Maelwys

Looks like this differs depending on the model gender and size - the character model I've been using never grasps the "unwrapped" bit. The staff of Stheno looks particularly ridiculous; even if it's a shorter weapon model than the rest... Anyways; the discrepancy ought to be easy to rectify by stretching the weapon model a bit - see some of the currently "pointy at both ends" albeit asymmetrical options: In this case whilst the male model is holding it closer to their chest; the female model still has their hand firmly on the central shaft (stop giggling, you at the back!) This can be seen more clearly during the extend/retract stage of the thrust (I said STOP IT!) To me it still looks like there's nothing wrong with the pose itself, only the points at which the model's hands are making contact with the weapon; which AFAIK is quite tweakable. It also ought to be possible to extend the "left" portion of the staff here a bit too (although admittedly there may be a bit of a balancing act between that and not accidentally cutting off their own feet during a Guarded Spin!)

If you take the second screenshot in my post further up as a reference point, at no stage in any of the attack animations do either of the character's hands touch the staff outside of the "wrapped" middle area. The Ranged attack (Serpent's Reach) does involve them holding the staff pretty close to their body then letting go with their "offhand" as they extend it out... but they're still grasping it in the middle with their main hand. Actually even on a huge model body the edges of the Staff never actually make contact with the head or torso, the worst that might happen is a bit of "clipping" with bulkier costume pieces and capes. So IMO there's actually a good bit of wiggle room for variants that are "sharp at both ends"... 🔦⚔️😉

I hear this complaint from time to time, and I’m guessing it’s about number crunching? On a Scrapper and a Brute, Staff Fighting suffers from particularly poor Damage Per Activation (the animation time of the attacks takes too long for the damage they deal!) The powerset as a whole has lower damage potential than (most) other sets; which rubs a lot of people the wrong way. However it also has greater utility than (most) other sets... because it buffs both Defence and Resistance, has an AoE Resistance debuff and gets a Ranged attack. It's "better" on a Stalker, because they get Build Up and Assassin's Strike which shores up their Single Target damage considerably... and it also gets an automatic built-in copy of Perfection of Body (almost always the best stance) rather than you having to "waste" a power pick on Staff Mastery. Also on a Tanker; the Gauntlet inherent shores up their AoE damage considerably (Eye of the Storm rises from 10ft+10 Targets to 15ft+16 targets; and both Innocuous Strikes and Guarded Spin drastically increase their Cone width and double their Target Caps) so it's actually pretty decent there assuming your goal is AoE woodchippering.

Wait till someone links a youtube video about the /ah slash command. And the Mission Teleporter/Team Transporter. And Assemble the Team. And the Ouroboros Portal. Oh Rularuu, the possibilities... We're not exactly still stuck with 2004-era travel options.

IMO Staff's fine performancewise on Stalkers and Tankers, and the Utility of self-buffing both Resistance and Defense makes it passable on Brutes too. But if they're prepared to speed up the animations I'm not gonna say no 😉 In terms of the weapon model options though? Yeah 100% agreed. A lot of the existing ones aren't even symmetrical which really grates on my OCD... I'm essentially left with a choice between a bandaged twig or a double sided Q-tip. [EDIT] - FWIW I just checked the Wiki's page on Staff Weapon Customization and it's only got 9 out of the possible 21 options listed; so some folk may be mistaken about the current range of options. There are a few good ones; but unfortunately only two which are symmetrical (other than the standard 'plain bland narrow cylinder' in various levels of shininess) - "Studded" and "Wrapped". I'm not expecting fully animated Staffchucks here; but would a Darth-Maul-esque double sided lightstick really be too much to ask for? 😜

I said the Teleport Pool, not Fold Space. Fold Space is so situational that it's a firm skip on most characters. Combat teleport on the other hand is extremely useful for Melee toons in a world of jagged polygons and "prefer ranged" AI. No lag time for group-hopping carnage.

Presumably Lulz. (besides, everyone KNOWS the best there is is a Claws/Regen Scrapper...) 😄 If we're just posting some "most generically useful" builds, then we'd need to point at stuff like Ice/Cold Corruptors; Tankers with the Teleport Pool; and a Nature Affinity anything.

