tidge

Not the person tagged, but here is my Warshade Tri-Form build. I don't exploit teh quick-change, but it should work just fine if I did. Obviously this isn't going to be 100% applicable to a Peacebringer, but it should serve as a starting point for a tri-form of that flavor. If the non-human forms were skipped completely, obviously major changes would be made. Personally: I wouldn't skip the Dwarf forms, as they are pretty great at what they do, and I feel like I could do most everything a human-only build can do with some other AT... and if I wanted to try such a thing with a Kheldian it would just be using a second build of an existing character.

I do a few different things, sometimes in combination. 0) I'm pretty good at pacing myself, so I try to be aware of what 2XP, Patrol XP, etc. can do if I am trying to do specific content. I mention this only because if there are later levels of the game you want to go through faster, you may want to hold off on collecting Patrol XP from exploration badges until those later levels. 1) I do zone arcs, either at-level or via flashback. These are all pretty well-contained and good for solo play. Blue side has more of these, the red side arcs from a similar era are also good, but they tend to have more zone hopping (even on short arcs). 2) For lower level characters: If my character has an AoE, and somewhat has Endurance under control, I'll solo whatever content I have handy but at a difficultly like -1x4. The ToHit mechanics mean taking fewer hits on the chin, but there are more enemies to deal with. It makes content a little bit more of a mad scramble while leveling up.

On my new Stalkers, I always try to take Placate (since the rework). On about half of my pre-rework Stalkers I have rebuilt with it, on the other half I like how they play without it, and those builds are pretty tight so they did not get reworked. While leveling up, I try to include Placate reasonably early... I find this helps me get a feel for using it. The base recharge time should be only two-thirds as long as a Build Up, so with minimal slots I find it to be a good power to use while leveling.

I have a Seismic/ Blaster and a /Plant Blaster, but not in combination. Seismic is IMO pretty straightforward. My personal experience with /Plant as a Blaster secondary was that for my choice of primary I wasn't able to leverage the Melee attacks such that my build was IMO very compromised by trying to work them in. I went with: Level 1: Skewer: 5x Hecatomb Level 10: Toxins: Gaussian's %BuildUp and Recharge IO Level 16: spore Cloud (HO Enxyme only) Level 20: Wild Fortress: 5 (franken) slots Level 28: Vines: 3x Gladiator's Net, 3 more %damage I don't like single-target controls on Blasters, unless I'm leaning hard into wanting to stack that control on a single target. So I skipped Entangle and Strangler. I tried to make Ripper and Thorn Burst work, but as noted above they simply weren't being used enough to justify including them, even for set bonuses. Skewer was the compromise pick for the set bonus and to have something that was a melee attack... plus I like having some damage-over-time for certain enemies. With Seismic, I don't think you would really miss Entangle.

I have a Psi/Mental Blaster that I chose specifically for the attack animations. Don't judge me, the concept didn't really work with anything else! The problem with damage typing as mentioned by @Uun is real, so this build uses a LOT more %damage than I would normally recommend for a Blaster. I don't have a MIDS or a text version, but here is a screenshot from my personal spreadsheet builder to show my choices:

There are variations-to-taste, but generally I find my Homecoming MMs always taking two of the attacks from the primary to leverage a secondary effect of some sort that helps the henchmen. Those attacks pretty much always get slotted for a group of useful set bonuses... primarily because Endurance burn is real for MMs and it is pointless to try to out-damage the henchmen with %damage proc-bombing from MM attacks IMO.

I started experimenting with Fear by using the Presence pool, and then leaned hard into it as a control with several different ATs that either get Fears or can easily incorporate them (e.g. via the Soldiers of Arachnos ATO). I rather like it as one of the 'softer' controls, especially as an AoE. In my head canon, I believe that Fear hasn't been seriously considered (especially for a new Enhancement set) because of the game's history with AI behavior tweaks (from launch) and the attempt to refactor Fear/Terrorize as an effect. In the same mind-space I feel that Fear wasn't really improved in a meaningful way because of some perception about how it might imbalance things in PVP. Observationally from game-play: The most annoying Fear-user that I regularly encounter is the Giant Monster Jack in Irons. Its 20-second fear can feel like an eternity, especially while it continues spamming its other powers. Somehow I don't feel like I ever get the chance to do anything during the duration of that fear, but this could just be high defenses not allowing other attacks to land.

I've been advocating for a "Contagious Fear" piece for years, for one thing, it would make the single-target fear powers more viable... similar to how the Contagious Confusion can make single-target Confuses more viable. (At leats for level 50s). It would also be nice to get another Acc/Fear piece that exists at level 50. The Hami-Os are pretty affordable, but still! Maybe and Acc/End for those Cloak of Fear power users out there (Which also needs accuracy BTW!)

My general advice for considering %proc damage to a build involves two points (to first order): The build has relatively little inherent damage naturally, such that an extra 70HP damage per attack is something of a big deal for that character. The build is saturated with a single damage type that can end up being heavily resisted by some critters (for my experience, commonly this is Psychic) Against single-targets with huge amounts of HP, occasional %damage is probably less important than debuffing Regeneration, or something else indirectly, like reducing Endurance costs. This is not to say that a %damage-focused build will necessarily struggle against an AV or GM, just that it those are the focused targets there may be better options (from set bonuses, for example) than slotting for lots of %damage.

"Invite to League" is just like "Invite to Team". The League lead has the additional ability to move characters from one team to another, or to their own team if the league has fewer than 6 teams in it. This is typically done as the mechanism for a league leader to have a character of level 50 leading each team, and to adjust the composition of teams. I recall that there was some adjustments made to League rewards (versus team-in-a-league rewards) relating to badges, I don't know how extensive those changes were and if all of the potential areas where this can make a difference have been addressed. AFAIK most content that more-or-less explicitly requires a league has been adjusted.

I absolutely cannot imagine the game be "adjusted" so that XP/Inf/Drops come from anything other than defeating enemies, i.e. "doing damage". Even if we consider things NOT entirely related to doing damage for solo players (Prismatic Aethers tied to mission completion, badges for taking damage or being controlled, blah blah fishcakes), CoX would have to become a radically different game. The game is in a *REALLY* good place right now, with the single most-dominant "complaint" about %damage being a variant of "That AT should be 1% better (by some arbitrary metric that may or may not reflect game play) than this AT". Those arguments completely ignore that without %damage it takes many other ATs an order of magnitude or greater amount of time to complete similar content. Anyone who wants to eliminate/reduce the way %damage works right now is, whether they admit it or not, trying to move the game to a place where solo ATs like defenders, controllers, what not, can't reap similar rewards in a similar time frame as other ATs. The game is in a good place right now, what is the possible positive motivation to move it from such a good place? Looking at the mechanics of PPM, and the corner cases that appear to cause whatever heartache there is amongst the pearl-clutchers, the most realistic approach to "nerfing" %damage would be to eliminate global recharge bonuses (from enhancement set bonuses). This of course would cause every perma-dom to falter, and every player that feels perma-Hasten is an important achievement to go ballistic.

The locations of the SG portals were already changed once by the Homecoming team; I want to say that the SG portal in Brickstown used to be near Steven Sheridan, but I could be misremembering. There are a few portal locations that I think are in more convenient spots, a few that I think are in less convenient spots, and a few I have no opinion either way. I agree that having so many of the Paragon City SG portals near train stations seems a little like overkill to me.

I use the merits to buy stuff for characters, not the market ATOs, Winters some VR recipes (to fill out what I need), Some PVP level 50 recipes (when I don't feel like playing converter roulette), Boosters, Converters and Unslotters (as needed, if the character is merit-rich but Inf poor) Specific Alignment mission Tips (before level 40)! *very rarely, but sometimes I want that mission NOW! One of the more useful things to do with a Merit is to drag it into email to make sure the email is going to my global account when I want to transfer some wealth between characters.

The format? I essentially do it by hand, sometimes based off an old text export from a MIDS variant from long ago. About a year ago I started planning my builds in Excel, so many of my characters from after that era don't even have a nice text format handy! MIDS can be a useful tool, but since I'm generally familiar with the power progressions (with respect to enhancable attributes) I usually make similar choices between builds unless there is something special about one of them or I have a particular concept. I consult City of Data v2.0 for details. Every once in a blue moon I get twisty-minded about specific set choices between a couple of powers, I then usually default to play-testing and using unslotters.

I don't MIDS, here is a text version of my Shield/Axe Tanker (level 50 build): FWIW: I usually unslot certain %damage pieces and replace them with %-Resistance pieces when I am teaming. The %damage is slightly more useful during solo play.

Any change to %damage at this point would wildly imbalance a large number of ATs, as the game's inherent reward mechanism is around doing damage/defeating critters. There is FAR more balance among all ATs because of %damage than there would be without them. Some folks want to have a meltdown and claim that there needs to be an Aprocalypse because of some sense of justice for a particular AT, but that is not how game balance works. A 10 second difference in some arbitrary clear mission times is nothing to get worked up about when without %damage some ATs would take tens-of-minutes longer to complete certain content than another AT. There would need to too many radical changes to the game to address the sorts of imbalances that would be introduced by restricting %damage across the board, and I can't imagine any of those would either be palatable(*1) or leave us with a recognizably fun game that allows for tremendous amounts of build variety. (*1) One crazy example: hard-capping +defense for DPS-oriented toons at 25% This would slow down certain ATs closer to mission clear times that other ATs. I don't know anybody that would think this is a good idea, but this sort of crazy suggestion is what I see as akin to trying to eliminate the potential to add damage to certain ATs via dedicated build choices... choices which have a trade-off associated with them.

I have to admit I'm confused why catalyzed Winters and ATOs have ever been considered worthy of being put on the market, for either sellers or buyers. I can sort of see why someone might sell such a catalyzed piece if they don't want it any longer. It strikes me as wildly inefficient, even for the newest-of-the-newly power-leveled fire farmers to buy those as catalyzed. These days, it looks like the market for Superior v. non-Superior versions has roughly equalized, but I remember a time when folks were arguing for the catalyzed versions as a niche market.

The discounted Winter Packs were mostly a mechanism for the "rich to get richer", so whatever value the discounted packs provided as a sink for Influence was not great enough to matter to those who have a more complete picture of the total economy of Homecoming. The following is written with no particular insight into the greater economy: I do find it strange that AFAIK the Winter ATO cannot be purchased with (some crazy large) number of Candy Canes, like the Winter's Gift recipes. I suppose this is partially because there are no Recipes for the inherently attuned pieces (Event, ATO). The means of farming Candy Canes aren't that different than simply farming merits, from my PoV. Writing only for myself: I don't use enough Winter ATO pieces to bring myself to care where I get them from. I'm merit-rich, so I use the merit vendor directly. If I am not chasing some specific bonus from slotting a somewhat complete set, the only other value I generally get from them is to use (non Superior) versions while leveling, as a sort of slot-and-forget. This personal strategy is the last choice behind using attuned PVPs or Overwhelming Force.

I can see the logic behind the request, but I don't know what practical effect this would have once the Sentinel has access to more powers (both primary and secondary). As Storm Cell can be taken rather early, I can understand the feels here. The Storm Cell will move with the character that cast it. Maybe it would be better to think of the Sentinel more as a Scrapper that happens to use ranged attacks rather than a Blaster with an armor set?

I'm not particularly engaged with winter events, but I think they are fine as-is. As mentioned, it would be a horrible idea to change the presents to only be level-appropriate. As of now, if players want to grind opening presents (and also, defeat winter horde in open world) using lower level zones that are mostly ignored is incredibly convenient and has minimal impact on other badgers. That's been an attitude since forever. There is a wide spectrum of attitudes on this point! Early in the Homecoming era I had a level 47 fighting fires in Steel Canyon that endured no shortage of nasty chat from a level 50 who insisted I pass him the star, because "I'm level 50". What a maroon that guy was. This is just my personal experience: If I've leveled/chosen power picks for a character in something like an organic way, exemplaring down to the mid 20s on a level 50+ to fight a zone-appropriate Giant Monster with a team is usually not a big deal, with the primary exception being that Lore pets can add beaucoup extra damage, which is probably the most important non-debuff for giant sacks of HP. There is a subtle point about Masterminds who will lose all their henchmen upon getting exemplared down, so the best thing to do with MMs is IMO to invite them to a league first, and then make sure they don't end up on a team lead by a lower level.

Does Storm Cell inherit the movement modifiers of the player that created it? To my shame I can't recall if it moves slower than Carrion Creepers... I've noticed that Storm Cell doesn't move that slowly (for my non Blaster). I'm well aware that any amount of wait/setup can feel crippling to a player that wants to clear whole rooms PDQ. My thoughts on Storm Blast are pretty much those of Beam Rifle. Each is a perfectly fine blast set for Blasters, but I think each shines best when used by other ATs. In my experience: if a couple of nuke-'em types are getting out of sync on a mission, the one that is 'behind' can try to leapfrog to the next enemy spawn. Otherwise, @biostem advice about slotting it for recharge is probably a good idea. I have it 2-slotted with ATOs, but 2x D-Sync Optimization (Damage/Recharge) should also work.

In my experience, all enemies that survive long enough in a fight will eventually run. Practically, I think I've only seen this after they've taken damage (of some amount). I've read speculation that it is the AI responding to one or more of the following: The enemy missing a certain number of attacks The enemy being debuffed The enemy taking enough damage relative to its HP All of the enemy powers are still on "cooldown" At one point, the analysis was that some majority of AVs and GMs were susceptible to Immob, or didn't haven't any special protection from it. There are some enemies that are not susceptible to Immob (or slows), and there are many enemies that fly, and of course Immob has to hit, so there are some enemies that can shrug off even those tricks. The only thing I've observed to stop something from running away (tested up through Elite Bosses) is a Placate (when solo). I've observed this with my Bane, I can't remember if I've tested it with a Stalker. Sadly for MMs, Pacify from the Presence pool doesn't really duplicate all the effects of Placate, so I have no reason to believe it would work the same. The pool version also requires a ToHit check. Casual observation against the zone giant monsters: Eventually, everyone of them (except for the Arachnos flier, while vulnerable) has been observed to "run", but they never run very far before making an attack. This is in contrast for the DE "Monsters" of the Hive/PI/etc. I suspect the "monsters" run further than Jurassik partially because the monsters have fewer attacks. Without an immon, my MM has much more of a problem finishing off the DE "monsters" than it does Jurassik.

One of the things I generally dislike about Hasten, Hasten, Eggs, Bacon and Hasten is that builds often include it and then get pigeon-holed into making other decisions to attempt to make it "perma". I used to do this! I stopped after experimenting with playing content without putting Hasten on auto, and found that I either didn't need Hasten at all, or that I really only needed it for very limited circumstances. For Tankers, that could be some sort of self-heal or long-recharge defensive boost for face-engaging certain AVs. I definitely wouldn't rely on the FF +Recharge to make Hasten "perma", any attack that can take a FF +Recharge can take at least one %damage piece, or a soft-control KB->KD piece, or something else that will improve damage/survival. When I do take Hasten, it's usually just before or just after taking the power that I feel needs it, or if it is exclusively for 50+ content it can come really late in the build and have no practical impact by taking it so late. MIDS of course can show what the cycle time on powers will be with-or-without using Hasten. Generally I find in the time reduction is on the order of the Arcana time I won't bother with Hasten.

Some minor suggestion about Tanker builds that I try to incorporate: Health: *if* the Numina's Convalescence +Recovery piece is going in Health (which is often an excellent spot for it), I usually try to include another slot for the Numina Healing/Absorb piece as well. Normally I'm cold on extra Regeneration, but for Tankers' large HP pool I think this is a good choice. Build Up: I almost never 1-slot this. If the slotting is going to be minimal, I'll add a second slot (behind the %BuildUp piece) for a Recharge IO. Hasten: I occasionally do take this on Tankers, also late, but considering where it ends up in my builds I usually don't bother adding a second slot to it. Depending on teh content you intend to play, a mule power for a LotG Global Recharge piece might end up helping the build play smoother. Unbreakable Guard: I usually don't slot this set with more than 4 pieces. Power Transfer: I *believe* there was a slight patch that made it such that the %Heal piece can be in more than one power and each of them has a chance to fire. For Tankers, the %Heal from Power Transfer is IIRC providing more +HP than the Panacea piece (but don't skip the Panacea unique) I don't MIDS so I can't see what is in Gamma Boost and Stamina, so I don't know if this is applicable, but only one Performance Shifter +End does anything, and any singleton EndMod piece may as well be a (boosted) EndMod IO. I didn't notice the Reactive Defenses Scaling Damage Resistance piece in the build. I'd include that before adding any of the Impervium Armor globals.

The Robots revamp was quite a gift, since IMO they got a lot more than they lost. Losing almost all of the Knockback AND being able to slot the first upgrade power with enhancement sets really contributed to saving slots on a build. The henchmen weren't slouches before when having to "burn" one slot each for a KB->KD enhancement, but there is so much more freedom of build choices without having to do that. Maintenance Drone is also crazy good. Mileage varies for how players reacted to the move of the -Regen from the henchmen attacks into the primary rifle powers, but for me it ended up making essentially no difference: I use two of the rifle powers to debuff/soft control as well as keeping aggro. The main difference (for me) was that with the henchmen not doing -Regen, I can't AFK defeat Giant Monsters... which seems like a decent change. Another change that radically improved MMs (across the board) was the lowering of the level limit for higher-tier powers. It makes a huge difference for improving the MM experience at mid-levels (or when exemplaring to certain content).