Crysis

Have DB on both scrapper and stalker. Pylon times are dramatically better on Stalker version, and I find in normal play that to be true against foes as well. DB/EA stalker, following SwitchFade’s build advice, is pre-nerf TW/Bio scrapper almost broken its so good.

Been years but I used to zone PVP frequently and Recluse Victory was the top tier for that. I’d pop Hibernate and routinely get owned by AV’s and other PVP players alike. Things may have changed since Live but I don’t think Hibernate makes you untouchable.

Yes, I have PB on my Bots/Time, but on my Thugs/Time, I took Soul Mastery for the RES shield. That gives me two layers of defense. My Thugs are S/L capped without power boosted Farsight.

Thugs/Storm or Demon/Storm MM’s are amazing against stationary targets. My Thugs/Storm MM can take down a pylon in under a minute. But that’s not really how PVE works. If you’d like to experience OMGWTFBBQ levels of superhero godliness akin to Thor or Superman in any PVE +4/x8 content then you can try: Bots/ or Demon/ and /Time MM Fire/Kin, Fire/Storm or Ice/Cold Corr...or Beam/Traps Corr if you like a little more planning with your damage. War Mace/Bio or Axe/Rad Scrapper DB/Energy Aura Stalker DP/Ninja or DP/Temporal Blaster Fire/Energy Blaster Plant/Fire Dom Fire/Kin Controller Ill/Rad or Ill/Storm Controller....the latter is an “expert mode” build as its high damage chaos There are many other AT’s that are good to very good but the above can solo anything the game can throw at you or do the same with teams....but with an audience.

I have several */Time and Thugs/* MM’s, including a Thugs/Time. On mine I’ve softcapped DEF for S/L/Melee and almost capped S/L resists, thus don’t really find mezz’s land that often. So I jump into spawn with TJ running and the henchmen on Defensive and they follow me right into the -TOHIT debuffed spawn. I have slotted Boxing and Cross Punch which both do horrid damage but gives me some additional aggro ability and some soft control. I also have 190%+ recharge so I can spam the heal as needed. Most of the Thugs/Time builds I see are Ranged DEF soft cap and use Bonfire. Effective also but I do like to be in melee and tankermind and thematically slugging it out alongside the Thugs feels right.

The challenge with these kinds of threads is context. -what definition are we using for “powerful” -solo or teamed? PVE? PVP? Pylons? versus what kind of content? -what’s your unique point of reference? -are we talking DPS or survivability or something balanced? I’ve taken the various builds out of the pylon test threads and recreated them faithfully. Against pylons they worked as advertised. But in PVE with PUG teams against a variety of ordinary missions....they felt far less powerful. OTOH I’ve had team-oriented AT’s who could solo GM’s and AV’s easily as long as I controlled the battlefield and didn’t have to deal with a teammate pulling way too much aggro at once.

Speaking only from my personal experience, there are very few times I decide to go Defender vs Corruptor even when the same two power sets are available to each. I think the introduction of Procs has blurred the roles dramatically, but I also think the current implementation of Procs is going to be addressed (read NERFED) and that line will become unblurred very quickly. One is an offensive support player (Corruptor) and as such their secondary is meant to augment their primary. The other is a Defensive support player (Defender) and their powers are primarily meant to augment the contribution of OTHER players, even if it just so happens to augment their attack strength as well. So WHEN, not -IF-, Procs are adjusted, I suspect that my approach to building and playing Corrs will become even more in tune with the game mechanics. I focus heavily on debuffing MY targets so that they succumb to more damage from MY attacks. On my Defenders, I focus more on debuffing (or buffing) the TEAMS targets and core abilities so that THEIR attacks are amplified. For me, my most effective Corruptors have been Fire/Kin, Fire/Dark, Fire/Storm, Fire/Time, Fire/Rad (seeing a pattern here LOL), DP/Rad, Ice/Rad and Ice/Cold. I can build a Defender to play much like a Corruptor with Procs, but without Procs, that wouldn’t be a smart approach.

I’ve just not had that experience. But sometimes, we enjoy certain AT’s than others due to game mechanics. Mezz isn’t that big of a deal for me on any Blaster, Corruptor, etc and the Sorcery pool has been a nice bonus to work into builds as “oh crap” buttons. I mean I have many, many Melee builds and Psi or Toxic are annoying to deal with because I don’t have easy mitigation for those either, even if Mezz is virtually ignorable altogether (other than the pesky Fear powers). But every AT is meant to have at least SOME weakness. Heck, the entire Warshade/Peacebringer AT have Q’s -JUST- to annoy them. All I’m saying Bill is that without a little bit of crack in your armor, you don’t have much reason to feel Super. Even Superman has his Kryptonite.

