Maelwys

That's not a bad power selection, but the slotting has considerable room for improvement. As-is it's missing ED-capped damage in Storm Kick (I suspect that whoever built it made the mistake of leaving Assault Core Embodiment toggled on in Mids - it incorrectly adds +DamageEnhancement rather than +DamageBuff) and using -resistance procs in Crippling Axe Kick and Dragon's Tail (rather than the FF, which only has a 33% chance of activation and only shaves 1.27s off when it procs; so probably isn't adding much to your attack chain). Focus Chi is also technically underslotted - it can take 70.84% recharge enhancement without the Build Up Proc's activation chance being negatively impacted. The sets in the various +Defensive Powers and Tough are a bit all over the place - the 5-piece LOTGs should be altered to leave out Defence/Recharge instead of Endurance/Recharge, and the IO slotting configuration with the most Endurance Reduction in it should go in Maneuvers. Accuracy is way overcapped - all the attacks are well over the 95% Hit Rate cap versus +4s (let alone the regular +3s you see at endgame) even without Tactics or the Kismet. A 6-piece Numina set in Health is also a bit ridiculous considering the state of +regen in the current game and the shortcomings of the rest of the build; it'd be much better served splitting that up and using more procs in Physical Perfection and Stamina and adding a 6th Mako's Bite in Storm Kick to keep Ranged Defence the same. Without swapping out any powers or moving too much around, it could look something like this (same Defences/Resistances if not a smidge higher; same global recharge rate. Lower +Regen but more +Healing Procs so overall health return works out higher. Bucketloads more Endurance Recovery and significantly higher damage output!) All that said; I still prefer the first build - this one won't be able to softcap its defences on Incarnate content (needs 58.75% defence to Softcap) even with Barrier running; and even regular taskforces on the new difficulty settings will require some extra (softcap will be anywhere from 45% to 75% plus another +13.75% versus AVs).

If you mean Power transfer: Chance to Heal Self, that's usually best put in an auto/toggle (there's one in each of Stamina and Physical Perfection in the above build I posted). It's 3 PPM, so if you stick one in something with a recharge as long as Seishinteki Kyoyo then you usually won't see the full benefit from it - the chance will often be waaaay overcapped. Although since it's not unique, there's certainly nothing to stop you sticking an extra one in if you have the slots free.

Maybe something like the below? I've swapped a few slots around, added the passive accolades and maximised the Enhancement %s without changing the powers (although you could probably get away with trading Focused Accuracy for Conserve Power if you really need more - you have +perception already so FA's main purpose will be whenever you're fighting against something that does crazy amounts of autohit -ToHit Debuffs and you don't want to pop a Yellow Insp!) Looks like the recovery is now working out at +3.72 End/Sec and -0.77 End/Sec from the toggles (except for SoS and FA and Weave, since all are situational) which brings your surplus to +2.95 End/Sec. With SoS running too the surplus drops a bit to +2.63 End/Sec; which should still be a lot more manageable than before. Note that you'll only need to use Weave versus Incarnate Content. The damage output will be a smidge higher due to the rebalanced Enhancement %s plus the extra Proc in Dragon's Tail; and the S/L resistances are now just shy of 66%... which means that due to the reactive Defences Unique, they'll eventually hit the 75% hardcap if you start taking too much damage (and you can reach the cap much quicker if you run perma-Barrier). Note that the Lore pets will also actually help with +recovery a bit - Empowering Burst will be up about 50% of the time during the BP Radial's summon period.

Good Stuff! Certainly sounds like a bit of a eureka/lightbulb moment 🙂 That's actually a very good example of why everyone started using "Damage Per Activation" as the measuring stick. Bitter Freeze Ray takes more than twice as long to animate as Freeze Ray... (2.64 seconds compared to 1.188 seconds) but it only does 38% more damage. So if you're trying to deal the most damage in the shortest amount of time (like chaining your attacks together in the most optimal way) then using Bitter Freeze Ray is usually worse. As you've probably discovered by now, in the Corruptor version of the Ice Blast powerset, the single-target powers with the highest DPA are Bitter Ice Blast (72.04) and Freeze Ray (70.21). Bitter Freeze Ray is a long way behind (43.60), just a tiny smidge ahead of Ice Blast (37.01) and Ice Bolt (35.11). If you go by the power text descriptions, you'll see: Extreme, Extreme, Extreme, Superior and High. However realistically it's closer to: Extreme, Extreme, Medium, Medium and Medium. So those descriptions are indeed rather misleading. An in-depth examination of things is probably beyond the scope of this thread, but:

How about regular team content. Like Missions? Or a Taskforce? On 4x8? With player debuffs/enemy buffs? And the new difficulty additions? My point in the last post was not that Fire Blast is bad. It was that Fire Blast is only THAT far ahead of the rest of the pack whenever you're (i) soloing and (ii) restricted to only using SO enhancements. Fire will always be a good powerset. But the bulk of its damage is tied up in Blaze and Inferno; and its secondary effect is a DoT. That means it tends to corpse-blast a lot on teams; and it has no procable secondary effects (unlike -Defence or -ToHit or -Slow Movement); and it needs a lot of +Recharge slotting to achieve an optimal attack chain. A high-end IO build will therefore often add less additional performance to Fire Blast than it does to other powersets. Fire Blast starts off Tier 1 (with SOs and minimal investment) and remains at Tier 1 (after heavy investment - an expensive IO build and full T4 Incarnates). The other blast sets start off Tier 2 or 3 or 4... some of them stay there, but a few end up at Tier 1 or Tier S depending on the team size + content. Sonic was always rather mediocre as a soloing powerset - it's not "irredeemable", but often the best use it has is to soften up a foe for your secondary's "blapp" attacks. It's considerably better on team content due to the -resistance effect; but like Fire Blast it also suffers from a lack of additional procing opportunities; so it'll never be a Tier 1 set. Other sets can be though - an IOed Fire/ Blaster is good at team content, but Ice/ and Water/ and the newly-revamped Electrical/ can often contend on the same level, if not a smidge higher.

Thought I'd give some direct feedback here rather than just in the Mastermind forum: The proposed fix here feels like a bit of a cludge. It brings the Protector Bots into line with the others, but it also buffs their MM's own defence and lowers the overall defence of the Assault Bot and Battle Drones. It's simultaneously adjusting too many numbers for my liking. Bots/ is a top tier powerset already - surely it doesn't need to buff the master's defence any higher than it already does? If the the goal here is to reduce Bots/ setup time and bring the defence of the Protector Bots into line with the others; then perhaps a better tweak would be to make the Protector Bot bubbles function similar to how the Ember Demon's resistance shields work? e.g. use two effects for the Protector Bot bubbles, one that only targets Robotic Henchmen (AoE 7.5% base defence that stacks twice; call it 'Force Shield') and the other that only targets the player (Single-Target 7.5% base defence that doesn't stack, call it 'Force Shield Owner') --> Job done! 🙂 To my mind the most unfortunate side effect of the proposed change will be that unless you've got a secondary that has some extra form of defence buff, now none of your henchmen will be capable of permanently hitting the softcap. Example: my Bot/Kin has Maneuvers and an Agility Alpha and both +PetDefence uniques and two +5 level 50 Defence IOs in Protector Bots. The Assault Bot and Battle Drones sit at 40.02% Defence. So with Barrier, they get bumped over the 45% softcap mark permanently. Without Barrier Running: With Barrier Running (about to expire, at 119 seconds): These upcoming changes mean that those henchmen on my Bot/Kin would end up sitting just a few percent shy of the softcap (they'll lose 3.42% defence, so the final total will be 42.6%), which is a little bit annoying for soloing things. Whilst the Protector Bots will become level with the others (currently they only hit 33.22% defence with Barrier running) they don't tend to pull as much aggro as the Assault Bot or Battle Drones in the first place. It will however also mean that the Henchmen take much less time to buff themselves up at the start of a mission; and my MM themselves will also gain a bit of extra +Defence% that they don't currently need, so I may be able to drop some set bonus slots and work some extra Damage Procs in. Overall I suspect that my DPS will rise a bit, but my survivability will drop slightly (at least when soloing).

Realistically it means that pet defences will be equal. Protector bots were lagging behind. But the flip side is that unless you've got a secondary that has some extra form of defence buff, now none of your henchmen will be capable of permanently hitting the softcap. Example: my Bot/Kin has Maneuvers and an Agility Alpha and both +PetDefence uniques and two +5 level 50 Defence IOs in Protector Bots. The Assault Bot and Battle Drones sit at 40.02% Defence. So with Barrier, they get bumped over the 45% softcap mark permanently. Without Barrier Running: With Barrier Running (about to expire, at 119 seconds): These upcoming changes mean that those henchmen on my Bot/Kin will now end up sitting just a few percent shy of the softcap (they'll lose 3.42% defence, so the final total will be 42.6%), which is a little bit annoying for soloing things. However the Protector Bots will become level with the others (currently they only hit 33.22% defence with Barrier running) and it'll be much quicker to buff up at the start of a mission. My MM themselves will also gain a bit of extra Defence that they don't currently need, so I may be able to drop some set bonus slots and work some extra Damage Procs in. Overall I suspect that my DPS will rise a bit, but my survivability will drop slightly (at least when not teaming. Multibox duoing etc will be just as safe as ever). Unfortunately Protector Bots don't pull anywhere near as much aggro as the Drones and Assault Bot, so the survivability buff probably won't actually make much difference to them on this particular MM. Whenever I lose a henchman during a +4x8 farming run, it tends to be a Battle Drone. Edit: Honestly I'm really not sure why they've decided to go this route. Bots/ is a top tier powerset already - surely it doesn't need to buff the master's defence any higher than it already does? If the the goal here is to reduce Bots/ setup time and bring the defence of the Protector Bots into line with the others; then perhaps a better tweak would be to make the Protector Bot bubbles function similar to how the Ember Demon's resistance shields work? e.g. use two effects for the Protector Bot bubbles, one that only targets Robotic Henchmen (AoE 7.5% base defence that stacks twice; call it 'Force Shield') and the other that only targets the player (Single-Target 7.5% base defence that doesn't stack, call it 'Force Shield Owner') --> Job done! 🙂

Chilling Ray is the sleep and it does indeed take 'Slow Movement' sets. The Impeded Swiftness Proc and the Gladiator's Javelin Proc are eagerly awaiting some company... 🤩 (I've also got a few caltrop-carpet-bombing toons that are looking forward to it too)

From what I can see, it's solo clear times on an average mission map with SO enhancements only (no IOs, no procs, no incarnates, etc). That's why Fire Blast is so far ahead of the rest of the pack - that setup hasn't been particularly applicable to real-world CoH builds ever since issue 9.

Basically, it has always been this way. As I mentioned in your Blaster thread @Diantane, those terms such as "superior", "minor", "extreme" etc. actually mean very little. If you take the time to ask around or dig through the old forums or look through enough historical patch notes etc... you'll find that many, many years ago there was a whole stink in the CoH playerbase about lack of transparency. At that time, players couldn't tell what their powers actually did and had to datamine or guess at everything... (For Example: "Combat Jumping" increases a character's defence. If you go by the in-game text, then you might think it raises it by a worthwhile amount. But in reality it's extremely tiny). Eventually (in Feb 2008) the devs agreed. And they ended up giving us goodies like the "Real Numbers Display" (AKA the Combat Attributes Window) so that players could finally tell what effects powers grant and compare everything properly. It is generally considered extremely unwise to go by the text descriptions of powers. They're something of a "noob trap". (Veteran CoH players will know that many of those descriptions are downright erroneous and contain misleading/outdated information. Group Fly was a prime culprit of this for decades. Dark Nova Emanation is STILL waiting for a fix...) Instead, take a look at the actual effects of the power. You can do this in multiple ways: (i) Out of the game. Visit this website and click on the different archetypes to see a detailed breakdown of exactly what each power does. Or just download Mids Reborn and flick between the different view modes (Damage Per Activation is the one that's actually useful). (ii) Inside the game. Whenever you're viewing a power, such as on the character creation or level-up 'power selection' window or the enhancement screen... click on one of the "Show Detailed Info here" buttons (sometimes labelled with a green "i" symbol). Just make sure to set the slider to level 50 for an equal comparison across ATs. "Damage per Activation Time" is the main thing to consider for comparing two different powers, since that shows you what their actual damage output will be in an attack chain. (It's also possible to calculate manually: Divide the "Average Damage" by the attack's activation/animation time rounded up to the nearest 0.132 seconds)

In fairness, Diantane has posted a LOT of new threads over the past several months complaining about X or Y or Z. And in each case whenever the forum regulars have tried to help and make genuinely helpful suggestions or explain how things work... silence. The thread goes cold and the advice is apparently ignored and never heeded. Often a new thread pops up a few days later in a different subforum with a similar-sounding complaint. One could assume some kind of attention span deficit thing, or a lack of understanding of how to check thread replies; but after a certain point the sheer volume of those nonsensical threads has resulted in the OP wearing a lot of people's patience extremely thin; and ending up on a lot of ignore lists. A few people have (somewhat understandably) apparently begun automatically downvoting them. As if that actually means anything. Personally I'd still usually give them the benefit of the doubt. And indeed I've commented "helpfully" on many of the OP's threads without drawing attention to their behaviour. But it's rather difficult to explain the function of things to someone who has a completely different expectation of what they should be and who won't remain around to read your answer. For the record, and to remain on topic: As far as I'm aware, in CoH an "Epic Power Pool" doesn't mean a pool that contains epic overpowered abilities that turn you into a UltraSuperDuper character. It means that your character level needs to be in the uppermost tiers - the epic tiers (originally it was levels 41+) whenever you are granted access to that power pool. Epic Power Pools were the original blueside option for this, and they contain powers that round out a character: so Ranged Archetypes will gain access to melee attacks and armor toggles. Melee Archetypes will get ranged attacks and control powers, etc. Patron Power Pools are similar - these were originally redside-only and they follow the particular theme of the Arachnos patron that is associated with each pool. They typically have a similar array of rounding-out abilities based on your Archetype (and often also a temporary pet). That's not to say that truly "Epic" powers don't exist in CoH; but they're different from Epic Power Pools. I believe what the OP is actually looking for here is Incarnate Abilities - however they'd first need to get to level 50 and then spend some time unlocking them.

Set bonuses can be had elsewhere, for the most part. And usually even if you want all the recharge possible, you'll only need to use 5-pieces in your attacks - so that's one proc from the set plus another from the 6th enhancement slot, for two procs total. That said, for proccing purposes sets are often a bad idea in attacks since there are very few of them that can take more than half an IO's worth of recharge % enhancement without dipping below the 90% chance cap for regular 3.5 PPM procs. Optimal Proc slotting is typically two +3 Acc/Dam HOs (or one of those and a +5 lvl 50 X/Dam IO) plus 4 procs, assuming a Musculature Alpha and no endurance reduction requirements (Ageless, etc.). But it's very difficult to exploit that on sets that don't deal -Defence, -ToHit, Slow or Knockback because of the lack of available damage procs in single target ranged IO sets.

I can confirm that Power Boost has never buffed Regen/Recovery. It does however buff raw +Endurance/+Healing; and (far more importantly) the +Defence granted via Fortitude. My slotting for Adrelaline Boost back in the day on live was 2x level 50 Rech IOs and a level 50 Rech/EndMod IO. That was enough to *just* put its +Recovery over 1000%, meaning that it offset the crash from a Blaster's T9 Nuke. These days I'd either stick two +5 level 50 Rech IOs in it, or a 5x/6x healing set for extra set bonus +recharge.

Personally I'm a big fan of Ice Blast these days. It's one of the few Blast sets that doesn't require any recharge slotting to make a decent attack chain, and all its abilities take at least three procs (Ranged, Slow, -ToHit). It can stack high Mag holds, and a lot of -recharge debuffs, so it's also quite survivable. It's not wonderful at AOE outside of the T9, but when that goes off it's a spawn melter. Objectively, I suspect that Sonic's stacking -res debuffs will be "better" most of the time. But I'd still not discount the performance of proc-heavy blast sets on a defender. Lower base damage = better relative proc damage after all! [Edit: Voltak makes an excellent point. Secondary probably doesn't matter as much as the rest of the build. For an Empath I'd much rather have loads of +recharge, Hasten, Power Boost and a bad Secondary than just have the "best" Secondary!!]

A Demon/Thermal Mastermind is probably one of the most optimal choices. It'd bring an AoE heal, +Resistance shields and a very decent +Damage buff... plus pets which are resilient and good at both melee and ranged damage output. Also since both those powersets are resistance based they will benefit greatly from the Crab's +Defense aura buffs. Thermal doesn't need much in the way of babysitting, and neither do Demons (providing you're not spamming the whip attacks). So you could just stick Warmth on autofire and then manually recast the bubbles + Forge every few mins. The end result will be Softcapped Defence, high Resistance, spammable AoE healing and on-demand damage buffs and -regen debuffs.

Generally the thing to look for in attacks is not whether the game lists their damage as "minor" or "superior" or "extreme", but their DPA (Damage Per Animation). That's because it doesn't matter much if an attack does 1000 damage if it takes several seconds to animate. You can work DPA out in game if you turn on the 'detailed information' section of each power, but mids has a straightforward mode toggle for it. Traditionally Fire Blast is actually considered top of the leaderboards - its main attacks are decently damaging and animate in under 1.5 seconds, so it can put out a LOT of damage in a short period of time by chaining those attacks back to back. Ice Blast is a close second. Both of those powersets also deal a type of damage that is more rarely resisted in PVE than something like Assault Rifle's Lethal. However once you start adding Proc enhancements, powersets like Ice Blast get much better (lots of its attacks can slot multiple chance for damage, chance for -res, etc procs; and it has more "worthwhile" attacks to cycle so doesn't suffer from dropping recharge slotting) but Fire Blast stays largely the same. Fire is still brilliant these days for AoE damage, but it's become lacking a little bit for Single Target damage. Sonic Blast's gimmick is the -resistance debuff in each of its attacks. Traditionally it was seen as more of a team-friendly powerset since that -res secondary effect raises the damage output of your entire team. However it's DPA is very poor (and it doesn't proc well) so you're usually still better off with a different powerset.

Mine skipped *Single Shot* and *Cutting Beam* from BR; and *Taser*, *Smoke Grenade* and *Time Bomb* from Dev. Whilst it can take an Achilles' Heel Proc, the DPA is a bit pants. So whenever Overcharge is on cooldown I'd usually just rather toebomb a Trip Mine. The Gun Drone is basically extra damage output that doesn't interfere with your attack chain. It's fire-and-forget every 90 seconds; so it's difficult to justify not having (at least) one of them up.

Spines has LOTS of AoE potential. Unfortunately it also has painfully slow animation times. The DPA of 'Spine Burst' in particular is rather rubbish. Ripper is OK; especially with the wider arcs on a Tanker... but it's no Fire Sword Circle or Frozen Aura or Footstomp. Lethal Damage is also one of the most resisted damage types in PVE (it's not quite as bad as Psychic at endgame - but it still suffers against anything vaguely robotic; and lots of EBs/AVs). So outside of specific AE farming missions it can get a bit meh (as my poor old Katana Scrapper can attest...)

That's interesting RE the +Endurance scaling... I could have sworn that +Endurance is always a flat boost (and/or based on your Base Maximum rather than your Adjusted Maximum, the same way that the "Absorb" mechanic functions)! 😕 My characters (at least the ones without Ageless!) aren't likely to bottom out in a minute, but it is pretty rare for them to remain between 1% and 89% endurance for prolonged periods of time. A minute simply seemed like a good benchmark: at endgame that's several spawns of regular mobs, or most if not all of an AV fight. My major complaint about PS is that its average performance might be decent, but how it delivers that performance is in practice very "spikey" (they both kick in every 10 seconds in auto powers, but I'd much rather have Panacea's 50% chance for 7.5% Endurance than PS's 25% chance for 10% Endurance!). I'm a mathhead whenever it comes to character building. When planning my character's level 50 build I'll always work out an optimum attack chain ahead of time; and then calculate the exact global recharge rate and recovery required to maintain that chain indefinitely (whilst running all their toggles etc) ... but PS's spikiness makes it difficult for me to rely on that particular proc activating during any period where the character would benefit fully from its effect. I'm always short on enhancement slots, and for me the return granted by a PS proc in Stamina will very rarely actually equal or exceed that of a regular +5 Common IO; because their endurance bar will hardly ever remain under 90% full for long periods of time. Admittedly I rarely exemp my fully-IOed characters except for TFs - and there are usually enough buffs flying around then that losing a bit of Damage or Endurance slotting is not a major concern for me. Yeah, that lack of much difference in Stamina is pretty much why PS's proc remains firmly in last place on my +recovery wishlist. I'm all for cramming as much performance into a build as possible, but +Recovery is one of the few effects that become essentially worthless to stack more of after it reaches a certain point. So generally once I hit that figure, any extra enhancement slots will get thrown into boosting damage output, damage mitigation or recharge. Physical Perfection typically just gets a Power Transfer Proc thrown into its default slot, unless I really want to scrounge a spare slot from Health (Panacea in one, Miracle in the other...) 😀

Point taken RE SOs. My comparison maths was based on +5 Level 50 Common IOs, so the ranking was probably more accurate for endgame. Those two are more floaty; since +Recovery =/= +Endurance The first scales with your maximum Endurance pool (Accolades and set bonuses) and the second is flat. That pushes the benefit of Raw Recovery from Common IOs in Stamina so close to the PS proc that it's basically a wash. I'll accept the PS +Endurance helps versus sappers, but so does Panacea and it's a lot more reliable at kicking in. Panacea will also end up on the same timing cycle as Performance Shifter after login, which means often both will proc simultaneously. What I mean by that is that whenever you first log in (or zone!), your character syncs up with the server clock. All of their toggle and auto powers and set bonuses then immediately trigger if they're able to do so, which starts their refresh times cycling. In other words; After you log off and log in, any procs or set bonuses in your auto powers immediately have a chance to trigger, and then start counting again from "0 seconds" on the same cycle. Every 10 seconds they will have another chance to activate. They can't activate at 9.9 seconds or at 10.1 seconds - it's 10 seconds exactly. This means that if a character has both a Panacea and a PS proc slotted, then chances are pretty decent that both procs will often trigger at exactly the same time. You can see this happening more clearly with multiple Power Transfer procs and Panacea in the same build (e.g. Health + Stamina + Quick Recovery + Superior Conditioning + Physical Perfection) - it's not uncommon to see 4-5 green numbers floating over your head on the same server tick; then you need to wait exactly 10 seconds to see another green number. But Panacea has double the activation chance of PS, and a higher average return... so when combined with the latter's unreliability (I want that +endurance to kick in when I'm less than 90% full but more than 0% full - is my character likely to remain in those conditions longer than a minute?) I find that PS is often superfluous. (In theory you could log in, unslot a proc like PS, and then slot it again; which breaks the cycle time up... but you'd need to keep doing that every time you zone!)

For recovery purposes: Panacea Unique is always the most powerful, by far. Miracle Unique is 2nd-best. Performance Shifter Unique is 3rd-best. A regular SO/IO in Stamina is a very close 4th. A second regular SO/IO in Stamina is a very close 5th. Then lastly there's the Numina Unique. For regeneration purposes: the Power Transfer Proc (which is NOT Unique - you can slot multiple copies of it) comfortably beats the Panacea Unique, which beats regular SOs/IOs, which beat the Numina Unique. Numina is technically "worst" at both... but it double-jobs. Therefore Panacea is the only one that's better than it 100% of the time. Personally my baseline is a Panacea + Miracle in health; and 2x Regular SOs/IOs and a Power Transfer in Stamina. I'll try to throw extra on top of that if I have the slots free, but I dislike Performance Shifter's unreliability - I'd much rather have the guaranteed steady recovery from regular IOs (and often Numina as well!) and since the average performance difference is negligible I tend to drop it. I never really miss the extra recovery - and I build all my characters to maintain an unbroken maximum-dps attack chain without running dry at endgame, often even without ageless. Performance Shifter only has a Proc rate of 25%. This means that over the course of a minute it has a 18.00% chance of not kicking in (see cumulative binomial probability) compared to the "always active" additional recovery from a regular or second regular IO in Stamina... and the theoretical performance difference between them is so slight (the region of 0.04 End/Sec) that PS becomes less attractive. Panacea technically suffers from the same issue, but its higher proc rate of 50% means that it is much more reliable in practice than PS - over the course of a minute it has only a 1.56% chance of not kicking in, and its theoretical average recovery rate is also considerably higher. Tidge has it right there actually: The Preventative Medicine unique functions as a set bonus. This means that it's always active, regardless of whether you actually use the power it's slotted into or not (it even works if the power is unavailable because you're exemplaring!) You'd be correct for the Numina and Miracle uniques, since they don't function as set bonuses but as a glorified proc e.g. a "chance for X to happen every Y seconds". Although in their case, it's a 100% chance for an effect to kick in and the effect lasts for 120 seconds... which means that their effect would always be active in a Perma Dull Pain setup anyway. And personally I'd be loathe to give up Perma Dull Pain on any INV; even in a high-end one with hardcapped everything, self-healing from their secondary powerset and a bunch of extra DDR from ageless. (Edit: Also, I should probably point out it's perfectly doable to make multiple powers trigger as soon as they're recharged with zero extra clicking effort. Whilst it's only possible to flag a single power as "autofiring" (as-in place the green circle around it) you can trigger as many powers as you want in sequence via the game's built-in keybinds/macro system. Many of my keybinds trigger a list of things like *Hasten* and *Dull Pain* FIRST before the other underlying powers fire off...)

Don't forget Staff. It pairs particularly nicely with the likes of WP and Bio because they natively buff E/N/F/C Defence and Guarded Spin buffs Lethal/Melee... 😀 Honestly, lots of different powerset combinations work. You can even cover certain holes with Epic/Patron pool abilities (such as 'Conserve Power', 'Darkest Night' or in the case Scrappers/Stalkers, 'Shadow Meld') or Incarnates (such as Ageless and Barrier). However if you're asking about efficiency, then SD is probably the set that is overall the most well-rounded (and yes, /SR is good too, but it doesn't have +Damage buffs or a Teleport Nuke...) It lacks a self-heal, but Dark Melee or Radiation Melee have that covered. Rad Melee + SD is rather difficult to beat in most sorts of content. Note that nothing is completely immortal - autohit abilities and certain mobs that deal ridiculous amounts of particularly tricky debuffs (such as the Crimson Prototype from Market Crash) can + will wreck your face if you're not careful. You can beat them, but it requires a bit more effort than "just roll your face over the keyboard until the mission ends"... ⌨️ ⌨️ 🥳

Indeed! A full discussion is probably beyond the scope of this thread, but if the OP wants to get into the nitty-gritty of it all, a good place to start would be https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Attack_Mechanics As a very quick summary:

In a vacumn, +Def beats +Res. That's because you cap at 90% Resistance (you take 10% damage) compared to Defence flooring your enemies hit rate at a 5% ToHit chance (you take 5% damage) However you can generally get a mixture of both - and characters start off with an inherent 50% chance to be "missed" by foes; which helps keeps things even-ish until you start really stacking up the numbers. The general consensus in the CoH community is to layer things. Focus on Softcapping Defence first, then raise your Resistance and Maximum Hit Points as much as possible. For a melee character, aim for at least 45% Defence (regular content) or 59% Defence (incarnate content) on at least your "Positional" Melee defence or your "Typed" S/L defence. Then make sure that you're packing some Defence Debuff Resistance (DDR) if at all possible. However certain defensive powersets have very little if any +Defence buffs - some examples here would be Radiation Armor and Electric Armor and Regeneration. In those cases, a valid way to build would be to largely ignore Defence and instead focus on hardcapping your damage resistance at 90%; and/or increasing your other mitigation ("clicky heals") by stacking +Recharge and Maximum Hitpoints. WP is a "good" powerset for damage mitigation - but not because it's Regen-based. WP provides +Resistance and +Defence and +Maximum Hitpoints in addition to its +Regeneration. +Regeneration is currently the weakest form of damage mitigation, because it is only designed to cope with a certain level of incoming damage. Beyond that level it gets completely overwhelmed. By itself, +regen simply can't keep up with the sheer amount of incoming damage that a melee character can expect to recieve in today's game. And a LOT of the newer enemy types have powers which debuff your regneration rate: +Absorb is often objectively better than +Regeneration because it can't be debuffed. I should probably point out that I do actually like +Regeneration. My namesake on live was a Katana/Regen Scrapper, and he could solo nearly anything. But that was due to him being melee defence softcapped (via Divine Avalanche) combined with being at the maximum hit point cap with a decent level of health regeneration.

WHUT? You're /Flame Mastery. A dead hero does PLENTY of damage! More seriously: swap a few enhancement slots around. Get Bonfire perma with a KB->KD IO in it. That'll take care of 99% of your mitigation needs. (a Sudden Acceleration KB->KD plus a few Common Rechs is fine. Bonfire doesn't need accuracy and you'll deal plenty of AoE damage from other sources. But you can 5-slot sets like Bombardment or Ragnarok if you've enough spare slots free) Then slot RoTP for Recharge, Damage and another KB->KD IO. So if you *DO* ever faceplant, you get to nuke things. And they'll take the full 3 ticks of damage (which works out very similar to Inferno!) rather then gettting shoved out of range by the first tick. (my goto for RoTP is 3x Overwhelming Force Rech/End, Dam/Rech/End, Dam/KD plus an Armageddon Dam/Rech. Combined with a Musculature Alpha) For Mez protection, Clarion Core Epiphany Destiny is difficult to beat because it's perma. But you may find that Melee Core Embodiment Hybrid suits you better. It's also worth noting that Assault Radial Hybrid is generally a bit higher performance than Assault Core Hybrid because Blasters tend to be saturated for +damage buffs already via Defiance, Aim and Build Up.