Sovera

*dusts the thread* Decided to add a 100% fresh start beginner friend immortal build (this time not just 'near immortal', we're going full on into it). This is 100% meant for new players who are 100% new so it will be overexplained trying to have no assumptions made that people know what is being talked about. With this we get this No need to spend 12 million to start immortal, and no need to spam inspirations until earning enough money either. Simply reach level 13 and from then put the difficulty at x8. ...well, wait until level 20 because that's when the first AoE comes along otherwise you're arresting things one by one. Or just play in a team and be the Tanker That Could as nothing is able to kill you at level 13. ...man this is a long way from when I started and as a Tanker I was constantly on the verge of death even at just x2. The first post has a lot of good information such as early money making and I suggest consulting it as I do not wish to duplicate the same content. The newcomer guide in my signature also has lots of tips including the possible ways to level in the game, how to pass your gear to your other alts, etc, so that too is recommended reading. For anyone already used to the game this is nothing new as the gimmicks involved are well known but to those new this is based on Martial Arts having +10% defense from Storm Kick and Stone Armor being a defensive juggernaut. Pairing both and then taking a 1k Amplifier allows to reach 45%, the defense softcap, with just two SOs in the defensive toggles. Location of the NPCs: The first post on this thread mentions what to get from the vendor but just to reiterate: 8 Amplifiers of each sort, 8 Double XP, Prestige Enhancements. Starting by the beginning this program is what we use to plan our builds: https://midsreborn.com/ Travel Powers: From 1 to 13: From 13 to 17: From 17 to 22: From 22 to 30: From 30 to 50: Final thoughts: playing like this is pretty painful. I could say it gives the wrong idea of the game but the truth is that this is the baseline of the game. But a week or two into the game and players are earning enough to move away from these painfully basic builds that make the game feel slow and anaemic. But hey, at least with this they are doing so pretty much immortal from very early on 🙂 If there is a desire for it I can turn this into a leveling build with IOs or even a final build.

WuTang passing it along. Not that long ago asking help and now helping others. As it should be!

Stone is what I'd consider the most immortality friendly of the bunch. I built a Stone/Fire as well (in my signature) and 55% defense (including to psi) with 81% resists across the board is a bit nuts. For example pairing Stone with Martial Arts. At minimum it would be 65% defenses instead. But that's way overkill. Instead it could free slotting to finish pushing resistances to 90% (or 85% and have Barrier do the last 5%) which should be plenty doable. Between the CC in Cobra Strike and Crane Kick and Dragon's Tail it would further push that survivability. Edit: Just as a thought exercise slapped together and not fine tuned. Not something I'd run since I'd prefer having the better recharge and be missing 9% off reaching the cap instead. But, considering two stacks of the ATO + 5% from Barrier makes 18.4% and that the defenses are at minimum 71.6% then 71.6 + 18.4% makes exactly 90% for 100% of the time while still having 45% defenses without Weave, 50% with Weave, and 55% with Barrier. Tanker (Stone Armor - MA).mbd

Yes. I'm just saying I do the same with both ATs. But I'm twinked out and know when to spring for an inspiration. The Tanker might not need it as often but they both follow the exact same difficulty growth.

I do that on a Brute similar as a Tanker to be fair. Though I also twink my builds while leveling. Either will start at 0x6 for Posi 1 at level 8 and then grow to +1x8 by Yin.

Without bankrolling every boost imaginable Tankers are not particularly slow up until facing an AV. In practical gameplay they make up for lower numbers by hitting more enemies. So win some and lose some. Up to level 20 the Brutes are much faster though.

Good answers in the thread but I feel that they missed the most important: get Mids, the planner program we all use for our builds. This allows to share builds and also see what numbers a build has to reach certain thresholds. At first glance your build has some glaring problems but this is normal if you're not yet used to the under-the-hood mechanics of the game. It's also easy to fix so don't be bothered by it. We all started there. But first get Mids: https://midsreborn.com/

Forum PvP is wild.

I don't actually advocate for the removal of the Brute because I don't think that the game is so serious it warrants it and neither does it have any DPS meters. We're not talking mythic raiding with every (very limited) class specs under scrutiny as literally hundreds of thousands of people put up their logs and constantly internecine fights about which class/spec is trash and should not be brought to a raid/M+. But even WoW devs have a hard time balancing a measly three specs per class. And then we have CoH with its 286 permutations on top of stuff like IOs. Heck, when was the last time IOs were balanced? Never? But overperforming trinkets or set bonuses in WoW get tweaked if they disturb the envisioned balance of the classes, it's not the class itself that gets balanced because of a certain interaction. I'd like to see the IO problem addressed before starting to mess with ATs, but Brutes, of all ATs, are the ones who are IMO the hardest to balance. We can argue Scrapper and Stalker are the same and it's about flavour since both are damage dealers but one plays with stealth and the other brawls. We can argue Defenders and Corruptors are about the same flavour as one gets their buffs sooner or the other gets their attacker sooner. But the Brute needs to juggle being a damage dealer with being a tank and it either disturbs the damage dealers or disturbs the tanks. Not an easy balancing act and I don't envy the devs. But I still like my Brutes and have more of them than I have Tankers.

At the risk of being chased after with torches and pitchforks the Brute has no real place in the game and for everyone's peace of mind ought to be deleted (of course it would never happen). If anything it existing is just an headache for all involved and foremost the devs. We have clear roles: Tanker tanks, less damage, sturdiest of the bunch, can have an AoE niche but it is hindered by doing less damage. Scrapper is the melee role. Brawls alongside the Tanker but is squishier (though this is debatable in the world where IOs exist). AoEs are smaller but also hit harder and overall will obliterate with crits. Things get iffier once we bring up Stalkers since they lost their backstab identity and turned into brawlers like Scrappers who also have crit mechanics making it harder to separate both. And then there's the Brute who is a bruiser. It must be less tanky than a Tanker or why bring a Tanker, and less damaging than a Scrapper/Stalker or why bring a Scrapper/Stalker, Now good luck achieving this delicate balance in a game that: A) has 286 possible permutations for the AT (if my math does not fail me with 22 primaries and 13 secondaries), and B) has IOs and damage procs. Even with the Tanker example people are not praising the output of Ice Armor paired with Ice Melee but talking of Rad Armor paired with Super Strength.

Well, it's moot. I agree that the testing has been done and Tankers are ahead. I just don't think the average player is using 4-6 procs per attack and relying on inspirations/incarnates to go through their whole gameplay session. Doing it for one mission for 'testing', sure, but not a couple of hours and constantly juggling stuff. But that's all subjective. Maybe all players are. Unfortunately until procs are touched there is no balance to be found since the game is 'not balanced around IOs' which allows the 10% to do silly things destabilizing the ecosystem.

Play what ever you like. You're in a blessed moment where every one of those ATs is viable instead of one of them being so bad that only hardcore RPers would pick it up (your day will come, kheldians!). I like Tankers because I like feeling like a super hero early in the game. That means going 0x6 by level 10 and +1x8 by level 20. But I also peak early and my sturdiness lets me walk all over mobs but my damage does not significantly improve But to answer the question I'm currently chatting with someone who dislikes how braindead Tankers are and how they are never in any danger. I keep pushing him to try Brute since he wants to work for it and it seems smarter to push the envelope on a Brute than to purposefully nerf their Tanker build to inject some variety. Others have already chimed in but I'll add my own two bits: - If you like Rad and Dark then consider Fire as well. My best Brute both in ST and AoE clearing was a Claws/Fire. Yes, the mini nukes of Rad are great, and yes, ultimately thanks to them Rad is actually better than Fire in AoE despite having Burn. But Rad will do little to improve ST damage where Fire Armor will, just like Bio is good for ST damage but Fire is better for AoE. So we can say Fire is more balanced helping both ST and AoE instead of just doing one of those. - Don't poopoo on defensive armors too much. I don't know what builds you're playing to say much about them but stuff like Stone Armor is next gen and it also comes with a healthy amount of resists. Now, it is a lot easier to build defense on a Tanker which can lead to the silliness of the (near) immortal build in my signature by level 13, but with propping up from IOs it will get there. Ultimately my opinion is that defense is better than resist for 90% of the game up until meeting mobs that bypass armor. But they are not THAT common. In the meanwhile resist based armors have a harder time leveling since they depend on their heals who are either slot starved or stat squished by the leveling. And they will eat every debuff under the sun while defense armors will literally dodge them. In the meanwhile a defense based armor reaches at least 33% defense somewhat easily even in the early leveling (amplifiers, defense unique IOs, SOs) and from them on will subsist for long periods of time by dint of a small purple inspiration at regular intervals until IOs make up for that difference and they replace the small purple inspiration. Brutes in particular have access to Energy Armor which is top tier chef kiss if you don't like the aesthetics of Stone Armor (but Stone Armor has a lot of extra bells and whistles including recharge, a damage aura, a damage boost proc to all attacks, recovery, psi defense (which is kinda rare). - Endurance issues are common in the early game which is where we should slot early goodies (such as Panaceia proc, Numina proc, Miracle proc, Perfect Shifter proc) as soon as possible. It is better to slot endurance reduction in attacks than in toggles and to always carry a few (or a lot) of Recovery Serums from the START vendor. I don't know how new you are to the game so at the risk of coming off condescending check the guide in my signature and perhaps drop what builds you're using so we can see if any improvements could be found.

I don't know your primary but I usually toss the absorb set/proc in a damage aura as I find it less important than the 14%-ish resistance I get from two stacks of the resist ATO. On my MA I placed four slots of Might of the Tanker in Crane Kick since it already had a tax of Overwhelming Force to turn the KB into KD, and then a Force Feedback proc to capitalize on the KD. That left four slots which naturally fit for MotT to get the recharge, good raw stats, and the +res proc going. My ST rotation is Storm Kick, Crane Kick, Storm Kick, and then either Crippling Axe Kick or Cobra Strike. Difference in damage is negligible between both but CS is available under level 20 so we can exemplar with near impunity. My Fire/MA was one I always considered the most exemplar friendly character as with Cobra Strike it had the complete ST rotation and with Burn and Dragon's Tail it also had the complete AoE rotation all by level 20. But CaK can slot a -res proc which is valuable too (even if not AS valuable as pylon tests make it seem). If you don't have a primary with a damage aura I'd place the Spiked Gauntlet in Storm Kick and forget about it. SK recharges too fast for damage procs to have value in there and Spiked Gauntlet has to somewhere. I don't place much value on the absorb shield but it depends on the primary and your access to heals/regen,

Tremor is definitely better than Fault. You get about the same soft CC from the knockdown it does while having better accuracy and more damage, and less endurance costs. Well, if you like Fault then carry on but if anything I'd have both. While ZemX has already answered I'll add my own two bits: - Against AVs and GMs it will be Degenerative that will have the most impact. The -100% regen is nothing (which is why Diagmanetic is never picked by anyone other than for flavour). And AV's regen is based off their maximum HP and the -HP proc diminishes their max HP which in turn makes them regen less. You can shave whole minutes off with it. On top of that -HP is not resisted (if I recall correctly). The downside is that -HP does precious little against anything else, even EBs. You can get away with the 25% -HP proc and squeeze a tiny bit more damage from the toxic proc at 75%. - Against regular enemies Reactive is the best as the -res will affect everything and even increase its own damage chance. In fact, once more the 25% chance for the -res turned out to be the best when I tested. The downside is now the opposite of Degenerative in that the -res does little against an AV. AV's resist -res (though this is more a level 50 thing) and the higher level an enemy is the higher their resistance to debuffs. This makes it a double whammy against +3 AVs/GMs. Things to consider: we spend most of our time fighting normal mobs and 5% of our time fighting AVs. - Lores are mostly the same.With 7 minutes recharge it's a thing used once in a while. They are squishy and die fast to which is bleh. I always pick Banished Pantheon but the Longbow have -regen which further helps with AVs (if you can keep them alive).

I had a Claws/Bio Scrapper I would use to power level my alts back when I still did this. One thing I noticed about this behaviour was that roughly 15 seconds was the cut off. So as to say if the recharge was 136 seconds-ish then nonstop fighting as is usual in a farm map would just barely squeak by into having Hasten recharge. So, two caveats: A) Nonstop combat does not happen outside of combat. Even being fast we still run from spawn to spawn and/or have to take elevators. B) Claws was particularly well suited for FF procage with an AoE that could slot it and sure it went off by dint of multiple attempts per mob, and then a back-up in Focus.

Oh, hello again, Dian.

You just need to be on the ground to activate Rooted but afterwards you can fly with impunity. Twozerofoxtrot has already given the rundown but in the (near) immortal thread in my signature despite recommending Fire Melee I have different combos of which one is Dark Melee. Perhaps you can lift some slotting ideas from it.

Someone normal will abide by the request. Most PvPers will thinly disguise their desire to grief by 'but noooo, it's a PvP zoooooone!'. Actually, PvP is a game of skill between opponents. Killing someone who is not fighting back is not PvP. But I'm not going to change someone's mind by saying this even though PvP has the most toxic community in all games. Merely per chance, I'm sure.

Probably because Brutes do more damage than Tankers. As I've said in the past the extra AoE range only matters when there are so many bodies that they cannot physically be close enough to be hit. In regular gameplay this is not the case as the minions are the first to go.

One of my best characters back when I timed things was a old timer Claws/Fire. It beat all my stable in Yin completions (which was my Trapdoor) at under 40 minutes to solo without skipping. But something a *lot* easier and cozy was the Rad/Stone Armor since Fury and all those DoTs minced things. As I recall it was a close second but much less worrying about HP since Stone Armor is so solid after the rework which made Granite no longer obligatory.

