Zumberge

He doesn't hide, he's just so garish that when enemies start to turn towards him they go blind briefly and their visual cortex shorts out, so they never register that he's there. (Non-standard explanations for Stalker stealth are really fun, you guys.)

It's partially because it's just a good typed defense set that plays well with Parry, and partially because what else it offers - +Max Health, a toggle that gives you +DMG for nearby enemies, another toggle that gives your teammates (but not you) defense called Grant Cover, and a shield charge that doesn't break Hide - is so positively un-Stalker-like, for lack of a better term, and Broadsword just emphasizes it further. The damage boost synergizes well with BS being the high-damage set it is, but mostly it's just the novelty of pointing to some guy who looks like he's about to head off to reclaim the Holy Lands and going, "you see this dude? With the three feet of sharpened steel and a heater shield? He could sneak into the heart of Jerusalem and hide in plain sight."

Right off: Titan Weapons is bad for farms. Too slow, too endurance-heavy, not optimal. Wouldn't suggest it unless someone else is farming for you. Now. I'm gonna sound like a broken record when it comes to Titan Weapons but it is not entirely unlike the joke about the A-10 being a plane attached to a gun: The plane is an accessory. It is a means to get the gun in the air. So too with your secondary and Titan Weapons: Those powers exist to facilitate you hitting things in the face with a fuck-off huge hammer and never, ever stopping. You're going to want either +recharge, some form of endurance recovery, or both. Not all of them are equal, so here we go. Elec Armor: A personal favorite. +Recharge in Lightning Reflexes, an endurance discount in Energize, Power Sink is a PBAoE auto-hit endurance leech, and capped endurance debuff resist so you can taunt a Sapper and let him see just how pointless his existence really is. Unfortunately Energize and Power Sink come a bit late, there's no -recharge resist, and non-energy resistance tends to fall by the wayside. Energy Aura: I bet a lot of people forgot this existed. It's typed defense that leans heavy on energy, sure, but Entropic Aura gives you +recharge for nearby enemies, and it's got the same Energize and Power Sink (here named Energy Drain) as Elec Armor as well as endurance drain resist; the drain comes at 28 instead of 35 like with Elec. It's actually been improved upon quite a bit since i6. That heal and +recharge weren't there originally, I can tell you that. Fiery Aura: Consume is a nearly free endurance leech at level 20, so that's good, and Fiery Embrace is more damage, which is also nice. But you're gonna be a little brittle, and stacking Tough and Weave to fix that is going to eat into your endurance. Probably Combat Jumping too, for a knockback resist IO. Ice Armor: More typed defense and more endurance leeches, but it also adds to your defense, and the tier 9 "push X to not die" power recovers endurance. What this has to offer is probably better on Tankers than it is on Brutes though, least of all TW Brutes. I mean, are you really going to run its two auras? Radiation Armor: It has +recharge based on nearby enemies, it has a +recovery passive, it has a clicky that gives you health AND endurance for nearby enemies, it has a tier 9 that's actually kind of usable and also boosts your recovery rate while it's active. On paper, at least, it's really good. Overtuned, one could say. Regeneration: No. (I mained a /Regen for the longest time on Live. It hurts me to say this.) Willpower: The "I don't want Bio Armor but I want its defenses" set. Quick Recovery is more endurance, what can I say? But if you were asking me? Willpower, Rad Armor, Elec Armor. I'd add Energy Aura to that but I'd have to run the numbers first.

Huh. Though even with the reduced duration, Ice Slick and Earthquake are still very serviceable; if you hadn't pointed it out I would've still thought they hadn't been touched. I want to say that it always had the long recharge behind it. It may have been a product of the time, with the consideration being that it's an AoE power that stops enemies from attacking you and causes them to attack each other, so it's control and damage and whatever secondary effects the enemy attacks have. Perhaps not the first time that a plan didn't survive contact with the enemy player base.

Fear and sleep are different animals than holds and confuses, though; enemies might attack less or not at all, but they're still active and wake up when they take damage, respectively. Of course we could also point to e.g. Ice Slick and Earthquake which didn't get touched, so /em shrug. Honestly, having Mind Control's "hat" be that it doesn't have a pet isn't a bad thing. Personally I like the idea that there's a set that kind of breaks the established rules in an archetype, and adding complexity to a problem to fix it (from an engineering perspective) pales in comparison to refining or simplifying what's already there. The fewer moving parts the better.

