Without_Pause

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.

I don't know if the numbers have been updated, but here's the link. https://forums.homecomingservers.com/fotm-powers/

You can look at the defender forum for feedback on the set. A spirit of the park could be a Plant/dark controller, and if nothing else, that would be a beast of a combo.

I use this for when I dual box lower level characters. I don't recall EBs so likely not best for influence.

Huh. I thought Briggs had one labeled for influence in the title, but it isn't. It is his Comic Com outdoor map. Look at the description for arc 11612. He added EBs for more influence. It is a better map for having others tag along as well. I honestly haven't run the space map in some time unless it is for the all AT mission I use to jump start builds.

Earth/earth is the first dom which felt like it would really stick playing on Homecoming. If Earth control is an issue for you, you might want Fire/earth. It will be end heavy, but two damage auras means a lot of damage.

#1 reason for me to farm is for dual boxing. The second character doesn't really matter to me. 1-49 for leveling, or 50+ for Incarnate rewards and full influ runs on two characters.

I currently have 29 characters. I have likely deleted that many since I started playing on Homecoming, and that's with a 7-8 year history with the game to know what I like. Oddly enough it is much different this time around. Experiment and have fun.

Depends on what you are looking for. Ill/dark to me fits theme wise and could be deemed better than Dark/dark, but something like Earth/storm while not a AV/GM killer on the same level, is an absolute beast in ways Ill/dark can't touch. I've been on a team which split three ways and had zero deaths because of my Earth/storm. Melee can be difficult since you are more looking into stereotypes. SS/inv for tanks, TW/wp for brutes. A scrapper might be StJ/shield. A stalker could be Nin/nin although from a min max stand point, it might be rather similar to a scrapper. Dark/sr might be the most doable. Defenders and corrs might be something like Storm/water or the reverse. There's not a lot of thematic max/min options for them. Fire/fire blasters are again depending on what you want. Ice/fire is a legit top tier build. Mind/psy versus Earth/earth doms. Again, how are we defining strongest? MMs would be something like Bots/traps or Demon/thermal.

I don't really do DFB. 1-22 doesn't last long enough for slotting, IMO.

I think I had seen FF be #5 for defenders but had forgotten. Honestly surprised by it considering that's for ones which make it to 50 and not merely created. Traps suffers from having too much setup in a end game where steamrolling is the default. I'll agree that TA is a good example of a set which is less popular but still can be useful.

Water/temp is about newbie friendly as they come. You can add in Cold Mastery for a shield and heal. I only use the PBAoE from /temp to really get in melee range even if I have some other melee based powers which might get use once in a while at 50.

I take a travel power at 14 a lot of times as there's simply too many key powers to take before that point. Unless I'm hellbent on teaming with people early on, I would rather wait on the travel power and then start teaming once I have the travel power. It has been interesting to see how often I one slot Stamina and Health these days even with 1 common IO. I don't slot anything until 22, and then it's common IOs. I've vastly ignored IO sets. Level shift and Incarnates tends to be enough for me.

Earth's Embrace from Stone Mastery. I would carry greens and you can get a Heal/Regen from Incarates.