Coyote

Doms seem very strong when perma-Dom, when they have the advantage. They drop like flies against tougher content if all they depend upon is perma-Dom, because there will be ambushes, and there will be spread-out spawns, and there will be extra aggro (especially with three ADD fire monkeys running around aggroing half the room). What this means is that in order to be able to fight against higher difficulty spawns you really need to get defenses up in addition to the Recharge, which is why high-end Dom builds are so tight. Here is what i'm running (fire/psy/psy, not //fire, so it won't be quite the same).. it's soft capped to range and AoE. You need Mind Link+Barrier to softcap both, but if you go with the solid advice and go for softcapping Range only, it will still be quite solid and you should be able to manage it on a //fire.

Ele/TA looks like a very good combination, with the Sleeps giving you time to set up all of the TA debuffs without getting attacked. I didn't realize that they would stack so well, but it makes it even better. If attacking large groups of targets, the Energy Orb ATO in Chain Fences is useful as it only needs to trigger on one target to summon up a floating 15' DoT aura. Damage procs in Jolting Chain and Acid Arrow are obvious. One interesting thing may be to put the sleep set Chance to Heal Self in Poison Gas Arrow, and add the Power Transfer: Chance to Heal in Jolting along with Entropy. Power Transfer can also be slotted into some other Electric attacks like Chain Fences, and can help against chip damage if individual mobs get a shot off in between being Slept and Knocked down.

I generally look at the Blast / Support set, and see "which late powers are more important to me". This usually means going Defender since the later blasts are usually not as important as the later Support powers, but there are some Support sets that bloom early, like Rad. I'd certainly run a Fire Blast/Rad character as a Corruptor, since the important Rad powers all appear early, and as said above, Fire Blast is better on a Corruptor.

Why not leave the Support sets alone, and create a new Melee/Armor set? Think of it like a Blaster's Manipulation set that has melee attacks, with 2-3 powers changed to defensive toggles. With one power taken up with Sustain, that still leaves 5-6 melee attacks, enough to run a limited melee character (especially if you supplement with the Fighting Pool). I think it would be a lot easier to balance this out. Think of it more like changing a Defender's blast set to a melee-oriented Defender, with melee/armor replacing blasts/mez.

There is no build that will do that, because damage is limited by design so that characters can't just stack up damage buffs and DPS targets down in seconds. There are some builds that can stack the buffs and debuffs, and THEN do a lot of damage. But it will take more than a few seconds. Granted, in the situation described, it's likely that the targets had been debuffed and were starting to take fully buffed damage while under heavy -Resist debuffs. To help with top DPS on a team, here are some suggestions: 1: Blasts: Fire Blast is very high burst damage. It doesn't do anything to boost damage, but it can take advantage of damage boosts from other sources. Sonic Blast is low damage, but puts out a lot of -Res debuffing, especially as a Defender. It doesn't do high damage itself, but paired with other damage sources it can help push DPS very high. 2: Buffs: Kinetics is king. Potentially capped +Damage, as well as +Recharge to upgrade attack cycles so they use only higher tier attacks, and the +Recovery to use the top tier attacks. 3: Debuffs: Poison does very good -Res and does it quite fast. TA and Ice also put out a lot of -Res, and Storm is also pretty good at it. Traps is also quite good but much more slowly. Other: Demons put out good damage (but like all MM sets, as sustained DPS rather than burst), but also put out a lot of -Res both with their attacks and the MM taking the 3 attacks each with -10% stackable -Res. Storm does great damage in addition to -Res, and matches well with a set that also does -Res. Specific suggestions: Storm/Sonic, Demons/Storm. Neither is high burst damage, but both ramp up the -Res and the Storm powers to get very high DPS. Poison/Fire. Fast -Res, high damage to take advantage of it. Weak defensively. Kinetics/Sonic. High -Res AND high +Damage. Only weakness is taking a while to stack up -Res stacks, and that it's hard to keep up with an attack cycle for max -Res while also firing off all of the Kinetics powers. Trick Arrows/Fire. High -Res, good damage to take advantage of it. Of these, the two Storm build would have the highest personal DPS in a sustained battle where you have time to put out the Storm powers and stack up the -Res. Poison/Fire and Kin/Sonic would probably put out the high damage sooner but also cap out sooner. Switching Fire Blast to Ice Blast would lower DPS a bit but make the character much stronger defensively.

