Coyote

I took Corrosive Vial. I dropped it like it was a corrosive vial of something nasty. It might have been the most underwhelming power I ever slotted and tried hard to use on any character, ever. Disclaimer: I was aware enough to stay away from Serum or Detonator, so I won't say it's the worst power you could take. But it was worse than Invoke Panic. Or Brawl 😛 .

Wow. Necro/Poison and Ninja/TA. I bow down to your superior masochism 😛 The only combo that I tried that seemed poor (as opposed to merely that I ended up not liking how the character played) was TA/Archery on Live. Without serious investment in set bonuses (which was hard to do back then), it's really hard to get good personal defense on TA. The original version was worse than now, and it's still weak now. Archery is good for damage but not for self-protection, and Defenders didn't have Vigilance, so it was hard to use "damage as defense" by killing mobs fast. All in all, it was just fragile while not being nearly as effective on offense to make up for its defensive lackings. I may try Archery/Tactical Arrow as that set looks far better, and Blasters do enough damage to use it as damage mitigation (and IO sets are far easier to acquire on Homecoming), but TA/Archery was a bad, bad combination when it first came out.

Well, I think it's suprisingly good on Dominators. But I can't see it as better than Dark or Electric, because those also have good control.... and far better secondary effect that can actually defend you pretty well even when controlling fails. And Plant Control is more effective in most of the game, though it's risky since it depends on a single power that is occasionally resisted (and so Rularuu eyeballs will deliver fun fun beatings to you until you figure out how to handle them... and Nemesis won't be much fun, either).

KD powers will stack, but only if they happen on the same server tick, AFAIK. I think that's in the neighborhood of .16 seconds or so, so .... It will happen, but rarely. Also, Ice Slick is KB 0.5, not .67. Add .67 and you're at 1.17 KB, which isn't very far even on +0s... on +1s it's at 1.05 which is almost knockdown, and on +2s it's knockdown even if stacked. So I wouldn't worry about having any knockback issues with a very small chance of stacking 0.67 KB on top of Ice Slick's 0.5 within the same server tick... because in most cases even if it happens, it won't have a noticeable effect.

Just confirmed it for Shock, didn't test Discharge. The -Regen and -Recovery stacked at least 3 times. Unfortunately I didn't think to test the -Damage, though I assume if one aspect of the debuff stacks, then so would the others.

I'm not touching that comment

Yeah, actually, I just looked at my planned build, and it splits Guile between Mass Levi and Assassin's Strike. But the proc is in AS, because it's too good for a single-target attack chain to be able to set up AS and then GPB with a crit. Mass Levitate could be used to go ML to GPB when in a spawn with multiple targets plus a boss, but I think I'd rather set up the crits for a single-target attack chain rather than to only have the proc practically usable when in a group. So I put 3 Superior Guile in there, the Superior Assassin's Mark Recharge/proc, a damage proc, and the FF. Due to all the recharge, the proc doesn't have a high chance, so it's not much more damage than a Damage/End IO... I may switch to the D/E IO to help with Endurance management, or to the A/D/E/R ATO from Assassin's Mark for higher overall enhancement bonuses.

Interesting... I'm going with at most 5 of a set, because I can't pass up on running Force Feedback with it (with only one good AoE, I want it up ASAP). Do you think the set bonuses are good enough to lose out on FF, considering that I'll probably put Armageddon in the 5 slots, which does have good set bonuses on its own and includes a damage proc?

When you are balancing sets, you generally look at DPS balance... and a power that does double the damage on double the recharge is generally balanced vs the other power. So if Savage Leap does double the damage of Mass Lev but has twice the recharge (higher, actually, because you spend more slots in it for damage procs to get the damage), then overall they're pretty comparable. And Mass Levi takes FF, which is a nice bonus. Also, damage isn't everything that's balanced... as I say about Savage Melee, it has almost negative mitigation... it has little in the way of knockdowns and nothing else, and has DoTs that allow mobs to attack even though they're effectively defeated. Meanwhile, Psy Melee has a Confuse, a Hold, and a guaranteed knockup. When you're balancing sets, the one that has more mitigation SHOULD do less damage. If you're playing in steamrolling teams where mitigation doesn't matter, then the truth is that you're playing a set that has a strength, but you're in a situation where that strength doesn't matter. But if you solo difficult scenarios like Praetoria to First Ward to Night Ward, like I'm doing with my Psy Stalker, the damage mitigation IS appreciated. You're right, in a way... if you're going to be in situations where damage mitigation isn't relevant, and where damage output of the team is so high that having Mass Lev available within 10 seconds is irrelevant because the spawn is mostly erased by then, then Psy Melee is completely crappy. But that's putting the character in the exact scenario where Savage Melee's weaknesses (longer recharge on the AoE and lack of damage mitigation) are irrelevant, and its burst AoE damage is front and center, and using that to argue about how SM > PM. For the record, I do think that SM > PM... but not by that much. Psy Melee is really good for soloing and for soloing hard content where you LIKE having the ability to Hold nasty bosses (with a Chance to Hold proc added to GPB), Confuse a LT who has unpleasant buffs or debuffs, etc.

I like your primary choices. For secondary, Energy is a good set, though I would also mention Earth (more melee oriented) and Savage (with Feral Charge, the ability to mix range, melee, and constant teleportation is a lot of fun).

