Maelwys

Tactics is generally a waste unless your attacks don't already have a capped (95%) hit chance versus +3 enemies. Best case you may get a Gaussian Proc activating very occasionally. Assault = more damage unless you're already at the damage cap (and if you're AFK farming then you won't be, as playing the inspiration combination minigame to have lots of red skittles constantly active requires manual clicking and/or hitting keybinds) The rule of thumb for AFK farmers is that after you reach your survivability thresholds, chase +damage and +global recharge as much as possible. But 5-10% here or there isn't going to overly matter in terms of influence per hour. So unless you're trying to beat your own personal bests I'd still say go with whatever sounds the most fun to you. (Which brings up a rather good point: if/when farming stops being enjoyable then it's time to go do something else. Even AFK farming requires enough attention that it's usually not just a case of "go watch a movie and come back later"... if you want that level of hands-off influence acquisition then you'd be better off picking up your Ebil Marketeering membership card!) 😉

I suspect if I was to recommend a single AFK farming build it'd be using something other than Fiery Aura. Fiery Aura really doesn't bring much to the table unless you're actively sitting behind the wheel to activate its Clicks. Stone Armor however does. It also has a damage aura; plus Rooted for +Regen, Minerals for +Recharge, and Brimstone Armor for both Fire Resistance and damage. Throw in Stone Skin and Weave and a few set bonuses (3 piece Aegis is great) and it's pretty trivial to get hardcapped Fire resistance plus enough typed Fire Defense to reach the softcap, so you have a lot more wiggle room to include extra powers, procs and set bonuses that passively boost your damage and recharge. You could also cheese it and run Rooted plus Granite until you've got enough influence built up to afford the pricier IOs.

Not really, unless you're ignoring the AoE factor and stackability. Panacea is a 3PPM heal plus another 3PPM endurance restoration (the two kick in independently of each other). In a 0ft radius passive like Health it'll have a 50% chance to activate on you (on average once every 20 seconds). In a 40ft radius passive like the active effect of Spirit Tree and Triage Beacon it'll have a 9.09% chance to activate on you (on average once every 110 seconds) and up to 254 other allies. By sticking it in Beacon or Tree instead of Health, ordinarily you'd need 4.5 other friendly targets to break even. Which isn't a bad ROI for a Mastermind by itself. However you can also have more than one out simultaneously: two beacons/trees gives double the proc activation rate. So suddenly it's looking a lot better... at least on paper. The real issue is that Triage Beacon and Spirit Tree are both immobile and most teams nowadays tend to move far too quickly for long-recharge-time static buff/debuff patches to matter unless you're facetanking a GM or waiting for ambushes. But if you're taking your time (/Traps MM) or are participating in large-scale raid events (RWZ) they can be quite beneficial. And having an AoE heal on an AT that doesn't otherwise get access to that site of thing (Dominator or many Controllers) can occasionally make a major difference in escort missions. So it really (like most slotting choices in CoH!) comes down to a judgement call whether the extra situational utility outweighs the opportunity cost.

Panacea is probably a bad example there because its effect affects all targets of the parent ability. That means if you stick it in something like like Healing Aura or Triage Beacon then every friendly target will get a separate chance for the proc to affect them. So you will often see lots of simultaneous Proc activations happening across multiple allies. Power Transfer is a better example because its effect only affects the caster (self) and its effect cannot stack with itself. That means if you stick it in something like Short Circuit and then use that power to attack 10 targets, it'll be 10 times as likely that the proc will kick in ONCE on the caster. So you will only ever see a maximum of one Proc activation happening (which will apply +Health to the caster) but it'll be far more likely to occur than normal. Theft of Essence is effectively the same as Power Transfer except that its effect permits stacking with itself. So you can get lots of simultaneous Proc activations happening which will each apply a separate amount of +Endurance to the caster.

You need to manually enable the various "Pet" logging categories in your combat tab before it'll be visible.

100% Necro for Melee feeling. The Grave Knight sword attacks carry a lot of weight, and you can take the START vendor attacks (Sands of Mu, Ghost slayer Axe) and a few Patron wallops to pitch in. For secondary, toebombing with a /Traps or just dashing in with a procbombed Whitecap in a /Marine will have a bit of synergy. You could also potentially swing /FF with a KB>KD IO in Repulsion Field. Demons have Melee attacks and +Res buffs, but they're a bit more prone to blasting and the elemental effects can be offputting. Beasts is another option, but they're consistently last place in terms of performance.

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Being 0.1% S/L Defense short of the softcap won't be overly noticeable. Having 84% Res rather than 90% however will be; assuming that you're planning to AFK-farm. If you're not AFK-farming then you won't need that level of passive +regeneration because you'll be there to pop DNA Siphon, Parasitic Aura and Ablative Carapace. Putting the SMoT proc in a toggle like Genetic Contamination might work as long as you're going to be constantly surrounded by enemies - with 6PPM and an 8ft Radius it'll have a 52.63% chance for activation and get an opportunity to kick in every 10 seconds.

Which is why when min-maxing cone attacks; it's always worth considering Dam/Range HOs instead of just automatically going "2x Acc/Dam + 4x Procs"... 😉

Nope; the PTW Backup Summons is this thing - the ally it summons depends on your current alignment but they're all roughly similar (the Arachnos variant has lower damage resistances but comes with some mez protection). Whilst they can take a hit or two... they don't have any defense or self-healing and they have ~1070HP at level 50. So they die pretty quickly unless you're buffing them to the gimlets. If you want to buy a pet from the START vendor that can take some punishment and is fairly self-sufficient; try the Melee damage Signature Summon (for Back Alley Brawler) if you're a Hero or the Support Signature Summon (for Ghost Widow) if you're a Villain. And if you don't mind running around a zone for ~10 mins then make sure to pick up your Shivan Shards in Bloody Bay (and/or the Warwolf Whistle from Tobias Hansen's Striga Isle arc). And later on, grab yourself a HVAS.

I wouldn't be averse to giving it some mobility, but I definitely don't want it becoming a toggle. That'd cut the shenanigans in half at least.

Seeds of Confusion is a 50ft Range Cone with a 60 degree arc and a Target Cap of 16. https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=controller_control.plant_control.seeds_of_confusion&at=controller That means you can select a foe that is up to 50ft away and trigger the ability... then that foe plus up to 15 other enemies (as long as they are within 30 degrees either side of them and also within 50ft of you) will get targeted by it. Typical advice with cones is that if you're not paying much attention to distances + just running towards a pack of mobs with the ability ready to go then pick a target that's standing at the back. Otherwise you could end up with some of the spawn being out of range whenever it goes off. Another option is to fly/jump high above the spawn and target one of the critters in the very middle (this can basically turn cones into Targeted AoEs)

You don't need to memorize or even understand the formulas, just use a calculator like this one by MacSkull (make a copy) plus City of Data v2 for the base numbers to plug into it. For Clicks Global Recharge doesn't factor into it, only Base Recharge and slotted recharge enhancement (including from an Alpha slot). Autos and Toggles such as Invincibility don't even care about recharge - the only thing that counts for them is radius.

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I do. Just not on a Dominator. IMO it has its place on Controllers that have buffs/debuffs but no healing. I'd much rather take it over the Medicine pool on a Plant/Cold for example. But I always aim to be able to double stack it and slot a Panacea in there.

The Panacea Proc works in Spirit Tree (or Triage Beacon) and if you have enough recharge to keep multiple copies of it out then it can provide a very noticeable boost to both you and any surrounding allies (e.g. teammates and/or pets). The downside is that since it's not mobile you need to keep resummoning it, which eats into your killspeed unless you're turtling up whilst fighting ambushes or an AV/GM (/Traps Masterminds have it a bit easier there since they're naturally slower moving, they don't personally deal the bulk of the damage and they have plenty of pets to affect)

Tanks and Brutes do; mainly as a result of Gauntlet/Punchvoke kicking in for anything that affects enemies. Dark Armor by itself has like five. But yeah, AFAIK on Scrappers all the primaries just get one (Confront) and some secondaries get one (a single Taunt Aura). To be fair, Bio Armor's power descriptions mention taunt in both DNA Siphon and Evolving Armor; but the former doesn't actually inflict any Taunt effects.

DNA Siphon gives you +Regen and +Recovery for every dead baddie around you; and +HP and +Endurance for every alive baddie around you. Parasitic Aura gives you +Regen and +Recovery for every alive baddie around you. So in practice; you generally want to start by surrounding yourself with enemies and hitting Parasitic Aura; then kill everything; and then use DNA Siphon. That'll keep your +Regen and +Recovery as high as possible; and activating Ablative Carapace on cooldown handles the rest. ... ...I mean, it's a useful place for Health/Endurance procs... 🙈 😜

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Theft of essence is an ACCURATE healing set, it's designed to be used in offensive abilities. https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=boosts.attuned_theft_of_essence_f.attuned_theft_of_essence_f Note the check for SOURCE>ENTTYPE=PLAYER and the fact that it only applies on SELF. Panacea is a REGULAR healing set. It's designed to work in support abilities and passives. https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=boosts.attuned_panacea_f.attuned_panacea_f Note the check for TARGET.ISFRIEND and the fact it applies on ALL AFFECTED TARGETS. Saying that the way abilities work in CoH is "a bit convoluted" is like saying that the Atlantic Ocean is "a bit damp". Some targeted offensive abilities will consider the caster a target and will apply a Healing or Endurance buff to them directly. Other targeted offensive abilities will only consider nearby critters a target and will apply a Healing or Endurance effect to the caster as a result of hitting those targets. You can see this occuring in stuff like the Ice and Fire Blaster sustains - slotting things like the Performance Shifter and Power Transfer Procs into them technically does work, but it only gets a chance to kick in if/when an enemy target is within range.

?? Beta Decay's main deal is a scaling recharge rate buff; ramping up in effectiveness based on how many enemies are within 8ft of you (Maximum of 10). Yes it inflicts -ToHit and -Defense, but the Buff and the Taunt effect are why you take the power. https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=scrapper_defense.radiation_armor.beta_decay&at=scrapper

See also: (i) Combining Stuns with AoE Immobilises/Slows (ii) Knockdown Patches Also AoE Confuses can often be better than AoE Holds (although again; ideally I'd combine them with a Slow/Immob to prevent scatter) I tend to avoid Fear effects since it breaks on dealing damage... but it can have a place when soloing to lock down foes that you're not ready to attack yet.

For me; it was a significant net damage loss even when soloing. The best thing the changes made was the greatly reduced setup time. Click two upgrades and let the Protector Bots cast one bubble and you're good to go. Previously you needed to resummon and/or apply upgrades in a particular order (as having the first upgrade on the Assault Bot was a net DPS loss due to Flamethrower) and the Protector Bots hardly even got to blast because they were spending most of their time recasting bubbles. The second best thing was the Maintenance Drone changes: Robotics can now function adequately without any additional sources of healing. And I'm actually also a fan of moving the -Regen away from the Assault Bot onto the Personal Attacks. Because it was much less reliable before (you couldn't dictate exactly when the Big Bot would fire off its Plasma Blasts) and even with best-case activations still it couldn't be kept up on multiple enemies simultaneously. Unfortunately that all came at the cost of utterly gutting the Assault Bot's Burn patches. Previously Incendiary Swarm Missiles were a 20ft radius AoE with a target cap of 16; then a separate 'Burn' patch Pseudopet spawned underneath each target affected which continually applied tick damage in an 8ft radius with a target cap of 5. After the change the Missiles were reduced to a 10ft radius AoE with a target cap of 10, and the Burn Patches were reduced to a target cap of 3. Whilst the Battle Drones and Protector Bot damage did increase to compensate for this change... unfortunately these pets spawn at -2 and -1 to you in most content. So in practice the earlier setup of having the Assault Bot do more damage as an even-level pet was better. And it also meant you only needed to maximise damage slotting (ED-capped plus Soulbound and Explosive Strike procs) on a single pet - the T1 and T2 pets could be loaded up with Global IOs and +Def. So Robotics in general has gotten better at applying -Regen debuffs (choosing when + who to hit with them and affecting multiple targets); and better at Single Target damage (going from "rubbish" to "passable" with multiple explosive strike procs); and much better at Self-Healing. But their AoE damage capability has dropped considerably (which is by far the biggest annoyance for me - as it's neutered their "farming" capability) and the Protector Bots "bubbles" no longer affect other allies (which is both a curse in terms of mitigation and a blessing in terms of setup time). Defense Softcapping the Assault Bot and Drones indefinitely (40.02% before Barrier) was also possible prior to the changes regardless of your secondary powerset; as shown in my below post from 2021. Nowadays that same character's Protector Bots; Assault Bot and Drones are all sitting at 36.53%. However in practice gaining the ability to buff the inherent pet resistances via slotting the T1 upgrade for +DmgRes aspect has made up for this. Henchmen surviving an AE farming session on +4x8 isn't a problem. (and we don't talk about Radial Clarion and/or Power Boost effect buff inheritance, OK? OK...) 😉 The Demon buffs at least have one subcomponent that affects the Player - "Ember Shield Owner". But multiple copies don't buff Multiple Masters. This. Also a factor is that one of the Henchmen powers (The Protector Bot) also really wants ED-Capped Defense slotted in it; and two of the Henchmen powers (The Protector Bot and the Assault Bot) really want decent levels of Endurance Reduction slotted in them. So it's not even just about Maximizing Damage and Accuracy whilst fitting in the Aura IOs. IIRC only Mercs has it as bad (same deal with three henchmen powers; and whilst they don't need +Def or as much +Endred, they do want lots of damage procs from the Defense Debuff and Accurate Defense Debuff sets)