Maelwys

First toon I ever played redside was a Bot/Dark MM. I was not disappointed.

Agree with the bulk of Sovera's post, but to qualify this bit for the OP: There IS actually some benefit to being over the "90% hardcap". Resistance Debuffs. The way these work is that your Damage Resistance (including any you have over your AT's "resistance cap" limit) lowers the effectiveness of any incoming -Resistance debuffs. If you can reach 100% Resistance to a damage type then any -Resistance debuffs against it that are not flagged as "unresistable" will have zero effect on you. Whilst enemies with substantial amounts of Resistance Debuffs don't feature hugely often in most regular PVE content; this can still sometimes be worth factoring in. For this reason I'll often build my Tankers to try to reach (or get within spitting distance of) 90% S/L Res without the SMoT proc; or just keep Barrier and/or a few orange insps in my back pocket for emergencies.

@Zect's post above covered most of the bases, but to touch on this: If your yardstick of performance is AE farming, then most Brutes will perform worse than Tankers. + Tankers will deal more AoE damage in nearly every case (other than an AFK Fiery Aura + Spines build that leans on "Burn" and "Quills" and certain Brimstone Proc setups) + Tankers will find it far easier to hit the Defence and Resistance caps due to their higher base buff values and their +Res Proc ATO. + Tankers will have greater HP and Regeneration and Absorb numbers due to their Higher base HP and HP cap. That said, you can certainly make a Brute that can "tank" and do so well; and they'll generally still be a bit better at Single Target damage output than an equivalent Tanker even allowing for the additional build compromises (you are going to have to choose more powers and set bonuses that enhance your survivability than the equivalent Tanker). However you'll need to choose your goals carefully and not try to get everything all at once. 90% Res to 2+ types, plus >45% Defense to 1-2 types or a single positional? That's doable on many combos, throw in some on-demand heals/regen/absorb + you're good to go. 90% Res and >45% Def to everything? Not happening unless you leverage a very specific combo (like Storm Kick + Granite Form) and want a rather pointless one trick pony. Regarding Tankers... I will say that I've played an awful lot of tanking toons over the years and currently the one that I'll reach for 99% of the time is my Bio/Staff Tanker. Whilst they may not be resistance hardcapped to everything (although they'll comfortably reach it to S/L, are just a hair shy of it on Toxic and the rest can get there with a single orange insp from Luna) nor do they have any inherent Defense Debuff Resistance... they have so much Defense and Absorb and Regen that it rarely matters; and anything within 15ft of them gets absolutely blended. About the only things that can drop them are sufficiently high quantities of stacking autohit -MaxHP debuffs (and even then they've to cut through ~1875 Absorb) or sufficient incoming -Recharge debuffs to stop them activating their multiple clickyheals and Guarded Spin (despite their considerable recharge debuff resistance and FF +Recharge Procs). TL;DR: Don't build a full brick. Build half a brick, put it in a sock and WHACK things with it.

IceSphere's Dropbox has one sitting in it - Tanker (Stone Armor - Staff Fighting).mbd The closest I have personally played is a Bio Armor/Staff Tanker and a Rad Melee/Stone Armor Brute. That said, I've found that DDR very much tends not to an issue for my Bio/Staff Tanker given that they can "turtle up" and keep Guarded Spin double-stacked indefinitely. (admittedly it helps that the vast majority of -Defence inflicting attacks are either Lethal typed or Melee positional or both) I've posted their full in-game stats before here; but they tend to sit in Offensive Adaptation + Form of the Body Stances and use Guarded Spin in both their AoE and ST attack chain; keeping at least one stack up at all times. That puts them at the regular content Defense softcap to F/C/E/N and Melee, and not far off it to Lethal. In "Turtle Mode" with two stacks up they end up with a very comfortable Defense buffer before incarnates. Resistancewise they're hardcapped to S/L and not far off Toxic; plus about 50-55% to F/C/E/N/P with the ST chain going. Ablative Carapace is up every <30s granting ~1874 Absorb; Max HP sits at ~3220 and it's common to see HP regen well into the 200's (~230ish if I'm paying attention even in Offensive stance). So they're a pretty chonky brick. I wouldn't say it's a beginner-friendly build exactly; but it's not hugely expensive - mine's only got one HO and no Winter Sets (albeit 7 Purple IOs and the same number of ATOs). Tanker (Bio Armor - Staff) (CT + Taunt + SS).mbd

