DSorrow

thank you for confirming that level makes no difference. where are you seeing the 4.31% vs the 5.36% shown in Pines? does that show in the in-game stats? as I have never slotted a panacea, I haven't been able to check the power stat options in-game to compare to Pines I'm pretty sure this varies per AT, for whatever reason. If my memory is not all wrong, my Controller gets a bigger heal out of Panacea than my Brute. The End portion appears to be the same, however, it is boosted by +MaxEnd.

On my Rad/SD Scrapper I have Scrapper's Strike slotted in Shield Charge and Critical Strikes in Radioactive Smash for the following reasoning: Shield Charge doesn't benefit all that much from damage procs, so I don't feel like I'm missing out on any by not having one there. Radioactive Smash is my most often used attack as my chain is DB > RS > Siphon > RS, and whenever it procs, one of the two big hitters is primed for a crit. Using this logic, I'd put the Critical Strikes proc in a power that usually precedes the use of Clobber so that your most powerful attack gets the benefit should it happen to proc. The passive can go pretty much anywhere depending on your build's needs, but I'd suggest something like this: Crowd Control, 5/6 superior Scrapper's Strike without the Dam/Rech still caps both Dam and Rech enhancement values, use the remaining slot for the Force Feedback proc, PvP -Res proc or any damage proc you like The same 5 slot scheme in any ST attack you like besides the one that precedes Clobber in your chain. If you can spare a 6th slot put in a proc. If you are going to slot the full set of Scrapper's Strike, put it somewhere that either needs the high recharge enhancement value or isn't bothered by the lack of a proc.

+4/x8 with AVs is still a gross simplification of difficulty. +4/x8 Council is a completely different level of challenge from +4/8 Carnies or +4/x8 Vanguard. When we start to have builds that can solo anything at +4/8 (i.e. Superman levels of power), then it's probably time to start looking at maybe nerfing things, but right now we're actually looking at builds that can solo some enemy groups and AVs at +4/8 which is more corresponding to something like Hulk: ridiculously powerful and not unique in their level of power, but not omnipotent. All of this goes to say that having dozens of heroes in Paragon City able to solo at +4/x8 is ok and consistent with most superhero universes, and we haven't yet crossed the line where we have even one player controller Superman running around.

Basically what Zolgar said. Also a couple of other things I consider useful to know: Brutes have higher base HP and max HP so +Regen or self heals will be better than on Scrappers Brutes also have higher Resistance cap so any sets that provide a lot of Resistance are better on Brutes if you have team buffs or IOs that push you to the cap Scrappers have higher base damage so any sets that provide +DMG provide more actual damage points on Scrappers (Shield, Dark Melee, Bio Armor, etc.) Scrappers also have a much easier time to reach their damage cap of 400% vs Brutes' 675%. Even with peak Fury, a Brute still needs roughly 3 SOs worth of extra damage buffs compared to a Scrapper to get to the damage cap. For me this basically means that any resist sets that can be pushed past 75% should be played on Brutes while any sets that provide significant +DMG should be played on Scrappers. Everything else is pretty much down to preference as the difference in performance isn't all that meaningful.

I'm going to second the suggestion for 2x Time/Sonic Defenders. Bopper already laid out pretty much everything that's so great about the combo, but there's something I'd like to add: Mez isn't an issue. Sure, you might get stunned or held or something every now and then, but because Farsight is a buff and not a toggle, it won't suppress and you'll still have extremely high Defense even while held. Consequently you won't actually be in danger. Add in a couple of set bonuses (or Power Build Up, that thing is GREAT with Time), and you'll be soft capped even while mezzed. For maximum hilariousness, get Shockwave and slot it with the KB->KD enhancement. With the insane recharge from double Chrono Shift + Hasten you can just keep cycling Howl -> Shockwave, and with two of you doing that the enemies are going to spend 90% of their time on their butts. If there's something that can still pose a danger to you, you have the opportunity to use 2x Time Stop / 2x Screech and instantly remove anything up to a boss from the fight. Damn, if I didn't already have a /Time Corruptor I'd probably go make a Time/Sonic duo with my buddy right now.

That sounds hilarious. I've been wanting to make a Storm Summoner for a while now. Had one on the official servers, but didn't really like my powerset combo (Storm/Archery Defender, IIRC) and the lack of KB->KD IOs basically made many of my powers unwanted in teams. Guess I should give that Dark/Storm Controller build a second thought.

PA, Arcane Bolt and Spectral Wounds. Sleet does a pittance of damage, Interface appears to be bugged to do less damage than it's supposed to be and Phantasm is too suicidal to deal significant damage against most AVs. The damage sources don't really sound impressive unless you consider all the -Res /Cold has access to: stacked Sleet, Heat Loss and any potential Achilles' Heel / Annihilation -Res procs which can double the damage you deal. That combined with Benumb that can at least partially deny the opponent from regenerating HP allows an Ill/Cold to do pretty extreme effective DPS.

I'm sure I'm guilty of this even if it's not intentional. In-game I don't always have my chat tabs open if I'm soloing as I'm monitoring combat attributes, and sometimes I just get swarmed with a million messages when I'm starting up a TF. I barely check Discord private messages so usually by the time I see them, they're at least a couple of days old and depending on the topic it might be pretty awkward to reply at that point. If someone doesn't respond to my tells, I usually just assume they missed it or they're busy or AFK.

Disclaimer: take anything I say with a grain of salt as my build / power ratings are tuned around my playstyle and my goals. To start with build priorities, I'd put them as follows: [*]Perma PA. This is the cornerstone of the build as it allows you to solo the tough things that would otherwise splat you like a fly. PA needs roughly ~320% worth of recharge enhancement to be truly perma (recharge + cast time = duration), which can be achieved with 95% enhancement + 130% global recharge + 70% Hasten + ~20% from Alpha for a total of 315. Heat Loss and Benumb need a similar amount of global recharge to be perma, so you get all of these for getting perma PA, as well as being able to stack Sleet for more -Res than a /Rad can ever do. PA likes -Res. [*]Soft capped S/L Def. This combined with perma PA allows you to avoid a vast majority of incoming damage. I'd estimate roughly 3/4 of the attacks in the game come with a S/L component, so between PA tanking for you and 3/4 of attacks having a 5%* chance of hitting you, you're already very safe. This is also pretty easy to achieve as between some +Def pool powers, Arctic Fog, an APP/PPP shield and the two +3% Def uniques, you won't even need any S/L Def set bonuses. [*]Soft capped Ranged Def. Before Incarnates were introduced, I ran my Ill/Cold with soft capped S/L and perma PA which was enough to do a lot of silly things, but with their introduction, I realized it was possible to add soft capped Ranged Def to my build. Remember that 1/4 of attacks not covered by S/L Def? Ranged Def covers pretty much all of them. Most attacks aimed at you that don't have an S/L component are pure elemental blasts (Fire Blast, Gloom, Lightning Bolt, etc.) and soft capped Ranged Def takes care of all of that for you. Essentially, you're only left defenseless against pure elemental AoEs and some psionic attacks, both of which are relatively rare. That said, perma PA is definitely far more important than the two other goals, though small gaps (<1 second) aren't really a huge deal as you can still do pretty stupid challenges especially if you have one or two varieties of soft capped Def to back you up. I don't think it's imperative to have both soft capped Ranged and S/L, I just went for both because it was possible and it allows me to push the envelope slightly further when it comes to doing silly things with a Controller. Still, just having one of those (or even just perma PA) will allow you to do more than an "average" high end Ill/Rad can, as most Ill/Rad builds I've seen don't have soft capped defenses. As for travel powers, I'd just pick whatever you like. On the official servers, I used Hover+Fly (concept reasons and 3D movement is useful), here I'm using Mystic Flight because I wanted Arcane Bolt (concept reasons). Besides creating a strong character, in my opinion it's important to keep in mind that you want to enjoy playing it and travel powers can play a surprisingly big role in how the gameplay feels. When it comes to powers, these are what I'd rate as must haves: Illusion: Spectral Wounds, Blind, Confuse, Phantom Army, Spectral Terror, Phantasm Cold: Ice Shield, Glacial Shield, Arctic Fog, Benumb, Sleet, Heat Loss Pool powers: Hasten Stuff I'd strongly recommend: Fighting: Boxing/Kick can mule some useful sets, Tough gives you a free slot for one +3% Def IO and Weave makes it significantly easier to achieve soft capped Def APP/PPP with S/L shield: pretty obvious, but this makes achieving S/L soft cap trivial. I'm using Scorpion Shield because it's pretty, on the official servers I had Frozen Armor because I wanted another blast and Arcane Bolt wasn't an option Leadership: Maneuvers nudges you closer towards Def soft caps and it also stacks nicely with your shields and Arctic Fog to help your teammates. Tactics is nice, but not essential. Other Leadership powers aren't that useful for an Ill/Cold. APP blast or Arcane Bolt: you can't tell PA what to attack especially when there are multiple targets around, so you'll probably want another single target attack in addition to Spectral Wounds to help you focus fire opponents. Combat Jumping and Hover are also useful for the slight Defense, combat movement and set muling opportunity. If you're going for SJ/Fly, these are pretty good picks. Then, we get to IO sets: S+ tier: Contagious Confusion and superior Will of the Controller. Full set of either gives you +10% Recharge and +5% Ranged Def. S tier: other purple sets with +10% Rech bonus, LotG +Rech A tier: +3% Def uniques, sets with both +Rech and +Ranged Def such as Expedient Reinforcements, Red Fortune, Basilisk's Gaze, Stupefy, etc. B tier: anything with just decent or low investment +Rech or Ranged Def like Decimation or Blessing of the Zephyr. Finally there's a bunch of unlisted items that come down to preference, like the various +Stealth IOs (combined with Arctic Fog = PvE invisibility), Achilles Heel / Annihilation -Res procs (I can't really give a quantified answer how much these help in Sleet with the current PPM rules), damage procs in your personal attacks, and so on. Let me know if there's anything else you'd like my opinion on.

