tidge

Mapserver invasions are by level-less enemies.

I remain surprised that *many* folks will repeat, with authority, that for open-world invasions "team leaders have to turn up notoriety." I always feel like this is a case of "Tell me you don't play that much (variety), without telling me you don't play that much." Why even repeat advice if you don't know what that advice will actually do? The multi-league zone lag is very real, and will affect everyone in the zone even players completely out of perception range. I witnesses this while solo fighting Paladins (and their spawns) in Kings Row. It wasn't bad with a single league, but one a second league was formed in the zone things went into near-slideshow mode.

Preach on! I'm sick of folks in open-world invasion leagues claiming they are losing XP during Mapserver because some team leader doesn't have their settings at +4x8. The last two times I saw that specific complaint, those players were on leagues of low-level non-DPS characters just standing around, not making any attacks. A solo player with +4x8 settings open world is NOT going to get more/higher-level spawns from an invasion.

Of course, there is code "in the wild" *and* the game has a long history of what has been added and what has changed that it is reasonable to extrapolated "what is feasible". There is literally no bottom when considering "suggestions", no matter how hard someone claims to want certain ideas. Some oft-repeated suggestions are simply NOT going to happen even if they are feasible (e.g. "Bring back SG prestige"), and if players making those suggestion literally don't know why certain suggestions are a bad idea, they need to be able to tolerate feedback that opposes their idea.

I've witnessed a lot of peculiar player behavior w.r.t. Adamastor, but I've yet to see it fail to spawn because of a crowd. I can believe that there are multi-box doofuses parking characters right there, as I've seen that on lower population serves. A related behavior I've seen that I suppose could contribute are the folks that somehow think Adamastor requires a multi-spawn Lore pet brigade to defeat, as if it was Hamidon. As near as I can tell, a majority of those folks *are* multiboxers who have gotten used to not being able to control all of their characters so they rely on multiple Lore pets to do their playing for them.

The "global" pieces can go into any power... if I am not getting a set bonus from Shield Wall, Reactive Defenses, or Unbreakable Guard, or whatever... I tend to slot them in late-pick powers. Some pieces need to be in an active/available power, like Power Transfer %Heal (IIRC) or Kismet +ToHit. Scaling Damage Resistance isn't bad for any AT, but high HP characters can (generally) be taking damage and still not worry about taking damage. Lower Health characters might get a few more seconds to make a run from danger. Generally: Defenses are best, since it means the character isn't getting hit at all. After Defense, I'd probably rank Absorb as the next-best thing to have, no matter the AT. Resistances are trickier to characterize... their importance depends both on content being faced and what (if any) other defenses/resistances are available for the AT in question. The game used to be somewhat "simpler" in how damage typing worked against defenses, as well as how certain (high-level) enemy types used to only do certain types of damage. Personally I'm not a fan of all-out pursuit of hitting/exceeding resistance caps, because even though it is mathematically true that (for example, a Tanker) going from 85% resistance to 90% resistance is "taking one-third less damage!" if that character has enough regeneration, healing, etc. it could end up making very little difference in play.

I tend to keep a LOT of salvage of all rarities, even though the AH can provide pretty much whatever anyone needs. The salvage is all fungible (by rarity), so it isn't necessary to hoard specific salvage pieces(*1). I craft a LOT of SG buffs Each character is crafting 25/30 and 45/50 common recipes for badges/rewards, Each character crafts uncommon, PVP and Purple recipes that drop, rares below level 50 only get crafted if I have a lot of extra components (level 50 costs are high!) I have a short list of uncommon/rare recipes I use in the level 50 variety... this doesn't require hoarding, just mentioning cuz it is on my mind To speak to the first post: There are some recipes I know by heart, so I make sure those ingredients are readily available. (*1) for example, I stockpile rare salvage in personal vault space, and if I need a rare ingredient that I don't have I use the market to sell/buy to get the piece(s) I need.

The singleton piece is a no-brainer on most characters (but especially high-HP buckets like Tankers and Brutes). For Tankers specifically, the %Scaling Resistance piece, plus the Tanker ATO %+Resistance... along with a healthy amount of Regeneration (e.g. 2xNumina) and some %+Healing is enough reason for me to not bother with the Fighting pool, unless somehow Weave is crucial to the build (or I just want more melee attacks). I probably have a Tanker or two that use the Fighting pool's Tough and Weave as IO mules, but more static (full Health) S/L resistance (from Tough) is mostly just a number for me, and a lost opportunity to take two other powers. I do make an effort to 6-slot the entire set, often the set is the only reason I take Maneuvers on so many characters.

Here is my "play with friends, still leveling" Rad/Dark Tanker (plan, it is currently in the 30s) It's a little thin on early level attacks for my taste, but Radiation is a "take every power" armor set for me. I usually don't take the Fighting Pool on Tankers (any more) unless I feel like I REALLY need Weave. This is one of my few Tankers that doesn't have Wall of Force on it, I love that power for a low-level AoE on Tankers. I did put Hasten in the build, which is a little unusual for me... but my Tankers with "survival click powers" tend to be the characters that I want to have Hasten. As previously noted, I try to get the attacks lined up before the Epic/Patron pools are available, so I tend to go light with slot uses and end-build.

A quick comment on the build above: IIRC the set bonuses from 2xShield Wall and 2xLotG are the same, the Shield Wall piece(s) can be boosted to 50+5 and that set bonus will scale down because Shield Wall is a PVP set. I have Radiation Therapy slotted a little differently: It has the Gauntleted Fist Recharge/%absorb ATO and 2x Touch of the Nictus (%damage and Heal/Recharge) and the %damage. I wanted the recharge time improved on it. For Beta Decay I opted for a single HO: Enzyme (Endurance Reduction/Debuff) instead of the rando %proc. I took Gamma Boost early, I have 2x Power Transfer and 2x Numina in it... I like 2xNumina on Tankers. If I can, I'll post a snapshot of my Rad/Dark build.

the good news is that Dark Armor has a power that is a natural fit for 3xFury of the Gladiator, and another for 3xGladiator's Armor for a total of 6 points. 2 more slots can get 8 more, and 14KB is good for 99% of the content, except for FREEM!. FREEM! protection requires 20, so it ends up being possible to get to 22 and then pretty much never having to worry about it. The SG base buff in 90 minutes of +10.

Either that, or Kevin Matchstick's bat. More seriously... being able to buildup without a weapon draw would be the best choice. The Mace attacks are GREAT, but for some immersion I don't want to see the Mace.

This is one of the reasons I generally eschew Epic/Patron attacks: Whenever I see the potential to add Epic/Patrons, my mind immediately goes to: OOH... chance to proc with %Damage!, and/or OOOH... chance to add a 5-piece purple set! Which is usually making me think of how to come up with anywhere between 3 and 4 extra slots for those powers... and for Tankers specifically, there are a LOT of pretty good options for Quality-of-Life options by sprinkling whatever extra slots among other powers, such as: more than one Power Transfer %Heal Resistance and/or Defense Globals (LotG, Impervium, etc.) KB protection (for Tanks that need it), also Slow resistance +MaxHP, positional defenses, etc. from set bonuses Often those pieces/sets fit nicely into Tanker primary powers.

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=defender_buff.radiation_emission.radiation_infection&at=defender I haven't tested this, but based on my experience with other powers Radiation Infection will likely: semi-reliably apply %damage on-cast, against whatever is in the 15-foot radius (up to 16 targets), and then not %proc reliably after that (for anything), because it is a toggle The power itself has a fast base recharge, and cannot take accuracy boosts (not even from the allowed sets, per CoD) so I'm not even sure how "reliable" my first bullet's "semi-reliable" would be. It comes early enough in a build that it should be easy to test... but IIRC the possible %damage pieces are only in level 20 sets.

That other user: I have mad respect for how good a job they do with thread titles that end up being the perfect 'click bait', but the content of the original posts in those threads is (mostly) absurd(*1) and (sometimes) mildly inflammatory, and it is so common that the user name is pretty reasonably associated with that forum behavior IMO. (*1) I'm thinking of things like "Yellow Enhancements Can't be Slotted and Don't Do Anything Anyway" (made up example) where forum regulars who should know better begin engagement.

This is my Invuln/EM Tanker, it was a Pre-page 5 build tweaked slightly for page 5 revisions. This build leans into the Psi Resistance, but as noted by @Biff Pow Psi isn't really a "hole" for Invulnerability Armor. Taunt isn't really optional IMO, although it doesn't need to be slotted. The Inv/EM combination isn't a great one for leveraging the radius changes to Tankers, and my own experience has been that Tankers want at least one of Taunt, Combat Teleport (or equivalent) or Fold Space, with really short cooldown times to grab aggro, especially when friends are in trouble. There are a bunch of enemies that will ONLY make ranged attacks (and otherwise stand in place), so the Taunt -Range effect helps the team (in addition to drawing them into Invincibility range). I almost never toggle on all of the resist/defense powers, and Dull Pain ends up not being used all that often... each of these tends to come out in "hard content", this build has plenty "Master of..." badges FWIW. The one tweak I might suggest is pulling one of the Impervium Armor pieces and adding another %Heal from Power Transfer (to Stamina). This character predated a slight fix that (now) allows multiple %Heal pieces to "work", because.... For "hard(er) mode", the one thing I like about my build here is that with Tanker HP, %Heal, Regeneration and Scaling Damage Resistance there isn't much of a need to worry about taking damage... so when this character has Tanked for characters that probably were not really up for whatever challenge (i.e. ally buffs were skipped) it was able to hang tough. When a single ally bring team buffs, a character like this one easily crosses all the thresholds of interest (resistances, defenses), so the extra "heal from damage taken" ends up making up a LOT of difference. This build passes a few opportunities to increase +MaxHP from set bonuses, but with Dull Pain triggered I'm pretty sure it hits the cap. YMMV, but teh power comes so early in the build that I didn't feel the need to chase those.

Having to use a Mace for BuildUp bothers me as well!

On its face, this seems like a reasonable request... yet I think it wouldn't have a net benefit, as some League Leaders could end up promoting (lower level) players on a tea, forcing all henchmen/pets to drop, etc. If the league leader needs to scan the roster of a team anyway, and there are fewer than 6 teams in a league, the league leader can do exactly what @Uun suggests. This seems like more of a problem than it probably is because Mapserver leagues frequently change open-world zones and immediately want to start combat. A similar problem exists on ToT leagues, but those stay within a single zone (for the most part). Aside from zoning into some instanced maps and the leader losing the league star, leagues work just fine as long as the league leader is paying attention and folks make sure they know if they have the star (for a team or league).

I don't have enough different characters, but I don't recall having any attacks that can one-shot the fires.

For Blasters, I'd rank: Assault Rifle > Dual Pistols > Beam Rifle. For Sentinels, Beam Rifle is preeeettty good. For shooty-shooty, try a Huntsman!

Cryonic helps to put out fires in Steel Canyon!

I'm not going to parse the attached build; I'm sure you are completely satisfied with it. I personally wouldn't be bothering with %damage in single-target attacks on a MM (including Weaken Resolve) and I'm not entirely sure the Kismet +ToHit is doing all that much (modulo the general lack of accuracy slotting in attacks). We are not going to see eye-to-eye on this, as I see other choices in that build that I wouldn't make.

If the henchmen have good AoE, then they aren't "focusing fire" on just "LTs & Bosses", so my point about debuffing in patches (like with Sleet for /cold, or using AoE attacks with %-res or blah blah fishcakes) is improving everyone's output and not just trying to get some rando Nx70 HP %damage (while also sacrificing enhancement set bonuses, and not slotting for Accuracy, Endurance). Ultimately clear times come down to "make as few attacks as possible", so as long as the minions aren't somehow outlasting the bosses, it doesn't really matter if the MM is trying to %damage them or not.... but more soft control helps to keep everyone fighting, and more %-Resistance speeds up the fight. I know that for some folks, anytime they see a power can take a %damage piece their eyes light up... but not every power in every AT improves clear times this way. I'm sure that for the content you are playing, your approach looks optimal to you. I tried it, and I found it to be suboptimal for the content I play with my solo MM, which is mostly Alignment (instanced) missions and GM hunts. For the latter, I clean enough GMs in a relatively short time frame that on-balance I don't think more rando 70HP %damage would be worth giving up set bonuses for (such as from the Annihilation set). EDIT: As for the topic under consideration, I wouldn't consider Robotics to be "front line" primarily because they are 99% ranged attackers. I mean... it is possible to move them to the "front line" but it is my experience that they'll do just fine wherever they are (after moving, knockback) as long as they are in Supremacy range.

Robotic Henchmen are probably the worst example to pick if the argument is intended to be...

On Live, there was also a one-time (for a week?) Rularuu Invasion of Paragon City. I also recall the "Fighting in the Streets" Council v. 5th Column, although for a long time we've had this as normal spawns in a small number of zones.