Old Dark Astoria is Silent Hill, and that's good because it's subtle wrongness; it's empty and foggy. Unfortunately there was no real reason to go there and the mobs were a little incongruous. New Dark Astoria is like if Quake and Blood had a kid, and that's good because you've got cultists roaming the streets as an evil chthonic god perverts the very nature of reality. You poke your head in and immediately go, "wow, this place is really fucked up," and it's not the kind of thing that every character is going to mesh with, but when they do it really hits it out of the park. I didn't realize it when I did it, but DA street sweeping is the entire reason I gave one of my characters a Guts costume.

Someone else brought this up in a thread in the Controller sub-forum with regards to the power levels between sets and it bears mentioning here, because as far as AoE confusion is treated there's a bit of disparity between the three sets that feature it. Let's go down the list: Plant Control: Seeds of Confusion. An AoE cone confusion with a 60 second recharge time. So it's a cone and you need to be close; okay, that's a good limiting factor. Electric Control: Synaptic Overload. A ranged chain confusion with a 60 second recharge time. You can use it at a distance but it needs time to jump between targets. Okay, that's fine. Mind Control: Mass Confusion. A ranged AoE confusion with a 240 second recharge time and lower accuracy than the above two powers. Huh. Huh. Being able to point at a group in the distance and go "you guys start punching each other" and having them do it immediately is good - confusion is a great control tool. But the question is, is it 240 second recharge time good? Specifically, is it that good when abilities that do the same thing exist with drawbacks that aren't as severe as you'd think on cooldowns that are a fraction of the time? Moreover, is it that good when you're giving up a pet for it? Now this is tied to a lot of things: Gradual power creep into new sets, what the roles of the specific sets of each AT are and their strengths and weaknesses, the question of whether it's better to nerf overperforming sets or buff underperforming ones, if there's other aspects of Mind Control which warrant the power being on a long cooldown (because it's got a mass sleep, a mass fear, and whatever Telekinesis is), and trying to augur the intentions of a previous development team. This is a (relatively (very relatively - again, you guys don't have the tools The Powers That Were had)) simple matter of changing a number if it does turn out that hey, four minutes is kind of ridiculous, but if The Powers That Be do take a look at it and go, "the set is fine as-is because this, this, and this" then that's alright. It's worth asking questions about, but it's not worth fighting over.

Fire Imp armies are no longer a thing. They removed the (pick one) bug/feature/exploit/thingy where you could have multiple pets, but in exchange they don't die whenever you use an elevator and you don't need to keep resummoning them every four minutes or so. Yeah sure Dark is a pretty good set BUT HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT OUR LORD AND SAVIOR PLANT CONTROL? An AoE that shuts down entire spawns at level 6, AoE confusion that's up for every mob and synergizes with Coercive Persuasion's proc so well it should be illegal, and two minutes of constant vines tearing out the ground and smacking around enemies that follow you through the map and can be made permanent? Honestly, I could make a pretty good argument for all of them. Depends on what you want to do, aside from "be powerful" or "be useful," which is a little vague. (Warning - while you were typing a new reply has been posted. You may wish to review your post. ) ...oh, shows how often I team with Fire Controllers nowadays. Yeah, the whole Fire Cages-Flashfire-Bonfire combo that Fire/Kins used to cook groups alive is even better now that you can keep Bonfire from tossing enemies out of the fire pit with a single IO that is relatively easy to get.

Honestly? Considering that the only difference between a BS/SH Scrapper and Brute is that the Brute's taunt is an AoE, you could probably get away with using a Scrapper build, and if any AT IOs are in it you just note it and switch 'em out for the Brute ones. ...okay, yeah, Brutes' resistance cap is higher, but Shield Defense is a defense-based set and the softcap for that is 45%, and I kind of doubt you're gonna be hitting the resistance cap on it at any point with IOs. So it's probably safe to assume. Probably.

Hey, asking questions is how we learn. The answer would be "less than you'd think." If a team gets a good head of steam going you might not have the time or need to perform an AS, so it's not an enormous loss there. On the other hand, free crits are free crits, and Hide's other benefit can't be expressed in pure numbers, in that you can just stand behind a problem enemy and bop 'em when the rest of the group shows up without anybody knowing you're there. Because of how their inherent works, Stalkers can get a 30% crit rate out of Hide on a full team so mathematically they can deal more damage than Scrappers despite the AT having a lower damage scale, but that's dependent on everyone being within a 30 foot radius of you when you fight. But there is the whole matter of certain defensive sets being worse on Stalkers. Willpower doesn't get Quick Recovery, for example.

