Sovera

They tried at one point. Turned it into a cone, but it did not pass muster and never got out of the test server. Focused Accuracy is a case of me absolutely hating getting my ToHit debuffed. Banished Pantheon, Circle of Thorns and etc more. Not all factions do it, but when they do the game can stop and yellow inspirations don't do a thing. In a full team this is less of a problem and if avoiding the problematic factions even less. For those who don't care for it sure, trade FA for Ball Lightning or Gloom. Mind your accuracy against +3 though. Physical Perfection just helps offsetting the cost of FA and yes, the recharge proc in Crane Kick is a matter of getting it when it happens. More recharge = more Burns.

Fire Armor/Something. Claws, maybe. MA is good too. But I play 90% of the game. I don't often go into DA and very rarely do Incarnate content other than Tinpex. People do love their 100% best most survivable tanks (which is understandable since they -did- pick a Tanker) but IMO 100% best most survivable is such overkill. A Fire Armor can do most content on par with the 100% best most survivable while doing it faster. The thing with this game is that it really pushes the tank gameplay into, as I believe Linea puts it, 'go into the middle of two groups then grab your ankles and wait 15 minutes without touching your skills'. And that's fine if it's a goal. But heck, my own goal has never been to go to AFK in the middle of a group of enemies for 15 minutes. If I need to kite I don't consider it dishonorable, having to click Barrier to get a breather is not something I consider shameful. Something middle ground might be Shield/Rad as Nihili waxed poetic about up above, and if the game was just a touch harder, if we had a touch less IOs or less Incarnates I might be more into it. But the current game as it is I'm fine with Fire.

I don't want to put a dampener on things, but while Shield is pretty great Elec is the opposite of great. Very weak single target and the AoE isn't great either. As mentioned above Spring Attack is also.... mediocre. Consider Radiation Melee or even Savage Melee if you're after AoEing and you can still keep Shield. Consider Fire/Claws for AoE carnage.

I come in late, but for what it is worth I'll drop my two cents: A) Don't worry too much about having a very AoE centric build. As long as you have -some- AoE for solo most of the time someone else is going to drop a ton of AoEs in the middle of a spawn and killing the boss and couple lieutenants that survived will be job for ST. B) As was just mentioned above Power Crash, Whirling Hands, Whirling Hands should be enough. C) Despite what I said in B I tried a EM Scrapper and couldn't keep my interest up. Give me a Fire Armor Tanker any time who burns spawns as low as level 13 (exemplared) and whose AoE is used in ST as well. Fire/Claws for AoE carnage, Fire/Ice for ultra low level AoE (by 13 (exemplared) having Burn and Frost) or Fire/Martial Arts for best all rounder. I find Tankers to have a very level performance. It means no particular highs, but it starts early. A Scrapper on the other hand seems to only bloom at 40+ and until then it is working in hiccups. But come 40+ and they boost past the Tankers.

Suicidal squishies never bothered me. They are having fun pushing the envelope and sometimes the envelope pushes back. Once they die 4-6 times they either hang back or keep having fun envelope pushing.

The -KB is stronger than ever thanks to Evasive Maneuvers. A single one is now enough to counter a Pylon's KB. The slow resist on the MA version isn't as good since the exotic slotting took away from using the usual culprits responsible for -slow, but on the other hand it is harder to land -recharge hits through 45% defense.

Resists are capped, defense is softcapped, all attacks are softcapped to hit +3 and close to or in the yellow ED range for damage, Hasten is at 15 ish seconds from being perma. I'm not sure what else I could chase other than further shaving those 15 seconds down or adding more defense for cascading failure. I've even made a version with Fold Space but had to drop Fly so I didn't use it. Perhaps in a world where we did not have the holy trinity of HastenFightingLeadership, but since we are somewhat stuck with those choices the only free choice is what travel power to pick.

I wasn't even aware of that dumb PvP rule bleeding all over my PvE.

Definitely skip. The real power of Taunt is not actually taunting but rather the -100% range debuff. This acts like a sort of mini Fold Space in that ranged mobs will come running to melee. But even this is of dubious utility IMO since just breaking line of sight achieves the same or people will just kill all mobs regardless. In a different CoH version where we got all mobs in a spawn replaced by bosses then yes, I might advocate towards Taunt more since these would be a lot more dangerous and more control would be good. But. In the current CoH? One or two bosses, two or three lieutenants, the rest minions? Are these dangerous? Not really, not in my opinion. Just hitting things or standing close to them will automatically agro them as a Tanker. Taunt does not even out-agro other Tankers or Brutes simple hitting an AV. I had Taunt to peel Battle Maiden off people so I could force her out of the blue zones and A) she ignored the -100% range debuff (either by simply being immune or having such crazy range that -100% wasn't enough), and B) she kept plinking other Tankers or Brutes who didn't even have Taunt. I would use Taunt and she would ignore me and keep on hitting others. Which finishes nullifying the point of Taunt. This IMO, of course. Now after all of this said if you are a new player you should definitely take it and try it. Then you decide if you feel it is compatible with your playstyle or not. Just remember you don't need to fall into the class trope/trap of the happy Tanker who jumps into a group and then immediately uses Taunt. Taunt is a kill used where/when needed. If mobs are far away, if they are spread out, if they are ranged -and- spread out, if one of the squishies is losing HP and we see someone hitting them. Then use Taunt. But if they are either clustered or mobs that run into melee (Council, for example, are all ostentatiously ranged waving those machine guns, but with one rare exception in the Snipers they will fire one or two rounds and then run into melee) then no need. Most builds have a more pressing need for slots than they do for powers, this means at some point you will have used all your slots and still have 'free' powers to take. I take one slot wonders things like Assault to buff mine and my team's damage, or take Vengeance to have a mule for a LotG, but someone who likes Taunt will definitely have room to take it if they want to.

I'll answer this in good faith as one who tends to SPEED: because there is not much content in the game and most of us have done TFs for the 500th time on our 500th alt. That means if I have a mission which is 'find a computer' I don't feel a compelling need to fight everything trying to find the computer. The next mission will be a kill all anyway and we will engage in acts of mayhem regardless. Most of the time I just encourage someone to go look for said computer while I engage in mayhem to collect XP with the rest of the team. I completely understand your point of view though. Doing WoW dungeons is an exercise in frustration with players min maxing the routes where they can skip as much as possible (often resulting in barbaric team wipes as less experienced players fail as they are dragged through these narrow agro avoiding paths). Playing GW2 dungeons/fractals was an exercise in players figuring out the geometry and how to bounce over walls to avoid patrols. Currently on a break from CoH and playing SWTOR and again Flashpoints are all about careful skips jumping over walls and etc. It does kind of get annoying in those games (particularly WoW with the advent of timers where players botching the skips can mean wasting a key/run) trying to bounce tricky jumps off the game's geometry, but in CoH a 'dungeon' is a series of missions. There will always be 'kill all' mingled in, or objectives we need to kill most anyway (find six hostages mixed in all of the rest), so efficiently finding a computer to finish that mission is no great sin. For me, that is. I speak only of my opinion. I don't make great efforts at super speeding everything, but I do carry my TT, my ATT, my Ouro, and have the portal base keybound. As always those who dislike such practices should try to form their own teams (no sarcasm). Very much say the content will not be run ahead or skipped. I have seen people advertise for it and they got their team filled and did the TF. I even joined them and the team leader was upset that I was not killing the last minions with the team and had moved to the next room so we weren't a good fit, but as adults we talked it out and they didn't kick me and I didn't ragequit. The ones who truly are 'for the merits' are speed runs at minimum difficulty and running past everything when possible. They are always advertised as such (I loathe those).

I find interesting to see Icy Bastion drooled on so much when it doesn't seem particularly interesting to me. Resistances are fine and all but what tends to kill people are a massive case of the debuffs to which Icy Bastion doesn't really do much about. Now a full heal (ok, it takes a few seconds to get to full) I can pop every one minute (not every three minutes), and not just that, but it cleanses debuffs (in the sense we can huddle in and let the debuff wear off) and a great panic button (complete and utter invulnerability)? With no crash? And it refills endurance? Damn, I'm kinda jealous. Even Barrier takes two minutes to cycle for a panic button usage. The downside is losing agro but this is not the bad problem it used to be back on live (and I say this as someone who played up to I14) since most people nowadays are durable enough to survive 10-15 seconds (we don't need to use the full 30 seconds of Hibernate) before the Tanker comes out and starts rounding up mobs. As much poo pooing as Hibernate gets as far as I'm concerned both it and the freezing/slowing aura are the reasons to take the set.

Reichman does not require the trinity. It is one of the few TFs in the game that -does- require a few team slots dedicated just for him. Just like Lady Grey's TF -must- have Controllers or the team stalls so does Reichman nearly demands the team leader being savvy in bringing something that can debuff it efficiently (and the knowledge to run the TF at whatever difficulty they want, but do the last mission at +0 if they want to save themselves a lot of time).

I don't know. Sounds like a newbie team more than the worse Synapse ever in history. The truth is that if you can be the glue of the team then things will work much better than expecting others (newbies as it appears that team was) to just know things. Bring TT instead of expecting others to have it. Say you're going to use it before the mission ends. Get mission transporter and ATT so you can scoop everyone up in things like Bertha's mission that can be in the the africas. Bring your own stealth IO into Sprint if you intend to run past mobs. Replenish purple inspirations between missions with /ah so you can be a durable rock. Remember the team they can replenish inspirations with /ah between missions. If you're going to a tough moment (I.E. last bosses of Positron part one) come prepared (in that particular example I make sure to arrive with 2-3 oranges and then I also nom on 2-3 purples. Between that jumping in first this ensures the team is mostly safe as the 8 bosses focus on me). Remember you can get Ouroboro portals up at level 1. If you don't have it grab it. Remind other people to use it so they get their own as this can cut down on a lot of running. Get Fast Travel (costs 1 mill). It's up every 10 minutes. Use this macro with Fast Travel: /macro Portal "enterbasefrompasscode zone-8888" Remind your team mates they can use the above macro to move around in the game by pasting this into the chat: To move around in the game: /macro Portal "enterbasefrompasscode zone-8888" If they say they don't know how to make money and don't have one million paste this: https://tinyurl.com/HomecomingNewbieGuide

That as well. But mostly we -are- trading defense for offense so we are squishier. I'm not selling snake oil. Want to be uber impervious? Roll invuln. Want to trade uber imperviousness for damage? Fire Armor. In a world without Barrier this would be pretty dangerous (and can still be in the AE with purpose tailored mobs to mess with players), but playing with just 40% defense is fine until push comes to shove and then Barrier can be relied on to survive a difficult moment. 90% of the content is just easy. Incarnate content such as you mentioned comes usually with a league and that makes ridiculous things such as stacking shields or incarnates that the uber imperviousness of Invuln is just not required. Certain things can really mess up even Invul such as sapping, but those Fire Armor handles with pre-emptive use of Consume,

Not really a problem, just be wary of mechanics.

Getting super good defenses/resistances/recharge/etc in a low level is complicated. I will preface it by saying that emphasis in accuracy is not something that particularly needs to be chased after. We are fighting +0. Tweak your Mids to +0 (I believe it's 75%) and even exemplared down we should be safely in range considering some of the heftier accuracy bonuses that do not go away such as the purple sets. The best way to mimic exemplaring (since Mids does not at a baseline) is changing 'level of enhancements' to the level you'll be exemplared to. Without shields (and even with them) it's hard to get good defenses above something like 25 or 30% at a very low level. If we were to focus on something I would say S/L defenses since a small purple insp can turn median but still porous defenses into a bullwark and S/L can be found mixed in pretty much everything. Aiming for specific things like psi or toxic or even energy or negative can be a trap. These need consolidated stacking to be of use. Going from 3-4% to 15% may be good at a spreadsheet level but it will not keep someone alive in combat. Further more they are very specific and will not protect against the rest. Ranged or Melee or Smash/Slash defenses will work on most, especially Smash/Slash who will work for AoE, ranged and melee as long as this (very common) damage component is included, where for example Ranged protects against every ranged attack, but will do nothing against melee or AoE. But a punch is melee but also Smashing, a bullet is ranged but also Slashing, an electric blast is ranged but has Smashing in it. The use of inspirations is something that needs to be considered as well.

People still run radio missions? No, seriously. They were my bread and butter back on Issue 7 to 13-14, but in the two years I've been in HC I don't think I've run enough radio missions to need more than one hand to count them. A radio mission only gives XP. A Task Force gives XP and merits. But you do you. That said, yes, the post history is a bit cringy. I'm sure everyone is evil and mean and forced the OP to delete all their characters and change their global. It has absolutely nothing to do with the OP at all. Just a mean server. I'm sure. No, really.

No need to toggle off Hover before dropping Burn. Just hug the floor before activating. I have Hover on all characters and Burn goes off without a problem.

Absolutely nothing has changed for sentinels since that oldie (muh first guide evah).

But Snarky, the guy said he was going to run it at +3 or +4. If you say 'If you run this at +3 or +4 I'm not doing it' and they insist then you leave. He stated his terms, you state yours.

Some small sacrifices are needed to insert the teleport pool. Also, don't take this the wrong way but I will have to roll up a newspaper and swat you for taking team teleport and not Fold Space. *swatswatswatswat!*

I mean, all gurus? I'm not sure I qualify. What's the pay though?

Fair is a weird word. Maybe you're looking for 'impartial'? They can rarely be impartial. Just for an example the main populace loves huge titted barely clad females with body sliders to minimum except chest who goes in the opposite direction. That wouldn't even register on my radar so good luck selling me this awesome (to the person's eyes) costume. Same person who loves those may set a costume contest and barely glance at any male character while a clone of their character will get max points.

Because you're misunderstanding the game a bit. It's not on you though, it's just a bit different from other more mainstream MMOs who have subs or B2P, or F2P mechanics. With the current CoH we can level to max extremely fast. We can gear up very fast (full T4 incarnates and most purple IO sets in two weeks). We have a thousand character slots instead of 8, or 3 and having to pay for more. But then what? There isn't a tremendous lot to do. My highest 'level' is a Fire/Claws Tanker who was my first baby and it cured me of altitis for a good two months. I would log in, I would do random TFs, I would create teams for TFs, I hunted a few badges, etc etc. But there is not really a lot to do so we end up drifting back to 'well, okay, I've done Claws. What could I try next?' And that's how we end with 50-70 characters. The Fire/Claws has something like 90+ vet levels which is a huge amount for me. Most of my alts I would make a different character by vet level 12 or so. But even my favorite baby I eventually stopped to make something new, something different. I seldom log it nowadays. It's still one of my best characters who exemplars really well and does great damage from Posi 1 to the ITF. But once everything has been done it's trying new things that comes up. So I have a second baby who is a Fire/Martial Arts Tanker and nowadays I'm usually tinkering on a Fire/Ice. Are they strictly 'better' than the Claws? Eh.

Someone tested part of the answer: