Timeshadow

Interesting. I hadn't thought of using Stamina and Crystal Armor for the proc. I've got Performance Shifter procs in both right now but I'll try the self-heal to see how it goes. So far, this is my most durable Stalker so I'm looking to keep that up.

@Grimm2Yeah. After some more time playing, I'm finding that the DoT is more valuable. Freezing a bunch of enemies in ice certainly looks cool but Brimstone's extra damage really adds up, especially with the buffs you get from Geode (Which I didn't even realize existed until I activated it for the first time and started getting a bunch of "unknown" buffs on my bar 😅). Now I'm wondering about sleep set procs in FA. Specifically, Call of the Sandman vs. Fortunata's Hypnosis. I know CotS's chance for self-heal will only kick in once per activation regardless of the number of target's FA actually hits so FH's chance to placate seems like the better option. Then again, Stone is a set that relies on Regen as it's primary method of healing so having that little 15% heal every once in a while might be worth. What do y'all think?

This is a great idea. I'd say take it a step further and have a short story arc or TF that awards a reasonable amount of inf for the first completion (Like the Market Crash TF gives a guaranteed purple IO but account based rather than for individual toons). Ideally, it'd be something like $10M or so. Enough to get started on IOing your first 50 or providing startup capital to an alt, but not enough to cause a ton of inflation on the market or set newbies up for life. Plus, more content in a nearly 20 year old game is always a worthwhile investment.

This is a bit in the weeds but I recently rolled an Ice/Stone that feels great to play and I can tell has the potential to be a very hardy DPS machine with IOs. However, I didn't think about the fact that the DoT from Brimstone Armor instantly breaks the sleep from Frozen Aura. Obviously, I'm not gonna drop either power but I'm wondering if I should turn Brimstone off when I'm not up against significant amounts of Fire/Cold damage to preserve FA's CC. I don't think the extra DoT makes a big difference in terms of overall DPS but I'm not sure. Could somebody please enlighten me?

Hey, longtime veteran here👋 I really don't think the influence lost while running full 2x XP makes much of a difference. Is it easier to manage when you can email yourself a few million from another toon? Sure, but that really only comes into play when you're looking to go hard in the IO scene as soon as possible. As we're all aware by now, the game was never made more difficult to account for IOs so the only time that even matters is when you're running Homecoming exclusive content. What I will say is that the game could do more to tell new players about the market. We've all been running a toon up the ranks and had a valuable recipe or piece of salvage drop. 9 times outta 10, we have an intrinsic understanding of the fact that said drop should go on the AH. A true newbie (Meaning someone who's playing for the first time and leveling without AE or any of the other PLing methods) doesn't. They could easily end up vendoring something for pennies that would've let them kit themselves out if they'd put it up for bid instead. So no, I don't think the influence penalty for 2x XP should be removed. Instead, implement some things that'll teach new players about how the game's economy works so they don't accidentally wind up broke as soon as they hit the level cap.

Regardless of a character's final concept, I always level as a hero since it's much easier to organize for group content. At cap, I typically play whatever fits my concept best. Usually that means either vigilante or rogue. I'd like to see more content that takes alignment into account and lets players make choices. Give us a TF with a branching story where the team leader can change which missions they run through based on the dialogue options they pick or optional mission objectives that alter the story.

Didn't Champions Online do something like this? If I recall, you could even design the nemesis yourself, right down to their powersets. It was a pretty neat concept but I don't recall how well they actually pulled it off. I think it'd work well for story driven players and the added variety would be much appreciated.

More enemy variety would be a nice, quick improvement to radios/newspapers at certain level ranges. For example, PI radios are almost entirely Council, Arachnos, or Carnival. Nothing wrong with any of those groups but you could definitely spice it up a little. Lorewise, toss in some Praetorian mobs or enemies from the revamped max level TFs. Since they're newer, they tend to be a little more mechanically interesting and they fit with where the story is right now. Also, change up the rewards. Right now, running 54x8 radios is basically just farming with extra steps. Increase the drop rates for rare salvage or something, I don't know. I'd just like to have a reason to turn on the radio or open the newspaper beyond grasping for that last bit of XP to break through to the next level. IMO, there's currently very little incentive to choose radios over tips. That's a shame because they're a great source of easy access casual content that can be done solo or with a full team. The question is, why would you bother?

To the best of my knowledge, this is correct. Judgement powers aren't subject to form modifiers so you get the same output regardless of which form you're in when they go off.

All right, after considering everybody's suggestions (Many thanks🙇‍♂️) here's what I came up with: The build runs capped ranged defense along with about 30-38% melee and AoE. Resistance to Smashing/Lethal is pretty good. Not quite comparable to my Khelds in Dwarf form but the layered protection should make up for the discrepancy. Both Spiderlings and Reinforcements have solid uptime but aren't perma, which is ok by me. It's always been my experience that VEATs can be very End heavy so I tried to cram in as much recovery as I could manage. I'm still a little worried that the heavy costs on the grenades could come back to bite me if I'm spamming them during group content though. Feel free to provide any feedback you can think of. Together, I know we can build a better spider 😄

@Neiska Thanks, I appreciate the effort. BTW, I'm not opposed to going over that amount. It's more of a guideline rather than a hard and fast rule.

