ZemX

Pretty sure this is going in circles but it's also being made way more complicated than it needs to be. 1. Purely on SOs, which is the supposed balance point around which this game is designed, I don't think it's ever been explicitly or implicitly promised that literally every AT, powerset, and level should be soloable in all content or even just in mission story arcs. And I don't think it should be. All of those missions STILL tell you to bring friends whenever they're about to throw an AV (or downgraded to EB) at you. 2. When we open the field up to IOs and Incarnates and everything else, there is clearly nothing in normal content that probably cannot be soloed by any AT or powerset combo, at least by somebody skilled enough and given enough time.

That's the point. DB and Katana are waaaaay closer in pylon/trapdoor tests and yet people still talk about "underperforming" same as they do when speaking of Kinetic Melee, which is notably farther down the scale.

Yeah, don't worry. There's no willingness to believe him. I was just clarifying his point about "invulnerability" in AE. As I said, he's still barking up the wrong tree on soloability. Even if he adjusts his "Testing" back to +0 difficulty, he's still going to run at the AV with no armor, no insps, and no plan probably, achieving the same results. Mostly this argument is for the benefit of others reading. I'd hate for some newcomer to the game to happen upon this and actually believe any of it. And as far as that goes, we've probably all made the points we intended to make. Until next time!

Edgy! But I already have a "robot that became self aware" concept. The Clockwork Mime! Imagine becoming self-aware only to realize your entire purpose in this world was to stand on sidewalks in Imperial City entertaining passers-by with a mime act. Obviously, he went Crusader so he could see that world burn. He was Martial Arts but now I think of it, Kinetic Melee is probably much better aligned with the mime concept.

See also the "what does 'underpowered' mean?" thread in General. Basically, we are quibbling over some percentage of DPS that will bother a min/max gamer... and nobody else. And I think some of Katana's fame is almost certainly down to said min/max builds with -RES and damage procs. You'd think its lethal damage would hamper it, but it ends up pretty highly ranked for DPS when you IO it out. I've done Rad/Kat on a tanker and it's fun. I posted a Rad/BS variation of the build in the recent Broadsword thread here. But it's not one of those damage-tweaked proc-monster builds either. I like it, but for a basic tanky build, I prefer something with larger AoE like Ice Melee or Battle Axe. Possibly the only reason I haven't dipped into DB myself is that I find the animations to be a bit robotic and the sound effects... weird, somehow. Maybe I just need a robot tanker concept. 🤪

It sounds good for DPS roles but it's kind of disappointing for everyone else, in my opinion. "Oh, for the game's most elite content, I need a build for my tank that's less... uh... tanky?" Pass.

Wrong. Nobody NEEDS to fight anything in this game solo. The one exception is new story missions at the ends of some arcs, but these are designed to be soloed and CAN be, by anybody. Soloing is otherwise a choice, not a requirement. It has never been, and hopefully never will be, a design requirement of this game that literally every character must be able to solo all content equally well, let alone at the +4 difficulty level with zero mitigation you're doing your so-called "testing" at. The entire point of having different Archetypes is to present players with different strengths and weaknesses. There are literally support powersets in this game that offer practically no benefit to the player themselves. They are entirely team-focused. Soloists don't use them. Your testing isn't revealing any problem. The game is tested every day by thousands of players. It works. And yes, even for soloists. Though the people who are serious about soloing difficult content don't run up to an AV with a naked Defender or Mastermind... just sayin'

Minor confusion here. I assume when he said he turned on "invulnerability", he meant some AE feature where you take no damage while testing a mission. Makes sense if you just want to record damage numbers. His AE numbers in this thread, unlike his wild AV fight numbers of yore, actually make sense. They match exactly the damage you'd take with zero smashing resistance at level 50 vs a +4 enemy (level 54 damage number x 1.44 for purple patch). Not that this is a good argument either. His numbers are right for the AE stuff he quoted, but the situation is still indefensible. He's going up against +4 solo with no protections. Apparently no bodyguard. No secondary buffs for his minions. No oranges. No Tough. This game does not guarantee ANYONE the ability to solo at +4 let alone someone who has gone in effectively buck naked in order to win an Internet argument.

Well I don't, so not sure why you quoted my post. That's not what I was saying. I am saying SOME people will offer this kind of unhelpful post. Most won't. People post builds and discuss build strategies all over these forums too.

I wondered about this. CoD seems to have listed "MissionMaker" powersets. Is this not where AE enemies get their powers? e.g. https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=mission_maker_attacks.super_strength.knockout_blow&at=boss_grunt So this is a 54 boss. If he's +4 to you then you can multiply this up by 1.44 to get 1388 which is exactly what OP claims he was being hit for by the boss. So he's soloing +4 with no smashing resistance at all. Don't know what he expects. Soloing at +4 difficulty is something nobody should expect to easily do on SOs, if at all. Game wasn't balanced for that and, in my opinion, shouldn't be. You want to solo harder difficulty and AVs and all? Get out Mid's and your wallet and visit the Auction House.

Same thing I thought last two times you posted them. Your numbers are at best exaggerated and at worst fabricated. Hopkins can't do 3000 damage in one punch. We've been through this math with you already. Can he still nearly one shot you if you are a Defender with no energy resistance whatsoever? Yeah. But really, we don't need to delve into the math. There's no point, since you just ignored it anyway last time. The best argument against your idea that "there's no game" is that...uh... there IS a game. We're playing it. We're playing the heck out of it. And most anyone playing will tell you more often than not, it's a pretty EASY game too. So I am not sure what else to tell you. Your numbers are off, but I could at least get to maybe 75% of your damage numbers if I soloed AVs on a Defender at +4 difficulty. But I am not sure that's much of a point. That's not SUPPOSED to work. The game was not originally balanced around ANYBODY soloing AVs, even though this is now possible even on ATs traditionally not considered good soloists. But also not without some serious build work and tactics. Ultimately (no pun intended) there are difficulty settings so you can find the level that suits you. For sure, there are few if any issues with an MM, a Defender, or really anybody soloing at +0/x0, no AVs in normal content. But even those missions with downgraded AVs to EBs will usually recommend you bring some friends. The original game balance around SOs, which even Homecoming has not altered, was built around the notion a solo hero should be able to handle at least around 3 minions or 2 minions and a Lt, solo, at once, and this is where you will be in most cases with +0/x0 difficulty. tl;dr: There's nothing to change because nothing is wrong.

True. On the surface it seems contradictory the badge called "deathless" is obtained by "dying" a lot, but of course nobody actually dies in this game. Not the players anyway.

The complaint here is a generalization, to be sure, but it doesn't come from nowhere. I've seen plenty of people start threads asking for "what to play?" opinions about powers, powersets, and ATs, and then they get some variation of the "You have 1000 slots. Use them!" response. Which to me just reads as a polite "fuck you" since it's specifically taking the time to write a whole post that DOESN'T answer the OP's question and at the same time kind of chides them even for asking instead of just playing and seeing for themselves. It's not like anybody is unaware that they can play the game and judge for themselves, so pointing this out (and ONLY pointing that out) is probably more of a dick move than the person doing it realizes. As long as you're not doing that, you're not being unhelpful. To be clear, not saying there's anything wrong with reminding people of the freedom they have with the 1000 slots and all as long as your reply contains more than just that. And for the most part, the folks replying to this thread have given more complete answers than just "try it yourself, bucko!" But it IS a thing that happens sometimes, so I can also see how someone might develop a frustration over this type of responder.

I doubt it. The one you're talking about is, surprisingly, a much bigger control freak. And that doesn't mesh well with PuGs. If you're gonna sign up to PuG, you need to be chill when shit goes sideways... because it inevitably will. They can't seem to deal with people not following them and doing exactly as they want in a mission. And while I do believe in the "your team, your rules" rule, the flipside of that is people can choose NOT to team with a petty dictator. By contrast, the few teams of Diantane's I've joined have been pretty typical for PuGs. Or I've just gotten lucky. I dunno. But I don't have them on global ignore like the other one.

Good luck with that. The accepted etiquette is only that team members finish a TF or mission that they start. Not that they have to coordinate with other randos when they leave. And while it's nice to give advanced notice "this is probably my last mission" and such, it's also not that common in my experience. This is the PUG life.

Okay, here's a variation on my Rad/Katana Tanker. Load this up in Mid's Reborn and see what you think. Tanker (Rad-BS) - Teleporter.mbd

Weird fact: The defense buff on Parry (and the Katana version, Divine Avalanche) doesn't stack on Tankers like it does for the other melee ATs. It just refreshes. Coupled with being the weakest attack in the whole set but still sitting at level 16 to pick up... ugh. It's not even great on defense Tankers because they tend to do fine on Defense all by themselves and you can get much better attacks even in ordinary power pools. Anyway @Kaibert, I have a Rad/Kat Tanker build somewhere. I can look around for it when I'm home later, if I think about it. Katana and Broadsword are similar enough it might still work. Broadsword is just slower/harder-hitting. But all the attacks are basically the same otherwise. It's a tanking build. You might find other examples around this forum that are built more offensively, with more damage procs, and the like. On all my Rad tankers, I take Energy Mastery for the epic power pool so I can pick up Focused Accuracy. Without defense, getting hit by many debuffs is a concern. Getting hit by -toHit debuffs and/or Slow debuffs can be a real problem. Hence I also look at a few places to two-slot Winter IOs for the slow resistance bonus. That together with Rad's built-in slow resistance can set you up to basically ignore slows. That will help keep you alive since some of your survival depends on refreshing the absorb shield and hitting the heal when things get serious.