Taking the Tanker version at CoDv2: + The top entry (green semicircle icon with the two red and blue dots) is the "fallback" which is what you'll see displayed in the game stats window. + The bottom entry (the red eye-with-a-line-through-it icon) is "hidden in in-game info" and what actually handles the newly added varying damage behaviour. Looking at that bottom entry, it seems that the base damage of LBE is now getting multiplied by a random number (as the ToHitRolls are randomized between 0 and 100) which means that it can vary wildly... however that variation is getting reigned in the more ToHit buffs you have active. Essentially the LOWER this random ToHitRoll is; and the HIGHER your ToHitBonus is; the more damage you'll do. Technically the Player ToHit buff limit is 200.35% at level 50. However whenever you actually make an attack, your ToHit roll is usually capped at 0.95 against whatever foe you're attacking (e.g. you can never buff yourself enough to make an attack autohit, there'll always be at least a 5% chance of an 'unlucky' miss). It's not immediately obvious if this new LBE damage calculation is using the capped ToHitRoll or the uncapped ToHit buff value; but a quick bit of in-game testing suggests that it's using the capped one (since when using an entire tray of Yellow inspirations I was seeing very consistent damage being dealt by LBE. Had it been using the uncapped value then the damage dealt would have varied wildly between 100% and 200% of the listed base damage!) So it seems that the maximum base damage LBE can deal will be the listed 52.83; and with a sufficiently high enough ToHit bonus (to cap the ToHit chance of LBE at 95% if it wasn't autohit) it'll do very close to that maximum even with a very low random ToHitRoll. Also FWIW, the changes are from Issue 27 Page 7's "New Epic / Ancillary Power Pools and Epic Balancing Pass" section:

Meh, I've always viewed Sents as a Melee AT. They're essentially Scrappers with a few feet extra reach. (I may have only noticed the subforum on this one after submitting the original reply... 😛)

Definitely Willpower and SR for pure "no need to touch it"; and of those two a well built SR has fewer holes and a much higher performance ceiling. Shield Defense is up there too providing you don't count Shield Charge. Stone Armor and INV are pretty straightforward too with their single self heal/MaxHP buff. Then Electric and Energy. Then Firey Aura. Then Ice Armor and Dark Armor and Rad Armor (which all rely on using regular well timed clickies). Then Regen (LOTs of clickies plus a yo-yo healthbar). Then finally Bio Armor (alive enemy clickies, dead enemy clickies, multiple stances and regular clickies).

Compare Power Transfer: to Panacea: Notice the "(self only)" tag on the top one; and "(all affected targets)" on the bottom one. The value of "Self" listed on the left of the CoDv2 screen against 'Entities Affected' simply dictates what the boost itself (e.g. the enhancement!) normally affects - so slotting the Panacea Proc IO itself does not automatically grant you an AoE Healing Aura. However the healing proc effect listed under standard effects is able to apply to ALL AFFECTED TARGETS of any power that it's slotted in. So ticking a Panacea Proc in Health? That just ticks on you. Sticking it in Arcane Ward? That ticks on your selected Target (and technically also once on you at the time of initial casting) Sticking it in Triage Beacon? That ticks on lots of allies.

