Coyote

I believe both are there, but I can confirm the Dominator version has Link Minds.

-DMG is NOT the same thing as Resist, for several reasons: 1) They act separately. 50% -Damage and 50% Resist means that you take 25% damage, not 0%. Also, the cap on Resist is based on your Archetype (75% for MMs), while I believe that the floor on damage is 10% of base. 2) Debuffs like -Dmg are resisted by level differences. A +2 mob will only suffer 80% of the debuff's effects (thus, recheck your values for adding -ToHit and Defense together, if you're fighting higher level mobs). 3) It is due to a strange coding quirk in CoH, but Damage RESISTANCE resists Damage Debuffs. So a mob that has 50% Smashing Resistance will resist 50% of -Damage debuffs to its Smashing damage (but not to its Fire damage). So a mob that is both resistant to Fire and does mostly Fire damage is going to be hard to debuff its damage. Note, however, that this also means that debuffing a mob with -Resist... will then boost your -Damage debuffs upon it. So, recalculate your -Damage assuming that you put Tar Pit upon the target first. Fearsome Stare: Fear enhancements will increase the duration of the Fear effect, and will have no effect upon the -ToHit portion. -ToHit enhancements will increase the strength of the -ToHit debuff, not its duration. It is generally considered most useful to slot it for -ToHit. I don't recall for sure, but I believe that it stacks.

There's such a thing?!?! 😲 OMG, I love you. I love you so much. 😄

I have used Spring Attack in some builds, and I will say two things: 1) Always have a keybind or macro prepared so that you can trigger it at the location of your target. Then it will need only one click to activate, and you still retain the option of activating it normally. Personally I have Ctrl-W (like SUPER-FORWARD) set for my teleport attacks at a target, and double-left-click for my teleport attacks at a location, and it works very well. 2) Always set Spring Attack with damage procs. Even with high-damage ATs like Stalkers, its base damage isn't that high but it has a 90% chance to proc, so 4 of them are about 240 damage by themselves... use the other 2 slots for damage/recharge or acc/dam/rech and you can push 400 damage. Not great, but it's usable at that level. Going without procs generally ends up with it in the solid 200s, and that's rather... meh. As a note, the most interesting use I see for it is for a Nin/Kin melee MM build. Using Fulcrum Shift to cap the damage and maxing out on procs, I think its in the high 400s, maybe even 500 damage. With little Recharge slotting, though 😞

LOL, hehe. You got DECEIVED into summoning a PHANTASM post from ages past. Your Seeker Drones found it regardless of its age, and you made sure that its Mortared into our current environment. Not in the slighest bit a DECOY that will fade in a FLASH, but will remain current, a TERROR to all right-thinking AVs hoping that no one TRIPs upon it.

I believe that the Awakened enemy group uses some attacks that have similar graphics to some of hers. Not as powerful, granted. Pendragon also has a unique (and UNIQUELY ANNOYING) earth-shaking attack that shakes your screen so hideously that you can't tell what is going on. I seriously move away even if I'm giving up good combat position, just to avoid being inside its overwhelming graphics. And I think that's also shared with some Talons Boss... Oracles, probably. And, continuing the theme, Grant Creston shares some powers with the Resistance group.

Correct, pets are not affected by Recharge rate buffs and debuffs

So do I. Jolting Chain, AFTER you get Apocalypse in there (because otherwise you only have two non-purple damage IOs) does about 180 damage to the primary target followed by about 100 damage as AoE. 100 AoE damage on an 8 second timer isn't all that bad, but it's actually pretty good considering you're getting it with 3 slots. Add in one slot for Accuracy/End/EndMod so you have some Accuracy in there, and that still leaves it as a usable power with 2 slots left over for Force Feedback and something else. Either Power Transfer, or Devastation Hold proc. I do have two AoEs from the secondary, but they leave room to add in JC if I"m not hitting with single-target attacks. And if I am... doesn't hurt to have extra AoEs that are sitting unused because you're busy mixing in single-target attacks. Conductive Aura isn't worth going into melee to use it. But Earth Assault is in melee anyhow, and it's endurance hungry, so... Static Field and Conductive Aura help it more than most other secondaries. And unlike /Psy, where you can go in, hit Drain Psyche, and back out... /Earth stays in melee. So it gets more use from the end recovery than most other sets. And as a bonus it makes it easier to drain spawns. Neither is so dominant in what it does that they're clear must takes, but they are both useful on a melee-oriented Dominator. Although I agree with Hjarki, that the set is relatively resistant to low global Recharge since long-recharge powers still recharge fast enough, and Jolting Chain also recharges fast and can slot Force Feedback. So it doesn't really have nearly as much need for Recharge as some other sets that depend on 90-second-recharge Stuns like Fire and Earth.

They are MM-specific, also called ATO (ArcheType Origin) Enhancements. There is also one that gives AoE Defense which helps a lot against AoE-happy mobs. Thugs/Electric should be a solid combination, with Thugs being very strong offensively, Electric strong defensively and its defensive abilities being added behind the Defenses from Thugs. I am running Robots/EA and it's pretty solid, but it should clearly be behind Thugs since Robots do far lower damage. /Cold should be solid for Ninjas, but while I've never played them, rumors are that they're paper Tiger Ninjas. High damage until someone glares at them, then they die. /Cold may help enough, but be ready to resummon. A lot.

