Coyote

There was no direct cap, but even if you could reach the 400% Recharge Cap, that would limit the number of summons that you could have out at one time. I think it was remotely possible to manage 4 summons at a time, though.

Sir, yes, sir. Except, well, how SHALL I play it? I'll need a complete How To Play guide, preferably with different chapters for each AT. And I'll need it by log-in time tonight 😉

In general, the most powerful secondary is going to be Psy Assault. Not the highest DPS or control, but adds great defensive ability, and it does have the highest effective DPS against AVs/GMs. Other excellent secondaries are Savage for all-around ability and a lot of fun, and Fire for DPS (but pair it with a primary that is good at shutting mobs down... don't go Fire/Fire, heh). For primary, I think Plant is all around the best, with Mind, Dark, and Electric also bringing different excellent options to the character. I think that Plant/Sav, Dark/Sav, Ele/Psy, Mind/Psy, and Mind/Fire all have multiple obvious options for concepts and should work well thematically also.

Okay, Stormy, time to get to your build. First, as I said, 6-slotting sets should be reserved for the few sets that have +Defense or +Recharge in the 6th slot (or maybe +Resist for a few builds trying to max out Resists). So we're going to "Frankenslot" most of your powers instead, in order to get a better mix of set bonuses, and enhancing on the power effects. Second... slotting Tornado and Lightning Storm for KNOCKBACK is counterproductive... you want to use Sudden Acceleration KB-to-KD IO in at least Tornado, in order to MINIMIZE knockback. The difference between Tornado throwing a target away, then going to do a second of damage to it, then throwing it away again, versus knocking it down and staying right on it to melt HPs away is huge. Third, Steamy Mist is a great power, so we'll find a way to put it into the build. Generalities aside, I'm going to go through the powers and discuss changes: --Spectral Wounds: good damage power, but Devastation only gets good set bonuses up to x4. Also, we want +Recharge as our main priority in set bonuses, so I'm going to switch this to a set with +Recharge. Maybe Apocalypse once you're slotting purples, but probably Decimation until then, and use the 6th slot for a damage proc. --Blind: I'm going to go with a damage-proc combination, ignoring set bonuses from this. You can get close to 300 damage out of at level 50 without Containment, and right now you're getting 34 damage. Yes, control is good, but a single-target Hold isn't helping much against large spawn, and against tough Bosses you have Phantom Army and Deceive, and you're better off killing the Boss faster than Holding him harder. --Gale: Useful power if you put in a KB-to-KD IO, as it can be spammed to get the +Recharge bonus from the FF proc, while constantly knocking mobs down to keep them in Freezing Rain. Actually better at keeping mobs together like that, than Snow Storm. --Arcane Bolt: This is also a good damage power, and it will round out your single-target rotation. If you have perma-PA without Recharge from it, then you would want to put more damage procs in it, but in general you want more +Recharge, so I will go with 5x Decimation and the Force Feedback: +Recharge, it will really help with getting PA perma. --Superior Invisibility: This does not give much Defense, unfortunately... it's good Defense UNTIL you make an attack or get hit, and then the defense suppresses and you get only about 2% out of it. It's not worth slotting up, so just leave it with 1 slot of LotG (Luck of the Gambler) global recharge IO. --Flash: I'm not a big fan of AoE Holds, but then again I won't argue with 6-slotting it. But we want Recharge more than Defense, so I'm going to switch the sets to get Recharge bonuses. --Snow Storm: This power may be on the chopping block. It's not bad, but it's certainly not nearly as good as Steamy Mist, so if I have to cut it to fit in Steamy Mist, then it's gone. If I'm keeping it, then I'm dropping the slots down since it doesn't need too much enhancing and the set bonuses are bad, so 2-3 slots in it will be enough. Remember, slotting for Slow effects does NOT help with improving the -Recharge debuff of a power, so one of its main strengths can't be improved by slotting. --Freezing Rain: Great power, but doesn't need 6 slots. Depending on what you stick in it, you can get by with just 1 slot, or slot up 2-3 IOs for its effects and 1-2 IOs that give additional -Resistance. --Phantom Army: No wonder you're having problems surviving against AVs. You have 0 Recharge in the power, resulting in an uptime of 60 seconds followed by a 70 second downtime (when Hasten is up), which means approximately 20 more seconds of character uptime followed by 50 seconds of running back from the hospital :p. At level 50, Illusion/Storm should manage less than 10 second downtime on PA as a base value, and lower that even more with the use of Force Feedback procs. The difference between trying to survive for a minute without PA vs 5 seconds is exactly why Illusion is considered an AV killer when slotted for Recharge, but a no-Recharge build is not. I'm going to put in a mix of sets and get high Recharge in it. --Rune of Protection: Overslotted a bit, I think it can be fine with 3-4 slots focusing on Recharge. --Hurricane: This power's main effect is the -ToHit, not the knockback. I'm going to change to a -ToHit set and get some Recharge bonus. --Tornado: This power NEEDS two main IOs: a Knockback-to-Knockdown IO, and a Force Feedback +Recharge IO. After that, it's slotting for Damage, Endurance, and Recharge. --Lightning Storm: Needs a FF:+R IO, and after that slotting like Tornado, but also with Accuracy added in. I think 5xApocalypse is the best set here if you have enough money, and Decimation if not. --Temp Invuln: overslotted at 6, 4 is quite enough. --Health & Stamina. Right now you're not having Endurance issues because your Recharge is too low to fire the powers fast enough to get much Endurance burn. With the character rebuilt for Recharge, you WILL see a serious Endurance burn, so we'll have to add some slots and some unique IOs in these in order to help with Endurance recovery.

