Golden Azrael

Impressive use of the cel-shader renderer. Top job. Azrael.

Following your post (and Flea's) about buying and selling each day. I've, for the 1st time, taking to making some bids, crafting and selling, 'flipping' as they say. It's working. I'm certainly pushing my 2nd main to 2 billion. Currently at just over 1.5 billion. The combination of #playing the game, 'some' Tanking and 'Crafting and Marketing' certainly puts you on the curve for that 2 billion. I'm not sure I'm slick enough for '3.5 billion' a week. But as a 'rookie' I'm 'getting ahead' so to speak. Azrael.

Thank you for the authoritative reply. I think HC's position is decently discretionary while prioritising demand (which is good for the overall community.) Fair enough, as they say. Your advice is well noted. I'm not sure I have the appetite for 1 Zillion. Most of the approximate 20 billion I have is locked up in characters I played with 'some' farming inbetween to give characters pushes during the 'slow' curves on the way to L50. I was crazy enough to try farming with a Fire/Fire/Fire blaster and probably died about 100+ times getting 'her' up to standard where 'she' could farm. It was a fellow player that introduced me to farming. It was a great 'leg up' but didn't replace playing the 'main' game so to speak. (Some do farming to 'relax', I hear.) I've only asset stripped one Tank (willpower) for parts for another Tank to play in game. Learning the market (as such, I'm just a 'student' of the market, I've never really used it beyond over paying for ATs and the earlier builds I made (fire blaster, 1.2 billion?) is something I want to do just to be less wasteful and more efficient. After 40+ level 50s. Most of the ATs, rerolls from live, and new stuff I didn't get the chance to do on live has been done. Though, a friend suggested a Sonic/Sonic Blaster and I've been pleasantly surprised by it. I call it a 'Junior' Tank. Re: Converters and Crafting. I can Echo your's and Flea's comments on this. (*index finger in ice water.) I've mainly used Tanking on farms to supplement the Alts I play 'in game' as just recently learned to 'just make and sell' my stuff as I go along. Reading yours and others 'marketing' info' has been a revelation just in terms of exploiting even a mainstream feature of CoH. Relatively recently I've taken to 'making bids' and 'flipping them.' I'd say this is the 1st time ever during my play over live/HC that I've done this. Marketing, for me, doesn't replace playing the game. But as an annex it adds some quality of life through knowledge and efficiency. I'd say to any new player. Roll a Tank/Brute. Get it to L50. Play it enough to fund your next alt (or give it a head start.) Form an SG for all your alts to contribute to (drop off their 'junk.') Have storage for salvage and enhancements (which can contribute to your next alt.) Craft as you go along. (Unless you want a sore index.) etc. Etc. Regards, Azrael.

"If you want to be GOD, pick a TANK!" Hyperstrike. Probably the best quote about a Tank or any AT ever. If you're new to Tanking, or new to CoH. This is the killer sales pitch for any beginner. (I started my CoH career with a fire blaster and/or a Bubble/En Defender back in 2003. I spent most of my time in Hospital.) 'God?' ... "Where do I sign up?" Azrael.

Broadly speaking, I find Tanks variations on a theme. They just cut the cake differently. *Walks into the Tank Cake shop, 'What would you like sir, Resistance or Defence?' 'Would Sir like some HPs or Regen Heal?' 'Perhaps a little bit of stamina return proc per mob? That said, I welcome the HC developers to surgically re-attach the Christmas Baubles to Regen and give it to a Tank. If anyone can do this or fix Rage Crash, It's the HC team. Azrael.

