Without_Pause

A proper all-defender team has 8 using Maneuvers so FF is vastly wasted. Interesting to not see Time listed.

Both will work fine. Debuffs sets are the most useful 1-50. Kin is the only real exception to this outside of specific cases, but Kin plays better on other ATs. Just about any AT can feel useless on a steamrolling team.

Kin/rad. Pimp out with -res procs and damage cap yourself and teammates. I've tried to play Time and while it is a solid set, I have yet to get any into the 40s. I got two Kins to 50 and another to 40. Kin is just more fun to me.

I never tried. I feel WM is simply too slow for my tastes and that's with /elec. Yes, the damage is there, and I made sure to level it far enough to give it a chance.

At 39. My last run was on a team running level 54 missions. I deleted it vastly because of WM, see also deleting my WM/bio scrapper. I have two other /elec builds and I had a Dark/elec on live and it was the first brute which really clicked for me. I soloed an EB with it with no inspirs and common IOs, so I was pumped at the time. I'm tempted to give it another run even if I'm still not a super fan of SM.

Well, you do lose the damage aura. StJ is better on a stalker as it loses a ST for AS so that's a win. I haven't tried /bio on a stalker yet. I have a /bio already so I'll likely roll /invul for my next melee.

As mentioned, using Hover while using Grounded isn't a winning combo. After you take SJ/CJ, you can take Spring Attack which will allow you to teleport into a mob while doing damage. I think in all of my time on live I might have seen 1 MAYBE 2 people use Teleport Foe. I have yet to see it on HC. It kind of feels like if you need that, you likely are in over your head to begin with. People simply don't wait for someone to use TP Foe these days. Lower level, definitely manage what mobs you take on. I did fine going through the Posi TF though. You need to hit 28 before you get a heal, so have purples and greens on hand. The good news is /elec covers the most often used damage types quite well and end drain resistance is awesome late game.

Minor update, I'm not a fan of two of the primaries so I did roll a Rad/bio as I figured it would be a good candidate to "break the world" with and got it to 42. Still not 100% set with Bio, and Rad will likely be forever 2nd tier for me. Not surprising, but still interesting to see other secondaries die on the vine for me and keep coming back to how smooth WP is. I rolled a couple WM characters and got the brute to 39, but it just doesn't click for me so I deleted both. The speed of the set doesn't work for me and it was paired with /elec, so yeah. Currently working on a new Staff/dark as neither set has been rolled for HC and I only got a /dark brute on live in the 30s if that.

1. No. 2. Yes. I have been working on having no powerset at 50 being used more than twice. I found the builds I like the most offer the most different feel.

One thing missed is some controllers get a PBAoE def based toggle which obviously makes it easier for them.

Ill is the ideal off tanker for a controller. If you don't mind a slower pace, Ill/traps can wreck things while in comfort. Part of the tank question is how do you define it? Is it taking and holding aggro or merely taking alpha? Tanks and brutes are obviously build for holding aggro. Scrappers and sentinels a bit lesser and their taunt aura and Confront are more limited. MMs, see Bots/traps, should be able to off tank on a 4-person team grabbing Provoke. As a lover of brutes, blasters and stalkers were honestly the biggest surprise coming back to CoH. Not to say I would build them for off tanking, but in terms of change of pace. An /earth dom is also good for a change of pace for a melee minded person.

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Very_Rare_IO_Sets There's an extra "}" in the listing of each purple IO.

The rest of Kin feels slow to me though. I prefer StJ even if it's AS attack isn't standard.

I don't think any of the builds are really known for ST damage. I would like at least one decent damage AT with some ST. Another debuffer would have helped as well. One exception to the ST damage character having a higher base for damage could be a /sonic defender since they can help other player's deal more damage. Teams could be built a number of ways, but a tank/brute with three debuffers or one less debuffer with a blaster would likely be my default. Due to smaller teams being on red side, I intentionally switched my Ill/dark to red side since I figure it is built for smaller teams and have enough control in those situations.

Can a +0 AV be drained? Absolutely. The issue is I can count on one hand level 50 teams who I see running below +3. This also ignores how much draining an AV actually impacts their attacks. The build is more than fine. I'm not here to have someone reroll it, but end drain against AVs in HC's meta is an issue. I've seen AVs have their end bar not even go down 20% and a number more not even 50%. Hell, on live I've drained AVs as the rate of their health bar going down.

What is your Alpha slot? Bottoming out after 2-3 rotations seems a bit much. Are we talking a basic ST attack chain? Tested. I have a level 37 StJ/shield laying around. Single slot common level 25 IO for Stamina. Same level common IOs elsewhere. No epic. I cleared three mobs at +1/x1 without bottoming out and used AoE attacks as normal which is often. I would have needed a blue for a fourth mob, but again, solo with minimal slotting and I cleared three mobs.

I did reroll my main from live going from Defender to Controller. I think if I were to use one version, the controller would be the one. It is a vastly better pairing. Elec control plays better in melee and having a built in AoE sleep power is a godsend for Kin. The #1 issue for me is in regards to end drain and AVs. I wished it was worth a damn, but it isn't. Regular mobs are rather easy to drain unless they have specific resistance to it, ie Sappers.

It is also really difficult to read much of anything in a build at level 9. Hitting level 22 and slotting level 25 common IOs is where I do my initial look into a build and wait until 35+ before I decide it is worth it. Debuffs sets are useful all the way through. Steamrolling teams happen. More so in end game content with teams using builds with IO sets and Incarnate powers against non-Incarnate content. There's honestly teams which would steamroll said content with all of 4-6 players doing +4/x8 diff setting. There's also a lot less annoying mobs in the early game. There are certain mobs in the 40-50 range which will make a lot of teams slow down.

Says poster who quotes me and thus gives me a notification of it happening. Back on topic, I just dual box farm for alts. Time is better spent on the markets when wanting to gain currency.

Then I'll ignore your comment about unfairness. On a low end I could pull 25 mil in about 10 minutes of work.

You do realize how much you can make in an hour on the market right?

I wonder if they are running them at +4.

I have for some time come up with the idea that material things cost money, time, and space. This being a digital game, space isn't really a factor here. If you want to play casual, then yes, it will take more time to reach min/max slotting. If you want to talk about 1,000 slots per server then yes, it is going to take a really freaking long time if you want to create a mass of characters. You want a pimped out character as a casual? Then play that character and only that character until you get what you want. Anytime you make a new alt means you instantly added to the time it will take either build to get to it's final stage. I highly doubt there are many min/maxers who have all that many builds pimped out. I saw one thread in the market section and people with billions of currency said they have at most 6-7 characters with completed builds. This means you as a casual might look for 2-3 at most. I play as a casual by default based on how many breaks I take from the game. All of my characters have common IOs and my farmer sits at 200+ million influ, and I know enough to dabble in the market. Yep, that's it. I do have over 20+ builds and have deleted at least that any. Someday, sure. I would like to drop IO sets on a build, but I still enjoy the game even with how my characters are currently are slotted, and I'm more inclined to hammer out Incarnate powers first. Doing so isn't cheap either. Sure, if I like a character enough to slot out everything T4 and still want to play it, I'll look into it at that point. Until then, (rolls a new alt) FYI, back on live I played for 8 years. I had multiple characters with over a billion influ. No IO sets let alone purples. I enjoyed the game enough to play for that long while running a SG. I also gained the vast majority of my wealth via the market since I had 40+ alts across various servers and again, that's not counting the ones I deleted.

I got my Plant/storm to 50. The biggest issues while leveling was end and no self heal. Yes, I know about Spirit Tree. That's not an "oh crap" button. Going Cardiac for alpha solved the end issues, so I would focus more on def and healing for support although it can cover def when pimped out. Bring a AoE damage based build. Seeds just begs for it. I can see Kin's heal being target based creating some issues, but I'm not sure it is a deal breaker. I think Nature, Thermal, or Time would all be good as well.

I personally use level 25 common IOs until I hit 50. In a final build, if slots are tight, I might use 2 level 50 common IOs in something like Hasten as those two will be fairly close to being equal to three slotting. I also make a character to earn the badges for crafting level 25-30 common IOs so I can create them without a recipe and for cheaper. This way I just craft them for any character who needs them. Obviously if you have just a single slot for something, pop a level 50 common in it unless you need some special attribute from it, ie +stealth. Playing a healer in CoH simply is being unaware or ignoring the meta for the game. Debuff sets tend to, not always, be far better in the long run. Emps have their place, but I don't find them as versatile. Now for PvP, they are awesome.