dmaker

While I have some people's attention with this thread, I might as well ask if anyone has a SS/WP build(s)? I'd love to look over some. Can't find many current ones online.

Thank you, that is good news. I won't feel that I have to waste an entire ancillary pool on Leaping just to get combat jumping. Now the question will be when on /follow while hovering will I be able to autofire footstomp consistently? That might be TBD. In which case, I will spec out Leadership probably. Alternatively, I can drive the two box duo with the SS toon because I know dragon's tail has no vertical constraint on the MA toon. Once the SS half is built up more, of course.

Thanks for the input, folks. Another thing popped into my head with this plan: can you footstomp while hovering? I am guessing no, which is kind of bummer. I think combat jumping is kind of an important toggle, no? I believe hover is similar, but if I can't do my one aoe while hovering, that kills that idea. Flying is a deal breaker. For concept reasons, I want fly in this build. Are we allowed only 4 ancillary pools? Leaping (for combat jumping) Speed (for hasten) Fighting (for Tough and Weave) Leadership (for man, tactics, etc) Doesn't leave any room for Flight. I guess I will have to do without Leadership...? Agreed, regarding Energy Mastery. It was always in plan for superior conditioning, physical perfection and laser beam eyes!

I went to adjust my slotting and noticed that I already had 3 def in my toggles. ED means I can't do much more than that. I have decided to pause this project for now and am going to just build a SS/WP or Inv Brute to two box with instead. Fits my toon concepts better anyway, and I already have a Spines/Fire lvl 50 Brute that needs a ton of work, but I can turn him into a solo ATM if I really feel like it.

My main is a MA/WP Brute. I love him. I have spent a lot of time and influence on him and there is still some work to do ( only two Tier4 right now, and some accolades and such yet to get, but for the content I do, he is an easy, no worry toon to drive). Being MA, he lacks in AoE. So I thought I would make another toon to autofollow (I've mentioned this plan in other threads, and have played with a few other builds). My main is a Batman concept (my costume is mash of Batman and Moon Knight and looks pretty cool--I get lots of random compliments, so some others must agree). I've decided, for now, to shelf the other builds I was considering for two boxing and make a World's Finest kind of pair (I know, my altitis is showing). So I'm going to make another brute that is a Superman concept. My only decision is should I go with WP secondary or Inv? My first instinct was to go for WP as it is familiar and I know how to slot it for for easy, worry free +4x8 SL farms, but also perform well outside AE. Basically it would just be a copy of my main that follows me around and Footstomps on autofire. But I am open to Inv, I am just not that familiar. I know WP is basically click free and when slotted right can have high def and virtually no endurance issues. How does inv compare as far as the set it and forget it nature of WP? If the character is basically going to /follow most of the time and throw out a footstomp on every recharge, then I cannot really be managing powers. WP would be great for that. But on the other hand, this toon will venture beyond the AE at times as well. AE will be used to PL him and vet level grind, so he will spend a lot of time attached to the hip of my main, but will be untethered out in the wild at some point as well. Basically, is inv a pain to manage endurance wise? Is it very active and require much clicking? The endurance aspect is mitigated somewhat by the fact that when he is in his /follow footstomp role, I won't care much about endurance as only one attack will be firing off. But like I said, I will use this toon for who knows what down the road. Thanks

Awesome advice, thank you. It's going into my " forum advice to not forget" file :)

I'll adjust my slotting and put only one in each defensive toggles. I do, however, have one end reduction in each attack. I was surprised at how poor my endurance held up.

Hmm, I can barely handle 3 mobs at once without running out of endurance and I have 13 or 15 end reduction slotted. Farming x8 at any level is pretty much out of the question. Elec armor has a ton of toggles.

That would make for a fun churn. Just spam your aoe and sit in the middle of the maelstrom :) Though I suppose that might be part of the reason why we won't see it. It encourages AFK farming.

This is a ss/elec farmer for SL farms. But that aside, should I be able to do much with only generic IOs? I was pretty much helpless at level 33 with level 35 generic IO's on the build that I mentioned. I only have about 100 million to spend right now on this toon.

I often two box with my main to get a toon going. When building a new farmer, what is a good level to jump out on your own and start solo farming? I was guessing somewhere in the mid 30's, but I took a newly PL'd mid 30 farm build out for a solo spin in the real world last night and it was hard not to faceplant with generic IOs even when only facing 3 +1 mobs in Croatoa. What level do most of you start to solo farm? How do you slot? Do you slot with your end build in mind, or just with generic IOs at first? Thanks!

I created an alt last night based on the ss/elec brute build suggested by dreadzor. I used my main to two box and PL the alt to mid 30's. My main is a MA/WP brute at vet level 23 with T4 Alpha, T4 Judgement and the rest Tier3. I have superior ATO in two powers and the rest are all slotted based on advice given here. It's a very expensive build, but it rocks. I can do a large SL farm at 4x8 and never take a scratch and my end bar never moves. It's very solid and easy to grind 4x8 SL, but it's slow as I have one primary aoe and one from the T4 judgement. So it takes a long time. That is why I was interested in creating an alt better suited for SL farming. I took the ss/elec alt out of AE for a spin. I slotted endurance reduction level 35 generic IOs. One in each attack and two in each defensive toggle and one in the ancillary powers like tough, weave, manouvers, combat jumping. I counted, I think, about 15 endurance reduction. Each defensive toggle also had 2 or 3 level 35 IO for resist damage, and my attacks have similarly level 35 IOs for attack and accuracy. Not impressive slotting, but good enough for a test drive, pre-50 kind of thing. It did not perform well at all. I could barely do two attack chains before running out of endurance and my health bar was constantly going very low. I was only fighting +1 or +2 groups of maybe 3 mobs in the upper right corner of Croatoa. I was disappointed in the build at that point. It must be a build that only really shines when level 50 and decked out with ATO and other expensive sets? I only have about 100 million on hand, so I just used generic level 35 IOs to see if I could get a feel for it. I will either have to plow on and gain more levels and hundreds of million more influence, or possibly abandon the experiment.

I was wondering if /localtime could be an on screen display toggle of some sort? Maybe even something like how we can track combat attributes. I do have a macro for it, but would be nice if it was an on screen toggle.

That is interesting. Looks like it would do well in either Fire or SL farms. Hmmm, maybe my next uber expensive alt project. I am thinking of making a farmer for my melee toons for vet level grinding. That way I can two box one (this build you provided probably) and then have something like an MA/WP toon on /follow and a PBAoE on autofire and just plow through SL farms

Many live games now offer a store transaction item that will boost you to the level cap, or very near it. For example, Everquest has one. Lord of the Rings online has them as well. Wow too. Expansion packs often come with a bundle that includes a jump to level 100 where the level cap might be 105 or 110. And, as mentioned, pricey store items that will boost you to the same level 100 are available in most games that I have seen lately. They are not cheap. I think they work out to about $50. For me, I sometimes like having that option in fantasy games. I like to explore the setting. See which zones have what sort of interesting landscapes or new and fantastical beasts to best. But early MMO game designs mostly dictated a concentric circle of increasing difficulty as you ventured beyond your starting area. As such, my exploration curiosity was always level dependent. So I would level so that I could explore more of the game world. The game itself became a kind of barrier to my main interest in playing--solo exploration. So I would sometimes reach for a level booster so that I could range wider in the game world. With CoH, it's different for me. Since it is not a fantasy setting, I find most of the zones to be fairly similar and the variety of mobs to contest with while exploring to be also repetitive (not a complaint). Exploring the game world is no longer a huge factor for me. I have become much more engaged in the game mechanics and focused on character tuning/tweaking than in any previous game. Getting a character to my preferred starting point, say level 35, is trivial if you create a farm toon and two box, so I don't really need a level booster, particularly if it's going to be pricey in terms of influence. I can do it myself in two hours or less and save the inf for purples or boosters or whatever to tweak an existing character.

Wow, I love that simple analogy. You are so right. Instant, short lived gratification. Not to say that early level grinding shortcuts should be immediately panned, but a simple, unlimited jump to 50 option would be bad for the game overall.

Would love to see more Watchmen: original Nite Owl and Nite Owl II, perhaps Comedian as well? Hooded Justice would be awesome. Side note: Could Rorschach be made a boss? He is defeated so quickly that I never really get to check out his costume much 🙂

Is there a utility to export a character?

Now I want an Aloha Slot.

Thank you for the input, everyone.

I've only been getting them via vet levels, and only vet level 6 right now. So, that seems a pretty slow way to do it. A couple of my incarnates are at Tier 3, but it's going to take a long time if I rely on the emp merits that come via vet levels. I believe I heard mention that ITF is the best way? Never done that/those...? I'm not in an SG currently and don't group that often, which is probably why I find myself at vet level 6 and kind of clueless as to how to go about getting my emp merits. Thank you.

Thank you. And empyrean merits are the only way to advance through tier 3 and tier 4?

Is that because you need emp merits for the higher tier stuff? And is having xp turned on and gaining vet levels the only way to gain emp merits? That part is not entirely clear to me, but I am approaching tier 3 for incarnate, so would love to clarify this a bit. Thank you.

Do you need to have xp on to get incarnate to tier 4? I've xp turned off and I'm still getting threads bonding and have slotted all my first tier incarnates.

What about incarnate thread bonding? How is that determined? Random?