Plant / Poison Water / Storm Dark Miasma / Sonic Blast

With Domination available MOST of the time, and Hasten available MOST of the time in a medium (but not high) Recharge build, you can have one or the other up at all times. That means that in one mode you have mez protection and one-shot mez Bosses, in the other your powers recharge faster so you can stack Holds on Bosses faster. Either situation gives you the tools to fight, especially at lower difficulty levels. While I always suggest that perma-Dom is BETTER, there are some advantages to a lower Recharge build. The main one is that you can build for Defense, instead. And that's a lot cheaper, also. So a character with 35% Defense who is NOT perma-Dom may be stronger defensively than one with 20% Defense but a perma-Dom. It's hard to manage both high Defense and high Recharge in the same build... it's possible, but it's hard and it forces some build choices. I have two perma-Doms with capped Ranged/AoE defenses, and I was forced into running Link Minds and Barrier Destiny in order to finish the caps. Sometimes, the build constraints don't allow perma-Dom AND soft-capped Defenses, and some players will prefer a Defense-based build. I would generally always suggest building for perma-Dom if you're not trying for something else. But it usually forces you into 4 power pools that have Defense powers for the LotG IOs, so no Teleport for Fold Space. No Sorcery for Rune of Protection. Etc. You may prefer to go with a 50% Domination / 50% Rune of Protection build (though I think a build that has RoP up that often may hit perma-Dom anyhow). Basically, if you have another build that you want to try that pushes you away from some of the usual choices made for perma-Dom... that's fine. But don't skip perma-Dom just to avoid "the hassle". It's worth the hassle.

One way to get around the aiming difficulties of Spinning Kick would be to take Cross Punch also. Then you use Cross Punch to turn your character to the enemy, put a FF +Recharge in both CP and SK, and run a perma-Dom pretty early. Or, alternately, use the +Recharge buffs to get around wanting to run 4 different pools with a Defense power for LotGs, which opens up Fold Space... and which works well because that will group up the mobs nicely for the CP/SK (and Dragon's Tail) combo.

Blasters used to be very squishy, before each set got a Sustain power that gives them either +Regeneration, or either ticks of healing or absorb. After that, their defenses are reasonably solid for squishies.

Absolutely not. I can see the procs having a problem, though I think that should be fixed since it's not fair to have a tele-nuke work differently from a nuke that's supposed to do the same damage with the same Recharge... but the damage procs absolutely should be working. Post this in the Bug Forum.

You didn't see damage numbers on the mobs, or in the chat? Spring Attack creates a pseudo-pet, so its damage should show in pet damage dealt, not in damage dealt. However, because it creates a pseudo-pet, it's likely that it uses a 10 second recharge value to calculate the chance for a proc to activate, which means that it will not get much use out of damage procs. Force Feedback will activate on the summons of the pet, so it should have a 90% chance to activate.

I think that if you want to make a good Poison character, you should look at Poison's strengths and its weaknesses: Strengths: AoE control and AoE damage, -Res debuffing. Weaknesses: small debuff radius, not strong defensive debuffs (-ToHit). So, pair it with another set that gives strong defense and that can use -Res. Plant seems like the best overall choice, though Fire Control may be good if you can manage the Endurance drain. Electric Control can also leverage the -Res/-Def with its every-spawn chaining Confuse. For blast sets, I like ones that cover the defense side, like Water, Ice, and Dark. I also think it may be surprisingly good on MMs if you play aggressively, as pets add damage and damage mitigation. I think Necro may work well, as the henchmen eventually get a self-heal to heal up from Bodyguard damage, but Demons also have an AoE heal that does the same thing.

Just to note something about it, though... when the Repel pulsed much faster, it was useful for pushing mobs into position. Now, it's not at all useful for pushing since it's kinda slow. But it's still a HUGE -ToHit debuff, and debuffs Range, and draws a ton of aggro. I repeat, it draws aggro, limits mob range, and floors their chances to hit. Consider that for a bit... Now, activate it, and run right through a spread-out mob, then retreat. If you have a corner, it's a good tool for bunching up mobs, but the interesting thing is that it lowers 100' attacks to about 50' depending on mob level. That can be used to pull mobs towards you and into a bunch even if there is no corner around. It can also pull aggro off henchmen pretty safely if you're a MM. It's also useful in a build that builds for Ranged/AoE Defense, since anyone coming for melee attacks is going to have their to-hit chances floored. It actually has good use, just NOT herdi-caning any more. And often Incarnate teams are too strong defensively to care about a defensive power. But in many other situations, it's actually quite strong, with 1-2 slots in it.

I would always take it. And I would rarely use it. It's a great panic button for mid-levels, with a huge to-hit debuff in a period when a character's defenses aren't fully slotted. As an Incarnate, you can generally get enough defense that you don't need to run it and change the playstyle into a short-range style. But at lower levels, it's great. Even at Incarnate levels, there are times when it's useful, when you face opponents with -Def debuffs or self +ToHit buffs, to make up for a high Defense no longer being so high. The reason I like it is that it's strong enough to put a -ToHit/Endurance IO in there and be done with it. Even with just one slot it's a very strong debuff.

I've changed the F key from Follow to "BAMF to target and activate Rip Head Off power". Follow is now Ctrl-F, because it gets much less use.

I'm a fan of Electric, it's surprisingly high damage for a Control set (if you don't over-leverage End Drain so that the mobs can keep attacking, and spread AoE Confusion everywhere), it's very strong defensively (especially if you over-leverage End Drain), and visually it's pretty nice. And it works best with melee-oriented secondaries... mine is Ele/Earth, but Ele/Martial would also be a very good combination. With Ele/Martial, I would do my best to fit in the Overwhelming Force Knockdown proc in Trick Shot. Because 20% Knockdown chance on a spammable attack, along with Jolting Chain, is just too much chain-knocking fun to pass up.

1: The self-destruct traps will list the AoE of the EFFECT, like the explosion or the poison gas. They will aggro upon an enemy if the enemy comes close enough for them to make an attack upon it... think of a mob with only melee attacks, and Immobilized... it will attack you if you get close enough to it for its melee attacks (in this case PBAoE) to reach you, but otherwise while it may be aggroed on you, it can't actually activate its attack. This attack self-destructs the trap and triggers the effect, whether explosion or gas cloud. 2: Acid Mortar has a shooting range, I suppose it's 100'. But like other mobs, it won't aggro at full range. Think of how mobs, especially at higher levels, may be able to shoot you at 100' but will only notice you once you're around 65' or so. This is the same thing, it has to aggro upon mobs before it starts shooting at them. However, I think it is like other pets, who usually will aggro upon a mob that attacks you. For example, if you summon Animate Stone around a corner from where you are fighting, AS may not see the mob, but because the mob is attacking you, it will come around the corner and attack. Same thing with mob perception in other situations, if you attack one of their spawn you may aggro the entire spawn, so if you summon Mortar and then run forward outside of its normal perception range and get into a fight... it will shoot at the mobs that aggro on you as long as they're in range of its attacks. So the Mortar can fire up to 100' away, but it won't auto-aggro at that range, you have to create the aggro by advancing and starting a fight.

The simple answer is that it's okay in CoH to make a tankmage team. In fact, that's kind of the design of team and ally buffs, to make teams OP. I'm not highly in support of it, but given that it was designed into the game from the start, it's a very established game aspect. However, allowing self-buffing would make it easy to make tankmage characters. Not that you can't right now with a lot of investment and knowledge, but it takes a lot less to just apply the team buffs to oneself and end up with Defense, Status Protection, To Hit, Damage, Recharge, and Regeneration bonuses from one powerset. Others are not as ally-centric, but many would still benefit to a degree where the users would become unbalanced compared to other ATs and non-allly-oriented powersets, and IMO imbalance is bad for the game. The only real argument FOR doing it, involves around the concept of "buffing to a much lower degree"... which, IMO, can certainly work. I mean, if you lowered all of the buffs to 10% of their usual value, it's hard to say that this would be OP for any power. So any workable suggestions will revolve around the idea of "how much does each power get nerfed when used on the user", and try to find a playable medium that doesn't end up with too high buffing but also doesn't make them worthless. As a suggestion, anyone who wants to suggest buffing values, should calculate what damage a particular Blast attack will do with 100% damage slotting on a Blaster, versus a Defender who: 1: is Pain Domination, with perma-Painbringer (+Dam) and the -Resist from World of Pain 2: is Thermal, with perma-Forge (+Dam) and the -Resist from Melt Armor 3: is Time, with Temporal Selection (+Dam) and the -Resist from Slowed Response Those aren't the only potential issues, but they're the most directly obvious since comparing the buffed Defender's damage to a Blaster's damage is a very clear line that these suggestions need to NOT approach. You could write a formula and determine, if we want the buffed Defender to get to within 10% of a Blaster's damage, how high can we allow these powers to go in buffing value. Remember, too, that we're only looking at the damage of a single power.. Time, for example, would also buff +Recharge so that the harder attacks activate faster.

Sorry, my bad, forgot about Blizzard when I said Inferno was the highest.

I do use End/Rech/Slow in it on some builds, but only if they don't have an AoE Immob. Which would usually mean Illusion/Rad or a Defender or Corruptor or MM. Slowing mobs from running out of rain patches or such is useful, but not if you have an AoE Immob. And sometimes End Red is useful on specific Rad builds, so the triple IOs can work well in the power. But it does usually take an extra slot compared to an Accuracy & Recharge slotting plan.

As @Nightmarer said, except that I can see Radiation Infection getting 4 slots for a Recharge bonus from 4 slots of Dark Watcher's Despair since at lower levels Recharge bonuses are nice and it's a cheap set. At 47+, respeccing into 2-3 Enzymes is a good option since you get better enhancement totals and don't need the 5% Recharge bonus as much.

The Geyser numbers don't add up. It must be double-counting something. I think that it has variable damage based on how much Tidal Power you have, and it's adding up all of the separate potential damage values, even if they occur in 4 mutually exclusive sets (0,1,2, or 3 Tidal Power), as if they could all occur on the same activation.

It does, Inferno is the highest damage nuke. I'm not going to go with the Mids' numbers, and I can't go in game to give the official damage numbers, but it's always been the highest damage power for Blasters.

A decent amount and, more importantly, its main AoE, if I recall correctly. 3 out of 4 attacks do -Def, with the AoE Immoblize the only one that doesn't, and I think it's more of an Immobilize and less of a damage-oriented AoE.

I think that was bad advice. A Knockback proc would activate if you activate a power that does knockback. I think this can work if the power you activate is a summons that can do knockback (Tornado). However, Carrion Creepers does not summon the tendrils which do knockback, but rather a patch that only Immobilizes and summons tendrils. So the patch itself doesn't do knockback, which means that when you summon it, you're not summoning a power that does knockback but rather one that will eventually summon the powers with knockback. So I don't think that it can trigger upon you from Carrion Creepers.