'Only a Master of Evil, Darth.' Kenobi. And respectfully disagree we will. 😉 But your builds are Kool. No disagreement on that one. Clearly a well versed authority on building. If I have 'only' Dull Pain. It's still some form of 'Regen' Tank. Ergo, why I call the Elec Armour a 'pocket rocket' Regen Tank. Bio and Rad have whole VATs of stamina (which is a fundamental part of the whole regen kick, so much so, Regen has 'Quick Recovery' and Rad/Bio have their own semantical variations...) and heals and absorbs. Fire has it's heal and stamina returns. Ice has it's dull pain and stamina return. But these are things for the beginner Tank to consider. How much heal or stamina do they want? How of that will they get if they pick a Defence or Resistance based Tank. Even my SR/Shield Tank needs to take an incarnate 'Regen' power 'just in case.' They don't have any 'regen' at all (unless you count True Grit and the combination of Health for Shield.) With Defence, whenever you gamble, sometimes you lose. Most of the Tanks mentioned in this 'Starter Guide Top Ten' are 'regen' tanks in some form or another (the running order of the 'ten' respectfully borrowed from Infinitum.) To the purists, sure. Tanks don't have a 'Regen' set like Scrappers do. But they have so many sets which have variations on that theme that they've got the next best thing or even a better mix of ingredients. Understandably, they want the 'real' deal. They want a carbon copy of the Scrapper's Regen Tank to spare them from the 'auto-tonomy' of Will Power. After all, how come the Tanks can get Scrapper's Reflex and Tanks can't have 'Regen' from Scrappers? But there's plenty of choice for Tanks containing 'different' amounts of those regenny elements. Just don't forget your debuff protections. As they also come in different amounts. Good pic. But if he gets a hot tea spoon or spinning matrix spoon to the gonads, he'll go down and hold his nether regions and roll around in agony... just like any other guy. 😉 Azrael.

Regen has it's moments. (Speaking for my Scrapper. I do like MoG. But I hear that Regen still has it's baubles hanging on the Developer X-Mas tree after they were pruned from the set. If you take my meaning...) I always found healing a somewhat 'reactive' approach where as Defence as more proactive in not getting hit in the 1st place. An area where Invul' does SUPERBLY! Even Invuln' has Dull Pain, a pocket regen button just as Elec Armour has it's 'pocket regen' button. I tend to judge Tanks for their 'out of the box' capabilities, strengths and weaknesses according to the design (flaws?) they can have. The beauty is circumventing these to achieve the Holy Grail of 'Tank Balance.' Azrael.

Some armours, as Hyper says, 'may' well be resist based but their drive chains, at heart, are all 'Regen' Tanks in all but name. You explained it very well, Infinitum. Azrael.

It's a Regen set. In all but name. No heartache necessary. Azrael.

Nice pic. But NOT so fast, Hyper! Azrael.

Shield also gets it's goodies (re: Defence) in all positions in the 1st Two armour tiers. When the penny dropped on my head regarding this on a Tank (I'd previously done Shield/War Mace on a Brute) I was sold. It was an Epiphany moment. SR. Mine has been most impressive. With Glass Ceiling breaking positional Defence. I paired mine with Street Justice. (Both things I wanted to try on live before the plug got pulled. As such, it was my 1st Tank I rolled when HC went 'Live.' No Shield Charge, though. Any revisit by the devs? I'd like the Tier 9 to give some offensive damage. Call it 'vibrational' from moving so fast. Aka. Bullet Time. Azrael.

A choice post. Shield Tank is another Tank I came later to. (Shield Electric and Shield MA.) Both a turbo charged builds with insane speed and AoE potential. I boosted the Shield MA with additional 'out of set' AoEs like Spring Attack and Cross 'Smack' from Fighting Pool to give me 'moAR' AoE beat down. Naturally, I took 'Mighty' Judgement as well. All these stack with Dragon's Tail...and the Sense Shattering Shield Charge. Needless to say, after I unless all that whoop Az on a mob...they're reeling with slithers of health for MA to smack-fu them into another universe. RE: Rebirth. I took this 'cause of no heal' and put a Heal Proc (regenerative) into Health. It was 'enough' for the few times I got hurt (my melee defence is north of 70%.) But I'll note your comments on Unrelenting. As for endurance. I have tried Agility Alpha with Ageless Tier 4 left side. Plus I have Hybrid Tier 4 Left side as well. I have Focused Acc plus Physical Fitness. I also have a version with Cardiac Alpha with Assault Tier 4 Right. Shield is a highly spoken of tank. I can see why. Put a couple of force feedbacks in there and even cooldowns like Lightning Rod become a regular part of your attack chain...and Shield Charge coming around much faster. Azrael.

