Sanguinesun

1. I recommend reading up on how the -res procs work in relation to application via same or different powers. 2. AV's vary in their resistances/defences as well of course their attacks and your required defenses and resistances. As a general rule on a scrapper then that you're attempting to make an all around various AV killing centric toon, you wanting to make sure you cover most bases. Sets like bio will not be adequate in terms of your protective needs. Rad armor is not only capable of being well resistance setup for most all(except cold will be your only hole really) damage types but you'll also have multiple damage mitigating and offensive options in the set as well. But another factor is, what does others on your team bring to or compliment/supplement your choices? Most cases on a team, you're needs are far less to keep you alive as well as to help you take down collectively an AV. If you're soloing, then you need every ounce of protections and mitigations as possible in addition to strong single target melee and other supplemental things to help mitigate an AV's capabilities such as regen etc of course. Some suggestions thus far arent necessarily taking this more into account. 3. Fire's armor set has more pronounced holes that you will require alot more sacrificing of damage and other mitigations to round out your resistances as well as to give you defense. Again if on a team then it wont matter as much. Dont hyper focus on burn as over the years its received various nerfs and as well it has a flee component built into the ability unfortunately as well. 4. Its less and bio has significant holes as mentioned above. Remember too while in offensive stance, you take a hit to your resistances and while in defensive you take a hit to your damage. Therefore, its better in groups where your holes can be patched by others and you can run around on offensive, only flipping to defensive stance as needed. 5. You should keep in mind that the times he's sported there are not the best times a scrapper can do on pylons. There's even a video and someone who did it on a DB/Bio in well under 50 seconds. See this thread's page here where Ston posts the build/attack chain and a vid here: But again, dont be fooled. Its just a dps check not a dynamic situation of an AV. Dual Blades is lethal damage focused as well which is more resisted by AV's in addition to smashing(but again --depends-- on the av too as some are going to be more resistance to other damage types.) So, in general, you cannot make an all AV hunter without having some AV's resistant to what ever damage type you choose. Just make what is both damage and survivability(and that includes endurance strongly too as AV's are endurance fights) balanced and effective. But again remember there is no one "best". That is 100% an intentional design feature by the original devs for making characters. But not having certified cookie cutter builds and variations being so bogged down in the minutae of details, it kept people trying different things(and thus paying for their subscriptions.) Then any time people -did- start to come up with "this beats all" sorts of things, that's when "adjustments(nerfs)" tended (and still do) happen. This isnt to say that you cant build something effective, its just that you need to frame it better within the context of what your goal(s) are. Also circling back to pylon/single target flatfooted thinking in fights, remember that not all AV fights are that either. Some have mobs/summon mobs to fight/distract and more. 6. Ston also has a thread regarding trapdoor times(that's getting through mobs then to a boss at the end that can be a challenge) and its times then start to show very different considerations: You'll then notice in that thread that the top scrapper melee sets start to shift in time considerations vs Someguy's stated pylon times show. This is because neither are encompassing the spectrum of what one encounters with fighting different AV's but that at least the trapdoor mission is accounting for the dynamics of encounters up to and including the boss fight and its mechanics. They are also focused on a slight misdirection of -Times- for defeats. Time inst necesarily an accurate metric for all CoH related defeating considerations. Remember there are builds by other AT's that can take down AV's with little challenge in terms of survivability too but at the requirement of patience. There's a few people on the forums that have devoted tons of youtube videos to their feather-in-their-cap threads of soloing/duo'ing high end challenge content yet when scrutiny is applied, you start to see it took them a considerable amount of time in many cases. For them, it wasnt about time but just simply about downing hard content. 7. Hopefully you're starting to see that there is a lot more entailing what you need to consider and as well as moving in a different frame of thinking of what you're currently considering. No one has made or done extensive testing of a plethora of AV encounters(and including their missions) in solo terms nor in group terms where the specifics of the groups are factored either. This is just simply because its pretty tedious amounts of effort to do so and in which any months later changes to the game(as there's always something with this team wanting to make their mark with hubric progression creep) that can slightly or even dramatically alter previously tested results. 8. The "you" factor. How you play factors much into some of the considerations for choices/builds/strats. As an arbitrary example, I've seen so many different fire farmers using forum cookie cutter builds and observed how widely their effectivity in their influence per hour is (active farmers mind you..... passive/AFK farming tends to be less varied for obvious reasons). And the list can go on really. You're going to need to spend more time digesting more information, cross referencing such things, use mids to make tenative builds, and then going on the beta server to actually insta level/gear out toons to then effectively test in av fights/missions for your needs. That's obviously a lot of work but if you're looking to min/max/make effective a scrapper for your goals for all for all of that, its going to be the best way to ensure your goals are more likely to be met. Worst thing for your to do is take some build from here, level it up, to only then find out it was a bust and all that effort was a discouraging waste(unless you are the type of person to appreciate the hike up the mountain vs looking from the summit). Best of luck.