This. Any sub 1 million items I usually list for 1 inf because it doesn't matter to me at all whether I get 100k, 500k or 1mil and sometimes I buy items for a premium because I want it now. I figure that cancels out any "evil" I'd be doing by putting in lowball bids or high listings for items with little supply.

Here's the newest thing: solo LRSF. I wasn't actually playing for 98 hours, I just had to scrounge up the time for this over a period of 5 days. Actual completion time is probably around 3 hours, but I didn't really keep track. Anyway, here's the highlights and tricky parts: First mission was definitely the easiest, just stealthing to some objectives and . A single AV is nothing special for an Ill/Cold and I just confused the EBs to bash each other because I thought it was amusing. Second mission wasn't much more trickier. and even though I was expecting his summoned robots might make things tricky. Fortunately, they did a lot less damage than I remembered and I was able to whittle their master down while PA were distracted and distracting. Third mission was the first one where I expected a lot of difficulty and it did prove to be the most tricky one in the whole SF. There's no real opportunity to "cheat" with Confuse and pulling them one at a time didn't appear to work, so after a few failed attempts at something tricky, I just decided to take an all out brawl and beat them all, one by one. I learned quickly to go for as she'll heal and buff everyone else, as her Psionic attacks have the best chance at messing me up, Manticore third as he's the slightly more dangerous fella of the two that are left. Anyways, with their ladies gone, the were total pushovers. During the fight I did get a level up but I don't think it had much if any impact on the outcome. For the fourth mission, I was also expecting the quad AV fight to put up some resistance, but because they lack a support AV, I knew I was in for an easier fight. A couple of close calls, but unlike the previous quartet, I beat these on my first try. I chose to , mostly because she's a Psionic and has the best chance at hitting me. After that, there was no particular reasoning why I chose and , but I left purely because that and defeating the others first reduces the number of threats on the field permanently. After that, it was time to take on Miss Liberty who I was afraid would put up a big fight mostly because I lost the Orestes Rifle and couldn't remember if it was critical, . What does that thing even do? Finally, it was time to take on the current Freedom Phalanx. Because there are way too many of them for me to safely engage the whole bunch at once, I tried pulling them one by one but couldn't get that to work. Fortunately, I had discovered the art of Confuse during my solo ITF and I decided to replicate that strategy here, and damn, I let Penny whittle the squad down to herself, Synapse and Babs at which point it seemed appropriate to engage them. Keeping a couple of stacks of Confuse on Penny she gave me a hand at demolishing . After all her hard work, it was time to and claim my solo LRSF completion! For me, this was a particularly interesting run as I had only ever done LRSF on the official servers a handful of times and then once on Homecoming. My lack of knowledge on the Orestes Rifle (for real, what does that thing do?!) shall be a testament to my inexperience when it comes to this SF. After the solo ITF the build has seen some adjustments: I adjusted some slotting and got an additional Recharge bonus I also got T4 Alpha which puts me just above Ranged soft cap and perma PA as opposed to just below with T3 I crafted a T3 support hybrid, but I never activate it in the run, however the passive bonus might help me a little EDIT: I didn't keep track of the total death count, but it was about 5, all at the hands of the future Freedom Phalanx and in addition to that there were numerous close calls that I only barely survived in all of the multi-AV fights. So, while I think a solo MoLRSF would be possible if you have a good initial approach to the future Phalanx, so much is down to chance that it's not a run I would find fun to attempt.

Agree with this. I have a TW/Elec brute who's hard capped against S/L/E/F/C damage and against any non-debuffing enemies that mostly deal those types, I can go AFK in the middle of a group and not die because they can't get a lucky burst to bring me down. On the flipside, heavily debuffing enemies can crush me simply by stacking stuff like -def and -regen: suddenly I'm taking double the damage (though still at a steady rate), but I'm not regenerating any. I haven't yet played my Rad/SD extensively at 50 so it's yet early for me to say whether maxed Def or Res is "better", but so far I can say that both have their merits. However, given a chance to cap one stat and have a significant amount of the other, I'd definitely take soft capped def + significant resistance rather than the other way around.

Completely agree with this assessment, my /Inv background is on a Scrapper, though, so maybe that's why I question the benefit of F/C defense if you already have high S/L Def. Most F/C attacks come with a S/L component (elemental swords and punches, most blasts, etc), so the net added value of high F/C Def at the cost of offense is maybe down to taste. If you're building a tank or you can achieve a satisfactory level of offense, I'd definitely get soft capped F/C Def in addition to S/L/E/NE.

Spiritual or Agility, definitely. Both of those powersets thrive off of powers with long cooldowns, so you definitely want anything and everything that can help you with them. Other Alpha slots don't really give you too tangible benefits as increased Accuracy, End Reduction or Damage just doesn't have the same impact for an Ill/Traps as increased Recharge. I'd pick Agility because the +EndMod and +Def are more useful than the secondary benefits of Spiritual, even if Spiritual does have slightly higher Recharge values.

And how is this any different from any other AoE? Should we double the radius of PBAoEs too just because their AoE has no value and I want to hit more targets without improving my gameplay? A 40ft cone will hit people 30ft behind a target that's 10ft away, if you don't use positioning well to get those hits, it's not a cone issue. Why would you even intuitively think that a power advertised as a 60 degree arc cone would be 60+60=120 arc cone? There are plenty of melee cones that are 90 or 120 degrees and these would effectively become almost PBAoEs with a change like this. Gameplay wise, widening some narrow cones especially if they're melee would be nice, but I just don't think you've justified why this change is necessary or good for the game, let alone why just blindly doubling the cone areas is the solution.

Here's my summary of SR: Before decent enhancements (SOs or 25+ generic IOs), it sucks just like all other Defense based sets. Roughly a third of incoming attacks will hit you for unmitigated damage, so while you take the same damage on average as someone who's resist based, your incoming damage is more volatile and it's not uncommon to go from 100 to 0 very quickly. With Weave, CJ and other supplemental Defense powers it starts to shine. Those combined with a decent investment into IOs makes you very tough considering the investment level. There's also a possibility to be soft capped against everything in your 20s if you get Weave early and invest into the two +3% Def uniques. You also get some nice +Rech for free which helps your offense as you get to use long cooldown attacks more often. The downside? Well, the ceiling of SR is debatably slightly lower than something like Shield as it doesn't provide anything extraordinary aside from significant DDR. Shield can also get to the soft cap relatively easily, but it'll also have a bunch of damage resists, +maxHP, +DMG and a great AoE attack to go with that. Basically it just doesn't get quite as much out of extreme IO investments as some other sets with layered mitigation or offensive boosts. That said, if you're looking to build a low to medium budget build capable of soloing AVs, /SR is an extremely good pick.

I played a /Inv character extensively on live, and here's my take on Unstoppable. Primarily, I want consistent performance out of my character, and Unstoppable doesn't provide that. If I consistently need Unstoppable, then I'm either with a bad team, have my difficulty settings borked or then there's something wrong with my build. If I don't need Unstoppable consistently, why not just drop it and use inspirations or [Eye of the Magus] instead? As for mitigation in general, you don't really want an even level of mediocre defense against everything, but you want strong defense against the really common stuff, and then whatever you can spare for the rest. In practice this basically means you want to heavily prioritize S/L Defense/Res as a vast majority of the attacks come with an S/L component (= S/L def helps you avoid a lot of attacks), next E/NE (energy is the most common attack type that comes without S/L parts), and finally get a good dose of F/C/Psi def if you can. Even then, after soft capping S/L/E/NE it's probably a good idea to prioritize recharge, recovery, hp regeneration and offense because a dead enemy does no damage. Pure F/C/Psi damage is, in the end, such a small part of the overall damage of most enemy groups that you're better off being consistently extremely strong against the 90% (S/L/E/NE) and then relying on insps, temporary powers, teammates and such against the remaining 10% rather than being kind of ok against everything.

I'd have to go with Dark/SR or Fire/SR. SR is great with minimal investment and Dark synergizes with it extremely well: you get -ToHit to stack with your def and a self heal and +end power that SR lacks. If the lack of AoE bothers you, Fire Melee is a good alternative. If you're not dead set on the 100% SOs rule, a minimal excursion into the world of IOs can make both Dark/SR and Fire/SR capable of soloing AVs.

You can also use /playernote globalname to open up the note window for that particular global handle. As far as I know, no way to check what others write about you. As for usage, I generally use it as follows: 1 star for anyone who's a certified butthole that I don't want to play with again, I pair this with global ignore. The visible one star rating helps me avoid them if I happen to get into the same team somehow. 2-3 stars for anyone that's just a bad teammate depending on the severity, usually 2 stars if I suspect the bad play or lack of corrective actions is intentional, 3 stars if I think the person is just new or clueless, but doesn't intend it. This allows me to check the note if I see 2-3 stars and then choose whether or not I want to commit to playing with that person. 4 stars = no stars, or the default. The average member of our generally great community. 5 stars for anyone who's a particularly nice teammate: a great build that allows them to carry a team, someone who's just fun to play with or people who are helpful.

Or you can just check the YouTube videos of me soloing that stuff in the post I linked, buddy. That's actual evidence of that stuff happening. Ok, so you stated Incarnates not needed to have Perma PA, but in your link of proof you wrote... Yea you can make a Perma PA without incarnates...will it be easy Nope, will it be cheap uhhh hell NO. You will be taking stupid powers just to mule stuff and losing def soft caps. Like Extor said from the start ICE/Cold is beastly with incarnates but his statement was in comparison to what Ill/Rad could do with much less effort. Sheesh, the level of literacy in this thread. You are putting words in my mouth saying I provided it as evidence of what Ill/Cold does without incarnates when I'm literally saying "Ill/Cold is strong". My build is made around T4 Agility (with which PA is perma), because it's convenient to do so. I also posted the bolded part in the sentence following the link, sure it's expensive, but not impossible. Besides perma PA, my build is also S/L/E/Ranged soft capped and it should be pretty obvious to anyone with any experience in making end game builds that getting Agility's worth of additional global Recharge (~20%) if I drop Ranged soft cap from a build that natively gets next to no Defense at all is easy, even if the build itself will be more expensive than an Ill/Rad. Anyone actually wanting help with an Ill/Cold, just hit me up with a PM and I'll walk you through making a build.

