Maelwys

Roughly as survivable as a Mid Tier Brute with lower personal damage output but a boatload of -res debuffs and allied +Def/+Dmg/ToHit buffs. Plus up to six pets (plus Lores) that output more raw damage than a MM's Henchmen. Their attacks all Proc extremely well too. You can roll your face over the keyboard and still get a <60s Pylon time.

Weapon redraw works by adding the time it takes to animate drawing the weapon to the animation time of the triggering attack... however the delay before you can start activating any additional followup attacks is unaffected. The upshot of this is that if you start with your weapon holstered + then activate two weapon attacks one after the other... the animation of your second attack will cancel and "overwrite" part of the animation of your first attack. That second attack ends up activating at the same point in time that it would have activated if you'd started out with your weapon already drawn.

I'm going to stop with the Memeposting for a minute. FWIW judging by his profile page ol' Snarks is still Lurking (with a capital "L") and visiting every few hours. Since posting this leaving thread he's also pipped the 10k "reactions received" reputation mark... and it's probably worth drawing attention to the fact that only 229 of those 10k reactions (less then 2.3%!) have been negative. @Snarky - If this is the first time in your >8.4k posts that you've been told by someone that you've "crossed a line" then I think that deserves some (blood)cake rather than a self imposed posting ban. You're far more likely to be mobbed by hugs here than by pitchforks. If you're enjoying the break from posting then great, but if not then dry your undead eyes and get your crusty posterior out of the coffin and back behind the keyboard already.

Agree with @tidge here. Defender larger buff/debuff values are not always overkill (especially +Res/-Res) and a lot of their damage leeway can be made up for by Procs. Some of the Blast sets also have useful secondary effects that are better on Defenders (Sonic, Elec, etc) There are definitely specific powerset combos which shine more on Defenders; just as there are certain powerset combos which shine more on Corruptors. Corrupters certainly have a hugely higher potential damage ceiling due to Scourge (particularly so on sets with "Rain" powers)... but whilst teaming that typically only has a major effect if you're fighting big bags of HP (e.g. AV-level foes). And without Scourge; once you factor in Procs there isn't a huge amount of difference between a Defender's damage output and a Corr's... and in some cases things can even begin to slant in favour of the Defender if the powersets contain significant levels of -res debuffery. That said; I'll fully admit that Vigilance is pants and the Defender ATOs are rather situational since they apply absorb/healing rather than damage output (but they can still be pretty handy for certain support powersets - FF, Sonic Resonance, Cold Domination, etc)

100% this. Everyone's going to have slightly different preferences as to how to tweak their control scheme; especially us users of unholy frankinsteinian combinations of Joypad/Mouse/Keyboard/KitchenSink. FWIW, a visual representation of my default kitbashed setup (the horror!) is below. However I normally tweak it a fair bit depending on the toon in question to implement some additional functionality (e.g. the DPad "Down" key typically also activates Hasten, and performing any movement will activate Clarion Destiny incarnate on toons that take it or start activating my Melee toon's armor toggles, with Mez Protection first!) My "Regular/Default" setup: Numpad tweaks for Masterminds: ...and my other MM controls (as mentioned previously, but copied here for completeness' sake): B "petcom_all defensive follow" [Bodyguard mode] G "petcom_all aggressive" [aGgressive] H "petcom_all passive follow" [Heel] and usually also a Variable key which sets most pets to Bodyguard mode and leaves one alone (to instantly give me some survivability but let one pet continue to attack etc) e.g. V "petcom_pow 'Battle Drones'follow defensive$$petcom_pow 'Protector Bots' follow defensive" PowerTray #1 is set to "Attack this target" ("petcom_all attack" mostly, sometimes altered so just one pet attacks) and PowerTray #2 is set to "Go here" ("petcom_all goto"). On most maps I can enter a mission, press G then V and then amble around instructing my little engines of destruction to "go here" quite a lot.