As ZemX said just forget that it exists. It will pop often as you use your ST skills and Irradiated Ground drops, but, more importantly, it is forced when you use Fusion. So you can start a fight, use Fusion, drop Atom smasher and now EVERYONE is Contaminated. Use Siphon, heal, use any ST skill, use Siphon again. It can recharge in as much as 3-4 seconds so you can force at least two if not three hits every 30 seconds at the start of a fight which is when you're taking more hits. Edit: meandering ramblings incoming. Though, IMO, you'd be better served in keep Siphon to the last skill being used so you can milk the Contaminated mechanic. At the risk of overexplaining something already known the Contaminated mechanic does a small explosion if an ST skill hits a Contaminated victim (but it doesn't do ST damage, only damage to nearby foes). So Fusion, Contaminated Strike, Radioctive Smash, Contaminated Strike will do more AoE than Fusion - Atom Smasher - Radiation Siphon who immediately eats the Contaminated and now the next skills will need to reapply it (which is not the end of the world since Fusion is still running and forcing it). I was actually trying to make a build work without Siphon to make an AoE machine but it's difficult to have an ST rotation without Radiation Siphon. The only other skill is Proton Sweep but because it is a cone it does not apply or trigger Contaminated so the only way I found was with Fire Armor and using Burn in the ST rotation. It won't apply or use Contamined but it IS an AoE skill so it would fit in the AoE machine idea. Something like Burn, Radioactive Smash, Devastating(ly slow) Blow, Radioactive Smash. There would still be still a gap and since leveling/exemplaring under 23 would be horrible with just Burn and RS Contaminated Strike could be worked in. But it started becoming too convoluted so I dropped it.

I'd say Sentinel. Most comic book adaptations are naturally Sentinels since almost no comic book character is squishy. They may pay lip service to being squishy, but in practice they seldom are. Hits will stun them for a bit and then they get up and keep fighting. Whereas one of our squishies will be... well.. squishy, Level 50, incarnates, and a good expensive build will make a squishy a pretty tanky character fitting comic books though, but not while leveling or even exemplared. But I don't see Annihilus fitting with the CC ATs. Even Corruptors. Regarding your question perhaps a Radiation Blast (Energy Blast might be more fitting but it sucks and Rad Blast has some nice Kirby dots) paired with Bio using the carapace FX. Or Invulnerability if you'd rather not. For funsies throw in the patron pool that has Knock-out Blow for that strength flair since Radiation has PbaoEs anyway and you'll be in semi melee range to use that.

It's never rude to suck (at) CoX. Unless doing starred content most everything can be soloed by one person so adding more is overkill. Adding 7 more people goes past overkill into silly nuclear damage territory. So if someone is playing a petless MM? Barely noticeable with or without them either way. As far as I'm concerned it's fine. Sure, a melee heavy team with a Kin will finish a Synapse ten minutes earlier, and a Controller heavy (3+) team will finish ten minutes slower but over a period of an hour it's not like we'll notice it.

Just their HP bars. If it is going perilously low or even flatlining then I'm dropping everything to go to them. Most of the time they are not near me which is something I am fine with and even condone but I don't chase after my team. As the usual Tanker I expect them to follow me instead. Regardless I don't tell them what to do. ...except Controllers where I ask pretty please not to use mass immobilizes with varying degrees of success.

On a purely mechanical level it'll be a big pain to level this between DA being end heavy and Rad Melee being end heavy as wel, with no way to get end back other than with Recovery Serums and inspirations. It would work as you've pointed (with the edited caveats) but without wanting to steal the wind from your sails will there really be a gain in doing so? We're the most tanky AT in the game and even with our low damage we can almost kill half a group with one BU (+Gaussian) and the first AoEs. As someone who leveled a bunch of Tankers we are already impervious by level 15-20 when most (well built) Tankers can delve into a Synapse TF at +1x8 and solo it with impunity. By level 25-30 we might forget what inspirations are, and by 50 we are consolidated between IOs and incarnates. You can achieve most of your purpose with a single power pick by going into Ice Melee and taking Ice Patch. Ice patch, btw, allowing to do some of the harder challenges like tackling Shephards. But in things like ITF or even fighting cimerorians outside of that TF in particular neuters both Ice Patch and the disorient stacking since they are immune to CC. So, definitely, give it a try, and if works for your playstyle and you're having fun then keep at it, but keep in mind you might decide to run an experiment of not toggling your disorient powers and your character doing the same content without an appreciable difference. And then do it again and removing the disorient slotting to replace with damage oriented slotting and be actually faster while still impervious.