Oh I'm sure it's grand at endgame for ST damage - but you've only two attacks before Lv28 and a single AoE (Wail). GFS requiring Melee jousting is also a bit dubious on a non-softcapped toon. (Ordinarilly I'm ambivalent about Shout, although it might make more sense on an Active set like Thermal... however I'm a big fan of Siren's Song; procbombed or otherwise!) Your Alpha Slot selection buffing +Res rather than damage; and taking both Thaw and the Rez makes your build present as more support orientated (which isn't a bad thing for a Defender, don't get me wrong!) than the IceSphere one (which to me looks a bit more like a Corruptor port). If I was to do up a build from scratch then it'd likely trend more towards yours; but with Siren's Song and possibly Aim. Neither of the builds have fleshed out their incarnate picks beyond Alpha... but I'd assume either Clarion Destiny or Melee Core Hybrid for Mez Protection purposes (and the Hybrids are typically better set to Assault or Support). Interface would be Reactive, obviously; and Lorewise I'd go BP Radial all the way. For Judgement I'm typically a fan of Void for the -Damage debuff; but Sonic already has a PBAoE nuke... so Pyro or Ion would give them a ranged Enemy Deletion button; and Vorpal would self-buff defense a bit if they're using the Destiny slot for Clarion over Barrier (and perhaps be fun to stack with Siren's Song). I had a quick dig through my own build folders and the only current-ish one I can find that's Homecoming-specced is a Bot/Thermal MM. Whilst I realise the OP isn't keen on MMs, it's worth pointing out that Bots/ makes it pretty easy to self-softcap Defense and get your pets most of the way there before incarnates (slotted Protector Bot Bubbles adding ~21% goes a long way) leaving plenty of room for pool/epic picks - zMastermind - Robotics - Thermal.mbd

FWIW there's another build on IceSphere's Dropbox: Build: Defender (Thermal Radiation - Sonic Attack).mbd The originator seems to have gone for Hardcapped S/L Resists and then Ranged Defence. Looks passable at a quick glance. It's a bit more offensive orientated than @Auroxis's one above. That D-Sync in Heat Exhaustion is likely to break your wallet; but thankfully there's a fair bit of wiggle room to adjust it + rejig a few other things: Mind Over Body can be dropped to 3 slots (Lv50+5 End/Res, Lv50+5 Res, Unique) confortably. Likewise Weave could drop a slot (lose the Def/End/Rech Shield Wall and then Boost the Def and Def/End to +5). The Eradication Proc in Wail could also be swapped to a Fury of the Gladiator -Res. And Forge could do with a Gaussian Proc (since there's no amplify) and the Travel power with the Winter's Gift unique...

I'd an Earth/Thermal Controller back on live that was pretty decent. The combination of the Thermal buffs, Pet +Res aura IOs and Stoney's own inherent resistances meant the pet was at the Resistance cap to practically everything, and the Controller themselves could lock multiple spawns down simultaneously so they were extremely good at aggro control. I hardly ever experienced issues getting the debuffs to land, but Earth Control outputs a ridiculous amount of -def. The character brought considerable value to almost any team and was one of my preferred options for AV tanking. I suspect going either Dark Blast (ToHit debuffage) or Sonic Blast (Resistance debuffage) would be the optimal path on a Defender. However for damage output purposes... the Thermal powerset is very busy (especially if you're keeping up a consistent Forge and Thaw rotation plus "main healing") so there might be a benefit to veering towards something like Fire or Ice instead... and having one or two very effective offensive abilities instead of lots of mediocre ones which together make up a high DPS attack chain.

This. The Performance Shifter Proc gets multiple separate opportunities to activate (on you the caster) simultaneously whenever you hit multiple hostile targets with a single ability, so you can end up recieving lots of +endurance if you use it in an AoE. It also gets a chance to activate on each target as well (providing they count as "friendly"). However the source entity using the proc must be a player instead of a pet/pseudopet. Power Transfer gets multiple checks but only a single opportunity to actually activate (on the caster, i.e. you) per ability per server tick. In fact it used to be that slotting multiple PT procs in different abilities didn't stack... but these days they do so you can have lots of copies across various +endurance passives/toggles/etc. ok. It does not normally work for pets/pseudopets (unless they're using an ability that has a base area factor of 1 and also affects themselves, strangely...) Panacea gets multiple separate checks for each "friendly" target hit, but activates its buff on that target not on the caster. Notably neither the source nor the target needs to be a player, so friendly pets/pseudopets and NPCs are all fair game. There are also different rolls for the Heal and for the Endurance buff, meaning they kick in independently of each other. The rest activate for 120 seconds (on the caster) and multiple activations during that time window overwrite instead of stack.

