Sovera

You're not going to get magical solutions just from picking a new power. The good news is that leveling is easy thanks to the double XP, and you probably have quite a few merits to your name (check my signature, and if you're new read the guide fully). I have never played energy and pain domination so I don't have much offer to help there, but being your very first character I'd suggest trying a melee class next since they are much easier to get started and sturdier out of the box. Next I suggest you grab this program so you can import builds from the forums.

Poor Fire Aura...

You're a fickle beast, Strider.

I usually stick to Pyronic partly due to theme. Haven't tried the others TBH, but it kills minions and leaves lieuts hurting. That's about all I ask.

All this talk about Energy being great damage. Did I miss a memo? When was the last time Energy was used to break any record?

Would it? I can't advocate taking 5-10 minutes PER spawn for a WHOLE mission. At best of times a single AV takes like 1 minutes to kill under focused fired and most spawns are composed of 10-12 mobs.

...challenging? Where? The part where they don't do any particular damage and attack slowly for piddly damage while we can't hit them back? We have different opinions of challenge and taking a break to go make a sandwich each time we don't finagle killing one before it enters MoG in a kill all mission does not register in my book. The cyclops and minotaurs are less annoying in that we can still hit them even for reduced damaged so despite not having the PP option to CC or kill fast we can still go full team on them until they go down (plus debuffs still work and help speeding things).

C'mon, don't forum PvP. BM -is- that one fight in the game where meleers are hindered. And even then someone who knows how to deal with it can keep things going (except when someone rolls a Brute to do melee damage and then has agro on her). The other 99.99.99% of the game have nothing in particular hindering meleers except that one fight. CoH is the only game I play in melee because it's so easy and no BS mechanics are present to hinder me. Playing in GW2 it's good luck discovering when the mobs will do an PbAoE when they don't do a ground telegraph and instead it's an animation telegraph such as pointing a finger at the sky. Good luck seeing that with the mob covered in dozens of different particle effects! And that's not counting the spam of abilities who does KD or CC as a setup for those PbAoEs. Or WoW when meleers need to bounce in and out of telegraphs all the time and are unable to do damage while this happens. In CoH meleers tend to have self healing and be resilient enough to eat damage and their anti CC toggles makes them immune to most. Holds? Knockbacks? That's something squishies worry about. A meleer may not even be aware such things exist after level 10 or so.

That's not casual VS hard. It's casual VS grindy. Grinding for 12 hours is not hard, it's just boring. Young me who spent whole week-ends doing Mephisto runs in D2 would have been fine with it I guess. Yeah, we had this talk a few posts back. Obviously this game design is great to feel powerful but has the flaws that normal mobs who are barely a threat against one person will evaporate when facing eight.

This is not new to now. Back when I first started in Issue 6 or 7 I remember trying a Rad defender and berating team members for killing my toggles. It did not take long to realize my toggles were useless when everything was dying so fast. A Rad defender's debuffs are for tough enemies. Enemies we find out in the streets if sweeping are not tough enemies.

Mine was Ice/... I'm not sure if it was Dark Melee or Rad melee. I'm not saying the combo itself is bad, but hot damn I dropped it fast. Ice is super heavy on endurance and I'm not sure if Dark (pre AoE pass) or if Rad but I was wheezing for blue bar. I realized I was expected to spam Energy Absorption every spawn for my endurance to survive (and it was incapable of coping on a ST scenario) and just dropped it like a hot potato.

My worst one (but recouped, so meh, which is unlike your case. My condolences) was buying converters in stacks of ten, switch to purples, pay no attention the 'stacks of ten' wasn't cleared (which is this even a thing??) and put up an order for 10 purples at 19 mill -_- In my case I just put them back up and lost the listing so it wasn't much of a big deal.

Even when I like a character I put them aside and start another. Claws/Bio Scrapper played amazingly and I don't even I even had double digit vet levels with it before I turned it into my PLer for my other account. Fire/Claws was love at first sight and I played it SO MUCH. I'd just see random people forming a TF and I'd join for the heck of playing. It cured my altitis something fierce. It just had everything from starting early so that exemplaring was champion level good. It was sturdy as befits a tank, it did excellent damage (and not just 'for a tanker') with two build-up mechanics. It remains my only character with triple digit vet levels and all T4-ed. But even that gem got dropped for the newer shinier replacement that is Fire/Martial Arts. It has everything Claws had including damage and early start, but much better defenses and FF procs in its AoE accelerates every cooldown the build has so it feels like playing in fast forward. The only thing slowing it down is that I don't really have people to play with and just doing random TFs has been done. I haven't slotted more than half the incarnates and haven't even finished the accolades. But I see no point in playing other characters. It has everything and I feel like a super hero wading into the fight first, seeing the visible drop (or one shotting) of HP when I press my AoEs. A friend is making a new alt? It can exemplar all the way down. High level content? It can tank it. Duoing a TF? Bish, it soloed them -while- leveling and now it's 50 and slotted up. Plus it pleases me to see giant robots flipping twice in the air when my tiny barbarian paladin that reaches their knee kicks them

