Saikochoro

I personally would go EA 9 times out of 10. It’s not that SR is bad at all. It’s just that EA has so many tools available to it. It gets the + rech. Super easy to softcap defenses (except psi). With pool powers and set bonuses you can get great resist totals. SR can do all of that too, except better DDR and defense is positional. However, EA gets a good heal that also acts as a strong endurance discount that can be made perma. It also gets a recovery click that doubles as a defense boost. The endurance management and healing are the deciding factors for me.

My farmer is a rad/fire brute. It does what it is built to do. However, I haven’t really enjoyed rad melee. Maybe I ought to give it a try in a non-farming context, but it’s been meh for me. One of my most recent alts is a stone melee/bio brute. This is the first time I have ever made a stone melee character and I am quite impressed. Seismic smash is quite amazing.

I’ll second this. Though since ninja training got buffed and I’ve made my dual pistols/ninja training blaster, I can say that DP/ninja is definitely up there as well. I don’t think it will take the crown from DP/MC, but a good runner up.

AoE helps clear mobs faster, but there is nothing wrong with single target focused sets. The stalker archetype as a whole is more single target centric. We need boss/eb/av killers just as much as we need trash mob killers. That said, dual blades is one of the best primaries there is and has great single target damage and good AoE. Sweeping strike is good and will often hit 3 or more enemies. I generally run BU>AS>ablaiting>sweeping>power slice repeat. Build up will occur pretty frequently with the stalker ATO and will trigger the sweep combo.

Energy melee on scrapper is very fun so definitely give it a go. I suggest you use energy aura as the secondary. It thematically pairs well with energy melee. The heal is nice to heal up the non-crit energy transfers. Energy aura is fantastic. It can easily softcap typed defense (except psi). You can get great resist numbers depending on set bonuses and pool powers. It gives you a scaling +recharge power to help you attack chain. It has a good heal that doubles as a great endurance discount. Plus a recovery power that can boost defense. Energy aura can be somewhat endurance heavy before you get the heal and recovery power, but afterwards you never have to worry about it again. It is also weak against psi, but if you are going to fight pure psi mobs just bring some purple insp with you. For all other content, energy aura is great. Even with the psi hole I consider energy aura to be one of the best armor sets, easily top 3. You really can’t go wrong with energy aura.

Yeah it is out all the time regardless of if you are attacking or not.

It’s not so much that shield is particularly endurance heavy. It’s more so that shield has no endurance recovery tool. SR has the same issue. It’s not actually endurance heavy, it just doesn’t have a recovery tool. The real problem is that most high end builds have a lot of recharge. Having high global recharge allows you to have a tight attack chain. If you are attacking fast and often, you will run out of endurance even if you have a good recovery/consumption ratio. This is most notable in extended fight. Depending on how fast your teams kill mobs, short skirmishes in normal missions with even some minimal running time to the next mob helps you recovery enough to keep going for the most part. However, AV fights for example, you will notice endurance issues creep up since you will constantly be attacking. That is one reason that secondaries like energy aura are so nice is that they have a huge endurance reduction on their heal on top of having an end recovery click power.

Definitely do not skip savage leap. It is one of the defining powers in the set and is a source of much of the fun you will have with savage. Make sure to set aside funds in your budget to proc out savage leap. I usually do one damage enhancement and 5 procs. It is awesome!

You can never go wrong with energy aura with any primary. In my opinion, energy aura is the best secondary for stalkers for just all around strength. Easy to softcap typed defense (except psi). Can get respectable resist numbers. Easy slotting allows you to drop leadership and pick up sorcery pool and get rune of protection. This can boost your resist numbers to very good numbers and cap out s/l with 50% uptime. Ease of slotting also allows you to use procs in your attacks and chase recharge. Energy aura gives you +20% recharge to boot. Plus, you get a good heal that also gives a great endurance discount that can be made perma. You even get an end recovery tool that doubles as a defense boost. So you never need to worry about endurance. The only time you’ll have issues is in a mob of pure psi damage. But even then I did fine. EA is overall my favorite secondary and I can’t recommend it enough. Bio and shield are also strong secondaries. Shield can softcap positional defense and get great resist totals. It will just have some endurance issues until incarnates and doesn’t have a native heal. Shield is one of the go-to secondaries for boosting damage. Bio is also great for damage and can be built fairly sturdy. In my experience it isn’t as survivable as EA or shield, but it has a lot of good tools and is a go to for focusing on damage.

