Sovera

People keep on talking about slotting accuracy in the very low levels but seem to forget the beginner's luck buff.

It's more productive to buy medium or even big inspirations while you're leveling. Use /ah to buy, refill between missions.

Being unique is a great way to amp up the power of the character. One ninja alone is a master of both martial and mystical arts. One Green Lantern alone is a demi god who keeps the peace in a whole quadrant. One kryptionan beats up full fledged gods. When there are many sharing the same power set the power goes down -drastically-. Green Lantern corps are usually defeated in one go, ninjas are fodder when an army, a crowd of kryptonians are killed no problem. Derailing a bit superman is one of those tropes where plot armor is extensively used. When they bring in other kryptonians instead of them being demi gods they get killed or defeated with barely much effort. Makes us think what makes ours so special. Even supergirl in her book is easily thrown around, though I accept that, alien or not, they mirror our biology close enough that the female of the species has less power than the male and thus she struggles more. Derailing some more it's something I'd like to see portrayed in the comics a bit more. Batman able to afford to beat people with pure brawn, while the female members of his Bat-family relying more on the smoke grenades and other gadgets to make up for biology. Instead of just turning them into female versions of Bats who punch and kick with never a nod to the differences between man and woman.

Happens all the time. I call the ice breaking stage and it is a sure thing that if I start a new character I may have one to two weeks of just hanging around while being ignored, be it standing on my own or try to approach groups and mingle. I call it the acclimatization period. There are so many new characters parading in and out and then abandoned (or just plain eRP alts who only show up when their players want some text smut) that until a character has been there for a few days, steadily, it is accepted by the crowd. Still need to make an effort at joining in, of course. A year after joining I still see the same person(s) who sits in the Pocket D and... waits. I rarely saw them emote anything and they aren't even AFK since the bubble does not show up. But they sit and waiting to be approached. It's why I much prefer to make duos with a friend. The ice breaking period is much easier to go through while jabbering with the friend. Furthermore a new character needs to settle into our mind, personality need to be fleshed out, discovering or deciding on speech quirks, and this happens only through RP which the other side of the duo helps. To the point, there is no other place that is used for RP. Back in the day we had the Galaxy Girl 9 PM meetings that were a nice change. I actually rarely set foot in the D and GG was my RP place. We had a nice crowd there. But now, welp, is it fitting for my little barbarian paladin to be hanging out in a night club bar thing? Not really, but it's where RP is.

I have to say Ice Armor is endurance heavy. But trash? Bit of a new one to me.

And that's another thing. Who had the brilliant idea to stick DDR in the recharge + endurance Destiny instead of sticking it on the right side of Barrier?

I like the Market crash TF. It's short. It does feel very amateurish though. Especially the first missions is pretty much an official farm map but at 100% XP and no hoops jumped to reach a particular mission in an arc. Opinions on training wheels ATs are just that. Everyone has an opinion. I wouldn't touch a Brute before the Tanker pass when Scrappers are better damage dealers and now with the Tanker pass I would not touch a Brute when the only thing they had - the damage - is no longer the huge gap it used to be. They need to sacrifice a lot to get the same defenses a Tanker can get, and who can then play with slotting for more damage. Funny enough with all this talk I took to DA to solo it for incarnate materials having learned today we no longet get threads after vet level 11, and I actually raked 3-4 deaths. Always for the same reason though: defense debuffs. Knifes and Pantheon would debuff me to hell and back and I'd be whittled. All of them dumb deaths I could have avoided but the real training wheels - non incarnate content - is so easy I didn't even react when I should have. Popping Barrier, eating a couple of purples, kiting. I just stood there trying to take it. Speaking of am I the only one who finds it a bit BS that resistance armors get shafted by -def debuffs? I'd understand defense sets fearing -def like the plague, but resistance sets get chewed up and die through their 90% resists. I know -why- it happens, just calling it BS.

I'm not an AE farmer even though I mainly play Fire Armor. All the accolades are very easy to obtain if you put the settings to -1x1. They mostly involve running around clicking on things. You can skip doing all the TFs by doing the red side version of the accolade. The real question is why do you feel you need the accolades if you're just farming? A bit more HP and a bit more EPS is of no particular use when doing easy content on a character tailored for it. Just see if you're after something thinking it is important and it isn't.

During the first phase when we just come down from the roof the blue patch can be tanked with high enough resists and minimal healing. Once she disappears to summon all her buddies this is over. Never again stand on a blue patch for long. You can use the tram behind her to break line of sight and force her to walk out of the blue, but this is a bit of a doomed perspective for a Stone Armor to easily manage.

Yes, and it's the reason Market Crash is a source of puzzlement for unprepared soloers. Monitoring your HP allows you to see the HP being shaved off. I usually break off and run to let the debuff expire once my HP reaches around 800 HP because once our HP is low enough the auto hit skill will kill since we don't have enough HP to soak it.

Also, how to die through 90% resistances and 45% defenses:

I have consolidated testing results, Incarnate priorities and tips, rotation clarifying and etc in the OP. I don't think that there is much to add from here on.

I will be honest with you. The game currently does not have an exciting end-game content. That means we reach level 50, explore the game, do TFs, run arcs, and then try to find a reason to stay motivated to log on (spoken like a jaded veteran that has played the game for years). Leveling new alts and combinations of doing things is a way to remain entertained. You have double XP to speed things up, you have 1000 character slots. There is no reason not to TRY ALL THE THINGS! But since you've asked: - Sentinels are great for the ego. You get to be ranged like most comic heroes and be sturdy just like them too. For a new player you won't even notice their damage isn't exciting, and as a new player it's better (IMO) to play a sturdy character that survives instead of something that keeps on faceplanting without careful babysitting. That said endurance draining is an advanced tactic that usually has all mobs killed before the endurance is actually drained. It makes that gimmick unfulfilling. - Controllers are somewhat obsolete nowadays. They do not add much and in a team you may just find yourself not very helpful. Radiation is indeed a big boss killer but big boss killing is 3% of the game. Do you want to drag yourself over the other 97% with the concept? Illusion in particular is good at soloing once they have sunk several multiples of hundreds of millions of cash into a build which is not a newbie friendly proposal. - Storm/Ice is great. You'll be having good fun with it and both helping and doing decent damage. Remember to visit the Defender forums and lift ideas on how to slot the character. - Dark/Dark is pretty decent as well. The Dark Control side of things lets you boost the damage of the team, heal, CC mobs. You will be both useful and helpful. - Another Controller. I've said my thoughts about it above. The only Controller I'd subscribe to is Plants/Kin since they can heal and boost the damage of the team making them useful while plants is pretty helpful at speeding things up with Seeds of Confusion. TOO good a combo tbh, it may turn you off to rarely even be at risk. - Masterminds are a bit eh. They are great for new players since they avoid many of the things that make early game boring such as few attacks and endurance problems. The minions just keep on attacking regardless and all a MM needs to do is buff and heal them while debuffing the enemy. Later on they become a drag even with top dollar builds since the pets are sloooooow to follow between packs of enemies and become super squishy. This is more of an end game concern and you should definitely give them a try. Beast/Nature plays well together with the absorb shields and heals helping the squishy beasts. What I did not see in your list is a meleer. Give them a try if you find something that pleases you. I personally recommend meleers (or Sentinels) for first players since they are much sturdier than their ranged brethren. They also can ignore crowd control effects such as stuns and knockbacks. I'm a staunch ranged only person, but CoH is the one game I always gravitate back to melee. If you are new new check the guide on my signature for a bunch of tips, and while at it consider the Fire/Martial Arts tanker. The downside of that character is that you might come out with a skewed idea of how powerful characters are meant to be from the start, and then you try something else and see that nope 😜 Unlike other games Tankers don't have a stressful job here having to protect the team, juggle defensive cooldowns and memorize routes and boss mechanics. You are just a sturdier character than most and will be jumping into the thick of things first. That's about it.

At least I got to test my endurance consumption with a small change I made and it looks good, but yeah. I'm not even sure if Terrorize drops toggles or not but it's a case for always having a couple breakfrees in the inspiration tray. I just always run that arc at -1x1 to speed it up and my friend needed XP so we did it at +2x8. Now I'm more aware I can be quicker on the breakfree usage if I face them again.

It's true. Was playing with a friend at +2x8and it was run to mobs, build up, Burn, Dragon Tail. Keep hitting things, Burn is back up so use Fiery Embrace first. I did get killed once. Damn those seers. They were doing -recovery, -defense, and I think maybe -recharge. ON TOP OF TERRORIZE! Watch my defense plummet, and being psi damage no resists to help, while my character cowers in place. *angry fist shaking*

FF proc in Kick is on. And in Arcane Bolt. You have too much accuracy to need the Kismet. If you lower your ToHit in options to 48 it will simulate +3 enemies which is where you are once your Alpha is at least T3. Most attacks without the Kismet already are over 95%. I would personally take Focused Accuracy to avoid whiffing like mad against the enemies who do -ToHit and just drop a +5 endurance reduction in there. I would also go tanker tbh. Get more out of your slotting and reach the hardcaps without faffing with Rune of Protection. But this is personal taste, Brute will be fine.

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.