Maiden is not complicated to handle on a melee heavy team, but it can be shit when there are Brutes and Tankers who steal my agro and then do nothing with it. The easiest way is to use the tram right behind her when she spawns. Blue circle goes down. Use tram to break line of sight. She follows after leaving the blue circle. Keep hitting. Next circle happens, move to the end of the tram breaking LoS in the process. The timing of the circles matches that by the one drops the other is just about disappearing so this can be repeated until dead. Anything else does not work in my experience. Using Taunt, using Envenomed Daggers. She ignores it and stays plinking at a distance without moving from the circle. That method works. Except, of course, when there is another Brute or Tanker, they steal agro, and then bounce around making her ignore me to plink them. As for the original question I dunno. Other than CC classes there is room for everyone. While in the perfect scenario everything dies I find that in practice lieutenants and bosses tend to still be alive and provide a target for meleers to deal with. I do feel the pain of Kins, so appreciated and wanted, but, in my experience, seldomly managing to get a FS off before AoEs have exploded a pack apart. What people seldomly do but would make the difference between Blasters and Brutes is split up. Blasters seldomly do so. Brutes sometimes do that, but more often than not are not sturdy enough to handle it. As someone who mainly tanks I don't get to split up but if there is another Tanker aboard I will let the team go left while I go right. Blasters can do that in theory but in practice they are slower. Runners happen, no agro to glue mobs close and hoverblasting exacerbates thing, and even 45% defense is iffy on a Blaster's HP.

That would have been really nice, yes, and make the power more popular despite the pitiful damage it does.

The reason I seldom visit this area of the forums is my inability to contain my snickering at non devs puffing their chest and saying no to suggestions, as if them saying no had any sort of impact on devs making a suggestion happen. Not that I am really sure of the point in these part of the forums in the first place. Someone refresh my memory on suggestions that have been implemented? I could have used the no salvage recipe and being able to drop 100 converters at a time to the AH so I'm not repeating the same gesture 95 times as I did today.

I like the cut of your jibe. I like it a lot.

I haven't been paying much to the forums other than the Tanker section so I have just binge read this thread. We have had this talk in the past and the 'fault', IMO, lays in that thing I keep on repeating about: when half the mobs are minions and one, one person, throws an AoE and wipes them, then now there is half a pack of mobs left. Then the second and third and fourth enthusiastic AoE from the rest of the team happens and there is only an ailing boss and some lieutenants that were on the edge of the pack. Of course the game is easy this way. SO only builds wouldn't change much. Most of the argument seems to lay on SOLO playing with only SOs. It's been a long long long while since when I joined in Issue 7, but even back then without IOs I remember doing missions at +4x8 and the team melting the map. WoW and GW2 understand this. Mobs in dungeons are invariably elites (akin to elite bosses in CoH) because the devs understood if they put normal mobs meant to be fought by one player, and then make them face 5 players, then of course they will melt instantly. The same happens here. It's why I compare CoH a lot to Path of Exile. PoE is the typical ARPG where we do not face 3-4 strong opponents at a time but rather 10-15 weak ones. In the end game these are usually obliterated with one key press and the game is all about run run run between packs and do that one keypress. This is very much CoH in a nutshell. And, I mean, it's not bad. I like it. Fire, destruction, annihilation of a ton of enemies in 10-15 seconds instead of whittling four enemies over a minute long fight to defeat a pack. But just like in PoE it does not push to play CC builds or slow builds. The game needs either of these things or even both: - More HP. It could be translated by +5 or higher mobs but I prefer an option to turn all mobs into bosses, or even elite bosses. Someone might math it as better XP to just quickly kill minions and lieuts instead but I'd need a crowbar to be removed from the all boss option. This is not something that can have a switch flicked to happen and all mobs in all factions would need to be done one by one. - The @Lineagolden touch where even without an all bosses option they still made the game hard. This is not easy either. Again, complete pass over all factions and a much more complex one. Also, to me, not as easy when we consider no homogenization between the 20+ factions so they all do -def and -recovery etc. Heck, I made a super simple AE faction for roleplay with super simple mobs. But they were all bosses and used machine guns (which automatically apply -def) and my Fire/Claws used to melting content had to take it much more carefully. Also by killing much more slowly it incentivized bringing more players. Oh heck no. Don't even joke about. I cringe to remember how NWO removed their version of the architect.

I was pleasantly surprised yesterday at facing Carnies and see myself impervious to them. They are usually a big pain in the ass, but pre-emptive use of Consume made me immune to their endurance drain effect on death, and the defenses made me immune to the psi attacks.

Truer words, my internet friend! I loathe playing melee in any other game. Guild Wars 2 and melee was attempted several times and ugh, boss does PbAoEs, there is a flood of CC happening, particles flying and covering the target so I can hardly see the tells to dodge. So in all other games I am resolutely playing ranged, period, no ifs and buts (butts). But in CoH I wallow in being a meleer and jumping first into groups, taking the alpha, beating up the bad guys. The game lends itself super well to it without a need to dodge crap or manage defensive cooldowns. We can feel the simple aspect of it because of the underlaying idea that there is no trinity. Anyway, I decided to take a stab at this. It did not conform to your request but you can easily change things to your taste: - 40% to Smash, Lethal, Fire, Cold, Energy and Negative with one enemy in range. With four enemies in range you are softcapped which is when we need the extra defense. I personally would take Barrier since it is a permanent 5% defense boost. More importantly it covers your squishies as well. But since lacking in heals (not strictly necessary, I took this to the ITF on a Claws version and the romans did not hurt on +4 enough to heal, and could AFK in the seafood ambush atop the hill in the first mission) you can use Rebirth instead, or go for Ageless to shore your endurance (I would personally use Recovery Serums from the P2W vendor for that purpose. They are cheap and stack up to 50. Very discrete animation and FX so it is not glaring when used). - Slightly overcappd in S/L resistance considering the extra Might of the Tanker procs that will happen as playing. With one stack already at 84% so just one more and hardcapped. Negative/Energy is a tad undercapped but nothing that will make you die. Between more tanker procs and maybe using Barrier for another 5% resistances you'll be at 90%. - Did take Hasten. Remove it and use that slot for something else if you'd like (perhaps Taunt if you like it). Took several Force Feedback procs and again swap for damage procs if not wanting them. - Air Superiority is not great damage but I wanted to pad your attacks a bit so you'd not be having gaps. Regardless I think it fits the theme with your super strong character flicking mobs up in the air and on their backs between Haymaker's chance for KD, Air Superiority's 100% chance for knock up and and KO Blow doing the same. - I was a bit gratuitous with slotting. With Jab and Footstomp on one hand another 30% resistance to slows and recharge is good (80% total). On the other the stats are on the red and the IOs are expensive. Use if desired but it's a luxury. Same with the extra slots in Unyielding and Resist Physical Damage used for just 7% psi resist (I just had really nothing much to spend on). If wanting to keep Handclap those two slots can be used. From my experience you'll be near indestructible with this setup. If you happen to play on Everlasting I can come with my tiny barbarian paladin of FIRE! and compare by smacking stuff together.

The game is gentle enough to us that we can get away with playing even 'unoptimized' builds and still clear content. We can aim for softcaps and hardcaps, but it will be for fun. Most players don't min max and still go into a TF or a trial and walk out with a victory under their belt.

Infinitum is definitely your Invuln guru so you're in good hands. I confess I don't mind not having a ranged attack as well. Martial Arts (with the animations swapped to punches) would help a fair bit moving away from the clunkyness that is Rage, and the extra 10% defense from Storm Kick is just generous to reach defense caps. But I can imagine how badly themed it would be for a themed character, even if we don't roleplay calling it martial arts (I mean, I RPed a magic character using radiation blast colored a brilliant white and calling it magic blasts). My one try at Invuln ended up so good it could tackle the ITF without even a heal and just relying on natural regeneration, so after that, yeah, more damage. I still prefer the Fire Armor approach since dead things are not trying to hurt me back and it is sturdy 'enough' despite being one of the squishiest sets but this is unrelated to a themed build.

When we can buy medium greens between missions just by typing /ah it is usually sufficient.

But it doesn't say -when- it will turn red, which was what I was aiming that. If I know I'm going to drop in five seconds and I'm about to jump in then I would rather not spend the next 10 seconds surrounded by enemies while unable to hurt them and with a hefty defense debuff.

Point.