I've got a good amount of experience with VEATs but I never really messed around with Crabs (The backpack just bothered me too much in the Live days). Now that I'm ready to try it out, I wanna put together the toughest Crab I can manage for a decent price. I'm a budget builder so I try not to spend more than 20-40 million on any given build. I don't mess with purples or HamiO's. Nothing against them but I'm rarely running super difficult content so there's just no need. My key question is, what powers do I need and which ones are skippable? I'd like to pick up the spider pets if at all possible, maybe even dive into Black Scorpion's pool for an extra one. I'd imagine that lends itself to a ranged playstyle as opposed to melee (Which is perfectly fine by me) but I'm not sure. Any advice y'all can provide is greatly appreciated 😁

Night Widows are the melee-centric evolution of the original Blood Widow line. Forts are more focused on ranged damage and crowd control. A Blood+Fort mix is perfectly capable of melee but it takes some extra knowledge of the AT to build well. If you just wanna stab things, go Night Widow. Depends. Are we talking an IO'd build or just standard enhancements? From an IO perspective, I usually slot them as follows: 1) Foresight - Gladiator's Armor: Defense +3%; Luck of the Gambler: +Global Recharge; Reactive Defenses: Scaling Resist 2) Indomitable Will - Steadfast Protection: Resist/Defense +3% 3) Mind Link - Luck of the Gambler: +Global Recharge; Frankenslot with Defense/Recharge pieces from different sets All of that assumes you're also enhancing their regular Defense values as much as you need. Ideally, you shouldn't need Mind Link to hit the softcap of 45%. It's really more of a team utility than anything unless you're doing Incarnate content.

So, I recently respec'd my TriForm PB to see if I could build something more balanced in terms of survivability than the usual Perma-Light Form setup. As part of that project, I picked up all three shields (Which I've avoided for years in favor of just switching to Dwarf when I need to). Slotting is definitely an issue. I've got them three slotted with Impervium Armor, two pieces for the +Recovery bonus and one for the 6% Psi Resist. I also managed to get 32.75% Smashing/Lethal Defense so there's some layering going on. Overall, it's a solid build that will be so much easier to play when toggle suppression goes live. It's doable now with some good binds but being able to drop a form and have the effects from my human toggles instantly snap back into place is gonna be great.

Other people have covered the Endurance and Recharge points but I wanna give my recommendations. Obviously, the +Recovery procs are a good idea. Being a budget builder, I usually don't invest the funds in Panacea. Instead, I just grab Miracle and a Numi. Combined with the SoA inherent and decent slotting in Stamina (Performance Shifter proc + 2 or 3 EndMod pieces of whatever set), my build only has to be careful about blue bar when I'm spamming AoEs. Also, don't neglect +Recovery set bonuses. I get mine from 2 slotting Gift of the Ancients in the various Defense toggles. I haven't messed around with Field Medic but having a power that restores End on demand isn't a bad look. In regard to slows, I usually try to approach it in the most slot efficient way I can think of. If you can manage to get your hands on one, the Winter's Gift unique IO is a great way to easily jam an extra 20% slow resist into any build with a travel power. I stack that with 3 pieces of Synapse's Shock for another 10% resist. Keep in mind, having softcapped Defense means you're much less likely to get hit by slows in the first place (Unless you're dealing with mobs that have a lot of Psi-based powers) so it's usually not a huge concern.

@Gammos Your final build looks pretty similar to mine. I use my Fort as something of a Stalker/Dom hybrid, a role it's very well suited for. My setup isn't as pricey as yours but that's just a personal choice thing. I don't like spending more than 10-20 million on any given build. A couple of comments on what you've got: Those are just my personal preferences. Hope you have fun with your setup!

Lemme say, I really love this system. All the players won't care to go after these rewards but I find they let you be even more creative with your character concepts, especially since they don't disable your other powers. That being said, I notice that some enemy groups have far fewer options than others. For example, Arachnos only has one (The BCU) while their closest analogue, Longbow, has at least 3 or 4. I'd love to see more costume powers like the Night Widow or even Arachnoids. For such a diverse group, it seems weird to only have the one. I understand there are more powers due to be made available after Page 4 launches and you've gotta have more rewards to keep people jonesing for Prismatic Aether but having a few more in for some enemy groups on Day 1 would be nice.

Hence why I said: Every game depends on its veterans to stay profitable when the hype dies down. WoW hasn't managed to stay the most popular live service MMORPG on the planet for all these years by ignoring the veterans. However, it has shifted significantly in favor of more casual play as the expansions have come and gone. And yeah, some veterans complained about that but Blizzard didn't care because they were making more money by adapting. Point is, you have to strike a balance. Even though CoH isn't competing with live titles, one of the goals is still to maintain a game that everyone who chooses to play can enjoy. In some respects, AE is robbing Peter to pay Paul in terms of the player experience. That's not to say it's a bad feature that should be scoured from the game, but there's nothing wrong with considering adjusting it if doing so benefits the majority's good time.

