Story Archer

I'm assuming that Phantasm benefits from everything, like a normal pet, but what about Phantom Army? Does it benefit from Leadership? What about buffs, like a Kin's Siphon Power or Speed Boost? And, finally, do you still not gain experience from mobs defeated by the PA? TIA, just trying to get a handle on the best way to build/plan for an Illusion Controller (my first one).

Thank you for taking the time to respond at length. I think I'm going to go with Sonic/SR - it might be a bit boring compared to some of the other defensive sets, but I've played a SR Scrapper and Brute and it always seemed like the best defense was simply not getting hit. I'd like to see how this version of it plays. A quick look at Mids tells me that it's pretty easy to soft cap, leaving time to attend to making the most of my attack chains. Question about Master Brawler though - what actual Mez protection does it provide? Mids doesn't tell me anything...

I feel really good using Shadow Maul, which is what drew me to Cross Punch in the first place - using them back-to-back seems like a great way to clear out the minions in a set that doesn't have much going for it AoE-wise... if you take Kick and Punch, it reads as a base 69 damage compared to Shadow Maul's considerable 90 damage plus it has the chance to Knock Down and Stun foes. Seems like a worthwhile inclusion to me, but I've never actually used it, so I can't say for sure. If there are better AoE attack options which would compliment the playstyle as well, out there I'm certainly open to them. I've already got more than 5 LOTG's in my slotted build, so I don't think I can get the benefit of another one. I did take TP as a quicker 'get there from here', though I've found the free prestige powers adequate for 95% of my movement and team teleport on PUG's usually take care of the rest. I probably would have just taken Teleport Target there instead but I wanted a spot for the Blessing of the Zephyr Knock-Back IO, just in case.

Greetings all - newly returned player here looking to build my first Sentinel. My playstyle (for ranged characters at least) is one that lends itself to standing back rather than getting into the thick of things and I prefer less actively managed defenses so that I can focus on my offensive set-up. Figure this character will be 50/50 solo play and random pick-up groups. I've been parsing through the various primaries and I've decided that I want to lean into a cone-centric Sonic build, stacking Sleep and KB effects to keep the baddies out in front of me, so now I'm trying to find a secondary set that will compliment it mechanically, compliment my playstyle and hopefully allow me to find some sort of theme-based synergy I can use on the character concept (in that order of priority). [EDIT: Am I reading this right, that Sentinel Sonic Blast only Debuffs Res by about 9.5% while Blasters debuff it at 13%?] First thoughts: Bio-Armor seems... complicated. Dark Armor looks interesting, but flavor-wise it doesn't seem like a good match, and it does seem to encourage close-range interactions. Electric Armor seems like a very strong candidate due to its 'fire and forget' nature. Feels like a lot of toggles running at once, but Power Sink should help. How useful is Power Surge? Energy Aura - is it me or does this seem VERY similar to Electric Armor? Fiery Aura - I like the self-heal, self-end and self-rez options a lot and the damage bonus is the icing on the cake. An early leader despite its occasional need to interact with nearby foes. Ice Armor is another very strong candidate for me, though I generally hate the animations. Is there no downside to Icy Bastion other than a long recharge time? Invulnerability - for some bizarre and utterly indefensible reason, I've never cared for Invulnerability defensive sets. The need to be up close to take advantage of Invincible seems like a disqualifier. Ninjitsu - I can never seem to remember what each power does due to the names. Seems like a cop-out, I know, but it throws me off. Radiation Armor - I don't have any thoughts about it one way or another (no experience at all), but it doesn't seem too popular on the boards. Regeneration - Filled with auto and toggle powers that don't require me to close with baddies, on the surface this seems ideal to what I'm looking for... but I get the impression it'll let me down in tougher boss fights. Really on the fence about this one, so any anecdotal experiences would be much appreciated. Stone Armor - Despite its popularity on melee sets, I've never been much of a Stoner, probably due to the animations more than anything. Should I reconsider that bias for Sentinel-style play? Super Reflexes - A favorite of mine on melee toons, and the addition of Enduring seems like it really helps shore up the entire set. I like that none of the powers are dependent on me closing with my enemies, but I'm not sure I get the Master Brawler/Practiced Brawler dichotomy thing. What are the arguments against this set - is there an AoE hole with no Lucky? Willpower - Another favorite in melee sets and another very strong candidate for me. Does Up to the Challenge remove the enemy proximity requirement of Rise to the Challenge? I do worry a little bit about the set collapsing under the weight of debuffs, though. I'm really looking forward to reading any and all thoughts on this. Sentinel is a totally new concept for me and I'm trying to get my mind around the best way to approach it, not defaulting to a Blaster mindset though I suspect that I will play them similarly, at least at first. Thanks in advance for taking the time to read through this and, of course, for any responses.

