Call Me Awesome

I have no clue what you're trying to say here. I was the main Hami tank on Guardian from issue 4 until the Hami raid revamp and in order to hold Hami's aggro you need Taunt and preferably a ranged attack since Taunt is a massive aggro multiplier and it's much more effective combined with an attack. You MUST hold his aggro against the entire raid's damage output and you MUST do it from far enough out that the raid isn't in the AOE splash zone. This requires a totally solid hold on aggro and this requires Taunt. Admittedly I haven't tanked the new Hami since Live but I do know what it takes to hold aggro from an entire raid, some of which will be other tankers or scrapper/brutes with auras. You must have solid aggro, you must maintain that aggro and to do that you must have taunt or you'll loose aggro and the raid will wipe. I did it three times a week for years on Guardian and I had to keep aggro in the face of hundreds of players, some of whom were also tankers and a very few who were doing their damndest to make the raid fail by taunting into the group. I repeat, in order to maintain a solid unshakeable aggro on any mob you need Taunt and an attack. Neither alone will do the job. To do it from range you MUST have a ranged attack, preferably one that recharges quickly, and Taunt.

I'm firmly of the opinion that Taunt is needed in order to be a tank; without it you may as well be a higher HP lower damage Scrapper. In isolation yes you'll hold aggro without it but add the team's damage and it can get problematic, to say nothing of what you do when some mobs you don't have around you turn on the Blaster. Some Tanker primaries do have a strong enough aura to hold aggro reasonably well but punchvoke will NOT hold attention as well as Taunt. Taunt and punchvoke together WILL hold the attention. If I'm teaming with a tanker who doesn't have Taunt then I know that I'll have to manage my own aggro because he will loose it. Of course my assumption is always that I have to manage my own aggro because the art of tanking isn't what it once was and good tanks are very few and far between. Sorry, but I've always had the opinion that if you aren't going to manage and hold aggro then you should roll a Scrapper or Brute, not a Tanker. After all if you don't want to tank then play an AT with more damage and good durability.

Another vote for Elec/Shield here. Admittedly I've only played the Stalker version but it's a phenomenal AOE beast. ST damage is admittedly lower than some of the top ST sets but for AOE it's hard to beat once it matures. Elec/Shield/Pyre for Lightning Rod/Shield Charge/Fireball/Thunderstrike/Chain Lightning. Once that finishes you'll find the spawn is gone except maybe a boss who's on his last leg. With decent recharge that combo is available every 30 seconds... in the meantime pound away with Thunderstrike and Chain Lightning until the big hitters come back.

Only part of the damage of Spectral Wounds heals back a few seconds later, all other damage is permanent. Unless it's changed since Live anyway, I haven't played Illusion on Homecoming.

Nothing in the game is as bad as Oranbega. Some of the maps are borderline acceptable but many are outright terrible with hidden passages behind and under cliffs, the black passages and everything else it's intentionally designed to get lost in. I've spent 10 minutes before trying to find the entrance to a room I can see on "reveal" and can't find.

Absolutely Rad/Sonic, the Sonic primary needs some help and is greatly overshadowed by most others now. As a support set Sonic/ is below everything else except possibly Trick Arrow. Rad/ is one of the strongest primaries available; it's good at everything and has no real drawbacks as a set.

I've played Kin/Rad and Kin/Sonic to 50; both are quite competent and work well together. Personally I prefer the -res in Sonic, it really works well to amp up the team's damage. While the -def in Rad improves hit chances I find that most players in the mid to late game are already at or near the 95% hit cap making -def less useful. Also, you'll be running Tactics anyway... Defenders get so much good out of the Leadership pool it's almost a crime to not take it. -Res is always useful no matter what the team's abilities... even if they're at the damage cap from Fulcrum the -res still increases their damage output. In the early game to maybe mid-30's Rad's -def will be valuable with that value declining as you approach the end game. Sonic's -res will always be beneficial.

And can we extend it to Phantasm's suicidal ass? Seems like if we get the option for PA we should also have it for Phanty.

One thought is the Mez shield in Mystic Flight... it works reactively as a break free or proactively like IW. I'm not sure if it's perma-able or not but it might be something to think about as it opens up more options for your APP/PPP selection. As I recall I went with the Psi pool on my Ill/Rad on Live but I don't still have the exact build and could be confusing it with a different 'troller; I played 4 of them back then.

Knock UP is a bit more useful than Knock DOWN as a general rule since it's slightly longer duration before the mob gets back to punching your face, and it's a different mechanic. I wonder if it's feasible to exchange KB for KU? Knowing how things work it'd likely mean editing every KB and KD power in the game.