I'll generally have my attacks on tray #1, toggles on tray #2 and clicky buffs and summons on tray #3. Certain characters will end up with more attacks and less toggles, so there can sometimes be a little overlap on tray #2 by level 50+incarnates... but the powers that I actually use most often (attacks and maybe a heal) always live on the first tray and are bound to both my keyboard number row and my dual shock joypad buttons. Everything else lives on the higher numbered trays, of which I'll usually only have tray 9 open constantly (vertical) with the various fast travel and teleportation buttons on it as well as a few more situational clicky powers (Secondary Mutation, Barrier Destiny, etc). Things like the Ouroboros portal and Mystic Fortune get bound directly to keys (e.g. O and M) and I make good use of my Numpad buttons (typically Numpad0 is a heal, the / * buttons are buffs/patch powers, Call to Justice and Assault Hybrid are - +, Lore Pet summoning is Numpad9, etc. and Numpad 1-8 are for teammate targeting). I generally play with my left hand on my joypad and my right hand flicks between mouse, keyboard and joypad. It might be a little unusual for MMORPGs, but I've always preferred controlling the movement of any on screen characters with a Joypad - and the mouse is a hold over from the old "circle strafing" FPS days. Left shoulder buttons handle Jumping and activating my main Travel Power. Left Analogue stick is for movement, with its button typically enabling either flight or superspeed/athletic run. DPad is for targeting and Combat Teleport, although I'll usually have a few of its buttons pulling double duty (eg DPad "Up" eats any inspirations in column #5 and triggers a Self Heal if they're all out, Dpad "down" targets the closest enemy and also activates Hasten). Right Analogue stick is looking around and interacting. The remaining eight buttons activate my main clicks - usually buttons 1-6 are attacks and the right shoulder buttons end up being Targeted or Positional AoEs. Mouse is for fine movement and a few extra clicky powers (especially Taunt on melee toons). Keyboard covers the rest, with the aforementioned Numpad binds seeing by far the most use.

**mutters something about the pedaling we need not the pedaling we deserve**

Guarded Spin bumps Lethal and Melee by 15 to ~24% per stack. Guess what Position and Type most attacks that contain Defense debuffs are? 😉 I find if you aim for 45% without GS (or with just a single stack) then by just layering an extra stack I'll have few if any issues with the vast majority of non-autohit Defence debuffs. These typically inflict -10% Def per hit. WP gets 21.6% DDR via Heightened Senses reducing that to -7.84%. So it'll take 2-3 successful hits to eat through each additional stack of GS (at a 5% hit chance - assuming that you stacked GS before getting hit; or at least before getting hit twice!). Hardcapped S/L resistance and high regeneration will help you weather the odd unlucky streak; and there's always Barrier and Ageless to fall back on too...

