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Call Me Awesome

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  1. I've been away from the game for awhile, did WP's lousy taunt aura ever get fixed? That was why I never played one back then, it didn't have the aggro tools to tank as effectively as any other set.
  2. The problem with that theory is that he'd be an idiot to ADMIT that was the reason, it would just reflect on him being petty. On the other hand I'm sure the thought DID cross their minds when coming up with the story. The reason for it? No, unless they really were that petty. An unconscious factor in their thinking? Very likely.
  3. It can be depending on how you focus it. I generally plan my final build when I roll the character but I concentrate on keeping it playable as I level up. For example, I'll always grab the Miracle & Numina uniques ASAP, and the other uniques I'll try and get as they open up. If I'm going to be using a lot of Kinetic Combat sets in my attacks I'll start slotting them when I can but not necessarily worry about getting the bonuses right away, I do occasionally use placeholder sets in the early going. My armors will get Def/End or Res/End IO's early and likely get some tweaking as I level up. One potential trap is to focus on set bonuses early to the detriment of the basic enhancement of the powers, THAT will make for a FUN time. Of course this also assumes you have the inf (money) to afford this kind of build. It also assumes you're completely familiar with set IO's and IO bonuses so it's generally not recommended for a new player. When you're starting out I generally advocate something similar to your suggestions Hyper although I'd lean towards 1 ACC/3 DAM/1 Endred in attacks that are frequently used. The tier one attack can be left with the single default slot; toss an ACC in there.
  4. I think 17 is correct, the change went in way back when to prevent Tanks from herding up hundreds of mobs to be killed with a few AOE attacks. Back in the Issue 3-4 era, or the "Great Age of Tanks" it was easy for a decently built and played Tank to herd up the entire ruined city Drek map, pull the hundreds of Freaks to one location and then eradicate the entire spawn. Frequently the Tank was perfectly capable of clearing the map in 10-15 minutes by himself, usually only taking a couple minutes to kill the herd once it was gathered. This lead to the Global Defense Nerf of issue 5 where we lost a huge chunk of our durability followed immediately by Enhancement Diversification of issue 6 which nerfed our enhancements. The net effect was our defenses were cut by at least 50%, in some cases considerably more, AND the aggro cap went in eliminating our ability to hold the attention of more mobs... and the ability of AOE powers to affect more than the cap's limit of mobs. With the benefit of hindsight our power was a bit too much, but the Dev's gutted us way too hard. The raw durability of a well built Invuln tanker then was higher than a Granite tanker with a full IO build today, and the damage output was greater since we could slot 300% damage enhancement (6 slot Nucleus HO enhancements... they were 50% Acc/Dam back then) in our major attacks.
  5. The worst I know of is Ice/Emp, I didn't play one but a friend of mine did, AND he tried to solo it. No, I don't know what he was thinking either but it was his first character and he was determined, or possibly fixated. The combo I personally played and hated the most (that I actually played to any extent) was an Illusion/Empathy controller. The character was rolled up back in 2004 because I "Had to play an Emp" for some reason (ironic note, Safari autocorrected "Emp" to "Empty") and the character would get played on rare occasions when he was in the right level range. Somewhere around issue 20 the character actually made level 50, making it the slowest 50 I ever played.
  6. STILL only 25 cents! I well remember those days, comics were an obsession of mine all through the 70's and 80's up until I got too busy running my business to have extra time. I think it was around the Death of Superman/Rise of the Supermen storyline that I stopped collecting, and along about 2000 I got the ultimatum that the boxes and boxes full of comics had to go.
  7. Maybe you should quit while you're ..... er, not in the lead?
  8. I use both on almost every build I make. I also recommend the Performance Shifter Endmod and Proc in Stamina if you don't already have it, they'll do wonders for your endurance issues. For Regen I'd probably think about either Musculature (+damage) or Spiritual (+recharge) for your Alpha, Reactive for Interface and Barrier for Destiny. I like Ion for Judgement since it gives the largest AOE, Lore is a take your pick although Clockwork are popular and you'll want the Melee Hybrid. My Fire/Regen Stalker is build for 45% S/L defense via the Kinetic Combat sets in all my ST attacks among other things, and the knockdown proc fires often enough to really help cut down on incoming damage. I have a nonstandard Stalker build since I don't have the ATO set in Assassin's Strike... I used another Kin Combat set there. I also almost never use MOG, it's a panic button while I mash my heals and Instant Healing on the very rare occasions where I need it. I have it, but it's there mostly as an IO mule. Tough/Weave and Maneuvers/Tactics/Assault are also in there along with the Kismet +6% to hit proc and both +3% defense uniques. It requires sacrifices to get soft capped S/L defense on a Regen but the tradeoff in added durability is well worth it, I've solo'd GM's in the Hive with this character. Soft capped defense is great. Soft capped defense on top of the massive Regen and heals is even nicer. Barrier is a great alpha absorber that's up frequently and lasts much longer than MOG.
  9. Weapon is really a substandard choice on any AT, pretty much any other choice is better by the numbers. Of course character concept can be a subjective thing so you should pick the one that feels right for you. If you end up regretting your choice you can always type /respec. Body is certainly a valid choice for you if you're having endurance issues. I find Focused Accuracy to be a bit too much endurance for too little gain but there's other good utility choices there. Most of my damage dealers tend to go with Fire for the APP, it's a top choice for damage but may not fit your concept unless you can think of it as tossing an incendiary grenade. I know the animations don't really work for that unless you're tossing a handful of burning something. I pretty much have all my endurance issues worked out by the time I'm choosing my APP so I'm usually looking for damage instead of utility. It's your character, you need to choose what's fun for you. Give it some thought, try it out and if it doesn't work for you then respec and change it. With all the free respecs we get now there's no reason not to experiment.
  10. You can use any of the elemental ones and adjust the color to make it the next thing to invisible.
  11. That should serve you well, Invuln is tough enough that it doesn't need any additional help from the secondary. My only experience with Electric is with an Elec/Shield Stalker, but I like the set. Electric offers a good shot of AOE although it's ST damage isn't top tier. Still, it will work very well for you. You may want to reconsider Set IO's, with a fairly minor investment you can drastically increase your durability. The guide in my signature gives you an outline with mostly relatively inexpensive IO's that will probably double your durability. I haven't priced it all out recently, but it should come in under 50 million, less if you craft them, and most of the IO's you want are available in the 20's so you get the benefit of them most of the trip to 50. Sure, if you really want you can go to a higher end build and probably double your durability again but you'll likely be spending closer to a billion inf instead of around 50 million.
  12. I've heard that Energy is getting some attention in the next issue but for now I can not recommend the set. We'll have to see what the changes look like. I do hope it gets pulled up out of the cellar where it's currently sitting, right now it's considerably worse than the next worst set. I know there will always be a last place set but there does need to be a valid reason to choose it. Right now I can't see any with Energy Melee. I did play an EM tanker back in issue 6, a Stone/EM. It was a mediocre set that was redeemed by a very good T8 attack, Energy Transfer. Once ET was nerfed from a sub-1 second animation to the current nearly 3 second one that benefit went away and it lost it's one saving grace. After the nerf I shelved my Stone/EM tanker and eventually deleted her, the only level 50 I ever deleted.
  13. If you want to grab aggro fast and hold it tight the best primary is Ice, nothing else is it's equal in that department. It is NOT the most durable primary but a good build will be good enough for most content with your inspiration tray picking up the slack when you run into the rare encounter that's over your head. For absolute durability Stone Armor once you get Granite is the undisputed king, it pays for that with a ton of penalties to mobility, recharge and damage. A half step down from Granite is Invulnerability with Shield slightly below that, both of those can be built to near Granite durability with none of the penalties. Whichever sets you choose you'll certainly want Taunt and a good variety of attacks, particularly AOE attacks. Your aura will help draw mobs in to you, Taunt will grab mobs that are out of your range and attacks will keep mobs glued to you. One pointer, Taunt acts as an aggro multiplier, so an attack + Taunt will get MUCH more aggro than either alone. I recommend getting a ranged attack or two at some point, if your secondary doesn't give you one then Pyre Mastery is a good choice with Fire Blast and Fire Ball. AOE's are always a good choice for getting and holding aggro as well as for pure damage.
