Story Archer

That's good point about Death Shroud - I only took Torrent for the IO set slotting. It does make me worry more about Endurance issues, though...

A little thread necro here, but I'm really surprised not to see Dark Melee mentioned for synergistic purposes. Was this before Touch of Fear got boosted?

I struggled trying to figure out which powers were skippable vs. which powers were must have, and just as much when it came to where I should put my slots. I really like the power set combination and I feel like what I've got is just fine, but I'd like to know if I'm missing something completely. I feel like what I've put together gives me the best of all worlds when it comes to multi-layered defenses/healing/control while also letting me manage my Endurance issues as well as can be. Due to severe alt-itis and occasional lack of funds, I try to pre-build as effective a character as I can with IO's but without using any purple sets, so that's kind of the criteria here. I figure that I'm close enough to the defensive soft-cap that pretty much any team-provided defensive buff will get me there. Resistances are solid if not spectacular, but I'm looking at stacking Cloak of Fear with Touch of Fear whenever I can for mitigation. Taunt and eventually Fold Space should help me gather everyone into range of both. Set bonuses basically give me +10% Endurance and 10% Endurance reduction. I don't think the Performance Shifter procs are factored into the Recovery numbers, but between those, Dark Consumption and the occasional Theft of Essence proc popping off I think I'll be good Endurance-wise. Side question about the Theft of Essence proc: considering how obscenely expensive Dark Regen is, would I actually be better off dropping a L50 Endurance Reducer there? I plan on only running Focused Accuracy on an as-needed basis since everything but Cloak of Fear is already hitting at over 95% on +4. I put a snapshot of the build below - TIA for any responses, I'm really looking forward to giving this guy a try!

Is it really? That's what I'm trying to figure out. I'd like to be able to run all the toggles I want (Maneuvers, Focused Accuracy, Tough/Weave, etc.) and simply not have to worry about Endurance. If I could do that with only two or three instances instead of all four, those are free slots I could definitely use elsewhere. Considering that the build also includes four sets of Unbreakable Guard and a full set of Preventive Medicine, that's another 13.75% Global Endurance Redux on top of everything else...

So I'm putting together a build for a character I'm probably going to be soloing a good bit, Street Justice/Rad Armor with the Energy Mastery. No experience with any of the three power sets but I'm playing around with the build in Mids. Knowing (and enjoying) the go-go-go nature of Brutes, I was considering slotting the Power Transfer +Heal proc and the Performance Shifter +End proc in Gamma Boost, Stamina, Superior Conditioning and Physical Perfection. I know that Rad Armor already has a fair amount of healing and recovery in its DNA, but my default here is that more is always better. Am I completely misunderstanding how procs work in auto powers?

That's an interesting approach - are you using it to winnow out characters you've made or do you have to catch a new character all the way up if you make one?

🙂

So upon discovering that my beloved CoH had returned, I completely spazzed out over the new (to me) options and all of the changes that had happened since I hung up my cape years ago. In an effort to get things under control, I've finally committed myself to two of each AT, not including Khelds or Arachnos (one day, maybe). I wanted to give myself a good mix of playstyles and power set experiences while avoiding the random things that I know I'm not overly fond of. This is my final list, my dedicated 22: Blaster: Alpha Spectrum (Fire / Atomic) White Star (Energy / Energy) Controller: Speed Orchid (Plant / Kinetics) Time Shadow (Illusion / Time) Defender: K-D1VA (Kinetics / Sonic) Fear the Never (Dark / Ice) Scrapper: Serrated Angel (Katana / Willpower) Ladyshrike (Claws / Energy Aura) Tanker: Iron Anvil (Willpower / Super Strength) Lady Mossad (Shield / Martial Arts) Brute: Crimson Skye (Staff / Electric) GenX 4 Life (Street Justice / Radiation) Corruptor: CoX and Chill (Ice / Cold) Mujere de Agua (Water / Storm) Dominator: Defoliator (Plant / Fire) Mistress Montclaire (Mind / Psi) Mastermind: Sheen 2.0 (Robotics / Time) Drakken Ruhl (Necromancy / Dark) Stalker: Hyperstrike 2.0 (Street Justice / Energy Aura) The Eldramoor (Dark / Shield) Sentinel: Hurtz (Electric / Electric) Six-Gun Angel (Dual Pistols / SR) Almost all have been made and most advanced to 20th at least - a few are still pending and a couple of the names haven't been checked, but the rest are all well on their way. Honestly, I'm not really sure why I even posted this - I'm just really excited to have it settled and looking forward to the adventure.

