Sovera

Kinda is though, but only in more extreme situations so you are correct too. But defense can go into the negatives which means we get hit more. Even blocking 90% of the damage it's still more hits coming in. But this is a more ITF level of extreme when we get to the -40% or -50%. A -20% would certainly take us to that level faster,

I'm going to generalize here so don't take it as gospel. But if they are like me players who tried Stalkers did not found the small damage increase worth the loss of an agro aura. In another game where DPS are frail and need to hide behind a tank a Stalker would be flocked to. High damage and low threat agro? GIMME! But we are in CoH where DPS are sturdy (actually everything is weak since we fight normal enemies of which half a spawn is minions) and thus don't fear wading into the thick of it. But the 'it' does not want to be thick and will run off once their HP gets low. They don't with a Scrapper (with the right secondary) but will Benny Hill with a Stalker. In the end I couldn't stomach the runners anymore. As for Blasters VS Melee it's hard to say really. Not going to say no but gut feelings don't compare to an actual damage meter. Of course a Blaster cleans a pack of enemies with BU + Aim + their nuke. But then they spend the next 40-ish seconds with none of it while meleers keep on plodding. Honestly? If we were to recount the damage at the end of a whole instance/TF I feel my Tanker could well be the one on top. Being constantly 360º surrounded by a ball of enemies, constantly dishing AoEs and having a ticking aura beats a nuke every 40 seconds or another meleer on the edge of said ball of hate not getting the whole 360º coverage. But it's all gut feelings without said damage meter.

It shouldn't be weaker in S/L since it is the easiest resistnce to get up. More often than not I find myself skimping in Tough slots to not grossly overcap. SS in general is just shunned because of the Rage drop. I do have a Fire/SS in one of the pages in my signature if you'd like some ideas.

And remember that using DNA SIphon on corpses gives Recovery, while using it on alive enemies gives endurance.

They are less damage than a Scrapper for sure. Using a pylon for a metric a 'normal' min-max scrapper takes it down in 1:30-2 minutes depending. My best is 2:45. The new Energy Melee might replace it for me, though not having Build-up until 28 is a bummer. Now, we need to just think if 3 minutes is really bad or what. I've seen Scrappers do pylon challenges and taking 5-7 minutes for example. I mentioned recently in another post how CoH is composed by easy and harder content. A Scrapper can survive easy content (basically any faction that does not debuff or hit the weakness in their secondary) but folds against hard content (most Scrappers in an ITF for example). Absolutely yes that a full team with buffs and debuffs does fix this but it does assume there will be the correct buffs and debuffs present (forcefield buffs on a Super Reflex character will do precious little). I am just in love with the character because it will rock from Positron 1 to incarnate content where the heavy hitters (TW, double Rage) deal really badly with exemplaring. And as I said the damage is there. There is lots of burst involved when we kill 4-5 minions just by dropping a procced out Burn. As for your last question Brutes do about 10% more damage, but Tankers got a 50% buff to the size of their AoEs which means they hit more enemies more easily, while also being far sturdier than Brutes (who receive no bonuses to their defenses (exact same slotting in Scrapper, Brute and Tanker has Scrapper and Brute with same numbers while the tank gets higher numbers) with much better ATOs (crappy +fury and even crappier 10% regen/recovery opposed to 20% to all res and an absorb shield that Tankers get).

Claws for great ST and great AoE. Can't go wrong with Claws/Bio. Shockwave does a lot to help with survival. If I can tempt you to the side of Tankers then Fire/Claws is something I've waxed poetic about.

Why common only? It's it a ironman challenge thing or lack of funds? Your blue bar woes will disappear simply slotting a Theft of Essence in DNA Siphon.

We have peaked. There is Werner, then there is the rest of us. That's fine though, he's a worthy leader. You have my Fire Armor!

It pretty much is. But the sad thing is that even with FE the damage still isn't amazing. But it would be difficult to balance Fire Melee because of Fiery Embrace's Damocles' Sword. Make it good enough without Fire Armor that it rivals the current best sets? It explodes when paired with Fire Armor. Make it as good as the other sets with Fiery Embrace? Straight out of luck if you ever pair it with anything but Fire Armor. People often make the mistake of considering certain mechanics as 'free damage', but it's never free. Psi Melee Insight is not free damage, bleeds in Savage Melee aren't free. The sets are calculated with these effects in mind. It's just bad for Fire Melee that the calculations involve a whole power set which will never work well without a rework of Fiery Embrace for the reasons above.

