MoonSheep

i have also wanted this for a long time - sometimes i want to change just 1 power or a few slots a lvl 30 cathedral of pain style trial to unlock it each time would be a fun. something that’s an actual challenge and not available for purchase on the AH

this is a really helpful thread - ice/ss is a tank combo i’ve been interested in for years but haven’t explored as i just assumed the rage crash works against ice’s def and makes for a poor combination

why would that make it worth 300mil+ though? seems a rather uninteresting and non critical use if it was one of those loophole HO’s that lets you boost the stats of a power that doesn’t accept rech i could understand a bit more why it would be so pricey

legit never seen this either and i main a dom, lifechanging

why is acc/threat/rech so expensive? seems an odd one

i would say that whilst there improvements available to your build OP, your strongest attacks look to be slotted reasonably well for damage therefore they should still hit reasonably hard. your build isn’t wildly off course but there’s things which can refine it e.g power burst, snipe, positronic fist appear to be slotted reasonably well at a glance you may be finding that against higher level bosses things don’t feel as impactful - a +3 boss for example won’t wilt as quickly as they did in the lower levels, but should go down pretty quickly there’s a lot of good advice in this thread, especially around picking up aim, buildup and reducing the amount of attacks you have to focus on the most damaging ones. your primary attacks should strive have 90-95% ish dmg when slotted

i’ve been meaning to roll an alt sometime and turn off inspirations - i’m an insp junkie and it’s spoilt the game slightly when every interaction is an auto win event

poison/fire or poison/ice

it was his birthday

if you want to experiment with builds also consider in future that you can have auto level 50’s on the beta server and instant access to all enhancements

from memory i think a long time ago they have tweaked the late 30’s - early 40’s xp curve to improve things. i remember on live that it would feel like time had stood still when trying to level in that range

thanks for the interesting and comprehensive response. interesting to see how your approach has developed over time defenders can definitely debuff and damage for sure. the new end mod damage sets we now have can slot elec attacks for both end drain and a bit of damage a secondary consideration for me though is mindset. it feels quite liberating to play my kin/sonic and focus purely on buffing, debuffing and supporting the team i think some teams appreciate it too - for me, if i invite a buff or debuff defender to a team i’d expect them to focus on their primary set to benefit the team

i actually agree with Diantane on this one for some sets on my kin/sonic i use the secondary purely for its debuffs. if i was to run a /elec i’d slot it purely for end drain i have a poison/ice and poison/fire which i slot for damage, though i do agree that for some combinations it’s best to focus on the overall buffing and debuffing elements of the defender there’s something fun about prioritising the buff and debuff potential of a defender as much as possible

excuse me, this kind of rational, level headed response has no place on this forum now, here’s a 500 word essay about the etymology of the word “play” and why it’s origins in 1687 mean i strongly disagree with your demands to force me to enjoy this game in a certain way

what are your desired outcomes? i would focus on slotting some end drain focused sets in short circuit and ball lightning for some nice end drain i’d also pick up power boost for a mastery choice, it pairs well with cold and will make your end drains amazing when combined with charge up

OP - be prepared for this thread to quickly turn into an argument to some people, PL’ing to 50, making a farmer and then spending their all their time in AE just PL’ing alts is the game and what they enjoy. for some, just churning through fat mobs is a laugh and to them it’s worth logging on for i agree with you that the game and journey itself is highly rewarding and therefore finding the fastest way to 50 means newer players miss out on the CoH experience people will pick up the game over time and can make new alts to properly experience the game if they want to give it a go a second time around. it tends to be a minority of players, they’re just very visible as they spam LFG scrounging to get PL’d every 17 seconds

i find the “build for softcap” trend really boring, every AT turns into a grey indistinguishable mush living life as a glass cannon and having to use strategy rather than face tanking every mob is a lot more exciting and rewarding from my experience

i recently respecced into it on my mind/fire dom and it is terrible i’d rather be kicked in the shins

elec melee on stalkers is the best version of the set in my opinion. having assassin’s strike and/or quick AS for some meaty ST damage really rounds off the set nicely. i procced out chain induction too which worked quite well paired with shield armour gives you two teleport AoE attacks which is great fun. though they don’t benefit from the chance to crit from hide as they’re pseudo pets

not a problem, welcome back mate

here’s a guide on how to easily get the accolades linked by Uun:

i believe you‘re thinking of the ‘rescue missing fortune teller from the circle of thorns’ mission which provides an accomplishment badge required for the Atlas Medallion accolade here’s the badges you need: https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Received_the_Atlas_Medallion_Badge the fortune teller mission can be accessed in ouroboros in the lvl 15-19 section. the galaxy city badges can be accessed through the ‘echo’ zone portal at the back of ouroboros for the killing of 200 vampri and warwolves i recommend running the moonfire TF with a big team, or running the first mission on +0/x8 a few times

sounds like RNGesus unfortunately cast you a poor hand a few times which happen to anyone also sounds like he was perhaps a few levels above you which makes debuffs less impactful defenders are squishy when things go south. was the team overall able to defeat hopkins and countess? if yes, sounds like things are working fine sometimes in CoH you die. i think it’s positive to have an element of challenge

100%. I also find that whether Controls or Assault are the primary focus depends on the team and challenge. There’s some instances where I’m focusing almost entirely on controls to keep things going, others where I’m just DPS’ing to the max i don’t find the lack of AoE a problem as I play on teams and that tends to be handled by other players. there’s a number of dom assault secondaries which have blaster rivalling single target DPS - fire and energy for example. earth and ice also quite damaging