One of the best ways to skip Clarion entirely (and I think I only carry it on one Blaster) is to go Hybrid-Melee and Rune of Protection. I often alternate between those two. Between i-Softcapped SLE and R from IO sets, plus the boost from Melee Hybrid, you are pretty much playing a ranged stalker. Mezz isn’t an issue if it doesn’t land (which is where the high DEF comes into play) and if it does, you pop ROP, get the boost in RES and then pop Hybrid Melee thereafter.

Fair enough. I’ll admit to have taken some awful powers for just that reason. I’ll often respec out of them once I realize how bad they are versus the cool factor but I can acknowledge that concept can trump functionality.

I feel that. I have a “Walking Tall” homage WM/Bio scrapper but his only two choices that fit the theme are the club or the police baton. And the club looks like something Bam Bam from the Flintstones would wield.

I think this game, more than most other video games I’ve played over the years, lends itself well to diversity since there’s so many pairings of power sets and so many set bonuses you can attempt, and respecs let you easily change a character even long after it’s been retired. I’ve even taken some long-retired alts and all but totally remade them as experiments. For example, taking a Blaster that was built for softcapped Ranged defense via Hover to a Melee Blapper with extremely high recharge. Same Primary/Secondary but two totally different characters from a play style perspective. So no, I’ve no “forever” characters. I mean some have existed in one form or another since early Beta of this game prior to 2004, but I’ve remade even those several times over....Red vs. Blue versions, different power sets, different play styles/slotting, etc. etc. etc. I guess I’m stuck in the multiverse version of this game, with my role as Writer/Director constantly re-casting the same character, but putting them in very different roles.

You should do at least one. In fact, since the game has changed so much since Live, most raids do it 3 times now in a row and are over in under an hour once formed. What works for me is I have one alt (suggest you make it a ranged damage dealer, like a Blaster, as they are really easy to play in a Hamidon raid) that I just log out inside The Hive whilst standing on “the rock” that serves as the gathering spot for raids. Then, when you see the announcement that Hami raid is starting, just log into that character. It takes awhile to form up usually, but as long as you log in early, you won’t get stuck in Hive2 instance and locked out of raid. Then, by merely being there, a simple /b LF Hami comment will get you invited. Most raid leaders have macros to call the shots/moves. And most raid strategies now involve raid sequence leaders. So if you are a blaster, just put yourself on Follow for your particular raid leader and do what they do. Make sure you have a jet pack or fly and it’s almost paint by numbers easy now. You could almost literally do one AFK if you just Follow your particular raid leader and leave an attack on auto-fire its so easy. I don’t think that’s the right thing to do, but just making the case that you have absolutely nothing to fear about screwing the raid up for everyone else. Worst case is you die somehow but with so many players involved, a Rez is usually quickly offered. So don’t worry about being invited. Just show up on time in right Hive and you WILL get invited. Follow the instructions from Raid Leader, follow your particular raid section leader, do what they do and you’ll be successful and get your Hami O, merits, etc. Three times in a row.

When HC first re-appeared, I was there day one with a plan. I had saved ALL of my old Live characters as Sentinel files, so I had all of the builds as of the date of shutdown. I was convinced when the SCORE drama cleared the game would only re-appear for a short while before being taken down again, so I was determined to get “one more run” with each of my favorites. Even back on Live I had several 50’s that just never clicked with me as did others. But I had a few 50’s that I loved, and several alts that weren’t 50 yet when the game shut down that I also loved but was forever stuck with the “Didn’t complete them” feelings of loss. So I lined up my Top 10 alts and came up with a plan to do three things: 1) Build a farmer for PL/Influence gain purposes, 2) Use farmer to quickly PL my favorite alts back to EXACTLY where they were at when game shutdown and 3) Play those alts to complete them. Not knowing about the whole market seeding thing, I planned my first farmer to be something that could easily farm via just SO’s, a Fire/Kin ‘troller, which also happened to be one of my mains. Shortly after that I created the typical Spine/Fire farmer, but both of those existed in my library of goal alts anyways. Quickly accomplished goals 1 and 2 and had my library of past Alts more or less complete. A few were changed to different AT’s because of changes to power sets and such brought about by HC. For example, my beloved BS/Regen Scrapper from Live (long since nerfed to oblivion) was converted to a BS/Shield Stalker. But otherwise, I had all my old toys back. Then, of course, alt-itis struck again. I’m now way past four-dozen or so fully T4’d level 50’s and have actually only finished maybe 4-5 of my original “Top 10” toons of old. Just having too much fun and every day I see a costume, character bio or a sequence of animated moves on another player that makes me go “ooooo, I want” and then another alt hits the library. If the game shuts down tomorrow, I’ve crammed a whole bunch of hours and fun into the new alts I’ve made, and no longer feel the need to go back and finish my Top 10. Some were “top performers” only on Live and of course HC has changed a huge number of power sets, meaning the top tier looks different now than it did.