Nah, this isn't some secret cabal you're not invited to because we like to keep things hush-hush, it's just people not wanting to help you because apparently nobody ever told you it pays off to have manners. Well let me do that for you: stop acting like a condescending bell-end and people might be more helpful towards you. I actually like helping people, but my way is helping people solve their problems, not solving them for them, because the latter assumes a usually unwarranted lack of agency or capability. You're most likely a big boy, so I believe you have the capability and agency to create a build on your own, but currently the biggest obstacle between you and a nice Ill/Cold build is a combination of your lack of interpersonal skills and your know-it-all attitude (not just when it comes to CoX, even up to what other people think). In short: I just don't want to help you in particular because of the way you behave. The toughest kid on the block thing stopped working back in high school or wherever it last provided you an ounce of authority, but I guess someone forgot to give you the memo. Oh yikes, I'll also give you one freebie feedback on your Ill/Cold: pick the right powersets. From one condescending bell-end to another, this exchange has been slightly amusing as it reminds me of something funny, but other than that I don't think there's anything left for me to see here. I'll let you have the last word if it helps you feel like you maintained control of the situation and won while I go back to having fun on my Ill/Cold. See you when you grow up, buddy :)

I think it serves people better in the long run to help them create their own build rather than just hand them one answer. Not only does it help you to find answers on your own in the future, it helps you formulate better questions to improve your builds. My builds aren't state secrets or anything like that, I just genuinely don't think just giving them as a default answer is the best way to go about things, and I'd rather help the individual evaluate what they want to accomplish, what their budget is and help them come to an answer themselves and then possess both the build and a deeper understanding about it. That said, while I'm usually willing to give a hand, why would I want to help anyone at the cost of my own time if they choose to behave like an entitled kid. Nobody is entitled to my help by default, but just being nice or giving the impression that my knowledge might grow from the exchange goes a long way. I definitely agree with this assessment. Ill/Cold isn't anything special without heavy investment into IOs because all the powers that make the build great sit on long cooldowns.

Ah yes, because the Alpha slot is such a drastic cheat compared to purples and IOs in general. If you aren't dead set on moving your original goal posts (= perma PA on Ill/Cold), it wouldn't be a big stretch of imagination to see that dropping soft capped Ranged Def would easily give me the slots for another ~20% Global rech whose equivalent I get from Agility currently. I don't even use Judgment, Hybrid or Lore in my runs, Clarion maybe a handful of times (like I said, I could also make do with a few Break Frees) and Interface adds a small bit of damage that doesn't make or break the build, so a small bit of research would show you Incarnates aren't needed to make Ill/Cold great. Anyway, you can review the guidance you've been given, the evidence you've been showed and your dismissive, passive aggressive attitude and then we can maybe come back to me helping you with your homework. Until then, I'll just consider this a failed attempt to milk me for a build and you can just

Or you can just check the YouTube videos of me soloing that stuff in the post I linked, buddy. That's actual evidence of that stuff happening.

Ill/Cold is definitely strong. As demonstrated, mine solos Lusca and ITF just fine without a self heal or insps. Perma PA isn't an issue even without Alphas unless you avoid purples, but Spiritual or Agility obviously make it a lot easier to achieve. Also, if you have perma PA, you have perma Heat Loss (assuming both have maxed +rech slotting) which is effectively infinite endurance thanks to the initial boost and the insane +recovery it gives for 90 seconds. My Ill/Cold has Clarion to cover mez protection, but thanks to soft capped S/L/Ranged def and PA I rarely get hit with anything, so I'd be fine with just Break Frees, really. I might go for Rebirth just because healing/regen is pretty much the only type of team support I'm lacking at the moment.