Harlequin565

Just checking my latest 50 and they have spent 18 hours in-game - no farming. My 1st 50 back in 200? took 499 hours. So this is by far a huge improvement on live. Some tips (you mention xp boost but I'm not sure which one): The WST as Lemming suggested will give you pretty much a full level for finishing it. Most TFs will give you a level whilst doing it (unless it's a speedy Numina). The ITF can give you 3+ levels even when it's not the WST but unfortunately most folks want 50s these days. Nowt to stop you running your own though! Patrol XP - rotate round your alts to use up patrol xp on them. Double XP / 0 Inf Buff. Keep this on at all times. Run TFs even when they're not the WST. The merits will get you good inf which makes up for the lack of inf from the xp buff. Team content is much faster xp than solo. Re: Missions, story arcs give a large XP bonus on completion (as well as merits). Doing paper missions solo is possibly the worst way to earn xp. Starting a story arc (use the "find contact" tab) then recruiting a team to run it with you is a double win as you do it quick, get lots of xp, and get the bonus at the end. With a team of 8 you can almost certainly up the difficulty to +2 and probably go higher for more xp. My usual MO: DFB to level 8+, Posi I, Posi II, Synapse, Faultline Story Arcs (@21), Yin TF, Citadel TF, Croatoa Story Arcs (@30), Manti TF, Numina. I try and answer all calls to Katie Hannon TFs (there's a whole level in the 1st mission), Hess, & Moonfire along the way level permitting. When 35+ I'll try and get on all ITFs that allow <50s on them. I'll join Maria Jenkins or Tina Mackintyre PUGs in PI from about L40+. The AVs in those missions are nice XP. Also at 40 I'll join KM Market Crash TFs because they give good XP too. Even a speed TF will give you a level if it's the WST. Hope that helps. Don't get despondent, but do embrace the team. It can be a lot of fun which makes the levelling process go much quicker if you're enjoying yourself. If you're worried about it, just tell the team you've been playing solo mostly and don't know what to do. I've yet to come across anyone that wasn't super helpful.

Interesting build. My first regen was a claws scrapper which wasn't great - and like many comments I've read, cost a fortune to just get halfway decent, but I loved regen and ended up rerolling as a Savage/Regen Brute. I don't think there's a single build that I've made more versions of, or sat staring at 2 builds trying to eke out a bit more, but it's really interesting to see a completely different slotted build. Also, the primary is different which doesn't help. The only other minor thing I'd say would be to lose the Heal/Rech from Integration and drop the Numina unique (from Health) in there instead which will save you another slot. My build is so different to yours it's not worth posting. I like Burnout just for the double IH fun, but I like the idea of dropping the hunt for +Def and going for +Res. Makes more sense given the Regen tools available. Time to make yet another bloody build!

I like alliterative titles and also match the badge if I can...

I grabbed quite a few I wanted and could reunite my existing characters with the names they had back in the day... Voss (my 1st ever CoH character!) Quicken Stormrider Doppleganger Arcstorm Halfjack (an old Champions character) Pantera (same) Husk (same) Negaton Doppler Also happy with the policy!

I tend to build in Mids first to see how it will look and get a sense for how it will play at 50. As I level, I buy attuned IOs when they become available. There are quite a few you can start slotting at level 10 which is super quick to get to. ATIOs if I'm getting them go in early attacks (respeccing out later if needed). Anything that needs the highest level IOs (27/32/50) gets placeholders prior to that, which are often drops that I just craft & slot. When I reach 50, if necessary, I'll respec out the stuff I don't need, convert & sell. I think it probably depends on your levelling speed. I tend to do a mix of good story arcs (Faultline, Croatoa) and TFs which makes levelling to about 35 pretty quick. By that time, I can start slotting attuned IOs for an endgame build with the sole exception of purples.

Well that was an entertaining read and good to know that everyone seems to be doing ok. Thankyou so much to all who organised, collated, and answered everything. It was certainly appreciated by me. My next question for the Homecoming Devs... "Which response made you think... 'that sounds like a good idea' and will be implemented for the next page?" 😁

What a lovely idea and a really fitting event. Questions are for anyone on that team, or all of the team... Powers folks: If the Homecoming team could coax you back to the keyboard to collaborate on a new powerset, what would it be (and for which AT)? If you had to list the top 3-5 powersets (including Force Field) that needed fixing, which ones were they and in which order would you fix them? Which power sets are you most proud of? Were there any powersets that you thought "the community will love this", but the takeup was meh or worse? Community Team: Are there any community posts, or phrases that still make you smile today? If so - what are they? Is there anything you miss about the CoH community in particular? Writers: Who wrote the funniest lines? All: How many of you have played since it came back? Is it 100%? Please pass on my sincere thanks to them all for creating a really entertaining, varied, wildly unpredictable game that entertains me 20 years on. That's a helluva'n achievement.

