Maelwys

I got the usual error when auto-updating, so downloaded the most recent MRB_Release zip file from the Mids GitHub page and replaced the entire contents of the original installation folder with it. No actual program uninstall was needed - just delete the original folder contents (aside from the subfolder containing my actual builds) -> extract zip file into folder -> program boots cleanly + works! Upon running the new version it autoupdated to 3.7.4.9, which worked and is still going OK. I've not noticed any difference in resistance/defence numbers on my previous builds - they all seem fine. Although Mids does currently seem to be missing the vertical scrollbars on my laptop, which is making scrolling down to see inherents and incarnate buffs etc difficult unless I manually change the columns count.

There was an old line of thought on live that went "Before ED you 6-slotted Damage in everything, so after ED you 3-slot Damage and fill the other slots with Accuracy and Recharge and maybe one EndRed". Some people from back in the day (or who've gotten ahold of old builds from "back in the day") still hold to this line of thought; and I suspect that was true until now for the OP. But that was an general "rule of thumb" from long before the devs gave us access to 'Real Numbers' in game or detailed builder utilities like Mids became available to show us the details of what was actually going on with our attacks. These days if you're still using SOs or Common IOs; then yes, by all means still ED-cap your damage (3x regular SOs or level 25-30ish IOs, or 2x 50+5 IOs).... ...but after that consider how much accuracy you actually need to hit the 95% ToHit cap versus whatever you're likely to be fighting - 1x Acc IO is often enough; particularly in powers with a base accuracy boost or a powerset that gets defence debuffs. And look at the base Recharge Time - you might not actually need this particular power to recharge any quicker than its baseline to fill your attack chain. And finally look at the base Endurance Cost - it might be tiny and ignorable (for me generally ~5 End or less); or it might be extortionate (~10 End or more) and need a bit more love. And after that if you end up with any spare slots? Damage Procs are probably the simplest "Set IO" to get your head around.

OK. So I've been playing around with rolling up a new /Psi Dom; and I'm torn between Earth and Arsenal. I used Earth Control extensively on live (albeit as a Controller; not as a Dominator). I tended to lean into Stalagmites and/or Earthquake plus Stone Cages and/or Quicksand for its bread-and-butter CC, saving Volcanic Gasses to use situationally; and I know how hardy Mr. Poo (aka 'Animate Stone') can be and how his taunt performs versus your average Archvillain or Giant Monster (e.g. fantastically). My Earth/Thermal was at one point my best "no external support required AV tanker". However I'm much less familiar with Arse Control (must... resist... toilet... humour... puns...) - after a bit of a poke in Mids/CoD and a brief fool around on Brainstorm; it seems Smoke Canister pulls most of the weight for reliable AoE CC (and Confuse is a very good one!) with Liquid Nitrogen essentially taking the place of Earthquake/Quicksand. Sleep Grenade is... decent damage when procced I guess? (I'm not overly fond of CC that breaks on damage). But the Tri-Cannon pet is the real unknown for me. It's ridiculously resilient, which is fantastic. But its taunt mechanics appear rather convoluted - they're wildly different depending on whether the target has the "Raid" flag or not. The "Tri-Cannon" power itself takes Taunt Enhancements; and these inherited by its one attack "Tri-Gatling Gun" but the taunt component within this attack only kicks in versus PVE foes that DO NOT have the "Raid" flag (and there are a rather large number of difficult foes which possess this flag). if !target.HasTag?(Raid) && (target>enttype eq 'critter') It also has an 8ft PBAoE Taunt Aura which pulses every two seconds. The taunt component of this aura kicks in versus PVE foes that DO have the "Raid" flag. (The power is also flagged as autohit for PVE foes even though a ToHitRoll is mentioned in the taunt component; which complicates matters even further!) if target.HasTag?(Raid) && (@ToHitRoll + 0.2 < @ToHit) if target>enttype eq 'critter' At first glance - great! A hardy pet which can taunt most foes either with its attacks or by being parked on top of Raid-flagged foes! ...but that Taunt Aura does not inherit Taunt Enhancements, meaning that it'll remain at its base 3 second duration. With the Purple Patch that duration will get cut drastically against higher-level targets, so it'll start to wear off before getting reapplied by the 2 second tick rate against a +3 foe or above. And it's only Mag 3; which is enough for most AVs (3), but not some EBs (6). It seems a bit of a shame that the Taunt Aura can't inherit Taunt Enhancement (and also that its effects are set to "replace" rather than "stack"; since that'd let it hit Mag 6). From reading the test forums, there's been a bit of a bargy about the whole "Raid flag" business and how it affects the Gatling Gun attack and the Aura differently. So I wanted to throw the question out there for any active Arsenal Control Doms - how are you currently finding the Tri-cannon's taunting capability versus tough targets like AVs/GMs? Thanks in advance! 🍻

You'll generally end up with a fair bit of EndRed in the attacks anyway; but even with that the Blaster sustains are generally not going to stop a determined DPS-orientated Blaster from eventually emptying their Blue bar. They're more about helping to keep you upright for a few nanoseconds longer. To give you an example on Endurance consumption: + The Blaster that I used as an example above's attack chain sucks an average of 5.756 Endurance per second. + Their sustain (Frigid Protection) would grant them about 0.94 End/Sec with no EndMod slotted. For comparison, unslotted Stamina would grant them about 0.47 End/Sec. + Altogether with IOs etc. and a single EndMod IO in Frigid Protection their average recovery rate is about 4.726 End/Sec, which means that there is a deficit of ~1.03 End/Sec. So as-is it can technically operate at full pelt for a smidge over 85 seconds (with toggles) or 110 seconds (without toggles) before its endurance will bottom out. + If they didn't have Frigid Protection then their average recovery would drop to about 3.526 End/Sec, for a deficit of 2.23 End/Sec. That would decrease the time they could operate at full pelt to ~45 seconds (without toggles) or ~50 seconds (without toggles). However it's worth pointing out that in practice, aside from AV/GM/Pylon DPS-measuring contests you're almost never going to be spamming your Single Target attack chain for that long uninterrupted... and even then you can fall back on teammate buffs, stockpiled blue insps, purchasable temp powers like Recovery Serum or (saving the best for last!) Ageless Destiny Incarnate. Some of the Blaster powersets also have extra recovery tools like Consume.

Whenever I'm building a toon I'll generally aim for a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 10 "attacks". Any more than ~8 and I begin to have trouble tying them all into my control scheme (via power tray icons/binds/macros/etc) to activate them in a quick + accessible manner. Blasters tend to have more available attacks than most toons due to having two offensive powersets to choose from... but there will still be an optimal attack chain for ST and/or AoE which only uses 4-8 powers that you'll end up spamming more often than not. 6-slotting these is important if you're attempting to squeeze out maximum performance via procs and/or set bonuses depending on what you're going for in the build. As an example, my Fire/Ice/Blaze's optimal attack chain contains Blaze, Blazing Bolt, Char, Fire Ball and Frozen Aura; with Fire Blast filling in depending on the active recharge buffs. They also have Chillblain, Fire Breath, Rain of Fire, Bonfire and Inferno; but those powers are activated situationally rather than constantly spammed. (I agonized over whether of not to take Freezing Touch instead of either Char or Fire Breath; but ultimately decided against it - technically FT would give me better single-target damage; but it's melee range. Char has better base accuracy and makes a much better proc bomb; and Fire Breath's AoE is too valuable to lose particularly since it gets boosted via Blazing Bolt!). Situational powers or pseudopets (like Rain of Fire) might not benefit as much from procs; but you can still get some nice set bonuses out of them. Since Tidge already mentioned them; Single Target immobilizes are a good example - these are rarely worth using for damage, and the default duration is enough to stop something from running if/when you need to. So I tend to either leave them with the default slot OR use them as a mule to get a useful set bonus. (e.g. the first 5 pieces of Superior Blaster's Wrath, with the damage proc elsewhere). Optimal Damage Proc loadout is typically 4 per power. However most ranged attacks only have a proc or two they can take; so it often makes more sense to 5-slot them for a set bonus and proc the last slot... but be careful of recharge slotting in the power itself, since this will almost always lower your proc activation rate. 5-piece Positron's Blast (without the Dam/Rech) with a Bombardment or Annihilation proc in the last slot is perfect for Targeted AoEs; but for Single target or PBAoEs you'll need to sacrifice either set bonuses or proc chance. Thankfully some abilities with extra effects (like holds and slows!) have very nice procs in those alternative enhancement sets and make it a bit easier to "pick a side".

