ZemX

The wrinkle in all this is that there appears to be at least two different games here and whether someone is OP or UP depends on which game you are talking about. Come to the forums and try to talk about team tactics, for example, and three people will pop out from behind a rock to tell me that nobody needs tactics because everything dies in seconds to a withering hail of AoEs. And they're not wrong in some cases if we're talking about teams of IOd and Incarnated (that's a word, right?) level 50 characters. But they ARE wrong for most random pick-up teams running max. difficulty below about level 40. Tankers, for example, aren't particular overpowered in the endgame where "enough" survivability is all you need and then what is more important is how much damage you can do. Tankers do okay damage but you can hardly call it overpowered. A Scrapper or Brute boosted by their team is arguably more useful. But... Tankers are like cheating in the middle levels since they can achieve near-immortality much sooner and with less investment than anyone else and couple it with very respectable damage.

Since I don't have a Fire Tanker, I don't play my Tankers on teams where "it all melts". You hardly need a Tank on those teams, let alone one who took Taunt. But yeah, I've seen that "hop in and taunt the pack of mobs you just landed in thing". I don't mention it in game, because... unsolicited advice. I use Taunt on the annoying ranged foes and whenever I want to grab something without leaving the main pack of enemies I have taunted with aura and AoEs. I could do without it, but find it useful enough that I don't want to. Like anything else in the build, I ask myself if there's a better one-slot wonder power I could replace it with and the answer is usually "no".

Adding injury to insult is NOT how the saying goes, man!

I am absolutely not saying it didn't happen. It happened enough that empaths had a crowd of people treating them like gods, no doubt. But there were as many people laughing at them in global chat channels whenever teams would go "looking for healer" or "need a tank" so there were at least both camps of people present from very early on. If you chose to play an Empath, you didn't go hungry... not saying that. But the reality too was that the core game mechanics that make stacking buffs/debuffs so powerful were there from the start. Hell, ED was a result of that buff-stacking problem applied to enhancements. The Live devs didn't realize how much power they'd given and many players didn't either right away.

If it's Excelsior, there's a group that runs Level 44 challenge mode ITFs that DO put "IOed 50s" in the LFG message. But people still sometimes join who aren't 50 or aren't IOed because people sometimes just don't read. Not saying that's what happened here. It would indeed be rude if it was not announced.

I've read it several times and it, along with your follow ups, sure sound a lot more like you think empathy was more popular than I remember it being. Maybe if when you think someone has misunderstood you, it would be more admirable to clarify than to insult first? Just a thought for you.

When you write a post that's 90% talking how popular and prevalent the Trinity is, don't bitch at ME because I didn't put that much weight on your last sentence that sounded like an exception to that rule. I am saying people who bucked the Trinity were as popular, or more, than those who were sticking to it. If that's what you're saying then great... we're saying the same thing.

I don't recall any such time and I started with the beta. This probably depended on which circles you ran in. The Holy Trinity was by then already well established in other pre-WoW MMOs so people brought it with them. The game never required it though and Empaths weren't REALLY king. They just often thought of themselves that way and enough people treated them that way. But people who knew how the game actually worked could run circles around the tired Trinity. Eight Defender teams were always a sight to behold. Once you realized how stacking buffs/debuffs worked... it was off to the races really. It was really funny to get one of those "healers" on a team back then that wasn't taking any damage thanks to the other support.

"Enabled" isn't the same as required or even encouraged. As loud as people were declaring themselves to be healers or "looking for healers" in game, there were equally loud people telling them they didn't need a healer. That goes all the way back. It's not quite THAT simple to find a challenge for a Level 50 Incarnate these days. But it can be found. If Hard Mode does anything it will be to both make that easier to set up for Level 50 teams AND worth doing with better rewards. That last part probably keeps plenty of people from bothering with harder modes of play that are already available. Generally, I find +4/x8 on mid-level teams a good compromise. No incarnates and often not everyone is fully IOed yet. Roles matter more but still nothing in particular is absolutely required. A team doesn't need a tank, but still benefits from one. Same for buff/debuffs or control. More than half the reason I won't set foot in a farm isn't any disdain for people who farm but just that some of the best team gameplay still to be found in CoH is on low to mid-level teams where people still have SOs (or at least not full IO builds). Takes me back.

I see a lot of Tank builds with Taunt dead last and I can only assume they are meant to be 50-only endgame builds. Taunt is a HUGE help if you're actually playing the game while leveling instead of sitting at a door in a farm. Not that you can't get by without it. It's just very handy when you're standing in a group you have controlled and need to pull something else into it or off of someone else. You don't have to go smack it yourself or worry about a ranged attack missing when another hit might flatten a squishy. Just one more thing that goes away when nobody is "squishy" though. That's the state of endgame CoH pretty much. You don't need anything but damage and more damage. Why anybody plays the high end game is beyond me. I can only find "real" CoH myself on teams running max. difficult below level 45 and usually without everyone on the team being fully IOed yet.