I don't hate it but I do have concerns. Namely, balancing the new player experience versus what veterans want. Any MMO lives on new players. If you're not drawing them in and keeping them, your game is eventually gonna die. And what keeps new players on board? The experience. Having a populated world that encourages interaction and cooperative play is a key part of making that experience great. That, IMO, is the problem with AE. It takes players out of normal content in favor of sitting on farms. That, in turn, can give new players the impression that the leveling experience is just a boring grind to 50. All of the above is a huge deal for live games. Homecoming's different though. Everything runs on donations, not subs or micro transactions. Those donations are largely made by veteran players and those vets may not be interested in going through the leveling experience for the Nth time, especially with the altoholic culture that permeates CoH. So you've got something of a Catch 22 that makes ideas like this somewhat difficult to manage. Again, I don't hate it but I can definitely see some potential issues.

They're definitely not the same. The model in @NovaChronum's photo is one of two variants of the Chief Soldier you can see in-game today. It's the less ornate model with round shoulderpads and duller armor. The screenshot in the OP shows the old school model, it's significantly thinner than the newer version and doesn't have nearly as much visible detail. EDIT: Should've done this sooner but I logged into the beta server and checked for myself. Confirmed that there are two sets of Rikti models available. The first are listed as Standard Tier and include the modern appearances. The others are listed as Vintage Tier and have the classic models pictured in the OP. More importantly, there are a ton of models for purchase that weren't available from the Paragon Market, etc. on live. I did some testing with the weapon powersets and can confirm the scaling is...questionable. For example, when using the Rikti Chief Soldier with Ninja Blade, the sword doesn't scale up to match the model unless you use Build Up, in which case it does but reverts to "normal size" as soon as the animation is finished. It'd be really nice to have consistency to keep up immersion.

Wait. So we have access to the remodeled Rikti Chief Soldier as well? From the OP, it seemed like the only post-redesign Rikti we'd be able to unlock is the Mentalist. Is this under the Standard Tier for 10/15 of the new currency or is it just a stand-in for the classic look that costs 150/300?

Just what the title says. CoH already does a good job of making most zones feel alive. You've got zone events, the day/night cycle, and a ton of NPCs whose sole purpose is to do random things and shout lines of dialogue as the player passes by. Adding some simple weather effects would just be a way of expanding on that. Nothing crazy, of course. The engine is old so resource management is a priority. Maybe just a simple change to the sky box along with some particle effects for rain or snow. Ideally, these would apply to zones individually and on random timers. You could also throw in some different NPC dialogue lines so they appear to be reacting to the change in weather conditions. I'm no design expert so I could be proposing something that's completely outside the realm of what's possible here. Just a fun little idea I wanted to share.

While @SeraphimKensai is right about the ATOs, I'll try to leave them out since you asked about going solo sans sets. First, I'm gonna say the obvious thing. If your issue with Stalkers is about feel, then maybe you just don't like Stalkers. Like any other AT, they have their own particular vibe and playstyle. It's not for everyone and that's okay. Me personally, I can't deal with how binary Blasters are. The damage they bring is unmatched but they've only got one option in combat, kill stuff before it kills them. If they can't do that for whatever reason...☠️ Stalkers, OTOH, get to decide when and how they're gonna fight. Since the revamp a long time ago, they can scrap it out when necessary and aren't locked into the dichotomy of being either an ambush predator or a squishy waiting to get squashed. As for specific combos that work well without sets and Incarnates, I'd recommend Stj/EA. Stalkers are squishy in terms of their health pools so a Defense based armor set is a better choice than ones that rely on resists. Even with SOs, you'll be sitting in the mid to high 30s in terms of Defense numbers on EA. Not as good as softcap but better than most. You also get a heal for the damage that does get through and an Endurance refill on demand. Stj is a great pairing because, being a newer set, it doesn't suffer from the total lack of AoE damage that a lot of older Stalker sets have to deal with. All that being said, maybe you're just not a good fit for the Stalker playstyle. That's cool too but if you wanna give it another shot, please do.

I always take Shadow Cloak as a LotG mule but I've never gotten any value out of Orbiting Death. I'm rarely in human form for more than a second to re-buff, make a pet, or blast out some controls here and there. BTW, you can do this now with binds but it requires a double press on the key. One to drop Nova and another to activate whatever flight toggle you're using.

No, Brutes aren't obsolete. As the others said, they sit in the middle between Scrappers and Tankers. The former does more damage but has less survivability, the latter has better survivability but less damage. On the whole, CoV ATs are more hybridized than their CoH counterparts so their overall usefulness is skewed when it comes to min/max (Which is exactly what most forum discussions are centered around). Reading the forums gives you a particular viewpoint on performance at the top level, not necessarily what most players or teams are doing "in the wild." So, if you want a Brute, roll a Brute. The worst performing AT is the one you don't have fun playing...or a Sentinel...definitely a Sentinel 😝