Single-target damage is fine. You get Infrigidate slotted with 3 damage procs and Achilles... you get 5 or even 6 damage procs in Fossilize (because Earth does -Def with everything so you can live with lower base accuracy), and yout slot up the Immobilize for damage, and you have a decent single-target rotation. You can hit higher cons starting at low levels due to all the -Def. So you do okay with single-target damage. It's AoE where you have nothing going on, but that's not too unusual for half of the Controller sets... Ice, Earth, Gravity, Mind, Illusion all struggle with AoE damage. For single-target, an Earth/Cold slotted specifically for damage should be fine. Infrigidate is over 150 DPA, Fossilize is about 150, and Stone Prison is about 100, so it's not hard to maintain a single-target rotation that's over 100 DPS. Add in -Res and -Regen effects, and it can drop AV health bars. For AoE... good luck. I'm using Wall of Force and waiting for the epic AoEs. Until then it's a slog, but that means that mission difficulty gets raised by +Level rather than by xNumber.

Okay, I don't have time tonight to go over this build, so I'll go over it tomorrow. Just as a note, the only reason to 6-slot a set, EVER, is if the bonuses for the 6th slot are good. Otherwise, it's almost always better to throw out 1 or 2 of the set's worst IOs, and replace with an IO from another set that has an effect proc, or that enhances the better aspects of a power. For a quick note tonight, this is my Ill/Storm build, which has the perma-PA to stand against AVs, and DPS to beat their regen. Endurance IS a problem, and I'm switching from Clarion to Ageless due to that: Edit: and as a side note, I wonder if that suggestion was a joke. Lightning Storm COULD be used for draining, but really only for an Electric/Storm, and even then it's not worth it: Damage, Accuracy, Recharge, and Endurance Reduction are the main things to slot in there, and a Force Feedback. I go with 5xApocalypse and the Force Feedback, personally, but there are other decent options.

Sure, that's fine... if Zombies do more damage than Grave Knights as a base before Soulbound, then certainly they should get Soulbound. I was saying that IF another tier does more damage than the tier 1s (before damage procs, because damage procs won't be affected by Soulbound), then putting it in the other tier may be more helpful. And, also, if it's close... then the Tier 1s should get it, because the ToHit bonus will help them more than Tier 2 and 3s. Basically, if you have a MM set where the Tier 1s are clearly outclassed in damage by the Tier 2s or 3s (not sure if there is any where this is the case, though, as the utility henchmen are usually put into Tier 2 or 3 so that you start off with a DPS tier), then it should be put into that higher damage tier. But if Tier 1 is tops or close to tops, then it should get it.

