Diantane

As you know, after getting to level 50 you start building up your incarnates. After you work with that character for several hours, you almost fill it up. Then I had to take a business trip for a couple weeks. When I get back most of the incarnates have melted away. Why should I build them up if I'm just going to lose them again?

Just created a Staff/Rad Scrapper. Lots of fancy maneuvers, but doesn't seem to be doing much damage. It that the balance here? A fast staff and a slow war mace equal the same damage? Or is staff even less damaging?

Have done Beasts/KIn and Beasts/thermal. Both of these work well because the heals are strong and defenses are great on thermal (of course emp and pain would work, but no added damage there). Just tried Beasts/radiation and although it worked well while solo, in a team was disastrous. The pets would all die instantly the moment they went to battle. A total wipe almost every time. Completely worthless. I've also tried Beasts/Cold, but without any heals, the pets die quickly. Time works a little, but after the first few powers it seems like you're not going anywhere.

Its a trade off. The blaster does more damage, but they're more like a glass cannon. Whereas the sentinel can sit back surrounded by its defenses and built in mez protection. Let's tally this up. I've got 6 blasters and 38 sentinels. None of the blasters made it to 50 and a few sentinels did. Which do you think I like better? Doing more damage with a character doesn't matter if you play on teams. The bad guys are going down no matter what.

Just hit 50 today. Soothing aura does 100 per tick with three L45 IO's. Will look into that Panacea though.

Can this power be used if you are already held (like using a break free inspiration)?

That "soothing aura" power is pretty cool. It was at 42 per tick when I first got it and now at 39 it puts out 87. I also have the nullify pain on auto and it's sending out 229 per aoe heal ever 5 seconds (remember it was only 13 at level 1 and 9 as a secondary on a mm at level 1). These combination of heals keeps the team healthy most of the time. I only have to send out an individual heal when the creatures get a crit on someone. So I am sending out attacks between these. EMP's don't get that aura so Pain Domination makes for a stronger healer.

Over the last couple years I've really wanted a defender that I enjoyed playing for more than just a few days. I've looked and tried different builds. A few went to 50, but lost interest for different reasons. It's like, I liked it a little, but not a lot (you must have felt this way before too). I've looked at Pain several times before and saw that it had the same basic powers as an EMP and then looked the other way. I finally decided to try it on a Thugs MM. Hated it so much! The pets died seconds after putting them out there. I decided to abandon that character and to specialize pain on a defender. What a difference! I mated pain with radiation blasts, but didn't train any attacks until Proton Valley (followed by Cosmic Burst and Atomic Blast). When I make a defender I like to specialize in being that AT. Currently 37 and running teams everyday doing arcs (love the storylines and hate grinding. Plus the merits are nice too). When I play I usually stand near the melee characters (right in the middle of the creatures). When I first enter I cast a fully slotted (acc, 2x def debuff, 2x recharge (SO's) Anguishing Cry and then a slotted (acc, 3 x damage) Atomic Blast. Love seeing several creatures drop to their knees and falling on their faces. So I do attack creatures sometimes, but the health of the team always has priority. Now that WoP is slotted (2x resist dam, 2x tohit debuff, 2x rech - also have hasten (3x rech), I cast it as soon as it's up. Sometimes I group up the players, but not when they are fighting. I just cast if on the melee players since they are taking the most damage. Because I am doing this, I don't have to heal so much and help with the attacks while keeping an eye on the team health. This defender will definitely be going beyond 50. I really, really like playing him and spend several hours a day doing so.

My current character is one of those few that I really like. He will definitely by going to the great beyond.

If we were all at a party as friends and I said that about City of Heroes, would you all say the same thing? I was just thinking aloud. Don't want to change anything. I like the new way of playing. Really sorry about the poor epic powers for sentinels though and I've made 38 of them (only one of them made 50+). Those powers aren't very epic. That's something I've like the developers to improve upon.

I do get some characters that I really like to play to 50 and beyond, but most of them used to get to 35 or 38 and be abandoned (especially with sentinels because their "epic" powers are more like noob junk). With the new power change, this abandonment level is now 26 to 30 (depends if I really want the last secondary power or not). This means that in two days from creation, the fun is over for that character and have to look for a new one (currently have 99 alts on my server).

Just started this Sentinel Elec/SR. Its my first time playing with Super Reflexes on any character since the first hour on live. Do you slot it like Stamina?

Created a War Mace/WP scrapper yesterday evening. Was all excited about playing him and did get the character to almost 22. But playing him is difficult. I have set "Tab" to target the closest foe. That works fine, but flow between the attacks is not very fluid. it seems that there is a pause between each one. I have never had this issue before on ranged AT's. Just on melee.

Tried it on a blaster when it was first released and thought it to be under-powered then (abandoned). Putting it on a sentinel would be really weak.