TIL! Thanks! I guess it really is as easy as a costume change.

You might also make use of the three builds. Obviously not as convenient as a costume change, but you could BaseTp -> Trainer -> step back through portal and be back where you were in a new costume and alternate build inside of a minute or less probably. This would let you emphasize Blaster melee attacks and melee defense in one build, ranged in another, control type stuff in a third?

The most annoying thing about the Zombie and Rikti invasions (since they both work the same way) is the way they consistently keep spawning on the same side of any given pack of players. Instead of randomly spawning around players. Causes the whole thing to migrate over time. I've seen them go over cliffs in Talos like a bunch of lemmings. You can't get people to move back either because once something spawns, people run to attack it, no matter what you are telling them in League chat.

If it's for soloing, then starting with Assassin's Strike is fine. The animation time is irrelevant when it all happens before the fight starts. It also packs tohit debuff and chance to Terrorize. I'll sometimes even do it on a team if I can get to a spawn a couple seconds ahead of the rest and line up some boss or other dangerous enemy in the pack.

Only three reasons I know of for a mob running away from you while taunted: "Avoid" effect. This is usually something like a Rain of Fire or Caltrops/Ignite patch. So this would have to be from a teammate... unless you took Ice Storm in the Epics. Someone else stole the aggro by creating more threat. This is possible because Taunt is not an absolute. It just puts you high on the threat list and makes all your attacks during the taunt effect do a LOT more threat. A scrapper taunting one target while hitting it CAN steal aggro from a tanker, for example. It's part of the enemy AI. Some enemies, like Longbow Eagles for example, have a power called "Positioning" that, if it hits anything in an 8ft radius causes the Longbow (not you) to run away for 3 seconds. It's a hack done with ranged attack enemies to make them appear to prefer fighting from range. So they run away a bit, then turn back around and shoot you from range. Cabal witches have this too. Probably a number of other ranged enemies do. I've not had any issue other than these for not being able to keep aggro. Some mobs don't want to bunch up because they fight from range. Taunt (the power) has a -range debuff that can cause even ranged enemies to run towards you but there are limits to it. Snipers, for instance, have such long range that they often don't budge and just keep shooting from wherever they are. Your other taunts from auras and punch-voke don't have this -range debuff. But most enemies have some melee attacks and once they've shot you, will usually bunch up around you if they are taunted in some way. Staff is particularly easy to maintain aggro. The Gauntlet inherent means Eye of the Storm taunts everything it hits in a 15 foot radius around you AND everything in a ten foot radius around each of those targets hit. And that's before your taunt auras and any use of the Taunt power are factored in. It's usually dead simple to keep aggro. Some Tankers skip Taunt entirely, though I find it useful for when I want to taunt at range and be sure it works (because it's autohit).

I just imagined @Bill Z Bubba pondering that for a moment, perhaps first discarding: "Is it Thursday? Brute!" before settling on "Team a lot? Brute!"

The tanker version is an interesting case since both the ST and AoE child powers accept Taunt enhancement. I wonder if Perfect Zinger has a chance to hit the main target twice! In any case, you'd have to test this, ideally, with a spawn of 10 enemies packed up nice and tight in front of you with the main target in the center and preferrably a unique name, like being the only boss or LT in the group so you can see in the combat log when the proc is hitting it vs. the others maybe. An then you'd have to do that a number of times to differentiate proc rates since it's only the difference of 34.7% vs. about 58% I think, assuming no local recharge in the power. I have a Shield/DM tanker so it might be a fun experiment... for science! 🤪

ToF "executes" two powers: One for ST and one for AoE. I would assume each of those executions is passed the proc and has their own chances to proc on each target hit by them. So the ST power should use ST formula and the AoE power should use AoE formula. I think you'd have to run a fair number of trials to determine if the proc rate you were seeing was 34.7% or something like 60% for the ST portion. It's complicated probably by not being able to tell the difference between the ST and AoE procs in the combat log. It's just going to say "procname hits for x dmg" or something like that, I think. So the ST portion WOULD cause the combined proc rate to appear slightly higher than if it just used AoE formula for everything. Thunderstrike is a single power execution with multiple effects. It's just some effects only occur on targets within the inner radius. I wouldn't think that would be any different for procs than any other power that has multiple effects. You only get one proc chance per target hit, no matter how many separate effects are applied or not applied.

