JediDave

Share the one you made so people can see what you're already leaning towards and to get an idea of what you want out of the build. Or at the very least, give a bit of info on what pool powers or epics you think you'll want. You'll get a lot more results when people have a starting point to work from.

I'd suggest /energy, because big punch

Got a few levels Saturday, then had a longer session Sunday and went from 21 to 32. We are cruising. A good chunk of time from levels 12-26 was spent shooting smoke cannister into a mob, then trying to snipe the closest target to pull onto an ice patch, debuffing it and dropping it, then rinse and repeat, with a bit more "run in and shoot stuff" mentality when we "ride the high" of getting all 3 of us leveling up with big insps, which lasts a group or two. I had always solo'd KR arcs or done it with these two players at base or maybe +1x5 at most. We were all shocked to see Chernobog was an AV and not an elite boss, but we were at level 20 by that point and had all just gotten lingering radiation, which helped tremendously with debuffing his regen. It also helped that we had leveled twice in mish and he was only +2 to us. Level 26 was a game changer. Still smoke cannister opening, but now we send in a tri gun drone first, anchor the debuffs, lanch some tear gas, and double nuke. Then running in with 3 Choking clouds is great. We now "run to safety" by swarming the biggest threat until it's choking and in the lockdown electric bubble. Level 33 will see perma hasten and AM, with just a few rech set bonuses, mostly LotG. Arachnos gave us the most trouble so far, but that was last attempted pre 26, and I think now we would deal with them much easier. The leveling slowed down a bit, and we did the first Croatoa arc from 25-32. +5 groups are a bit slower, but still don't feel dangerous at this point. I think we're past the hard part and should be cruising now. I think we'll try our first tf soon, either moonfire or wait a few levels for ITF. *I just looked up the rotation and saw Manticore is the weekly, and right at our level, that may be the winner.*

Well our altitus came out and we made this new trio before getting the existing one to 50 (at 43). Ended up with 2 corruptors, storm and fire, and one controller, arsenal(me) all with rad. Had to pop some insps at the start of missions, ran into a +5 group right at the door a few times, but level up inspirations carried us through the Habashy arc and we ran over to KR for Shauna's skulls arc. We ended the night at 15, close to 16. First arc was a few "arrest X hellions" missions, so the +4x8 didn't really hit until about level 3, and I think one LT leveled us to 4 inside the mish. The strat for most of the night was rad infect at max range and running back to break line of sight, dropping liquid nitrogen on their path, and then hitting them with sleep grenade. From there, I tried getting bosses slept or held as much as possible, while corruptors were killing off LTs and minions. With higher level enemies at that point in the game, everything is a threat, so we went with the approach of thinning them out as much as possible first, while I kept bosses (mostly) neutralized. START vendor enhancements and staggered AM had sleep nades ready to use 2 times per mob, which helped a ton as we were losing health and needed some safety. Our biggest blunders were accidentally nemesis staff-ing anchors out of range, so we just removed that from the trays around level 7 or 8. Smoke Cannister and Direct Strike are helping pull with relative safety, still into a patch of ice, but we only had one mission at a level with those available. Not the next mission, but I believe the one after that will be our first EB fight, which I am a little worried about, but realistically we will probably be running into that fight with level up insps active. The hardest mish so far was a Shauna Stockwell mission where the warehouse we enter was empty until a glowie at the end of the map spawns in all the enemies and an ambush comes at us. I set up the ice patch a bit early and it wore off shortly after the group got to us, and we wiped. They will immediately rush the door when you re-enter that one, and it caused some issues. Things we think will help once we get past the "we just need to level up mid mish to survive" level range: 2 snipes with gaussians on aim to pull/kill targets at a safe range with arsenal location controls stopping unwanted extra pulls. 2 nukes with the same BU setup. 3 Choking Clouds with a lockdown in each. Things we want to avoid but likely have to embrace: Abusing fallout/veng in exchange for debt

*big gremlin

Part of me wants to pitch a guns and radiation theme. Mercs, Arsenal, AR all with rad secondary. We like themed powers and that would be easy to do. KB>KD on buckshot and M30 for corruptor is soft cc and aoe we'll need. M30 on MM and serum will add more KD and make our meat shields a lot tankier. Arse is just good and the drone as a makeshift tank is something we'll need at times for sure.

Purple patch is why I wanted 3 of us. Ideally fallout won't get an opportunity to be used, but there aren't any builds made yet that we want to run with so it's a possibility. I've used rad toggles mid jump around line of sight blockers to pull before, and I assume we'll be doing quite a bit of that on this run. Coordinating 3 of them shouldn't be too difficult

The blossoming early part is why we were thinking rad. 3 rad infections from the start is what made me think this is doable. I was thinking a corruptor to leverage scourge, a mm for some meat shields, and a controller to hopefully lock down bosses. I was leaning ice on the corruptor to get a bit more hold stacking going so bosses would be more consistently neutralized. Maybe pyro on a controller so we have a column opener to give us a few seconds to set up, and possibly mercs so our meat shields can get serum going. Elec is an option, since being +4 means the damage may be outpaced by the end drain on at least bosses. Early AoE is something I hadn't thought about, but now that I am thinking about it, it's probably going to be pretty important, especially if we only have one corruptor. Elec also has a hold to help lock down bosses, so it fills the role I was looking at ice for. It's all still just an idea, we are still playing other alts right now, so the AT spread is up in the air. IF we end up with no controller, dark blast is likely going to be in there for some immob, as runners will kill this team if they're anchors. Where's your sense of adventure? Discord helps coordinate better than a random pug, and with what we've done in the past, I think this is doable. I think all those combos would be fine if we had 1 or 2 other consistent players, but from level 1, groups with 2 bosses are going to kill us. 3 RI is -75% tohit on corruptor/controller numbers, and -68% with a single mm swapped in, unenhanced. And at level 1 vs +4s, that's the debuff numbers I'm looking for.