Thanks for this. I don't know if anyone else is the same as me, but I've learnt a lot from reading my old threads... So much I'd forgotten!

Nice guide. Even with the discussion it's great to see another guide touting Empathy as something other than a "heal" set. FWIW, my Emp/Archery doesn't have HO and took AP instead. Anyone taking a battering gets healed with one click rather than faffing with HA. Anything that distracts me from Rain of Arrows and it's 14sec CD is an annoyance 🙂 Enough recharge in the build to keep Fort on a team of 7 - which I rarely need to do because... RoA... I did take Ressurect though. So I can tell people I have it, which gives me a sec or two to turn them into Veng bait rather than making two clicks before discovering they have used their RtB. With Regen Aura on for 90 then off for 30, the team very rarely needs any healing anyway - unless I mis-positioned when I dropped it. I'm usually ok though 🙂

I'm the same as the Cat. Inf is a means to an end and I'm sitting on 11B in cash. I tend to fund a new toon 500M. As they play and need IOs, if I don't have one in storage, I buy it. Interestingly I started tracking the inf I have on all my characters in 2021. I'd made a conscious decision to stop "marketing" and just play the game, marketing only when I needed to. I started at 9B. I spent 1B on a second IO set build on my Peacebringer which I wouldn't do for any other toon, but that was my only main "outgoing". A new toon now gets emailed 500M to get them going, and access to the diminishing stockpile of set IOs in the base. If I haven't got it, I just buy it. Merits, and converting & flipping drops is enough to make around a 1-200M profit by the time the toon gets to 50 with all the IOs they need.

I mained an Emp/Psi on live and it was terribly painful. It was a while before I made an Emp on Homecoming. It's by far my most demanding character in terms of maintaining powers on people. Fort on 7, AB on one and CM on the blasters means you're just watching the buff bars looking for blinkies to refresh. A team with a well played Empath on it is the safest team in the game with a damage bonus to boot. So I pretty much think all your changes are good, esp the 2 auras to 1. What would be awesome in your spare slot would be a toggle rather than a click. I'm thinking something akin to Sonic's Disruption Field. Drop it on an ally to "amplify" their latent empathic talent. Apply either a straight limited AoE team buff (debuffs don't work for me) that gives a frontliner benefits - Massive debuff resistance, +perception, or possibly even an accuracy debuff. Or for bonus points, add a buff that changes depending on which of Empathy's click powers (Fort, CM, AB or even the Aura) is currently running on the target. Empathy (to me) shouldn't have a single enemy affecting or debuffing power other than something that might affect their minds (-accuracy etc). Just my tuppence. Either way, I think this would be a very nice rework.

Agreed. I think I can manage two runs before boredom kicks in.

I guess I'm in the same boat as you time wise. A couple of hours here & there. I actually think a lot of people fall into that category which is why there are so many "speed" requests in LFG. I remember doing a Doc Q TF back on live where everyone arranged to relog back on the next day at a certain time to finish it. Same for the OG Positron TF. I like to get the iPowers for my 50s and for those I need incarnate components. The quickest way to get them for me is a speedy Tinpex (gets you 2 for way less than an hour invested) and Lambda trials (1 roll very quickly) I'll tend to run speedy Lambda trials where everyone dogpiles certain objectives (everyone straight over the wall, everyone on grenades rather than splitting). It often takes longer to fill the league than it does to run the TF, so I'll do 2 or 3 in a row. The non incarnate task forces do take time, and it really depends on the team - which you can't know beforehand. A Kill Most ITF can be very quick if everyone is 50+1 with T3 Judgements, or very slow if everyone is L35 and hasn't even slotted their powers. That's why you often see adverts asking for "50+" when the level requirement is much lower. Synapse is a ball ache with all the -end from the clocks and the defeat alls, and Manticore can be very slow if folks keep letting the PPs hit MOG. Skipping to objectives where possible is a valid strategy. In terms of what to do in a speedy trial you've never sped before. Click on the team/league leader and stick to them (press f if you get turned around and that will point you at them). Make sure you have stealth, or enough toughness to survive. After doing it a couple of times, you'll get the hang of it. The iTrials I've run almost always have someone who doesn't know what to do, and most team/league leaders will give instructions. The worst ones are Keyes and TPN for hopping around all over the map, the rest are all "follow the clump of supers"

I'll put a word in for Elec/En/Elec. I do like Elec on Blasters/Cors, and they do their best at close range with SC which is one of the defining powers in the set for me. Lightning field is really nice (although any Sent could get it as its epic). My build picks Havoc Punch and Paralyzing jolt for additional melee goodness. It's my first Sent. I've tried many others but ended up deleting them for blasters or scrappers instead. This is the first one where I feel like I can double as one or the other in a pinch. It's very solo friendly too.

I keep getting an unhandled exception when trying to export the build so I'm doing something wrong somewhere... This is my build which I thoroughly enjoyed to T4 incarnate content. Not having to take Clarion was really nice too! Apologies for the screenie 😞 I took everything from the primary apart from Pistols and Suppresive Fire. Blasters don't stun. I took everything from the secondary apart from Dragon's Tail, Eagles Claw and Throw Sand. Blaster don't stun. I don't tend to mess about too long in melee, so Storm Kick is good for a quick, cool looking hard hit, Ki Push is good for the looks and the "GTFO me now" moment. I found it very useful in pre-30 levelling. Burst of Speed is just too fun to not have IMO. There are a few things you could change. I quite like SJ + SS for the mobility and Fighting/Leadership are only there to push to the Def softcap. With the short recharge on Hail of Bullets, I have way too much fun doing lots of AoE damage to be messing around with melee attacks. I found I pulled a lot of aggro so the extra def was definitely helpful. 45% to S/L, 43% to ranged and I picked up Barrier as I have Inner Will ( anmd a break free generally). This toughens you right up for iContent. This was my third 50 to get all 4 T4 incarnates and I had a blast doing it. Oh and I don't run with Tough "on". Just have it as a Def unique holder.

I think when someone comes in asking for build advice, it's vital that more than one person responds with something different. It also allws people like me, who play a toon one way then forget about it, to approach the character again from a different angle. Currently my PB is the only toon I have slotted twice under two different builds, but I have a feeling my Kin/Elec might join her - especially as this second build is so cheap.

That's bizarre. When I click it it opens as a Defender... How about old school...

Strangely enough I have been working on v2 of my Kin/Elec build to see if I can eke any more out of it. Caveat: It's not very defender-y, and is extremely busy with such a high global recharge. FS is up almost every mob, and the temptation to murder everything with Short Circuit, Ball Lightning and Thunderblast can be very distracting. Very end hungry though, so I've tried to build a lot of natural recovery in there as Transference is time lost when you could be electrocuting. 49% to S/L and 47% to ranged. You can catch a lot of agro, which in 54 teams can mean the odd faceplant, but it's worth it to see all the damage numbers. I was also quite surprised to see how sappy it is too. If you get someone on the team with Barrier though, you're golden. I haven't tried the Voltaic Sentinel slotting is it's the first time I've had it in the build, so if it looks stupid, just change it. You could also switch out Hover for CJ, but I like the mobility of Flight + Siphon Speed. I'd love to cram CJ into the build, but I'm not sure what I could lose. SS+Stealth IO is great for getting to the last boss with a brute/scrapper/tank and damage capping you/them to clear the room. Don't laugh (or tell anyone) about my Transfusion/ID/SB slotting. Kins aren't healers, I use Transfusion for the -Regen & -End. Ooh, also, leave Tough switched off. [/img] View This Build In MRB

Sure. Here you go. Ballistica - Blaster (Dual Pistols).mbd

Some comments from me and bear in mind I don't know what you're still working on with it! Looks good and a useful resource for people looking for builds or starting points for a build. - The Browse Builds page is a bit broken for me. It's showing a blaster with invisibility primary and mace mastery secondary. In fact, almost all the builds are displaying wrong. - When you click through to the builds, there's a lot of stuff on the page. I'd prefer to not see anything unslotted rather than having to scroll through all the prestige sprints just to see how health/stamina was slotted. - The white background is really bright, but that's just me and I like to sit in gloom. A neutral grey, or the choice of dark mode for black would be great. I tried setting up an account which worked fine. However when I tried to import a build (Mids 3.5.5) I got the attached error... Edit to add, looks like the build uploaded fine.

