Sovera

Most resistance armors on a Tanker will reach 90% (unless it's specifically their weakness like Cold is for Rad) and even those who are defense can get resistance pretty high, like Stone who walks around with 70% to most with one stack of the ATO, 76% with two, and 81% if just using Barrier on CD (not specifically advised as it should be a panic button). Rad's strength lays more on the absorb shield since it is rarer to find from support classes. It really depends on what is done though. Most level 50 normal content doesn't require peak gaming, as you've pointed out, and anything organized we then start entering chained Barriers.

If you want to start early then a Tanker. Depending on the flavor and twinkage tankers will start soloing at 0x6 by level 4-6 and 0x8 by level 8-10 which, so far, I've not been able to replicate with other ATs. Once at 50 nothing changes except they will slowly whittle away at durable enemies such as AVs (not uncommon to spend 6-7 minutes hitting one in the face) but this is not particularly felt (though spreadsheets show it) during regular missions since low HP mobs combined with Build-up (+Gaussian) allows to keep things moving. Because of this being particularly felt during leveling they actually solo faster at the difficulties I'm talking about. If strictly at level 50 then maybe a Scrapper, in particular if not shy about using inspirations. Bonus if picking up a secondary with an agro aura. Brutes are sturdier than a Scrapper (especially with inspirations in play) but can't match that brutal crit sequence. Mind you this means knowing how to leverage a Scrapper's crits. Stalkers will match a Scrapper's output but further benefit from 90% of the time deciding when and where to start combat. The stealth allows to pinpoint the target that has to go first. But they have no agro auras which will slow everything once it comes to strict mission clearing. Sentinels play well with the initial burst of Aim (+Gaussian) and then unloading nukes and AoEs since that usually murders 3/4 of a group. Especially the hover using Sentinel who then fights from the air. I'd want to say that, about, 15 seconds into the fight the Sentinel has bursted in a way a Scrapper can't match. But after the 15 seconds-ish the Scrapper handily catches up. Further, Sentinels also don't have agro keeping so runners will run even though being ranged mitigates partially. A well built Sentinel can do pretty decent ST damage matching Brutes and outpacing Tankers but still behind Scrappers. To be fair everything is behind Scrappers, even Scrappers not following a rigid build and epics and slotting. Simply picking a Scrapper and expecting big damage is not how it works and double this during leveling.

They have Consume Psyche with 10 stacks, you had with 0. With 10 stacks yours is

Maybe this should be moved to the roleplay section of the forums?

Adding to what I said it's not just squishy ATs that survive on overwhelming power. It's pretty much how every AT can make life easier for them. I had my big phase of playing with Fire Armor and I can tell you that I went 0x8 early (except when soloing Posi 1 and 2 because screw Vahziloks and their toxi and -recharge spam, so 0x6 for them) and the difference between melting a spawn and moving on or dying in five seconds... could be those five seconds. Jumping into a group and doing nothing for five seconds could be death against Vhaziloks due to their exotic damage. But, if in those five seconds I did Build-up + Burn + whatever AoE then they melted and I emerged healthy. Semi related if you feel like playing something sturdy and still doing good damage there's the old reliable Fire Armor/Ice Melee Tanker. Frost is phenomenal and available at level 4 (which had me going at least +0x4 right there and then), at 18 there's Burn to help it, and at 20 Ice Patch serves as a mini panic button. Even though Brutes are demi-gods under level 20 the Tanker is a plodding steamrolling machine, and unlike other games it doesn't have a leadership onus to it if playing in a team.

Just to add to this (not to you in particular who is aware of it but others may not and are reading this) transferring servers is painless, instant, and can be done 5 times a week. I was leveling a Sentinel with a buddy over Excelsior despite my main home server being Everlasting. I was constantly transferring back and forth to either grab IOs or dumping my old IOs from my base. So someone who does want to go through the trouble of setting up a multbox system they can transfer their level 50 characters over to a quieter server, farm away, and then make a level 1 disposable alt there who can transfer goods and cash.

Hmm. I'd have to look at the build in Mids since I'm not that familiar with Widows in particular, but orange lieutenants are +1 which can be a bit much to handle, but at +0x0 it shouldn't be constant trips to the hospital. Squishy classes are squishy though, which is why I gravitated to Tanks early on since I could go +0x6 or even +0x8 by level 10 and truly feel super. In comparison my Sentinel (roughly equivalent of a Widow) was dying a fair bit when I leveled it in the same fashion a couple weeks ago. That said fighting at +0x0 should not be constant trips to the hospital. You can skip early slotting of accuracy until roughly level 20 since the game has a hidden accuracy bonus for lowbies. If you can have a roughly gapless attack rotation then ditch the prestige attacks like Sands of Mu and etc as you're better off with your origin power (should be a Throwing Knives for a Widow, methinks). If you can afford a base teleportation prestige power then you can refill your inspirations between missions. Lucks, in particular, are very powerful to keep alive just by eating a couple. If you can afford the defense uniques (more in the guide in my signature if you happen to be new to the game) will help pushing the Widow's defense. Blasters and others are definitely 100% squishy though and survive on overwhelming power rather than fancy armor or fancy IOs. That means taking Build-up soon and opening with it, and then alternating with Aim (with a Gaussian proc slotted in it) for the next group (or using both for the same group) even if having to wait for one or both to recharge before moving to the next spawn. Definitely don't skimp on buying the Amplifiers, 8 hours of each, at level 1. Total will be 23k or so so a true pittance and the early buffs are truly noticeable.

They didn't say that they were good at it though 😄

But his problem is... I don't want to say rare, or unique, but at least not *common*. Sure, some people are complaining and their discord has some people chime in saying they haven't managed to install or re-install which they or the community there helps troubleshoot. But the vast majority is saying nothing because nothing is wrong. Like many in this thread my Mids is giving me no problems. I had a brief moment where it would open a window for a second and then close again but deletion and re-installing fixed it without even having to check their discord. And while I agree with how it should not make them immune to criticism what I really chided on was the tone of it. A free something handed out built on sweat and tears (because I've read the dev's comments and it's not easy to keep the program going) being sneered at because it doesn't work perfectly? C'mon. I already admire them by still being puttering over it for so many years. In the meanwhile I've played the game, got bored, dropped out, played other games, returned after months, played some more, got bored, left, went to do other things, returned. And the Mid's devs aren't even taking those breaks. They just keep on puttering at it and keeping things running, and we still have a working Mids with some niggles and problems but mostly correct, and when not they correct the bugs we present to them.

If it's an in-game thing you can bind it to your movement keys (or whatever). For example my w is /bind w "+forward$$playerturn$$visscale 5" so that visscale is reapplied (since it resets when we log off).

Again, harsh tone, and assuming they did it for funsies or maliciously, but no point arguing. Carry on.

Bit harsh a tone for something given free and that on top of everything else involving volunteers doing volunteer work they still have to spelunk the code and rely on players to find and implement changes. Because somehow they are still a project apart rather than part and parcel of HC. And yeah, it sounds like I'm licking boots, but without Mids we would have no alternative. So that they keep swimming upstream to keep on delivering ought to be met with joy rather than grumbles because it's not perfect.

Depends on how well it is done. I've played on other servers who had a stricter idea of how to level and it was mostly miserable for a truly new player. On a second or third character it was better. With EVERYTHING having to be bought with merits since there was no player economy then everything had value. Sadly they did not think about this part and there were no expanded recipe storage either on the character or the AH so I was resorting to the old dreadful method of having mules. But that was the other extreme. I do find that cutting off inf while double XP is on achieves nothing except screw new players since SOs are replacing them is exorbitant at easily half a million every five levels or so. Fortunately at 22 we can swap to generic IOs which is what I keep advising new players to curb the spending. Inf while leveling is already a pittance so doubling down by cutting it doesn't seem to serve a purpose. Not that I personally care because, like most vets, my account is firmly established and even whimsical challenges I sometimes undertake like start a fresh account is countered by experience.

Yes, but I keep the second row for expendable, AKA, eat all the insps that drop. The other rows are for emergencies like heals and lucks and endurance. Second row though? Nomnom.

You can take Musculature *and* Ageless and solve both. Barrier is nice but nothing inspirations can't duplicate.

Even the 45% damage Musculature only boils down to around 15% in practice. Still better than nothing though.

Izzat you, Dian?

Been running a few more tests with Aqua Bolt to see if I can replicate Underfyre's results, but it's invariably worse. At least with this slotting. The one time it does catch up is with dumping all the procs and slotting Superior Opportunity Strikes in Aqua Bolt. Then there is a slightly better Vulnerability uptime that makes the difference. But to put it in perspective the fight would have to last almost a minute for this to be noticed since we would have to use Vulnerability, have it run out, use it again, have it run out, and now those Opportunity Strikes that have been adding up will make the third use of Vulnerability happen sooner than without. But, it's not enough, for example, to make a third use of Vulnerability back to back with the second. Hence it takes almost a minute for this slotting to just catch up to the original with Hydro Blast with the frankenslotting. Also, the lack of the FF proc is noticed as it extends Hasten downtime by under 10 seconds which introduces gaps for longer.

I like it. I've been sotto voce advocating for the removal of Brutes, but, I can imagine the meltdown, the nuclear crisis, if simply having Tankers be closer to them in damage spawned a multi year long quite vocal feud. But, Brutes muddy the water. Blasters are the undisputed kings of ranged damage. Sentinels don't get close but are there for someone who wants to be ranged Scrapper. Defenders the kings of buffs and debuff. Corruptors do close but are more focused on damage. Controllers focus on CC and buffs/debuffs, but Dominators don't step on their toes since they focus on CC and damage. Scrappers are masters of melee damage and Stalkers are pretty close but maybe not as much due to the Stealth tax that allows them to cheese part of the game (in theory). Tankers are the kings of tanking. What about Brutes? Can't be too tanky, can't be too damaging, can't have ATOs touched because it might tilt that tanky/damaging balance. There's a third option for Brutes which is dropping their extra tanky and have their caps be the same as Scrappers. NOW their damage can be upped so all three are on the same ballpark and their gimmick is the steamroll approach without variable damage where a crit will waste itself on a low HP minion and then not go off during a whole boss fight (until 50 when Superior ATOs come in). But I predict another complete meltdown.

Now that I'm 50 and got T4 Musculature and I'm slowly incarnating the character I've come to a few conclusions: - It's one of the best Sentinels I've played. I know I've said it in the past but each one raises the bar and currently I have this at the highest tier. Lots of AoE, fast recharging, two FF procs to speed things up, and the ST damage feels solid even for a Sentinel. - I was building for Degenerative but talked myself into Reactive to further push the damage. I'm not going to go solo crazy as I do on my Tankers since I don't have the patience to chase mobs. - Because of the teaming I'm counting the seconds until the nuke comes back so I've dropped the extra damage proc to shave two seconds off of it. - The endurance is truly well in hand to a point I never bother with Rebuild DNA (to be fair the team is constantly spamming their incarnates and Ageless is a very common one to be found, but doesn't change what I'm saying). But even outside of a team, such for the pylon tests below which means three minutes of non-stop hitting a target with all toggles up, I never had to touch Rebuild DNA, and I haven't even knocked the accolades down which tells me I could skimp on one slot from Stamina and add an Unbreakable unique for another 90 HP. It's not super important either way. I also took the time to try a pylon and it was... pretty nice? Musculature 45%, Degenerative Radial Flawless (75% chance of DoT). Assault Core for Hybrid not clicked. 2:46 on first try. 2:30 the second try. This handily beats most my Brutes and also beats my best Sentinel time (Elec/Bio at 3 minutes) though it's not the best recorded Sentinel time. But, I'm not picking epic pool attacks nor having to go into melee so as far as I'm concerned this is good. Of course these results are a bit skewed because I have an Achilles's proc AND Vulnerability used on CD, which I don't always use against regular mobs. Maybe bosses. Still, impressive for such a sturdy little thing. While I was at it I decided to test Reactive with 75% chance for fire DoT. This has always been strictly worse than Degenerative in this test since Pylons/AVs/GMs are the single thing Degenerative are really good at while having nearly no effect on regular mobs. 3:06 at the first attempt. 2:50 on the second try. One last for good luck: 2:52. Close enough though, once again, skewed because Pylons like -res effects since they are not +3 or +4 which devalues the worth.

Unless hurting for endurance I'd go (and did go) for Musculature 45%. As oldskool said there is no half pondering. Sentinels's damage is a tad weak so moar moar moar. You can further it a bit more by taking Reactive from Interface that adds a -res proc on top of a damage DoT. The difference will be minimal but present. Honestly it's probably smart to go for it rather than Degenerative from Interface since Degenerative's effect is even more minimal unless fighting an AV (or a pylon) at which point Degenerative leaps ahead. But, how often do we solo AVs? Specifically solo, since in teams there will be others with Degenerative (and it doesn't stack once the target has five of it).

With this patch changes you probably want to go back to Brutes.

Added a section for mods.

Could I tempt you into having this in the CoH Modder tool, Solar? Just for ease of use.

While I was at it I tested the other attacks and the news aren't as good. Hydro Blast: without proc Mids says it should do 283 damage. In game it does 210. Dehydrate: according to Mids it should be doing 449 with the Wet mechanic. In game it's 284. Brrrrutal. Now to do the same percentual math game with procs (in theory no shenanigans should happen since there is no wacky Enhanced mechanic). Hydro Blast's 210 with procs becomes 262. Dehydrate with Wet mechanic and procs becomes 355. Much sadness through the land. Still, more damage than originally though but firmly hinging on Water Jet. O ye who were so maligned! Original wrong damage: Water Jet = 294x2 = 588. Dehydrate = 531. Hydro Blast = 357. Total = 1476 Correct-ish damage: Water Jet: 385 damage. Enhanced Water Jet: 715 damage. 1.1k total Hydro Blast: 262. Dehydrate: 355. Total = 1717 I only later noticed/remembered that pylons have 20% resistances to all which partly explains the difference between Mids and in-game. The total ST is thus not correct since I calculated the base damage on the pylon (which is fine) but for the procs I just added them percentually (which is probably not fine). I don't think it matters greatly since it's not like a build will be played or not played because it does more or less 10-15% damage.