Sovera

FIRRRRRREEEEEEEEE!

Ran a little test since it's good not to blindly trust Mids. Simply spamming Focus with or without Musculature was a 15% damage difference.

If you were to say this about a Brute I'd get it. They do more damage than a Tanker on single target, but if that's a worry then someone would roll a Scrapper or a Stalker. They are not particularly hardier than a Scrapper or a Stalker without outside buffs so if being tanky is a desire then Tanker is there too. Stalkers are a bit squishy (less so on paper but the lower max HP -is- noticeable in actual game play), and not everyone wants to be arsed with the crit mechanic (not talking of myself, but I've had a friend who literally dumped their Stalker because ugh about having to maneuver their rotations to use their strongest attack after AS). Their AoE is also factually worse (rare be the Claws on a Stalker compared to any other AT). Tankers near catch up with the outliers of double Rage and Titan Weapons to the point of near catching up to Scrappers (my non double Rage or TW Tanker still takes twice as long to break a pylon as my best Scrapper) but there are expectations from a Tanker. As someone who recently moved to the Tanker side I can say I miss helping to speed through TFs by chasing clickies or bosses, but of course that as a Tanker I am not abandoning the team to fend for themselves. Scrappers don't give an arse. They work great out of the box, have no mechanics to bother about, and their damage is gorgeous. More importantly there are few expectations other than to go and do damage.

That argument appears similar to one I had a few months back. I pointed how Claws does an AoE rotation of FU, Spin, Shockwave, and was told they did not care about 'boring' three button rotations. I accept you can choose to play as you wish to do it, but in most any character the rotation is down to: - Extra hard hitting skill we wish to hit on CD (Assassin's Strike for example) -> fillers until that hard hitting skill has recharged. Any more attacks are not needed, any fewer and there will be thumb twiddling waiting for the skills to finish recharging. Choosing to use more skills other than that is your prerogative, but we can say this of any other game. Even WoW with its reduced button usage (reviled by others, but appreciated by me who played it in the heyday of four skillsbars) also has a number of slows and stuns and etc. But the basic rotation does not involve them. There will be something like seven buttons total for a priority system where CoH works on the old system of rotation.

How is a 45% damage increase useless? Unless you're from the school of thought that a Tanker should be low damage.

Anytime I hear about Cardiac (or worse, Agility), I just go mah hart, mah sole. The loss of Musculature 45% cannot be recouped where Recovery can between near gratis Serums and IOs and bonuses.

I was doing arcs with a friend last night and thinking how Incarnates really mess with everything. Fire Armor is damage on wheels but 'squishy', and it has a psi hole. We were doing an arc against psi users and she was ow ow ow, psi hole, these hurt! I went and I went ow, yeah, they do. Then I clicked Barrier and alright, now they don't.

Switch to your alternate build and nab it.

I understand what you guys are saying (though it's not as bad as it looks once you actually play it instead of reading about it), but compared to CoH it does add a layer of making things interesting. CoH is 1, 2 ,3 ,4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. We could almost macro or autokey it and not pay any more attention to combat.

Check my signature for a guide to help since you're new. Don't fuss too much about what sort of character you're making since leveling is easy and so is gearing. You're going to be making dozens and dozens of alts to try all the things.

Superman (and Flash) are one the biggest victims of X of plot. In one comic they move so fast everything is frozen, and they make plans, argue things, get in position, etc, while in those super speeds. In another comic someone punches him and he can't duck. To me anything that can move and talk and do stuff while everything is frozen is not someone who can be caught unprepared. In one comic supes breaks chains meant to tow stars from one place to another, in another comic (any, all of them) he is unable to punch some enemies down. In one comic he is strong enough to move the earth (with the help of GL providing an harness), in another it takes all the heavy hitters working together to move the moon. Readers tend to be super attached to power levels and writers just want to write an epic story that is entertaining to read.

I've mentioned how I swapped Taunt for Assault. I'd love Taunt if it actually worked and mobs would get mad at me like in other games. But here I use it and the mob goes to attack NPCs or keeps on attacking other team members. If it only works on regular enemies then there is not point to it IMO, except in niche cases a la tanking Hami. Regular enemies are not particularly dangerous in a level 50 world where Barriers are tossed around willy nilly. In fact, my first experience with the 801 AE missions was almost disappointing since we were several with Barrier and we spammed it. We went around with 70-100% defense all the time as anyone can imagine not even squishies are squishies with those sort of numbers floating around.

My Bio Scrappers are touch and go on the last boss of the ITF. The auto-hit takes a chunk of HP from my measly 30% E/N resists. I'll use Ablative, the next auto-hit shaves it off. I'll use DNA Siphon to heal, the next auto-hit takes a chunk off. Then it's a game of sparingly using greens until those two clickies get off CD. Usually there is always someone with a heal who can offset this, be it Time or Rad or a Kin, but it can be touch and go if they get downed or are distracted by the ambushes. Or I just go with my tank and 90% resists and AFK taking both the boss and the auto-hit fluffy and not even notice. I'm starting to think I ought to change Barrier for the version of it with DDR. The plan I usually make is to use Barrier on CD so that the last 5% top my defense 100% of the time. In actual game practice I run around with 40% defense and never bother using it except when I see team mates losing HP or I know an ambush is coming. What I usually use it is to combat my defense being debuffed by adding a ton of it as a buffer. If that's the case I could just use the DDR version since that is its purpose anyway.

I have also found that a friend I had bullied into trying the build had skimmed past the jump pack interaction with Hover and the reason why I took Fly so late. So to make it clearer: Hover Hover + one of jump packs Fly + Afterburner Fly + Afterburner + one of the jump packs Information obtained from Booper's guide.

I've ran some tests on Degenerative VS a pylon and I'll post them so others can make use of them: - Reactive 75% chance of DoT: Pretty much same times as Degenerative VS a pylon or slightly better during the testing. In theory the Degenerative ought to have been better but don't ask me the math why Reactive caught up so handily. Maybe the fast Claw attacks plus damage aura plus Burn and its pseudo pet plus ticks from Burn synergized well with the chance to inflict a DoT? I will be using this for non pylon play since the DoT and the -res would be more useful on lower HP mobs. My reasoning is that I spend 1% of my time hitting AVs and pylons and while the -res is mostly negated on AVs due to debuff resistance since it's a popular Interface choice someone will be using it anyway. When that happens us using it won't matter since it does not stack between multiple players. At that point the 75% chance for a DoT will do more. I.E. Three players have Degenerative. All three hit the AV. The stacks immediately reach maximum and now the only thing we extract from the Interface is the 25% Minor toxic DoT. Now lets say three players have Reactive. Same scenario in that the stacks build to maximum straight away and stay there. But now we have 75% chance of a Moderate DoT. ... all in all I do so long for a nice clean DPS meter like WoW has since I could check how much % of the total damage the DoT actually does. It's important to notice that on AVs there will be more bang for the buck with Degenerative. The -HP mechanic has no resists anywhere. Anyone hit with it will get a -% of their maximum HP shaved off, which in turn means less regeneration ticks since regeneration is based on maximum HP. On the other hand -resists IS resisted by AV AS WELL as having a portion negated the higher up in level difference we are. Since an AV will be +3 on top of the resist debuff it makes the -res aspect of the Interface near useless. - Pre-emptive 75% chance of DoT: simply to test the DoT. Tested against normal mobs and none were in the slightest bothered by the -endurance and -recovery 😄 A good 30 seconds past Degenerative by the time I stopped since the pylon was still up. - Degenerative 75% chance for DoT: Near exact same times as Degenerative 25% chance for DoT. The extra Dot damage seems to have washed out the lesser upkeep of the -HP debuff. While I was at this I tested the Hybrid toggles. - Assault Core Embodiment VS Assault Radial Embodiment: +damage chance on each attack VS double hit chance. While it is long forum knowledge that the +damage is better for solo/non-kin-in-the-party and double hit is better when-a-kin-in-the-party in this particular case and for single target damage it was a wash. Same pylon defeat numbers either way. What small difference there was can be chalked to RNG. But when doing AoE each enemy hit has a chance to apply the stacks of +damage and it wins out because of that.

You're thinking of something else. WoW works on a 1.5 global cooldown system which means whatever we do (with some very minor exceptions that have been further removed 'recently') there will be a 1.5 second delay afterwards where we cannot use another skill. No animation lock whatsoever though so we can move whenever. But, caster classes have (on top of the 1.5 GCD) also casting times where if we move the casting is interrupted and the spell won't go off. These casts tend to be on the 1 second to 1.5 to 2 seconds depending on what class and spell. Some (minor) exceptions to this were big cooldowns with 1 or 2 or 3 minutes cooldown that lasted for 10-15 seconds. Because of the 1.5 GCD eating into the 10-15 seconds they used to be off-GCD (not activating the 1.5 delay), but more 'recently' (AKA last year year, which is recent compared to WoW's age) the devs decided we had it too good and added them back to the GCD. Considering these big cooldowns tend to be stacked together it means wasted time. Suddenly the 10-15 seconds of buff time have 3 seconds eaten just waiting so we can attack. Universally reviled decision but papa dev knows best. Combat has been turned a lot into a game of procs. For example mages have a biiiig damage spell that takes 3 seconds to cast. That is way too long to hold still and casting two spells in the meanwhile will be better damage. But, by casting their basic filler spell they get some 20% (random numbers, don't quote me) chance of turning that big damage 3 second spell an instant cast. Being a 'good' player is a lot about being able to recognize when these procs go off and use them the moment that they do. Or keep them in case the fight requires movement (since mages cannot move and cast at the same time other than one spell that has a cooldown) so that when do have to move they can use that proc they had been saving. For example. I play Hunters a lot since I loathe the you-can't-move-and-shoot system and Hunters can avoid it with the right spec. Combat for me would be. Start by casting a DoT. This DoT stacks three times, and we have three charges, but it expires faster than the DoT skill recharges. But we get a free charge with a proc when we autoattack. So the way to play is to cast the DoT, immediately use another skill that makes the pet dash to the enemy and do damage. Start using other skills. Keep an eye on the DoT. It expires in 10 seconds, so at around 9 seconds use the second charge. Now the DoT skill does a lot of damage when it's at three stacks since it increases the attack speed of the pet, so you really want it at three stacks, and super important, you don't want to be caught with your pants down and let the three stacks drop off. This means being very accurate at firing the skill at 9 seconds. Not sooner, because you might get a draught of procs and the stacks will drop, but not after 9 seconds since it expires at 10 seconds. Another skill recharges in 15 seconds. It's important to fire it the second it goes off recharge. Any seconds elapsing while not using it means less uses of the skill. BUT! Don't use it if the GCD will prevent you from using the DoT at 9 seconds! The big damage attack recharges in 6 seconds. Again, religiously hit as soon as recharged, but, again, juggle not losing three DoT stacks. Wasting one second here, one second there, means at the end of the fight we fired the big skill as much as 5 or 10 less than the person who used it the moment it went off cooldown. To make things more interesting yet another skill will also have a chance to instantly recharge, and each time used will shave 1 second off the big attack skill, so in order to use -more- of the big attack you want to use the instant recharge procs of the other attack to shave 1 second off, which means not letting the procs accumulate. If we did not use the proc and we get another proc they do not stack, it's wasted, so it needs to be fired off immediately! BUT DON'T LET THE THREE STACKS DROP! 😄 AoE adds another layer. The basic AoE skill of the Beastmaster is almost useless. It does about auto-shot damage. BUT. At level 50 it gets an upgrade where when used the pet will start doing cleave damage and that is where the AoE comes from. The cleaving lasts four seconds. So we don't want to spam the Hunter's AoE skill (since it does crap damage and it's a waste to even press the button on less than 7 targets) but we don't want the pet to stop AoEing. So every four seconds the Hunter uses it -once- to activate the pet's cleaving. While, of course, keeping all the above happening in terms of DoT stacks, using procs to not let them go to waste, etc. It sounds super confusing and complicated but we can configure addons to put all the information on the screen. A reason I disliked trying to use Psi Melee mechanic of Insight is the lack of this. There is a tiny icon ticking, no numbers, we need to memorize when it started, how many seconds passed. And for very little reward (ignoring the Insight mechanic turns out to be the same damage as using it). I rather like WoW combat. No 20 buttons to keep track of and being 'good' is being capable of moving out of telegraphed attacks, but still able to keep track of things like different procs, use them, don't waste them, keep track of DoTs, don't let them drop, use personal defenses and self heals to survive, etc. In a raid the normal way of it going is people starting to die. They messed up, they were looking at their cooldowns (or at the chat, or at Nerflix) and did not see the boss mechanic spawn under them. So to me it was a point of pride to survive until the end at the point where the raid leader goes 'okay, too many people died, we won't be able to clear. Throw yourself at the boss and die so we can start over' and I'm still up and alive, and most likely in the top three in the damage out of 20 persons (around 12-13 being damage dealers). This is, of course, all min maxed raid stuff. Normal play needs nearly nothing of this as it happens so fast there is no need to worry about stacks and keeping them up.

Superman has been hinted at his power being psychic a few times now. Further more in the way he has a tiny surface area, but can lift a whole boat complete with passengers and it does not crumple in half when all its weight is centered in a tiny hand sized surface. Super-boy and his tactile TK plays into that. Supes even mentions how flying makes things less heavy to carry. Just like his invulnerability is not merely dense muscle but a result from a 'bio-electric field'. Things have been moved and retconned a few (several) times over the years so I don't know if they kept this or just swept it under the rug. Edit: Seems not https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Superman_(Clark_Kent)

Radiation Therapy at level 16 will be your heal -and- your endurance recovery all the way to level 200. And on a super short timer.

There is a bit of that though, yeah, but, it's like in Path of Exile. People -can- build for maximum tanking, huge HP pool, multiple defensive layers.. and than have 50% of that not be needed (or worse, actually making fights -worse- since they now last for longer). Or they will build enough defenses to survive content and then the rest of the budget is allocated towards damage. Arguing that one Tanker powerset survives 95% of the content and the other 99% is a bit eh. I'll keep on puttering along on Fire Armor. Once in a while I die and the rest of the time I'm burning holes through content. And that is fair. Just like in PoE I could build for maximum unkillability but I prefer going the 50% route.

One thing I really dislike in this sort of threads is the 'gut feelings' and the opinions-stated-as-gospel when they devolve into back and forth into I said you said. Guys, testing. Pop up a +4x8 radio mission or three and go face whatever 'hard' faction out there (not council obvs) and come tell us what you got. Me, I predict we'll get told both sets do just fine against everything. Have we not yet argued that the game is so easy we can do pretty much do anything once IOs and incarnates are in? Heck, even the squishy Fire Armor goes through the ITF as +4x8 and solos it with zero deaths.

In several comics they use mirrors to amplify how much sun he gets, so being hit by sunlight from different angles to increase exposure does seem related to how much surface he exposes. And it's multiple times canon that if he gets closer to the sun he gets a big power-up (considering his speeds it's a small wonder he does not go take a sip of power-up juice when ever needed instead of it being a semi plot device) so proximity allows him to sip from his power source more so than he receives 'far' away on earth and under an atmosphere. I now leave you nerds to talk it out 😄

Enemies buffed and no Lore. You're a masochist. Lay it on us, does the sight of leather and chains excite you? We won't judge if you say yes.