You can definitely just use a Controller to play most of the game. I do. Even on a MM. Throwing the mouse in too makes camera movement and mission objective interaction much easier... although having one Analogue thumb stick for movement and another for camera rotation plus an "Activate" bind can go a long way. Typically my left hand is always holding a Joypad whilst my right hand alternates between the joypad and the mouse. Occasionally that right hand might drift over towards the keyboard numpad, but it's not a regular occurrence (mainly for selecting individual teammates or henchmen without needing to click on them, or triggering long recharge time buffs like Incarnate and Alignment Clickies). Enemy target cycling is done via D-pad left/right with D-pad down bound to a "select nearest problematic enemy" bind that prioritises Sappers and DE eminators etc. Whilst the Numpad buttons are certainly helpful for handling targeting + fine control of individual MM henchmen... I get by 99% of the time with this setup (mainly just tapping one key at the start of each mission to set my "mode", followed by repeatedly using power tray macros to handle Goto and Attack commands)

https://homecoming.wiki/ seems down indeed. 404 errors everywhere. The old ParagonWiki archive page is still working and at least contains enough info to help guide you through the older TFs etc.

The Proc Aura gets a bit wonky in the auras IIRC... although admittedly it's been a whiles since I looked at it properly. It certainly used to be the case that if you took an INV running Invincibility (for example) and a WP running RTTC and stood them both next to the same mob then the INV always won without even trying. It's possible that may have changed in recent patches, but WP is such a sucky set that I can't quite muster up the desire to roll one up on the live servers to check. However a very quick and dirty brainstorm test suggests that 3/3 Possessed Scientists prefer to focus on a different Tanker (even when it just stands there like a lemon whilst the WP is actively wailing on them...)

To be fair, most of the armor auras have a base duration of ~13.5s which isn't too bad. Willpower's Rise to the Challenge has a base duration of just 1.25s. You can peel aggro off it with a rolled up newspaper... 🤷‍♂️

Yep. And more to the point the introduction of Threat Duration sets also allow you to use your Placate (the Stalker/VEAT Power) base enhancement slot for boosting multiple aspects or a psi damage proc. Back when they were just "Taunt Duration" I also found the Taunt/Range IOs pretty handy to slot in melee AT taunt abilities, particularly on toons that could fly. I remember hovertanking a lot of nasty AVs back on live that way (keeping their attention whilst outranging their attacks). Also IIRC once you surpass the target's required mez protection (typically mag3/4) the Longer the Taunt Duration effect the more an enemy's attention focuses on you. Take two tanks and the one with the longer duration Taunt is always the one that ends up holding the aggro.

I've encountered many occasions now where what the UI claims doesn't quite match up with the real remaining recharge time of a power. When this occurs it's usually a 120s or longer ability such as Hasten or one of the Incarnate abilities (especially Lore). If I attempt to manually trigger such an ability then I can sometimes get it to activate even if the UI claims there are 5-10s left before it fully recharges... and it can work the other way too, as sometimes whenever the UI claims a power is fully recharged my attempting to manually trigger it will fail and I'll just get a "recharging" message. The discrepancy seems to happen more frequently if I encounter a cutscene or moved through a doorway or elevator during the power's recharge cycle. I'm guessing it might be due to lag spikes or just the client playing catch-up.

Looks fine to me. Midway through the recharge time of Spinning Strike; a single helping of Cryonic Rounds only budged its remaining recharge time by a second or two. Trying to activate it after already being under the influence of a Cryonic Rounds debuff bumped its (unenhanced!) full recharge time from 16s to 19s. I suspect either you were being hit by a UI display bug or you were under the effect of *lots* of simultaneous debuffs.

Cheers. Whenever I get home later this evening I'll hop on and see if I can replicate (assuming nobody else has beaten me to it!)

Are you sure that's Spinning Kick? Spinning Kick is a Dominator-only power (from Martial Assault) and I see what look like Willpower Toggles there. (i) What level are you? (ii) What level were the mobs you were fighting? (iii) Do you know the actual name of the specific mobs (as opposed to Council "marksmen") (iv) Where did this happen: is this in a specific Mission map; a Radio Map; AE; Street Sweeping....? Chances are that it's either a UI bug or a specific enemy power has got a decimal point in the wrong place (it's happened before) But whilst you're seeing weird numbers on the screen... in order to narrow down the culprit and replicate it we're gonna need more accurate details. If someone can jump into the same situation and actually review the combat log + observe what values the current -recharge debuffs are doing in their Combat Numbers display we'll have more to go on...

There are indeed powers out there which inflict Knockback that cannot take Knockback Set IOs; but take Universal Damage Set IOs. And an example; as mentioned earlier; is Rise of the Pheonix. The "real issue" is nothing to do with the set bonuses of Overwhelming Force. I could not care less about those set bonuses. None of my characters (and I have a LOT of characters) are using two or more Overwhelming Force pieces anywhere in their entire build. This is mainly because the OF set comes pre-attuned and so the strength of their aspect enhancement cannot be boosted to +5; therefore slotting boosted 50+5 IOs from other sets or Lv53 HOs is virtually always mechanically better. This is compounded by the fact that its set bonuses are actually pretty weak and forgettable (with the possible exception of the 5-piece +2.5% Energy/Negative Defence - and even that gets soundly trounced by the likes of 3-piece Eradication). Let's take some examples of where I'm actually using the OF Proc: You can probably see a theme developing here. More useful set bonuses (like Global Recharge, Recovery, S/L Resistance) can often be had; and stronger aspect enhancement can virtually always be had. There is simply no need to slot more IOs from the Overwhelming Force set into those powers - doing so would hurt my build's performance. The reason I would like the Overwhelming Force IO to become non-unique is that it contains some damage aspect enhancement; which provides at least a little mechanical benefit over and above the KB>KD conversion. So using up one of my very precious enhancement slots on an Overwhelming Force KB>KD IO doesn't have quite as much opportunity cost as doing so on a Sudden Acceleration KB>KD IO. I would also happily use a new KB>KD IO that contained something extra such as additional % aspect enhancement or some minor "PPM Proc damage" instead. For anyone who cares about min/maxing (and there are a lot of us out there) having to use up one of your precious enhancement slots simply to "fix an annoying secondary effect of a power" is extremely painful. Even if you (somehow!) have spare slots left over at the end of your build... you only get a maximum of six slots per power. And in almost every case where I feel the need to convert KB>KD I could instead be using that 6th enhancement slot to gain additional mechanical performance via damage aspect/damage proc/set bonuses/whatever. This is why people claim that there is an "enhancement slot tax" for taming Knockback. All that said, there is currently one single exception to the above across all of my builds: In this particular case I'm actually not utilising the KB>KD conversion component of the OF unique at all... but instead simply adding a "chance for KD" to my pets' attacks whilst also (just about) ED-capping their damage. The OF proc in this one case is actually being a mechanically useful efficient use of enhancement slots. In every single other case where I slot it across all of my toons on HC... the best thing I can say about the Overwhelming Force KB>KD IO is that it is not causing quite as much of a performance hit to the build as using a Sudden Acceleration KB>KD IO would.

https://homecoming.wiki/w/index.php?title=Acronyms_and_Abbreviations Not all of them are expressly listed there; but stick an acronym itself into the search bar and hit go + chances are it'll find it OK.

What Lunar said! Necro/ is pretty powerful these days and quite forgiving. Although a good set of binds (see also here and here) is a great help to any MM + is worth looking into. /Time lends itself more to preventing damage (via buffing everyone's defense with Farsight) and dealing additional damage (via Chrono Shift and Temporal Selection's +Damage and +RechargeRate buffs) rather than to merely healing damage after it's already been inflicted on you or your team. You can also definitely push the envelope quite a bit on /Time in terms of what buffs/debuffs are achievable - but honestly that's something you won't need to bother with until much later on. If/when you start getting to the point where you want to see how you can tweak your current build to be more mechanically effective then ask in the Mastermind subforum... however as a quick example: whenever you gain access to Ancillary "Epic" and "Patron" Pools (which despite the name are not "epic" in the "overpowered" sense and really just provide access to different sorts of abilities than your primary and secondary sets get) you will become able to drastically increase the defense numbers granted by Farsight if you take Power Boost from the "Mace Mastery" Patron Pool and use it right before clicking on Farsight.

