Sovera

If you consider Stalkers you can help fix the ST problem that Staff has both in the form of a strong ST attack which the set lacks as well as having a traditional Build-up power instead of shifting staff forms. Survival is not a problem for Stalkers since pretty much all melee ATs can solo +4x8, Tankers are just the peak survival and can do so at an earlier level. The only true loss from shifting from Tanker to Stalker is that agro loss. Mobs will run away from a Stalker which does not happen with a Tanker. I'm not big on Staff since I couldn't find a decent way to cover the ST aspect. The ranged attack is slow and does not hit particularly hard and the T9 is glacial, so even with Assassin's Strike help there would still be a need to fill up the attack chain. Probably the ranged attack, a T2, and Guarded Spin? I might suggest Stone Armor (but I'm biased) as a strong contender since it is mostly passive, provides recharge, a damage boost, more recovery. Stalkers lose the damage/agro aura for Hide but Brimstone still adds damage. Even for the Tanker I'd still suggest the same. Pity we don't have an elemental staff like the sword composed of flames because a rocky staff would fit in when we cover ourselves in rock/crystal (can be disguised as ice)/lava.

We would first need to define what 'bad' is. Is bad the inability to solo +4x8? Or is bad soloing a Trapdoor in 10 minutes (best times are around 3-4 minutes and my tanks usually did it in 6)? I just found that there were better combos so my Fire/Staff characters rarely got past level 30. The AoE was nothing special and the ST was slow. But Fire Armor can solo +4x8 and with Envenomed Daggers we can solo an AV if it comes down to it. It's true that you will need them for any AV, but, because they exist it also means you can have your cake and eat it too. No need to not play a concept you like because you're worried it would brick a run when/if facing an AV.

You can buy respec recipes off the auction house. You can also do three taskforces where each grants one respec. But buying a recipe is the easiest method. If you're out of money check my signature.

There's no point in saying 'farmers bad'. The players themselves are bad to themselves. I finally coaxed a friend to play the game and they loved it. We went around, they did a few alts, we'd duo stuff. All good fun. Then they discovered farming and the split second that they did they no longer wanted to play with me and would just sit in the farming simulator to get fat XP and money. Then they made a second account to farm for their other characters. Now they no longer play.

Played both. I'll preface by saying that if you've liked the sets on other ATs then there is nothing controversial that happens if playing them on a Tanker. If the fun factor is important then play them as anything works in the end, mobs will be arrested, XP will be accrued, levels will be got, etc. That said Savage Melee needs a tune up as it's strongest attack actually is not worth using leaving it to use the T1, T2, and T5. These works very well for a snappy attack rotation, beautiful animations, very bestial. But using T1 and T2 in the rotation means the damage will never be great. The fact it uses DoTs also means the upfront damage is lower and relies on that DoT which slows the feel of combat. Against so much as a boss it feels great to start smacking it and see the HP melt as the DoTs stack. But anything lower than and it feels a lot like flailing with no effect. There are some niggles like its Build-up being slower to animate and how it's best not to remove the Blood stacks since they give more benefit which runs counter to the theme, but nothing much to be done until the devs give it a pass. Unfortunately the only pass they gave it so far was 'fixing' Hemorrhage for Stalkers, the only AT that used Hemo, which made it so Stalkers too stopped using Hemo 🙂 Brutes are the best AT, IMO, for this set with Fury boosting the DoTs. Was good fun to play a Savage/Stone and see the stream of small numbers from SM's DoTs, Brimstone DoTs, Mudpot DoTs, and then Degenerative DoTs as well. Psi Melee is another that needs a tune up. Is a set unpopular? Then the common pattern is that it needs a tune up. The damage is not amazing, and while in the beginning players thought it was good damage (partly because Mids was bugged and showed the set doing more damage than it actually did) thanks to Insight the truth is that there is not free lunch. Yes, Insight added damage. No, it was not free damage as the set's damage was balanced with Insight's damage. To perfectly use the set a player will run their rotation ,then when Insight pops up they stop using Greater Psi Sword in order to not use up Insight and have that extra damage up until the very last second when they do use GPS for the big damage boost that consumes Insight. I don't need to tell you how unprepared CoH is for this gameplay. There is no easy way to check the remaining time of Insight and who the heck wants to stop using their big damage skill when most of the time it is needed for a gapless rotation? That Insight ending forces a 15 second lock-out should be enough without GPS forcing that lockout to happen sooner. Other than that it's just the usual niggles. Slow and weak AoE all the way to level 30 is terrible for leveling though Mass Levitate does wonders for added survivability once at 30. Sadly by 30 is when the robots start appearing who are resistant to psi. Tanker is a very good pair for someone who likes Psi as it provides a much needed extra AoE at level 18 with Burn and both Burn and Fiery Embrace help soften up psi resistant mobs while Mass Levitate helps the survival of Fire Armor. Mass Levitate also slots Force Feedback to speed up the build. Brutes used to only have Burn at 28 which was dire but now that it's at 24 it can be palatable to level with a Brute instead.