Rad Armor is about resistance, absorb, heal, and recharge in roughly that order. It also has a ton of endurance recovery and some regen, so it really needs nothing added to Health and Stamina. I leave both at the default one slot. In Health I put a Panacea:+End/+HP proc. In Stamina, just a Perf Shifter:+End proc. Another Perf Shifter:+end proc goes in Gamma Boost, also with just the one slot. I generally start slotting attuned sets at around level 30 when you start getting more slots on level ups. Kick/Tough from Fighting Pool is nice for added Smash/Lethal res. Parry, and defense in general, is not great on a Rad. Too much stuff debuffs defense and Rad has no defense debuff resistance, so it blows away in the wind in pretty much the only situation where you actually could use more defense. I'd drop Parry and maybe Meltdown at this level to free up a couple power picks for Kick and Tough. You will be noticeably less squishy against a lot of things with closer to hard cap S/L resistance. If you can free up the slots to six-slot Slice and Whirling Sword, those are good places for the Tanker ATO sets. Might of the Tanker, in particular, for the stacking resistance(all) proc. But both ATO sets at six will give you 6% S/L res each. As for res sets in your armor toggles. A couple sets of Unbreakable Guard are good. Impervium Armor is not bad either. A few one-slot wonder IOs you can put in Combat Jumping when you have the slots: - Shield Wall: TP prot/RES(all) - 5% to all resistance is nice - LotG: Recharge. - Reactive Defense: Scaling Res - Adds 3% res(all) and then a slight bit more as your health drops. But the 3% default is nice all by itself. - Kismet:+toHit For Radiation Therapy, prioritize a Theft of Essence:+End proc. This turns the power into an endurance heal as well as a health heal. Great when facing draining enemies. It's all about stacking up the resistance to reach to or close to that magic 90%. Close is often good enough when you have Might of the Tanker because that adds 6-12% by itself.

Oh, and one thing you might or might not have heard, which you won't find in patch notes is that CoH Homecoming now has official license from NCSoft to run these servers. That was at the beginning of this year and it drove a LOT of traffic this way for a little while. I think it's mostly quieted back down to pre-announcement traffic levels by this point.

Just go here and scroll down to the bottom where you'll find links to patch notes with dates next to them. Easy to see where you left off. Somewhere in Issue 27. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Issues

Staff also works well on Stalker since it addresses a big problem with the set on other ATs: Lack of decent ST damage but still leaves you a couple AoEs for dealing with groups. Pairs well with Ninjitsu for the +melee defense attack. Though I guess that'd be more of a Robin/Nightwing homage then...

I think it worked out well to leave the choice of secondary open. Gives us a little variety on the team. I think an all Ice Armor team would be interesting. That would be a LOT of slow debuff when we're together. Maybe next time I'll set a calendar reminder or something.

She is. You're lookin' at a typo, I guess.

The problem I have with it is that I once heard it called "NASCAR Melee" and now I can never un-hear it. Vrooooooomm...roommmm.... zoooooom. *CRASH*

It really depends what you plan to do. Tanking, the team role, doesn't need you to be at the top of a pylon rankings chart. Soloing, it makes a big difference obviously. And damage seems to be wanted for everyone on a Hard Mode. Other than that.... I'd say pick whatever strikes your fancy. I took a Rad/Staff to 50 and got nothing but praise on random teams for my tanking. Worth remembering that no matter what you pick, *any* Stalker, even one with a staff, will still eat your lunch on ST damage. On a team, the difference between the best and worst ST damage tanker matters a whole lot less when you have real damage dealers in the mix. It makes *a* difference, to be sure, but nothing like the dramatic difference you see in pylon times for the tanker. And another thing to remember is that picking the "top tier" secondary is only step one. If you really want to chase that top time, you'd need also probably mix in patron and pool attacks like Gloom and Cross-punch that may not match your concept, that's a concern for you. And also probably go to town on damage procs, skipping out on set bonuses that would have boosted your survival capability.