What a slog, good god 😄 It was my first time so things to remember for a next time: kill the damn healing nictus first 😛 That's about it. I'm sure the last AV must have taken me over 20 minutes since I used my lore pets three times and I was just whittling it down. - Used my lores (Banished Pantheon) on AVs and on that ambush on the top of the hill. First time I tried I died there with only a handful left on a sliver but no more insps and not having used the lore pets after inadvertently spawning it, so instead of saying 'let me try again and be more careful not to trigger the ambush' I was OH YEAH?! COME AT ME! and spawned it on purpose the second time to then lay mayhem on the sea of space squid. On the last AV the lore pets were mostly useless since they did not hit my target and wasted their time hitting the nictus. - Did not use envenomed blades. - Used inspirations here and there, mostly greens, did not bother replenishing via vendor/AH. - AVs did not hurt. Tanked both AVs after the computer and they did not even dip my HP. Tanked the last AV with all his nictus and not even the auto hit made me use my heal. - Cheated on the crystals by leaving them all on a sliver and then breaking them all at the same time. I just did not want to deal with the minotaurs and their T9. The ambush themselves would not have been a problem since I was in the habit of picking two packs of romans at a time to speed things up so I doubt the ambush would have done more. - As I remembered the crystal packs were not a problem. - No Shockwave. I know, I know, it's a sacrilege not to have Shockwave considering how useful it is, buuuut.... a +4x8 master of shows it not -necessary-. I needed the slots and with Burn I noticed I wasn't using Shockwave much. If I'm not using something I discard it from the build. Took Assault instead. Compared to your feats of doing it on a Scrapper and no inspirations (I had to guzzle a few) this isn't much, but, now I can say I too have soloed an ITF on +4x8. Not sure if 2 hours is slow or what, but I could do better next time.

I haven't soloed the ITF at +4 due to my lack of interest in slogging through stuff so I have nothing to compare. In a group everything dies too fast to be a problem so my Fire Armor is at that 'tough enough' for the content I've done. That said it has a few holes that I've noticed: - Did an AE arc where enemies did Terrorize and I spent way too long cowering and unable to move once my emergency breakfrees were used. - Carnies can kill me if I'm not careful. HP dips fast if I fight them. - Endurance sapping is always a problem. Even a Yin can find me sucked dry if I am not juggling Super Stunner deaths to happen far enough. Sappers are ridiculously effective. - Lack of DDR -can- force me to kite. An ITF or the above mentioned arc has me run around since even with 90% resists if I am at -30% or -50% I take damage at huge speeds. It's a curious phenomenon where the 90% seemingly stops doing anything. But, as others pointed, the debuffs are short lived, so I just hover out of range until my defense returns to normal. I find this normal strategy and nothing to recoil from. So with all those little problems why am I sticking with Fire Armor? Because all those little problems vanish if we kill fast enough which I definitely do. Terrorize? A definite problem, but after I managed to uncover which one did it in the AE arc I started focusing them first. Carnies do a lot a damage? Certainly, but FU + Burn + Spin kills most minions in range. ITF and my lack of DDR? The only moment this happens and I may (not always) take a breaker is during the climb where we suffer a dozen ambushes and are at agro saturation cap for a few minutes while on our way to break the computer. Sappers? Locate and kill first like everyone has to do. Even Bill's complaint about the kheldian's is something I do not notice (undoubtedly because I'm all IOed at 45% defense (with barrier but I rarely bother using it on CD. It's more of a pnic button) and 60% slow resist) and T4-ed out where his is a fresh 50). I can jump into each crystal pack and solo it since they do debuff but not fast enough. The kheldian ambush at the top of the hill can be a party killer but that's where using Barrier at the last second is an outcome changer. Now my Bio scrappers can tank most of the game but they crumble in an ITF. A few hits and their defenses are down. The kheldians can murder them since the energy resists might be at 20-30% tops and with defenses stripped that's not enough to survive on.

As someone with a Fire Armor new fad I just have to say, why go for anything else?