I'm not sure that this is right. Yes, Soulbound will trigger more on Tier 1 pets, but it will boost a lower base damage, thus it may not actually boost your overall DPS by more. Now, I think that it adds ToHit, which IS more useful in the lower Tier pets... but I think that you get the most increase if you put it into your highest-DPS tier, whichever that is. For example, Grave Knights for Necros. Another consideration is aggro... I think I'd put it into Bruiser for a Thugs/Pain, since he'll have single-target buffs up and I want the aggro on him. He's a high-DPS tier anyhow, but boosting his damage will pull aggro away from the crazy Arsonist.

I like Petrifying Gaze with like 4 damage procs and a Lockdown proc. It becomes a pretty hard hitter, and has a chance to one-shot Hold a boss.

I agree with this, or limit the stacking to 2 at full strength, then the 3-5 stacks have half effect. And the point about feeling the effects of what other teammates do for you without IOs, and then not caring much about teammates giving +Recovery or +Defense once you have IO and Incarnate levels is good... letting characters cap defenses on their own too easily cuts down the value of +Def buffs, which should be major selling points for some sets like Cold and Force Fields.

What's the issue, lack of damage, lack of surviving, or lack of endurance? PA should be perma, which means you only have to survive usually 1 shot from the AV when the new set of decoys comes in, before they grab aggro, and you can often even avoid that by ducking behind an obstacle before the summons. And I try to make sure that I have either 1 Luck or Unleash Potential running, to be capped vs Ranged Defense so it would take a lucky shot to hit... and very few AVs will 1-shot you at range. You should be able to perma PA easily once Incarnate using Agility as the Alpha (and Ageless if necessary, though it's more necessary for Endurance management), but you can probably get perma-PA before it, by putting a Force Feedback +Recharge in Tornado and in Lightning Storm. Each use of one in a minute is equivalent to a 7.5% Recharge bonus, and you can usually fire Tornado 3x and LS 2x in a minute, so that's a lot of Recharge boosting, more even than Accelerate Metabolism.

Exactly. The difference is due to different goals in optimizing. Optimizing for AoE, where most of the action and XP is, means putting the -Res in larger AoE powers, in this case Leap. Optimizing for AVs, where the lack of optimization might actually make a difference (lower AoE damage, considering how high either Sav/Bio or Sav/Shield are in AoE, will slow down fights a bit but rarely result in actual problems, just slower success), means putting into something that's going to be in a single-target DPS rotation. And usually the only good AoEs to fit into single-target DPS rotations are those smaller cones like Shadow Maul or Shred, which are not going to be as good as single-target attacks but at least are going to be in the ballpark, along with higher chances to proc the IO on a single target. As you say, there are so many different options in the set that builds can go in very different ways and still be optimized, just for very different goals.

I'm not saying that you should necessarily follow my plan, but I looked at Hemorrhage, and I love the idea of an attack cycle that builds up 4 Frenzy (but not 5) and then fires Hemmorhage after Assassin's Frenzy. That way you get 8 stacks over 2 activations, instead of 5 and then 0 because you were Exhausted on the 2nd repetition. So, looking at activation times, it seemed to me that Shred would fit very nicely in a Maiming - Shred - Assassin's - Hemoslaughter cycle, building up 4 Frenzy. However, Shred would be kind of weak as a single-target attack. I think it's great since it has a decent cone that reliably hits 2 targets, and can hit 3-5 on a corner pull without much difficulty, but as part of a single target rotation, it's a bit lacking. But... any other attack I'm going to put in there wouldn't be great in any case, so I don't want to get and slot another attack when Shred works and also helps in AoE. So, how to make Shred actually useful in a single-target rotation? I think I hit on an answer: slot it up with 4 slots base as an attack. Since it has a good recharge, you can get away without Recharge slotting and get good values, or else you can put 3 of the ATO set that gives Smash/Lethal Defense if you're building for that (though you get Recharge enhancing, and you actually don't want that). This gives you 2 slots, and you can fill them with Achilles Heel and Fury of the Gladiator to get 2 -Res IOs into a single power. Now, the power averages about 14% -Res debuffing per use, and about 20% long-term on an AV since you can't stack each debuff, just extend the duration. Even with lower damage stats, a 20% -Resistance debuff is well worth putting into the cycle, and turns Shred into a good part of a single-target rotation. Since Maiming is pretty good and AF & Hemo are great, you end up with a very nice looking single-target rotation while still slotting up a power that can be used in AoE situations.

Phantom Army, frankly, seems like a REALLY powerful power for even 18. I couldn't see pushing it up earlier. Although I would love to swap Flash and Spectral Terror, since Flash isn't that usable early until you get some set bonuses for Recharge and Accuracy.

I really like the animations, especially since they're DIFFERENT. If you want straight hard power projection, there is Energy Melee, Energy Blast, and Energy Assault, as well as the Martial Art/Assault/Manipulation. There are enough other options for hard-hitting martial arts and power projection, that I like the option of having a softer "casting" style.

I love those players. They make the game interesting 😄

Agree with Cold, agree with Gravity. I think Electric is fine, it has enough damage mitigation through pulsing Sleep and End drain early... Synaptic Overload is a better power than Paralyzing Blast so of course we'd want it earlier, but I don't think that there is more than a "would be nice to have" argument for it. Not like the other sets, which really have issues related to waiting very long to get those powers.

I read about the Guardian AT as a proposed melee/buffing set. So I wondered... wouldn't you get the same effect just by proliferating MELEE attack sets to Defenders? Does it really seem either too weak or too strong to let Defenders (and by extension Corruptors) have Stone Melee, Dark Melee, Superstrength, etc? You can have a Stone Melee/Kinetics character, or make the Martial Arts/Kinetics Ink Men that players have been asking for, and you don't have to create a new AT for it. Just proliferate a different TYPE of attack set.

I rated Demon/Storm as the highest DPS on paper. The reason is that Demons is high damage and Storm is high damage.... but Demons debuffs Resistance, which multiplies its damage. And Storm's. And Storm debuffs resistance, which multiplies its damage. And that of Demons. The only issue is Endurance, especially if you use the personal attacks (and you should for max DPS). Ninja/Storm wouldn't be, because even with Ninja a bit ahead of Demons, they're not providing 50% or better -Resistance, which would make a big boost to Storm's damage.

Fire is a premier damage dealing set, though with no mitigation. Mind's high control made it safer to use, so it's a good combination, but I wouldn't call it a top damage dealer... both Fire and Dark put out enough damage without having to spend time in animation (pets and Hot Feet), that Fire/Fire and Dark/Fire should both be easily ahead of it. And Plant's confuse ability plus Creepers clearly make it better at AoE damage. Anything with /Fire is going to be good at doing damage, especially single-target at range, but Mind isn't one of the higher damage options as a primary. Just one of the safer ones, and Fire Assault can use safety.

I'd never drop Whirling Hands, because it's the only main AoE power. The AoE Hold is very skippable, especially for Electric Control which will rely on every-spawn confusing and draining rather than on alternating an AoE Hold with some other AoE control, like Mind Control. Power Sink is a good option for an Electric Control character as it helps sap enemies a lot faster. I don't know if it's important enough to make the character less fun to play, though it would probably be more effective with Power Sink, and a pet, and an AoE.

To be honest, my first character on CoH was Illusion/Rad. I actually had NO idea why players ever complained about Sappers, Sorcerers, CoT Demons, KoA, Ring Mistresses, etc. Then I played a melee character with status protection, and found that there are actually NASTY DEBUFFS in the game. Who knew?!? 😄 Squishies have to worry about mezzing, and have proactive actions that may prevent it. Melee characters may have to worry about debuffs, and often have fewer proactive actions. Given break-frees, Rune of Protection, and Clarion, I don't think that mezzing is really an issue, just a challenge.

I think that Sentinels were considered as fulfilling a major needed role for PLAYERS, not for TEAMS. Basically, the idea of having a character who is armored/tough AND ranged, like Iron Man is a standard hero/comic book archetype, and this allows players to play that archetype.

Thank you, I had forgotten about the formats for this. Now I can finally do my Rain of Skulls macro: " powexeclocation up:max Wormhole" (this only applies to Skulls... I am going to make a Rain of Fire macro for use on Hellions. Not sure if a Sky Rainers macro is called for) 😄

Agree completely: 1: always put the chance to Hide ATO in Assassin's Strike for the reasons stated above. 2: the set has good bonuses, and I always 6-slot it in AS.