As others have pointed out... CoH tends to be more about just "having fun playing the game" than about grinding. There is a loot system... but it's very tame by comparison to other MMORPGs. None of it requires you to personally run specific content; and you can buy everything off the AH aside from "Incarnate currency" (which is only relevant after you hit level 50 and whilst you CAN grind for that (repeating the first Dark Astoria mission arc over and over is often the "quickest" but can get quite boring) you get handed lots of it passively by just continuing to "level up" and attain veteran levels. In general you'll find teams running Taskforces or Missions either just for fun; or to get specific badges (which give cosmetic "bragging rights" rewards only; aside from a few which contribute to accolade abilities - and you can comfortably get the most important accolades solo in a single afternoon) In terms of "making money" - it's true that earning influence via farming enemies and selling the drops is by far and away easiest after hitting level 50. However you can make money on the market at any level (type "/ah") by buying low and sell high; getting recipes and crafting them before selling; using enhancement converters to change a recipe into a more desirable one, etc etc. And as you level up and complete mission arcs (and/or collect exploration badges) you will earn merits that can be exchanged for Enhancement Boosters/Convertors and sold for influence on the Auction House. Same for rare Invention Salvage and Prismatic Aethers. As a first timer? I'd probably recommend playing a traditional melee toon Scrapper/Brute/Tanker on heroside (training wheels) then for the next one maybe swapping to villainside and running something that doesn't have mez protection and takes a little more effort to handle (Blaster? Corruptor? Mastermind). Then after that there's Goldside (Praetorian Earth). Then finishing all the mission arcs and side missions you missed during the last few runs. Never mind Task Forces, Strike Forces, Seasonal Events, Collecting badges... and all that's before you touch the likes of Hamidon Raids and Themed Player events (like Tanker Tuesdays) or Architect Entertainment or PVP or Roleplaying. Even most long-term vets haven't done all the content yet (Base Raids and Gladiator matches anyone?) 😅

Willpower is a set that got a lot of good press when it was first introduced in Issue 11; back when everyone was still getting to grips with these new-fangled IOs and Regeneration was still considered to be a pretty good powerset (Regen Tankers with added damage resistance and defense? Brilliant, sign me up!) However it has no Absorb and limited Defense Debuff Resistance and limited Regeneration debuff resistance. It lacks any on-demand additional mitigation so it struggles to counter particularly difficult situations (Strength of Will doesn't have a particularly problematic crash at the end, but it's only a middling +Resistance Buff. For additional "spike survivability" you really need to lean on stuff like Unleash Potential, Rune of Protection or Barrier... or take an offensive powerset that has a +Def ability). It also struggles to compete performancewise against more modern sets even in the most optimal situations - Rad and Bio armor simply blow it out of the water offensively; and Bio can also actually achieve substantially higher levels of +Regeneration. Also its Taunt Aura is pathetic - each tick of RTTC gives 1.25 second duration mag3 taunt duration compared to other Tanker defence sets' 13.6 second duration mag3 taunt - so stuff can peel off you more easily. It does get Repel, Confuse and Terrorize protection; and it gets built-in +Perception and passive +MaxHP. On 4-star premade teams (where everyone is cycling Barrier its lack of DDR and uneven spread of resistance/defense largely doesn't matter) those can all be useful. But it's still lacking Absorb and it can't buff its own damage or recharge, it struggles to hardcap its own MaxHP and Bio Armor will beat it into the ground in terms of raw +Regen and +Recovery.

First things that spring to mind are these: The various mechanics sections in the HCWiki are very useful primers, and you've already covered some of the other bits (yes, save your merits and convert them all into inf by exchanging them for Enhancement Convertors or Enhancement Boosters + selling those in the AH. Don't slot Common IOs before Lv25, but Procs and Globals are fair game. Orange salvage and Prismatic Aethers sell decently on the AH, etc...) And also... Ask! The community is still pretty friendly and welcoming even if it constantly argues with itself about minute performance differences whilst posting memes everywhere... 😉