The Rikti reclaim their "defeated". They are then processed for their failures and used as a form of sustenance and bio fuel for their fleet.

1. What are your specific goals with this build? General casual play? Specific set of friends that you play with that you're attempting to compliment/supplement the their dynamics with your team? Stay back n fight? Get in melee and fight? etc etc etc. Your build should be shaped by your goals unless you're just casually playing and anything goes, at which point your build overall doesnt matter too much as its mostly going to be a "what I like" build. 2. Soul storm with a recharge but no accuracy and just slotted may not be extremely effective. Its a good single target hold but since its a later earned power it benefits more from slotting more with it as later game mobs will be resistant to being hit by it. If slotting is an issue, and you have other play goals, you may want to make other considerations either with other powers to give it more slotting or replacing it with another power to use the slot as a mule. 3. How effectively/frequently do you intend to use conduit of pain. Your slotting for that could be better as well as you need to keep in mind its "special" effect. 4. Was there a specific reason you opted to not take either of your ATO sets? 5. You have more effectivity in the gaussian proc put in the world of pain that full slotted in tactics unless you've some goal specific with having the full slotted bonuses for the set in tactics. All in all, really knowing your goals helps to determine your build's considerations but overall the build seems to do its intentions with both healing/buffing/damage etc.

First off, the very kind person who posted a build in your other thread essentially posted builds that are specifically designed for high end challenge content that the majority(yes the majority) of the player base do not play and as well intended as a build to match with other people that go on those missions together (ie the others also built theirs to work with the others on the team). It is a solid build mind you and can work on teams doing most other content, but the specific choices they made in regards to all their powers and more importantly the sets and the set bonuses are focused on that specific content/group style needs. To be quite straightforward/blunt, you're not that sort at the moment. You're essentially new and hitting the steep learning curve with what Homecoming presents when playing and very likely, you're just going to be primarily focused on 1-50 leveling in a more relaxed sense, will do some general post 50 content as the mood suits you, and then you'll perhaps then play something else, parking the defender to use when the mood suits you again. This would be a common framing for how not a small number of people play the game and absolutely nothing wrong with it. ------ That all said, let me try to explain/clarify/discuss some of the points you made in your post that hopefully may help. 1. "non hero alignment" For the sake of understanding things, players can switch alignments freely at any time via an npc in pocket d(null the gull). This allows players to go between all zones, do content specific to those zones, or in the point you were making, gain access to the powers of the patrons that used to be exclusively and only for villain characters. I can only assume this is because you feel your character would no longer be "good" from some sort of roleplaying sense. My best answer to you is, be more creative/thinking outside the box, if that is your primary concern. However, if you're staunchly opposed and wishing to intentionally limit your character in this fashion, that's very much an Roleplayer's perogative and nothing wrong with that of course.... except that it shifts intentions of your character from being a min/max/optimal(semi subjectively mind you) to a thematic character. In terms of thematic play, the rule is: anything is ok. However, if you seek to straddle the line between thematic character and optimizing within that thematic/avoidance of things that dont fight your themes, then (depending on the build/theme) that can be more challenging. Its basically an issue of concept vs meta. We cant really sort that for you, so that's going to ultimately need to be a decision for yourself. 2. If you dont want to use sorcery pool, then dont. Linea's build uses it because as I pointed out at the start, their build is specifically intended for survivability in addition to support for specific teams that match the challenges of the harder content in the game that most dont play. People take the sorcery pool for many reasons not just for certain builds to be more resilient either. However, your feelings that Rune of Protection are over powers is rooted in your still being new to the game. It isnt overpowered(cant wait for you to see incarnate powers...) as it has a long cool down timer that --cannot-- be affected by global recharge benefits. Its a fixed 180 so its only up for a minute then 2 more minutes after that before it can be activated again. It is a situationally used ability in other words but this was already pointed out to you. You'll also notice in that build they slotted it with enhancements that give specific bonuses... which was also another important goal for the build and related to what I stated before. To be blunt, you're seeing again the build from a new player standpoint and not a long time