Maelwys

You planning to mostly Solo or Team? If Sentinel is off the table (and honestly they're not that bad as long as you slot them properly) then I'd recommend Mastermind or Corruptor. The former can solo the vast majority of content without breaking a sweat... but the latter will be more likely to find teams, particularly if you're playing on one of the servers where the recruiters are more vocally judgemental/biased against certain ATs. Although it's probably worth pointing out that occasionally getting into Melee range is often optimal for both damage output and buff/debuff positioning.

Assuming that I'm not chasing survivability related set bonuses and have plenty of spare enhancement slots with free reign to slot whatever I want, I'd generally go for 5x Armageddon purples WITHOUT the proc, plus a common Endurance Consumption Reduction IO. That way I get the Recharge and Accuracy set bonuses, plus good levels of accuracy, damage and endurance reduction aspect within the damage aura toggle itself... and I also get to save the Armageddon damage proc for a Clicky AoE attack where it pulls more weight.

Going to chime in here too again briefly. For *most* PVE and Active Farming builds you'll want to procbomb your AoEs. However for AFK farming builds it can actually be detrimental to do so. As an example; consider a 5 piece Armageddon set plus an Achilles Heel in the below Atom Smasher on my RadM/Stone Brute: With no Dmg/Rech IO and only the Dam and Dam/End Boosted to +5 (standard slotting to "maximize proc chance" whilst gaining +rech set bonus): 9.53+3.168=12.698s cycle time. 521.5/12.698 = 41.07 Dmg/Sec With no Dmg IO and everything except the proc Boosted to +5 (in order to maximize enhancement damage and local recharge aspect): 8.19+3.168=11.358s cycle time. 508.5/12.698 = 44.77 Dmg/Sec Now consider the same loaded up with damage procs: 13.64+3.168=16.808s cycle time. 650.2/16.808 = 38.68 Dmg/Sec TL;DR: When AFK-farming you'll only have a single active PBAoE attack on autofire; so ED-capping its recharge aspect can actually be better than procbombing it!

Most Active Farmers tend to be pretty good at general PVE anyway; because "killing all the things around me as fast as possible" works just fine for most content. AFK Farmers however will likely need an alternative build or a bit of outside help. Outlasting stuff like Arachnos or Carnies or Longbow is a lot different than outlasting predictable non-mezzing Fire or S/L damage. Although Stone Armor can tackle most stuff by making some very minor build sacrifices; so if I had to choose a single "do everything" build it'd probably be a Stone/Rad Tank or Rad/Stone Brute. But I'd much prefer to run three accounts with 2x dedicated AFK builds and 1x dedicated Active build. Or just 3x dedicated AFK builds whilst watching a movie.

Definitely this for Single Target performance. Albeit with the caveat that Rad Melee is probs slightly ahead when it comes to stacking -res (because Achilles Heel) I believe it's also a fair bit ahead of DM when it comes to "active" AoE damage though (because Irradiated Ground + Procbombed Proton Sweep + Procbombed Atom Smasher beats Procbombed Shadow Maul + Procbombed Touch of Fear. Plus the aforementioned Achilles Heel proc applications) although if you're leaning heavy into Patron AoEs that might be moot. Very true! Though partially mitigated at Lv50+ by Shield Defense toons tending to run Ageless anyway for additional DDR. My first "farmer" in CoH was a Spines/DA Scrapper. I remember very very fondly the first time he managed to get his T4 Cardiac Alpha... 😂

That's not what that CoDv2 entry says. The left hand panel only refers to the underlying enhancement itself. Whenever you slot the enhancement into a power and activate that power, the effects of the Enhancement (listed in the right hand panel) will attempt to apply to all of the targets of that power simultaneously. So it's the right hand panel you need to look at, not the left one. Look in the right hand panel for that Panacea Proc entry you linked and note the phrasing "(all affected targets)" and "if target.isFriend?". It will happily kick in on any and all friendly targets of the ability you slot it into. Including yourself, teammates, pets and NPCs. This is why it works in stuff like Triage Beacon, Healing Aura, Spirit Ward and even the second Necro MM henchmen upgrade.

1) Not really. Its ATBE (Animation Time Before Effect) is so long that your target is very often dead before it lands. Procbomb Proton Sweep instead. And take Atom Smasher and Irradiated Ground and Fusion, obviously. Radioactive Smash isn't exactly good but it's less bad than the rest. 2) Rad Armor is the obvious one as Ground Zero and Radiation Therapy pull a lot of weight, and Beta Decay helps get Atom Smasher up sooner. The other angle is "anything without a self heal"- so SR and/or Shield Defense for example... and Shield Defense brings a bit of extra damage via Shield Charge and AOO.

It's good for AFK farming because it's one of only two offensive powersets with a damage aura (the other being Spines) and it has a large radius + target cap PBAoE attack that you can put on Autofire (Atom Smasher). As for general content? The main gimmick of the set is Contamination, which effectively makes it's attacks deal a bit of extra damage to nearby foes... which is a good thing, because other than the damage aura and Atom Smasher it just gets a single underperforming cone attack. However it also has a self heal (Radiation Siphon) and its attacks Proc well due to inflicting -Defense (e.g. two extra Damage Procs plus an Achilles Heel -Res). It won't be breaking any pylon time records (it's in the bottom half for ST damage and a smidge above average in terms of AoE) but it's got a fair amount of utility and makes a good platform to inflict consistent -res debuffs. And yes take a few Epic blasts and/or Cross Punch as fillers - whilst you can technically chain DBlow > RSmash > RSiphon > RSmash you won't really want to!

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.

No one's stopping you chipping in the other 999m if you want to play sugardaddy 😜 💸

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.

Don't give him any more fodder for his Onlyfans page... 🙈

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)