Meant to add to this thread in case anyone is looking for a little extra spending money.... I routinely run Brigg's Smashing and Lethal ComicCon farm with my build posted above. With softcapped S/L DEF and very high Melee Defense, plus the resists, it's almost as fast as my purpose-built Spines/Fire brute. The big difference is that a DP/Time blaster plays perfectly fine outside the AE, while the brute is far weaker outside of AE. Just in case you want to have some fun, take one into arc 133 set on +4/x8. Fast, easy XP and drops. Use the damage inspiration macros to convert all those inspiration drops into reds. Even without being able to hold aggro, you are just a buzzsaw, especially with Hybrid Melee.

Height I choose depends on the character I’m making, their backstory and sometimes because the costume pieces I want look “funny” if their leg/torso height isn’t set just right. So it’s a lot of “depends on....” stuff. However, I will say reading your post that I occasionally run into a situation where I apply a pre-saved costume file to a character that has been manually adjusted to a height/size that wasn’t intended for the original costume. I can get some wonky results when that happens, including logging in the character only to watch them suddenly grow/shrink. I’m guessing costume files sometimes include body slider measures, but I’m not sure. So I sometimes end up having to go back to the cosmetic surgeon and manually tinkering with the sliders again to get things fixed.

The game engine allows computer-controlled mobs to “cheat” a little on Endurance usage. If they have even 1 tick of Endurance, they can still attack, whereas you can’t launch a 20 End attack with only 1 tick of endurance left. Then there’s the AV heightened resistance and outrageous recovery to worry about. So with the right powers/AT’s and teamwork, likely you could drain an AV’s quite a bit, even floor it. But for that same amount of Endurance you spend on doing that, you could just likely straight up launch attacks and defeat the AV. Sapper builds abound on the boards. I have a couple that work that way and I wasn’t really even aiming to do so. But on AV’s, it’s pretty much 0 endurance all the time or its a wasted effort. Against normal minion/Lt/Boss spawns it can be a pretty effective tactic. But against AV’s and GM’s...not in my experience. PS - Last sapper build I had was a /Elec Affinity Mastermind. Could have other contributing factors than just END drain but I found sapping bosses would make them run away VERY FAST like the Council Werewolves. Annoying as all get out, especially on a MM as my pets would try to follow them and end up aggroing a bunch of other stuff while giving chase.

Sometimes you just like what you like and forcing yourself to like something everyone else says is “da bomb” just doesn’t work. I’ve played this game since 2004, other than the dark years, and I can count on one hand the total number of Defenders and Controllers I’ve taken to 50 and enjoyed playing after, well before even Incarnates were around. I just don’t like playing support. Some people, that’s their thing. For me, I feel like I’m the audience at a Superhero show. Since HC came around, I’ve made exactly one Controller T4’d out. Slog for me, had to force myself to keep playing it. Direct-damage AT’s are my thing. Blasters, Scrappers, Stalkers, Corruptors and even lol Sentinels. Dom’s can be fun. I love playing Masterminds because they actually take a little effort to keep your pets under control, and thus the whole “audience support” role is more interactive. So they are an AT unto themselves. But if I can’t make big orange numbers by myself, I just don’t feel very useful and my enjoyment drops. Just play what you want. I do keep dreaming of a day when Sentinels receive a damage buff. Because on paper they are about the perfect scratch for my itch....short-ranged melee fighters. And Regen actually works for them in that role. But until then, I find Melee a very enjoyable play style.

Nemu, I just re-read what you wrote....I didn’t realize -RES doesn’t work with anything other than normal ammo on Piercing. Is this true for any procs assigned to PR? And is this WAI or is it a bug?

Meh, I just keep a temp power attack and go petless for those kinds of things. All you need is a single attack landing on the DropShip.

And if anything/Storm, also pick up the Recovery buff from P2W. And the Recovery shot temp power. And use Base Empowerment for Recovery. And carry blues. And only team with /Kins or anyone else who can buff your END.

If you want BS/Shield you need to roll a Stalker. It’s sick how much better it plays on a Stalker with on-demand Crits than even the best built scrapper.

I don't stay in a single farm "all day," I use ShadowPC to run multiple instances of COH client and use my iPhone/iPad to check in on farmers every 35-45 mins, move them out, reset, and run again. Since I'm not actively playing, it's pretty simple to just log in, exit mish, reset mish, enter mission periodically.

Why anyone would dip THREE powers into TP pool for something you can accomplish by just jumping into middle of spawn is beyond me. Maybe for a /Traps or /Devices player, but for anyone else other than a Stone tank....why?

JA and Dr Q are both utterly skippable content even if you are a die-hard content player. It’s like the entirety of the Shadow Shard, and the TF’s within, were some summer intern project so someone could learn how the dev mission creation tools worked. I’ve seen fire farms in AE with more meaningful story and missions than these two. If you manage to get on a speed group, it’s worth it to do both -JUST- for the merits and to see what awful TF’s they are. If everyone on the team has TT, Mission Transporter, Assemble Team, they can be speed-run rather quickly. But otherwise....skip them.