Sovera

You're not going to extract a lot from Fire Melee since it is not in a great place. Combustion is not worth the cast time. That said if you're enjoying it then there is no reason to swap off. I have a few examples of Fire Armor builds in my signature if you'd like ideas, but regarding your question I personally aim for Musculature T3 first, then Barrier T4 with the 120 seconds (it helps a lot with the squishyness).

I did it once. It died in 2 minutes total and five merits, meh. Seen it advertised but what's the point? People don't do Hami every day because it's challenging but because we come out of it with 120 merits for half hour.

As someone fighting Tsoo atm via flashbacks I can relate to this. Having three Sorcerers with Hurricane plus a boss doing Dark attacks leads to marvelous gameplay of spending a literal two minutes with a 6% chance of hitting and relying on BU and the NPCs turning Hurricane off by themselves to eventually whittle them down, and this with guzzling yellows. While it is not the same issue the symptoms are: spending a LOT of time unable to do anything. And this on a Tanker who can take the punishment for two minutes. A squishy trying to rely on killing fast to survive pre-nuke levels is equally going to have a hard time.

Some do, some don't. Take Manticore for example. It opens at level 30 so you might think you're fine leading the team at minimum level only to enter and discover ALL enemies are level 35 even if you're at +0. Or Lady Grey. That one the enemies do scale... except Hami. Wasted an hour or so playing it at level 38 only to reach Hami and find it was level 50. Of course we never managed to get past it. And lets not forget the bug that plagued Positron part one for months on end before it was fixed. The fourth or so mission would spawn Doc Buzzsaw at maximum level (15) even if we started the team at level 8 (minimum level to open the TF). Good luck fighting a +7 Elite Boss 😄 Regardless you are correct. It's your team and if your decision is to ignore it when informed of the above examples (just a sample, I'm sure there are more) or stop players from having as many powers as exemplaring allows it is your right to demand it. As is theirs to drop team if they don't care to follow your rules.

To continue from my last post Posi 2 was soloed at x8. Vhaz was chopped to pieces (WHERE'S MY MONEY, BRO??). Since I'm waiting on a friend to do Synapse I've resumed my arc-running-as-alternative-to-leveling which I'm now running at +1x8 for the 15-19 bracket. The lack of an early travel power limits me a bit to the point I considered switching Hover for Super Jump, but Athletic Run and Sprint do we well enough to reach the next mission. Having a low level PbAoE with early BU was a thing I did not knew I needed in my life but it has sparked that innocent pleasure of seeing a pack of mobs not even in my way, not even in a kill all mission, and running to them to share the word of our lord and savior Fire/Axe. The early endurance consumption has been most gentle so far. Gash and Beheader are not the endurance guzzlers that Swoop and Cleave become and so even an unslotted Consume has kept up most handily that I've not even used a single Recovery Serum to date. No doubt the FF procs making it recharge faste has not hurt. Switching Maneuvers for Combat Jumping in an effort to lower endurance consumption will also help since it is basically a free toggle. My earlier advice to keep a row of inspirations 'free' to eat those who drop remains current. Keeping the rest of the inspiration tray for emergencies is fine, but one row free to eat the random insp drops multiplies the power of any build that is soloing at x8 since, paradoxically, the more mobs we are facing the more inspirations drop and the stronger we get (pseudo Brute like), so it is normal to go around with 1-3 reds, multiple yellows, purples, etc, to the point emergency inspirations are not even needed. From one pack of mobs:

Another pleasant surprise. I have never bothered with Axe. I did try WM. Was okay, hitting hard but slow animations. Tried it paired with Fire Armor but just on the test server and on a pylon (bad numbers). But after re-leveling a character or two I started looking at Axe. Why not? Why shouldn't I? The reason I had been looking at Axe was for the KD in Whirling Axe. The similarities with MA were obvious. Here was another set that would push more Burns out with two FF procs in the build. As it turns it is a pretty damn combo. It *crunches*. It took on both Posis as if Kratos beating up a pantheon that owed him money. It was safe, zero deaths (only x6 though but I could have upped it easily) and barely touching inspirations because unlike MA both ST attacks at that level spam KDs, the AoE spams KDs and.... unlike MA it has a low level Build-up. Surprising no one - or at least not me - an early BU + early PbAoE + Burn was a wrathful cleansing from old pagan deities. Axe suffers a bit with exemplaring. Swoop only opens at Yin (finally giving something to fill that early gap), Cleave at Manticore (bai Beheader), but (butts), lets be honest, BU + Burn + Whirling and then five seconds more of BU. Nothing much will be left to mope up and thanks to the Force Feedback in Gash and Whirling Axe Burn is available often to help with said moping. Beheader we need to take and Gash is part of the ST chain and those can be alternated with Beheader, Gash, Beheader, gap until Yin. At Yin we can start with Swoop then do the previous rotation. By Manticore It's Cleave, Swoop, Gash. There will be a small gap then, but nothing much to be done. I would not use Beheader to fill it since its slotting is barebones but it's a choice. For AoE we can BU, Burn, Whirling Axe, Pendulum. Then fill the gap with Gash to proc the ATO and maybe get another FF proc. Swoop would have been better to use instead of Gash, and Cleave more so since I'm already using four Might of the Tanker IOs there. But I want the +res proc available even at extreme exemplaring. Replacing one of the ATOs in Cleave for it and replacing the +res proc in Gash for a damage proc is something that can be done. Axe VS MA: MA is still more rounded. That softcapped Ranged defense deflects a lot of otherwise bad attacks be them psi or debuff carrying. On the other hand without DDR that defense does not last long against factions who bring it to the table. More KDs can sort of replace that mitigation with the soft CC. Axe has crunchier numbers for damage all around as befits a set with much heavier endurance and animation time. Dragon Tail actually does slightly more damage despite the much shorter animation time (1.87 VS 2.90 of Whirling Axe), but Axe has a second WIDE cone that double as mitigation. The early BU tips the scales for Axe for the players who want to examplar often be it doing arcs or lower level TFs. Axe VS War Mace: WM is applauded as the better set though they are pretty close to the point of being near mirrors, but simply comparing my old WM build with this one Axe has better numbers in all attacks, sometimes as low as 30 damage more (Clobber 478 Jawbreaker 272 VS Swoop at 495, Gash at 317) but more often 100+ extra (Shatter 366, Crowd Control 200 VS Cleave at 526, Pendulum at 342). On top of that what makes it more interesting to me is the FF proc in Whirling Axe which is an option WM does not have. Thanks to that single difference exemplaring is a lot more fluid as a FF proc in an AoE does not compare VS a single FF proc in a ST attack. I did the noobie thing of having Fiery Embrace turned on for Axe and not for Axe thus the damage difference. WM is actually slightly more damage, particularly Clobber where it goes near a hundred points more. Axe's FF proc in the AoE still makes for a more positive experience in AoE situations with more Burns and Healing Flames/Consume/Hasten. The build is going to be pretty damn endurance heavy and it took some heavy juggling to fit Whirling, and Pendulum, and slots for everything, and reach 40% S/L defense, and the minimum to hardcap resistances with both ATO procs + Barrier, and get all the endurance possible from all angles (including Musculature 33%), and a decent Hasten (135 seconds). The build: If there is interest for it I can whip a leveling build.

Brutes are still ok, but Tankers are just better after the patch that buffed them. But for those who like Brutes then continue because you'll be fine.

Play a tanker. <_< >_> Okay, on a more serious answer, I play as a Fire Tanker and they don't bother me, and FA has no particular resistances to psi. That said it's big on the motto that dead things don't hurt back. We might need to look at your build instead.

I rarely look at the clues. Partly because they don't show up in the order that they were found. It is common to scroll up and down trying to find what the last clue was about and I eventually drifted out of bothering to check despite being an important lore part. I also seldomly remember to look at the bio of the characters which is a pity because when pointed out I realize many authors have added interesting blurbs. Random NPC chatter dropping the clues and boss chatter is what I like the most since it is right there and then available. Unfortunately per my understanding some of it is currently bugged.

There is one. Check the modder tool that @The Philotic Knight created. He should be showered in strippers for it. If he is happily married then showered in cuban cigars. If he doesn't smoke then in cookies.

I'm just glad this world (and this game) has room for us all. I'm fine with having someone else lead but I don't find it an ordeal. First because I run point. Be it Blaster, Scrapper or Tanker I'm usually found diving in first. But since these past months I've been on a Tanker only binge I know I'm the linchpin. And since I strive to be self-suficient I don't -need- a specific AT. Having a kin is always nice, as is having all sorts of buffs, but the team will not crumble if they are not present. So with me as the linchpin I can recruit whomever at whatever level (though +4x8 content does need me to be incarnated to pull this off). Controllers (don't like them, but don't refuse them either), Defenders, Scrappers. All is good. Someone is semi AFK dealing with a child or a phone? Carry on, as long as it's not an obvious door sitter who AFks at the door, then moves to the next mission and repeats it. But someone who is AFK for three or four missions is fine by me. I just don't assume malicious intent and that they may be dealing with long phone calls from parental units (mine can take up to 15 or 30 minutes despite making noises at being a bit busy atm). CoH is just that easy as far as I am concerned. We can shape the difficulty for the team. Market Crash? Only one incarnate? +2 is it is. Five incarnates? +4 if everyone is up for it. But that's why I typed that initial line. I'm glad there is room for us all. Imagine if instead too many people wanted to lead the teams and not enough were left to join? All those calls and people wanting -you- to join -their- team! Instead I can lead and you can follow ^^

Man, that misspelling... or lack of it? 😄

Team stealing... ow. I can imagine joining a group for a Manti, see the leader is 30 and say 'Hey, let me have the star so we'll be at 35' and get an exasperated, 'Ffs, team *stealers!*'

Clockworks have this (annoying) gimmick where they have a weakness to knockdown turning it into knockback. But for the rest you must have been fighting at least -2 enemies which is about the threshold for KD to be turned into KB. I suggest you test again paying closer attention to the levels.

Diminishing Returns.

With my current build and a level 50 Flight IO in Swift Fly + EvM gives me 78kph. On live I get 72.95 with just those two. An added Fly IO in Swift does not alter this. With AB I'm at 100.49 and after a handful of seconds this climbs to 101.89 so just shy of the cap. The common 5k flight pack is 58 mph. Using EvM does not change this. Using the flight pack with Fly works together keeping the flight pack aesthetics with Fly speeds. Same behavior with Rocket Board, Magic Carpet and Skiff. So these can now be considered aesthetic customization of the Fly powers requiring only an extra toggle or click. It may or may not be possible to make a bind to activate both with just one click but regardless they have gone from curiosities to honest alternatives to the flying super hero theme. It is just spoiled by when ditching them to combat Hover without their aid. I went and tested the customization for the Flight pool with the tailor. One thing I immediately noticed is how 'Bright/Dark alternate' in Hover gives no clue to what it does. I don't know if it is possible but having the character not just sit there doing the idle animation but instead adopting the Fly/Hover pose would be a lot more intuitive. Despite the added 'no FX' for Afterburner it still has FX. Just a darker pallete, but still doing the animation and showing colors. The 'no FX' for Hasten, for example, removes all FX.

And the change to the rocket board and etc seems... pretty damn awesome? Am I correct in reading that EvM and Fly will work together with the rocket board and such? So we can use those travel powers as honest to god customization! Pity I can't have the disc power animation for Hover to fight on, sniff, but still, shweet! When does SS get the motorcycle of the Thugs' bruiser?? 😄

Only for muling purposes. Even on a WP character you might want to push your Smash/Defense up and four slotted with Kinetic Combat it helps getting there. Later on Follow-up, Focus and Slash is all you need.

I tried that one once. The rikti boss was +4 and its bar sat unperturbed until it was defeated.

My money has been sinking with all my alts taking TT and the new teleport that also costs 10 mill. Then I put them to the side. Good inf sink. Even earning money back it's still an average of 25 mill ish per character between all the teleports, the travel powers, the ressurect and etc.

Come for Ice Patch, stay for Frost (and Freezing Touch). I re-made a new build for the Fire/Ice tightening things and even ditched Frozen Aura (I don't like it. I don't know why I don't like it. The numbers are similar, animation time is similar, but I don't like it and dat it) and I'm re-leveling a new character with it. Instead of, you know, respec the old Fire/Ice... but that's crazy talk. <_< >_>

Spin is. Martial Arts may be the better all rounded combo but nothing beats that *crunch* sound of Spin doing a super hero landing and HP bars depleting all around me.

This is lovely to have. My biggest thanks for adding this to the tools available for players, Carni!

Oh, you're one of those who believes that the moon exists?

Fire/Ice Melee tanker. Made it in the past, found it pretty damn good, posted about it. Then I moved on to the next thing. Now that I am trying leveling through arcs and finding myself in the same low level bracket for a good while I have 'rediscovered' that combo and how nicely it plays freezing and melting things with a decent AoE (Frost is one of the few cones I am happy about), Build-up, -and- Burn, all available by level 18 so that I can tackle those really early arcs.