Saikochoro

No problem. Don’t forget the -res in sweeping strike too!

First to answer your questions: 1. It’s a good idea to grab typhoons edge for extra AoE. It doesn’t fall into the blinding feint + attack vitals rotations, but you can always throw it in at the end of the combo if you have lots of mobs around you. 2. See build below. I put both sets in powers used in the blinding feint + attack vitals rotation. 3. I do not slot or use nimble slash. I leave it off the tray. Here is a build for a Rad/Dual Blades tanker. Takes everything in rad armor and skips power slice, taunt, and 1k cuts in dual blades. Yes, I know, no taunt on tanker is blasphemy. I find that I can easily maintain aggro without it. Typhoons edge is actually better AoE than 1k cuts. However, you can swap out typhoon for 1k cuts if you prefer and all bonuses would remain intact because those two powers would have the same slotting and IOs. -10 seconds short of perma hasten. Beta decay will shorten this when you have lots of enemies around you. -Melee defense softcap reached. -Capped resists, except cold and psi. Negative needs 2 stacks of ATO, which is easy. -Melt down is almost 50% uptime. Gives good damage bonus and puts you near the cap for cold and psi resists. -Resist proc tanker ATO in blinding feint to keep up at at least double stacks. -radiation therapy and ground zero proc’d out for extra pbaoe goodness. -Built to run blinding feint+attack vitals as the main damage rotation. -Built without incarnates in mind so choose whatever you want. I personally go full damage on incarnates. Here is a screenshot with totals: Edit: I just noticed the to hit bonus on the screenshot above. Gaussian chance for build up is in blinding feint and is toggled on. Make sure to toggle that off to see values when it isn’t proc’d.

Exactly. I have taken the sorcery pool on many characters and not a single one of them is magic origin. I exclusively use mutation origin. That does not mean I’m locked out of choosing the sorcery pool.

Snipped for brevity and to focus on the two parts I wanted to comment on. First, yes, currently rune of protection is more desirable than half armor t9s because half the armor t9s are completely worthless as has been discussed many times. Their crashes and/or not allowing for cooldown reductions make them very unpopular picks. The huge draw backs of T9s has been a very common complaint or source at least one weekly discussion apart from many other discussions on these forums. Second, there are basically two uses of rune of protection. Mez protection/break free and resistance boost for extra mitigation. Both styles of use still require heavy opportunity cost to go deep into the pool. Both styles of use are completely valid. This change makes using rune of protection as a defensive cooldown boosting resistance worse because its uptime is much shorter. I personally hate the change. I am happy that at least some people like the direction of the change if it does go through though. But, people not liking the change are equally valid. Both opinions matter. The devs will do what they think is best for the game overall. In either case some people will be happy and others disappointed.

Ill start with positive feedback, I like the speeding up of the slower animations. I also really like a lot of the travel power changes. So basically everything except for one thing. I am disappointed with nerfing rune of protection so much. I think it would be much better to buff the other origin pool powers duration instead of nerfing rune of protection. I am very against this change, and this will likely adjust my build philosophy. For how deep you have to go into the pool power, it offered just enough uptime and benefit to go into the pool. Now, it is a bit more questionable. The low duration is why do not go into the other origin pools to pick up their equivalent power. Still I understand that with balancing I am bound to not like some changes. That is just the nature of the beast. Nothing against the devs. If it goes through I understand. I’ll just adjust accordingly if need be.

Scrappers have a higher damage modifier than stalkers. So at base their damage is higher. However, stalkers get assassins strike, which is one of the best powers in the game. It is fast and does great damage and when used probably basically crits every time. Scrappers don’t really have anything that can compare. When you add in the ATOs (stalkers have the best ATOs) stalkers have access to an almost constant damage bonus (build up has very high uptime with assassins Mark proc) and have controlled crits (stalker guile proc). Don’t get me wrong, scrappers are still amazing, but on shared sets stalkers will pretty much always do more single target damage than the other melee archetypes. Scrappers do however often have better AoE damage because a lot of stalker sets replace the AoE power of the equivalent set on other melee archetypes. For electric/shield I would definitely go stalker over scrapper. Electric suffers from low single target damage, which is not as much of a problem for stalkers since they get assassins strike. Still even electric on stalkers is lower on the single target totem pole than many other sets. Consider also looking into savage/shield, which is in a similar vein to electric/shield.

