Sanguinesun

It makes sense if and only if you actually use kick regularly (or at all) in your damage rotation AND its capable of actually hitting a mob(because the ACC of your build/slotting kick with acc), AND the -chance- to proc actually occurs. In other words, for not a small number of builds that get thrown up on the forums and else where, it really has no relevance to put FF in kick. KB powers you do use and especially if aoe have more relevance to consider.

Ironically on Monday, I went through 50's (I've only about 2-3 pages of em) and some of my 30-49 (about another 3 pages) toons that I'd parked for a while and cleaned out their salvage(including enhancers, boosters, aethers, etc), recipes I'll never immediately need to use, and more. AH'd what I needed to, vendor trashed the rest. Just a little over 900 mil.

I'm a bit late to responding to this but there are a few things to consider: 1. After last fall, aggro mechanics got changed and people still arent up to speed with how much that effects play. Essentially a tank, even with taking taunt or a brute isn't going to hold all the aggro and certainly not prevent people from drawing aggro from them. Once a tank/brute hits their cap, anything and everyone else is fair game because mobs no longer just stand there looking dumbfounded as they used to. 2. Tanks especially as you know get more aoe taunting in attack they do not to mention of course their auras. 3. Taking taunt in the early levels when people so gungho'ly aggro something is not always enough to pull them off others either. 4. Toxic is a hole on widows. There's not much you can do about that to various extents but see the build I'll show below. 5. Since widows are essentially defense stalkers if nightwidows are chosen, anything that strips/cascades defense after a bit it going to take you down if hit. Your build is ok. Here is another build you may wish to consider that has much higher defenses, more damage, more recharge, a lil more regen etc. Its a build based on insights from voltak's fortuna range build that actually with some tweaks get more out of it on nighwidow's variation. If you wish to get provoke, just switch out placate from the build and just slot +5 an acc/rech taunt set enhancer or a +3 D-Synch Provocation. Arachnos high def Widow.mbd

Should be fine with most teams doing post 50 content. Effectivity for hardmode starred content though will depend on the team composition.

CoH Caucophony of Headaches

I believe much of these examples expressed in the thread are related to the aggro related changes last fall.

I think it is important to also think about the fact that some of the points, if not all, are as well not necessarily being correlation equals causation with regards to it being some sort of power leveling through AE or other such thing. 1. Not responding to tells: A. AFK or tabbed out checking something. B. Distracted by any number or IRL reasons to where they're not seeing the screen though at the keyboard. (Cats and kids being a common one I see) C. Non native speaker of English(we're having more folks who do not have English as their first language but try to make an effort. D. Disabilities that make typing out things slow or difficult and have general game play set ups to facilitate play but just dont chat away. 2. Passing the star: A. Having been away from the game for a while and not remembering how. B. Never having lead or had a need to pass the star (you'd be surprised how many long time players never lead teams or have had to do this even if they play regularly(and thus not necessarily knowing how. Not everyone is comfortable/likes leading. C. Similar to B, people who almost exclusively solo'd to 50 on their own. (as when would the necessity be for them to learn star passing right? Points A B C(depending) D from point 1. 3. Use the map: Vaguely put but: A. Getting hyperfocused with the screen in front of them to where thinking to use the map is secondary. B. People's screen configurations where opening the map obscures there screen. and others... I can go on but my point is that there's a wide array of people that play this game, when we start condemning segments and making assumptions about them instead of working with them, that's not being very hero like really. If you want to speak of a trend, Im seeing/hearing more people on our same server being pretentious and churlish towards others when an issue arises. Sadly some of them are from well known SG's as well. There's no need propagate or groom elitism. If someone is level 50 or level 5, help them as best as one can. A guy who said they're computer programer irl, I met on excelsior this week doesnt fit your mold there. Their father is an avid player of the game according to them and they were extremely adamant that they didnt want to use xp boosters, power level in AE or on higher teams etc. They also tended to solo not a small amount of their time playing too. And they played extensively each day. If I had to guess 8-10 hours a day this week. They were adamant about the type of build they wanted to play (and it is/was far from optimal as some would judge), and they went from playing on Hero side to flipping to villain side (not by null the gull method either). They were in their 20's when I met them and hit 50 yesterday. They've been having a blast they just kept gushing about the extensive slash commands for players in the game for example and reading wiki forums etc. They of course have tons to learn about the game but, were they to join a BAF and had issues with some of the things listed by Oklah, then in some's eyes in this thread, they'd make assumptions concerning their leveling methods and incapabilities. Honestly, I just feel like sentiments being expressed in this thread resemble the worst sort of culture for HC vs encouraging and supporting new people, returnees, and other. Overall, it is a bit disappointing to see sentiments being expressed in part as they are by folks here.

I assume that this build is for your post reaching 50 and play considerations.... If you're playing casually on a team for most content, it is going to be ok. Not great but ok. You will be dependent on the dynamics of what your team brings to the table though and what you're fighting/context of fighting too mind you. Again, mostly, its ok. If you're trying to shoot for more challenging content, then its going to find some potential issues and challenges with that build. Remember, typically in more challenging team content, the team brings the defense considerations(mostly) to the table. Hyper focusing on defense at the sacrifice of your resistances, recharge, damage, regen/heal and more means its not as robust and team contributing with your role as you may feel it should/could be. An example too of things, if your storm kick misses, you lose not only 10% defense during that time, you also miss the +resistance due to the slotting and that dependency for its success in your rotation is something you may want to reconsider for your "tanky" numbers. Your incarnage choices could also be improved in these above regards.

Trick question. She'd be an NPC in another state, that's it.

Your question is quite frankly too general and too subjective/relative... making answers go all over the place as you've seen from responses thus far. If you want to tank, be a tanker. If you want to scrap, be a scrapper. If you want to be a decent damage dealing toon that can also tank within reason, be a brute (caveat as with any set combos/enhancer/etc in ones build choices mind you of course but thats true of -any- AT). If you want to active fire Farm, be a rad/fire brute. If you want to be an active s/l farmer, be a stone/ma tank or similar. If you want to be an afk farmer, other considerations come into play. (And let's also be clear regarding farming, not a small amount of that has to do with the designed farm and map choices as to effectivity of that too in one's inf/exp per hour considerations. Starting to see how one's goals affect one's choices? That's CoH. If you're not going to focus on doing 4star hard modes or being some sort of influence farmer; and you're just wanting to do content relaxed and casually, then most anything is going to be relatively fine. Most people talking you out of xyz(and Im guilty of this with some people in discussions with them) are trying to more or less to steer someone with min/max considerations for example. But when I realize someone is instead more or less exemplifying that they're not hyper focused with specific content and just casually wanting to play, then I back off that advice (usually). Arguably, 90% of the player base are not min/maxing. They're either playing stuff casually with expectations that teams supplement their deficits in their builds (as for example an MSR raid totally obscures any one toon's lack of anything) or they use cookie cutter builds made by others who have refined builds for various purposes. The other 10% focus on min maxing, and having that become a hobby within the hobby, so to speak, with 2% of those being extremely obsessed with doing so for 4star hard modes or making different toons with different build variations for specific game play content otherwise also. So all in all, if you do not fall within that 10%, for now, just play a set combo that you like, and then if it feels like something you want to stick with and not park at 50, then see about refining it further to be as optimal as possible for the play goals you have with it. But if you decide that you want to play less casually, then you have to start making more concerted decisions to do X set combo's with X build min/max'd considerations.

Well Twoz build to be fair is a Bio/Rad build. Your build is a Stone/rad build. Rather different creatures in regards to the utility/functions for those builds and how then those armor choices affect the effectivity and the choices for the only commonality between them which is the rad melee. Just some general things to consider: "Too many attacks" in builds (not speaking specifically to twoz's build) isn't that you're necessarily using all those attacks. Depending on the goals/needs of a build, the powers are simply slot mules for bonuses from the enhancer sets. This is often how people reach resistance caps for damage types on tankers/brutes for example. I think you primarily understand that though already but its just something worth mentioning incase others read such threads who may not and make different build conclusions. Your end drain ratio is pretty good. That's really not the main issue where your end is concerned. Like most builds the following things help to mitigate your end use from powers: 1. Your incarnates (which you didnt put in the build). You can get end redux, end discount, and end refill depending on which incarnates you choose (and per your play goals). 2. Slotting choices more creatively made for more end discounts from either bonuses etc. I mean, if you're concerned about end yet slot 2set piece from a heal set without any end stuff too... well....) 3. Learning that, as a tank primarily focused on being a tank for general content play, its less about the specific damage you're doing in overall numbers, and more about the aggro you hold for the rest of the team to take down. Its one of the reasons why melee is the AT's secondary afterall :P. Everyone has to manage end in these regards. 4. Twoz armor set has ways to help more with endurance management than your stone one does. This is also why they can maintain a different end drain ratio too. 5. Making different power choices(having 2 full on travels with more slots in them isnt optimal as just one example). And more... All in all there's plenty more for your to do to enhance that build's options for end and other aspects of it ( better recharge, end, better damage, better resists, etc etc).

Depends on what you're willing to sacrifice, say for example the focus on making your melee soft cap as you are. Just playing around briefly, I changed your build to give more rounded resists, a smidge more damage for attacks, a lot more regen, a considerably better recharge potential(meaning more overall active damage in the build), more tohit, team benefits for some of the mentioned etc. Sacrificed were some of your melee defense and s/l defense (again teams make that up and more typically), a miniscule cold resist(as that's rad's hole under any circumstance), and dropped siphon as the build made still have plenty of single target damage more than siphon offered and the heal chance from a successful hit is covered(or better )(and the added regen perhaps). Only other sacrifice after that is just your 2 damage procs in beta decay which again with the active recharge means overall doing more damage than those procs would've chanced perhaps. But its a debatable consideration and again just from briefly fiddling around. If I played with it more I could probably shift things around for more overall defense and back off on some damage on an attack or two but depends. Tanker RadKnight Draft V2 (Radiation Armor - Radiation Melee).mbd

1. As others said, you can play on the beta testing server on brainstorm and try out most anything. Only caveat is that that's going to only give you a solo impression and not how effective or dynamic you are on teams, even if you have all the incarnates and accolades and sets done in it. 2. You can also just make it on HC live, play on excelsior and typically play from the mid 20's to mid 30's on low and mid level content, never spending a single influence on it to see how it fairs. Caveat then is that you do not see how it fairs in end game play or content. Time spent can literally just be a matter of 2-3 hours if you're playing on teams doing higher content than your level with maximum xp of course. Alternatively, you can hit those 25-30 range and just from the vendor trashing items, selling recipes earned on the AH and doing an sbb run or 2 have typically enough influence to fully regular IO out the toon as you level it to 50 even and again over the course of a few days of 2-3 hours play if you choose your teams well. 3. A combination of 1 and 2 to your tastes. No matter the option those, it will be a time sink. Heck even theory crafting in mids is a time sink. On that point alone you'll have to accept you're going to have to put time into it one way or the other. But ultimately, its your choice of what to do is yours obviously. Illiciting thoughts on a build based on goals you may have for it is one thing but subjectively your feelings on it will trump any of that.

Everything old is new again...

Seconded

Welcome to melee pets vs Streng's AOE Fire Stomp.

If you're playing casually, you can just grind through those frustrations. Joining PI 54 powerleveling teams when you're not 50+incarnated means you're gonna have squishy pets no matter what. Its a mismatch mm's have to deal with leveling up in such a fashion. Once 50, incarnating helps, but mm's struggle to various degrees and while other sets are more beneficial to pet survivablity, poison isn't a pet centered suppport set. Even well incarnated good support secondaries are going to still resummon pets at various points in a missions. in many cases(though not all). Basically you picked a combo that while interesting is not as synergetic as you may have hoped, I think.

If you mean that they can (depending on the ability) hit up to 16 targets vs brute or similar's 10 then yes.

All of this just seems like tactically trick questions.

Saw on a twitter burb of a gaming news site years ago (that I dislike) mentioning it.

That's the Shady Chat 'n Rest. They prefer to keep their visual advertising... well... live as you see above....

It is best to consider conservatively your fury at an 80% benchmark vs 100%. This is because transitions from groups or other factors can of course see it being much less than 100%. When I was meaning in regards to what you're building, putting up your build from the MidsReborn program to show folks what you're attempting has a better way for adjusting considerations for you. Keep in mind though that Mids does have some bugs and inaccuracies currently and info can vary in the more explicit numbers game of it, but that's also why once you find a build that is suitable that you first test it and the numbers on the test server to best confirm what you see in minds. But being vague about what you're building makes it hard for others to give you advice. There really are no secrets per se either, its just how you buid either due to experiential learning or intuitively so. So make a build on mids you htink works for you, then post here then others can help from there.

I'd argue that the sets havent really hand any changes so to speak in the last 2 years so depending what you're building for, they're likely not any different meta that would change their considerations for the builds. In context though with other set combinations for armors and melee, there are differences mind you that causes some sets to become higher or lower in considerations in the last 2 years of changes but not a sav/bio imo in any significance. Best to perhaps say what you're building for, provide a build and then others may be able to offer suggestions to you from there.

They're quite polar opposites of each other really. I'll let you decide what the opposites entail though.

My impression is you're wanting an all around tank that, well, tanks and of course can contribute to damage and more for the team perhaps. I think one of the issues with your build potentially is your hyper focus on melee defense and the potential sacrifice of much else outside of being res cap'd on most all damage types. If you're a tank, you're teaming, and if you're teaming, you're likely getting: 1. Buffs(especially defense being common) easily soft or even higher capping you. 2. Heals 3. Other buffs (damage, absorbs, to hits etc. Mileage of course on those varies. But especially if you're running higher end content scenarious, you can almost guarantee that you're getting good amounts of the above. Of course, if you're doing lower end content, it also really doesnt matter because either people do not have their toons fleshed out, running no enhancers, or more, or the content is such that its not that much an issue otherwise. That said then, you may wish to lessen off the hyper focus on the defense so that you can improve other parts of the build. If you do that, you're going to open up your possibilities alot more in terms of team contributions(like taking leadership), damage, your other powers to focus more in heal/regen and recovery, incarnate choices and much more. I think you'll find you'll be making a better tank in those regards. Also looking over that build you currently have with personal thoughts on things: 1. You may wish to not take the flying pool and instead just taking a p2w fly, especially if you switch into leadership giving you two more potential lotg mules, in addition to more defense potentially along with the benefits for a team too. 2. Decay probably is better served with just a -res proc in the initial slot. Even some of the farmer builds do nothing else except that and remember they're build for doing damage even. 3. Irradiated ground probably is better served putting your Superior Might of the tanker set in it. Your build currently will have holes when the proc chance for +res doesnt go off and putting it in the auto power is a fire and forget so to speak. This frees up your atom smasher to build differently, up to and even including a proc build for it. 4. Taunt also probably would benefit more from a D-synch Provocation instead(recharge taunt acc). 5. Mu Lightning with the +heal proc only is probably a waste because it has to hit to proc and then still have the chance to proc. Putting another slot in endurance and putting it there gives it the proc n forget deal. 6. You're under benefitting Gamma boost I think too. And one could go on but again I just think you're making your situation more cumbersome because you're focused too much on melee defense chasing.