Sovera

Tested the FA/MA on a pylon in the test server. Musculature 45%, Reactive 75% DoT, Hybrid Assault (not clicked). - 3:29 - 3;16 - 2:59. Quick and dirty test with Hybrid Assault toggled on. - 3:15 with Hybrid Assault toggled on. ...I confess I sometimes don't really understand what this thing even does. And since @Bill Z Bubbaraised the notion Burn wasn't helping in ST I also tried once without Burn: 4:13. Martial Arts is not Claws though. As in all these tests I cheated with the base empowerment KB protection to not be KBed all the time. I'm not going to lie but it turned out better than I actually expected. It's kind of bit worse version of FA/Claws, except much more defensive thanks to 45% defense to M/R/A instead of just S/L and Melee.

Peculiar considering how strong it is. Do you have it double damage procced with a purple one? What are your times on the Bio/Claws so far? Nihili had his at something like 3:30 with Assault clicked.

Mez clickies tend to stack, so just double the protection you see in Mids, and yeah, that makes them stronger than toggles. Oh hey Bill, my FA/MA is coming nicely. I'm curious to see if it will laugh at psi with 40-45% defense to melee/ranged/AoE which is kinda stupid on top of being a resists set 😄

Assuming that they are still alive to do it. Or not hitting their head on defense against S/L 😆 I'm assuming sonic has a smash component in there.

I have an oldie here: https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/19511-revisiting-km-to-try-countering-its-flaws-v2/

If you actually look look at it you'll see if it's not actually every other AS, but if this works for you then carry on. I never did get into StJ much since Crushing Uppercut has an awkward recharge leaving close to two seconds before it recharges, but I remember using combo points on Sweeping Cross being wasteful. If we use Sweeping we ate the combo points and now CU needs to collect three more to go out at maximum damage. This lower the number of CUs in a minute. I think it better to just fill those two seconds with another attack and then use CU at full power.

That's true for all comics, but particularly the indie ones (AKA not DC and Marvel) like Savage Dragon and Invincible. Being gory and much better continuity than mainstream comics it is common for large swathes of a population to be killed regularly (dead heroes also tend to stay dead since no status quo to protect) from invasions and evil characters. But, funny enough, the population never seems to issue a murmur about it. They just pick themselves up, rebuild, and carry on.

You ought to be posting this in the Brute section. Kinetic Melee would serve you better as a Stalker IMO.

Worthless is a strong word. The sets with no AoE have indeed no place in CoH. But those are sets and not the whole AT. More to the point a Blaster (or anyone with Judgement) nukes a spawn. Now only the bosses and lieutenants are alive. ST is needed, not more AoE. Just pick a set that has decent AoE and we can help during AoE moments. I mean, we are poopooing on AoE but my KM felt godly. Follow the tank as it gathers agro, go shhhh, we are hunting wabbits. Tanker has a nice ball of mobs, hit BU, use Burst from out of Hide. Auto-crit that kills most minions. Use filler attacks but not AS. When Burst is about to recharge use AS. If it's the first of the fight there is a good chance Hide procced. Use Burst again. Boom, another auto-crit AoE. I felt useful all the way with my KM, and with /Bio and 3-4 damage procs in each attack it was a fast attacking machine. it didn't have great pylon times (2.30-ish) but it was fun. Ultimately the reason I don't stick with Stalkers is that I really dislike not having agro. I love being in a big ball of enemies all hating me while I lay the hurt.

The T9 is Mass Levitate, not GPS. In a better world we would be able to track buffs and keep an eye on Insight and only use GPS at the very last second to consume the buff. Too much hassle though. tests can be re-done but last time someone got the same numbers by only using GPS at the last second of Insight, and then not using GPS at all. Which makes sense since if we are using one attack every 30-40 seconds then it will not have a large impact.

It's just 150% though. The -regen from the incarnates mentioned above is also apparently negligible to the point anything else will be better. Not all GMs are equal and Kraken is a low level one, you might find even without daggers you would be able to kill it (each dagger is costing one attack after all).

My last one, this brief burst of altitis is over for now. I tried FA/DM in the interim but it did not pass muster. What I did think about was that what Fire Armor really wants is a nice PbAoE that has KD component to speed things up. Enter Martial Arts. I posted a while back how I made a 90% res with 45% defense to Melee/Ranged/AoE with Radiation Armor and it wasn't too difficult to adapt it and achieve the same numbers. Due to certain power changes it wasn't as easy to cap Negative/Energy this time around so it takes an iffy three stacks of the ATO to achieve it on top of 5% from Barrier. It can probably be refined a bit more. The good: - Works as advertised. The Force Feedback proc in Dragon's Tail is active straight from Posi 2 and it helps a fair bit. BU/FE/Burn comes out of recharge more often which in turns speeds the damage. - While not a huge achievement a solo Moonfire +1/x8, no insps, no deaths, leveling build thus no fancy IOs and procced to the gills. - Huge burst with Fiery Embrace and Build-up. For team play maybe stagger their use but I found it better to use both. - Dragon Tail at level 20 gives a nice push to AoE damage in the low level TFs. - End build will have 45% to positionals and 90%-ish to the usual. What it means is will also do better at dodging attacks that carry debuffs in it (anything psi with a Ranged tag will thus be avoidable too). Anything with defense debuffs will strip this layer, yes, but not all factions do the stripping and for those who do this -is- a resist based character after all. The bad: - The dev who made Synapse is a sadist. Trying to do the already slow TF on top of throwing mobs away with each Dragon Tail (in turn costing damage since they get tossed away from Burn's fire patch) was an exercise in frustration and repeated apologies to the team. Fortunately I had an eager Controller whom I asked to use the mass immobilizes when enemies were clustered around me and that's when I dared to used Dragon Tail. I would never use this character exemped down to do a Synapse with a friend. Or I would swap IOs and put an Overwhelming KB>KD in it. - Dragon Tail is mediocre. Half the damage of Spin (not using Follow-up) is cringe. Okay okay, it animates near a second faster, it offers mitigation with the KD, and the FF proc in it is a good build accelerator. - The whole damage of MA feels mediocre though it is hard to tell. Obviously I cannot compare it to Claws(-the- gold standard) since that one coasts from Posi 1 on with Follow-up adding a stacking 30% damage to Spin, to Burn, to Blazing Aura, etc. Since I was starved for slots I did not put in damage procs while leveling either which didn't help. - Only having Build-up at 28 is not lethal, but it does kill the attractive part of BU recharging faster thanks to the FF procs. The lack of burst is noticeable until Yin. From Yin on the build behaves very well. - Crippling Axe kick at 35 means waiting until then for the build's ST heavy hitter, but exemplaring is not a problem with a fully slotted Thunder Kick to keep things going without gaps. The build: So, end result: - FA/Rad is amazing with the passive AoE. We can just mostly ignore AoE and hit the bosses in a pack of enemies and the rest will die on their own. It just needed Irradiated Ground to be at level 20 instead of 28 to be (near) perfect. Devasting Blow feels terrible to use and I would either work Crossblow in (but I can only fit at around level 30-35) or Proton Sweep (with the Tanker buff it's about ish 100º angle which is decent). Slotting and using Contaminated Strike is a solution but I don't think it really adds anything to the build other than a small gap closer after Smash, Siphon, Smash. - FA/MA kind of needs 28 to feel good as well although for different reasons. Mitigation from Dragon's Tail, lots of defense with Storm Kick, the lower damage of this set makes sense with the defense it brings but Fire Armor compensates for it with Burn and Fiery Embrace and Fire Armor loves all those Force Feedback procs. Of the two I will personally level the FA/MA some more to see how it behaves, but I keep that the FA/Claws as the best rounded character with early AoE, early Follow-up, fast animations and good damage even when super exemped thanks to the stacking effect of FU.

Man, I don't do PvP, but, between people abusing the base macro to not die in PvP and the animation canceling I think my previous words stand.

It's as Hyperstrike says. I recently played with a Stone Tanker. Good guy, solid build, he placed a metric ton of movement speed bonuses and could dash around in granite form. But in the end my 'squishy' fire armor Tanker runs around like mad, doesn't die, and Hover + one of the jump packs is crazy fast in combat mobility.

I've heard from a friend that things like a re-haul of Fire Melee and Energy Melee for Tankers has been tested and been scrapped while we aren't even aware. I understand it after the last brouhaha, but I miss seeing the changes and the evolution of things instead of the solid wall of silence we got since before Covid that made people (me included) simply assume the project had died.

Man, the extremes of cheating to win and feel good are always amusing for an impartial outsider.

Tried a FA/Rad variant now. The good: - Gorgeous passive AoE. I was poopoo-ing at Irradiated Ground and how it wasn't -real- AoE, but to my surprise once I obtained it I would Build-up, Burn, and then work at killing a boss and the pack of enemies surrounding it would be dead under the rain of little orange numbers from Burn's aftermath, the damage aura and both Irradiated Ground patches. It was working so well I just soloed Yin, Moonfire and Citadel at +0x8. Seriously, if there is one thing I am envious is this amazing cleave. I was tempted to not even bother with Atom Smasher. - Fat heal. Even while leveling it was a significant heal back. It is common knowledge the heal is unreliable, and it's true but it's also not. Rad Melee's Build-up power (Fusion) forces Contaminated and I found it simple to Fusion, Burn, Radioactive Smash (force contaminated), Siphon (heal), Radioactive Smash (force contaminated), Siphon (heal). The bad (surprisingly not much and mostly subjective): - Ugly and slow animations overall (Radiation Siphon looks so... bad... ). 1.7, 2.3, 2.9 animation times gives me the hives. Devastating Blow in particular has no impact (IMO) that warrants 2.9 second animation and I expected Fiery Embrace to boost it more than it did. - With Irradiated at 28 anything under Yin's TF will only have Burn for AoE. I think that basically what's needed to be enjoyable is to get Cross-Punch early. It gives a third attack, gives a bit of AoE, allows to skip Devastating Blow and maybe Atom Smasher (Atom Smasher is good to burst down things though). The build:

With some frankenslotting and a Overwhelming + a FF I found I could knock 10 seconds off Hasten with Shockwave alone.

I've been trying variants of my fave and Fire/Rad has its flaws, no doubt about it which leaves Fire/Claws still ahead, but it's been behaving really nicely once I finally got access to Irradiated Ground. Rad Melee is hard to get into for me though. Slow ass -extremely- silly animations and I die a little bit inside each time I hit Devastating Blow, run to the kitchen, make a sammich and then run back in time to see it whiff. I can't make myself give it up though, because even though it is not ET it still has a pretty heavy base damage which goes trés bien ensemble with Fiery Embrace. But the cleave is unreal. BU + Burn clears whole spawns once backed with both damage auras. I'm literally ignoring the whole spawn and hitting a boss and everything may just die at the same time. It's coming to a point I'm thinking there may not be a point in picking Atom Smasher.

Check the Guides section of the forums. There is a Farm Fresh thread with all the builds and etc where the farmers congregate and share their builds and times.

Not sure why you are trying to make a secret out of your build. Everything else is spot on. An easy trick to remember is that in practical terms Judgement serves the same purpose as Barrier. You can coast through a pack of enemies by using Barrier, and the next pack use Judgement and kill most of them thus lowering their danger. As for the rest, yeah, Traps. Kinetic isn't adding much to yourself in defensive terms, Trick Arrow isn't all that great, and Storm will be the most damage but enemies will run away like idiots. Things that can be worked out IF YOU WEREN'T KEEPING YOUR BUILD A SECRET! Anyways, good luck, and yeah, kill the healing nictus first.

Even though I am on a Tanker bender I use a Scrapper to PL my new characters to level 20 before I get started with TFs. And I have to saw my Claws/Bio is still my baby. Look at that chewing through packs of enemies and them constantly on their butt with huge chunks of HP torn off. And so fluid. FU, Shockwave, Spin, repeat, repeat, repeat. Tanker Claws is nice, it's nice, buuuuut, it's not the same thanks to the extra seconds in the cooldowns.

It's why you go to some places like /enterbasefrompasscode RPCITY-1188 and suddenly it's like, holy crap, a real city. Ice cream parlors, pizza places we can enter, bowling alleys, gyms, all places we can enter.

I was looking at KM. I had good times with a Stalker KM, but it's true that AS mitigates KM's shortcomings. FA isn't a good pairing since I need to use the primary for bonuses and KM plays much better with all attacks having three or four damage procs.

Toggles, not me. The math has shown to be bad (chance of every 10 seconds).