And I think we have an answer 🤪

So how's that Claw/Bio work? I admit I've never studied the powers and synergy of Bio. SR while I haven't played it I'm reasonably familiar with it's strengths and weaknesses. Am I missing something or is Quickness the only benefit outside of durability? And is it enough of a benefit over other sets with Claws?

I've noticed this as well, groups tend to split and then someone away from the group suddenly chews the carpet. Lather, rinse, repeat. I think it's a combination of players getting accustomed to managing themselves not paying attention, then getting in over their heads doing something stupid. There's just too many players who aren't used to, or don't want to mesh with the team and work together. For probably 90% of the game that works reasonably well, then you get to the content that really needs teamwork and those players either disrupt things or go off and get their butts handed to them. My old SG had a saying about players like that. "You can't fix stupid... but you CAN Speed Boost it for entertainment purposes." It originally came up in the Doc Deliah Faultline rescue mission, someone tossed SB on Doc and suddenly she was GONE attacking a group way over there.

Well, what do you guys think, should we rename this the OCD thread? 😁

It's an idea I've seen kicked around several times over the years, it does have some potential. If possible it would make sense for it to be a Gravity control power.

I'm thinking about making a run with a Claws scrapper and am pondering a secondary for it. I've tried a couple times back on Live and never made it very far, possibly due to lack of synergy or simply something that "clicked" with me at the time. I'm tentatively ruling out Regen as I've done it 3 times already back on Live and while I know it's a shock to all I'm leaning against Invuln simply because I've done it so many times. Lately I've had fun with several Shield characters but I believe it's not allowed with Claws so that's out. I'm considering Fire (lots of IO work needed for durability), SR (never played one but it seems pretty vanilla) or Bio (no real clue about this set). I'm looking for durability, damage output and sustainability (which lets Dark Armor out, also I dislike the look of the set). Ideally something that matures relatively early and ends strong, my BS/Shield scrapper is fully capable of +4 x8 missions against a variety of enemies and I want that or similar durability in this character. I'm very familiar with IO's and will likely be making a high end build so expensive IO's aren't an issue... after all we don't have anything going for 2 billion inf nowadays.

Ok, it's listed as #5 in Boomtown for the Scholar badge, the text is: It was here that the Back Alley Brawler arrested Harry Frost for the second time. Frost was peddling a strange substance to a group of street thugs. After a lengthy court battle, the charges stuck. It seemed that the War on Drugs had achieved a critical victory. The listed location on my Vidotmaps is roughly 90 yds south of the actual location. Listed location is -1668.0 32.5 4753.2. Actual location is -1668.2 0.0 4520.8. Sorry, my memory earlier was incorrect, it's 378 yards from the zone gate almost due north. Edit And after loading the "more maps" file I see it's correct there, it was incorrect on the old Vidiotmaps overlay.

No, I plead Mea Culpa. I was at my work machine and didn't have it in front of me... for some reason my mind insisted on confusing the two. Dang, I'll correct the OP and hide under a rock feeling much shame...🥴

City of Heroes Chinatown? An expansion pack for City of Heroes, alongside a City of Paris, London etc. Yeah, it's a HUGE undertaking and not likely to happen unless the game can go for profit and afford to hire a full time Dev staff. I do like the idea though.

You're not alone there, most players likely don't realize that. I didn't learn it until maybe issue 20 or after even though I was deeply into IO builds and maximizing benefits. Accuracy was so prevalent in set bonuses that I'd never seen the benefit of the Karma until I finally discovered it was To Hit instead... something MUCH harder to come by.

Every build I play will ALWAYS have the following: Miracle +recovery Numina +Regen/Recovery Performance Shifter +end Karma +6% Accuracy (It's To Hit damnit!) Anything building Defense will always have these: Steadfast +3% defense Gladiator's Armor +3% defense After that the sets and bonuses depend on the character but my characters always have a full set build by level 30 and usually have some and possibly a frankenslot build by the time they're 20. Many will grab some LotG 7.5% recharge where they can fit as well.

Glad to see you back Arcana, you even got ME to understand how Defense and Soft Capping worked and I'm hardly a numbers nerd. Well, beyond focal lengths, f-stops and how much recording time I had left... something I had to do on my day job.😜

Ah yes, just how many times was the Pet AI "fixed" and then broken again? And now we have the permanently broken AI that insists on Melee range even if it has no melee attacks. "Why is Phantasm trying to hug the AV? Damn, he's dead again, resummon"

And it was Clockwork... makes sense I never saw it since all my characters were Natural Origin so I didn't do any of the other origin beginner missions.

I've no idea, it may well be client side. The file that keeps track of the character order is certainly client side so it may all be that way.