You definitely don't need Tough on an INV. Even without SMoT procs; hitting the hardcap is pretty trivial. Looking at the variant posted above, it seems to be leaning into +Recharge via multiple Force feedback Procs (in KO Blow, Footstomp and Handclap) and high E/N/P Resistances... and it's using a Cardiac Alpha to shore up some of the other Resistance numbers and reduce its End Cost. Its achievable MaxHP is capped (good) but the recharge time on Dull Pain isn't going to be permanent without a lot of Force Feedback Proc triggers. Its defence is a little under par too - without Barrier running you'll need 4+foes within range of Invincibility to hit the Softcap to S/L/E/N and F/C is even further behind. Damage output is also suffering a bit due to the Alpha Choice; and it doesn't have a complete Single Target attack chain (unless you include Kick). For the sake of a little variation I'll throw out this; just in case it gives you a few other ideas: zTanker - INV_SS (CrossPunch).mbd This one is an all-rounder. It has a fair bit of focus on Defense (1 foe in Invincibility = S/L/E/N/F/C Softcap) and good all-round resistances (SMoT Procs add 6.7%-20.1%; with the option to use Melee Core Hybrid to redline everything) and constant capped MaxHP with decent regeneration (~37.7 HP Passive Regen plus Panacea + 2x Power Transfer Procs; plus the option to use Rebirth Destiny to push it even higher) and a fair bit of Absorb (Preventative Medicine + Superior Entomb + SGF ATO). But it also has good damage output (a solid ST attack chain plus a sizable number of procs in Footstomp and Crosspunch. And Double-Stackable Rage. Plus the option to use Assault Radial Hybrid to spike it higher). It doesn't have the same capacity for FF +Recharge proc activations as the first build, and its unbuffed resistances (particularly E/N) are lower... but it has similar Net recovery (2.76 vs 2.54+PS Procs) and buffed Resistance numbers despite using a Musculature Alpha; and the damage output and the HP Recovery/Absorb is substantially higher. Incarnatewise on Tanks I'd typically try to use the Destiny slot for Rebirth (+Regeneration) or Ageless (+Recharge and Defence Debuff resistance) as Barrier is normally overkill outside of specific 4-star content. "Best" Alpha is normally Musculature, but Rage takes the edge off it so going for something else like Cardiac instead is a perfectly valid way to build. For Hybrid it's Melee Core for survivability or Assault Radial for offense. Interface is Degenerative (for AVs) or Reactive (for everything else). Judgement is dealer's choice; but Void's -damage debuff secondary effect can be very useful. Lore is almost always either Carnies Radial for +damage buffs (less useful with Rage), Banished Pantheon Radial for -res debuffs and a bit of additional immortal AoE damage, Talons Radial for team buffs, or Longbow Radial for soloing AVs (-Regen debuffs).

It might. And in that case I'd happily use it in one power and an Overwhelming Force in a 2nd power: then repeatedly pester the Devs for new useful KB>KD IOs to cover the 3rd and 4th and 5th etc. etc. powers... And hopefully at some point the realisation that a great many players really want the means to reign in their KB without rendering lots of their precious enhancement slots "otherwise useless" might even start to sink in a bit more. I grok the argument that "if it's possible to swap all KB to KD without any opportunity cost then doing so will become expected on PUGs to the point where nonconforming players are excluded". I just don't believe that such an expectation is a major issue in these days of multiple builds, increased soloing performance, and most of the playerbase now being old and grizzled enough to simply NOT CARE and instead avail of the many Premade/Friendlist/LeadYerOwn teaming opportunities.

The set bonuses are grand, the aspect enhancement could use a hand though. Being unable to boost them to Lv50+5 because they all come pre attuned is a nasty performance hit that you have to consider when comparing them to other regular IO sets. Although my preferred option if we're wishing on a star + sticking to non global effects would be to add a reduced PPM damage proc effect to the existing Sudden Acceleration Proc IOs so that they can actually do something vaguely useful other than "help me counteract my own powers"...

Even simply removing the unique flag from the Overwhelming Force Proc would go a long way actually. (And preferably also making the set itself available as an "unattuned boostable" or "superior" version whilst they're at it so that its aspect boosts can become competitive with other more regular sets!)