oxmox

I'm leveling a Warshade for the first time (just hit 31) and enjoying it although it feels a little janky in some aspects. I just wanted to see how my impressions stack up with more experienced players or if I'm missing something. I am under the impression that most people consider triform more optimal from an effectiveness standpoint. That seems likely to me given how big the bonuses are, but it does hurt the utility of the human form toggles a lot and makes most pool powers less useful. Am I correct in feeling like the human armor toggles and the human version of blasts shared by nova form are pretty useless if playing triform? The toggles have to be reused constantly and the blasts seem straight inferior to the nova versions. Are the high end human form blasts (quasar and the corpse targeted one) worth using or should I stick to nova form for damage. Likewise, do people find it worth slotting the dwarf attacks? I find sometimes when I have to play the tank role in a team i get stuck in dwarf form due to aggro and really wish for better attacks. Other times when we have melees or enough lockdown that I don't have to manage aggro I hardly use dwarf attacks except mire, so I'm not sure spending slots there is valuable enough. My rough outline for tackling enemies involves running in human form with stealth and armor toggles up, mire, dwarf form, dwarf mire, then back off in nova form and use the AoE attacks. Refill with stygian circle as needed. I may open with the hold vs a quantum or hang out in dwarf a bit longer if I have all the aggro, but that's how most fights go. Is using human/dwarf forms mainly for mires then going nova to blast the typical approach for clearing groups? It seems like the top end powers are really strong; should I expect to shift towards mostly fighting in human form as I hit higher levels? Do people typically just turtle in dwarf form against heavy Mez? I thought it would be a great answer but having to stay in dwarf mode for an entire fight is a drag. I've been thinking about rune of protection from the sorcery pool to help with that, especially since I imagine my late game build will be heavy on recharge as is. Thanks for any help or suggestions! It's been a blast so far, I just can't shake the feeling that I'm missing something on how to put it all together!

And speaking of wakeup calls, The Awakened should be next on the list if you're looking for tough enemies. Those with low psi resists need not apply.

While I'm all for more difficult content, I don't think there's really a big demand for it. Like with most MMOs, COH players are mostly focused on trying out different builds and tricking them out with top end IOs and incarnates. As others have said, council radios, AE farms, BAF, hamikazes, and MSRs are all way way more popular than the more challenging content already present. The incarnate system specifically I think comes down to disagreement between the playerbase and the devs that designed it. I don't think incarnate abilities were ever intended to be balanced, and the game was not meant to be hard for full incarnate teams. With the time spent adding lower level content it always felt to me like the devs considered 1-50 to be the 'real game'. Maxing out t4 incarnates and full purple IO builds was the victory lap for people taking their favorite hero into near godhood. This inevitably leaves people who max out their character first and then look to start playing feeling disappointed with the ease and lack of content.

Lots of dancing around the question. As a rule of thumb you are correct. Stalker>scrapper>brute>tank for ST DPS. Both burst and sustained. Tank damage is so much lower than the other 3 it's hardly worth comparing. Stalkers have nearly the same base damage as scrappers, but get Assassin's strike (usually in place of an AoE attack) and more/reliable crits. Scrappers deal comparable but slightly lower dps on average. The notable exception being Titan Weapons, which will probably beat most stalkers in pure dmg. Brutes can do similar or even more damage with high fury, but vs a single target is not the best environment for that.

Do you find that you get a lot of use out of possess at lvl 50? It was invaluable for me while leveling my dark/psi/psi, but I realized that as I started getting more maxed out I never found the time nor need to use it. You also may want to check out your total accuracy bonuses. My build also has tactics, but I realized that between that, kismet, link minds, and 75% or so global acc bonus from purples that I was already at 95% hit chance against +4s without any accuracy slotting in actual powers. Just an idea as it seems you put a lot of +acc in some powers. Might free up some slots for procs or a more needed attribute like end/dmg/tech. Shadowy binds over living shadows seems odd to me. Why prioritize the ST version over the AoE? Especially since living shadows also carries a tohit debuff, stacking it with the fear cone makes for effective AoE lockdown on a very short CD. Any reason you left Mind Probe totally unslotted? Seems like you plan on being mostly in melee and it's your highest dmg attack outside of the snipe. You only have 2 attacks as is, surely there is room for it in your attack chain. For incarnates I went with intuition radial, barrier core, degenerative core, and support core. Not sure if those are optimal but they've worked well for me.