Sovera

You should look first into getting Mids. There is too much nuanced information in a build to write down.

IG was 'fixed' to only work every 10 seconds instead of 5.

The important thing is reaching a certain threshold. Tankers just have an easier time reaching it because the same powers (even things like Maneuvers and Weave) give better numbers for Tankers than for other ATs. Brutes need to work at it, but they eventually get there too. Heck, most ATs can get to a specific defense number, like Blasters having 45% to ranged defense.

Check the beginner friendly Tanker in my signature. By level 13 you should no longer need inspirations. It's not the only possible build that can do this it just starts real rea early. It's mostly because defense is so powerful in the early level. Most builds don't use inspirations by level 30-40. Though this is because we level at +0 or +1 tops.

Someone else mentioned on how all it takes is one or two god modded characters to get the wrecking train going. A solid tank that does not go down allows for the rest of the group to unleash hell. Trouble is when people get used to it but lack that linchpin. Sometimes it's not even a god modded character but having an innocuous background wallflower you're not paying attention to... but who has the team covered in a chunky 25%+ defense shieldage, or someone debuffs the mobs with something as simple as a Fear Stare. But it brings what I mentioned in the previous post that was the game does not breed caution in players. There is always a buff, always a debuff, always an expensively geared character, that carries the day. Except when not 😄

Tbh I find Hover the best in combat thing. Hover + Evasive Maneuvers allows to quickly catch mobs, allows to just float over their heads if needing a breather, even allows to continue AoEing them down while out of melee range. Other upsides is allowing to quickly travelling in the vertical if there mobs sitting somewhere high, not being bothered as much by Speed Boosts, fighting out of reach of Tar Traps and whatever else I may be forgetting.

The reason it is not done is because it was not needed. In WoW back in TBC it was common to play v e r y carefully. Sheep a mob, freeze trap the other, sap a third, then quickly kill one of the two remaining mobs. CCs were carefully monitured and reapplied during combat. Any of these fragile CCs being broken would be touch and go and might lead to party wipes. Definite party party wipes if so much as two mobs got free. In the next expansions that was dropped and it was an AoE fest sometimes even dragging two groups to be AoEd down. Then came Cataclysm and players were FURIOUS that they had to freeze trap, sap, etc all over again and not doing it meant party wipes. Then it was eased off again and once again it was AoE time. This is CoH. Mobs in instances are the same weak mobs outside of instance. No elite status, no quintuple HP, no triple damage. If you can defeat these mobs outside of the instance you can do so inside of them as well. Any decent IOed out build can be immortal. Just look at my last experiment in my signature with the Stone/Fire that is unkillable pretty much by level 13. At that point why bother doing fancy pulls or use CC? Just go in and smash. Is this good practice? No. But it's the practice that the game breeds. Gird yon loins, jump in, don't kite, don't bother about CC. Then the moment it gets SLIGHTLY harder (we can always identify the first timers in an ITF by their constant deaths) they are puzzled. But it makes sense, the game showed them that they were unkillable and when the difficulty slightly upped they got caught by surprise. There are a few honorable exceptions that will remind players they are not immortal, and of course dumbassery with the difficulty settings. This is doubled for teams where the mob's low HP means 3/4th of the spawn is dead in the first 5 seconds. Heck, I, solo, kill three fourths of the spawn in the first 7 seconds. Now imagine a second person doing the same.

More alts, more alts, more alts! I'd be hard pressed to say which is worse if Rad Melee or Dark Melee, but Dark Melee would fix both the endurance AND help with the heal while Stone would help prop Dark Melee's damage. I'd like DM more if we could get rid of the Soul Drain that feels bad between lengthy cast, lengthy CD, and the variable damage buff always making us have to decide whether to buff our damage to finish killing a group or save it for the next group. But yeah, I think DM would pair well though it might end being a case of killing slower meaning it also gives mobs more time to hurt us between the low ST damage and the lack of AoE.... dat Touch of Fear... It almost feels like a waste of slots for those weak ass 120 damage, but I can bost its damage by.. 30 points by adding two more damage procs in exchange of stats and 2.5 E/N resistances. Welp, the 120 don't take into account Brimstone which would help it some. Tanker (Stone Armor - Dark Melee) Final build.mbd To level with I'd take Shadow Punch until level 30 and Midnight Grasp and then respec out of Shadow Punch.

I think it helps, but it makes no miracles. Also -res procs go down in value the higher the level of the enemy. They are just overvalued due to all damage tests being run on a +0 enemy.

The problem with 2.9 animations is that thanks to the prehistoric artifact of ancient times if we hit that 5% chance of missing we whiffed. That just feels bad. At least Fire Melee only has 1,6 so when the 5% hits we just move on. I soloed Posi 1 and 2 with the Stone/Fire at 0x6, but it was all twinked to the max with early IOs. And yeah, the extra healing definitely tips the scales for survival since it is something Stone lacks. Even maxed out 63 HPS is not really going to be saving anyone's butt if debuffs happen. But the discrepancy you notice in the cast times is because you don't have Arcana Time toggled on in Mids. There is an aftercast where we can't move or use skills after each animation that the animation time does not account for. So 2.9 animation becomes 3.1. 0.2 seconds is not something we can notice with the naked eye, but it's there.

Oh, hello Dian, it's been a while.

As a long time flyer I assure you that it does work. You just need to be as close to the ground as possible. The slightest elevation will prevent it from going off which can be quite annoying when surrounded by mobs and wanting to use it but we can't reach the ground 😛

That's the activation time. Makes sense since it's how Bonfire works. I just got tripped by the 'consistent' and assumed in my head it kept on proccing for the duration of Cat 5.

Rad has been neutered. Check the Farm Fresh thread over the Guides where the farmers trade tips and builds for farming.

You can turn off the FX with the alternate animations, if my memory is not failing me.

Man, it's not the first time a Dev steps down and we only learn of it by someone noticing their tag. We can't even throw them a proper good-bye party like they all deserve.

The FF proc actually gives the recharge? I say this because it's a pseudo pet doing the thing, so the FF proc SHOULD go to to the pet instead of us. Or are we talking of something like Bonfire where it activates once when it is cast? That's how it worked with Bonfire, but while nice I'm not sure a one time FF proc is worth the slot.

@tidge speaks true, though I found it more on the resistance sets. I tried slotting Fire Armor and it barely made a difference in my survivability which was why I started to slot my attacks and living off inspirations for survival. But with a caveat for defense. Defense sets bloom with early slotting. Instead of 90% they only need to aim for 45%. 5% are accounted for in the early level Amplifiers, 6% from sloting both uniques. Then we have silly things like being level 13 and be at nearly 40% or effectively immortal as I showed in the post in my signature.

I'm not sure Rad has enough oomph anymore now that Irradiated Ground got 'fixed'. The ST is not great, the AoE is not great, all things that IG shored up. Now it's fixed the shoring is gone. But the heal is something that Stone Armor lacks and it would go really well together. With Fusion we can force the heal 2-3 times per Fusion and it becomes silly. The downside is having no AoE other than the contaminated mechanic and Mud Pots all the way to 24 and even then it's just to add a second damage aura. Looking at the combo it feels better to use Contaminated Strike instead of Devastating Blow, but Devastating Blow gives better ST in the end. But Devastating Blow also comes really late so leveling or exemplaring too much kills any damage rotation since there is nothing to use. Radioactive Smash only until level 16 and Radiation Siphon, and Radioactive Smash and Radiation Siphon only up to 28. Or we use and keep Contaminated Strike which has the ST rotation complete by level 16 but at the cost of less ST. If someone is absolutely sure that they will not exemplar then keep Devastating Blow. Devastating Blow also has a devastating 2.9 seconds animation which makes using it cringe. So all said and done I booted a Stone/Rad version and boosted it to 20. Despite having the same numbers as the Fire Melee version it could not handle 0x6 Posi 1 since it had no AoE (boo!). I then boosted it to 33 and tried Yin. Despite the changes to IG I slotted it the same was as before and it seemed to be about the same. No danger (even less than usual with the constant healing from Radiation Siphon) and the killing seemed to be on par with the Fire Melee. It was a lot heavier on endurance though but Recovery Serums were able to handle it. Verdict: a viable alternative. It trades a constant influx of heals for more endurance which Recovery Serums can handle while leveling and incarnates should fix in the end-game. I would still go Fire Melee for the on-demand AoE and no ST animation being slower than 1.6 seconds. Animation time Fire Sword Circle is 2.9 seconds where Atom Blaster is 3.1 but it's close enough unlike Greater Fire Sword VS Devastating Blow. Tanker (Stone Armor - Rad Melee) Final build.mbd

Yes, no, no.

At level 41 the Amplifiers ran out, but it's fine as all the slotting took over: I finally went into the red when facing 4-5 +2 robot Council bosses and had to eat a few greens as I was exemped down for lower than Combat Jumping putting me at 40% defense. It made me rethink the positioning of powers. Since I barely use Earth's Embrace it makes more sense to swap it for EE and have those 3% defense sooner. But since I don't need purples or oranges I just keep a row of blues (not strictly necessary but I don't have Tough or Focused Accuracy toggled on yet) and other than a row of greens for emergencies I keep on combining inspirations into reds. Gotta lean on our strength after all, if less defensive builds need insps to survive then as we don't need to worry about survival we instead amp the outcoming damage.

Well, Fire/MA/Energy is the 'Turtle' in my signature. It's one of the most defensive builds for Fire Armor 😄 But it's min-maxed. I think it had some leveling tips as well. if it is not enough to scratch your itch let me know and I can answer any other questions.

Any set that has no damage procs. Not that slotting damage procs is bad, it just won't activate them. But lets say you have a good set that gives good bonuses but has no damage procs, so it's a damage loss to slot it? Off to Cat 5 and Storm Cell. Example: Artillery. Ranged defense is good but without damage procs it's annoying to slot it fully.

Reiterating, 15 is crushing. 5 is the norm for those who use the command to see more. Few to none use it higher than 5 for regular use.

Always been like that. I bound the command to my W key so when ever I move I reactivate the visscale command.