Meknomancer

MA doesn't have great aoe on brutes/scraps compared to the larger radius of dragons tail on tankers but /rad makes up for that with red therapy and ground zero-GZ wants slots. Beta decay doesn't need the DW set, a single achilles proc should be enough, toss in an enzyme if you want the - def/-to hit. 5 SW in weave, may as well toss the 6th in there for the extra psi bonus, although i'm not sure its worth chasing. Power transfer chance to heal in stamina and gamma boost doesn't hurt. Fallout shelter doesn't need that many slots you could toss in some random pieces and get away with it. I'd dump the stealth pool for manouvres/tactics/veng, you only lose a single luck of the gambler. Swap the OF in dragons tail for an ff+rech. Find slots for tough that'll bump the s/l res.

12 clicks down:

My votes for scrapper, 2 of them now (torch and excel) i don't feel the need to do anything more than scrape in def+res numbers then go all out recharge and damage. With a tank i'd feel like i would be sacrificing the best parts of dm, the perma soul drain, in order to chase res+def for survival. And i wouldn't get shadow meld.

Mines not very tanky, more for messing about and fun, just scrapes in enough def+res and fold space:

@professoronblowi should of said right away, if you find your original build fun thats the most important thing. If it does everything you want it too, melts mobs and has enough damage and recharge then do not respec it. I keep saying it, recharge is king in this game and you have so much you can probably get close to triple gun drones, i ran a fire/devices very early on and once bonfire dropped it almost got me 3 at once. I don't have a sonic/devices so it was just an opinion as i have no idea what works best with that combo. Fun is always no.1. Instead of a full on respec or going for a second build right away, you could just use some unslotters, take a stupefy set out for something like thunderstrike and see if its still playing as well for you. If not you can just use the unslotters to put the stupefy set back in for the extra recharge. If you wanted to bump the s/l defence you usually have to drop in a blistering cold set in something like boxing, an avalanche/oblit set in trip mine and a couple of rectified reticles in targeting drone/tactics/aim/bu. That'll get you near 10% extra s/l defence but do you really want to drop the 20+ % recharge bonuses to chase that defence. Sometimes you can find a toon a joy to play and think 'i could make this just a little bit better' but after respeccing you realise its just worse/less fun. If you love playing it as it is don't change a thing 🙂

Power sink doesn't need accuracy, a single 53 d-sync conduit should be enough. More recharge for energize. Always useful.

Haven't seen any of these running around, best bet is to check out the dark armr tank builds and the /stone builds and throw something together or have a look at the only ones i have seen- which are brutes and shuffle sets til your happy. And welcome back 🙂

I don't number crunch or time stuff, i run it on auto because its the easy option, i don't have to watch for it dropping which it sometimes will if i'm on some low lvl content like yin and queueing an attack chain. I can fill it while waiting on tf teams forming if i have something like combustion/psy shockwave/whirling hands/engulfing darkness and just toss that on auto til teams fill. You could also consider going full vill and getting the alignment power that instantly tops it up at 1 click. The time it takes to build seems dependent on what powers your using, mind control seems really fast with dominate/mesmerize/levitate but as soon as you start hitting the secondary the bar doesn't seem to fill quickly so i tend to open up with the controls as much as possible before using the dps.

@kitonothing to apologise for. You don't come across as negative so much as a bit down about how effective the toon is. Nothing wrong with just using it as an rp toon, i never did understand the whole rp thing but i see players enjoying themselves in PD when i pass through, but i don't think it matters what level you are for that? One last thought, have you considered playing it aggressively? Instead of following the team about, get to the mobs first, stormy is a debuff/dps set. If you get to the mob first you have time to gale/freezing rain/tornado/lightning storm/allow pets to catch up, that way your helping the team out by taking the alpha, debuffing the mob and dishing out the damage. Hope you find a way to enjoy the toon. If not its not something to worry about, i have a load of toons i love but don't play because i never got the right build for them or i'm waiting on HC to update sets and make them more playable. @StrikerFoxjust noticed the mercs names on your stormy, classics, reminded me of the original Transformers cartoons i was watching way back when. I was playing with one of these on beta and respecced into it as soon as page 5 came out, beats out my /dark /time mercs mm's easily and is one of my most fun toons. Went a different way with mine, lacking imagination. Lackeys 1-5 and the medic who i just call That Idiot.

@professoronblowi kind of see where your going with the build, masses of recharge bonuses and near 45% ranged. You say you don't mind the kb but slotting your best attack (screech) and taser with stun sets doesn't make sense. And you slotted trip mine and shockwave with kb/kd-if kb isn't an issue why waste that slot. The force feedback in shockwave will fire off often enough you don't really need to be chasing perma hasten and i think you'd be much better off slotting for damage and dropping some recharge bonuses. I'd be tossing the defiant barrage set in a t1 or t2 attack or the nuke and find a place for toxic web nade which is useful as dps and an immob, its one of the best t1 secondaries for blasters. If your taking mace its really worth chasing the s/l defence to go with the ranged, otherwise you may as well take a res patron+pet, the resistance really helps ranged def builds survive when you have def cascade failures/def debuffs. And if your going for ranged defence then you want 40% and a t4 barrier or the full 45%. On teams its not an issue but when you solo it is. I don't have this combo, i have a ton of sonic blast toons and 4 /devices blasters so its just some thoughts. Seriously, dump the stupefy sets. I don't know how you'd get the recharge and def bonuses but there has to be a better way.

By the build above do you mean the one @DocMidknightposted or are you running your own build? When you say your pets were unneeded do you mean for damage? If you have them out, even if you just run them in BG mode they contribute to your survival, especially pets like demons that have thermal buffs. Only problem i have with demons right now is the same one i have with beasts and thugs, they feel like lesser pets compared to the ones that got the page 5 treatment, simple because their upgrades don't take sets. +2/1 is a pretty low rep, its a lot more fun with big mobs especially on stormys, minions melt after you drop FR, Tornado and Lightning Storm, lieuts dont last much longer and then its just a couple of bosses. Even something like +1/8 gives you a better feel for how your build is working with mm's. +4/8 can be rough on any mm in teams the pets suffer from fighting stupidly high level enemies i've often seen mine just putting out tics of 1 damage from the t1's when up against +7's and just faceplanting when they get tickled. T4 barrier helps but with storms i often get stuck running ageless. If thats the case, especially on stuff like itf/lg/tinpex i try to run with mace mastery and powerboost and get my s/l/e defence high enough that the pets don't have to be run in bodyguard mode and i can take the alpha for them. That way i'm not resummoning every mob. Its great having a themed build but its not always workable unless you really know the mechanics of the content and how to maximise pets survival, i do love soul mastery but if i have to skip fighting pool its not enough to keep me alive the way i play, which is to hop into the centre of every mob and dump the debuffs. It sounds obvious but try a different build if that ones not working for you, sometimes a respec can make a toon into a whole different beast, if its not working as a squishy build it as a tank and vice versa.

Being needed on the team is totally down to the content run and what rep its being run at and usually what server your on. If its excel you have the 0 rep speed run all content/tf or the 4* hard mode, rarely will you see something like Yin run at +2 or higher requiring teams to stay and work together and even then there'll be someone running a 50 incarnate that can solo the whole thing. Then you have the opposite, a quiet server like reunion/indom where it takes time assemble a team so stuff gets run high rep and steamrolled, very little speeding, everyone staying together. CoH doesn't 'need' specific AT's/powersets unless its extreme hardmode content, you can play your demons/storm and if you made it a team friendly build (convert all your knockbacks to knockdowns) you have one of the higher dps mm's you can make. But dps is pretty much all /storms bring, freezing rain is a good debuff, hurricane is a no no on teams, snow storm slows mobs down, gale keeps them flattened in place, but you aren't bringing anything major to a team in the same way a /kin or /cold would. Its just the damage. Storm is the most fun secondary by a mile but not many teams enjoy having one along as they basically create chaos scattering/causing mobs to run away. Thats also a problem on melee pets if you can't find a way to keep the mob close. Nothing worse than watching demons/necro/nin/beasts chasing down a couple of minions on the edge of your freezing rain out of supremacy range. If your used to playing on low rep speed runs then your fender will be doing way more damage, pets are slow, your always waiting for them to arrive and by the time they do the mobs wiped and everyones on to the next one. Any other AT you can just go with the team and blast away. The game is 99% easy mode, the best way to figure out if you like what your playing is to set a high rep and solo a bit or pick something challenging to test yourself against like a tf/sf with a decent av in it, that way you quickly learn what you can do and what you can't and you'll realise mm's are fantastic, they just aren't fantastic playing in teams until you figure them out.

I kite the nuke. If you just dumped everything on its arse with freezing rain the mobs that aren't flip flopping are usually too busy trying to run out of the patch and away from the tornado to be much of a threat. If your looking for a truly safe /stormy then dark blast is the way to go, you can hop in the mob at anytime knowing the nuke will debuff their to hit and back out using life drain to top up hp.

I remember the day stalkers got /ice and seeing one of these pretty much soloing an itf a few days later they do look great.

I agree on the necro/ff feeling like a much better play. I put that down to page 5 changes. Until thugs/beasts/demons get the same treatment my thugs/time is on a break. Only difference i see in power picks is i took empty clips on mine for the force feedback proc/temporal selection/assault instead of the fighting pool.

@JayboHno i don't use other players builds, i just look at them for ideas. Nobody plays the game the same way and when you copy someone elses build you quickly realise it doesnt suit your own playstyle. I did post a mercs/bubs somewhere but i respecced it a few times since then, dropped group fly and fighting, put medicine in and mace with power boost. Had my first death at vet lvl 18 after playing through praetoria and redside and joining a pug group blueside playing the provost marchand arc. Thats when i realised i didnt need medicine and i wish i'd kept group fly. Theres an av in that on a small lava pit map at the end surrounded by a mine field and my pets stepped on every one of them instantly. I'd already dropped the proc in commando as his blue bar kept dipping below 50% in long fights. Medic seems to keep me and the other pets healed up so i don't think medicine is essential. Right now the pool is just a mule for set bonuses, hp, s/l res, the gargantuan rech bonus. I did try old skool slotting with interrupts but that was useless, you click aid other when your fighting nems jaegers/malta zeus titans/cot demon lords throwing fireballs and its just a wasted endurance click, it'll never fire off. Only useful between mobs. Looks like this currently but i can see myself dumping medicine and bringing group fly back into it:

@Crossie and this:

Defiant was my home server for years til server merge and i remember the regular all AT tf's with fondness but live servers were totally different from HC when it comes to building toons. I didn't have multiple accounts on live with billions saved up so i could buy a single pvp io for 4 bill. I never had the inf/merits or whatever was needed for winter sets. My monthly store points were all spent on AT pieces. As to the principles of a good build thats a tough question. Most importantly its got to be fun for you but not one that ignores the primary which fenders have that benefit the team more than any other AT or one that ignores the secondary and doesnt bring any damage to the team. HC is seriously proc friendly and you can get ridiculous amounts of damage in fender builds now. Been teaming on pugs lately with way too many that don't realise simple things like applying buffs such as bubs/cold/thermal etc can be reapplied on exiting missions and stack up when you enter the next mish and apply again, or buffers that don't watch for buffs running out because they are too busy blasting then watching team mates die who were previously unkillable. Keep the buff bar open on the team.

@Crossie, check out @Nemu build (and all the info he provides) if your stuck on psi epic, somewhere near the bottom of that page. I'd swap in mu and powersink having played one on live and here for a few years i know what a nightmare they are on the blue bar. Its an old link not updated for page 5 sonic changes but it looks like an easy swap of scream for screech.

Henchmen Def stats: Dispersion bub, maneuvres, power boosted bubbles Henchmen Res stats: Serum and pet uniques

What Carnifax said, with the addition that frost will hit way more targets increasing the chances of it proccing and crosspunch is just great on any toon for the extra recharge it brings. Frost with CS proc-Frozen aura is just a dead mob.

Yup, use unslotters, put the attuned piece on the /ah and buy back a standard piece. You'll be buying back the piece you put on /ah basically it'll just have the catalyst removed. Unless someones playing the market again.

I have no clue but here's something possible, Really not fussed about f/c def when i play wp toons but i am concerned about s/l resistance and e/ne defence. Problem is its dm and i can't get those without dropping recharge which i want for soul drain. I'd drop shadow maul/touch of fear and replace it with crosspunch and an ff+rech.

We'll have to agree to disagree on TJ, it isn't just the - to hit bumping your def, its the - damage and.....its a perfect herding tool when you want to go over aggro cap. I do agree mobs die too fast on teams but if you solo +4/8 beam isn't the fastest mob killer and you'd have slowed response up pretty much for every mob. If you toss the 6th apoc piece in disintegrate you'd be hitting softcap to psi too. Does PB boost your accuracy? Or is PB boosted farsight+kismet providing enough for SR with 0 acc slotted? Probably but i still prefer to have a small amount in and if your worried about the aoe drop (i assume you'd pull slots from the zephyr sets) 4 shield breakers would make up for it, almost.