IMO Staff is a decent mixture of AOE damage and additional mitigation (+13.3% Damage Resistance from Form of the Body + Sky Splitter, plus 15% base +Melee/Lethal Defense from Guarded Spin that is enhanceable and can stack with itself). Whilst the DPA isn't quite top tier, its animations *feel* satisfying; and Gauntlet's Radius and Target Cap buffs end up working overtime on Guarded Spin, Innocuous Strikes and Eye of the Storm, meaning that on a Tanker the set can become a total woodchipper if it's procced out. However it also has a smidge of utility in the form of -Res debuffs (Form of the Body + Eye of the Storm, an Achilles Heel Proc in Mercurial Blow and a Fury of the Gladiator Proc in Eye of the Storm) and a Ranged attack (Serpent's Reach) plus lots of opportunities for Force Feedback +Recharge procs. Personally I find Staff to mesh best with Bio Armor, but I'm sure a Willpower or non-Granite Stone Tanker might also appreciate the mix of +Res and specific Defense buffs too...

It also fully restores your endurance bar, which can be very handy for certain endgame builds to avoid having to take Ageless Destiny. And it buffs your ToHit for a short time too. Full effect list here.

Psychic Shockwave and Mind Probe. (I mean, you are picking at least one of those up already in the rush to get + procbomb Dominate, right?) 😉 Also stuff like Power Drain too I guess, since we're talking about /EA. Personally I find jousting is fine for single target melee blapps, but PBAoEs like PSW become much easier to leverage if you don't have to orbit around your targets several times first like an overcaffinated sheepdog to "get them lined up just right". And phooey to taking Fold Space just for that purpose on a Sent'...

I mean... they're still less important than Buffs unless you're already at the limits (e.g. Hard Mode with a Pocket Kin + rotating T4 Destinys); due to Purple Patch and AV Resistances. At level 50 if you throw a debuff on a +4 AV it'll be suffering only 0.48*0.13= 6.24% of that debuff's listed effect. By all means use 'em if you've got 'em; and some specific debuffs like -Regen and -MaxHP are a big boon to lower-damage squads when it comes to chipping through big bags of HP... but I'd much rather have +Def than -ToHit (for example) even against trash mobs; and I doubt even Musk could pay me enough to play a /Poison MM.

Oldstyle Human form Peacebringer would probably be the closest analogue to Mar-Vell; plenty of Energy Blasts and nice meaty punchwallops with EnergyFX and knockback; plus inherent flight. Although in terms of performance it's not going to be setting any records. Energy/Energy Blaster is the other obvious option. Or even a Energy Blast + Forcefield Corruptor with the Energy Mastery Epic Pool. If you want to go for a full regular Melee AT (Tanker or Scrapper over Brute unless you can think of a way to make the Rage mechanic work with them thematically) then It'd likely be Energy Melee and Energy Aura plus some Epic and Pool ranged attacks. Epicwise the Soul and Mu Mastery pools both provide a few decent blasts which can be recolored to match "energy beams" so you're not completely restricted to Laser Beam Eyes and Energy Torrent. The Pool Power attacks "Wall of Force" and "Spirit Ward" are passable but might be tricker to appropriately reflavour.

It takes 1.188 seconds for Corrosive Enzymes to animate (exactly the same as a "Blaze") and it'll increase all damage output against a single foe by (best case) 18.75%. So you could make the argument that if Blaze is going to deal more than 18.75% of the target's health then use that instead. A Level 53 Boss has 2,689.60 HP. 18.75% of that is 504.3. ...so does your Blaze deal ~500 damage per hit? (According to CoDv2, Corruptor base damage for it is 135.3413 including the DoT...) Rule of Thumb? I'd throw it on Bosses if you're solo or the team isn't completely steamrolling; but anything lower don't bother. Spore Cloud however... that's an anchored AoE. No reason not to have it always up unless you're fighting total trash.

SR is more survivable against lower levels of incoming damage; because it gets more damage resistance as it's HP drops so as long as it doesn't get killed outright then it's more capable of "hanging on" at low HP. It also deals with Defense Debuffs better EA gets it's HP bar back to full much more quickly and IIRC is better vs things like Endurance/Recovery drains and MaxHP debuffs. There's not a huge amount in it but overall I'd give the survivability edge to SR; as long as Endurance Consumption isn't ever going to be an issue for you.

Without knowing the story, I can only assume that there was a grudge of some sort at play here? I can sort of picture a case where disgruntled partner/kid/whatever deletes someone's characters out of spite (and judging by the timeline... likely whilst they're on holiday or otherwise taking a break from the game?) then by the time they realize what's happened a number of those now-freed-up character names have been taken by other players. It's not unheard of in MMORPGS for RL drama to impact on someone's in-game account... but thankfully about the only thing I've personally observed in CoH was back on live when our Coalition had a few married couples who would play each others' characters and sometimes intentionally get them into a little bit of mischief "It's OK dear I was just helping you farm your debt/damage badges..."

Why not just treat Cross Punch as a Single Target attack and proc it up like this: You're missing that -res proc in the other attacks anyway; and it's even a gain in raw average damage over the previous slotting if you've already decided you don't need the Set Bonuses.

Grav/ for Wormhole + Dimensional Shift. And a Singularity slotted for MORE knockback (rather than KD>KB) /Storm for Hurricane, Tornado and Gale. I'm torn on the Epic Pool. Energy Mastery for Energy Torrent; Ice Mastery for Ice Storm, or Psionic Mastery for Psi Tornado... 🤔

Obligatory XKCD:

Procs are plenty reliable in the longer recharging powers. Taking Crane Kick as an example (10s recharge, 1.67s animation time), each 3.5PPM Proc will have a 68.075% chance to trigger and a 4.5PPM Proc will have a 87.525% chance. And the longer the recharge, the better the chances get.... once it breaches 90% you can even begin to slot some recharge% into the power itself without negatively affecting the activation chance. That said, personally most of my attacks end up with 1-3 procs due to the balancing act between chasing [raw damage potential] vs [set bonuses that grant additional Survivability and Global Recharge]. So it's typically only really the big hitting AOEs that actually end up being Procbombed. Exceptions certainly exist however- some stuff like Superstrength Rage is simply too good not to exploit (in Rage's case the additional +ToHit can completely negate the need for any native attack accuracy slotting). [EDIT] - Quick example from my BattleAxe/FA Brute: Pendulum and Cleave are chasing Set Bonuses to get the build to >90% S/L Resistance and >45% Melee Defense and enough Global Recharge to keep the chain going. However Axe Cyclone and Burn each have 4x Procs and ED-capped Damage (AC is rocking a few Utility Procs, whereas Burn is going all-in on Damage Procs). Guess which two AoEs provide the backbone of the toon's damage output?

Yes, Brute base damage scalar is puny. That's why the optimal slotting for most of their attacks is "as many Damage Procs as you can fit; plus enough accuracy to hit the thing". Some folk will go for 1-2 Acc/Dam HOs plus 4-5 procs; others for +Accuracy Set Bonuses plus Kismet and 6x Procs. Prior to total min/maxing I'd still opt for procs over damage (assuming that you don't need any recharge% to make a decent chain)... below numbers assume 80 Fury:

+1 for Energy Aura if the OP doesn't fancy going Super Reflexes. With enough Recharge, /EA can achieve Perma Energize and stick it on on Auto for constant +Regen and sizable Endurance Discount and a decent Heal every ~30s. /SR can stick Master Brawler on Auto for a smidge of Absorb every 30s. SR gets better DDR, Scaling Damage Resistance (take less damage as your HP drops) and Confuse Protection. EA gets +Regen, +Endurance Discount, a self-Heal and Repel Protection. Pick yer poison.

Tru(e) story.

The optimal Scrapper is whatever one you happen to be playing today. They're mostly* all hold-my-beer insane rampaging engines of destruction; they merely come in slightly different flavours. (*Except KinMelee/Regen. Because something has to be the lining the very bottom of the 200%-proof barrel of psychoactive moonshine...)

Soul Mastery is mechanically very powerful for a Crabbermind and is my usual goto for any Soldier. Both Gloom and Dark Obliteration when procced give very nice DPA and inflict substantial -ToHit debuffs; and the Widow pet also deals quite high damage and possesses enough inherent defense to let your leadership buffs push them to the softcap (although they "prefer melee" and tend to guzzle endurance). You can also choose to pick up Darkest Night as an additional debuffing support power. Mace Mastery is serviceable if you opt for Shatter Armor, but none of the prerequisites for it are particularly good. The Blaster pet is by far the best of the two "prefer ranged" pets and as such is a reasonable balance between damage output and survivability. Mu Mastery boasts Electric Fences and Ball Lightning. Both are good DPA AOEs, although neither is quite as good as Dark Obliteration. The Striker pet can fly and is very well behaved, staying at range consistently... although they're about as damaging as a wet noodle and slotting a Power Transfer Proc into them unfortunately will NOT let them self heal. Leviathan Mastery has Arctic Breath which can technically inflict -res on up to 10 targets... although as a 30 degree cone it's tricky to do that consistently. The other two Cone attacks aren't worth picking up, but Spirit Shark deals pretty decent single target damage as long as you're spamming enough other attacks to build up Hunger stacks. The Coralax pet prefers melee but lacks much in the way of additional survivability buffs... if you manage to keep it alive then it'll deal reasonable damage; albeit less than the Widow.