Whilst I don't have a Willpower/Staff Tanker, I do have a Willpower/SS Tanker and a Bio/Staff Tanker. So rather than give you a full build to work from (I'm sure others can post those and there's likely to be at least one in IceSphere's Dropbox) I'm going to show you some numbers and explain why I'm shooting for them. First, the WP/SS build: zTanker - WP_SS IOed (CrossPunch).mbd With a single foe within range of Rise to the Challenge, this character sits at a hair under 105HP/Second Regeneration. ...and this is what happens with a fully saturated RTTC: This is a /SuperStrength Tanker, so they need a bit of help to make a good Single Target attack chain (hence Cross Punch; slotted with a -res proc!) and the bulk of their AoE damage output comes from Rage + Foot Stomp; so Foot Stomp gets slotted with Procs; including a Force Feedback: Chance for +Recharge (in order to get Footstomp up sooner). The bulk of the attacks are slotted for set bonuses - a mixture of Defense and Damage Resistance; plus a smattering of +MaxHP. Willpower/ can't get anywhere near the Tanker Maximum HP Cap by itself; and it needs a bit of assistance reaching the Defense Softcap (45% for regular Content) and the S/L Damage Resistance Hardcap (90%) even on a Tanker instead of a Brute. The "Superior Might of Tanker" ATO Proc in KO Blow adds another 1-3 stacks of "6.4% resistance to all damage types" on top of the totals listed; meaning that their S/L resists will end up getting hardcapped. Note the Power Transfer: Chance to Heal Self procs in Stamina, Quick Recovery and Physical Perfection plus the Panacea Proc in Health. These do not buff your regeneration or recovery rate - instead they grant a flat amount of health (and endurance in the case of Panacea). This is an important distinction as you'll gain full benefit from them even when you're up against substantial -Regeneration debuffs. The Superior Entomb: Chance for Absorb proc in KO Blow and the Preventive Medicine Chance for Absorb global in Physical Perfection operate similarly. Focused Accuracy is present in the build; but left switched OFF unless the character encounters any substantial -ToHit debuffs. Next up, the Bio/Staff build: Tanker (Bio Armor - Staff) (CT + Taunt + SS).mbd The peak achievable Regeneration and Recovery Rates for Bio blows WP out of the water; but at baseline it's sitting around 64HP/Second Regeneration. ...and this is what it can look like with a fully saturated DNA Siphon and Parasitic Aura going; even in Offensive Stance: Anyway. The two big things here to do with /Staff are the stances - especially Form of the Body; and Guarded Spin. With the Form of the Body stance enabled, each Staff ability you activate grants you a stack of "Perfection of Body" (up to three stacks maximum). Each stack gives you a +4% damage buff; but the real benefit comes when you've built up three stacks and then activate either Sky Splitter or Eye of the Storm. Doing so with Sky Splitter will inflict a little extra damage and also grant you +13.3 Damage Resistance to everything for 15 seconds (which can easily become permanent) Doing so with Eye of the Storm will inflict a little extra damage and also inflict a -10% Damage Resistance debuff for 6 seconds (much tougher to get perma; but still useful) Guarded Spin grants +15% Defence to both Melee (positional) and Lethal (typed) for 10 seconds. This is enhanceable, so in the build above it's providing +22%. And it's STACKABLE - so you can double or even triple stack it to temporarily push you beyond the 59% Incarnate Softcap and/or help counter things like Defense Debuffs. A typical Staff Single Target Attack chain includes Guarded Spin, so you can probably safely assume that one stack will always be active. Mine uses SrptsReach > SkySplitter > SrptsReach > MercBlow > GrdedSpin at 10.164s duration (this also gives the SMoT Proc in Serpent's Reach lots of activation opportunities; typically sitting at 3 stacks!) Staff's not wonderful at Single Target Damage output (except on Stalkers) but it does have two Cones and a PBAoE (Guarded Spin, Innocuous Strikes and Eye of the Storm) which all benefit greatly from the Tanker Gauntlet inherent's buffs to Radius and Target Cap. Eye of the Storm also provides a very substantial -resistance debuff when slotted with a Fury of the Gladiator -Res proc and used with 3x "Perfection of Body" stacks (which you'll be building up between activations anyway!) and it takes that all-important Force Feedback: Chance for +Recharge proc. Combining Willpower and Staff does have some synergy. You can make good use of Guarded Spin to help shore up Willpower's lackluster native Smashing/Lethal/Melee Defense (I'd push for 45%+ to both Melee and Lethal with a single Guarded Spin stack) and factoring in the extra 13.3% Damage resistance from 3x Perfection of Body stacks + Sky Splitter will help you hit the Resistance hardcaps. So compared to my WP/SS build you'll not need to invest in anywhere near the same amount of mitigation-centric Set Bonuses; which will free you up to add more Damage Procs or Global Recharge. You won't be breaking any Damage Output or Survivability records, but it should still perform pretty decently across the majority of content and not be a total slouch whenever it comes to AoEing down hordes of mooks.

