Scientist

Whereas every character I have except the tank (doesn't need it) and the stalker (ditto, for obvious reasons) has Superspeed plus the Stealth IO in Sprint for full inviso. 🙂 I did see a build where someone on Live, where it was probably 500M+ Inf, five slotted Brawl with purples for the recharge bonus.

It actually took 4 days once? Longest I heard of before they got their month's expenses and shut it off was under an hour. Their expenses are like $5-6k/month, so it fills pretty fast.

Yes, that part we weren't as surprised by as it locking both of us at our starting level despite leveling up during the TF. I thought in the old, long Positron days we had taken characters in below the max TF level, and leveled them during it, and had it get easier because we were allowed to increase during the TF.

So they don't adjust to your actual level on each mission as you progress, like regular content, and they ALSO lock at max level for the SF? We hadn't noticed that for TFs, but I don't know if we ran one underlevel. Darn, guess we'll be stuck duoing a +3 AV with ambush spawns, those Succubi in the ambushes hit pretty hard. . . 😛

So a friend and I started duoing this at level 37, and were kind of annoyed that the mobs were 40, but figured that the "classic" TFs and SFs may have been set to not spawn at your level. While running it, about half way in, we both dinged 38. It is still locking us at 37, so we are kind of struggling against the AV in the last mission. Any idea what is going on?

Regarding this section; "One of the changes Homecoming implemented was automatically unlocking the Incarnate system once you train up to level 50—no Mender Ramiel arc completion required (though you certainly can still do it if you want to see the story play out). Once you train, you’ll immediately start earning Incarnate XP—and not just from special Incarnate content, either, but from ordinary adventuring. The first batch of Incarnate XP will go toward unlocking your Alpha slot, and it unlocks pretty quickly—do a Task Force of any reasonable length, or even just get in a Rikti Mothership raid, and you’ll almost certainly have it unlocked by the time you’re done. And the other slots will follow that—a little more slowly, but keep adventuring and they’ll be done before you know it." Note that completing Mender Ramiel's arc immediately unlocks your Alpha slot, so that further content you run goes towards unlocking higher incarnate powers. That could be handy if you are a natural soloer and don't want to wait to run a TF or set of radio missions. If you are going to bother with it, then, run it right after reaching 50. Most of his missions are fairly easy to solo, but the Honoree one is rather challenging, and many people ask for help with it.

A friend and I recently made characters to run in Praetoria, following the "change sides every time" guide in the Guides section. When we finally got out (have to turn off XPs for about 80% of it to do all the arcs), we had to go redside, because both sides in Praetoria are arguably more villianous than most of the actual Villian story arcs. Sure, in Sharkshead, you help someone get revenge on an old foe and he pays you. In Praetoria you do things like nerve gas a police station to incite the populace against the Resistance, and that's when you are a Loyalist, if I recall properly. Our characters now look for the most cynical, destructive things we can do in Rogue Isles. And when we are lucky we find a mission with lots of ambushes, just like home, sigh. . . 🙂

I was on a Posi 1 a couple of weeks ago on my 50 that ultimately failed. The leader had been running it on +2 difficulty, this being his first TF, and after half a dozen attempts and team wipes to beat our dopplegangers in the last mission the team gave up. We tried having everyone log out and back in to reset it during play, but between one or two afks and lack of coordination couldn't get everyone to log out long enough (and we weren't sure how long that was) to get it set back down to +0. Myself and the one other person with a 50, who wasn't on that alt but rather a lowbie tank, even tried buying temp powers at the P2W vendor, but it wasn't enough. Ditto trying to get people to use insps, I dropped in under 15 seconds even with 50%+ defenses. I didn't quit it, and went in a day later and finished it solo, because the difficulty had reset back down to +0, and it was set for one player. So there is definitely an option if people want higher difficulty, but I don't suggest setting the floor any higher.

I had trapped 42, defeated 53, and hadn't gotten it, after reading this I just defeated up to 100. That got me the Pirate badge, and finished the BiB accolade for me. Confirmed it is now just a defeat, you do not need to trap them, which makes it a lot easier if you are a character without a taunt because it was fairly hard to lead them over there to the glowing "portal" things on the ground without killing them once you were leveled past it. If you are trying to collect the badge for trapping them, and don't have a taunt, one trick is to take an Oro mission to drop down to a lower level so you don't insta-kill them, or immediately flee because you are too high level. Warning, when you have trapped 10 or so, a bunch spawn around you, and they are a mix of lts and bosses and are +2 or so to the ones you have been trapping, so you can actually die using this technique. . .

Ice is also pretty good for proc slotting, but this would become a very complex exercise, as you tend to lose recharge and defense by slotting a lot of procs. How do you value doing more damage in your procced out Cosmic Burst, but at the cost of a worse cycle time for Neutron Bomb? Or vice versa? Epics could also matter a lot, my Rad/Rad defender gets as much damage from procced Dominate as from her snipe, even with 2 procs in the snipe, no other "real" ST rad attacks compare.

My main was a rad/rad defender back in the day, and was my first to 50 on Homecoming. I find it a great combo, because you can stand in your own debuffs and fire off your AoEs. Cones with the toggle debuffs can be a pain, because some mobs run out of the debuffs to get to you. A rad defender is also one of the best support characters in the game when you are exemping down for low level content like a Posi TF, I try to make sure I have inviso + Recall Friend even down there. I did not particularly worry about capping defenses, only 33.8% ranged, but if you are in your own debuffs against anything but AVs Radiation Infection has their tohit floored. Against AVs I team, or use a small purple to soft cap. The focus was getting the combination of Accelerate Metabolism and Hasten perma (needs about 75% global recharge), and having a wide variety of team support powers. At times I've used debuffs on one spawn, EM Pulse on another, and Mass Hypnosis on a third when the team was getting overwhelmed. At low levels on harder content, I may run Choking Cloud for additional mitigation, in Radiation Infection it can get most of a spawn held pretty quickly, and keep them that way. If you have Accelerate Metabolism perma, you should never run out of End on a team, I sometimes forget to turn off Superspeed and Sprint while fighting. 🙂 I took Psychic Mastery because I can proc up Dominate to be another snipe level attack, and I've prevented additional spawns from wiping the team with Mass Hypnosis. That can also work for clicking glowies when stealthing if a spawn is too close. If you really want self defenses, you have to drop some team support powers to get Weave in the fighting pool, or sacrifice a fair amount of recharge to get defense. Once I have Clarion T3 for perma mezz protection, though, this character can handle pretty tough content, if I took Aim + Atomic Blast probably even more. This build could potentially be improved with some of the new IO sets, there is a EndMod one that provides both some recharge and ranged defense, and Artillery, a targeted AoE one, gives very good ranged defense. http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/download.php?uc=1486&c=702&a=1404&f=HEX&dc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

OP, if you want to be a really effective addition to your team, both as a healer and as a secondary blaster, I'd suggest doing this. You can slot most sets in the game by your level, and you will notice definite improvements in recharge of heals, defenses, and a number of other areas. Then, when you hit 50, you can pull out any sets you had slotted, such as Decimation or Positrons Blast, and replace them with your final sets, storing the sets you pulled out for your next character. I've got some sets that have been passed through 3 characters now on the way to 50, so you don't have to keep buying them. Just make sure to buy the Attuned versions, so you can start slotting them around SO time, and they are effective up to 50. If, for example, you want to 6-slot heals, if you put a Numina in you get some ranged defense, or a Preventative Medicine for some recharge. For Recovery Aura (which should have Endurance Modification, not End Reduction, by the way) slot one of the new EndMod sets, Preemptive Optimization, for both defense and some recharge. Also, though they are more expensive, the Defender ATOs are some of the best in the game.

That is correct, the Force Feedback only procs if the skill is used. If you are spamming Kick, you will lose a lot of dps from not using the much harder hitting blaster attacks. It probably also has a low chance to proc in Kick because Kicks recharge is short. And yes, Celerity +stealth stacks with everything, Superspeed, Stalker Hide, Steamy Mist, etc.

I was curious about the mezz protect ATO, it can go into ST or AoE attacks, am I correct in guessing that it is better to go into a fairly frequently usable AoE since it only has to proc on one target to provide the mezz protection? I was thinking that based on normally suggested slotting for the Force Feedback proc and other "self affecting" procs.

Running a Storm/Ice defender, lots of procs in the two holds work great, snipe level damage in a Hold is very handy. I think I can free up one slot, would an Achilles be better in Freezing Rain or Tornado? I'm not entirely sure how to calculate the chance in either, since they are both pseudo-pet based.

You are completely correct, Omega-202, I got that mixed up, it is the Venom Grenade that has a -40% toxic resist debuff with only -20% resist against other damage. That still means a nice damage bonus from Bile Spray, though, as part of an AoE attack chain. After VG and Arctic, the Bile is hitting against -55% AoE resist on the foes. Add that to the toxic damage from the ATO proc, and it is just hard to beat Crab AoE damage against tough spawns. Against weak spawns, a Fire blaster will certainly be faster because of fast animations. There is a LOT of high level content people play on +4, though, and all their AoEs will see -25% foe resists, which is comparable to most defender AoE debuffs. Dang it, I was thinking of making a blaster alt, and just talked myself out of it. . . 😛

One other comment, especially at low levels it can be easy to drain your end bar if you are throwing out a lot of attacks. Don't feel you need to do this, nobody ever booted a tank from a team because they didn't do enough dps. They would MUCH rather not have you run out of end, detoggle, and faceplant, spreading the remaining aggro evenly among the blaster, to quote another excellent guide. That is one reason I think TW can work for a tank without needing to micromanage it, I don't care that much if I have Momentum for 1 attack or 3, I'm doing my job even if I break the chain to throw out a Taunt, or fire off an aggro PbAoE.

Conversely, Bio is good for a tank because it is easy to cap energy and negative energy defenses, which provides protection from the handful of attacks which can really shut down a tank, such as Malta Sappers and Dark Ring Mistress Carnival bosses. Most of the really nasty debuffs in the game ride on either energy or negative energy typed attacks. Since it is easy to get S/L resistance to the cap with Bio, that helps a lot with the lower S/L defense as Gobbledegook mentioned.

I'm one of the ones who bids low and bid creeps for builds, because I have them planned out, and if I get everything for half-ish price it means I only have to spend half as much time marketing. Part of what I work to make Inf is buying/crafting/converting purples, so if I use a set on a character I replace it with ones I generate that way, so I can always get those from my stockpile in a hurry. Also, after getting my first couple of 50s, I haven't been on a hurry for others so plenty of time to bid low for things I want.

While Leviathan has long animations, I'm normally teaming on my Crab, and even MORE AoE -resist is too sweet to pass up, plus Arctic has doubled -resist for Toxic damage (note this isn't mentioned in Mids, you have to hunt around for the info), which you can do a lot of between Bile Spray and Venom Grenade and the Spiders Bite ATO global toxic proc. A friend and I theorycrafted this against a Fire blaster even without the ATO back on Live, and while the blaster can do more AoE in the first 5 seconds or so, after that the Crab catches up and stays ahead. The Crab also obviously has a lot better native defenses and team support with the Leadership toggles.

One thing a Tank really excels at is moving a specific mob, or spawn, to where you want them. Brutes and Scrappers with Taunt auras can do that to some extent, but Tanker Taunt has, as far as I know, the only "-range" power in the game. Thus even mobs who would normally want to stay at range, which includes a lot of annoying Praetorian ones, have to get closer to attack you, entering the team's debuffs and AoEs. Other than that, lots of good advice here, one thing I like to do when a spawn is down to maybe a boss and I'm about to run off to the next is hit that boss with a final Taunt. That makes sure they don't turn and clobber some squishy for long enough that the team will probably finish them off, and I don't really need Taunt immediately when I start herding a new spawn, I'm relying on AoEs/aura, so it has plenty of time to recharge. Also, there are certain mobs you may want to learn about because they are a threat even to tanks. Malta sappers are among them, you may specifically NOT want to taunt those, frankly if they shoot the blaster and drain their End, it just slows things down slightly since they don't do much damage, if you get drained and lose your toggles with a whole spawn beating on you and mezzing you, it could get bad. Dark Ring Mistresses, Carnie bosses, are also bad, they have really nasty debuffs, those along with some Circle of Thorns mobs can completely remove your defense and/or tohit, so abilities that have to hit enemies to heal you, for example, may be useless. I suggest monitoring your Combat Attributes to watch for those kinds of things, no point firing off the Dark Heal if its going to whiff.

I also run into this as a /Traps MM sometimes, when I use Poison Trap and all the mobs start choking, or Caltrops and they are slow-mo running away, the pets will stop firing because nobody is attacking them or me.

See, I like my bots/traps MM because I can manage the battlefield exactly the way I want it. It was particularly a nice change from live after running my rad defender main and having teams totally fail to cooperate and being either ineffective or faceplanting as a result. "Finally, a team that does EXACTLY WHAT I TELL THEM!" 🙂 I also like TW on a tank, because while its animating I can look around the battlefield and see what is going on that I might need to respond to. Since I'm not expected to be a main damage source on a team, if I mess up the momentum mechanic, its no big deal. I don't know that I'd take it on a Brute or Scrapper. Played a Grav/FF on live, and never again, even incarnated out I almost never found a mission or team where that character was a better choice than my other ones. There are a handful of scenarios where you NEED someone locked down, like "prevent escape" type stuff, but not enough to justify the character. Remade as a Grav/Time here, and significantly more fun to play between the fact that Time can actually help with offense and the availability of knockback -> knockdown IOs. Still a fairly late bloomer, though.

I noticed this as well when I was buying yellow salvage a week or so ago, normally a bid price of 8-900 would fill within hours, I had bids as high as 1500 go unfilled for a couple of days, and was seeing sale prices over 10k, which I hadn't seen since the first few days of Homecoming. I grabbed some yellow salvage I had lying around and sold it while the price was high, but I was also wondering what could drive it up like that, with built in interconvertability I would have though the sales volume on a tier would be too high to try to drive up the price.

The AVs do sometimes turn to look in different directions, too, if you can hit one of them when the next one over is facing away, you have a much better chance of just pulling the one. You may need some patience for that.