It has a fast recharge... can't you just put a FF and a KB to KD IO in it, and when you have a pet in the middle of the mobs activate it, then once it's knocked down the enemies around the pet, turn it off so you don't get your End drained? And you can do that again just a few seconds later. Or doesn't that work as well as it seems like it should? Running it all the time definitely seems like an End killer, but turning it on at the start of a fight to get a few seconds of free attacking seems like it may be worth the 10-15 End that it will cost to knock everyone in the area down.

AoE is Area of Effect, so the power radiates out in a sphere from a target point. PB means Point Blank, so the target point is centered on the user of the power. So PBAoE is an effect that goes outward from the user. Ally means all critters who are on the same side (if they aggro on you they're not on your side, otherwise they usually are). They don't have to be on your team... in Kings Row if you interrupt a fight between the police and the Skulls, a PBAoE heal will heal the police. This will include both heroes and villains if they are together in a cooperative zone.

Illusion seems like the obvious choice. Other than that, in order to be "tricking" the enemies, you have to affect them, so that means a debuff-oriented set. The Rad debuffs could be considered the visual effects of mentally confusing the targets into being less accurate, easier to hit, and so on. Same with the Dark. Time can make it unclear where your teammates are, and confuse enemies into moving slowly and uncertainly. So those would be my suggestions... Illusion with Time, Rad, or Dark

I like to stick to a character CONCEPT. Sometimes that's matching powersets, sometimes it's not. I remember having a "mage" character who used Illusion/Rad, because Rad seemed like the closest effect to casting spells upon the enemies. Now I considered a Necro/Thermal, with the fires colored black/red to represent the flames of hell burning the souls. Theme can be used to create a concept, but it's the concept that generally drives character design for players who care about concept. Not the theme directly.

You magic missile them there. Why resort to uncouth practices like kicking? 😛

It is said to be overperforming, so I heard they're considering some nerfs. All graphics for it are going to be changed to the character wielding either a nerf bat, water-filled balloon, or cream pie on the end of a stick. Sounds will be changed to match.

Hehe, there are posters who DON'T turn up the content at Level 1? 😉

Yup, it is awesome 😄

Well, it is a thread about Illusion and Empathy, and you didn't specify a different powerset, so it seems like a natural assumption to me, also. He probably got the level 10 character because you mentioned that as the level for the zone (since Hollows goes from about 5 to 15, if you mentioned a specific single level, it also seems reasonable to assume that there was a reason why you picked the number 10). All in all, it looks like they just wanted to have the exact details specified, perhaps for testing or bug reporting.

Agreed. I thought it was unwittingly arrogant when I first read it, for a poster to think that they're good enough at psychology and classification to accurately place other players in groups. Especially when a singly player may have different playstyles and opinions based on which characters they're playing.

The MAIN effect of the Sustain powers is defensive in nature. It depends on the power, but it's either +Regen or pretty quick ticks of +Absorb or +HP. In any case, this gets boosted by Health IOs, so... slot it with at least 80% Enhancement in Healing. The SECONDARY effect is +Recovery. It is pretty strong, but it doesn't necessarily need to be slotted up... you do have Stamina (but slot the Sustain before you slot Stamina, unless you're slotting the Sustain with 6 slots of a Healing set for the bonus... Numina for Defense, Pre-Med for Recharge). Even with the base slot in Stamina and an unslotted Sustain, you will still have pretty solid Recovery. However, if you're not going with set bonuses, then 2 Heal and 1-2 Recovery is a good start. Then you can add, if you want, the Performance Shifter IO and maybe the Power Transfer IO for Chance to Heal (especially if the Sustain gives +Absorb, so you have a way to also regain lost HPs). Some Sustain powers have a TERTIARY effect, and you may want/need to slot up for that (KB to KD IO, Accuracy, etc). In any case, End Reduction is not needed even if it can slot it.

Right, my bad, I got confused... they don't self-stack from multiple hits but will stack from separate Sentinels. I was thinking of not self-stacking from multiple different attacks and for some reason expanded that to multiple different attackers.

Are you sure this is still the case? I know this is how it was originally implemented, but I thought I read something on the forums here about some effects like Brusing and Achilles Heel having been "fixed" so that they're no longer using the kludgy "grantself power" ability. And I recall testing after reading that, and seeing that the Achilles Heel debuff was 18% on a +1 target... if the target were casting it upon themselves, then the level shouldn't matter and it should always be a 20% debuff. So, seeing the decreased debuff made me think that I understood correctly, and that the powers are now treated as being cast by the user rather than by the target, but somehow prevented from being stacked from different sources. I recall finding it annoying because it meant that slotting AH into Mercenaries would have a very diminished effect upon most targets.

I think TA can work well with Robots, Illusion, and Mind Control. Maybe Earth Control. And that's about it, in the entire game. Otherwise it's really lackluster with basically anything else. Even with those, I don't think it'll work as well as Storm, but given that Storm is one of the best buff/debuff sets, that may not be a fair comparison.

You don't need the Recovery enhanced that much, while you DO want to enhance the Healing as much as you can. Go with 5 slots of Doctored Wounds if you really want a Recharge bonus, then the 6th slot can go for the Chance to Heal proc, or for a End Mod IO. Or go 6-slots with Preventative Medicine to get a bigger Recharge boost.