Some more information will help us in giving you some ideas as blaster sets can play very differently. Do you enjoy single target or AoE more? Do you want to stay at ranged or do you like to be right up in the enemies face? A few primaries to consider: -fire blast: you can’t really go wrong with fire blast. It is the most damaging primary and has good single target and decent AoE. -dual pistol: in my opinion, this is the most fun primary, although it is not a top damage dealer. It does have good AoE though and passable single target. -ice blast: great single target damage and control. Can lock down minions and LTs easily and even bosses. Light on AoE damage outside of its nuke. A few secondaries to consider: - Ninja Training: the buffs this set received in i27 make it a lot better than before. This is a nice blapping set that rewards you for getting up close and personal. -Atomic manipulation: another good blapping set that has some nice bonuses. You get +rech for being close to enemies with beta decay. -tactical arrow: I know I’ll get hated on by many blasters for saying this, but this is still one of the best secondaries for an all ranged blaster. Has some extra bonuses and good tools to stay out of melee range. My personal favorite blasters: -Dual pistols/martial combat: really fun and a lot of style. -Dual pistols/Ninja Training: more of a recent favorite. Good damage and fulfills my desire to have both guns and swords. -Fire/Atomic: one of the most powerful combinations you can have for a blaster in my opinion. This is a crazy damage machine. -Ice/Tac Arrow: great single target damage and good control. Great combo for hover blasting and staying at range.

No problem. You can always make more toons as you have time. Those should all be fun. If you are going to do elec/shield or savage/shield - I would recommend savage / shield and recommend doing it on a stalker. Not to make you decisions any harder by throwing more options in the ring: dual blades on either stalker or scrapper is amazingly fun. I have a db/ea scrapper and a db/bio stalker that are loads of fun. I am also leveling up a db/ea stalker as well. Dual blades has become one of my favorite primaries. So whenever you do have time for more alts give that a look too! A note about the end game. I am really sincere when I say this, you can do well with just about anything at the end game. Especially if you have a decent budget for the toon. I think a more important consideration is how much fun you have with any given combo.

I played for a couple years and enjoyed it, but eventually got burnt out a few months after path of fire released. I am somewhat intrigued though with another expansion. New specializations might be enough to bring me back for a bit to try them out.

Here is the savage/EA stalker build. Rune of recharge can be used whenever as it has high uptime. It gives a good boost to mitigation and is a staple on all my energy aura builds. The build: I'm not sure why it says spirit ward and arcane bolt aren't allowed. May be the level at which I selected them. So may need to rearrange when you get the powers, but you can take everything in the build. Totals with and without rune of protection. Both of these are with 0 stacks of blood frenzy.

Here is my savage/bio scrapper. Many of the same comments that I made for the brute build also apply to this one. So reference that post earlier in the thread. Again, I don't claim it is the best build, but it works great for me. Also note, this is not a cheap build. The build: Snippet of totals in offensive adaption and no stack of blood frenzy:

I don’t have a lot of experience with dark armor. Brute and tanker have the same resist caps, however, tankers have higher armor modifiers. So tanker will have an easier time hitting the resist caps than a brute. Factor in the tanker resist ATO proc and it will have a lot easier time reaching the caps. Tankers did get a nice AoE buff a while back. They are not slackers when it comes to damage, especially AoE damage. For what it’s worth, when I do get around to making a dark armor character, it will be a tanker. I defer to people with more experience with the set though. Savage will do great on both tankers and brutes. So I think it will come down to which will do better with the armor.