Really appreciate the comments - any thoughts about backing up Shadow Maul with Cross Punch? I never see Cross Punch show up in any builds.

Thanks for responding - I'm only in my late 20's right now, but I'm constantly encountering Endurance issues only to get bailed out by DC - I'm not sure I could afford dropping it AND adding additional toggles (on top of Tough/Weave). Soft Cap shouldn't be a problem once I start slotting IO's. I'm definitely aggressive when it comes to slotting for Accuracy. FWIW, this is my primarily solo'ing character.

This isn't about slotting IO's or anything like that, I'm looking for some thoughts about the power pool/ancillary choices that I'm making. Sorry, I can't get Mids to export so I'm just typing it up. 1) Smite 1) Focused Fighting 2) Focused Senses 4) Shadow Maul 6) Boxing 😎 Siphon Life 10) Practiced Brawler 12) Hasten 14) Agile 16) Dodge 18) Dark Consumption 20) Evasion 22) Soul Drain 24) Lucky 26) Midnight Grasp 28) Quickness 30) Tough 32) Weave 35) Gloom 38) Darkest Night 41) Combat Jumping 44) Cross Punch 47) Kick 49) Teleport Alright, thoughts and questions: I took the Soul Mastery Epic Pool for two reasons: I wanted to add fast-animating Gloom to my single-target attack chain and I felt like Darkest Night was the perfect compliment for SR. Is the latter assumption correct, or am I getting diminishing returns from combining high Defense with -Hit DeBuffs? Right now, once I get my recharge up, I'm basically thinking Smite -> Gloom -> alternating Midnight Grasp and Siphon Life for a single-target attack chain and Shadow Maul -> Cross Punch - >Alternating Midnight Grasp and Siphon Life for my multi-attack chain. Taking Boxing and Kick gives Cross Punch a +30% damage bonus, and even though its cone is narrower than Shadow Maul, the two seem to work well together once I've got the baddies bunched up. Is there anything in the above thinking that is a red flag to vets?

Obviously I need to do a deeper dive on some of this - I appreciate the patient replies and the good advice. I'll definitely take advantage of it.

Alright, first off, that is an incredibly useful site that you linked for me there, should help stave off any number of future inane questions - once I've figured out how to interpret it. Thank you very much for taking the time to respond. Chilling Embrace is what I remember, the 'sustain' powers not so much. Looking at the Activation vs. Standard Effects shown and the 'Child Effects' listed, how do I put that in relatable terms? I'm still trying to get my mind around the 'Absorb' (vs. Heal) terminology... the Absorb and Recovery effects are listed twice - are those two separate effects that essentially stack concurrently or is it just repeating itself? If the ability is a Toggle, what do the 12s and 3s durations signify (as well as the 5s duration in the Standard Effects listed below)? If the character had absolutely no other abilities or effects currently affecting them, what would the measurable Absorb and Recovery benefit actually be, relative to the character's baseline? Looking at Mids (and assuming that it's accurate), with both abilities unenhanced, it looks like the Recovery benefit is roughly twice that of Stamina, but there's no visible effect on Regeneration. And what is the point of a Toggle that doesn't cost Endurance? Why not simply make it an Auto power, unless that would require too much recoding? I remember back in the day mezzes could shut down your toggles, but that doesn't seem to be the case any more. Thanks in advance - I'm not trying to be dense, I promise you. If I can understand the terminology being used here, I should be able to extrapolate that when looking up other abilities and be less of a bother on the boards.

I get the impression that it used to be something entirely different from what it is now - is that the case? Mids doesn't really explain it and I'm not entirely sure that their data for it is accurate. Can someone walk me through how the power works and what its actual mechanical benefits are?

Yes, common IO, not the full sets. I figured as much - thank you for the response.

Right now I'm using SO enhancements, but I'm getting into my early to mid 20's and I'm looking at diving into IO's. With SO's I can simply pay a fee to raise the effective level of all of my enhancements across the board. Can I do that with IO's as well, raising their effective level by paying a single fee? I know that they don't expire with level but they don't improve either and as a newer player I don't quite have the crafting system down yet. I wanted to see if I could save some money and (potentially wasted) effort by simply upgrading the IO's once I've bought them

It may be that a proper treatise has been written on this already and if that's the case I'd really appreciate someone pointing me towards it. I haven't been able to find anything concreate or comprehensive on the mechanics. What I'm trying to understand is what the numbers mean. What does 40% defense actually mean in terms of how often you would get hit by an even level minion, lieutenant or boss, or how often I would hit them? If it drops to 35%, how much does that change? What would the statistical impact of +10% accuracy be, and would that be any different than a +10% hit buff or a -10% debuff? How do relative levels of the attacker vs. defender affect these numbers? Are there baseline differences for the various AT's? I understand that different specific foes have wildly varying defensive stats, and I'm not trying to be specific to any particular mob, I'm just trying to understand how the numbers interact with all else being equal. Only looking for PvE, if that matters. Thanks in advance for any responses. It makes a big difference when looking at Mids and trying to understand what the numbers actually mean in real time.