Necro'ing this thread again - I'm seeing a lot of hype for the Necro/Dark pairing... I've been on the fence for a while on what my first MM should be, and I'm torn between Necro/Dark and Necro/Cold, so much so that I've put off making the character til I decide. The benefits of /Dark have been mentioned above and are clearly very strong, but with Cold you get the Ice shields and strong options for both large mobs (Sleet, Heat Loss) and hard targets (Infrigidate, Benumb). Am I overlooking something or is Dark that clear of a winner?

So if I put it in Siphon Life it would go off whether I used the ability or not?

Well, if I can figure out what the percentage of a character's Health regenerates in one minute (base only, without Health) and then figure out what percentage of a character's health an unslotted Siphon Life would heal if it successfully lands every 10 seconds (or 6x per minute), it would seem to be a somewhat direct comparison... Killer avi image, btw. I find that I, too, am better at doings than at understandings. 🙂

Is it a good candidate for the Preventive Medicine +Absorb proc? As part of a steady attack chain it would seem to be an ideal fit?

Interesting. I've got a quick question about Illusion/Time. I'm not super familiar with Controllers; I've played a Plant/Fire Dom and I've poked around with different Illusion toons but never all the way through to Phantom Army and I know absolutely nothing about Time. I have an Illusion/Time concept that I really want to go with (pulling past and future versions of yourself to help in a fight, that kind of thing) and I was curious about their synergy (or lack thereof). Are there any decent Time guides out there? I don't mean just generic sample builds but a breakdown of the various powers, their strengths and weaknesses, what to skip, consider and absolutely take, etc? I haven't been able to find any but admittedly my search-fu is a bit weak.

My favoritely-named toons: CoX and Chill (Ice/Cold Corruptor) Defoliator (Plant/Fire Dominator) Serrated Angel (Kat/Will Scrapper) Six-Gun Angel (DP/SR Sentinel) Hurtz (Elec/Elec Sentinel) Rebel Yell (Thugs/Sonic Mastermind)

I think that you should consider Shield/Martial Arts for several reasons. 1) You can reach soft-cap defenses, mez resistance AND Resist to all of 26-28% practically by level 12 only slotting IO's and a couple of uniques (see my recent post on this forum). That means that you can get right back into the tanking you're used to without any sort of painful grind. 2) The Martial Arts powers are visually very dynamic and will definitely 'feel' different than the slow stony you're used to. Moreover, with defense so quickly and easily taken care of you can spend more time focusing on your offense for a change. 3) All of the knockback/knockdown will feel familiar and will let you slot those +Recharge procs you're probably used to. At the end of the day, while Peacebringers can tank (if by 'tank' you mean stand there and absorb damage), they are a wildly different play experience from Tankers. Depends how far you want to venture from what you've enjoyed in the past.

Right, I mentioned Storm Kick, and of course its temporary, like Divine Avalanche or Guarded Spin, except its to ALL positionals. The question is how long does the buff last, because the kick's base recharge is only 6 seconds and you have to figure any decent build will get that down to 3-4.

