Teklord

Good to know, I went looking but didn't find that reference

Some math: Average blaster will have roughly +100% dmg from slotting, +45% from musc alpha slot, and very generously +100% from other self sources. +245% total. Cap is +400% for blasters aka 500%. So +155% to hit the cap. Basically hitting the cap is 1.45x buff. Because each additional % to dmg has diminishing returns. To get 155% a corruptor needs to hit 6 entities. So not to hard to achieve. A defender will be at roughly +150% from slotting, ios, support hybrid, yada. So roughly the same to hit cap, +150. For a defender this is 1.6x buff. (note I didn't do the math on all the ATs, I was lazy) Aim is +60% Build up is +100%. The sum is roughly equal to the additional damage a kinetic adds to a blaster, the difference is the kinetic adds it for 45s and it recharges in ~15s (with self buffs). Aim+BU is a 90s second base recharge. Debuff sets don't self stack in most cases (Freezing Rain is an exception). They need to be placed before the charging scrapper, blaster, etc rushes into a new spawn and alphas. They are highly effective and are a straight multiple in most cases (including procs). So tar patch from a defender is 1.3x vs the 1.45x of a rolling kinetic. defender Freezing Rain is 1.4x, self stacks in longer fights and comes with some mitigation. Another thing about kinetics is though it has a clicky reputation you only are using 2 powers during fights for the most part. Fulcrum Shift which both buffs your team and debuffs the mobs dmg, and Transfusion which also debuffs -regen it also has the most powerful radial heal in the game. Kins are animation locked not recharged gated and so my rotation is mostly 3 AOEs, transfusion, 3 AOEs, FS when up, transfusion, etc. In general on tough targets I cast transfusion every 4 powers. But on rolling steamrolls I am normally just casting FS when up, AOEs, and the odd single target to kill a cyclops or something. There is also a trick with kinetics. Always cast FS. if you are tracking your +dmg it is tempting to save it when you personally are capped, but not everyone is in range of every FS, just cast it, it will be back very soon. Optimal group play is to CAST FS when it is up. Don't save it, don't theory craft based on the first spawn and wanted to nuke it. Kinetics is all about spawn 2 onward. The first spawn of a door mission is to let the eager use their nukes and feel good. The kinetics job is to make every other spawn just as efficient and dead as the first. The funny thing here is that the safest way to play is rolling steamroll through missions and this is also where kinetics thrive. Don't split the group by having a leading group and a long sprawling tail doing cleanup work. Kill the whole darn spawn, it goes MUCH MUCH faster if the high dps peeps don't run off leaving the lowest dps to cleanup paragon protectors, cyclops, and master illusionists.

Play a kinetic, you will end up on multiple kinetic teams. And then you will learn to get disappointed in PUG kinetics. The lack of speed boost hurts, but the fact that you get powers so much earlier then live means you rarely don't have transference to rely on. No one sits on the damage cap all the time regardless of blaster misinfo unless you are on a steamrolling team with good kinetics. I was also under the impression that the resistance debuff cap is -500%

Fulcrum Shift has a 45 second duration, and slotted a roughly 17 second recharge time. The time to cast FS is basically anytime you have more than 3 mobs around you. BU+Aim is at best up every 30+ seconds. FS on a rolling steamroll team is up 100% of the time. Part of the problem is with a random kinetic they might think like Hjarki here posits and think that they need to SAVE FS. It doesn't need to be saved, I often triple stack FS and on AVs/GMs you cast it while up close giving +60% dmg from a corruptor on every cast, triple stacked that is +180% perma. Plus your attack chain on an AV has transfusion in it for -regen which also is healing the melee and anyone playing in kin range as well as reducing the damage the AV/GM does (because FS has -dmg too). This isn't to denigrate other sets, Any set with good -regen and -res is going to do well against AVs. But kinetics are not uniquely weak against AVs. In fact they are just not specialized vs them. A good kin turns a pug into a threshing machine. And this is only increased by the current proc meta which has people underslotting their attacks. That kin is increasing the dmg, increasing the recharge, increasing your end recovery AND supplying infinite endurance via transference. Most support sets will turn a team into a machine, there are exceptions (looking at you empathy) and some sets are slower (traps, TA) but very effective. But there is a lot of kin misinformation in these threads from the contrarians in the forums. The teams that don't do well with kinetics are the ones where everyone spreads out and solos a different part of the map. But that is true for all defenders/corruptors. The solo and individuals who are always rushing one or more spawns ahead don't benefit from support sets.

I used Halloween to level my Electric Blast/Energy Aura/Mu Sentinel Giga.Watt up to 50. I find Electric Blast is just so good on Sentinels. I am running 4 single target attacks and 4 aoes counting the nuke. All the AOEs are 10 targets and all are radial. Energize comes online at level 10 which means you are not dealing with endurance woes as long as you are exemped past level 10. All my powers have good DPA and Giga.Watt is a team player. I generally don't build soloers nowadays because that isn't what I want from COH. If I want to be alone I just gather badges.

You are correct and I did this for a long time, but that has me missing the buff portion of tide pool on my own group. So now I lean on Whitecap as the opener, which also does knockup, damage and a -15% res debuff.

Marine is a more complex set to play than most of the original ones but in a steamroll pug team it is pretty simple. You have two buffs and one toggle that you want to keep up. Toroidal Bubble - slotted this one is endurance positive, it helps endurance, recovery and resistance. Cast it when it is up, it recharges quickly. Barrier Reef - this is your pet, cast it when it dies off or just before (every 240 sec). The pet pulses an absorb buff and +defense. Shifting Tides - This is the toggle and the hardest one. Pick someone who is sticking with you and the bulk of the team and is in melee. keep it on them. Check that this is still active and if it isn't then pick someone who seems to fit the criteria. You have a non-perma buff you want to cast: Power of the Depths. - cast this one in combat while in your tide pool. now you have debuffs and spawn breakers. Whitecap - a teleport, a debuff -res, it does damage, and knockup. Tide Pool - a buff, a debuff, a slow and it also modifies your powers, Brine - a debuff -res and a pseudo attack with -HP. Single target Shoal Rush - slow, -def, and it interacts with Tide Pool. Soothing Wave - heal and -dmg debuff to enemies Really here the question is do you open with Tide Pool or Whitecap. I lean hard on opening with WhiteCap and casting whitecap when it is up. It does aoe damage and the knockup is good mitigation. I then immediately follow with Tide Pool. This is good since Tide Pool is a bit slow and locks you for over 2 seconds. The benefit is huge so use it. Now I will wait a bit before opening to have my rabbit (with Shifting Tides on them) run in. I don't let them do much, I just WhiteCap in while they are in range of the spawn, or maybe it is a rolling fight with more coming and I just whitecap in to move myself to the new center. Brine I just make part of my single target attack chain. It does good damage to undamaged targets AND has a debuff -30% res. I am disappointed in Shoa Rush and will be switching it out for Soothing Wave on my next respec. So at this point you are basically casting buffs when they are available. You open with Whitecap and add in Tide Pool. You then use as much radial AOEs as possible (I am water so that means Whirlpool and Water Burst and Geyser ). As a defender I basically am casting all my stuff all the time. With good slotting on Toroidal Bubble you are great on endurance. If leveling then you can spend some inf on recovery serum to keep going. I normally just stick in the main murder bubble of the pug and break spawns with whomever is also doing that. Everything has fast recharge except the T9. I will skip either Skoal Rush or Soothing Wave. I have a preference to Soothing Wave as a keeper right now because my defenses are a bit patchwork atm and that heal is better sustain. This is a busy set BUT many of the buffs/debuffs also do damage so you really are just augmenting your attack chain with stuff like Whitecap and Brine. Solo is a different story and isn't quite so Murderbot (throw myself at the enemy while they throw themselves at me until one of us is disabled) I will make one comment. DO NOT SAVE powers and stuff for the perfect spawn size. Just fire that off and clean up your mobs. Marine is not for waiting on a tank to grab 3 spawns together in one pile and then doing something. This loose guide is based on a steamroll moving murderball pug, and that is something that Marine excels at.

I am 100% agreement with Greycat.

Map open, tracking where the bulk of the team is. I also often teleport to players when have difficultly navigating maps and obstructions. I also love porting in to a player at low health and helping them out.

I made a joke in a mission with one that these are hospital layouts with wings. Hospitals, especially university hospitals are some of the hardest to navigate buildings in the US.

In no way is the discord better than the forums for information dissemination. Searching is worse, it is harder to see activity streams and it is so much more noisier with much less signal. I remember when everyone went to IRC from Usenet and it was a similar loss of information. But I am older and appreciate being able to digest information from something other than a firehose.

I will say that I love my FF/Sonic defender since she provides -55% res with combined Force Bomb, Sonic debuffs, and Repulsion Bolt. She also gives very good +def buffs and 25%+ DDR. She is also providing quite a bit of soft defense via knockup, a fight with her looks a lot like earthquake is going off because she is force bomb, howl, shockwave, in packs.

I remember RO but well I was one of the founders of Pinball Wizards.

On my Psi/Kin corruptor I skipped Siphon Power and it feels better. Siphon Power if you are using it demands a lot of your animation time on an AV/GM/etc. And I am also spamming transfusion on most AVs for the -regen and the +health for teammates. I have FS down to about 17 seconds on my own self buffs, if there are team +recharge it is sooner. I am not someone who saves FS for the perfect hit, I use it nearly on cooldown and track my +dmg in combat attributes. On my defender kins I tend to keep siphon power but tbh it is pretty clunky. My corruptors feel more like they are doing damage and buffing the team where my defenders (kin/elec) feels more focused on buff/debuff. I love my psi/kin and he also uses combat teleport, which is awesome since all of my kins are animation gated not recharge gated. Psi being fast, combat teleport being fast and most kinetic powers being average. I don't really have animation time for siphon power.

You don't need to hit the fire animation for jump pack to give you the speed boost. Track combat attributes.

I track movement speed in combat attributes. Besides fly being absolutely very slow in live you also have the perspective issue where bigger characters feel slower than smaller even when they are not. In this case it is distance to the ground and how you use that for gauging speed. I use fly with afterburner and jump pack and have lots of binds to help. But my base fly speed is ~70mph, and it goes to ~90mph with either jump pack or afterburner and ~107mph with both. Now I also use teleport on multiple toons. It is a harder power to use and REQUIRES binds to get good value from. But I am in the 90 percentile of first arrivers on my TP characters. Tight turns are TPs weakness.

I use the big kind that also goes under my keyboard.

I skipped Steam Spray on my Water/Marine because of Whitecap. I can have a full AOE attack chain without steam spray and Whitecap has me strongly preferring radial AOE attacks. I would consider keeping it in other circumstances.

I see the wiki link got me set. Basically put it in Health

TBH since the creation of IOs in like issue 6 or so, I have never "finished" a toon before my altitis got me. I might actually get there soon with Psychokilla my psi/kin corruptor but he isnt' 50 yet so we will see.

I am curious since I run a kinetic right now and I also have it in health. If I found a way to get a slot to put it into Transfusion which has a base recharge of 8 seconds what would the difference be? I am very curious and don't know how to calculate it. Or am I misreading or misunderstanding that we SHOULD NOT put the numina proc into an active power that has a recharge of 320 seconds.

Why should Numina's +regen/+recovery go in an active power? Just curious.

I do find that on ITFs casting my big bubble with 25% DDR to all in it on cooldown is helpful. I find it super helpful in the first mission where we get mobbed by Nictus/Dark Dwarf/Dark Novas and later on the various AV fights (computer console, final fight at door). Also what I am hearing is that basically everyone but SR will find value in the DDR I provide especially since I am also providing about 34% def to all (but psi) and some mez protection. This does help me find more value as a Force Field Defender even in high level content. The FF rework is amazing and I am providing debuffs as well as buffs. But I do like how the debuff resistance is helpful too.

I was going to say I think I was on your team but then say the comp. I had a similar experience yesterday also with leveling characters and including a marine. We actually had a number of toons with support sets. It was murder.

Thank you all. This helps a ton