Sovera

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.

Sadly? Much better surviving and only a bit slower. While it's not the absolute test I cringed a little bit at running a Yin in my 30s and the Fire Armor was touch and go for survival and did it in 54 minutes at +1x8 without skipping. I tried to not use inspirations but had to eat a few both greens and purples to survive. The Stone/Fire Melee breezed through it without inspirations at all except a few blues thanks to Super Stunners... and did it in 58 minutes. Disheartening for a Fire Armor lover :D But to insist it is not an actual test. The Fire Armor was using Elec Melee which sucks outside of the Lightning Rod nuke. Perhaps a Fire/Fire would have much results than 54 minutes. But the survivability would have been the same. The Fire Armor also got immediately bogged at the first mission of Moonfire as the vampyr debuffed it to oblivion and it couldn't land a hit (there's a reason I religiously take Focused Accuracy) where the Stone Armor ignored the vampyr since they had to actually hit it to debuff it. In fact i just pulled two groups at once each time 😄

I will probably turn this thread into another compilation of builds instead of scattering them all over the forums. Here is another Stone Armor in the same vein. I will just copy and paste the post I made somewhere else: To be fair the only improvement is Elec Melee having Thunderstrike with better numbers. It now hits harder, recharges a bit slower, and animates faster going from 3.3 to 2.5. Almost worth using for ST, I guess. So I thought hey, lets look at it paired with Stone. Stone Armor has an endurance problem that the extra endurance from Crystal Armor is unable to cope with, but Elec Melee has a secondary effect of sapping mobs and giving the endurance back to us. It also adds a small damage boost that Elec Melee desperately needs. The single target rotation should be something like Thunderstrike, Charged Brawl, Havoc Punch, Charged Brawl, Chain Induction, Charged Brawl, Havoc Punch, repeat. I didn't actually level it, and the ST damage will still be slow since, barring Thunderstrike, the hardest hitting does... *drumroll* 260 damage, lol. Okay, no, it will do a bit of damage extra since Brimstone does a damage proc that Mids currently does not account for. To the meat and bones: - Softcapped defense to all (except Fire, Cold, and Toxic) without Weave. Weave is taken but only as a mule for another LotG since I'm out of slots and out of interesting powers. Toggle it on if you want to reach 50%, trade two slots from Minerals to reach 52%. - "Okay, but we're fighting Devouring Earth and they destroy my defenses!" That's fine, you ALSO get 90% to all resists with the sole and single exception of Psi with 3 stacks of the ATO and 5% from Barrier. A miserable 86% to S/L and 84(.9) to E/N with Barrier and only two stacks. - 130 seconds Hasten though the FF proc in Thunderstrike should make it perma or close to. - Capped HP, so 3.5k with the accompanying 63 HP regen. - Endurance mightshouldmaybe be okay with 2.06 end use and 4.56 EPS plus 4 endurance procs and while Mids has not been updated yet the Focused Accuracy costs were halved in Page 7 which will help a bit more. Tanker (Stone Armor - Electrical Melee - LR).mbd FAQ. Free power? A: There was nothing else that interested me. Take Taunt, you're a Tanker, right? Or Conserve Power. Or Lightning Clap (accuracy sucks though but a +5 accuracy will put it at 88%). What about Gloom? A: Too long a recharge to be part of the attack chain so it's only used every two rotations. Page 7 further increases its recharge. Replace something for it if wanting it in though, it's a build, not a bible. Fly is taken so late! A: Use a 5k jetpack from the P2W to move around until 26. Or replace Hasten with Fly. This is not a leveling build. A: Well, it kinda is, the powers are taken in order and what is stays, but yeah, some slots will move around at 50. If someone needs a leveling build just beep me and I'll replace the IOs for cheaper stuff.

Different AT, different primary, different secondary.

Granite just doesn't add much (IMO). We go from 52% DDR to 60%, and all resistances are maxed out, but we lose a bit of defense. Scrounging one slot for two +5 defense IOs pushes the defense back to 43% (which is a perfectly acceptable number), but we have the host of penalties from Granite (-30% damage, -65% recharge, can't jump, can't fly (which, as a flier myself, just wouldn't fly (badumtsh!)) plus losing the recharge from Minerals, the recovery from Crystal Armor, the damage from Brimstone. Not gonna poopoo on it since it remains an option as Weave is mostly taken as a mule, but lets ponder it. So what actual gains from it? It gives 40% resistances but we only lack around 25%-ish to hardcap (which we can get close to with the ATO so realistically we only need around 12%-ish, less with Barrier, and small oranges give 10% too) and another 8% DDR, plus a bunch of mez resistance. It's an option, and it's not difficult to get either. Just swap Weave for Granite and take one slot from Brimstone to put two +5 defense IOs into it.

Personally I use Hover + Evasive Maneuvers on ALL of my characters. It's great, but it might not be for everyone. For grounded I say Combat Jumping as it is basically free (0.06) and all you do is bunny hop by tapping space bar. Otherwise just Sprint is enough IMO but it's yet another toggle draining endurance.

This is a framework. It can be easily changed into a different secondary with minimal changes to the slotting and still have all the bonuses in place. This is a very easy build for even the most new of players to get into. All it wants is both defense uniques which, at the time I type this, one is worth around 4 million and the other between 7-8 million. This might seem huge for a newcomer but trust me in that it is not. Do storylines, be rewarded with Merits, sell the Merits, make money, read the guide in my signature, etc. I'll transplant the appropriate part from the guide in the signature but it's still worth it to read the thing in full for more tips: Keep selling Merits to afford these two uniques and then pass them to a new alt if needed (nearly always desired in most builds) or just sell them again. Why Fire Melee? Why Stone Armour? How the build looks at level 13: Small tips: - In an AoE situation and after using Build-up try to use Greater Fire Sword (or just plain Fire Sword if Greater has not opened yet) before unloading both AoEs. This allows GFS to still catch the Gaussian proc window as well as both AoEs, where if using both AoEs first they will eat the five second duration of Gaussian. - When AoEing try to start with Fire Sword Circle before continuing with Combustion. FSC has a longer CD than Combustion which means this way both will always be up at the same time. Leveling cheap, normal, and final build (https://www.midsreborn.com/): Incarnate options: