Heraclea

I had a tanker back on Champion - Dark Armor/Ice Melee, that I rather liked. It was my ambition back on old live to get every single tanker armor to level 50. (Got everything but Electric.) This character got a late start, because I wasn't really eager to play the set. Prodigious endurance costs were the reason. They still are, which is one reason why I haven't yet made a Dark Armor character on HC. Dark Melee remains one of my favorite attack sets. It oddly has little synergy with Dark Armor; the endurance recovery power has historically been much too slow to help with DA's issues. The two self-heals that require mobs and a to-hit check don't really complement each other. The -tohit of DM complements a defense set more than a resist set IMO. The self-heal of DM benefits sets without a self-heal (Willpower) or a slow self hea; (Invuln) more than Dark Armor itself, which does have another self-heal with a to-hit check. Like Fire Armor, the last three powers are quite skippable. Everything in the set that directly helps to keep you alive is available by level 12. You can skip the weak fear aura, the disorient that hurts, and the self-rex, which I never take on a tanker, and seldom on a brute. This gives a bit of build freedom, anyway.

Super Strength/Invulnerability is in a better place now than it was when HC started. It's the one combination a comic book game has to have. For tankers, I prefer Dark Melee with Invulnerability, but oddly, at least on paper Dark Melee does not do all that much for Dark Armor. Archery/Devices always seemed an obvious combo; it can make a very solid blaster. Electric/Electric sapping blaster is interesting, but I would not call it world-beatingly strong. It does one thing, that doesn't work when you need it to. The corruptor I got to 50 is Psy/Dark, which seems an obvious pairing as well, at least until you remember you can have a Dark/Dark corruptor.

I created and temporarily published a story that I have been making, on two separate computers. I made an extensive selection of mobs both custom and official and saved them to the temp version on the big box computer. When I opened the story on the laptop, I had apparently lost the customized enemy file in the process. Is there a way to keep them synched short of copying all the critters files from one machine to another?

The magic carpet and the like sound like fun, and would work well with several of my character concepts. But the issue I have with them is that they detoggle everything else. This severely limits their usefulness.

I generally only take them on melees. Does having them affect pets at all?

Sic ait Heraclea: "'Nictus' mi Latine videtur, sed significat sane obsessus a pilumine." Heraclea says, "'Nictus' sounds like Latin, but what it apparently means is 'possessed by a dust bunny'."

Is there a guide to creating a farmable AE mission? What power sets to use (think I can figure that one out, mostly), how to create buffing allies, and so forth?

I seldom add slots to Taunt. But I always lead with it, and it tends to occupy the 1 slot on the attacks bar. I usually put some kind of proc in it like the Perfect Zinger psi damage.

If you are playing solo only, it probably can be skipped. I don't treat it as all that important on a brute; all of my brutes have it, but it tends to be a late pick for them, Still, even when soloing it is useful for the -range effect. If you want to tank for teams, which is the chief reason for choosing a tanker rather than a brute, it simply is the best tool for the job.

I have a fairly longstanding suggestion that there ought to be Master badges for all of the low level Freedom Phalanx TFs, starting with Posi 1 and 2, and Synapse. Getting through the last mission of Posi 1 with no deaths ought to be enough 'challenge' for anyone. What I don't want to see is any more 'you can't play right now' mechanics: junk like BAF rings, Apex patches, or unresisted mezz. That crap just tells me 'you needed to bring a controller instead' and leaves melee characters out.

Rolling Stones - Living in a Ghost Town

Some screenshots of my remodelling of the TankHQ base on Everlasting (TTE-5091). Rather fond of the courtroom I desined for them, The bar and the bench: Witness stand and jury box: So far I've redone two of the TankHQ bases. Each of them includes a version of this grouping of statues: Just a way to visually convey the idea 'here, we are tankers' with the materials provided. Nothing fancy, but glad I thought of it.

On old live I made this same concept with Dark Armor/Ice Melee. Her legacy build is spoilered below. One wonderful thing about Dark Armor is that the last three powers are quite optional, which means you can be finished with the primary by level 12 if you wanna. With inherent Stamina this is even freer and you can take some of the skipped primary powers if you want them. Still never bother with any rez powers. As is usual, whenever I made a 'dark' anything character I colored the various funks hot pink.