For MMs, it is certainly a truism that Defense mitigates more damage. BTW, it also mitigates more mezzing and debuffing. However, what's forgotten is that incoming damage is NOT a problem. What is a problem, is pet health going to 0. So, if the henchmen take 50% of their health once in a while, you have a chance to heal them. If they take 100% of their health 1/4 as often... even though they take less damage overall, you have to resummon them more often. So, a set with healing that depends on Resists like Thermal CAN do well because while your henchmen end up taking more damage, they don't necessarily die. Lastly, the Resist-based sets have 3 IOs available (2x10% and 10/15% for normal/superior) while the Defense sets have 2 IOs available at 5% each. So with 3 IOs added to the Resist sets, they end up looking better than an example with just 1 IO for each. Your example has them at 34%, but adding 25% to that makes them look far more capable of surviving the hit so they can get healed. The real weakness of Resist sets is actually mezzing and debuffing, not so much getting hammered by a lot more damage. The real weakness of Defense sets is enemies with +ToHit. Most mobs don't have that, but Awakened, Resistance, sometimes Nemesis, can all stack +ToHit and start clobbering the Defense sets.

Traps is good for them. It keeps mobs away using Caltrops, which works nicely with the cone AoEs that Mercs use. They're below average in general... for ranged pets, Demons and Thugs do better damage AND are tougher. Mercs aren't especially bad, but when they're clearly behind two other ranged sets in both offense and defense, you play them because you want to run Mercs not because you want high performance.

Dark and Rad don't add to Defense, they put out -ToHit on the enemies. Up to extreme levels in the case of Dark. Thermal doesn't add to Defense, it adds to Resistance. The pets get hit, but for half damage. Kinetics leads to a lot of resummoning of dead pets :p. But it's also very high damage at the later levels. You do have to make a Tankermind build in order to pull the attacks to you since it's easier to build for set defenses for yourself than to try to keep pets alive.

/Dark is very strong and fits thematically. /Kin works well with melee-oriented pets. /Rad colored dark is similar to /Dark... not as strong defensively, though. /Thermal (color the flames dark or dark red) is pretty good

It's your Sustain (+Absorb, +Recovery) toggle, so generally you WON'T detoggle it. However, it also has a nice large -Speed debuff, which makes it easier to kite mobs (especially with other -Speed debuffs... like Whirlpool). But this debuff will aggro mobs if you're going around Stealthed, so you may have reasons to detoggle it when moving between missions or when Stealthing missions. After you detoggle it, you get +40% Recharge... maybe for about 10 seconds? I forget the duration. Whirlpool and Burst of Speed are nice powers, and more useful in an AoE situation. Mobs in Praetoria are tough, and soloing you generally don't see large clumps of victims, so these AoE powers aren't that useful now. Later when you get strong enough to fight at +1/x4 or something, AoEs are nice, so you will want them. But you can look to pick them up starting in the 20s if you're doing the tougher Praetoria content where you will generally keep the difficulty lower for longer. Skip Storm Kick. The damage is nice, but it's not worth Blapping for a single attack, and the later melee attack is also not impressive. Dragon's Tail is nice, especially paired with Burst of Speed: BoS -> DK -> BoS -> Ball of Water (name?) -> BoS for the last time .... is a lot of PBAoE damage. But a single-target attack is not worth going into melee. Ki Push, however, is great.. because it has a 2 second Hold (mag 4), it will Hold Bosses. Usually, trying to keep Bosses mezzed with a knockback power is hard because if you hit them while they're getting up, they're immune to KB, and if you hit them too late after they're up, they get an attack off. But Ki Push's 2 second Hold (and 2 second delay on triggering the knockback) means that it's easy to Ki Push them, shoot them twice, then run up and repeat as they're almost up... they get Held for 2 seconds and their knockback immunity fades and THEN they get knocked back again. Repeat until dead.

I like slightly more than 95%, but on most characters I'm fine with it, because even soloing a lot will have access to Aim, BU, some -Defense power, etc. There are always Accuracy inspirations. Being under 95% against mobs with Defense is inefficient, but being over 95% against mobs without Defense is also inefficient. So it's a bit of a trade-off. In general, unless the character has no way of getting occasional bursts of greater accuracy or debuffing Defense, I'm fine with 95% and depending on temporary measures for dealing with temporary Defense mobs.

Thanks. Hm, that might actually work for me. With an Illusion/Storm, keeping AVs from running is hard, but I do have a TON of summonables who are summoned regularly... 3 decoys, 2 Tornados, 3 Storms, 1 Enflame patch, 2 Rains... the Phantasm may get resummoned since it likes to suicide, and a Mu Guardian gets resummoned every 4 minutes. So that's a lot of pets, and many of them WOULD be resummoned after bringing up the Hybrid toggle. So when it's running, for a while after, it may be possible to put out enough Immobilize mag to stop AVs from fleeing. Could be worth a try, even 90 seconds out of 4 minutes would be an improvement against some track stars.

Heh, wait till you hit the AV fight at the end of the Night Ward. Right now that arc is my challenge arc for characters soloing AVs in a normal story arc rather than a TF.

The Subjugator's Confuse effects is a strange toggle around her that builds up to where it confuses you. Backing off a bit to let the mag of the Confuse drop may be useful. I think she may also have a nasty PBAoE attack, though I don't recall if that's her or the Mindstormie thingie. First Ward is definitely a step up in difficulty from normal content. Night Ward is yet another step up. I don't recall where else you fight the Awakened, or if only in the villain arc from Mr G, but they're like the nastiest villain group at its level. Maybe at any level. Definitely be careful when you get to those. I find the Channelers to be even worse, because they turn an entire spawn from dangerous to "kill you almost instantly", and being LTs they may have several in one spawn. Running at +2/x4 against them was a nightmare. And the Living Spells in Night Ward are almost as tough as the Awakened. It's definitely a wake-up call, and I often want to ask the players who run +4/x8 how they feel about +2/x4 in the Night Ward, hehe.

Well, that sunk it. I hope it doesn't bring a storm of protests.

/EA is a lot more fun. It's very active, and the Robots attacks are pretty poor so having an active secondary is good. It's a strong defensive set for both soloing and teaming, and you can switch from a mixed "buff/heal and occasional attacks" to "max healing/absorb spam" when a fight gets tough. The fact that it can choose how much to leverage the defensive powers to, in effect, swap from offensive to defensive stances is both interesting and unique. The problem is that in order to have an "offensive" stance at all, you need good attacks... and that means you have to go with power pools for attacks. At least the Willpower pool is decent and fits reasonably well. On teams, well, you can't get enough offensive ability from pool powers to matter much, so you won't be doing much on offense... and on defense you'll be great early on when teams will welcome +ToHit/+Damage and +Recharge/+End spamming, in addition to the heals. But at higher levels, the +Damage isn't that much, and most everyone will have their Endurance and Accuracy managed, so... a bit of +Damage and +Recharge is all you'll bring. It's a great teaming set at low-mid levels, not so much at high levels. Cold isn't as strong defensively, but does stack nicely with Robots defenses. It adds a lot more to offense, especially on teams and against AVs. On teams you'll have a lot more time to attack so be sure to invest in some good pool or epic attacks in order to use your time productively, especially since you won't have Endurance issues late. For soloing, it will do better against AVs but defending the Robots without a heal or much resistance backup for occasional hits will be difficult... on teams it will do very well at all levels. Overall Cold is generally a stronger set, largely because it's easier to shore up defensive deficiencies with sets. There isn't much to use to add to offense other than Weaken Resolve. So EA lacks offense and there isn't much you can do about it, while Cold lacks personal defense and you can build a high-defense character through sets.

Energy Manipulation is good because Water Blast is poor in single-target damage, so the heavy melee attacks in EM help with that. It has Boost Range which will help with the shorter ranged AoEs in Whirlpool and especially Steam Spray, and it has Power Boost which will help really slow down the mobs and help Dehydrate. It also has Conserve Power, which is the best Sustain for Endurance efficiency, but Water Blast can slot a Chance for +End IO in Dehydrate, so it doesn't need this as much. I would look at EM if you're planning to go Blappy. Temporal Manipulation helps a ranged build more. It has a ranged AoE mez so you don't have to get close (and it fits well with Water since it has a Stun so it can stack with Geyser), and a ranged Hold. The melee attacks are okay but not worth designing a build around, but Aging Touch is fast enough to help with single-target DPS if you're wiling to close to melee to finish off Bosses. Two +Recharge powers help get long-recharge powers out faster, though this doesn't help Water Blast as much as other sets... WB already has enough AoEs that having them recharge a bit faster is always nice but not as useful as other sets who depends on fewer AoE, and Blasters don't usually have a problem having a single-target attack chain. +Recharge is always nice, but Water Blast isn't the best set to make use of it (I would think Fire or Ice would be, with fast-animating attacks so they have larger gaps).

He's just squirting out verbal ink to confuse you as he makes his getaway 😉

In general, put Soulbound in the highest-damage Tier because it will have the same damage boost as a % on all tiers, so you want it boosting the highest damage. A caveat is that putting in a lower Tier makes the +ToHit portion more useful. A further caveat is that doing this makes them hit more often, and do more damage, multiplying their negligible damage against +4s to become still negligible. So you do get a greater increase as a %, but usually the damage from Tier 1s is so low against +4s even with a level shift, that you're better off boosting the damage of the Tier 3s. And, rarely (Necros), the Tier 2s.

This is what I really like about my Water/Plant... defensive ability from a lifedrain, and a Mag 4 Immobilize. Stay put, track star AVs!!!

Fortunately, I have 65% Resistance to zings 😉 ... even penetrating ones using Princess Bride quotes 😄