's a good 2-slot wonder (KB2KD, FFproc). You shouldn't worry too much about the END cost of anything as Elec Armor. You essentially have an infinite amount of the stuff if you ED cap Power Sink for End Mod and Recharge and use it on cooldown. Only 2 targets for a full refill every 20 sec or so. Either way, I didn't opt for either Fences or Ball because I prefer a more punchy, rotation based playstyle. But that's where my preference ends and yours begins. Always room to experiment! Alphas are considered Enhancement value, so the ones that boost Recharge also count against your proc rate unlike Global Recharge. I'm not a math wizard, so I couldn't tell you the specifics. It's just generally better to stay away from Recharge enhancement that isn't global if you plan on proc bombing.

I believe so, yes.

Personally, I would be looking to put the +Absorb in an attack I would fire semi-often. The +Res proc works fantastic in an aura as it'll maintain 1 stack with a target in range and even 2 or 3 stacks in a saturated mob. The -Res proc is where YMMV since it will only check every 10 seconds and may serve you better in an aoe attack, but it's not useless in a dmg aura as a set and forget. Everything you listed is correct. It's value is heavily inflated in a team (and doubly more so if your teammates have pets), but can be a bit unreliable if you plan on being mobile. It might serve you better in Build Up so you can sync it up with Lightning Rod. Gaussian in Tactics is a trick I would reserve for more support-oriented ATs or sets that don't have access to Aim/Build Up. This is a power I would take to proc bomb. As a Tank, you don't really have to worry about mobs running away since you ooze Taunt. Using it as a mule for set bonuses is great too, but you can get good mileage out of it as a proc'd AoE. Slotting it for -end does indeed sound like overkill since Power Sink alone will plummet end bars in 2-3 applications. Opinions are gonna differ widely on this as the way I run my Elec/Elec is a bit different from what I normally see. I can't post my build at the moment (I'm on break at work), but I usually open with BU -> Lightning Rod -> Chain Induction -> Power Sink -> Thunder Clap. This nukes mobs, activates my +Absorb, drains, then CCs whatever is left (and also activates Force Feedback). I opt to not take Thunder Strike. If you plan on proccing a bunch, getting an alpha that increases recharge will negatively impact your proc rate across the board. For that I would recommend Vigor Core for survival (it will squeeze every last bit of healing out of Energize) or Musculature Radial (boosts DMG and End Mod so you can drain better). If procs aren't your thing, then Spiritual Core is a good pick since it will put your recharge and healing on steroids. IMO I wouldn't opt for something like Resilience since Elec is already giving so much RES and Agility wouldn't do much for you either. As for Hybrid, Melee Radial would probably be the way to go for survival since it'll give you a nice DEF and Regen buff in a pack, or Assault Core (or Radial if you're damage capped) if you want a DMG boost. Hope some of these viewpoints help! I can post my build when I'm at my desk to give you some more ideas. EDIT: Actually, my build is still here on the front page!

If I had to choose just 1 toon to play for the rest of my days, I would simply burst into flames where I stood!

Well, you could bypass the need for Slow RES by using Ice Armor for a Cold farm, but the battle there would be finding Cold DEF without trading a ton of kill power for it, since there aren't many ways to build for it outside of 6 piece Winters.

Since Hard Mode follows the damage meta more closely, your performance would be more weighted by your Secondary than your Primary. Mez isn't nearly as vital (at least in ITF, where all the mobs have buffed mez protection), save for your ST hold to stack mag on AVs or other key targets. And even then there are other ATs that fill that role just as well if not better. However, this is only an issue if you're strictly focusing on efficiency in a 3* or 4* run (I would even say it's not that big a deal in a 3*). That kind of strictness is absolutely not necessary on lower difficulties, or if you're in a strong team just looking for a romp and not too worried about finishing as quick as possible.

Stopping for extra credit was not on the list!

I have a 12 in everything!