Complete endgame build maxed out, incarnated, purpled out, etc etc. All the powers are picked at the right place for maximum exemplaring (and some sets I just don't play because they don't exemplar well even though I haven't played 'seriously' in a long time which means I no longer exemplar either). At most the difference will be that Hasten/Build-up will have a third slot and in extreme cases I will use and slot a T1 until my next actual attack at-level-18-or-22 is available as I much prefer having attacks and not wait on cooldowns to cooldown. Then I respec out of the T1 and put the slots it had on that attack. But by now I have all the twink gear ready. The prestige IOs from the START vendor from level 1 to 10, Panaceia and Shield Wall 5% resistance at level 7, put in normal ATOs at level 10 and the prestige IOs go into AoEs (I say in AoEs because i usually slot Obliterations which only open at 27 and that's a way to go). At 22 I slot generic IOs on whatever I need (usually Hasten/Build-up powers). I will replace the purples like Hectacombs or Ragnoroks with Touch of Deaths/Obliterations/Decimation while leveling and swap them out when I do my level 50 respect that scrounges one slot off Hasten/Build-up Only recently have I started to slot SOs while under level 22 and while I wouldn't call it a game changer it seems worth it to have Hasten with a fat chunk of recharge by level 10-14 right when we need it the most. The upgrade option saves time to go find a vendor and replace as they turn red and having the vendor in a base means they are easy to pick instead of running around the city trying to figure out where the correct Origin shop is. They might be a touch too expensive for a new player but for anyone who has played the game even for just a few months it's a pittance. Between five respecs being free and SOs there is little reason to suffer as we did back in I6 when I first joined. Waiting on CDs, endurance running out, waiting on endurance to recover and then missing and having to wait again while using Brawl, slotting armor toggles with TOs and being squishy as a wet paper towel. It might have been a more 'real' experience but I would not strictly classify it as fun. I much prefer the way HC is and the freedom to test and try a dozen ideas.

The devs say they want us to go in neutral and test things and just give our feels about it. I'm not saying they are doing this out of malice, perhaps not even out of ignorance. But we've had people who actually do testing as a living chime in that this is NOT how things are done. Say what you're tweaking, the testing team goes in and tries to break it and see how it behaves and then reports back. It may be a nitpick but even now we continue having the changes couched in roleplay terms (this does less damage now) instead of numbers (this used to do 20% and now does 7.5%) until one of the testers goes into the server, copies or tests the numbers, and then they return and bring the numbers for everyone to see. Otherwise every single tester has to go in, see or test the numbers to know what the changes are. Why? The devs know the numbers. Why aren't they posted? Heck, it's their server and if they want to continue doing it like that it's up to them. But if the devs are unpaid volunteers so are the players going in to test things for them but asking these things is met with radio silence. A bit of respect going both ways is nice too. I don't remember the game who did this (probably GW2) but patch notes would have dev notes accompanying most of the changes. 'We change this because we considered it did too much damage and was eclipsing the other choices. But we boosted the other choices to be more appealing too' 'Our data showed X talent was almost never picked and we wanted to make it more interesting so we reworked it from scratch and now it does X that when Z happens it will have Y effect'. Also, saying that if the devs only answered questions they would have no time for anything else is strange. We know that a single person does not all and some will be doing VFX, some will do scripting, some will be in the power team. And one can be dedicated to communication with the players.