Individual powersets being OP or non-OP has no dog in the fight here, it's a coding consistency issue which produces weird and unpredictable effects on in-game power performance and can mislead anyone who is unaware of very specific differences in the powers code. Take two powers from within SD as an example - why should DDR differ in Battle Agility but not in Grant Cover depending on the power's enhancement slotting? That's inconsistent code and it results in confusing behavior for the end user when working with the affected powers. To pull an example out of my ass: someone could choose to mule globals in Grant Cover or Tough Hide and still have maximum DDR; but not do the same for Battle Agility or for any of the passives in SR. And what about if a SD or SR user pops RADIAL Clarion - since that's a Boost effect that would likely affect their DDR as well. I doubt it is intentional that we can do that sort of thing for some of these powers but not others. If the devs want SR and SD to have more DDR than the rest, fantastic. Just make it all static. Or make it all volatile. But for Faathim's sake please PICK one and STICK with it... (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

Have to disagree here because each of the other powersets have a self heal/HP buff, endurance boost/defense click etc. I didn't mean it was unfair and inconsistent that SD/SR have more DDR than the others - I meant that it's unfair and inconsistent that one self-buffing power in a Defensive Tanker powerset ("Battle Agility") can slot Enhancements to boost DDR beyond the base rate and another self-buffing power in a Defensive Tanker powerset (let's pick on "Tough Hide" from INV) can't. The exclusion flags in the game's code should be kept consistent across the same sorts of powers otherwise you end up with a mess like this and this (never mind all that business with us being able to Power Boost FF Bubbles and Farsight but not Cold Bubbles or Fade because of the "Ignores External Strength Boosts" flag - but at least they've recognized and disclosed the rationale for that one!)

There is certainly a huge disconnect between the OP and the bulk of the posters in this thread, I'll give you that... I'm not sure 'leveling-up' vs 'life-begins-at-50' is quite where to point the finger though. There has been a historical reluctance by the OP to learn or even engage in conversation with well-meaning and helpful replies; and it got to the point where at least one of their threads was preemptively locked by a GM "before it becomes another crap-show like half the other threads [the OP] creates." I think it's probably safe to assume that most of the more vocal posters in this thread (myself included) have levelled an awful, awful lot of different alts; and that if we didn't enjoy playing arcs of different levels then the game would probably get boring for a lot of us very quickly... and so we're keenly aware that there are things that you can do whilst levelling up to vastly smooth things along (I know I'm not the only one here who regularly pauses EXP gain just so that I can complete more story arcs within each particular level tier!). However skipping all of the powers from your offensive powerset aside from Taunt and ignoring that IOs exist is quite probably the opposite of that.

Without looking - I am pretty sure it has a whole set of Shield Wall in it. Aye, that explains it then. 6-slotted Shield Wall (assuming you've not +5'ed them) would give 57.52% worth of Defense enhancement slotting. (Base+Slotting)*BaseValue=BuffedValue (1+0.5752)*0.173=0.2725096 Which gives us the 27.52% DDR figure that you're actually seeing in-game for Battle Agility. Because Battle Agility is missing the "Ignore Enhancements and other Boosts" flag (the "Yellow Padlock" symbol in CoD, see below examples) any Defense% you slot in the power itself is also boosting the DDR it's granting. It looks like across all the defensive powersets, SR and Shield are the only ones that possess DDR-enhancing powers which don't have this "Ignore Enhancements and other Boosts" flag set; and which therefore have DDR which is "boostable" via simply slotting regular +Defense% enhancements. In Shield's case, it's just Battle Agility. In SR's case, it's all the powers except for Practiced Brawler. This seems rather unfair and inconsistent given the similar powers available to the other powersets... and given CoH's spaghetti codebase I very much suspect that this is likely not intentional (I'm aware of numerous cases where the similar flag "Does not scale with enemy level" is missing + bugged on self-healing abilities in Rad and Bio Armor...) I would suggest filing a bug report... but they may decide to "add the missing flags" rather than "remove the superfluous ones" resulting in a nerf to SD and SR rather than a boost to the other sets. Even if SR is still so far ahead of the rest of the pack that it likely wouldn't really notice.

I knew you can stack Active Defence a few times; but that value for Battle Agility is interesting. Judging by CoD ; Battle Agility only gives 17.3% rather than 27.25% (Looks like it's missing the "Ignore Enhancements and other Boosts" flag... so is possibly getting buffed depending on slotting/external effects. Do you happen to have ~57.5% worth of Defense enhancements slotted in it?)

INV and Ice both have almost as much DDR as Shield these days. It's 56.23% (Shield) vs 50% (INV) vs 51.9% (Ice). SR is the extreme outlier: 77.85% DDR without Elude, 121+ (capped at 95) with. WP gets ~21.6% and Stone gets 34.6% without Granite running. [EDIT - 51.9%. Forgot Rooted!] Dark, Elec, Rad and Bio all get nothing. So INV is actually in not too bad a spot survivability-wise these days - it just does bugger all to buff your offense besides a smidge of +ToHit.

My current favourite Tanker is a Bio/Staff and I can second the farming potential! (I just wish Mids actually showed accurate stats without me having to click all the buffs in turn and toggle half a billion stances off and back on again...)

Necro, but IIRC EM used to be so far in front of the others mainly due to Energy Transfer's animation time. The Devs never really considered animation time in the original balance passes. So whenever EM Stalkers first came on the scene, Build Up plus an "invisible assassin's strike crit" followed up immediately by a ridiculously fast animating ET meant that they were two-shotting everything, including other Player Characters in PVP zones. I used to run one. It was fun for the first 5 mins until everyone but Teleport-Foe-Totting-Turtling-Traps-MMs fled the zone. It took a long time for EM to be ported to Scrappers because of the perception around how strong the Spike Damage-per-Animation of ET was. The solution they eventually settled on was to make Scrapper Critical hits not double the damage but do other things (negate the health penalty of ET, and only partially affect TF). After that over the years came more animation tweaks to EM and eventually the current "combo mode" where you can get 'fast' ET again providing you jump through a few hoops first. Compared to whenever it first arrived, current EM has substantially better AoE damage and nearly as good ST damage. So IMO they've actually done pretty well with balancing it out.

In addition to the above, whilst it was once-upon-a-time possible to chain Rune of Protection and Melee Core Embodiment back to back constantly, that is no longer the case. Currently no matter how you try to stagger them you're going to end up with a very noticeable 30-60 second gap. Whilst in practice that's typically nothing worth worrying about, it does add considerable weight to the argument that most builds can't feasibly claim a permanent/baseline/insertwhateveradjectiveyoulikehere level of performance if they have either of those clicks enabled. Some reasonably-crashless defensive T9s can be used to cover that gap; but Unstoppable isn't one of them. I 100% appreciate the work that's gone into making these sort of builds and having them as options or reference points is valuable. But there is such a thing as false advertising, or at the very least "a salesperson stating that a car can do >1000 MPG without mentioning the bit about always driving downhill". Particularly in threads like this one you really can't assume that all of the readers are going to understand all of the conditional caveats.

Technically there's the +ToHit from Invincibility and a bit of fluff like repel protection etc. too... but aye, it's mostly all a bit meh and ignorable. It probably says something that whenever I compare INV to another defensive powerset with mostly-like-for-like primary slotting, it tends to be stuff like Willpower rather than Shield or SR. At least INV gets a smidge more Defence Debuff Resistance without Ageless than WP does; and >100 HP/Sec with 1 foe in RTTC range isn't as OP as it used to be!

I took that to read "without any foes within Invincibility range which would otherwise inflate the numbers" To be fair, Hyperstrike has produced a very wide range of INV builds and the "Mo Durable" INV/SS Tanker build series seems to be buried under forum detritus - the only up-to-date copy I was able to find with a cursory search was Snarky's repost here However with zero foes in Invincibility range ("Base Invincibility" but not "Unslotted Invincibility") and no clicky res buffs running, we get this: With either "Melee Core Embodiment" Hybrid Incarnate or "Rune of Protection" running it pushes it to Hardcapped resistance to all but Toxic. With 1+ foe in Invincibility Range it pushes Defence into the 50s; and Incarnate Softcap for F/C is finally achieved at ~8-9 foes. This build is obviously very durable (hence the name!) but it's also a bit of a "brick" in that it sacrifices damage output and utility for high +Def/+Res numbers. For contrast, here's another example from my own stable; another INV/SS Tanker, again with zero foes in Invincibility range: zTanker - INV_SS (CrossPunch).mbd Vastly lower defence/resistance values than the "Mo Durable" build. But much better global recharge and damage output and utility. And with one foe in Invincibility range it hits the regular 45% softcap; achieving Incarnate softcap with 9-10 foes. And if you toggle on Melee Core and are surrounded by enemies it can also technically hit hardcapped resistances to all but Toxic (it's a few percent under the E/N/F/C caps if at max HP unless it has 2+ SMoT proc stacks) Even just the inclusion of the FF Proc in Footstomp goes a long way; since the regular KD is helpful and the additional recharge actually affects other forms of survivability as well. Slotted Dull Pain in the second build is sub-90s recharge resulting in big heal and a permanent Maximum HP pool of 3534+1801 Absorb... compared to the first build's ~200s Unslotted Dull Pain with a much smaller heal and Maximum HP sitting unbuffed for ~80s at a time... and only 3223 HP+866 Absorb whenever it's actually up). There is a sliding scale with Extreme Survivability at one end and Extreme DPS on the other. Especially when exemplaring. Some like to go for extremes of particular numbers. Personally (like most?) I like to park my builds somewhere in the middle and have layered mitigation whenever possible.

I've told this story before... but I remember about a decade-and-a-half ago whenever I took my Katana/Regen Scrapper into Warburg to meet a SG buddy's Invulnerability/Mace Tanker. We had a bet going as to who would last longer; the I-can-kill-a-whole-map DPS or the I-can-tank-a-whole-map Tank. We were still there whacking each other a few hours later. Eventually another SG friend came along to "watch" and invited us over to take a break. So we called a time-out and both jumped over next to them... and landed in a big pile of trip mines that the dirty little cheating so-and-so had been secretly laying for the better part of 20mins, and which we couldn't see because of all the knee-deep water. FOOM. Cue much merriment and both melee ATs chasing the stupid ranged "squishy" around the zone as they squeal with laughter. Fun times...

I mean...

Like many others here, over the years I've played in a great many CoX teams that have had their share of hairy moments. Maybe the Tank simply got in over their head or encountered the Paper to their Rock, maybe the Controller is using AoE sleeps rather than hard Mez, maybe the Scrapper took the wrong fork in the cave map and has aggroed three extra groups chasing that fleeing Boss, maybe the Blaster decided to Leeroy Jenkins half the map. Often these days you'll see veterans running level 50 IOed builds which can do very crazy things and still be functionally immortal without any outside assistance. But whilst levelling up they're still reasonably vulnerable... and new players exist too who might be a bit less familiar with the game mechanics... and every now and then you get a team full of suicidal SO'ed Fire Blasters who've decided to try a no-deaths TF run. The best support/healer builds I've seen in this game have been those which always bring some benefit to a team regardless of it's composition and survivability. Increase a steamrollng team's Damage output via Attacks, Resistance Debuffs, or Damage/Recharge/Recovery buffs. Increase a struggling team's survivability via Defence/Resistance/Absorb/MaxHP buffs, Damage/Recharge/ToHit debuffs, Crowd Control, Mez Protection, etc. And yes, the occasional Heal and Regeneration buff. Or somewhere in between. The closest thing I've personally built to a "Pure Healer" in CoH was an Illusion/Empathy Controller. They could instantly heal a Tanker to 100% via Absorb Pain and keep a Blaster trucking through an old Nuke crash via Adrenaline Boost, whilst keeping the entire team buffed with Clear Mind and Fortitude (half of them Power Boosted) and high uptime on Regeneration and Recovery aura... but they could also deal a reasonable amount of damage, crowd control two mobs at a time, confuse an AV, etc plus Permanent Phantom Army. Thankfully in this game there's no need to limit yourself to just being a One Trick Pony.

Ageless is a crutch, but it's a damn good one. FWIW this is my current Hybrid Fortuna/Widow build. Perma Mind Link and near-perma-Hasten-plus-Ageless is what keeps everything trucking. Swipe/Strike/Lunge/Gloom obviously, and both Confuses plus Dominate. No Scream or Tornado but still very respectable AoE lawnmowering potential because 2x Assaults plus double-stacked Followup gives crazy buffage to Spin + Dark Obliteration + the odd Psychic Wail... and despite being built selfishly it's still somehow buffing allied defence by ~23.6%. Arachnos Fortunata (Hybrid - Confuse).mbd (above values don't include Ageless; nor the up to +10% additional damage resistance from the Reactive Defence Global at low HP)

Given that the Tanker will like getting heals and capped defences, and neither them nor the Blaster has much in the way of CC or Buffs/Debuffs... I'd probably go for a Time Manipulation toon. Toggle Time's Juncture on, and autofollow the Blaster. Then tap Farsight every two minutes (use Power Boost right beforehand if possible), Temporal Selection every minute (alternate between Tank and Blaster) and if/when things need healed tap Temporal Mending (or just leave it on constant autofire). Chrono Shift can either be used every time it's up or just saved for tricky fights (lasts for 90 seconds and can be perma with sufficient investment). Its other clickies like Time Crawl, Slowed Response and Distortion Field will be less relevant but can be used if needed for boss-killing. Almost any support AT would do; but I'd probably lean towards either a Robotics/Time Mastermind or an Earth/Time Controller. The Earth Controller would let you solidly lock down foes and its pet can "Tank" if you go up against multiple AVs or fight something that cuts through defence. The Mastermind's pets would be very low maintenance (they self-heal and with Farsight plus Protector Bot Bubbles they'd be very easy to softcap) and stay at range. If that's still too much clicking, a Cold Domination or Forcefield toon would probably be the next-best thing and only require tapping two buttons once every four minutes. Take the Leadership and Sorcery and Medicine Pools; toggle on Assault/Maneuvers/Tactics and Spirit Ward. Tap your two +Defence bubbles once every 4 minutes, and use Aid Other if needed. Also make sure to stick a Panacea proc in Spirit Ward - it'll affect the target rather than you which should help a smidge. FF gets built-in mez protection and a self-defence boost and its Bubble defence buffs can be greatly increased via Power Boost and/or Radial Clarion Destiny... whereas Cold's Bubble defence buffs are not power-boostable but it gets far better debuffs and will utterly neuter AVs. Pick your poison! (but seriously, don't make a /Poison...)

Veeeeery niche, but potentially relevant given the OP's previously-stated fondness for running Frostfire teams: Whilst levelling up one of my FA Brutes on Blueside I actually made a point of taking both Taunt and Hover extremely early (levels 6 and 12 IIRC; plus Healing Flames @Lv4?) purely so that they could be a functionally immortal aggro magnet in that particular scenario and mess with the heads of the "real tanks". Although of course they still actually took proper attacks at levels 1, 2 and 8 plus Blazing Aura at level 10...

Not always. True, a lot of people will just see the username and immediately write off this thread because they've attempted to help and handhold in the past and been ignored. But credit where it's due, you do occasionally write something useful which is well received and gets positive feedback. Unfortunately the vast majority of the content you have submitted here has been either rants about the mindset/behavior of other players which heavily invoke the No True Scotsman argument; or apparently-honest questions which receive multiple detailed helpful explanations that are then outright ignored and have to be restated in the very next thread a few days later. I'm not trying to disparage or be insulting/nasty here, I'm just trying to somewhat diplomatically point out a possible reason why you're getting this kind of reaction... (and given past experience, it's quite probable that this comment will be ignored as well... but at least I tried!) 🤷‍♂️ 😇

We have indeed. From 2021 all the way until quite literally just two days ago. We appear to be stuck in yet another rerun of the best of Diantane. Does anyone get the feeling this is a Nemesis plot ? It's like some kind of dastardly evil mobius loop...

If you really want to know, do a post history search. But honestly, no, you're *really* not missing anything. (I'm pretty sure some of the rest of us are down several wasted hours though...)