This. Aim for >45% Defense to all types (because you'll be up against Defense Debuffs and your Resistance to those is pretty poor without Ageless running. So fighting stuff like Cimerorans will suck) and >83% Resistance to the important ones (as the Superior Might of Tanker proc will be adding 6.7% per stack; and typically sits at 2x-3x stacks. Being able to hit 100% resistance is valuable because it completely negates resistance debuffs, despite the hardcap being 90%) To give you an idea of what an average endgame WP will look like when it actually makes use of the procs and globals; open the below in Mids then add anything between 13.4% -> 30.1% resistance to everything (2x SMoT procs -> 3x SMoT Procs plus the Reactive Defenses Global) zTanker - WP_SS IOed (CrossPunch).mbd

That still looks like a Mids graph. That said, Damage per Activation in Mids should be fairly accurate as long as you're using the Arcanatime of the power rather than it's raw animation time (there's a tickbox on the options screen for it). For full stats you'll need to check each power's City of Data entry. Best case Single Target damage for Katana is typically a combination of Gambler's Cut, Soaring Dragon and Golden Dragonfly. A Tanker could probably sit with DA/GC>SD>DA/GC>GD pretty comfortably, swapping DA and GC around depending on the current level of damage mitigation required (although that will require a fair bit of global recharge to achieve... so substituting SoTW for GC or using multiple filler attacks is an option) Sting of the Wasp is a filler attack. Flashing Steel and Lotus Drops plus Golden Dragonfly (Gauntlet will make it much easier to catch multiple foes within GD's narrow arc on a Tanker) are your AOEs and so in actual gameplay will feature quite a bit. Divine Avalanche is there purely to buff your Defense and can be substituted for one of the other attacks if you need it. You seem to have the wrong notion about Procs chances. The listed approximate "procs per minute" figure is only accurate in auto/toggle powers. Clicky attacks use a formula which means their ACTUAL activation chance rises drastically as the power's recharge time and animation time increases. It is not uncommon to see a capped 90% activation rate for damage procs in Single Target attacks like Golden Dragonfly; and so people tend to load these up with procs whilst using Global Recharge Reduction (from Hasten or Set Bonuses) to get a workable attack chain. AoE powers work similarly but the formula also takes into account their radius and arc (the base values before Tanker Gauntlet). Since a larger part of Tanker performance comes via their buffed AOEs, I'd very much recommend sticking at least 2-3 damage procs into The Lotus Drops (best case I'd tend to aim for 2x Acc/Dam HOs, 3x Damage Procs and a Fury of the Gladiator -res Proc) to drastically increase the average damage it does on each swing.

I'm guessing this vitriol about observing other characters standing around motionless in AE is coming from a server that tends to sit on more than one green dot. Also, it'd be a very poor "AFK farming guide" that didn't tell these people (i) To put a PBAoE on Autofire and (ii) Not to just enter the mission and then take their hands immediately off the keyboard (the idea is to CLICK THE GLOWIE FIRST to disable the countdown ejection timer unless you're actively using it as a performance metric + throwing the toon out and back in again once the mob horde starts to thin...) Anyways. I'm one of those filthy soulless monsters who not only occasionally AFK AE farms on HC; but also AFK farmed quite a fair bit on Live back in the day (with two accounts whacking each other in Warburg no less. So technically anyone who was bothered enough could have walked up and disrupted it. Nobody ever did). I could argue that I was paying my subscriptions, and purposely going out of everyone's way, and generating useful loot that increased supply of highly-desired IOs and brought auction prices down, etc, etc... and all of that is technically true. But the MAIN reason? Honestly I'm a min/maxer at heart. And so finding a method of generating major inf with minimal effort has a dopamine inducing draw to me. Plus, my computer wasn't doing anything else at the time anyway (I often left them overnight or whilst I was out at Uni. This was 20+ years ago after all). Most of the influence generated was spent by me or my coalition buddies on IOs and costume changes, so it "went back into the system" and the farming itself simply removed the need to sink any of our precious real playtime into influence generation. I personally don't see any current harm in AFK farming in AE on HC unless the server you're on is oversubscribed and your toon's presence is therefore potentially negatively impacting on someone else's ability to play the game. However if any AFK toon is genuinely blocking folk clicking on something important then by all means shove their silly polygons elsewhere or force log the bugger off.

I managed to correct the names of some toons that I'd played extensively on Live and had recreated on Reunion: + Coulomb (previously "CouIomb" with a capital i in place of the L) + Ripstar (previously "Ripstar II") + Mighty Quinn (previously "Might E. Quinn") + Purple Lightning (previously "PurpleLightning") Unfortunately "Unit Omega" and "Tejas" still weren't available; so those two are still sporting a few extra punctuation marks for now... but 66.7% success rate ain't bad! 👍