As I return to the game I loved for so long, I've been trying to familiarize myself with what's new, what's changed, etc. Tanks were never something I really played because I tended to solo a lot and back in the day that's just not what they were intended for. Now I've read some good things about them and I'm giving them a look with fresh eyes. After dipping my toe in with a cursory Willpower/SS build, I went looking to put together a concept I hadn't ever really gotten to try - Shield/MA - and I was not prepared for what I found, so I'm wondering if I'm missing something here: Is this right? It can't be. Now I'm not going to build this character exactly like this but I just wanted to see - by level 12 with Storm Kick, only the most basic slotting and a few Unique IO's, this character is already essentially at the Defense cap for all, has his status protection in place AND is resisting everything but Psi at 26% or higher? If true then that's just crazy. All Tankers can't be like this now, can they?

I know that's where it comes from - how do you raise it? Does it improve automatically through normal slotting of Defense IO's?

It's at about 86% - how do you raise DDR?

I'm curious what a consistent application of Siphon Life might look like in terms of equivalent Regen, operating with the understanding that Regen outside of combat really isn't that important for most melee types. I'd like to be able to compare it to something like Rise to the Challenge (which also doesn't provide healing outside of combat). So something like Siphon Life is equivalent to XXX% Regen using the parameters below. Basic framework - first off, I'm assuming that the heal is based off of some kind of percentage of a toon's health (as is Regen) and that it functions similarly across all AT's. That might be wrong, but hopefully not for the purposes of what I'm trying to figure out. So let's assume that: AT is at base hit points only. Siphon Life is not slotted for any additional healing. There are no additional ancillary healing bonuses or effects in place. Siphon Life is being used as part of a basic attack chain that allows it to reliably hit once every 10 seconds (or 6 times per minute). Hopefully this is something that can be reasonably determined. If not then just tell me to piss off and I'll find some other random, esoteric aspect of the game to become preoccupied with. TIA!

How does somebody rig 10 million pieces of basic salvage?

That's a great suggestion for ToF, I never considered that. Back when I played DM many years ago, ToF was the power you never even considered. How would you recommend slotting it? I shouldn't need accuracy for it any more than I do for Siphon Life, so are you just thinking the six damage procs (4 damage, Glimpse the Abyss and Cloud Senses)? I'm pretty happy with Siphon Life the way it is - the full set of Preventive Medicine really gives me some nice stuff I don't think I'd see from any other non-Purple option. The attack chain already deals pretty solid single-target damage and with my Resistances so low, when I do get hit, it tends to hurt. Having an ablative Absorb shield and being able to Heal up for a lot in response really tends to mitigate that one weakness. I'm open to slotting it for damage, I just tend to shore up defenses before worrying about MOAR offense, especially if I'm planning to run solo.

As the build above is shown (except swap a set of Adjusted Targeting in FA instead of Guissian's), with FA off AND no Soul Drain (something very unlikely to ever be the case), Accuracy is at 43% and ToHit at 6%. That puts Siphon Life at 77% Accuracy against +3's and 65% Accuracy against +4's. Again, this is without any purple sets whatsoever and without Focused Accuracy OR Soul Drain. Turn on either one of those and it jumps up to 86-87% vs. +4's and the Accuracy cap (95%) vs. +3's or lower. Honestly, once I upgrade the Scrapper sets and Soul Drain gets close to perma, there really isn't any reason to turn FA on except when debuffed or up against particularly hard targets. Still, it's good to have when you need it.

Yeah, with Hasten the Recharge for it on my L50 build is just under 61s with only one IO, so I'm sure you're right.

It's a little embarrassing to say this, but the +defense that the set provides evens out my Ranged/AoE Defense and that appeals to my OCD. If it helps, in the 50+ build I swap that out for a set of Warp which grants more tangible benefits. I've also decided to swap out the Guissian's to a set of Adjusted Targeting, since the bonus defense really is superfluous at that point. I was under the impression that there was some benefit to be gained from stacking PB. If not then that's a slot that's easily used elsewhere. Thanks for your comments.