As I mentioned, I'm basically focusing on those two now (Kat/WP and DM/SR), and I have no doubt that DeBuffs are going to be the bane of the former. I think I'll just run them both and see which 'feels' better, though I suspect WP will feel better early while SR will feel better late. we'll see. Thanks for the response.

Thank you so much. :)

First off, thank you very much for the time and energy expended in this response - you've given me a lot to consider as I reorient myself on the game I knew well years ago but have a great deal to catch up on now. It really felt like to me that DM/SR would have my bases covered with a self-heal as part of my attack chain. I've started a Katana/Willpower for now while I consider DM/SR vs. DM/Ninjitsu, since the +DEF of Divine Avalanche seems to help out a lot in the early levels. I also started a Dual Blades/Regen when I first returned - it was my second toon - and while I like it, I tend to prefer to focus my attentions on the fight, my positioning, the various threats I'm dealing with, etc. - pretty much everything except which defensive clicks I need to be making, so I'm not 100% certain it's for me. It always felt like you run into a fight and then spend the first half of it trying to manage your recovery from the Alpha. I'm not 100% sure what difficulty level I'm going to be using, I figured I feel my way through and adjust it as I went - obviously I'd like to run on the hardest difficulty I reasonably can. Again, thanks for the response, I'm re-reading it now to be sure I've absorbed the advice fully.

G'day all! I recently rediscovered CoH (SO happy) and I'm trying to decide on a Scrapper for leveling. Play will primarily be solo with occasional duoing and teams only rarely. My main focus is to fully enjoy the pre-50 content. At the moment figure standard IO's only - my altitis combined with my personal aversion to power-leveling usually prevents me from being able to dive too deeply into sets - maybe a handful of uniques or procs in key spots and that's about it. My first thought is a DM/SR. I'm not so worried about the -ToHit synergy with the high defenses of SR because I'm assuming minions won't last long enough for it to matter while bosses and above aren't really affected by it enough to matter. What I like about DM is a self-heal to compliment your high defense that can legitimately be worked into your attack chain, and an almost chainable series of AoE attacks, including an area Fear and an area damage/self-buffs. Heals, Recovery and Damage buffs that all simultaneously deal damage seems like a really efficient way to play. What I like about SR is the fact that it doesn't have to worry about -DEF causing a cascading defensive failure and the little Recharge buff it gives you. Defense always seemed to be a 2-for-1 because not getting hit also offers protection vs. mez effects. The biggest downside of this set seems to be that I have to take almost every power in both sets and I start running out of IO slots fast. Is this an accurate evaluation? I've looked at Ninjitsu instead of SR, but I have zero experience with it so I'm not sure how they compare head-to-head and - embarrassing as it is to say - the names make it difficult at times to keep straight what does what when I'm planning the build. I'd be interested in seeing build suggestions (again, I'm probably only using generic IO's, but suggestions for the few 'must have's would be appreciated), in part because I'm not sure what a smooth attack chain looks like once it has incorporated the AoE/self-buff attacks and I'm having trouble figuring out what powers can/should be skipped. Would the Fighting Pool/Combat Jumping still be needed and what Ancillary Pool would compliment it best? Even as an AoE attack, is Touch of Fear worth including in the build? Would a Brute be a straight-up improvement over a Scrapper in this case? I'm not sure what the differences are beyond the effects of their inherents. My other thought was Katana / Willpower. What I like about this combination is the defensive compliment that Divine Avalanche seems to bring to all of the regen and layered defenses offered by Willpower, making leveling 10-40 a much smoother experience. I also like auto powers that give +regen and +recovery and that the sets aren't so power/slot intensive. What I don't love is that it seems like Lethal is heavily resisted and Divine Avalanche only benefits melee (the main reason this choice is currently in second place). I'm open to other suggestions for this particular playstyle but these are the two I'm looking the hardest at for the reasons stated. Not really a fire or ice guy, either. TIA for any ideas, thoughts or suggestions. I really can't tell you how happy I am to have rediscovered CoX after all this time. 🙂