Not sure. I haven’t gotten a savage tanker to 50 yet. I just enjoy the set as a whole. I can’t imagine it would be much worse than brutes or scrappers. As far as what is best at 50...I’m going to say it depends. Stalkers will do more single target than any other melee archetype basically regardless of the attack set. This is due to assassins strike, assassins focus, and their ATOs. So it’s hard to say that they are best due to having better single target damage. This is true with basically every shared set of stalkers. I think most people would say savage is best of stalkers. I’m not going to deny that, but it depends on the feel. I have many savage characters, but my main ones are: - savage/EA stalker - savage/EA brute - savage/bio scrapper - plant/savage dominator Out of those 4, I enjoy the scrapper the most and the brute second most. Even though stalkers can go berserk and just fight everything in sight just like a scrapper or a brute, I still have a lot of old school stalker in me. So I tend to find the biggest baddest target and focus it down on my stalker. On my scrapper/brute I just leap in and go ballistic on the entire spawn not really caring what my target is. So it depends on how you generally approach each archetype. Stalkers will do better damage. That is pretty much always going to be the case. The general consensus does seem to be the savage is best on stalkers. I have the most fun on my savage scrapper.

Pretty much yeah. I can’t recall if they have the same health pool as a scrapper or not, but they have the same armor modifiers and the same resist caps. Hitting softcaps on stalkers is also generally easier in my opinion since they have a head start in hide. I’ve never been disappointed in survivability for either archetype. Both can be build very tough. I have never had survivability be the determining factor of if I chose stalker vs scrapper. It’s always been about how the primary plays for me.

Yes, I do. I have a savage/ea stalker that I enjoy a lot. Savage/shield on stalker is also extremely good. Stalkers probably have savage best as they get all the same AoE goodness and the single target is even better than brutes or scrappers. I actually take hemorrhage on stalkers as it is a very hard hitting dot on stalkers. Plus you get assassins strike. I recommend savage on basically all the melee archetypes. I also like it on dominators.

Yeah I honestly don’t know why savage gets a bad rap. The damage is definitely there. It has decent up front damage and good dpa on maiming and vicious. The real winner for savage is that the attack chain is so darned fast. Sure it might not have a single super hard hitter. But it’s speed makes up for it IMO. Plus, once you have savage leap fully proc’d out it is glorious.

That is one of my favorite things about savage! Glad you are having fun!

Yeah I usually love taking rune of protection on a lot of my builds. However, I have a hard time fitting it in on bio. I pretty much always take it on EA, shield, SR, and regen. Usually I take it on builds that I don’t use the leadership pool on. But I do like taking maneuvers for bio so I can get to the E/N softcap easier. Maybe I’ll try working it in on one of my bio projects.

I can’t really comment on the old live community as I didn’t participate on the forums back then. So my views are solely based on homecoming comparative to other gaming communities I have experience in.

I’ve been thinking of making this thread for quite a while now. I’ve started the thread multiple times and then have always ended up deleting it because I psych myself out. The reason is because I could see it becoming fairly heated fairly fast and turn into something I didn’t intend. Well here goes again, maybe I won’t delete it this time. Disclaimer: all of this is my opinion based on my experience. I understand that other people have different experience and different opinions. The community of CoH, and now Homecoming, has often been hailed as one of the most friendly and helpful communities of any game. There have also been comments that counter this stance. I want to share my experience and opinion. First, a little background. I have been actively involved in the following gaming forum communities. Prior to Swtor I didn’t really actively participate in gaming communities outside of in game communications. -Swtor: active for years, not active since 5.0. -Guild Wars 2 - fairly active for 2 years, no longer active. -Destiny 2 - not an active poster, but an avid reader. No longer active. -Overwatch - active for a few years now. Still active. -Homecoming - active since the resurgence. I wasn’t active in the pre-snap forums, but I did play the game for years. Having been part of these communities I can say without hesitation that the homecoming community is indeed, BY FAR, the most decent, respectful, welcoming, and helpful community I have participated in. I understand that other communities may be better that I haven’t experienced, but out of the ones I have, it is no contest. Is there still toxicity in the community? Yes, on occasion there is toxicity. There are plenty of heated arguments. Sometimes mods have to remove content and lock threads. However, in general people in this community seem to be quicker and more willing to apologize to or at least understand other members of the community. I’m going to compare homecoming to the only other gaming community I am actively participating in - Overwatch. I really enjoy the game overwatch, but to be honest, the community of overwatch disgusts me. I usually spend all of 5-10 minutes on those forums before I have to stop and switch back to Homecoming. Almost every single thread in that forum gets overrun by toxicity. People don’t even attempt to understand each other or the devs. Pretty much every form of insult you can think of happens regularly (every day) in that community. I have often thought about quitting Overwatch purely because of how toxic the community is. Don’t even get me started on in game communications. If I posted even the more “mild” stuff I see/hear every single time I play overwatch I’d likely get banned on these boards. I’m not saying the Overwatch community is ALL bad, but overall it is so full of toxicity that it can be hard to focus on the good. I do appreciate the good people in that community and the few threads that stay on track, but they seem to be getting more and more rare. Contrast this with Homecoming. People are gushing advice to anyone and everyone that asks for it. Sometimes the manner in which advice is given can be questionable, but there is no denying how helpful the community is. I have seen many arguments on these board that instead of going further get halted in their tracks by an apology or by sudden understanding. People give out influence and other items to other players seemingly every day. Many people, myself included, have experienced the crushing feeling of the accidental extra zero or two when purchasing something on the market. And yet, often times others try to help out when this happens without being asked. I remember logging into AP one day pretty early on in the resurgence last year and some level 50 opened up a trade window. I accepted and he gave me 10m influence. I was flabbergasted. That was probably 10 times more than I had ever had up to that point. These types of things happen often. Think of the number of guides that have been written in this community. Think of all the builds that people make and share with each other. The archetype boards are chalk full of help and gratitude. Think of even the hard things like all the support in the “Fallen, but not Forgotten” board. People on these boards, in general, seem so quick to help others succeed. They seem more willing to understand and at least agree to disagree. They are much more respectful in game and on the forums. I know it’s not all cupcakes and rainbows on these boards. Thinking back to some heated debates on this forum I think of some recent beta feedback for i27. I also think of the double xp influence nerf, Rage nerf, and DFB nerfs (I know there are others). Yes, there was definitely some heated debate and insults thrown around. There was definitely hard feelings and resentment. I’m not denying that this happens in this community. But even at its worst, it is better than a good day on the overwatch forums. I’m not really sure why homecoming behaves so much better. Perhaps it is just an older community. Though adults can be just as unreasonable as teenagers, so I’m not sure about that. Maybe it’s simply because the community is really small. Maybe it’s because there is overall an attitude of gratitude for what we got back rather than rampant entitlement and “what about me” attitude that fills overwatch. I really don’t have an answer. What I can say, with surety, is that the Homecoming community is the best community of which I have been part. The main reason I wanted to post this is to say a HUGE thank you to all of you, and the devs, for helping to foster a respectful and helpful community. A thank you even to all the people I have argued with recently or in the past on these boards. Even the arguments are polite and respectful comparative to other forums I have participated in. Thank you for making this community a place I enjoy participating in rather than one that disgusts me and leaves me disappointed with the human race.

Nice! Well thanks to this thread: Yonaka Taichou made his first appearance into Paragon City. Broadsword/Shield Stalker. I wanted assassins strike 😉.

Snippet for brevity. I always put in lowball bids on all of my builds enhancements. I buy my build at level 2-3 or whenever I have enough market slots. That’s gives me a lot of room for patience to wait on my bids, especially for my purples. I usually bid a fair bit lower than the going rate on LOTG and usually get at least 3 of the 5 at the lower rate by the time I need them. If the bids have filled by the time I need them, then I will use a more “reasonable” bid that will purchase the remaining ones within a day. I am especially aggressive in my bidding for purples because I don’t need them until I’m level 50. I have saved over 75m on purples alone in one build by being patient. I used to always use but now prices. Since I started low balling and being patient my builds are usually 100-140m cheaper than they were before. I agree that LOTG + rech isn’t at an unreasonable price at the moment. It is one the most highly traded items on the market and thus I think normal market focuses will influence it appropriately. It is bought and traded to such a degree that market forces will squash attempts at price setting pretty quickly. The moral of the story is that patience saves tons of influence. Put your bids in ahead of time people. Those 6m LOTGs become less than 5m when you are willing to wait. It makes sense that there are more bids than offers for such a hot item.