Sovera

Fire Armor

I -am- the damage dealer! *huggles Fire/Claws*

Mine was for Tanker's though. With the lower resistance caps and maximum HP Scrappers tend not to make good recipients for resistance based sets. It works, like everything in the end does, but it's a squishy combo and that's why you don't see much of it. This is what I'd use. It's not perfect but you get a decent-ish Hasten at 134 seconds, 70% ish resists that finish being capped with Barrier, and near 40% S/L defense with Barrier to finish capping to 45%-ish. Use Particle Shield on cooldown, don't save it, don't think about it, just pop it if it's up, it has less than one second activation. It's not perfect since there is a lack of slots. Devastating Blow would like two damage procs in there, etc. I'd consider dropping Ball Lightning and sub for Focused Accuracy (keep Tactics as a Mule, but slot FA the same) and Physical Perfection (semi useless since a Rad Armor is an endurance faucet, but it requires no slots and FA only one) then distribute the slots where needed and tweak the build a build to keep the resists at 70%. You should be fine with this anyway as you're just sacrificing a bit of ST for AoE and we could agree that CoH is more about the AoE. But since Rad Melee is already good with the AoE so you can drop off Ball Lightning if you'd like.

To be fair I do it if there is a second tank around. But I wouldn't abandon my squishies.

Pretty much. My stint as a Blaster was brief (I prefer non-stop pew pew than counting the seconds until my nuke is back up) but I played just like I play my Tanker, and Scrapper, and Stalker. Just jump into the middle of things and unleash damage. Eat inspirations to survive if need be. If there is one thing I miss is being able to scout ahead and look for the boss or the clickie needed for the mission. As a tanker I don't get to do that anymore.

Yarr, so they can. But do spend 5k and buy a regular flight pack from the P2W vendor just to so you don't have to navigate around tall walls that Ninja Run + Sprint do not reach.

An important thing I forgot to mention was picking both jump packs from the P2W vendor. It's why I have Fly so late in the build. If you prefer leaping then switch for it and try to take Super-Jump sooner since the jump pack trick won't work. I just prefer Flight and Afterburner gives me something to slot another Luck of the Gambler. The anti KB I play with is just the one in Fly and I feel it is enough, but I had a free slot in your build and wasn't sure where to spend it and so threw a second anti-knockback. It's pretty much a free slot though. As for the last power in Fire it is just a ressurect. Inspirations do ressurects, one of the P2W powers does a ressurect. There is no point in taking it since you're not meant to be dying in the first place 😄

Street Justice/Super Reflexes Stalker. He is constantly using the shadows and breaking lights to fight in the darkness. Martial Arts might fit too, but it's a bit too showy with the kicks and the devs were smoking a tall bowl when they put in those alternate punch animations if they thought it looked martial arts ish. He is a very nitty gritty fighter. Staff could fit, but nah, too much breakdancing for our dude.

If you are completely new and don't have much cash I say level with this (and check my signature for money making tips) and even at 50 it will hold up while you're making money. It has juuuust enough resistances that two stacks from the ATO in Guarded Spin will put you at 90% resists while still have 45% to Lethal and Melee. If you have money then level with this: At 50 you can use this:

Quite right. I mixed Apocalypse with Ragnorok.

Unfortunately, no. Fire/Staff is a good choice. Fire is resist based, Staff gives defense. Staff has weak single target, Fire has Burn and Firey Embrace. They marry pretty well. I have a build for it stashed somewhere if you wish for it. Fire/Claws for the win!

I don't mean this in a mean way, but you should try joining a group with that triple Dark and then just putz around not attacking for a few groups. You might discover you're not influencing combat as much as you believe you are (or you might find that you are).

We are not in LOTR or WoW, Period. If you're using double XP it kills your influence input. Please check the guide in my signature. To give you an idea at how your newbie problem is skewed doing the very first taskforce at level 8, taking about 40 minutes, and which has crap rewards, will net you about 3 million in cash. Yeah, your 30k is a tiny droplet. The very first TF at level 8 just supplied you with all the influence needed to purchase all your generic IOs for that character and for a second alt too if need be. Taskforces or missions from contacts (not radio missions) will award you lots of money in the form of merits. It is my experience that leveling via TFs makes me about 100 mill once I reach level 50. Which isn't much, but it's a start. Once you are level 50 money just pours in. Spend five minutes in a map and you've made 4-5 million simply by killing stuff. Doing an end game TF at max difficulty usually makes 10 mill in raw inf not accounting drops. But that's for later. For now please read the guide since it's been compiled with information for newcomers and then set yourself free from gearing up problems. If you have more questions do ask since this community trips over itself wanting to help. Stuff you'd see hidden away for the elite in other games (from builds to ways of making money) is loudly advertised and offered for newcomers so that they can enjoy their stay. Edit: But regarding your original question, yeah, it does not pay to be a 'pure' support or tank. Though if you want to be beloved by the masses from level 1 to level 50 and beyond then roll a Kinetics support and you will be loudly cheered and welcomed to whatever team you go. But please, use your attacks be it on a support or a tank. We're not in WoW where a healer can just coast or is super busy trying to keep everyone alive, or simply does not have the mana to spend attacking.

I long for the slots to fill up two extra powers ^^ But possibly consider swapping Spin with Burn. Spin should have a 4.5 ish second CD of which 2.25 is eaten by Burn. Shockwave and Fireball fills it and Spin is back. If you have Burn non procced it should be back in less than eight seconds, so 2.7 from Spin, 1.3 from SW, 1.2 Fireball. Gives you room for Follow-up and Focus (moar FF proc chance) or Slash. All bets off if it's a Scrapper. In fact, I'm going to be weird and say a Claws/Bio for farming and general content is pretty perfect. FU, SW, Spin (SW first since it animates faster allowing Spin to still make use of the crit chance proc) is a self-contained AoE cycle that requires nothing else and allows much in the freedom of slotting and power picks. I used to boost my new characters to 22 with a Tanker but switched to my Claws/Bio Scrapper. I need to use Ablative every couple of packs due to being at 40% (probably would not really need Ablative if I popped Barrier on CD for the last 5%) but it handles +4x8 S/L Comic Con without a problem.

Placed this on the Tanker forums but it's pylon testing, so hey! So I decided to try a monstrosity of a procced out build. As usual when i do this on a Fire Armor Tanker I cheat with the base empowerment buffs for KB protection (regular content the small KB protection I have works, but not against pylons) and using Recovery Serum to not waste time using Consume. My previous times were on a 3:15 - 3:30 with regular slotting. 3:07 - Not much change. 3:10 - Still not much change. Too many gaps in the rotation. 3:03 - Swapped from Reactive to Degenerative. As usual little difference between Reactive and Degenerative. 2:40 - Swapped from Barrier to Ageless. Now that fixed the gaps alright! But I'm not intending to play without Barrier. 2:05 - Ageless and Assault and Degenerative. 2:20 - Ageless and Assault and Reactive. 3:15 - Went back to the original slotting and just kept the procced out Burn. No appreciable difference. 2:56 - Swapped one of the damage procs in Burn for the Fury. It seems like a much better choice as I almost got the pylon at the 2:45 before it ticked. 3:05 - So... many... misses... 3:02 - Kinda frustrating to see the damn pylon tick at the last moment. 3:30 - Changed the Gaussian for a damage proc. 2:49 - Re-procced Slash on the fact that the gap came from Focus having a higher base recharge. Maybe a fluke. 2:46 - Maybe not a fluke. 3:05 - The 5% chance to miss can go die in a fire. It is near impossible to test small changes with whiffs at crucial moments. 2:46 - Horrid start and even so. Seems like this is the new average. 3:05 - Dontcha hate trying to beat times and hear the lack of sound meaning you're hitting something front of your nose but missed? 2:30 - Degenerative. Slight change in rotation is giving dividends. I've been using Focus second and Slash third. But often I'd use Burn after Focus which wastes the FF proc for the animation time of Burn. This is dumb. I'm dumb. Always using Burn after Slash from now on. 2:41 - Reactive. So small a difference it can be attributed to whiffing. 2:42 - Replaced the Fury in Burn by a Scirroco. This is burstier than the -res proc and the gain/loss seems minimal. 2:30 - Either Fury in Burn or Scirroco times are not dramatically apart. The change in rotation did more than the slotting. 2:46 - Decided to test the theory that the rotation did more than the slotting and returned to the original Burn. 3:37 - Tried to return to Slash's original slotting. Seems like this one does make a difference. 2:43 - Returned to procced out Burn and Slash. 2:47 - This is the new average. So, the summary is: - First of all testing something in this game is a nightmare. Missing a few hits can change everything. We have this in other games and can divert stats to reach a 100% hit chance but not in CoH. Here we get to sigh and 'enjoy' it. After I changed the rotation both 2:30 times is when I did not miss as much with the 2:45 as the regular amount of misses. - Second, Slash can and should be procced. It recharges fast enough and is low in endurance cost that neither stat is needed. - Third, Focus and Follow-Up ought to stay properly slotted since neither has the recharge to withstand the tight rotation. With infinite slots (and endurance, or not bothered with trying to build defense) Shockwave could be added. - Burn is six of one and half a dozen of another. All procced up it is trrrremendous burst. But then we throw fewer of them over a long fight. Properly slotted it only gains three seconds though, and the Fury of the Gladiator in Blazing Aura brings very little dividends where instead it sits much better in Burn. But Burn takes to damage procs pretty well with the double chance of them going off and this plays more with the short nature of fights in CoH. If someone has Fury and uses it ours now does nothing. So despite being near sacrilege, yeah, I'm thinking to just dump the Fury. Burn just seems to prefer damage procs and in Blazing Aura it has a pretty limited chance to go off to the point where testing with or without it there showed a difference (but it's difficult to test due to whiffs). - The best times came with having Fury in Burn and Degenerative. Basically Degenerative is sliiiightly better and gains a few seconds, and Fury in Burn sliiiightly edges ahead by a few seconds. Both combined are enough to beat a pylon before it gets an extra regen tick. This is almost build-for-pylon instead of regular play. For regular play I'd still go with Reactive since regular mobs don't have the HP pool of an AV for the -HP to make a difference, and a Scirroco since burst damage reigns in CoH. Though to be fair I think Fury is fine too. IF no one has it slotted then we are helping the whole team. - New rotation is Follow-up, Slash, Burn, Focus. Or Follow-up, Burn, Slash, Focus. But trying not to do Focus and then Burn as the animation of Burn wastes half the FF proc. This is going to be the new official build. Since I exemplar a lot to help friends with their alts and solo/duo TFs I'm keeping the Fury in Burn. I don't think there is a correct answer for this slotting.

Going down the list of things-I-started-and-did-not-finish-testing we reach Fire/DM. No clickies used: 3:30. Unsurprising as it is the norm. But DM's strength does not lie in hitting one tough enemy for long periods of time. Despite being called an ST set it actually flourishes in multi-target scenarios. So I gathered a few enemies to feed Soul Drain and gave it a test. Unlike with a Shield Defense character the usage of Burn and Blazing Aura Will kill everything so it's only good for the first application of Soul Drain. 3:15 this time. Not enough of a difference to say it was whiffing or the damage boost. But as I said the strength of DM lies in being surrounded by enemies. So I took it to a Comic Con to test that part. I did not take numbers as I had not done so with previous characters. Y'know what? Screw it, lets do this. No inspirations, switched back to Reactive, using Hybrid Assault on cooldown: 8 minutes. To give a metric I pick my Fire/Claws and did the same thing. No inspirations, using Reactive, Hybrid Assault on cooldown: 7 minutes. ... Yeah, even Soul Drain can't catch up with Spin's crunch and 360º. Speaking of a new AoE rotation is born. Follow-up, Spin, Burn, Follow-up, Focus, Spin. Follow, Slash, Focus then leaves Burn and Spin perfectly aligned to start over.

Why should you? What difference will it make? They will still be hitting things same way as they were prior to the buff being cast on them. If you feel you really must then something like /macro Forge "local You're forged, %target!$$powexec_name Forge"

I try to stay off these Suggestion forums because we get a bunch of non devs piping in arguing against the changes for this or that reason. I'm not even sure why? They are not devs. Their arguing will make no impact. We already know the devs instate things based off their own metrics and decisions. A dev piping in (and I do miss Capt Powerhouse coming to threads and posting their point of view. The game is a duller thing ever since he stopped) might say 'I see your point, but, actually, none of this seems to be a problem in actual game-play. We have X% of players SR which is a sizable chunk of the population. On the other hand we only have Z% and Y% playing Stone Armor and Regen, so we are looking at those first'. It is not influenced by gut feelings or feelings in general. Certainly not because of a faction of players arguing against another faction. If a dev happens to inspect said suggestion and decides to implement it then it is implemented no matter the number of nay sayers arguing against it. These are the suggestion forums just like Bopper said. Suggestions are thrown like clay to a wall. Some may stick (some. I'm not really sure any of it has ever stuck? Someone correct me. I used to browse these and I don't recall one suggestion at the top of my mind being put in the game, even seemingly easy ones like the no common&uncommon salvage option less alone more difficult but equally very welcome ones such as upping the number of things we can toss into the AH to 100 instead of 10 (not having to repeat 78 times moving 10 Converters to the AH would have been nice a few days ago)), and some may not.

Just for funsies I tried making a Scrapper version of this. But it wasn't much of a success. 2:09 2:11 You'd think swapping Musculature for Resilient would have had more of an impact but it just shaves a few seconds. It is hard to tell due to the nature of the combat system and a Scrapper's random crits. On the other hand it is the same as @Bill Z Bubbareported on his Brute: too squishy. I actually had to heal when a dropship was hitting me along with the pylon. The pylon itself could take me to half health at times though I would ignore it and slowly regen back to full. Trying it on a +4x8 Comic Con with bosses was okay as long as I hit Barrier on CD. Once I stopped to try it I still lasted a while but eventually my heal could not keep up. The nail in the coffin is that without an agro aura mobs wander around as they please which is icky. It would have survived better with Shockwave but no room for it. My Claws/Bio swims in Comic Con, and, yes, I need to use my heals once in a while (mostly because I have her at 40% and don't use Barrier at all), but I put her survivability down to Shockwave keeping mobs on their butt for most of the fight. I suppose the same could have happened here but obviously this would have been a better fit with Katana/Fire for the extra defense lightening the slotting pressure. In either case a 30 second improvement does not warrant the squish. A full minute and then the risk/reward ratio would skew enough to warrant it. I've been trying different things trying to improve on the 2:45 times (or make the 2:30 ones stable, but those are still complete flukes) from changing slotting, adding Decimation BU to Focus (no difference whatsoever), adding more procs, etc, but I think I've hit the max with the Claws. SS -should- be an improvement though the 10 seconds without doing damage will hurt and I can't really stomach it in actual play. The Katana is being fiddly. I can't ignore DA too much since it provides both defense and ATO stacks, but in practice I find that I am greedy about using the heavy hitters and thus feel squishier than on the Claws. This is a matter of discipline though (and keep on longing for simple addons that keep track of buffs so I know when to re-apply instead of glancing at my monitored stats). I am also finding that Spin is part of the reason I really really got into this build. After a number of different characters actually leveled and not just boosted in the PTS the half damage of their AoEs (Dragon Kick, Lotus, Typhoon's Edge) makes pressing the button less impactful where I feel the crunch when I hit Spin.

Everything is explained in the link above.

Having Staff and not pick up Guarded Spin would be super weird. It's decent AoE on top of a defense move. I'm not sure what you mean with your ATO statement though. Scrapper ATOs are 100% damage. Tanker ATO are defense oriented. Brute ATOs are near useless (fractionally better damage by having a bit more Fury and 10% regen&recovery is not particularly useful).

Everything is viable. What you need to ask yourself is if you can stomach the slow animations from Spines. If you just want AoE then Savage Melee will pretty much outperform it, and don't get me started on Rad Melee. If you want that particular combo then it depends (again) on what you want to do with it. Scrapper does more damage, Brute is better suited for farming.

Focused Accuracy. Once the Hurricane loving sorcs are neutered with it the rest are no challenge whatsoever.

I'm nearly 44, so no doubt!

In a game this easy when we melt enemies and most people can actually solo the content but just play with others for the social aspect, where incarnates rub elbows with under level 50, 'extra weight' isn't much of a problem. Though I hope you gave them some pointers on builds or to check the forums because it sounds like a newbie who needs guidance, not a troll trying to be a nuisance and 'weight'.