I've done Fire/EM in the past but it seems worthy of re-doing since Fire is still going to help with the lower AoE and Burn can take the place of the slow ET (if I'm not mistaken). Burn is only up every two rotations and slow ET falls every two rotations as well. I'm not testing until the tweaking is over though (also because Shadowlands is about to hit and I've moved back to WoW).

Path of Exile has a skill any class can use whose sole purpose is teleporting all pets to the character. It used to have a large CD but it was later buffed to something like 20 seconds I believe.

Great QoL touch!

Omfg, mind, blown!

SOON (TM)!

Hmm... Spines is old and slow. I'm not going to say not to do one if you want to, but someone picking this combo sounds like you're after tons of AoE more than a theme, am I right?

You're most welcome, and in the end your original build would have worked just fine for pretty much everything so you were in the good path. Don't undersell yourself. It is almost pedantic to make changes to it since you could play the game just as you were. Even if the changes were improvements it is probably something you would/will really notice as it is mostly under the hood changes. But managing to fit Fusion (with a Gaussian on top of it) will help you clear a pack of mobs in the first seconds of combat, and that Theft of Essence proc in Radiation Therapy changes the approach to endurance (such as making Cardiac pretty much unnecessary).

My apologies then, I missed it.

I'm not sure how much of a newbie you actually are, so take this in the spirit of helping, but the guide in my signature helps with money making. At level 8 you can earn around 3 million by doing a Taskforce that takes 25-40 minutes to do. It is a bit less involved than Luminara's example of making money, but I prefer it since it involves running around playing the game instead of playing the AH (ultimately playing the AH is much better in terms of cash, but it's not what I log into City of Heroes to do). The other link in my signature has a post on page 3 which documents my starting with zero inf on a brand new character and after one day of playing the game (not playing the AH) I had something like 27 million with multiple IOs costing in the 10 mill range. This can be repeated by anyone who cares since it only involved me leveling. I have not seen it mentioned here but on top of Beginner's Luck lowbies benefit greatly from another mechanic: Amplifiers from the P2W vendor. They cost a pittance at level 1 (24k for eight hours of all three Amplifiers) which turns lowbies into mini-Wolverines. Finally I will add that people should try to be flexible. If they cannot find enough people red side to run a DFB in the low levels just for the reward, then hop to blue side, get it done, then hop back to red side and continue playing.