Might be reading into your post too much, but you don't need to worry about hitting enemies directly to get their attention: Tankers have a mechanic called "punchvoke" that causes an AoE taunt effect whenever they attack, so even if you're focusing on one enemy at a time they're all going to put more focus on you (and you're going to get Taunt, right?). But whittling down entire groups at a time is a pretty good plan, and they'll absolutely pay attention to you if you do that. So. Electrical Melee: One cone, one single-target hit with AoE splash damage, one chain, one very special case. How the chain works is that you hit one enemy, and there's a chance for the electricity to "jump" to other nearby targets; it's a little unpredictable but it works. The special case is Lightning Rod, where you get struck by lightning, teleport a short distance, and then reappear in a massive blast of electricity. It's got a long recharge but it's a ton of damage and is a fun way to stick yourself into the middle of a group. Fiery Melee: Two PBAoEs, one cone. A Tanker secondary at CoH's launch and still a solid pick for when you want everything around you to die be arrested. No fancy tricks, just fire. Good single-target, too. Radiation Melee: One cone, one PBAoE, one toggle, and an inherent mechanic. The toggle causes toxic damage over time, like Icicles, if they were icicles made of industrial runoff. Rad Melee's mechanic is that every attack has a chance to cause the "contaminated" status, and if you hit a contaminated enemy with a single-target attack it causes a small bit of AoE damage. So there's a very high potential for AoE damage but it's not consistent, since something may or may not end up contaminated. Fortunately the set's Build Up equivalent gives you a 100% chance to contaminate things while it's active. Savage Melee: One cone, one PBAoE, one special case. Savage Melee was in an unfinished state when the game originally shut down and has since been shaped into usability, but there's still a few issues with it underperforming on certain ATs. I'm not sure if Tanker is one of them, but you're definitely gonna want to ask someone with experience. That said, it's a combo-based set where attacks get you stacks of Blood Thirst for more damage and reduced endurance cost of your powers, and you can cash it in to enhance other attacks. The capstone power is like Lightning Rod from Elec Melee, but with less damage and a way faster recharge time. Spines: Two cones, one PBAoE, one toggle. Tankers and Brutes got this with Homecoming's proliferation and people who dislike AE farms have regretted it ever since. You get its PBAoE attack early, the toggle somewhere in the middle, and while one of the cones comes up really late it's also ranged, which increases the amount of targets you can tag with it. Staff Fighting: Two cones, one PBAoE. You mentioned considering Ice Armor in your post, and Staff's first cone is Guarded Spin, which gives you a hefty defense boost to lethal (and melee) which is gonna stack with Ice. It's stance-based, which gives you some adaptability, but none of the three forms really directly benefit defense-based... defenses. Titan Weapons: Three cones, one PBAoE. This set is all about hitting many things at once. It's also slow and sucks up endurance. I am a personal fan, but I would argue that you need to commit to the set to the point where you decide you're going TW first and then pick your Tanker primary based on that. You ever hear the joke about how the A-10 is a gun with a plane stuck on it? Same deal. Don't take long or short descriptions as a bad thing; The Powers That Were got more creative as time went on so there's more to say about later sets.

No, but I know a guy.

Can we get a P2W temporary power that spawns a Kronos Titan in the zone? The Steel Canyon auction house was besieged by an ambush of level 35 5th Column a day or two past, and it filled me with both nostalgia and a mighty need.

Let's look at it: Thugs minions have a lot of single-target attacks with a few cones, and with the exception of the Bruiser they're all ranged, so they're good against hard targets like bosses. The Enforcers get the Leadership auras, which gives your guys defense. So playing to its strengths, you want a secondary that buffs defense or debuffs to-hit, has good single-target debuffs, and/or some way to handle multiple enemies so you can pick them off one at a time. Cold Domination: Often overlooked in favor of Force Fields, and wrongly so. You can still bubble your minions and team for similar defense values, but in exchange for knockback powers and a mez resist PBAoE bubble you get some positively wicked debuffs in Infrigidate, Sleet, and Benumb. Plus Heat Loss is like Fulcrum Shift but for endurance. Dark Miasma: Voted "The Most Controller-Like Defender Primary" in 2005. Fearsome Stare, Petrifying Gaze, and Tar Patch keep groups under control, Darkest Night gives -to-hit and -damage, and Twilight Grasp keeps your guys topped off on health. Having a seventh pet in Dark Servant throwing out debuffs and control is just icing on the cake. Poison: On the downside, Poison's heal is kind of iffy since it's single-target, a projectile, and has travel time. On the upside, I've heard it described as one of the best single-target debuffing sets in the game. You get Envenom and Weaken very early, which is a one-two punch that ruins the day of anybody you drop them on, and while Poison Trap is a little hard to use (it's a trap you personally need to deploy, which usually means dropping it directly at an enemy's feet to ensure it works in a timely manner), Noxious Gas is just an aura of stank that you can put on your Bruiser so when he charges into melee he makes everyone around him violently ill. Radiation Emission: It's still a really good debuff set with various ways to slow and weaken things. Do note, however, that it does shine brighter with other teammates, as Fallout can't be used on minions and Accelerate Metabolism provides much less of a benefit to your guys than it does you and other players. Skip Choking Cloud. Time Manipulation: Admittedly I know very little about this, but the enemy-targeting powers hinge on the use of Time Crawl as an opener, which makes all further debuffs hit the target harder, including Time's Juncture, a PBAoE toggle that gives -to-hit. On top of that, Farsight provides a good bit of defense and can easily be made permanent. If you're by yourself putting Temporal Selection on your Bruiser will make him hit harder as well as giving a similar effect as Time Crawl, making all your heals heal more on him. Might've lost the thread there a little bit or left a few sets out, but it's a start. Didn't just want to leave you with "X is good" without saying why. (Plus I may or may not be in love with my own voice.)

Regen was given to Brutes in i21, but Homecoming added it to Tankers. I appreciate their zeal in proliferating power sets, and I'm not gonna finish that sentence because I'm trying to be polite. A couple sets seem to have trouble with toxic, enough so that it's probably more timely to mention what power sets can handle it rather than which ones can't (-recovery resist is kind of the same). It's kind of funny because you see toxic/psi resist set bonuses and go, "hey more psi resist is good oh and toxic too I guess" and then you do lategame stuff in Praetorian Earth, fight Avatars of Hamidon, see your health drop like a rock and wonder why, then check the combat log and go, "...oh."

Boredom happened and an attempt was made. I'm holding the rest of the forums hostage and forcing you all to read my dubious power advice until someone starts commenting on my fanfics. If I need to add porn to them to get that to happen then I'll do it. Don't think I won't. ("Add porn to what? The fanfics or the power advice?" Yes.) Bio Armor Pros: Good against everything, a lot of regen, +recovery passive, Adaptation adds a ton of versatility, PBAoE health and endurance leech clicky, absorbtion shield Cons: No -recharge, -regen, or -recovery resistance, I guess? Bio is just really good. Notes: It's a bunch of resist, defense, and regen layered on top of each other combined with the ability to boost damage, tank harder, and save on endurance, depending on which Adaptation you use. The word people use to describe it is "overtuned" and yeah, let's go with that. Dark Armor Pros: Good dark resist, fantastic psionic resist, mez protection includes fear, +perception. Cons: Eats endurance like crazy, no knockback protection, the toggle that gives defense also gives stealth and stealth is not a desirable trait for a Tanker, low energy resist and energy damage is EVERYWHERE in the late game. Notes: Known to give your endurance THE BIG SUCC but aside from that it's not terrible. Used to require Acrobatics to function (which gave your endurance an even bigger SUCC) but IOs fixed that. Electric Armor Pros: Energy resist is capped with basic slotting, +recharge passive, endurance drain and -recovery resist, PBAoE endurance leech clicky. Cons: Knockdown and immobilization passive only works if you're near the ground, poor negative energy resist. Elec is also pretty good. Notes: Originally didn't have immobilization or knockback resistance or a self-heal (Energize just used to give a temporary endurance discount) and so was just kind of a sidegrade to Dark Armor, but once Grounded added the former two and Energize had a heal added to it it's just plain amazing. Fiery Aura Pros: Good fire resist, PBaoE end leech clicky, damage boost power for when you want ALL THE DAMAGE. Cons: No knockback or immobilization resistance unless you include Burn for the latter and that's a click, bad cold resist, mez resists are spread across several toggles. Notes: It's a set that sacrifices defense for damage; I think we all know what goes on in AE farms these days. Fire/Ice Tankers used to be *the* powerleveling build before AE and even CoV, but then they added added aggro caps and ordered all dumpsters to be sealed shut. Guy I used to roll with was very up-front about his Fire/Ice and why it existed, and when the changes dropped it resulted in a character arc across four chracters and three ATs that ended with him being turned into an 18th century psychic Victorian cyborg from the future that was still capable of powerleveling you. It's a long story. Ice Armor Pros: Defense to everything but fire and cold, cold resist is capped without even trying, +perception, two taunt auras for extra aggro staying power, slow resist, the tier 9 is an emergency heal and recovery over time that makes you invulnerable, the PBAoE endurance leech also gives you additional defense. Cons: Defense is by damage type rather than position so it's harder to cap with IO set bonuses and outside of the aforementioned bonus from the PBAoE it's just kind of okay, little fire and no psionic resist, fire damage is quite a bit more common than cold. Notes: Surprisingly uncommon these days, or maybe I'm not looking hard enough. Not without reason though, considering that positional defense is regarded as superior to typed. If you're good about it you can taunt enemies, hit the tier 9 and when you're healed up you'll still have their aggro. Invulnerability Pros: Good smashing and lethal resists, a decent chunk of defense to most damage types, a scaling defense and to-hit bonus depending on how surrounded you are. Cons: Non-S/L resists aren't great. Notes: Used to be great, then aggro caps and ED hit it and it was less great, but now it's better. Subject of the once-terrifying PSYCHIC HOLE but less so now since IOs exist. Despite being around since the game's inception I don't actually know too much about how it works in practice. Weird. Radiation Armor Pros: Good energy and very high toxic resist, taunt aura gives -to-hit and -defense while boosting your recharge, PBAoE health and endurance leech clicky, weird but not unwanted PBAoE that heals allies (but not you) and damages foes, tier 9 boosts damage. Cons: Low cold resist, no -regen or -recovery resist. Notes: A Tanker that can handle toxic damage is one of those things you never realized you needed until it happens. It can handle other things as well, provided it's not ice. Another late addition to the game and a bit "overtuned." Regeneration Pros: Click heals, a click regen boost. Cons: Everything is click-based so recharge debuffs completely bone you, is very weak to burst damage which is something that you're going to be dealing with as a Tanker ALL THE TIME, no actual defense or resistance to speak of, no -regen resistance either despite that being the core feature of the set. Notes: This is a bad idea. I suppose you could use Moment of Glory to take the alpha but then you're still tanking with perhaps 15% resistance if you're lucky once it wears off and MoG's not gonna be up for every mob. It's absolutely not a good Tanker primary. Shield Defense Pros: Good defense, a toggle gives you more defense when allies are nearby, another toggle gives your allies defense when you're nearby, the taunt aura gives you +damage for nearby enemies, Shield Charge is a fun way to insert yourself into the middle of mobs. Cons: Mez resist is on a click so -recharge can cause problems, very mild resistance values for when attacks do get through, no self-heal. Notes: Shield Defense kind of encourages the team to be in a cuddle puddle around the Tanker, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's all positional defense so it's easier to cap with IO set bonuses. I kind of want to see what an all-Shield Defense team would be like but my organizational skills aren't great. Stone Armor Pros: Granite Armor makes you the tankiest tank that ever tanked tanks, +perception, surprisingly good psionic defense, endurance drain resistance in the mez toggle. Cons: Everything outside of Granite Armor is kind of mediocre and it's mutually exclusive with it, Granite comes with a huge speed, recharge, and damage penalty, the mez toggle gives you an EVEN HUGER speed penalty. Notes: The first eight powers could just be renamed to "Stuff You Take To Tide You Over Until Granite Armor" because that's what you're here for. Either you're very good friends with somebody who rolled Kinetics or you have Teleport as a travel power. "But I have Superju-" Wrong, you have Teleport. Super Reflexes Pros: A defense-based set that's very easy to cap, scaling damage resistance, +recharge, defense debuff resist, plenty of passives to stick unique defense IOs into. Cons: Mez resist on a click, no self-heal, peaks early. Notes: The phrase I heard used about SR is "high floor, low ceiling." It's better than other sets early on, but once you start adding IO sets to the mix it starts getting outclassed. It still works, though, plus it's all positional. Willpower Pros: +Recovery, good against everything, a better recovery-based set than Regeneration despite the theme not being of a recovery-based set, +perception. Cons: No self-heal? I'm kind of at a loss to say what's bad about it, to be honest. Notes: If I didn't see the numbers for Dark Armor I'd think Willpower was the psionic tank set. For the longest time Willpower was basically a straight upgrade to both Regeneration and Invulnerability, and it probably still is. It's like Bio Armor in that it's just a little bit of everything mashed together.

Fulcrum Shift and Foot Stomp. Imperious Task Force, he was a WP/Inv Tanker, I was a Plant/Kin Controller. He called his style of tanking "Mighty Fighting," which just consisted of charging for the closest enemy spawn and laying into it without concern for if or how much of the team was following him. I was, though, laying down Seeds of Confusion and at least one Fulcrum Shift per mob. Dunno if that nigh-immortal bastard hit the damage buff cap, but it sure felt like it. (I kind of want to remake Hami-tan but some legends should rest. Besides, it would absolutely cornhole the current lore.)

We once laughed at the horseless carriage, the aeroplane, the telephone, the electric light, vitamins, radio, and even tails with trenchcoats! And now some of us laugh at new animations. God help us... in the future.

(The new Dark Astoria really hit me when I first visited it, maybe because it ticked off the boxes of "the world is being fucked over by an evil god" and "you can punch cultists in their stupid faces." It's appealing in a Quake-y, Blood-y sort of way, and I found myself just street sweeping my way between missions more than once. Then I realized that an absolutely horrible scenario like this would perfectly benefit one of my villains. In a realm of death and despair, what better place is there to gain favors and followers for a vengeful dream-born prophet of a slumbering god that embodies hope and new beginnings?) Fairchild had seen cities fall before. There was no shortage of dead empires in the Old World, their capitals destroyed from within and without by armies, starvation, revolution, and sickness, both of the mind and the body. Romes came and went, Germania began dying as soon as it was born and thrashed against the world in its death throes, the Celestial Kingdoms could never hold claim to the permanence of their namesake, and the empire on which the sun never set was in its twilight. Rarely did this happen in the New World, however, and rarely so dramatically. Mot. The name was familiar, but from long ago. It was reviled by the children of the star, before they held Yahweh as the One-Above-All, and before they tore down the temples of Asherah and forgot the name of his consort, the Lady of the Sea. In his jealousy he denied the other gods, and so too did the children of the cross, and of the crescent. For all the good it did them. Mot's presence had twisted the world and its worshipers, creating agents of death bent on harvesting people in body and mind, and eventually, soul. The air was thick, stale, and sour-tasting, eroding the minds of those who walked in Dark Astoria, spurring them on towards death. Yet Mot's acolytes were all too mortal, and for a place of such evil there was still good to be done. In an alley Fairchild found three half-human huntresses, having cornered a haggard-looking woman. With a sweep of her arm a sheet of iridescent light sailed forth, getting the attention of two of them by cleanly decapitating the third. Shouting curses they drew their weapons; the first brought a massive blade to bear, charging and swinging it overhead. With a graceful turn Fairchild spun out of the way as the weapon bit into the ground, shattering the concrete. A short lunge brought her close again, and as she drove her palm into the huntress' side she felt her bones buckle and crack a split-second before a pulse of energy liquefied her organs. As the first fell the second advanced, twin swords cutting through the air. Fairchild danced about, dodging her sweeps and diverting her lunges with precise touches against her hands and wrists. The huntress' mounting frustration was evident, and she let out a roar, raking the air in front of her with both weapons. With a casual step to the side Fairchild brought one arm down, light cleanly cleaving both her limbs at the forearms; she barely had time to scream before she swung her arm around and back, crushing her skull with the back of her fist. As the gore sloughed off her skin and clothes, Fairchild turned her attention back to the woman kneeling in the alley. During the fight she was lost in her own fear and thoughts, and as she approached she could hear her whimpering to herself. It wasn't until Fairchild was next to her that she finally realized she wasn't alone. "Why, why-" Her eyes were ringed with dark bags, puffy and stained with tears. She clutched at Fairchild's pants, looking up at her pleadingly. "Why did you do it?! Why did you save me? After everything I've done! My children, they- they needed me, they trusted me and I just- I just threw them away." She slumped, sobbing. "Please, just let me die." Hanging around her neck on a chain was a silver cross. So there was some piety in her, Fairchild thought. She could use that. She knelt down, putting her hand to the woman's chin and gently tilting her head up to meet her eyes. "You wish to atone, but you will not do it by condemning yourself. We will do it by saving others." "We?" She pulled back, shaking her head. "No, no, I'm not strong enough to-" "Then find your strength in me. It may seem that the gods have abandoned this place, but mine has not. I have not. In this place of despair and endings, you will find a new beginning." The gloom around the woman faded, and the shroud over her thoughts seemed to lift. "There are others which linger in this place, and together we will become a beacon of hope." The woman stared up at Fairchild, awed. "...yes... yes!" Fairchild took a step back as she scrambled to her feet. "Yes, I can help you! We can save people who are trapped here!" She pointed down the alley. "There's a church in Toffet Terrace that we can stay in. I, I don't recall seeing any of those things going near it." "Securing it will be a trivial task," Fairchild replied. "None of the profane shall enter as long as I stand." She extended her hand, smiling. "Now come. It will be a long walk, but the journey beyond that is longer still." Are you watching, Mot? Fairchild thought. In this realm, you have unwittingly planted the seeds of a god's birth. You revel in death; be patient. I will bring it to you soon enough. But do not worry. You will not die alone.

Melee ATs have defensive power sets, but if there's one thing that's better than having defenses it's having MORE DEFENSES. To that end, Tough is good for about 17% more S/L resist on Brutes and Weave for 6% defense to everything, plus as you said, they take IO sets so you get additional resists/recovery/defense/whatever. Combat Jumping's defense bonus is... quite low, but some sets (e.g. Dark Armor) have no protection against knockback, and since CJ counts as both a defense-granting power and a travel power, you can slot it with the knockback protection IO from either Karma or Blessing of the Zephyr. Generally with Brutes you want to slot for accuracy first. Brutes get a rising damage bonus as they attack or are attacked, which helps make up for the lack of damage slotting. If you've come into early money, two accuracy DOs is a good plan, then two accuracy IOs once you can make and use them at level 22. All melee defense sets have toggles which give status resists, and you're going to want to take them as soon as possible and keep them on, like, all the time. Unless it's an inherent that gives you status resists, in which case you also take it as soon as possible and then don't worry about it because it just works. As far as resist/defense toggle slotting goes, 1 EndRedux/1-3 Defense/Resist is a good thing to work towards. 5 slots is kind of the sweet spot for set IOs, but that's a ways away and once you're there you can easily afford respecs if you made a mistake. You said you've played ranged, but you've probably been on teams with a Tanker, right? So what happens when you're a Brute and there's no Tanker? Congratulations, you're the tank. Go in first, punch the strongest guy in the face, and the support classes will focus on taming the chaos which inevitably erupts. You'll get the hang of it eventually. All your attacks have a single-target taunt effect, so generally Elite Bosses and Arch-Villains will focus on you. Bio Armor is quite solid and you're going to want everything except Genetic Contamination (and even then GC isn't a bad power - it's expensive and the damage is low for a damage aura, but it's toxic, and it reduces enemy damage), but if you want to dip into Tough and Weave to get even more swole and girthy you're going to need either Boxing or Kick as a pre-requisite. My advice? Skip Jab, since Boxing is gonna kind of fill the same niche of a quick-recharging spammy move. Also, read the power descriptions. It's the kind of set that should come with a manual. Super Strength in general I know little about except that changes to Rage made people pretty cranky, Hand Clap causes more problems than it solves thanks to knockback, and Hurl's animation is too long and it kills your Rage as a Brute. As always, this information is subject to change (mostly due to corrections posed by other forum-goers, <3 you guys).

To get past the pom-poms, use power customization - you can't get rid of them but you can just make it look like your hands are glowing with the right colors. That said, don't bother with EM if the idea is critical damage from Energy Transfer: it doesn't do extra damage, it just doesn't do the self-damage when it crits. Until Crushing Uppercut, there was a design concept from Cryptic/Paragon that seemed to be to prevent anything from doing more than an Assassin's Strike crit from hidden status, so hard hitters from other sets had reduced damage criticals just to keep them less than AS. Energy Melee has two of those powers that had their criticals reduced: Total Focus (where a crit does ET damage) and Energy Transfer (no self-damage). I did not know those for the specific reasons. I wonder, would a crittable Energy Transfer, at its original animation times, make the set appealing? "Energy Melee but with ET that's a quick bop that crits for full critical damage?" That's basically what Energy Melee was for Stalkers at CoV launch, along with a Total Focus that also crit for full crit damage. For what it's worth people knew it was good, and EM/Ninjitsu was a positively endemic FotM build because of it. It was also Very Fun And Interactive in PvP.

Calling the weapon a sword is a misnomer. That thing was too big to be called a sword. Massive, thick, heavy, and far too rough. Indeed, it was a heap of raw iron.

So I was eating breakfast this morning and pondering a few things when an idea struck me: A new Controller and Dominator primary set, centered around the use of specialized weapons, gadgets, and devices. Admittedly, people have suggested new power sets, but rarely control sets, and the concept felt different enough to me from what was already in the game that it couldn't be emulated well, if at all, with existing powers. So here I hope to explain not only to you, the forum-goer and player, but also the people who run, mod, and update this whole affair that it's not only feasible but doable. So what is "Gadget Control" and why is it different? As stated, it's the use of devices and special weapons to disable enemies. Thematically it's in line with sets like Trick Arrow, Assault Rifle, Traps, and Thugs in the sense that it's more "grounded." Mutants with mind control powers are standard fare, as are mages conjuring darkness or flame and scientists giving themselves lightning powers or whatever by making coffee using caffeinated water. If you're just a dude or even sort of good with machines your options are bit more limited depending on how well you can BS it. With Gadget Control, however, you could have a combat engineer, PPD support, or (with Martial Assault) another take on the Batman archetype. Plus, y'know, more options is good. Now here's the tough question: Is this possible? Can it even be made? I'm not privy to what can and cannot be done; all I know is that we have people working on modifying a game without the dedicated tools the original developers had. The only thing I can go on is seeing what was done by them and extrapolating from that. So to make an entirely new power pool we need three things: Character animations and FX, in-world FX and sounds, and the data for the powers themselves. There are character animations for side-arm and overhead throws, as well as models and animations for using grenade launchers, and it's been demonstrated in e.g. Atomic Manipulation that existing animations can be repurposed. Likewise, there's existing in-world graphics for things like gas grenades, flashbangs, web grenades, and so on. It may take a bit of searching, but in theory, based on what I have seen produced by the current dev team, it's within the realm of practical execution. This only leaves what the powers do, which is wholly dependent on what direction you want to take the set assuming you're not going for the standard "single-target immob and hold, AoE immob and hold" in which case you've got 4/9ths of it done already. Knockout gas for a sleep, tear gas for a hold, web grenades for immobilizes, flashbangs for stuns, and so on. There's enough of a variety of things used against the player to pick from, to be sure. So there you are: Gadget Control. A set that fills a conceptual niche and, theoretically, could be made with pre-existing assets. In conclusion, thank you for coming to my TED talk.

...perhaps this problem could be easily resolved if you took more attacks? (It's always the Empaths that are "honest healers." You never hear anyone pull this with Cold Domination, I can tell you that for free.)

I'm going to try to answer some of the Titan Weapons stuff (I've got a TW/Elec brute at 49) but I just want to start by saying that this: ...is a blessed sentence. It's a good sentence, I like it. It's not going to be for everyone, I can tell you that for free. It has a lot of feedback since it's very smashy-sounding and enemies tend to get knocked down by a lot of the attacks, but the mechanics behind it are unique to the set, take a little getting used to, and are kind of tied to the animation thing you mentioned. So here goes. TW is like most melee sets: Seven attacks, a taunt, and a Build Up. Five of those attacks have very slow animations, but after they connect you get five seconds of the Momentum status. While you have Momentum, these attacks will then use much faster animations until it expires, at which point the process repeats. Two of these attacks may only be used if you have Momentum, but they only have fast animations (and they're good attacks). The set's Build Up is called "Build Momentum" and in addition to the usual ten seconds of boosted to-hit and damage, it gives you ten seconds of Momentum. It's about short bursts of attacks and damage, rather than the more flowing chains from other sets. Also, if it's not clear, the Momentum status doesn't refresh on the second and following attacks. You have five seconds, it goes away, then the next attack will bring it back again for five seconds. It's not the animations that get you, it's the massive endurance costs. I'm not going to say that a secondary that either gives you +recovery or a power that drains endurance is necessary, but if you're going to commit to the Titan Weapons lifestyle you absolutely need to commit to it 200%. To that end, Fire, Ice, Elec, Bio, Regen, Energy, Rad, and Willpower all bring something to the table, though not equally. Lightning and Bio are the two standouts for me, the former because it also has +recharge and the latter because it's a perpetual motion machine if you're willing to micromanage toggles a little. You weren't wrong to think SR, though. Recharge is very good for TW, but having endurance is better. Bring blues.