Sovera

Not nearly enough. My friend list is an ocean of grey which means I nearly have to break the ice and start from scratch every two weeks. It comes to a point I'm as content to be browsing the web while tabbed out and just check if someone approached or a friend logged on. Which is in no way conducive to RP, but breaking the ice over and over gets (got) tiring. This reflects in my ability to keep a character. I used to RP a character for years and years. Now the most it lives is a couple of months before I start a new one trying to capture the early RP fun.

Bio swims in endurance so using a slot in Radiation Siphon for a Theft of Essence is a crime indeed. But a minor one. It can be frankenslotted for damage and healing instead. Bio is squishy, so some extra floppage by having Overwhelming/Avalanche's proc isn't bad. But still go for Barrier as a panic button because Bio will cruise most easy content and then crumble when facing harder foes. Degenerative 75% damage change is the best middle ground Interface. Reactive's -res does actually close to nothing in all content. Mobs die too fast for the minor -res to stack and AVs resist the small -res effect plus level difference nullifies it some more. Reactive's better numbers come simply from the 75% chance for medium DoT. Both Degenerative work on AVs helping to kill them faster, and the 75% chance to do the minor DoT helps a little bit. Not as much as Reactive, but Reactive only helps for one segment of gameplay. This isn't a 'trust me', it's simple to use the PTS and do a farm map using one and the other and compare times. The 'choose the higher % because it will fail' has been fixed a few patches back. You have done sacrifices to push S/L resistance as high as possible, but I would have gone for reaching 40% defense to S/L and E/N. With Barrier that would be 45%. Not being hit is just better if we consider that being hit brings debuffs with it. I started messing a little bit with the build but there was no way I could respect your goals to reach as high S/L so I gave up.

Maybe you ought too obtain the code and make your own server where you can work on what you think is important. I'm not telling you to leave HC. But I am saying the owners of the server decided to work on this because they thought it was important. Once you have your own server you can work on what -you- think is important.

Yep. I've started th character, currently level 17 on redside, and from level two I've cranked the difficulty to x4 with bosses. Not gonna lie that there were moments where I went deep into the red, but Ice Patch in the middle of a spawn and then pew pew until everything is down hasn't failed me. No deaths yet and now I got Ablative so maybe x6.

Point.

Finished with the tinkering. Mids does not activate the -7.5% res from having Offensive Adaptation on. I cross referenced the database with the Tanker version that does work and saw that all the -7.5% effects did not have the 'self' tag. That change is all that's needed. For most things the build should be fine but a FF proc somewhere sure would be nice. With Offensive on the 15% resistance to E/N is going to hurt with things that bypass (ITF fluffies) or debuff defense (any lobster and most end game robots) with the quick nature of combat helping the Scrapper since it can kill fast and Ablative can be used nearly every spawn. Ice Patch will do a lot to help as well and Barrier is the panic button. I also had a very elegant 70% S/L resistances for Barrier to finish capping but once having fixed the database the best I could put it up to was 64% So with Barrier 69%. I could squeeze in a few more % for S/L but I don't feel it will improve the build. 40% to S/L/E/N for Barrier to finish capping. I probably have too many slots dedicated to recovery. The slots from Physical Perfection and Stamina can probably be recovered, maybe even from Health, but there isn't a lot to use them with that ought to really impact the build. Probably dump them in Focused Accuracy for another 3% E/N resistance. This isn't the 'most optimal solo scrapper', just something I'm working on. I'd still say a Fire/Ice or Fire/Martial Arts Tanker though I'm so biased I should be taken with a grain of salt.

We'll have to compare notes. Currently tinkering with a build.

I just want to say it is common knowledge that most attacks be them ranged, melee, or AoE, have a Smash component. Bullets or arrows are Lethal. Punches or hits with blunt (punches, hammers, rocks, whatever) are Smash. But most energy, negative, and even psi or sonic, do part damage in Smash. Which means that each attacks gets two defense rolls: one for Smash and one for the energy type. If either of the defensive rolls works then the attack is completely negated. Thus a high S/L defense protects against more than you'd give it credit.

Same. Did it on Ice/Bio Stalker and it was my main for a while. Eventually I just got too addicted to crits. Any non crit hit was a let down and then mobs just ran away when at low health. But though Stalker brings AS to the table I find using Frost in Freezing touch, Ice Sword, Frost, Ice Sword to be a very forgiving and simple rotation without GiS. Now I don't know how well it plays since this was in the dark times of near 4 seconds Ice Patch so it was used strategically, where now it can just be dumped as (nearly) part of the rotation. As for Fire Melee, well, it does not invalidate your pleasure in playing it, but it is a bit crappy when compared to the other sets. Combustion is super slow and does such bad damage it can't even kill the little gears that come out of clockwork (the extra wide radius makes up for it, but not enough IMO), Fire Breath is so narrow it barely hits anything on top of having bad damage (the lack of care in balancing things like 'hits everything around AoE so it should do less damage VS cones only hit part of the enemies around us so it should do more damage') leaving Fire Sword Circle to do all the work. The single target is also low-ish. I believe this to be a holdover from the time where Fiery Embrace from Fire Armor would buff it since Fire Melee is the sole fire based attack set. But in the meanwhile Fiery Embrace was changed and I don't think Fire Melee got a pass (all back in live). This is a very dead horse we are hitting, but sets with absolutely no secondary effects should do more damage to compensate. As it is FM has no knockdowns, no slows, no stuns, and the small DoT chance is not enough to make it better. Lets just look at Energy Melee after the last pass. Two decent AoEs, the very best ST damage, and on top of it it is so chockful of stuns that even AVs can stagger drunkenly. Or Ice Melee. Comparable damage to Fire Melee, a very nice AoE in Frost and complemented by Frozen Aura, a hard hitting Hold in Freezing Touch, and then Ice Patch. CoH isn't such a min maxed game that only the cream of the cream is worthy of being played, but after a while we realize Fire Melee just lacks oomph. About a year ago there was some noise about giving it a pass but nothing happened.

Fire melee is icky. Definitely Ice Melee though. But Deuce speaks true in everything including that you need to know what you want. I find my Fire Armor Tankers the best to solo in since Burn shrinks dramatically the distance between Scrapper damage and Tanker damage and it starts straight at level 18. If you're looking for hardcore soloing you'll need something sturdy, but if you're just aiming for something like Council then you don't need that. Personally I'm about to try Ice/Bio since I'm figuring the new Ice Patch will make a nice difference in a Scrapper's squishyness, but Fire Armor spoiled me rotten.

As you've realized Ice Armor is like Stone Armor and a bit outdated. Not impossible to work with because the game is not -that- hard but there are better options. For theme it is not bad and definitely pairing it with Ice Melee fixes part of the problems. If the enemies start flopping with Ice Patch it gives time for the defense debuffs to elapse. One of the problems with Ice Armor is that it does not help killing faster either. It was like my experiment with Shield. I had much better defenses than my usual Fire Armor, but I took so long to kill stuff (early/mid levels) that I died more often than I did on a Fire Armor character. In the same way I've soloed the ITF on a squishy Fire Armor on a pure basis of 'kill them so fast that they don't hurt back because they are dead' which ends being a defense in itself. Unfortunately it has also spoiled me because I can't do other combos. Everything just feels slow and 'tanker damage' with me whittling things. This is the point of view of a soloer/self sufficient Tanker, not a 100% Tank team-kills-while-my-job-is-surviving-and-grabbing-agro. Other things you've noticed is how Ice Armor is no longer the agro magnet it used to be a few patches ago. I don't remember exactly what was changed but remember others who played Ice Armor noticing it. For a regular team this is fine though. Now the good news is that Ice Melee has no particular downsides. The damage is just a bit worse than other options if at all but not hugely so (both my Claws and martial Arts have the same 4-minutes-without-using--res-procs pylon times), the AoE is good and obtained early, Build-up is obtained early as well and allows to both speed things up and also punch through some walls like Circle of Thorns, while Ice Patch is a very nice extra layer of protection. Overall I'm close to ranking Ice Melee as overall best set Tankers get with Martial Arts as most defensive (allowing even resistance based armors to reach 45% defense to melee/ranged/AoE). When I soloed the ITF it was on the Martial Arts. I'm probably doing it again on the Ice Melee just to compare notes. Which brings my monologue to an end saying that MA is definitely something you can also look into. Adding +10% defense allows for a buffer against debuffs and MA is also chockful of CC between KDs from the AoE, KD from Crane Kick and stuns from Crane Kick.

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Pretty much and why MA is solid in first place. The 45% defense to everything is invaluable too. The only thing keeping it down is the lack of Build until 28. A pity Taunt and BU could not swap places. Ice Patch doesn't do miracles like when I randomly joined a team and just us three tried to take down Arachnos one time and Carnie the other. At +2x8 we got creamed and not even inspirations or Ice Patch saved the day. Granted that I was lvel 40 and my slotting unfinished, but it is as I said about Ice Patch not being the miracle worker.

Yes, Nihilli is pretty spot on. Most of the time the ones who can't handle a pylon's damage are the squishies and some people will rely on purples to achieve a complete run. But the remainder of the time it is simply a case of 'I'd never play wihtout Clarion but I took Ageless' or 'I took Waterspout for the -res'. Most of the time the usual concession for pylon runs is slotting the dubiously useful -res procs into the attacks that take them. A set that can have these will blow past all others which is why some combos were so broken. Bio Armor in particular adding to it. In actual gameplay my own tests told me their effects were pretty minimal compared to the largess in results they show on a pylon. I digress. Anything that handles a pylon is going to be decently sturdy even if not super min maxed for survival.

Defender. If you're going to be a Stormie then accept the fact you're going to be a Stormie. Everything else is just a filler between the glory that is cosplaying Thor. So Defender so you can Storm sooner. Personally I liked Ice more than Water despite the fact Storm/Ice's AoE was weak sauce. But it was a clear case of missing out on Ice's ST when on the Water and missing out Water's AoE when on the Ice.

Speaking of Ouro I was completely surprised that my redside tanker was unable to Ouro. As in, all arcs were gold. There was no Graves, no Kalindra, no nothing. Only gold arcs. Weirdness.

I remember the first I did one of the Portal missions back on Live. I was rocking my Archery Blaster and come to a mission/arc where my character had killed all heroes and become ruler of the earth. I remember thinking, wait, what, with my little bow and arrows I went and killed superman?

Soloing the redside SFs has been interesting due to never having done it before. As usual it was done at +1x8 while leveling the Fire/Ice. Tarikoss was not too complicated. CoT are a pain as they always are. Legacy were a mild pain with plenty of debuffing and the bosses who increase their defense via the armors but not too terrible to deal with. The froggies were non entities with their bland fire and smash attacks and the easiest part. Neither Infernal nor the frog god were particularly challenging. Two deaths from CoT debuffing until I got BU slotted at 22 to deal with them. Silver Mantis had the annoyance of dealing with multiple Sorcerers all with Hurricane. Same old thing of being debuffed to hell and unable to hit back other than the brief BU window (and even then...). Things like that are the reason I always pick Focused Accuracy. The Sky Raiders and the Freaks weren't challenging. Sky Raiders -can- be a problem since they shoot a lot and that debuffs defense, but they are pretty fragile and fold easily. The first challenge surprisingly came from the Council with the vampyr stacking -ToHit and their negative damage tearing through my unslotted Plasma Shield. But Ice Patch to the rescue. Like a newbie I actually cleared the ship in the last mission instead of flying past, but it's all XP. The last part was just wandering around ignoring enemies while breaking the turrets until the boss spawned. This part took a while but the AV itself wasn't a problem. No deaths. Operative Renault started by the annoyance that was Barracuda trying to help but being squishy. After its death and having to start over I cleared the way first before freeing the NPC. The Family are not much of a problem which is fortunate since the new Singularities do a great job at preventing any kitting. Fortunately there were plenty of corners to break LoS and draw the mobs in to trounce them. Now needless to say Longbow can be more of a challenge since they pack so many different bosses and some combos can be really crippling. The last room in particular was a case of running, Ice Patch, BU, Burn, Freezing Touch, then run run run! Rinse and repeat as the kitting managed to agro more packs of mobs. The last mission was not a huge problem despite the two AVs being psi based. I fought the humanoid AV and ignored the adds letting them die during Burn, but for the Eye the constant ambushes with the stays-at-range bosses were definitely whittling me down faster than Healing Flames could keep up between the Eye's and the ranged bosses psi attacks. But I flew to the top of the Eye looking for a ledge where I could use Burn. I did not find it but since the ambushes could not reach me, I just finished killing the Eye without Burn. Despite ebing psi attacks just the Eye was unable to get through regen and Healing Flames. No deaths and reached level 40. Ice Mistral promises to be challenging with Carnival of Shadows, Devouring Earth, and Circle of Thorns/Tsoo, but I have Focused Accuracy now so tomorrow I'll report on how it went.

I actually already did. It starts in the first post of the Brunker topic in the signature. I remade the leveling build to be more new player friendly.

Self-rezes are for people who intend to die! Good show though 😄

*dusts the thread* After taking a break and returning a short while ago I decided to level something up. Started a Fire/MA on redside since it's content I haven't touched since Live other than the occasional SF. Well, redside is full of debuffing. I kept dying (though level 22 was perhaps a bit early to go x8). It was also a slow start to solo since I had no AoE until level 18 thus I went at x1 until then. After many deaths between Legacy and CoT debuffs while trying to solo Tarikoss I threw the toys out of the tram and logged off. Next day I dusted my trusty Fire/Ice build and started from scratch on redside. Well, the first thing was cranking the difficulty to x4 once I got Frost at level four. At 18 and after obtaining Burn I bumped it to x6. At 20 I started the Tarikoss SF and died twice thanks to not having slotted Build-Up which didn't let me punch through the Circle of Thorns low level BS, but the deaths were for a good cause since I reached 22, slotted BU, pushed the difficulty to x8, then started to terminate mages. No more deaths after the Foreman was saved, even with other Circle of Thorns missions since I had BU. Ice Patch was good to have as well, but not enough without BU to combat the -ToHit of the ghosts. To celebrate I spruced the original post and made a more comprehensive Fire/Ice post since it is going to be the build I would recommend for new players to try the game.

Welcome back to the fold, prodigal lost sheep. I would recommend a Fire/Ice Melee Tanker. I'll be re-making a post/guide about it since I feel it's the best starter character for a new player to get used to the game. You have a guide in my signature with lots of information that is useful including money making. Community is friendly and the forum people will walk over themselves trying to help or inform so don't hold back and when in doubt just ask for help. I would definitely not move into farming straight away because money is not hard to make and it would be sad to just lock yourself up in one map that is then repeated ad nauseum.

Dark/MA can go to 45% defense to Melee, Ranged and AoE which greatly boosts the sturdiness of the build on top of everything else. Once adding either Oppressive Gloom or Cloak of Fear (but not both I think) it is another layer though it (usually) only works on minions (but we can change that). My usual advice is the usual: let your ATO do its work and slot less accounting for 13% to all resistances (or just 6.7% since Mids already accounts for one stack). Then account for another 5% from Barrier which is the usual choice. Now distribute those slots around since more resistances past 90% will do squat. Same for defense. 40% is enough, then Barrier adds another 5%. This advice doesn't count if wishing to go Ageless instead, but not much point in Ageless in a world where Recovery Serums exist. On top of that Dark Regen works as a ghetto endurance clickie with a Theft of Essence proc in it. So, for example, despite only showing 79% to all the things (sacrifices were made so not to Toxic but I don't feel there is enough Toxic in the game to be -that- worrying, and there is always Dark Regen) they will all go past 90% once a second ATO stack is up and Barrier has been used. Most of the time nothing is going to dent you in the first place as it needs to get past 40% defense -and- 80%-90% resists (even without Barrier). Barrier is mostly a panic button for you and your team. You if defense debuffs stack too fast, your team is they are being overwhelmed or you notice the Blaster is suicidal and is all Ageless/Clarion for maximal dakka. - Proc bombing Dark Regen is definitely something that can be done since it recharges pretty fast and the Theft of Essence (nearly always) ensures you get its cost back at the start of a fight. I would still dedicate a slot or two for the endurance cost but it still leaves three slots to proc bomb with. - The build is pretty CC heavy between stuns from Cobra, KD from Crane, more KDs from Dragon, then more stuns from Oppressive. - Cobra Strike stacks with Oppressive Gloom so you can stun bosses from the get go. Hidden bonus: complete attack chain before level 20. If not focused on pylons (because CAK takes a -res proc) then the difference between both is minimal. - FF proc in both Crane Kick and Dragon Tail ensure moar recharge. So the whole 'use Dark Regen as a proc bomb' is valid. Burn it ain't, but, MA has anemic AoE so any help is welcome. - Definitely level with Recovery Serums at hand.

I started a Brute previously because, y'know, change things a bit, and dammit, they are demi gods under level 14-15. Just pew pew and two shot enemies. But around 18-20 their damage falls back in line and I was jonesing for Burn (which on a Brute would be at level 26). So I started over. You put all prestige enhancements in Frost and watch all those procs go off. Then make sure to keep a row of greens, row of purples and etc for emergencies, but keep a row just to gobble inspirations as they drop and it's pretty similar to a Brute as damage ramps up the more enemies we fight 😄

Having taken a break and started playing again just recently I did what I do nowadays which is start a new character of a favored combo. So I started a Fire/Martial Arts, and then went redside since I barely touched it. Redside has a lot more debuffs flying around than blue so deaths kept happening (also, perhaps not crank up to x8 right at level 22, maybe?). But I kept looking at it and thinking how the deaths could all be placed at the feet of a lack of an early Build-up. Being able to burst down enemies, but also be able to overcome -tohit early level BS is primordial. So I dusted my all time favorite: Fire/Ice. And it is good. Ice Patch complements Fire Armor's squishyness and where I soloed at x1 until 18 with the Martial Arts (because no AoE until 18-20) I cranked up to x4 at level 4 because I had Frost. Early (level 16) BU allowed to smash through early BS and the burst of BU + Frost + Burn gives a Brute a run for their money for early level demi-god-ness.