Balancing is common and expected in MMOs, and CoH is no exception. The goal is not to make it better for some and worse for others. The goal is to make the game as a whole better than it was before. As Jimmy mentioned it is an eternal struggle. Due to the nature of balancing it is impossible to please everyone, but it is never the intention to make players unhappy.

I’m going to through my vote in for a thugs/time to be your first mastermind. The combination makes it easy to keep your pets alive and they do good damage. Use the defense mode (can’t remember what it’s called, but it has a shield) that spreads the damage and you are golden. In my opinion the combination is very noob friendly and has lots of wiggle room. I never did masterminds on live and so made a few attempts on homecoming. I tried demons/thermal, demons/cold, thugs/storm and gave up on all of them eventually. Even got the thugs/storm to 50, but it was painful trying to keep everything alive. I then gave up on masterminds for about 8 months. Then I decided to try again. This time I did thugs/time and boy what a difference Time made. Regardless of the pet set I would suggest you use Time, though thugs pairs nicely with it. I had all but given up on the archetype until I did thugs/time.

I go against the grain in that I actually emphasize resists on mine regen characters. I have had a lot of fun with the below ma/regen brute. My build: -Built for high resists. I use rune of protection to give me really good resistances with 50% uptime. I can either use this on cooldown or I can time it to use when instant healing wears off. Or I can use both rune and instant healing at the same time for a particularly dicey situation. -Is not softcapped to any type of defense, though has a good start on melee at 38% (with storm kick). I chose to go this route because on teams there are always defense buffs going around. Plus with lack of DDR I didn't want to really so heavily on defense. -Dull pain is perma and hasten is almost perma. All the defensive cooldowns are up often enough to keep me in the green. -I also have moment of glory for panic moments though only with its native slot so its on a 90s cooldown. I don't rely on it, used it mainly as a LOTG mule and have it on the tray for times when all else fails.

Here are some dual blades builds for scrappers and stalkers for you to check out. Dual blades/Bio Scrapper. Built to run blinding feint>ablaiting strike>sweeping strike on repeat. Also built with barrier core ephipany as the destiny to cover the last bit to softcap e/n defense. Also, has shadow meld for dicey situations. You could go ageless if you want to for more recharge, but probably not necessary. Dual blades/Bio scrapper. Build for blinding fient + attack vitals combo on repeat. Very similar, but changed placement of ATOs for different rotation. Same goals for mitigation as the first build. Dual Blades/Energy Aura scrapper: Built for blinding fient + attack vitals. Doesnt need any incarnates to shore up defensive weaknesses so you can choose whatever you want. Dual Blades/Bio Stalker: Built to run Build up>assassins strike>ablaiting strike>sweeping strike>power slice on repeat. Build up will only be available some of the time, but fairly often due to the assassins mark ATO. When build up is available this rotation will trigger the sweep combo, which is a nice pbaoe. Dual Blades/Energy Aura stalker: Build to run same rotation as the bio stalker. This one is tougher, but will do slightly less damage.

Nothing too big, but made my second decent market blunder since being on homecoming. I was typing too fast and didn’t catch myself soon enough. I just bough LOTG Def and LOTG Def/end for 55,555,555 each. So about a 100m blunder! Still gotta tell myself it went to a poor guy and not Yomo Kimyata or some other marketer 😁

Actually the reason I took super speed and slotted celerity in there was because super speed itself also gives some stealth if I am not mistaken. So it gives a bit better stealth. Then you don't have to have both super speed and sprint toggle. However, celerity in sprint is probably fine too. If you go that route I would put the extra slot in true grit with the a preventative medicine heal/absorb enhancement (or whatever will end up being a level 50 heal IO equivalent). I always use attuned enhancements so they level with me so i just use preventative medicine. That or put the slot in health and put in numinas convalescence reg/rec in there for some extra recovery and regen.