Swapped Snow Storm for RoP and played around a bit more on Brainstorm... With all /Dark's ToHit debuffage I'm finding the extra S/L Defense from Frozen Armor to be overkill for everything short of Cimerorans; and I'm not overly impressed by the Ice Elemental's performance (whilst their Proc chances are nice; their kamikaze AI is making them rather prone to dying even with well beyond softcapped defense + MaxHP + Arcane Ward + Panacea). So I've changed Epic Pools to Soul Mastery and managed to wiggle a bit more global recharge out of things: Defender - Cold_Dark (SoulMastery).mbd And with RoP toggled on: This new variant can swap between Agility Radial T4 for "full-turtle-mode" Teaming and Musculature Radial T4 for everything else. The smidge higher Global Recharge gets the ST attack seamless with Agility Alpha (and about half a second shy with Musculature Alpha... Infrigidate needs ~30% additional Recharge% to fully close the gap. Ageless + an Empowerment Station buff can get it there without negatively affecting Proc rate). Saturated Soul Drain provides better uptime than Build Up did; and the extra +Res doesn't hurt even without RoP. It is even more slot-starved than the original build however, so I've had to drop the Kismet and the 3rd slot in Stamina. Thankfully the former isn't missed with Soul Drain + Infrigidate/Sleet (Moonbeam's Fast Snipe damage bonus gets capped even with 1 foe hit by Soul Drain); and the latter is very superfluous with Heat Loss (or Ageless) running. The Fortuna Mistress pet is not quite as damaging against a Single Target as a Procced-up Ice Elemental. But it's not far off. And it's considerably more survivable (with "Prefer Ranged" AI; plus up to 30% scaling Damage Resistance) and it comes with a variety of CC (including a stackable Mag3 Hold and a Mag4 Stun). It also has a rather decent Nuke that's available once per summoning which inflicts a -RechargeTime debuff for 20s that is even more potent in strength (70%) than a Cold Defender's Snow Storm (62.5%). So I suspect I have a winner... Still interested in other feedback/opinions though! 👍

Thanks for the response. Point taken RE Snow Storm/RoP. TT is mainly there as a mule for the DB set (plus the stacking immobilize effect to keep larger mobs away from me and/or bouncing in Sleet) - it was either that or Night Fall... AoE damage output is not really this toon's forte! 🤣 Unfortunately Life Drain is currently procced; and moving the Recharge-laden VA set to it would floor its activation rate (even the 5PPM VA Proc would only have 47.58% chance). I'm also not sure that the Absorb would actually benefit much from this - its buff seems to currently center from the caster (me!) anyway rather than the Sleet pseudopet. Currently Sleet is recastable within the VA proc's 20s duration; and with an average spawn of enemies it'll have capped liklihood of activation. So best case it might just overrwrite itself a bit sooner (on average every ~12.5s rather than every ~18.5s). Without ATOs being a concern I'd typically Slot Sleet with 1x Lv50+5 Rech plus 1x Acc/Rech HO or Ragnarok. Panacea Proc in Spirit Ward does indeed buff the target; they'll get a chance for some Health and Endurance upon casting and every 10 seconds thereafter (chance is exactly 50%). In *most* heals Panacea proc will end up buffing the target; Spirit Tree and Triage Beacon are particularly worthwhile...

Given Nature (Heals/Regen/Absorb, +Damage/ToHit, +Endurance Reduction, Damage Resistance buffs) and Dark (Slow, -ToHit/Regen/DamageResistance debuffs, +Stealth, more +Damage Resistance Buffs)... and all the +Defence and +Damage from Thug Leadership skills... Yeah, /Marine all the way. Shifting Tides by itself would clinch the deal; let alone the Synergy between Power of the Depths + Nature's various Regeneration effects and Toroidal Bubble capping your other Resistances. And it brings Endurance and Recovery buffs that the other sets are lacking in. And on-demand enemy deletion in Brine. TL;DR:

Also their individual abilities will often differ from power to power. Such as this rather cheeky little high five (600% normal accuracy!) Flooring ToHit chance is generally the thing to shoot for; as you can't do much about all their various +Accuracy Mods.

An Archvillian's level should be visible in your target window. Different AVs have different possible level ranges that they can spawn at, but when encountering one within a mission they'll generally obey the Team Leader's difficulty setting. Giant Monsters (not AVs!) are the ones that have hidden levels. For example: Jurassik spawns at level 40 and Kraken spawns at level 25. Or do you mean an AV's RANK bonus? That's always 1.5 From https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Attack_Mechanics: