ZemX

Shield is a great option too and fits Natural Origin well.

I don't have one, but it doesn't seem weird to me at all. It would have more healing and endurance recovery than it needs so I definitely wouldn't slot Siphon for heal or Dark Consumption for endurance. Make the latter another proc nuke to cycle in with Rad Therapy and Ground Zero. Dark Melee can stack some -tohit with Beta Decay so you're getting more mitigation on top of all that healing. Should be fun. ETA: Just remembered this other thread actually...

I think it's a mistake. It was implemented as a TAoE but it is clearly meant to be a melee attack. The weapon is feet and fists. Nothing is thrown, shot, or expelled from the attacker. It's not a ranged attack. It specifically excludes range enhancement which means even if you slot a Ranged AoE set with range enhancement, it is wasted. The reason it was implemented as a TAoE when attacks like this are usually cones is probably to do with the Terrorize effect that occurs at combo level 3. It has a radius larger than the power itself (10ft vs. 6ft). Conceptually, I guess, this is supposed to be enemies near the ones you hit being scared/awed by the attack on their friends. Anyway, this seems to be possible via the "Outer Radius" tag on child effects. Don't know if something like that is available for cones.

Ah, didn't check them. They have a lot of psi attacks but again, all of them seem to have positional tags in CoD. Mesmerize is a good example of a psi attack that is non-positional. Council vampires have it, but I don't see it on any Arachnos. I don't see anything in the patch that should have buffed Arachnos against anybody. I'd expect just the aggro change could account for more damage soloing, but at x4 that shouldn't be an issue either as already noted.

They didn't. But do Arachnos have any non-positional psi attacks anyway? Mental Blast, Psionic Lance, Psychic Scream, and Subdue all have positional tags. But I could be missing some. Just browsing various Arachnos Widows and Fortunatas in CoD.

The rules for scaling down SOs as you exemplar can be a little tricky since it's not as simple as just being x% of what the original values are. There are a few exceptions and limitations that apply. I think Mid's can calculate your overall values based on exemplar level. Check the maths settings dialog. That would be easier. There might be a few places you want to add extra SOs if you plan to do a lot of very low level (15-25) exemplaring but anything above that the scaling effect is pretty minimal. Here are the rules: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Exemplar_Effects_on_Enhancements An interesting clause in those rules is the minimum bonus rule. SOs of 20% or less won't scale down until you go below level 21. Reason that's interesting is that your level 53 Resistance and Defense SOs are 23%. If you'd left them as level 50 SOs they'd be 20% and immune to scaling down until you went below level 21. Something to play with in Mid's though I never have myself. I wonder if they account for some of these weird rules. I'm with @Psyonico though, you want to rearrange some powers if exemplaring as low as 15 or 20 for the first few TFs/SFs is important to you. Your resists will be scaled down a lot by that point so you might want to see about putting Boxing/Tough below 20. Buy all the prestige attacks from P2W and use them when you're on those low level TFs. Use Athletic/Ninja/Beast run and a temp jetpack for movement. It's not great, but fast travel isn't nearly as important, especially if you're tanking for a TF, as your survival stats.

Probably the opposite actually. With the new re-evaluation mechanics for threat, having Taunt may be the only guaranteed way to get new aggro when you're already aggro capped. Reason being is that most mobs you are already aggroed on might have been affected by your taunt auras and punch-voke taunts. So you've got pretty high threat on them already. The only way to get new aggro with the new mechanic is to generate even more threat on the new mobs so that it pushes others off your list. Taunt is a sure-fire way to do that because of the way threat is multiplied by remaining taunt duration. Taunt, the power, has a base 41 second duration. Punch-voke and taunt auras are around 15 seconds. That means anything you hit with Taunt is often instantly bumped to the top of your threat list even over other stuff you might have less recently taunted with lesser taunt effects.

Not quite. The "ranged volleys" where the mobs don't pursue only apply to aggro capped teammates when nobody else is around to share the aggro. If there are teammates, the aggro will spill onto them in full. i.e. Mobs will chase non-aggro-capped teammates down if they need to and melee if they want to. This is exactly how aggro sharing on teams worked before the patch. That's why the patch notes claim that not much should change on teams. This is mostly a concern for soloists whether they are soloing normal content, farming, or "soloing" on a team. Not "still". Prior to the patch it would usually be the case that, e.g., an aggro capped tanker would toss a taunt at some new mobs attacking a teammate and be entirely ignored by them because they couldn't get any more aggro than the 17 they had. Now after the patch, the aggro list gets re-evaluated and the newly taunted mobs are likely to be high on the list (due to the way taunt duration magnifies threat). Hence the tanker in this example is likely to gain the attention of those new mobs... and lose an equal number of other mobs lower on their threat list to maintain the total of 17. Taunt, of course, still applies its -range debuff regardless.

These sliders don't correspond to decibel levels. Depends entirely on your sound system.

I have this problem when I am set to multiple speakers in Windows settings and/or if I am using a surround processing (HRTF) in the sound driver. Then every sound is like it's happening inside my head. Very annoying. I created a profile to use 2-speaker setting and disable surround processing. Now at least I get left/right panning. Can't tell if a sound is in front of me or behind, but it's better than nothing.

WHAAAT?! Not a joke actually. Windows volume is at 20% when I play CoH though so it's not blasting my ears at all.

Weird to see people spending $1000 or more on video cards and remember that PC audio hardware companies went out of business because nobody (except you and me, it looks like) were willing to buy actual sound cards instead of settling for the crappy onboard shit.

Hmm... also not at home right now but I could swear I did exactly this after finding my old costume files. You get some errors but just check "fix" in the costume screen to load them.

The cap is still 17. The "in some manner" is this: Once past the aggro cap, mobs can still stand and shoot you from range if they are in-range of you but they won't pursue, not even right around a corner to re-establish LOS. But this behavior will still only occur if there's no one else on their threat list. On a team, other teammates that have aggroed those same mobs will be attacked instead as normal. In other words, same way it worked before the patch. Doesn't matter if you've taunted the mobs or not. You can still only keep 17 max and the rest will attack teammates. Only if we're doing what those Fire Farmers are doing, which is aggroing multiple spawns solo, probably. This is definitely a change any soloist, farmer or not, should pay some attention to because they can't just rely on the aggro cap to limit incoming fire while they whittle away a huge mass of enemies. I suppose on a team you could still run afoul of this change if you run ahead of the team to pull multiple groups. If nobody else on the team is in aggro range, you're going to get all the incoming fire.

The toHit debuff is only on the main target, unfortunately. Also, if we're even bothering to worry about survival, we have to be talking about at least +3 level mobs. Against those, the debuffs are cut to about 65% of their normal magnitude while any buffs like +def are full strength no matter what. Still, you can easily stack up more than 10% -toHit on at least a single target and that might be a big deal if it's an EB or AV. MA's +def isn't stackable. This is probably the bigger deal than the -toHit. While Invuln has Dull Pain, it's on a relatively long timer so Siphon is great at patching up what little gets through.