This is constantly happening to me unintended. If I deleted entire rooms to get rid of the problem I would have given up in frustration long ago. Rathulf's tutorial is spot on. You already have the correct square targeted in your picture above. It sometimes helps to move the camera angle to straight down to target and fix these.

If value to teams is first on your mind, Tanker is your first choice. Brutes are adequate tanks in most situations. Tankers are the tanks you want for the most difficult to tank content. Brutes can get there with adequate investment. They're coming from behind to get to the level the Tanker already is wit much less investment. If you have limitless resources a tanking brute can be made. If you have similar resources a DPS Tanker can be made.

I believe that one says that you get both a fast activation and a damage bonus when you use the power. It turns up mostly on my sentinels.

Espers - Rosemary Lane

There have been literally dozens of random characters I've made with little more behind them than 'I want to play powerset X' or 'Here's a joke name I thought up' that turned into quite effective and playable characters. Back on Victory I created 'Betsy Ross' as a throwaway scrapper for a 4th of July themed costume contest. She was Willpower because when she was rolled Willpower was the scrapper/brute set I liked best; she was Spines because, why not? It turned out that Spines/WP is quite a potent combination when it gets going. Was one of my favorites and best built characters from the old game. Here I created 'Ice Minstrel' to make fun of Ice Mistral; that's what I read it at anyways. She was Ice because what else was that name going to be. She was Plants because the 'right' shoulders for Ice Mistral aren't in the game, so at least she gets shoulder spines. This turned into a surprisingly effective blaster, with more control than most controllers. I favor her for Hamidon raids, where her three ranged holds that do blaster damage work well. She also solos fairly well for a blaster. with stealth. Her backstory is a work in progress, something about the death of vaudeville. Another random character that turned into a favorite.

On my archery/devices blaster, Targeting Drone has a permanent orange circle now. Showed up a couple weeks ago. As far as I know I don't have anything particularly odd slotted in it. What is this trying to tell me?

One other consideration is that 'procs' will always work regardless of the level of the set. Anything that says 'chance for' is a proc. Some things that just say 'Regeneration' or 'Recovery' also work like procs. This is why slots in Health and Stamina are that important. Health can take three +Recovery uniques (Panacea, Miracle, Numina's) and Stamina takes the Performance Shifter 'chance for' +End and now, a chance for self-heal whose name escapes me at the moment, was added a couple weeks ago. This is also why you do attune your Panacea. Doesn't make it work any better, but it can now be slottedat level 7, where in fact it does the most good. At any rate, all of these Health and Stamina procs are working by level 2.

I generally don't attempt to tank Recluse on a tanker or brute until they have Barrier to at least t3. Without that my best recommendation would be a whole tray full of large inspirations (16 purple, four orange) and to keep them up until the towers are down. Pocket buffs for the tank, both for defense and for healing, should also be there, No tanker primary has the defense or resistance to stand up to Recluse without assistance. I don't know how to glitch Recluse by hover tanking him, and it probably requires twitch skills that I no longer have.

(nevermind)

I am not a big fan of Titan Weapons. It works fine as an endgame set but is slow to get started, does not exemp well, and will always have a very slow and heavy feel. It will work as well as can be expected with willpower; there's no self heal or trouble button its slow animations put out of reach. Street Justice is quite playable and feels a lot faster than TW. The AoEs come late but are there. For a returning player I'd consider Stone Melee. This gets strong early and has a meaningful amount of control and AoE. Brutes are easier to make into tanks than Scrappers are, and Confront is a pale shadow of Taunt. But if you want to tank, nothing tanks lke a tanker.

My impression is that there is a lot more variety among my blasters within the AT than there is within any other AT. I have several level 50 blasters: electric/electric, archery/devices, and ice/plants. The double electric is basically built as a sapper, and is probably one reason why I haven't been all that interested in playing defenders. The arch/dev probably comes closest to being a traditional pure DPS blaster. Ice/plants has more hard control than my controller (ill/rad) and for that reason is a reliable earner, and my first choice to bring to Hamidon raids.

I give them a finely rhetorical command to surrender immediately to avoid unnecessary unpleasantness. Unfortunately, most of them don't understand Latin.