I've read and been told that the Blaster does an enormous amount of damage. But after playing them a few times, I wanted to look at other ways to play the game. So I checked out the Corruptors. I mean, I really checked them out and then compared them to the Blasters (damage wise). Say what you want, but according to MIDS, the Corruptor does more damage. Lets look at the base damage numbers: Blaster - Blaze 170.5 Blazing Bolt 314.8 Inferno 410.9 - adding all the attack powers (base numbers) Total 1,353.63 Corruptor - Blaze 202.1 Blazing Bolt 397.5 Inferno 357.4 Total 1,527.92 Radiation Blaster - Photon Valley 281.5 Cosmic Burst 132.6 Atomic Blast 250.2 Total 1,032.79 Corruptor - Photon Valley 375.4 Cosmic Burst 176.8 Atomic Blast 250.2 Total 1,209.96 Say what you want, but when you add in that a corruptor can cast Fulcrum Shift on top of all this, its a whole new ball game. A corruptor can also get certain defense buffs and the epic powers are the same as a blaster. Sure, a blaster can get a few melee attacks, but those are from secondary powers and if you are casting them, you aren't casting the stronger primary attacks.

Oh, not set at +4/8. Only +2/8. They only have SO's.

Looked at the brutes. Their capped fire resistance says 90% while the sentinel's is only 75, but still capped. Does this make a difference? None of the brutes have a 45% defense (only 2-3%), but they can stay on the farm all day

When my brute spines/fire was 22 my fire resistance was capped and I entered the AE on a fire farm mission (solo) and stayed there until I was past 50. Now with a fire/fire sentinel with his fire resistance capped I entered the AE at 31 and can barely stay alive. My health drops quickly as i take a good bit of damage. What's the difference between the sentinel and brute in this case?

I have several of the Sentinel's Wards enhancements and occasionally when fighting a message comes across the screen that says, "SENTINELS WARD". Now I believe I have to do something to activate this, but no power comes to my tray and no special inspiration is added to an empty slot. Anyone know how I activate this power and what it does?

I rerolled to a Symphony/Rad Dom. Made it all the way to 17 my first evening after doing Frostfire at +4. Think is, since my secondary rad powers didn't do much damage, I concentrated on spamming my control powers. They are all slotted with accuracy SO's along with two immobilization, fear, sleep, etc.. Even with all that casting that was taxing my endurance, it didn't do much good. Because all of the holds were interrupted as soon as damage came in from the team. So what good are control powers if they only work for a split second?

Thanks for all the input. Kind of pulls me away from the wall of despair. I do believe since I am so young that I will re-roll from Sonic Assault. A bit too complicated for me. I was also put down by the lack of damage. Every character I play gets to at least 35 (higher if I really like it. Fifty if I know I got something that is worth bringing to incarnates). Thanks again!

Have played a "lot" of alts (92 on the Excelsior server (95% over 35), but never a "Dom". After taking the alpha on every character I have played (got tired of players standing there waiting for someone else to make the first attack) so I just go in (die sometimes, most times not). So the dominator not having any defense didn't bother me. Since Issue 4 just came out I figured it was the perfect time to finally make a dominator and use the new powersets, "Symphony and Sonic Assault." Just started doing the newbie arcs to test everything out. Now even though I am young, I figure that the low level NPC's are weak as well. But I'm seeing that the controller powers aren't doing much (once in a great while the foe might go to sleep). I'm thinking, "This is a controller?" All that the symphony powers were doing was making a loud noise and doing a tiny amount of damage. The only time my control powers would work for certain was when I press the Dom button, but that didn't last very long (a few seconds at best). At level 8 I just gave up (it was late and I wanted to turn in anyway). To me, this is the weakest AT in the game. Sure it would get more powerful later on, but then so would the bad guys.

They never actually play the game. They spend a long time getting the right costume. Then come online and spam that they want to be a sitter on an AE farm. When they get on one they will stay on one or more farms until 50 and then create a new character and do it again. If I was a farmer I wouldn't want these type of sitters on the team. That would be a waste of my time. The problem is, you don't know it it is a "player" or a dedicated sitter.

I have 85 alts over 35 on Excelsior and have gone through The Laura Lockhart arc almost every time. We always do it at 2/8 difficulty with a few exceptions. Sometimes the team had a few vets on it and we go at +3 or 4. The first mission is a pretty tough one as there are a ton of Council concussion grenades going off all around you. The actual difficulty depends on the team. Most teams are made up with experienced players that sail through every mission that comes along. While other teams are made up with low DPS types with little to no defense (controllers and defenders as an example). They can't handle the mission and blame the difficulty. That's it set too high. It's not too high (the team is too low). When the team is wiped a few times in a row, most players will quit and seek easier ways to gain XP. Sometimes we get a real team of experienced players that are not quitters. They enjoy the challenge (like me) and figure out how to complete it (strategy) even if it takes hours. When we are done, the reward is much greater and long remembered. Spoiler: An easier way to get through almost any mission is to buy a few lucks from the hospital nurse and eat them all right before the battle.

Thanks for the reply and explanation. This sure it confusing. Would be nice to see sample builds that show which direction they had gone. I’ll take it step by step. Started an arc team yesterday and when I got to 24 and saw the respec and all the choices, I knew I wouldn’t have time (with 7 players waiting). So I just didn’t train for the next ten levels. It was still fun, but I knew there had to be more to this.