I've tested the -res procs extensively at some point and what I could see was that they had no impact on the times in clearing a mission. It took as long with them as with them replaced by damage procs. For single target the story is different and they can knock a large chunk of time required to defeat something... if that something lasts for 2-3 minutes to defeat, and if that something is +0 or +1. The higher the level the less effect it has and the shorter the time it takes to defeat the less the improvement is. At the time I used pylons as they were the standard and it turns out if was the pylon who was/is responsible for the prevalence of -res procs as any build that could fit in two different -res procs had about a 25% damage boost improvement. What about a non +0 enemy like the pylon is? Then the same -res procs turned into a roughly 5% damage boost. So if the -res procs make no difference in mission clearing times, are big improvements against +0/+1 enemies, AND are better than damage procs against sturdy enemies then sticking to -res procs should be the way. The only downside is that if someone else in the team has the same -res procs slotted then they don't stack, but, to be fair, if in a team it doesn't matter. Things are dying in seconds, AVs lasts 30 seconds, etc. So though I rail/railed against -res procs they are a (small) improvement over damage procs in ST. Just not the huge (25%) boost that people think that they are because all their testing is done against +0 pylons.

No. Otherwise they would not have compensated for the damage loss (one might argue why fix it then. I have no answers to this). Burn did a double proc chance from firing procs once and then the pseudo pet it spawning having a chance to proc the procs again, ergo double proc chance. In practice I found there was no reason to load up on procs as it ate on the recharge which made less Burns-per-minute which ended lowering the damage per minute.

I can't say which patch it was but it was a good while back. Mostly it was about Burn not double procing (yep, we're back on procs even if I only had two in there). But the devs made an effort to push the Burn numbers back up so it would not be a complete nerf and overall I'd say they succeeded as the damage loss from the double proc chance was compensated. But it lost some of its soul IMO. Damage being dealt over 10 seconds is not the same and Burn became a wash for ST which was a pity as it helped sets with low ST damage (a bit like certain otherwise weak sets being better with Stalkers thanks to the ST shoring). I do say it 'lost its soul' and not 'it's objectively worse'. It's still a damage boost for ST with Fiery Embrace and it's still an extra AoE with Burn for sets without good AoE, and the tune up did made it a bit sturdier.

I'm really not a proc person except in some circumstances (most Sentinel nukes, Energy Transfer, Ground Zero, etc) and I have a arm long list of complaints on how they have contributed to the perception Tankers have 'colossal DPS' by loading four to six per attack. It's a valid approach though, it's just not mine as I like my bonuses. As for how it would do on a Scrapper: you'd lose one PbAoE making you have a single AoE unless going for an epic pool that has one. You'd lose the agro aura from Mudpots and have to deal with runners. And finally you'd need to retool things to get to 45% defense. Forget about the 15% as it would be way more than that (at least about 30% in E/N). Fire Melee on Tankers get Combustion which pairs well with Fire Sword Circle. No other (melee) AT gets a second PbAoE other than Savage Melee. And then things get silly if going Fire/Fire for THREE PbAoEs. But, sadly, Fire Armor lost its soul in the last tuning patch. It's objectively a bit better, but... If anything I'm Stone Armor based now, 'nuff said.

I didn't test on a pylon, but it's Fire Melee on a Tanker so two PbAoEs and no slow animations on the heavy hitters.

Been a decent chunk of time now. Most of Granite's goodies were spread over several other toggles making Granite not needed and hardly used. I never even pick it. You got the Stone/Fire in my signature but picture this: 45% without Weave as it's just a mule, but 50% with it on, then 55% with Barrier, and 70% to all resistances, 76% with a second ATO proc, 81% with Barrier. With Amplifiers and both defense uniques and a couple of SOs we're at 40% by level 13.

Dang. Yes, it has problems. Anyone who can do better or can help the project do better please do so. Until then enjoy your free use of an unpaid program.

Anything Stone Armor. Stone/Fire has been my favorite.

For what's worth here's my Fire/EM. Currently Mids has the ATO proc borked so we can't see it, but with one stack of it the resistances are at 77%-ish. A second stack puts them at 85% and then Barrier puts them at 90%. IMO if the content is not hard enough to require Barrier then it does not require 90% resistances either. It also has 40% S/L defenses for a little something extra and Barrier also pushes that to 45%. The ST rotation is TF, Bone Smasher, ET, Energy Punch, Bone Smasher. Repeat. If Burn is up you can replace EP with it. Burn is a bit too slow to recharge to otherwise incorporate into the ST rotation as it will not be up for every rotation. ET does not need recharge since I only use it after TF (it COULD be used when ever it is up, but eff 2.9 animations). It also does not need endurance reduction since it costs nothing. So it only needs damage and accuracy which allows to proc the gadzooks out of it. I don't bother adding Power Crash as I feel Burn and Whirling Hands is enough. Strictly speaking the ATO is not in the best place in TF and should be in Bone Smasher with their slotting swapped since BS is used more often which gives it a chance to stack up. While TF is only used every 6 seconds. Tanker (Fire EM).mbd

Woo! Welcome back to the fold We missed you! Check the guide in my signature for varied tips and since you're still level 3 it's worth picking up the Amplifiers (guide explains this) if you have some spare change at hand (or even start the character again since only level 3 and that's about 3 minutes to reach that level again). I have a Claws/Rad, but it's not strictly speaking for leveling. Since you're going to be super poor right at the start (do read the guide in the signature to fix that as you can make about 3 million in the first 30 minutes of making your character which pays for all the basic SO/IOs you will ever need) ignore the expensive stuff at first and follow the rule of thumb of 'one accuracy, three damage, one endurance reduction, and then depending on how you feel one more endurance reduction or a recharge' for attacks. Three resistance for your armor, and if you feel the one endurance reduction afterwards. You need Mids to open the file (also in the guide), and if you find you're not too comfortable yet figuring how to translate the end-game build into a leveling build let me know and I'll turn it into a basic leveling one until you get your sailor legs. Scrapper (Claws Rad).mbd

It's not strictly needed to worry about examplaring so low. At most I'd say worry about examplaring to level 20 which is where you'd be if doing the very first TF (puts you at level 16, which gives access to all powers up to level 21 even if our last power is at level 20). For end-game you want to set the relative level to +3 which is where the Alpha incarnate will put you to (no more level 4s, at least while level 45+ because it does not work 44 and down). Other tips that work in general but especially with Dark Armor is how it's more important to slot endurance reduction on attacks instead of toggles, and in DA's case in particular go easy on the myriad toggles. They are objectively too weak for their worth since they only work on minions and we bash minions in the first seconds of combat anyway. But yes, I'm glad to see you got those problems licked. Remember to buy Recovery Serums while leveling off the START vendor since they are cheapo, and if you haven't buy the Amplifiers next time (they grow more expensive as we level so level 1 is the right moment to do so). My signature has a guide with other tips if you're a new veteran (:D), and if you ever feel like branching out the (near) immortal build was tailored for newcomers.

For Radiation Therapy you use a Theft of Essence if you want a little extra for the endurance. I have a Scrapper I built last if you want to see the GZ and RT slotting I did. Scrapper (Fire Melee - Rad Armor).mbd

Why wouldn't it?

I think you've nailed most of it so it's mostly a little bit of min-maxing now. Now, there are two ways to approach defense on a Sentinel (IMO): 1 - We reach 45% to all defense. 2 - We lean on being a low agro ranged character and aim for 33%, and then if things get hairy we eat a small purple that pushes us to 45%. 3 - We build to 40% and use Barrier for the last 5%. I've found the second approach works fine for me and the build was already at that sweet spot, but in the process it got closer to the third sweet spot. Things I did change: - Assault provides very little (about or less than 5% despite what the tooltip might say) so I took the liberty of picking a travel power. Just put it back in if you'd like. - Knocked about a minute off Hasten which in turn also helped Psychic Focus and Psychic Wail. These last two are your bread and butter and you want them up and available at every group if possible. This is, IMO, more important than chasing resistances as dead mobs don't hurt. - I respected your incarnate choices (small change to Musculature since the damage loss is minimal in practice (ignoring the misleading tooltip) and a bit more recovery never hurt) and pushed S/L resistances to 75%. If you were to change from Rebirth to Barrier (which is what I'd do since one is proactive and the other is reacting to damage already taken) you could knock 5% resistances off S/L (take all slots from Dominate for example, or change the four Titanium coatings for Unbreakable Guards, etc) and move the slotting around. Perhaps get the last % to have S/L defenses to 40% since then Barrier would then make ALL your defenses at 45% (again, more important than building for resistances IMO) while also adding another 5% to all resistances which would bump S/L back to 75%. - A lot of the F/C resistances you were building for were sacrificed. This is a fair trade off in my book as not only is that damage type not commonly found but you have defenses versus it. But this is just one way to build. - Shuffled all your powers for leveling/exemplaring. I'm sure that there is still room for improvement. I would personally try to see if it was possible to make a tighter and leaner attack chain that does not require four attacks as that would free powers and slots, but the build should do all content as is. Mellfis Black 6- Sentinel (Psychic Blast - Willpower).mbd Edit: ah chrissakes, nevermind, I only now noticed you had Support Core Embodiment toggled on for some reason. Well, okay, small change of plan. It's back to sweet spot 1 where. Barrier is no longer the clincher (It's still 5% to all resistances and defenses at minimum and is a panic button so it would be my pick anyway but it's your character). Revised build aiming for sweetspot 1. One small purple in a moment of crisis will get all defenses to 45%. Even solo it shouldn't be needed all the time since you can now open for each group with Psychic Focus and Psychic Wail which will get half the group dead. I couldn't get the S/L resistances quite to 75% but the Reactive Defences proc will skirt it the moment your HP goes to 90% so meh. I'm sure it can be done with a bit more shuffling but I've spent too long on this already. Mellfis Black 6- Sentinel (Psychic Blast - Willpower) V2.mbd Consider Stone Armor since it's a large improvement over Willpower.

Post the file and I can take a look.

I couldn't make it do good damage even with quadruple procs in each attack. It's slow to animate and nowadays we can't even rely on Defensive opportunity (since it has been removed) for endurance to do the quadruple proc approach.

Tremor. Fault is terrible at what it does. At least it alleviates problems when needing room for power picks though I don't agree making powers terrible so that they can be insta skipped.

Hmm. Sure. Kinda? Earth's Embrace COULD be a pass. All it adds is 20% Toxic and another about 1.100+ HP (EE says about 700 HP but there is some multiplicative at play. Probably the accolades?) to the build (from 3534 down to 2466). This in turn also affects regeneration of course (63 HPS down to 44 HPS) which is the only sustain the set has, but, inspirations and incarnates could take over. That said it's a 1.1k buffer for all effects comparable to an absorb shield like Bio or Rad has. But both Bio and Rad could pass Ablative or Particle Shield too if they wanted. It might not be a GOOD plan, but it's a plan 😄 It's also what would affect the build the least, IMO. As mentioned above Mudpots is the agro aura so invaluable, Minerals is +recharge and psi defense so invaluable, and Brimstone is both damage proc and fire/cold/toxic resistance which is needed since the build has no F/C/Toxic defense. While leveling I push EE way back since the heal is miniscule and having near or be at softcap defense is godmode that doesn't require more. Early leveling mobs hit slower and weaker to help leveling players. Mobs get stronger the close we are to 50, but, we are at such a power creep peak with IOs (and especially with Stone Armor) we might never even notice it. That said Toxic can be nasty and we have no defense against it so we need to rely on resistances.