For sure. I take the attacks as soon as I am able as well as the core defensive powers as they become available. For pool powers I grab leaping pool first, then hasten, then fighting, and leave sorcery for last. I don’t necessarily run all the toggles as soon as I get them because they can be too expensive endurance wise until you can allocate enough slots to them. I actually do not slot full set IOs until I am in my early 30s now that SOs have been made so much easier with i27. SOs are great in the early levels. I will however slot the resist and defense uniques as soon as I reach that particular level as well as LOTG + rech and the recovery uniques in health and performance shifter + end in stamina. I usually take both and slot up both shadow punch and smite for the early levels. Also make sure to slot up shadow mail in the early levels too. You can take and slot up touch of fear for the early game as well to supplement the AoE. Don’t be shy to take powers early on that you don’t intend on keeping for the final build. Because SOs are so good I generally 4 slot attacks to start with 1 acc and 3 damage. Having more attacks will keep you attacking often enough. I then work on getting my defense powers up to 3 slots and hasten with 2 slots. I usually do my first respec at level 33. At this point I drop shadow punch and touch of fear and start only taking powers I intend on keeping in the final build. I also start using full sets for my build at this point. I always use attuned IOs so that the level with me and so I can keep set bonuses when I exemplar. I allocate more slots to my attacks at this point. Slot the ATOs. Use crushing impact as a place holder for the hecatomb set. Use obliteration as a place holder for Armageddon set. Between crushing impact, obliteration, ATOs, LOTG + recharge, and hasten you should have pretty good recharge. Fill out the defensive and pool power slots as you level. I do a final respec at 50 to make sure I have all my slots assigned to the appropriate powers and to slot up the purple sets. I also catalyze the ATOs at this point. Then it’s on to incarnate trials and whatnot.

Absolutely. I can post my db/ea and db/bio builds for both scrappers and stalkers later tonight.

I actually am not sure. I think my db/bio scrapper build has 191.25 global recharge with perma hasten, which ironically is more than my db/ea scrapper build unless I’m surrounded by lots of mobs on EA. I have my db/ea scrapper to 50, but my db/bio scrapper is in his 30s. I’ve been too lazy to build it on test to see if it can run that combo. I think it’s pretty darn close to what I will need though. I’ll have to wait till I hit 50 to tell you for sure though.

I can share my db/ea builds a bit later. Defense softcaps 45% is same for all archetypes, incarnate softcap is higher (I think 59% or something like that). Stalkers and scrappers have the same resist caps 75%. Stalkers and scrappers also get the same armor modifiers though there are usually a couple powers that are different in the armors. Both SR and EA will easily reach softcap on either archetype. They also both give nice + recharge. You can build both for decent resists as well. EA will have better endurance management and has a nice heal. It also has moderate DDR. Since it is typed defense it has a psi hole, but honestly I have never had a problem with it. SR being positional defense does not have the psi hole. It has the best DDR you can get. It doesn’t however have native recovery and healing boosts. Both are great sets. I personally like EA better though.

1. Dual blades is great on both stalkers and scrappers. Stalkers will put out a bit more damage, but that is almost always true. Scrappers thrive on blinding feint + attack vitals. Or with enough recharge blinding feint>ablaiting strike>sweeping strike. For stalkers I run BU>assassins>ablaiting>sweeping>powerslice on repeat. Whenever build up is up, which is often due to the ATO, it will trigger the sweep combo for a nice pbaoe. Dual blades is a very fun and nice looking melee set that I fully recommend on either archetype. 2. My two go to armors for dual blades on both archetypes is energy aura and bio armor. Dual blades is pretty endurance hungry and both armors help with that. Energy aura is the tougher of the two armors, but both are great for end game content. Problem with bio is that even with minimal effects it still has some offensive fx that obscure the costume. Each of the adaptations have an aura that can’t be turned off. I make it work with my costumes, but it can be annoying. Also, ablaiting carapace is ugly for a split second and then the fx go away. Energy auras only issue is that it has stealth built into it. Just makes your costume harder to see. This however is true of all stalkers while in combat. This only affect energy aura and ninjitsu on scrappers. I personally don’t think this makes it too difficult to see the costume, but you may feel differently. I think my final suggestion would be dual blades/energy aura. I honestly enjoy that combo equally on stalkers and scrappers. Stalkers almost always out damage scrappers on shared sets, but both do very respectable damage with dual blades.

To each their own. Dual pistols is my favorite blast set, but the painfully slow animation of piercing rounds and lack of snipe has been what I have always wanted reworked. It would make me make even more dual pistols characters. That said, I think you are safe. I very highly doubt the devs would make that change. So no need to worry 😉

Dark melee/shield defense is my favorite scrapper. Good choice! I can share my build with you, but it has a compromise. It has my own particular flavor in builds (I love me some rune of protection). I respec'd and went through several builds before stopping on this one. I made a conscious decision to pick up rune of protection and keep decent global recharge at the expense of the ranged softcap. Not everyone will agree with that move, but it has worked out best of my various builds for me. I have slightly adjusted my build to include some stealthing ability. To stealth past mobs turn on super speed, which has celerity + stealth in it and that should be enough most of the time just speeding past the mob.

I can’t decide between the following two things. I really would like both things to happen (yes, I know the second technically is two things by itself). - Piercing Rounds reworked into a snipe/fast snipe for dual pistols. -Energy Aura and Regen ported to tankers

Yeah we can’t get into full sets because there is just too much build variety and everything is basically immortal at that point anyway. You are right though about adding in secondaries. It would be interesting to see how MA and DM would boost certain sets, but then it’s not just about the primary.

That true. Not sure how much it is buffed, but I always have the equivalent of a level 50 healing IO in siphon life to buff it somewhat. So, one test with def/resist inspirations simulating storm kick + ato. Another test with healing/resist inspirations simulating siphon life + ato. Those would be interesting to see what happens.

The inspirations would be slightly more powerful, but would emulate storm kick with the ATO fine I think. I wonder how you could emulate the small, but oft occurring heal in siphon life though. This would disproportionately benefit sets like shield/SR, but could be an important factor as many try to plug the healing hole in those sets. Maybe include that panacea proc and power transfer proc to emulate that? Might not be quite as powerful, but is something.

I think the further we push the test the closer we will get to each sets potential. However, then it becomes subject to criticism on what a normal set build includes. I don’t think we will be able to get to full sets because then it becomes too variable in people’s thought in approach. Plus at that point pretty much all sets become immortal. I think adding in as many LOTG as the build could take, the defense uniques, the resistance uniques are probably not super arguable. So that could be a good next step. Another step could be to add in two common secondaries. Do the tests with martial arts just spamming storm kick. Do the test with dark melee just spamming siphon life. See how that alters the results. Last thing I would do is add the tanker + resist proc into storm kick/siphon life and see how that alters the results. Not sure we can get much deeper into the test.

This test should not be used to make conclusions on universal toughness. If you are trying to know what the toughest set is on just SOs and just standing still using the armor set then this is good information. However, this is not how much of the game is played. If full IO builds are thrown in then the above tests should not be used to rank toughness. For example, bio is nowhere close to as tough as shield defense when a full set IO build is used. However, in the those tests bio consistently ranks higher than shield and shield often ranks very low. I would rank shield and invulnerability to be the toughest armor sets. I put shield ahead of invulnerability because it also helps kill the enemies faster due to its offensive bonuses on top of extreme toughness. Pair it with dark melee or possible rad melee to cover the lack of healing and you have probably the toughest combination that you will get. Or pair them with MA for a constant 7.5% boost to defenses for additional buffer against debuffs.