Call Me Awesome

I've had three characters that really grabbed me that way. First was my namesake Inv/Stone tanker about the time I hit 25 and respec'd into an unkillable build back in issue 3... suddenly I knew what SUPER was. That was back when Invuln truly was if you built it well. The second was my Broadsword/Shield scrapper sometime around issue 9 or so, unkillable defense and extreme damage output with a high end IO build. Third was my 2nd Fire/EM blaster. That was actually the very first combination I rolled up when I started playing and my noobish hands could not stay alive so I rolled CMA and deleted it. Then sometime around the third year I'd played I rolled another Fire/EM blaster up and found it a ton of fun in my more experienced hands. I enjoyed it so much that my first 50 on Homecoming was that blaster and he's still one of my most played characters. Back on Live I had about 15 level 50 characters but out of them all those three were my go-to choices. I believe I had taken every AT but Masterminds to 50 at least once. I've been occupied with business this past year and haven't had much time to play but those three are still my default choices here when I get an evening free.

I've had teams that could crush that, but you're right, most would struggle. A team of Incarnates with good buff/debuff stacking? Sure. A team of mostly at-level characters? No thank you unless it's something stacked like 8 Fire/Rad controllers. My approach is to first look at the team, AT's, power sets and levels. Then I'll usually start at either even (if most of the team is at minimum level) or +1 and evaluate after the first mission. If we're crushing everything I'll ask if the team wants to up the difficulty. If we're struggling I'll suggest a lower difficulty. Obviously a group that's used to working together will know what they can do from the start. I'll also ask if the team wants to stealth where practical or if they want to fight through. Most of the time they're fine with stealthing where possible but if they want to fight that's fine with me. In all the years I've played I can't recall more than a half dozen times I've had to drop a TF due to a masochistic team leader running too high for the team to handle; I guess I've been lucky that way.

My worst was Dark/Dark... I abandoned it in the mid 20's as the end was too high and the damage was lacking. This was before the tanker changes, and I didn't stick with it to make an IO build which likely would have solved several of the problems I had with it. I've played a couple of Stone tankers post GDN and ED nerfs and pre-IO; they're kind of junk pre granite with weak defenses and Rooted being your only mez protection. Post Granite the penalties tend to outweigh the benefits. Still they were quite effective and I did get both to 50.

Ionic has a larger AOE than anything else and doesn't need them to be all clumped in a small area. For that reason it's always been my go-to choice on all characters.

My best AOE killer stalker is my Elec/Shield, it's ridiculously easy to quickly clear 4/8 maps and it's very rare to run into a situation I can't handle. My ST damage isn't first rate but with BU/Lightning Rod/Shield Charge/Fire Ball there's not much left of a spawn and Chain Induction/Thunder Strike finishes all but a boss, easily taken out by AS. Then on to the next spawn with CI/Thunder Strike a couple times to clear and BU/LR/SC/FB is back up for the third spawn. If things start getting dicey with health Rebirth fixes that, or some green candy since it tends to drop much faster than I use it. The only character I have that can kill faster is my Fire/EM blaster, but even ranged soft capped he's much less survivable.

They would likely be unbeatable, being able to have high resistances, very high defenses and massive debuffs very few teams would be able to even hit them, provided that the AI had them work together. You'd have an Invuln tanker with around 50% defense and high or capped resistances both inherently and via team buffs. A Dark/Dark Defender capable of nuking enemy tohit chances into the floor along with other nasty tricks. A pair of controllers, Fire/Rad and Ill/Rad, capable of massive damage and extreme debuffs. A pair of scrappers, Spine/Electric and Electric/Shield who have massive defenses, great resistances and high AOE damage. A Kinetic/Sonic defender for buffage and -res debuffage. Finally you'd have a Fire/EM blaster who's soft capped to Ranged & AOE damage. All of them stacking Leadership for +damage and +tohit. Add the AV goodies to that team and I wish you good luck. Of course the AI we have would piss away most of their advantages and likely allow you to separate and defeat them in detail. Assuming competent players behind them I'm not sure they're beatable.

Good news, it needed that. Apart from that the set has always been solid.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Maybe you should quit while you're ..... er, not in the lead?

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.

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.

You can use any of the elemental ones and adjust the color to make it the next thing to invisible.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Babbage up 200 yards north of south train!

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.