Haven't played one yet but Bio looks pretty similar to Rad to me. Clickies are Absorb, Heal, and T9. So I expect a well built Bio to play similarly and not need the heal except in rare situations. It does look like the absorb shield has a longish animation though. 2 seconds vs. Rad's 0.9 seconds. It's also faster recharging (90s vs 120s base) and lasts half as long (30s vs 60s). So maybe it's used more often? I can see that being a little more of an interruption than I'm used to with Rad.

Redraw is visually annoying but doesn't impact performance. Just be sure to queue attacks during the animations and they will interrupt if there's been a redraw preceding them.

I assumed they meant Elec Armor. Rad is less clicky than it looks in practice, I've found. At least if by "clicky" we mean "clicking powers to stay alive". Particle Shielding is really the only thing you'll need to click whenever it's up to stay alive. Once you're built, you'll rarely use the heal unless you turn it into a proc bomb attack. Ground Zero is another attack, so again not something you're clicking to stay alive at least. Pairs well with Staff's Form of Body for the resist bonus in Sky Splitter. I've been eyeing Invuln or SR for another Staff tanker myself though. Really want to try a defense-tanker next. Invuln is tempting but SR seems like it might exemplar better and I do a lot of that.

Divine Avalanche is probably skipped because the defense isn't that useful. Rad Armor has no defense debuff resistance so building defense on it is only useful when you're not facing enemies that debuff defense. Rad Armor is otherwise strong enough with its Absorb shield, resist, regen, and heal. Speaking of which, yes, recharge is good. You want Particle Shielding to refresh as often as possible to restore the Absorb shield and you want as much resist as you can get to prevent enemies from eating through it before it refreshes. Plus more recharge just makes everything else go faster and Rad Armor provides plenty of endurance to fuel that speed. I don't think Katana is bad damage but fast weapon sets give that impression simply by not providing the big orange numbers. It's also lethal damage so it's going to feel weak against enemies with a lot of lethal resistance. Claws would get you better AoE. That's maybe one issue with Kat. Flashing Steel is okay, wide with the Tanker inherent buff to arc but still pretty short range. Golden Dragonfly gets only slightly wider because it was super narrow to begin with. You might hit a few if you line them up well or just aim it into a pack of enemies. So that leaves Lotus Drops as your only big AoE. With the Tanker inherent, it goes out to 12ft radius, so pretty nice. I'm a bigger fan of Staff Fighting for it's three big AoEs and slightly longer reach. Smashing is a little less resisted than Lethal. You don't get a Build Up but in place of that you get Staff Mastery's three stances that offer different benefits. The nicest one, in my view, is Form of Body's +res buff when you use Sky Splitter as a finisher. 13.3% res(all) on top of the Tanker ATO (placed in one of those AoEs for best results) and you have a huge resist bonus, meaning you don't have to work as hard stacking resist with IOs if you'd rather focus on recharge, for example. Form of Body also has a nice -res in Eye of the Storm (the PBAoE) if you want to use that as a finisher instead for more damage. But Staff has the same impression of doing less damage because it's faster and does damage over time in a few powers. People often complain it doesn't "feel" impactful enough. My other advice for Rad Armor is based on experience with being debuffed. Everything hits you. ToHit debuffs will make you cry if you don't have some protection there. I picked up Focused Accuracy in the Epic pool for that. I also have Tactics in the Leadership pool for the toHit, perception (helps with blindness), and the Confuse protection (because Rad Armor has none). You've got the slow res already in your travel power, so good. Taunt doesn't need accuracy unless you plan to PvP. I like recharge there but a Psi damage proc is another popular choice.

I didn't read the whole post but I recall seeing it before. On Invuln and EA I think it's still up to date. The main thing that was changed for Stalkers on Invuln was Reinforced being a flat 10% toHit and 7.5% defense. This is half the maximum that Invincibility can reach on a Scrapper when surrounded by 10 enemies. I suppose it's arguable how often a Stalker is surrounded by 10 enemies vs. just 5 but that's down to your playstyle and what you intend to do with your Stalker. The Stalker version can be seen as an advantage if you're less often going to be surrounded because you get that flat buff all the time whereas Invincibility gets very little against a solo opponent, for example. If you want to explore it a little further @Croax's build thread in this forum has builds you can load into Mid's and just compare. This lets you see an example of where each might end up with a full endgame IO build. It's easy to see where they start from but better to look at final stats like that. Invuln, for instance, will take more to get to the soft-cap for defense than EA. You can see what it takes to get there on a final build like that.

I'm not convinced this thread isn't a troll job. Robot players? This can't be serious.

I think there are several empty buildings you can walk into in KW. Ran into the same thing ToTing last couple nights.