In no particular order: Stamina/Health are overslotted for Rad Armor. I usually leave it at Panacea in health and Perf Shifter in Stamina. It doesn't need more recovery or regen, mainly because... Move those slots to Rad Therapy. Proc that sucker out. I usually put in two Heal set IOs for some heal and recharge then the rest are damage procs except for one slot which is reserved for Theft of Essence:+End. Slot that and Rad Therapy heals both the Green and the Blue bars (with a few enemies to hit). It's also a mini proc nuke. Ground Zero... same proc treatment. It's much more impressive as a proc nuke than a team heal. This sucker can hit THIRTY targets in a 22.5ft radius (including allies, but still). Recharge is life. Consider getting Hasten and putting it on auto. I manually key Particle Shielding when I need it instead of having it on auto. You could get Hover instead of CJ and free up a pool choice. Because recharge is life, consider also trying to boost slow resist to 100%. Easy way to do this is to take one of those slots from Health/Stamina and put it in a travel power, then slot Winter's Gift slow resist. That alone would put you at 95.4 which is probably enough but if you wanted to hit 100, trade two of the superior winters in Maiming Slash for the non-superior versions. This doubles up on the 2-slot bonus of slow resist. It loses you a bit of defense, which is okay because... Defense on Rad Armor is mostly bullshit anyway. You don't have DDR. Yeah, you can get a little with Ageless Radial but for half its duration, it's a paltry 21% DDR. You'll still get your defense flattened against anybody with defense debuffs... and frankly Rad Armor doesn't need defense against anything BUT defense debuffers. So it's kind of useless except as a base to build on for things like Melee Hybrid, Barrier, or team buffs. And any amount of defense is a good foundation. Doesn't have to be soft-cap by itself. Really anywhere you are going for defense or anything else at the expense of maxing resists, like Neg or Psi, reconsider. Play to the set's strengths for survival: Resist, recharge, absorb, hit points. If you can, try to squeeze in an Aegis: Psi Resist and a few more Impervium Psi Resists (which are not unique) to boost up psi resist. Regeneration set bonuses are tiny. Not even sure they make much difference especially when you've got good regen already and a reasonably fast self heal that doesn't even need to be slotted as a heal to be decent for what little health you're every going to lose. Focused Accuracy. Because you can't rely on defense to shield you from debuffs, you want FA, even if you leave it off until needed. When up against toHit debuffers like Tsoo Sorcs, Storm Mavens, or CoT ghosts, you will love it. Trust me.

I swear I was just trying to get the Isolator badge!

Storm Kick is +10% def(all) on a Tanker, which is probably why it was chosen for an absurd survival build.

This. Not saying there's no anti-farm smugness in there somewhere but mostly it's just lazy for people to hop in, click through the big dialog saying "Stuff just changed! Click here to find out what changed!" and then to stand there, slack-jawed, wondering where the AE building went? Come on, folks. Lift at least ONE finger to find out for yourself, yeah?

Prior to the patch, in a team setting, that aggro should have spilled onto your teammates and it still should. Is this not how it's working?

I see this rarely. But yeah, sometimes someone will join the team from Atlas then... nothing. Often they don't even respond to "are you coming?" queries in team channel and then after a bit are either kicked or quit.

I don't see how non-suppressed stealth is impacted. If anything, it does what it always has done and keeps you FROM aggroing nearby groups unless you really want to. It also doesn't affect teams much because excess aggro will spill onto teammates just the same as before. Only situation where you are getting more incoming fire than before is if you solo and intentionally pull multiple x8 sized groups, previously relying on the aggro cap to "regulate" the incoming fire. That's why it's mostly farmers talking about it.

On a team it shouldn't be any different. Aggro spreads to teammates, so outside of the same 16 targets you've always been able to hit with it, anything you aggro beyond the cap should spill onto teammates like before, not just stand there shooting you.

This hasn't been my PuG experience. KB scatter is rare. Controllers/Doms immobilizing spread out spawns is more common but still not an every team thing either. That stuff doesn't just affect AoE tankers but ANY melee AoE and half of ranged AoE powers too.

Oh no... not touching that. (a) Wasn't really involved the first time, but also (b) I am sure the "answer" to that question is a whole flame war all by itself (and HAS been a whole flame war in the past). Not at all interested in re-litigating now. Point though is that nobody should have to. If one has a solid argument for or against a nerf, on the specifics, then they don't need to be attacking anyone's motives. Generally, doing so is a dead giveaway that one doesn't have a better argument and is appealing to emotions instead. And nobody HAS a solid argument on the specifics of this alleged Bio nerf because... there aren't any. Not any that we've been shown, at least. Nobody has come forward to say it's happening and why. So there's nothing worth the time debating... yet. And even then it would be best to carry that on in another thread.