I'm not sure the build has imported properly for me as there are a few slots empty... Before I start, my playstyle for this is very much at range. The only time I go melee is for Hail of Bullets, then out again. Ideally, Hail of bullets>Hail of bullets would be my attack chain. To that end, I've dropped Dragons Tail & Eagle's Claw. The former because the AoE is quite small, and the latter because of the long animation time. I play blasters as very mobile, always moving, always looking for the best angle to get as many as possible in my ranged AoEs. Bullet Rain & Empty Clips are really nice AoEs in the DP set. Dual Wield and Executioners shot are great single target. My melee attacks are Storm Kick (it's quick & high damage) and Ki Push (it's cool and it is great mitigation). For my blasters I generally look for Def to Ranged and Smashing & Lethal. I tend to ignore everything else. The majority of the S&L def comes from Scorpion Shield and the majority of the Ranged comes from the (cheap) Mako and Thunderstrike. I don't bother getting Resists because Blasters have low health and if something is annoyed with you, either your defences will handle it or you'll get squished. Resists won't really help. The good news is that you don't "need" Clarion as a Destiny pick because of Inner Will so can shore up with Barrier if you like. The way I've found best to build, is to pick your powers first. Then toggle on the powers that you'll normally have on. Then open the "Advanced totals" window to see what those three defences are looking like. I then slot out the defences (usually 4 in each, almost always filling them out with LoTG) and then take another look at the advanced window to see how it looks. I then 6 slot the main attacks I want. For this build, it would be Storm Kick, 2 x AoEs, 2 Single target ranged, and 1 nuke. That then leaves me with overflow slots that I use to shore up the build. I've attached my build for info. 45% to S&L, and 43% to ranged. I hate missing, so there is a lot of accuracy in there. Tough is a mule for the +Def procs, I don't run it switched on. Kick is also a mule for the Kin Combat set and Melee def. Doesn't get used. As you can see, everything gives me either Ranged Def or Melee def. Some notes re: your build. Extra slots in health are pointless. DB is quite low in End use, and Reaction Time is awesome. Just stick the Panacea proc in there. Save 2 slots. As a blaster, if your health starts to take a serious hit, it'll go very quickly. Regen in health won't save you. A green insp will be much better. Web Envelops is a waste. Blasters kill stuff. Leave the entangling to the controllers & doms. I'd switch it for Tactics and try to squeeze a full set of Gaussians in there for more +Def. Dual Wield is better damage than Pistols. Switch them out unless you like the animation better. Suppresive Fire is a Stun. Get rid (unless you like soloing). Leave mezzing to the controllers and doms. I appreciate you want strong melee, strong ranged and strong defences, but you can't do it all. Blasters excel at range, so if you want to play to your strengths, shore up the ranged attacks and pick a couple (or maybe 3) melee attacks to focus on. You just don't have enough slots to slot out all the things you want (sadly!) As always, that's just my tuppence. Everyone plays how they want, so take what you like & leave the rest. Enjoy your blaster! Ballistica - Blaster (Dual Pistols).mbd

I think that's why I started too. Thanks for sharing your sheet too. It's given me some ideas for new characters too.. Ice/Ice Brute and a Dark/Storm Cor. Both sound fun.

This is not an answer, but after going through my blasters and not finding a single one that didn't have Scorpion Shield apart from my A/TA (who is never in melee), it got me thinking. I then opened mids to have a look at the powersets and came to the conclusion that I didn't really have an answer to the OP. However if you're not sold on Blaster, I would humbly suggest a Fire/Storm controller with the Fire Epic pool. The difference is building fully offence rather than for any kind of defence working on the basis that everything is stunned, held, or has -tohit floored. (I did a guide here which you can read if it's an option). Apologies again if you just want a blaster. Just tossing ideas about.

Another advantage is seeing how much money I have across all my alts because I was spending quite a bit of time in the market trying to make more money for the never-ending supply of new characters. Once I realise how much inf was banked I stopped marketing almost immediately. Now it's a simple case of buying what I need, and trading merits for converters I just sell. I enjoy playing the content, so the inf keeps on raining in without the need for marketing strategies. Heh, I get this.

Doesn't work for me either. The link supplied by Glorious works fine. Same error as the OP. Win 11, Desktop PC, Brave browser, Shields up or down makes no difference.