Dark/Dark Tank was a recent Tank roll for me. I thought 'I'd done it all' with Dark/Dark/Dark Scrapper. However, the 'Tank Patch' married to Dark/Dark on a Tank was pure revelation. I love Dark Armour on a Tank. The attacking 'radiating' AoE effects of the Tank seem to go hand in glove with Dark Melee too. Many cite it's 'end problem...' but that CAN be fixed. Dark Armour and Dark Melee swirls and weaves it's intoxicating malaise of dark power like some Sith Lord. Azrael.

Hmm. You can aim for good positional defence with some effort but the robust balance (resist/defence/debuff protection/stamina/heal/accuracy/damage output - the holy grail of tank builds) of Defence and Resist to those high positional defence numbers is ideally what we're after. (Shield's Achilles heel is resist - but that certainly isn't the case here!) Sure, we lose some of the Street Justice's 'fluffier' single target debuffs but one could argue it's more direct (a chainsaw rotation of smack down) as a result and the trade offs for those resistance numbers and the defence on things like Fire seem compelling. Even Psi has decent resist. If I was going to roll a Shield Street Justice Tank? This is the build I'd choose. Smack-Tastic. Top job, Infinitum. Azrael.

Sound points. Good catch, Infinitum. 😉 Azrael.

Impressive positional defence. Backed up with reasonably robust resistance. Azrael.

Excellent build from Hyperstrike, there. The resistance numbers are impressive. I've got higher defence in all positions. But my resistances don't compare to those. It's a great balance of Defence and Resistance and Hyper's chosen most of the powers (as I tend to do in most all builds of anything.) Azrael.

As a casual player and student of the market... I usually buy in lots of 100 or sometimes 200. That usually covers what I craft daily. I pay no more than 70k. I'm patient. It normally resolves immediately at certain times, or a few hours, sometimes it's over night of late due to market demand. The supply and demand seemed to be 6:1. I remember it being more even than that even relatively recently. I did convert a Hero Merit to Converters for the 1st time yesterday when the market was slow. 3 Convs x 1 Merit x 50 Merits = 150. I'm on the climb with Hero Merits at 37 and counting. Just converted the merits I had on an alt to Hero Merits and then sent them to my Market Trader Main. Put to 'good' use from the 'casual' farming which earned Yellow Recipes to craft and two 'lucky' Purple recipe drops. Azrael.

Just as an aside. Do HC put a limit on accounts? It's one email address per account? Azrael.

Cheers, I'll see if I can turn it on. Azrael.

Cool pick. Cel shader setting available on Nvidia GPU but not AMD Radeon? Azrael.

The Modding was great for reclaiming the original 'Ah!' Taunt Sound Fx vs HUR (physically sick) Taunt. I remember community members hunting out and finding the discarded and no longer used 'Ah.' It's on all my Tanks and male Taunters. I also used the Arrow sound fx. Very Errol FLynn. Azrael.

Mmm. Superb job. And as Lantern fan, I'd prefer she had been in the JLA rather than Guy. (There's also Jade from Infinity Inc. Daughter of the Golden Age GL. I just recently bought the 1st Hard Cover volume of that off Amazon.) 'Top Banana' as they say. 😄 'Hey, Lady!' Azrael.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that finds that really annoying with uncommon going for 2,400k. You're trying to craft something and the market is waiting on some bidding war supply and demand thing. 'I just want a yellow uncommon eg. Sapphire, so I can craft this thing for my build or to sell it.' It's been similar with the Orange salvage being pushed up to 600k+. I think that's the one that sent me over the edge to make the base. That's part of the reason I set up my own SG. I got fed up of the price gouging. I now put all my alts 'uncommon' salvage in a couple of storage racks (I have two for common and 2 for uncommon. I may add a 3rd one for uncommon and common. It's surprising how quickly it goes down when you make a bake a bunch of recipes. Azrael.

Here, here. Azrael.