Sovera

Everything is definitely looking nice and neat. We follow different paths but that's fine too. I still feel a Tanker's damage is still a bit too anemic and thus would never pass on slotting Musculature and damage procs. At most the 33% version so it buffs endurance a bit more. In the same vein I would not pass on my Build-Up power. Taking Ageless would fix any endurance woes you'd have and allow you to drop out of Conserve Power and Physical Perfection and instead pick extra AoE (which may or may not be useful) or Barrier for another 5% defense and 5% resistance (further allowing moving around the slotting). I would personally not worry about DDR. Your defense is a secondary layer and you are primarily a resist based character with a potent heal. If you haven't you could take a look at the Rad Armor/MA build I posted somewhere below these forums. The only thing I did not pick compared to yours is Tactics which is of dubious use at 50. I had to twist a bit more to reach 45% defense since I did not have Cloak of Darkness to help things, but managed to squeeze in a damage proc for most attacks, picked Musculature, traded Tactics for Focus Chi, picked two extra AoEs and still got my 45% and 90% goals (except psi and cold). We don't *need* to follow the trope of Tankers being sturdy low damage dealers. That said these are personal opinions. Your build as is will eat all content, kudos 👍

Remember to pick the unofficial update to HD over the Tools section of the forum as it fixes the +resistances from the alpha.

You have everything in place though you could probably refine the slotting a bit more to save some slots here and there. Dark Regen is so powerful it is almost not mandatory to search for capped resists, but, things you can try to consider in the further refining of the build: - Remember than you can boost IOs (right click as if to choose a new OP, then press + five times). Hasten went from 143 seconds to 138. Same applies to the end mod in Stamina, Conserve Power, Assault, etc. - Dragon Tail can be taken at level 20. Don't level to 35 without it <_< It is also a *marvelous* place to stick a Force Feedback (much like Crane Kick) proc since hasten at 138 seconds is a bit slow. The Gladiator -res can go into Death Shroud and Crippling Axe Kick can take the Achilles -res (despite HD not allowing to slot it). - The Theft Essence proc pretty much negates Dark Regen's endurance which is the real big hog of the build. It almost turns Dark Regen into an endurance recovery tool which is nutty, but try it. - If you manage to, er, manage, your endurance you can move away from Ageless. I bring this up because having another build wide 5% resistance to all changes slotting a lot which brings me to my next point... - ...which is you have too much in the way of resistances. You're 15% overcapped in S/L with just one stack of the Tanker's Might proc. It stacks twice more for another near 15%, so you might be overcapped as much as 30%. Putting the proc in a toggle is not the best choice due to procs-per-minute. It will go a lot better in a single target attack you are bound to spam. My own choice where to put it is Storm kick since we will be spamming it for the +defense. This is part of the build refining I mentioned. If you trim all you can to absorb the slots giving you excess resistances (for example Tough can do with just its single native slot, and the Reactive Defenses in Weave giving 1.5% S/L) you can spread them over your other powers. This also applies to Fire/Cold (but not much to be done there) but not to Energy/Negative and Toxic/Psi. The reason it does not matter for those is that they are tied together and one is severely buffed by Dark Armor but not the other which forces severe overcapping in one so the other can be capped. This is normal and nothing to be done about, and Energy being very prevalent in end-game I'd say to keep on pushing even at the cost of Negative being crazy overcapped. Same reasoning with Psi/Toxic. To be perfectly honest Dark Regen is so powerful you can skip the previous advice. If you do intend to follow it consider that activating any power where you put Tanker's Might will give the build near 7% resistances to all. The safe thing is to consider that two stacks are easy to maintain. That means activating the power it is in (in this case Death Shroud) and aiming to have 83% resistances instead of 90% will have the second stack push the resistances to 90% by itself.

Yes, I've seen this advice so many times and I don't understand it. Perhaps under level 20 I'd use something that has no slots but even then.

Irradiated Ground wants to be 6 slotted with damage procs and the two different -resistance procs. Ignore acc, damage and etc. I can't answer your question without seeing your slotting. Can you screenshot Particle Shielding?

Maybe, but I don't think so. Siphon Life does not do leech, it heals for a fixed amount each time so damage boosts should not have interfered with the heal values of Siphon Life, but tbh i have no clue, for all I know perhaps it did.

A Rad Armor version of this build. It is in all ways a superior version: - Two heals instead of one with Radiation Therapy super fast recharge doubling as an endurance clicky. - Particle Shielding doubling as an absorption shield. - Passive recovery with Gamma Boost to not be gasping for Power Sink to finish recharging. - Much improved recharge with Beta Decay that further adds -5% ToHit. Still keeps: - 45% to Melee/Ranged/AoE (with Barrier's 5%). - 90% to all (with Barrier's 5% and two stacks of the Tanker's ATO) with the exception of Psi that sits at around ish 64% and Cold at 69% once having Barrier's 5% and three stacks of the Tanker ATO that HD is not showing. - Electrifying Fences and Ball Lightning for PvE. - Two Force Feedback procs to further accelerate the build. - 105% recharge/slow debuff resistance. Current numbers with one stack of the ATO.

Pretty much zero once you get to 26 and obtain Power sink.

Siphon Life from the Tankers is showing wrong numbers. I did not test the Scrapper or Stalker versions. In game at level 50 on a clean build an unenhanced Siphon Life heals for 187 HP or 10% HP. HD shows Siphon Life healing for 377, or 17%, with a clean build. In game with three generic heal IOs Siphon Life heals for 373 HP. HD shows Siphon Life with three generic level 50 heals as healing for 652HP, or 34%.

Probably because you're not at max level? Let me go check. Edit: I went to take a look and you're right. At level 50 on a clean build an unenhanced Siphon Life heals for 187 HP or 10% HP. HD shows Siphon Life healing for 377, or 17%, with a clean build. With three generic heal IOs it heals for 20% on the basic level 50 HP of 1877. With a full build and accolades the HP goes to 2662 which makes the static HP value of Siphon Life go down to a 14% heal. Even though the numbers are no longer as impressive (in particular since I had 76% heal stats instead of 99%, which makes the heal 328HP, or 12% of 2662HP) I still advocate frankenslotting from the basic 7% heal SL has (once all IOed and accoladed out). Thanks for the heads-up, Seig, and I'll go make a note over HD's thread.

I'll be honest that if I am on a Scrapper and leveling I don't need a tank to baby sit me. I'll gladly take one, but I don't need it. But I'm all meta-ed out leveling with ATOs and throwing set IOs in as soon as they become available, nearly every melee attack will have a Kinetic Melee set, and of course the two +3% unique IOS will be slotted, and then to top it I abuse the base macro and replenish my inspirations between missions. So of *course* I don't particularly *need* a tank when I'll just eat one insp and run into a group with my agro aura nabbing enemies for the team's comfort. But this is not the common experience for the average player and 90% of the time we gleefuly accept a tank that will bundle up the enemies and stop them from go wandering off across the map to return later and shoot us on the back. You describe why I am not personally interested in Brutes. When people sing the praises of Brutes for being 'nearly as resilient as a Tanker' they forget to add the little asterisk and footnote 'If they have support'. IF they have support, sure. Someone throwing shields on them, yeah. But if there isn't support then Brutes are slightly less damaging Scrappers with the same defense. Take the exact same slotting of a Scrapper and put it on a Brute and both will have the exact same numbers. Take the same slotting from a Brute and place it on a Tanker and the Tanker gets substantial defense and resistances increases (and lets not even go into the ATOs that buff damage on Scrappers and give 20%-ish more resistances to Tankers while they get... 10% regen and endurance discount? Fury bonus? k.). That means a properly build Tanker will always be ready to go even if there is no thermal/sonic/ice shields on them while a Brute will go at it with their Scrapper defenses. Where Brutes shine is for niche content such as farming. Then they can devote their build to reaching 90% to fire resist and softcap fire defense. But a tanker can even reach 45% to melee/ranged/AoE on top of 90% resists, on top of nearly as much damage. Not as good, sure, but they are there to actually tanking and take hits (though never should a Tanker go in a and brag how they don't care about damage and their role is just to tank for the team. They can do both, and they should do both).

Yes. It goes from healing 328 HP to 577 HP. That means it goes 14.7% to 21.8% (I forgot to add accolades). AKA one Life Siphon nearly heals for 1/4th of my green bar every 5 seconds (3 seconds recharge + 2 seconds animation time). Wrong, read the post below. 17%, not 5%. Unlike Redlynne I prefer to frankenslot for damage. I lose the set bonuses, but get and that's with one damage proc in the power. I'd like to lower the recharge further and do Siphon Life, Smite, Shadow Punch instead of Siphon Life, Shadow Punch, Smite, Shadow Punch, but even with SL at 95% recharge I'd still get around a 0.5 gap, which is fine, I guess, once someone in the party throws Speed Boost, or the new mini SB in Elec Affinity, or AM, or whatever. It's difficult to fit everything AND a damage proc with just six slots though, so I prefer throwing an extra Shadow Punch since DM's fun for me is being a punchy puncher buzzsaw. In fact, with the Rad Armor primary being so good for survival it would be very satisfying to throw out Siphon Life and just go ham on Gloom, Shadow Punch, Smite, Shadow Punch, all fast like 1.3, 1.0, 1.2, 1.0. For exemping purposes Siphon life would need to be kept, I guess.

Rolled a winning combo that pulverizes in solo mode and is fawned and fed peeled grapes by teams if joining one?

After much tinkering I was unable to color the swirly glowballs. 'Bright Radiation' makes the saturation super light so coloring them blue is impossible as they stay white. I can make them purple ish, green-ish, but not blue. 'Dark Radiation' is just saturation turned way up and 90% of the colors are simply black. This is a repeat over many of the sets that have a 'Dark' option. Not quite on the subject but players are also mostly cut off from black FX. Most of the time choosing the darkest color will not make a darkest color but an invisible effect. This is good for the minimal effect crowd and I welcome it, but it blocks having a dark aura. Also many of the auras act like smoke which is weird since nothing in the name or the FX seems to imply it is smoke, but things like the Pantheon aura will fill a camera with kludge as we fly and force constant little shifts to have a clue where the heck we are aiming our flight.

It's a good combo to be stupidly sturdy. I've rolled it on my Stalker and it has been fun to see it overcome huge odds.

The link in my signature has that topic and others for newbies to delve into.

Willpower is good, don't get me wrong, especially for a new player that is just starting and will be cruising without touching their difficulty slider and can rely on inspirations, but I don't particularly see Bio as click intensive? One heal in Ablative IF a situation calls for it. DNA Siphon at 28 IF a second heal is needed or to replenish endurance after a fight. That's it. Two clicks is not particularly onerous with DNA Siphon usually used after the fight has ended to get a bunch of Recovery. Played without touching the slider both should be about as intensive with Bio getting the large damage boost (25%, sure, but also the -7.5% resists on top of that) that makes fights end faster. WP is not a bad choice though, just perhaps a bit squishy. Between WP and Rad Armor I'd lean towards Rad Armor. Two clicks as well but its pretty darn durable. Savagery is good, it just sins for using DoTs. CoH is a fast paced game where DoTs don't get the needed time to play it out. When you're fighting a boss the DoTs stack and it melts, but things with low HP the DoTs don't really get the time to shine. Now the thing is that the DoTs are not free damage, the damage is calculated to include them. But it's not a bad set, the animations are beautiful and fluid and it does AoE very well. You will want to ignore using Hemorrhage since it is not very good for Scrappers. Use the Maiming Slash, Savage Strike and Vicious Slash should be your attack chain for single target.

I'm going to say the best starter build that has everything is a Claws/Bio. Fast attack animations with a complete attack chain by level 18 and exceptional AoE by level 32. The second choice I'd offer would be a Katana/Bio with Divine Avalanche adding a large layer of defense on top of Bio's sturdiness. Both have fast animations with cheap-ish endurance costs. Katana has big hitters that Claws lacks, but is not nearly the early starter with part of the attack chain coming at 26 and then 32. The AoE is decently good but not as much as Claws (IMO). There are may other choices but since you asked for an easy start I'd say those two.

You've put it to words better than I did. It's perhaps a bit of a subtle stance that will be disagreed with once the nerfs hit because POWAH is always welcome. I only recently branched out from Bio Armor for the same reason. We're talking easily 8-9 months of playing CoH and Bio was the only secondary I used for more than experimenting. It's just too solid, it lacks the holes of Fire Armor, it gives endurance back, it has solid defense numbers, it has the two heals with one of them a shield. And to top it the 25% damage boost ON TOP of 7.5% -res. Even now with my new baby being Rad Armor I still go through, 'But, if I played Bio I'd have the damage boost too...'. Only things like the ITF slow my Bio characters and things like Katana allow to mostly ignore even that hole

I've moved on, because what do I do if not move on to the next alt, but I'd rank Katana as high as Claws after playing it, which is high praise for me. Claws exemps better thanks to having a full attack chain by 18 (and that AoE, God...) but Katana has the hard hitters that Claws lacks as well as having the same spiffy fast animations, and then on top of it what makes the set pull ahead of Claws is Divine Avalanche. In one fell swoop with no investment a resistance based secondary suddenly has softcapped melee and this is huuuuuge for survival, and so low level we have this softcapped ish melee by Positron 1. Katana and Bio are a very happy marriage. I mean, I'm preaching to the choir here, Werner 😄

TW is the one set I've not yet touched. Not because I am honorbond not to play OP sets but because I can't muster the interest for a character that will only be good at 50 and will never be able to exemplar decently. A friend who tried TW and was singing its praises suffered from the same condition many of us did when we first played games and got introduced to the magic of cheat codes. Once we are invulnerable and having infinite bullets and can walk through walls the game life is lessened, not extended. With all the sets being bow and arrows TW ends being an AK-47 that is the best at ST, the best at AoE, the best at burst and the best at sustain. Seriously, this is not healthy. But, attempts at nerfing will have an OCEAN of tears in these forums. No AK-47 user will want to be downgraded to a bow and arrow.

I explained my reasoning in the post you quoted that from (not being snarky). In the same post I mentioned how Avalanche is less damage than GC. It's just a personal choice, I am not advocating others to do it. I just feel Divine Avalanche is a strength of the set and not using it would be a waste. On top of using it allows leeway in my slotting with the defense boost. My real damage comes from GD and SD anyway. Divine Avalanche/Gambler's Cut is just a filler waiting for those two to come back.

Hasten up.

The question might be how you are at the inf cap on all your 50s (how ever many that may be) and *still* be AFK farming *and* marketing, *and* complaining about the bug fix in regards of examplaring. Is this a Cookie Clicker numbers-go-up thing? As someone who has all the characters they care decked to the max and has not done farming, and has barely stayed at level 50 for more than a few days, I don't fathom what the money is even for.

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