I do find myself repeating the same thing under different flavors 😄

At the risk of re-re-repeating myself I will once more mention that there is no gain to be had by having resistances over the 90% cap. Some of has to be because it's tied together, but, keep in mind your ATO stacks three times. If one stack already has you over the cap then why not lower the resistances some to account for at least two stacks? That's nearly 14% you don't need to worry about. You're rad, you fart endurance, you neither need Cardiac nor Ageless, so you can take Barrier (and probably Musculature if it's your thing but it's your choice). That's another 5%. It's now 19% resistances-to-reach-90% you don't need to worry about. Irradiated Ground is something that wants six procs in it. You can chase bonuses with it, but you'll be missing out on the strong suit of the power. It helps both ST and AoE. Chance for +end in Stamina is better than an end mod. A proc from Theft of Essence in Radiation therapy doubles your recovered endurance. Gaussian chance for Build-up in Fusion in a must, and you'll miss not having Fusion. So this is what I'd use: 1 - First I'd say Rad/Rad has no need for Ball Lightning and it is stealing valuable slots. I would have taken Assault instead and buff mine and everyone's damage with that one slot wonder while leaving the heavy proc horse that is Irradiated Ground do the heavy AoE lifting while I focus on killing the boss. Atom Smasher is there to help speed things up. All those free slots could then be spread around. One in Devastating Blow for the purple melee damage proc, another Touch of Death damage/endurance in Radioactive Siphon, a LotG Def/End in Maneuvers (only adds about 0.5% but the build is not quite at softcap so it is not wasted and a bit less endurance drain plus a bit more regen. All minimal benefits though), an Eradication damage proc in Atom Smasher, etc. 2 - Starting level 8 you should have very little endurance woes, if you slot the Theft of Essence in Radiation Therapy. It goes from being a mediocre endurance clickie and okay heal to a okay heal and an endurance bar filler. That lets you skimp on a lot such as leaving Gamma Boost as a level 49 power and not slotting more recovery uniques in Health/Stamina. 3 - Things are already Exemplar friendly as can be. Buy the Jump Pack and Steam Pack from the P2W (they are one time purchases and 100k for both) and you don't need to take Fly before level 20 as the packs make Hover as fast as Fly (superb for combat and mission mobility as well). 4 - The resistance numbers are not as pretty as your old build. No neat row of 90% going down the line. But this is more efficient: 4a -The game can be easily separated into two modes: easy mode, and hard mode. Easy mode is 90% of the game without debuffs and the problematic factions. For that mode you don't need to be ultra buffed to the gills and popping Barrier on CD. For hard mode we have things like the ITF where even resistance based sets can be debuffed to a point they take a ton of damage (at base every enemy has 50% of hitting. But once we are debuffed that chance increases to 80-95% chance of hitting. At that point blocking 90% of the damage is not enough since we are taking twice the damage we usually do). That is when we use all the buffs at our disposal. Enter Barrier. 4b - At base Barrier is a great team wide protection for the hard moments (my often repeated example of the ambush at the top of the hill in the ITF's first mission), but it also adds a permanent 5% defense and 5% resist to the build. During easy mode play you don't need to be at 90% since, well, it is easy mode, and aren't going to bother using it (unless noticing your squishies are suicidal, then you try to encompass them in it like a dotting momma tank). During hard mode softcap defense and hardcapping resistance is when you will want it. 4c - The Tanker +res proc gives 6.7% and stacks three times. Between this and that three stacks is best not be relied upon but two stacks is fine to assume as permanent once the fight has started. So looking at the build numbers (with one stack of the +res proc) S/L is at 78.86%. You're happily slapping things around and collecting a second stack making it now 85.3%. This is perfectly fine for most of the gaming, but hey, the going suddenly gets tough and you pop Barrier and now have 90%. As you can see this is still a little bit too much since Scaling Resists slotted in Hover would add another 1% at 90% HP but lets not nitpick. Negative is at 77% and with the above math ends neatly at 90%. Psionic is lacking (not having infinite slots) but 60.60% with one stack, 67.3% with a second stack. Barrier goes up, 72.3%. That elusive not-totally-reliable-but-still-worth-accounting-for third +res stack happens and 79%. Scaling Resists kicks off at 90% HP and 80%. Not hardcapped but hey. 4d - Bonus, near softcapped defense to S/L which includes anything that involves smash or lethal. Most things in the game do. Do you think you're being hit by a lightning blast or a radiation beam? Good chances are it is actually Energy with Smash involved in it, and if the Smash gets deflected by your S/L defenses then so does the Energy. Obligatory this-is-not-gospel. just see what you wish to incorporate into your own build.

Pretty much this. I have been wanting something Fold Space ever since the tank patch feedback. Back then I proposed a reverse knockback unique ability for Tankers only where enemies would be pulled to the tank. So I am glad to see some form of it making it into the game.... ... but in such a place that it will seldom see use. Hovering is tremendously more useful for moving around tridimensionally than a short TP. It also does not take LotG or give the 2somethingish defense useful to complete a softcap. Teleport friend/foe has some pretty minor pretty niche usefulness that currently elude me other than snatching a friend to rez. As a travel power it's as sucky as everyone knows. Great for traversing long distances in a straight line, actually pretty bad when it comes to maneuvering tight places such as the interior of a regular office mission. We might as well toggle Ninja Run and ignore TP. The only way I see picking it up is for the sets with a largess of free powers such as Super Reflexes who then proceed to sacrifice a few powers to remain unslotted and not placed in the tray simply to pick Fold Space.

Don't feel sad. Your incarnates are missing and they shave large chunks of time. Keep on Tinpexing and leveling to get more incarnate crafting mats.

No. Full respect for you, Tsuko, but no. Those bosses have been killed without a problem dozens of times without support or 250% -regen. This is the same trap that the -regen Incarnate Interface creates where people have their gut feeling that it is helping and that it matters. I have zero beef with this though, it was just a passing comment. There is no particular anything that I see of interest added to Barrage (or EP) so it does not really matter either way to me. I'm still a partisan of having the Focus based stun chance added to Whirling Hands to help lowbies survive (even if it only stuns lieuts for a few seconds, in fact a less useful version of Dragon Tail's KD where the mobs getting back up is a few seconds of respite gained).

100% is peanuts though. Bopper can math it out, but -regen is 'better' the longer the fight. 100% is something like shaving a few seconds on a 5 minute fight but fights usually are 30 seconds even against AVs. How many ticks of regen happen in 30 seconds? As others pointed out the small -regen (a stat only useful against large HP enemies) is brute forced past using another attack than Barrage. Even with the addition I know EM won't see me using the T1.

Does the /interact command finally lets us use trams when the door is open but we cannot click on it?