What's bugged on HL and how does it get affected by TA?

Hello forumites, Some quick relevant background info, me and 2 friends got coh back in '05/'06 and played until shut down, then immediately got on HC servers in 2019 and have been playing relatively consistently since. We tend to make trios of characters to level up together, and usually stop at 50 but occasionally going well into incarnates and end game content. We each have other characters we build on our own and level, which is where a lot of my end game experience comes from, but our trios are usually played exclusively when all 3 of us can get online at the same time and stick within a bar of experience away from each other. We've done all MM, all arachnos for super leadership, the classic (de)buff/dps/tank, and a few where we just show up with 3 characters and make it work. Currently wrapping up a run with EA/Elec tank (me), dark/rad stalker, and pyro/sonic controller. With the approach of i28p3, particularly the part about difficulty being amped up to +7 on incarnate content and MM set bonus love, we were talking about a new group of characters to make. The update made us think about how SKs in DA missions could be fighting against +8 enemies, and the potential of rare groups of +9 enemies with how difficulty spawning works (not sure if the +7 will cap at 57 or have the occasional 58s). This snowballed into the idea of a trio that can successfully (definitions of that may vary) run at +4x8 right from the get go at level 1. Our idea was that if we all make characters who can grab radiation infection at level 1, that would be the easiest route. Obviously early game we would kill a single boss and likely level up, what we call the Frostfire effect. This means until the mid 20s, we'd likely be starting at +4 and by the end of the mission be likely fighting +2s at most. What I'm asking here is, does the community think this is a realistic idea going all in at +4x8 immediately, and if so, does anyone think another combination would do better? AT and set suggestions are welcome, as right now we just have "pick radiation" planned out. No idea if we'll lean into one AT or a variety, as my one friend really wants to see MM tweaks, and I think scourge will shine on this concept, but I also feel like some consistent hard CC will help. We tend to not grab temp powers from START vendor outside of double xp. Enhancement funds usually come from alts, though one friend slots things...later than the other 2 would like. TL;DR, what trio of characters would you make with irl friends (ideally with radiation emission) to take on +4x8 from 1-50?

My favorite troller to solo with currently is my Arse/Poison. Launch some confuse gas, send in the drone, run in after it, launch some more gas while VG debuffs them, set up a quick poison gas trap, shot more proccy gas, and then gas them out. It's a rainbow of vapor that melts groups and I have basically no damage coming at me due to everything throwing up or hitting their allies. The only issue I have is soloing AVs, which I could turn off, but I slog through it with safety due to sleep still neutralizing AVs and the drone taunting it for the times they wake up. It's not hard to solo AVs, just slower than I'd like. I have rune of protection and psi mastery for mezz protection but I don't even think they're necessary with how little I get attacked. I also have solo'd things at 50 with plant/dark, fire/rad, and mind/storm at +X/x8. Some of them can handle +4, some I haven't "finished" their builds and keep them at +2 or 3 while soloing.

It sounds like they are talking specifically about sustained DPS, and seeing a very distinct difference between that and burst damage. Burst damage for stalkers, sustained DPS for the scrappers and brutes by their logic. Or at least that's how I would read it

Psi is an odd one to bring up. The concept for OP was best ST damage. Psi has no damage buffing abilities. As an armor set I think it's great, but it isn't going to help the ST damage any. Stone and Bio are the best options there. I'll let someone with more number crunching skills say which of the two would be better, but my guess would be stone.

I agree with what Psyonico said. I'd emphasize the "if I have extra slots" part, and say that it's totally fine to slot it up with a single slot and use those slots somewhere else. IF you do slot it, I think basilisk is a good choice for a bit of range defense and a lotg worth of recharge. If you have excess slots on the build, I think the lockdown +2 hold is really the only proc I'd bother with. Off the top of my head, idk if the hold is auto hit or needs acc, so the one slot would ideally be recharge, but if you don't have the acc from set bonuses and it ISN'T auto hit, an acc enhancement is fine too.

Troo. I interpreted it as "this is my experience and I represent the average player and you are all talking about fringe, far from average experiences" which, I admit, may have been off the mark. I'm more than willing to leave well enough alone and agree to disagree, but the wall of text responding to me making a comment on incarnates being not an average experience felt very personal attackish and I may have responded to that more than the content of the post. Continuation of "obi wan kenobi shit" still feels a bit personal attackish on a name 12 year old me came up with though. Like if I was mocking your ability to spell due to your name. I love lamp. and da bears.