  14. The problem is that you cannot hold the attention of more than 17 enemies anymore so herding a map is no longer possible. You can gather up at most two spawns (assuming you're set for +8 or on an 8 man team), any more will peel off and attack others or simply loose interest in you. With a lot of work you may be able to loosely gather up more than 17 mobs but any extras will immediately loose interest in you when another teammate attracts their attention. Unfortunately herding really is dead, and has been since before IO's came into the game.
  15. In my experience Invuln is strong enough that it doesn't need any help from the secondary so really anything should work. My namesake is Inv/Stone and that's a very solid combination that I've played since 2004. Street Justice is a nice set, I had a StJ/Invuln Scrapper back on Live that was a lot of fun and quite effective. Fire Melee is a great option for pure AOE damage... it has nothing to help with survivability but it has really good damage output... since Invuln is quite self sufficient durability wise this is another good choice. Personally I'm not a big fan of Super Strength due to the Rage mechanic and the fact that it's the main cookie cutter tanker, still lots of people play it and enjoy it. The only set I would NOT recommend is Energy Melee, that set got nuked into oblivion way back when and has sat at the extreme bottom of all tanker sets ever since.
  16. THIS. I had the proc in Fire Sword Circle and found it disruptive when it would fire and I tried to unload an AS on the mob only to get the slooooooooooooow animation. I had to watch for the proc to fire and change my attack chain if it did... this was enough of a pain that I moved it to AS... that way I was assured it would not proc before I fired the attack off.
  17. Babbage up 200 yards north of south train!
  18. Not only origin but power level as well. We're talking about a being the size of a planet after all, his power would be so far off the charts in COH terms that he'd make Hamidon look like a level 1 Hellion.
  19. I did my damndest to build a decent Stone/Fire tanker years ago, originally it was rolled up in response to the massive nerfs of issue 5-6 and more or less shelved when IO sets came in and you could build Invuln to close to the same durability with none of the penalties. I devoted every bonus I could beg, borrow or steal in order to overcome the -speed, -recharge and -damage; there wasn't anything to be done about -jump though. I ended up with a character that was less effective than my Invuln, far less mobile and almost up with his damage with a small edge in durability that was mostly academic outside of a few edge cases. I found the character to be far harder to play effectively and even at it's best it wasn't the equal of the Invuln in playability. I have to agree, Stone Armor as it currently exists isn't worth the penalties it imposes, especially in the current game of fast moving teams. Even at it's IO'd best "fast" isn't something Stone can pull off.
  20. No problem, I used to overslot endred in toggles back in issue 3-4 until I saw the numbers and how much more you saved from the attacks. I think one endred in Seismic Smash saved enough end to run all the Invuln toggles for more than 10 seconds.
  21. At first glance it reminds me of Xcom, I'll be interested to hear how it plays. Unfortunately I'm temporarily sidelined gaming wise; my gaming rig corrupted it's drive and I took the opportunity to order a new M.2 SSD for it... I'm waiting on UPS before I wipe and reinstall. I can't do much gaming on my business machines; for one I don't want to introduce potential issues to my video editing systems and for another both it and my laptop are Macs. Hopefully I'll have my gaming rig back up over the weekend.
  22. Sorry, but Fault is one of the best powers in the set. Yes, it doesn't (natively) do damage, but it's a large AOE attention getter and pause button while it dumps everything onto their butts. It also takes a few damage procs and those procs will reliably fire almost every time on everything in the AOE. At level 50 a pair of procs will pretty reliably dish out ~200 damage. I use it just about as often as it's up, and it's a faster animation than Tremor, which has a similar knockdown and roughly similar damage. Admittedly it's low priority but the slow resist is the main reason for it, and the fact that it's a mule for a resistance unique. Ice armor doesn't have an abundance of those. This is also a defense boost based on the number of targets hit in addition to a massive endurance recovery, slow & -recharge resist. It's a core power in the set. Take it, slot it, love it. It comes in handy when you're slowly getting overcome, Taunt the bad guys, pop Hibernate and drop it within 10 seconds and you'll retain aggro. It's situational but it will save your butt when things go sideways and a quick in/out of it won't shed aggro. You won't need it often, but when you do you REALLY need it bad. There's several valid APP/PPP choices, my default for a Tanker is usually either Pyre or Energy. Soul will work, but I'm not sure there's a compelling reason to swap to redside and run a mission arc to unlock it. For an Ice tanker you'll have no need for the endurance so I'd leave Energy out and take Pyre for Fire Blast and Fire Ball, a nice ranged attack and a raged AOE.
  23. As was mentioned one of the first priorities is to unlock your Alpha slot and the fastest method is the Oro Mender arc. Once you've unlocked it you'll want to start running missions to acquire threads to craft your first Alpha enhancement. Note I said Threads, while you can use Shards for the Alpha (and ONLY the Alpha) the game's very stingy with those and relatively free with threads. I enjoy running the main level 45-50 TF's like the MLTF, Lady Gray, Dr. Kahn and the ITF (which is I believe level 35-50). You'll likely also want to join some Incarnate Trials, the BAF being the lowest and most commonly run. As a brand new level 50 you do NOT want to run the higher Incarnate trials yet unless you want to face +6 or higher mobs. Dark Astoria is also an Incarnate level zone with various contacts and arcs to run, many new 50's do spend some time there. Be aware that it's considerably more dangerous than standard content; it's keyed for players who have up to 3 incarnate level shifts... functionally level 53. They also all have significantly higher chances to hit you so you need higher defenses than normal.
  24. Just to nitpick a bit, you'll save LOTS more endurance with one endred in an attack than slotting two endred in all your toggles. The old school rule of thumb was 1 endred per toggle and 1 accuracy, 3 damage, 1 endurance, 1 recharge in attacks. Toss three endmod in Stamina and you're good. If you're using level 50 IO's then two endmod is enough. Slotting went like this: Armor toggles - 3 Resist or Defense, one endred. Attacks - 1 accuracy, 3 damage, 1 endred, 1 recharge. Passives - 3 Resist or Defense Stamina - 3 Endmod Health - 3 Heal That was considerably more endurance sustainable than slotting 2 endred in the toggles.
  25. I've never played that combination, but I have played both sets. For Ice Armor you'll want everything, Permafrost is useful but it's lower priority, get it when you have a free slot with nothing more useful available. I think my Ice tank took it as a level 49 power. For Stone Melee you'll want Heavy Mallet, Taunt, Fault, Tremor and Seismic Smash, pretty much as they come available. For your build goals your first priority is getting your defenses to the 45% soft cap, then work on your resistances with S/L/E having priority, unfortunately your specialty of Cold resistance isn't overly useful since that's the rarest type of damage in the game. After that work on things like recharge, recovery, regeneration and whatnot. I recommend Tough/Weave from Fighting and Combat Jumping is a useful pick both as a source of a small amount of defense and a useful IO mule; I usually toss the Kismet +accuracy in there. Obviously you'll want the two 3% defense unique IO's and the 6% resistance unique. The tanker ATO's are highly useful, albeit a bit pricey. I do recommend trying to get them as the bonuses are really nice. The rest of the build is up to you, there's arguments to be made for several of the defense sets. Also Fault is an opportunity to slot multiple damage procs that should fire off nearly every time, I think CMA slotted 4 Stupefy and a couple damage procs in it. You'll find getting and holding aggro easier than with any other tank you've played thanks to Ice's fast tic aura of Chilling Embrace backed up by the damage aura of Icicles. Thanks to this you'll likely want to get your defenses in order ASAP... always remember the old adage about dead tanks holding no aggro. In the early going Hoarfrost will be a mainstay, later on Energy Absorption and when it goes into the toilet Taunt + Hibernate can save your chilly butt. I don't have Mid's on this computer so I can't give you a specific build but that's what I'd work on off the top of my head.
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