HC player one. 3. "Skipping radiant aura". To be quite blunt, teams are not going to like you for skipping your healing aura to help with the team. "Doing your job right" thinking to be honest is again a potential mismatch between the set's powers and your perception of it. In group dynamics terms, this is going to be a challenge for you leveling as people in groups will be expecting you to be healing and debuffing equally. Or if you're the only one who would've had a heal on the team(as can happen frequently) there's going to be some people unhappily questioning what's going on. Again, I recognize you're going for a very specific thematic build. This is what I was eluding to the thematic vs meta far above. To that end, I would also like to suggest to you to again be more creative/outside the box. Due to how you can change colors of powers and other things, you may be havinga situation of a mismatch between your wants and the power sets themselves. As a completely arbitrary example, one could make a poison primary defender with a dark blast secondary, color them both a sickly orange and call them a radiation sickness Role Playing themed character. Lots of ways for people to get creative. However again, if you are adamant about your choices, then that's fine. I just recommend that you also be equally resolved in how you're going to navigate the social dynamics with other players when you're not helping to heal them and friction occurs once you explain(or dont) that you didnt take the healing power for the set. If you intend to group constantly and with a variety of people, this is likely to occur so you need to be prepared for that eventuality. Mind you, if you're playing on Everlasting(the defacto RolePlaying server) you may have a better way to role play that away though. 4. As for Radiation blast powers that you said you didnt understand why Linea took, again, look at their set bonuses and how it adds up with the overall ---goals--- for the build and the specific game play. You want different as a roleplaying thematics player? Great. Build 100% as you wish. If you want to build min/max, then you're going to need to start delving into why players make specific power choices and for what content their going with. Linea would 100% not build that build and choose those powers and slots/enhancements if they were planning to make a casual MSR specific rad/rad or just running a toon 1-50 to then park at 50. Goals shape the character's powers/slots/enhacement choices. This is a tricycle at a NASCAR race track saying they want to run that tricycle on the track, not understanding its not a car, and then not understanding why its not being allowed to race in the coca cola 500. (Im making an intentionally silly example but to illustrate the stark contrast between the information gap that you have and the expectations due to that gap and not giving this example as a means to slight you.) 5. Your choices for hover evasive maneuvers are fine. Just remember the defensive bonuses from ev drop when you start attacking. Also just because you then toggle it off to just use hover doesnt mean you're going to go slower. Addressing your information gap again, if there's a kinetics on your team, they can speed boost you(which also btw boosts your recharge rate so you can use powers faster), and so you'll be fast with it. Im simply pointing this out to reinforce your assumptions mismatching what the dynamics of your team can potentially bring(or not). Slotting and what enhancements you put in them also is a factor. Because you still do not have a firm grasp on set bonuses and other beneficial enhancements, explaining that in detail may be too much. Suffice to say, though both are ways for people to help bonus boost their global recharge and other benefits. 6. Have to be blunt on mids: Love it, but its absolutely a mess with so many inaccuracies that the people who are tasked with maintaining it just simply have not or cannot address. Some having existed for years with it. City of Data too has inaccuracies(albeit less so). A third option often recommended too is to make and play around with builds on the homecoming beta server as you can insta a 50, and get any enhancements you want free to then test around with. However: -You're not familiar with the full details on enhancement sets, bonuses, and more. More importantly you're not familiar yet with how to think on it as a recipe for a larger whole result. -You're still not familar with even playing the powers of sets, the AT's themselves, nor how what you do interacts with others in a group. My advice to you in all these regards then: -Pick your power sets for an AT, and play from your interests(as you clearly do wish to do already). You're not going to be wasting money(or shouldnt be) on delving into set enhancements while you level. Just use the standard Invention Origin enhancements(IOs) and learn just more or less how to play, and the group dynamics of playing with others in these regards. -Over time you're going to learn the game and then start being able to delve into the more complicated and detailed meta that everyone speaks to. Right now though you're having a dissonance between your wants and the reality of game play and due to your info gap, its making your situation more challenging. 6. Without haste and many sets that give bonuses to global recharge time and more, 100% you're not going to achieve recharge time goals on powers that you've been expressing. Again, wants vs reality of game play meta. 7. Chocking cloud doesnt always work. Its not a guarantee to affect targets in the way you believe. You're also going to need to be well within melee range of not just the mobs that may be held, but also ones that arent. Because you're building a toon to be more thematic vs resilient, this means you're going to be licking the pavement more than you may envision yourself doing so(especially when you opt to not take your healing aura power). Its essentially going to be more situationally used (and in recipe with other powers that you use. 8. Slotting for defense debuffs in general isn't going to be necessary as a whole due to the stacking amounts of it from your power sets, also 1-50, stuff is going to die relatively quickly making it less effective as an enhancement consideration when there are other things that can be slotted in some powers. Also, some mobs can be resistant to defense debuffs, especially at higher levels of content. Again, meta vs reality. 9. Skipping aim is your choice but again, in some build situations, its not just about the +tohit and +damage but also the enhancements slotted and the bonuses given on activation (gaussian's +build up turning the power into a much stronger +dam/+tohit buff when the proc goes off. Again that's fine though. You're not building for effectivity but for thematics. 10. This is the big one that so many players to the game just never come to understand: There is no one best, cookie-cutter, way to play a character. Its all situational and in some minor cases, subjective as well. The game was ---intentionally--- designed this way decades ago by the original devs and continues to be perpetuated by the current team(albeit with some lesser amounts to that). This game was originally a subscription model game. That meant that making the time sinks and the complications of playing making players subscribe longer and thus bring in more revenue was the intentional goal(as most live service games are). But... this should not be construed to mean that making a mastermind toon(arbitrary example), giving it only the 3 range attacks it gets, a secondary that only debuffs, and then expecting it to be toe to toe equal with most other AT's and players you're playing with on a team. It will be more or less a hamstringed build with challenges. Again nothing wrong with that(we've seen petless mm builds for years on here). But what it does mean that its challenge. Many new players who make decisions that go outside of the parameters intended for the ATs/power sets and face those challenges become discouraged. You're giving signs of that being the case at the moment. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ So in summary You're too new yet to understand the powers, the enhancements, Archetypes, and how they all work with groups etc etc etc. Your lack of knowledge on all these fronts is conspiring to, along with the the much higher end meta of details of play, to make you confused, misunderstanding various things etc. You're 100%, categorically, making a themed roleplayer style character. And its effectivity is altered/challenged by your choices. As long as you accept that, and the challenges that it incurrs, then enjoy. If you do not accept that, then you're going to need to start rethinking, adapting, and doing things that are incongruent with your current perceptions and expectations. You're just wanting to casually play and enjoy. There is NOTHING wrong with that, but you also need to understand the wants vs the reality of the situation that may or may not impose. So my best advice: 1. Just use mids as a ---general--- powers choosing planners for now. You're not ready to tackle the more detailed ins and outs of the sets/enhancements etc. 2. Just play the game. See how your choices work(or dont) for you. That's experiential learning. If you get to 50 with such a toon, great. Then decide if you're wanting to continue to progress it for its incarnate powers, redo its slots and start purchasing the 500mil to 1.5 billion influence in costs total needs for set enhancements etc. 3. While leveling 1-50, just buy the standard invention origin enhancements just giving fixed % values for specific things like damage, acc, etc. General rule for that no more than 3 slots of the same enhancement type as more causes the % values to get deminishing returns(Im 100000% simplifying this but you can read more on that from the wiki or elsewhere as its another thing in the meta). 4. Understand how playing with groups works from point 2 as well. 5. Continue to read the forums, wiki, city of data, mids, etc and start learning more over time. The knowledge will come and the understanding of the game will come. There's so much more to learn outside of just building a toon that in some cases can be wholly more important. 6. For newer players, the biggest challenge is money. Learn effective methods in game from guides here and others on how to make money. Hint: for a new player its not about getting to 50 and then making money. There are methods(and not not Market flipping or wasting merits for converters to selll on the market) that not only help a player make good money to fund their 1-50 needs for standard IOs but also in the beginning help to level them as well. 7. Contrarian/alternative builds are fine, just be ready to accept the challenges they impose up to and including social/group challenges. Best of luck.

Since the, quite frankly, ridiculous Council changes, the PI mish ones are not paper tigers anymore, imo. Archons are like mini AV's now that hit hard, strong self heal, and some use the dark tank rez taking significant chunks from players. Since they can spawn in groups of more than one, they can be a problem for various teams in some cases. They're over tuned and I cant help but feel the dev who did so really has a love for and dog(wolf) whistling(pun intented) the council/5ht column 😛. Keep in mind your build of course when fully done wouldn't be a concern on PI Council mishes because that build is specific for high end content play. Most folks running those arent so specific/geared obviously and with a flux of team composition/dynamics that tend to not be found with the smaller numbers of folks running the starred content, hehe. ---- As for circling back to the question by the op regarding defenders, as you and others in the thread have pointed out, they are worth it/

Now, what you're describing, is just utter nonsense and tinfoil hat style word salad.

We just got official licensing and people want to already push the boundaries so we potentially lose the licensure. Color me surprised....

My only concern about this capsule hunting is how is it to be regulated and fair to new players for access to them? Is it only first finders keepers or if a team/proximity clicks it, everyone gets the rewards? etc.

What you're describing is nurture.

To my understanding, the multiple kronos, babbages etc spawning in different zones is a confirmed or unconfirmed event that may or may not be induced by certain powers that may or may not be.....

🤦‍♂️

If we're talking just concept/theme only, an insect going humanoid seems like a /poison theme to me.

I've -never- had it come about as a pattern of "usually goes well". Never. Its more not so well to fails vs pretty goods. In honor of the thread, I ran in a pos1 today. Leader set to +1 to start, even though we only had a nature toon doing what little healing they could at that level. After first mish they declared they were upping it to +2. 3 of us cautioned against it. Deaths followed in the next couple missions with a full wipe at the end of the 'brega mish then again in the next to last with the first ambush. Then another almost full wipe on the second ambush. Lowest it to +1 again, everyone focuses better in the last mish with only 1 death during the doppleganger part. I'd give the run a 4 out of 10.

The 2 weeks before mapserve event, I ran on 4 DFB's with the same toon trying to get the first badge. All four failed then a 5th got it with the same "badges?" style group and yes an mm too. Fail 1: Yep an mm pet. Fail 2: "Sorry I didnt know Sands of Mu was aoe". Fail 3: Scrapper just didnt listen/pay attention nor responded at all during the entire run. Fail 4: AoE from a controller that I forget. This was the worst run because(and I feel sorry for the others wanting the lost badge), someone staff of nemesis KB'd a lost in the tunnel into the wall that wouldn't come out after waiting for a long time. We had to run it again (the 5th) and the controller... didnt join us. As for Posi 1. I've been utterly shocked over the last few weeks that those have run rather smoothely. Only one had last mish door/door area a delinquent dilettante but the rest of the group knew what they were doing and we nailed it with no one wiping then and the simul's dropped fast too.

During the event, I primarily 50'd up toons that I'd gotten into the 30's and 40's but parked for a while. Clear out 2 pages of those.

Vinegar, ketchup, gravy or curry gravy with your chips?

TK, Terrify, Nightfall, then levitate...... with Control Radial Embodiment, that's a stun too since TK is an immobilize and Terrify applies both damage and the fear so 100% chance for stun when applicable. You can still use it as a small push since its a 40m away distance in addition to the pull in so there's a short time for limited mobility in that regard. I've also been laughing at how it collects and hoists the mobs as some bunch and then rotate like carosel and others stack on each other depending on their collision boxes. And while its yes an immobilize for the most part, due to the hoisting, they tend to not fire during the movement shifts to start and drop(if levitate of course isnt enacted) from what I've been observing. And without saying much more, there have been some really interesting/creative slotting changes I've made that have made the combos with that more fun....

Wasnt my first MMO. MUDs were then UO then CoH. Biggest draw for me was playing different combos of power sets, making my own character themes, and grouping with others when possible. But over time as live devs sought to extend through various means the time sink that took away from the fun of the game for me, I stopped, then would come back on a off as CoV, then Rogue launched. When it sunsetting I didnt even play but felt it was a shame but at the same time, due to the live service intended time sinks and costs, I accepted its demise. Later when it was learned of HC and how there'd be a private segment playing (keeping it unknown like a secret club) I was happy to see it back but didnt like others had enjoyed it for years unbeknownst to the rest of us. When I got on and saw that all the vet rewards were now free and exp boosts and more to essentially undo much of the live service time sinks associated with maintaining a sub, I was pleasantly surprised. Its part comfort food, part character creativity, and part ease of access/play that keeps me interested..... as well as helping new players get into playing and stick with it as we've segments of the player base hellbent on elitism to discourage some new players at times. I hope things will maintain a good direction but there are concerns.

It is important to note that this along with other intentional changes 2 years ago is just part of the intentional, inch by inch sets of changes against farming. On one hand it'll be said by some making these changes that it doesnt prevent farming, sure. But that's a misdirect because its moving the needle in the direction of discouraging farming and lessening its efficacy. Thus when statements are made in such cases, its actually rather disingenuous because of the actual intent. One "small change" and they can condemn any criticism over it due to being one small change. years later with many of those "small changes" and the over all effect/agenda in those regards is seen. That's the trick of it. But also keep in mind, this method of small, gradual changes like this is not limited to farming as we're already starting to see (and were really seeing over time as indicated).

A year ago? You were on excelsior just hours ago. I know multiple people who reported you for that, though not I, as I knew your name was specifically from the D&D trope referring to campaigns with an over abundance of rewards in them... but the name was a parody even for DnD of Monty Hall the game show host. You gambled on that intentionally and knew better. Then you went and made Money Mouse as a parody of Minnie Mouse with a monty hall twist. I think you're still pushing your luck and going around the moderators sanctions against you is a sure fire way to get in worse hot water. Coming here thinking you weren't in the wrong just also opens you to having more on your account scrutinized too. There's no right way to defend the wrong thing.

Also keep in mind as a change that HC implemented, if someone gets a smidge of debt from a death, grabbing an exploration badge or two will remove that debt and you'll get patrol exp on top of it. Conversely, if you have patrol exp already and die, that'll mitigate that debt issue as well.

Yes, we understand you're not playing with a full deck.... 🤣

Best way of nipping in the bud that run off like a WoW tank silliness, is being the healer and sticking with the team instead (in many albeit not all cases). A tank faceplanting a few times gets the hint usually and if they complaint, just tell telling them how you're trying to keep the -team- alive and good and not one specific individual taking needless risks while putting the rest of the team at risk. 😛

The lawsuit was actually settled by both sides and not because of that. T From the settlement, Cryptic agreed to make Marvel an mmo what was to be Marvel Universe Online mmo. That's where Marvel thought they'd gain the most financially from the settlement(as CoH even then wasn't a revenue power house. It was profitable but not insanely so. But Cryptic pretty much(and some argue intentionally) sank their efforts with the project to where Microsoft(as they were also putting forth support with it) pulled out. Cryptic then for financial reasons sold CoH to NCSoft, and took the remnants(how convenient that worked out mmm...) of what they were working on and made Champions Online from it (Grond in the desert is basically hulk reskinned for example). Cryptic divested themselves of what they felt was an aging game/IP and created a new one. Eventually of course ole Jack Emmert left cryptic around 2015 and has hopped around different game companies since and settled now with his own company called Jackalope Games(appropriate name really) 2 years ago.... then changed the name to Jackalyptic a year later claiming they're working on a warhammer game.

1. Thanks for letting the team know to check your accounts entire bank of characters for more violations. 2. Copyright character names/costume likenesses have been a generic'd thing since the game was live decades ago as well. Before HC got the license it was also enforced. Players can and will report you or game moderators also proactively at times themselves will do so. In other words this is nothing new. You've been gambling, and basically eventually you lose. You also very much knew better. Since this is part of the tos. 3. Why mimic when you can be creative and come up with something new? If you want to pay homage to a comic character and play CoH, keep it in your mind, and not in the name or costume.