Sovera

Stone is the odd duck in my opinion. It screams resistance instead of deflecting attacks. Or we play a Tanker and it does both. I have my build at 70% resistances, 76% with a second stack, 5% from Barrier puts it at 81%, and, if a third stack happens to come my way, 87% and change. Who needs buffers anyway! But back to the topic even the comics don't help much. Most heroes who are 'fire' or 'electricity' don't usually have invulnerability which makes their powers 100% defense based. Either they melt the bullets (perhaps we can see that as resisting if the attack is too big and they can't melt enough of it?) or they dodge the heck out of the attacks, or they get knocked out. Some could be said to be pure defense if they turn into pure fire or electricity forms. Some/most firey ones also play with the concept of using thermals (ignoring physics and how hurricane like such thermals would have to be to have such an effect). My own Fire Tanks usually were based on the idea they flew using thermals and their resistance was about their auras being so hot that either bullets melted or someone wanting to punch them would pull back... Which makes a certain amount of sense as who plunges their hand into a fire?. Obviously invulnerable people! Which is how she actually got hurt in-game. Either hit from a blind side or hit a number enough of times to weaken the protection or be tough enough to ignore the fire. Invulnerability does come in different flavours. We could argue Superman is so tough his resistance turns into defense as things just bounce off and rarely actually hurt him. The Hulk, on the other hand, tanks everything and gets stabbed, every once in a while even gets horribly mauled, or burned, or chunks of his body torn off which is more of a resistance thing. And then there's variable invulnerability where Thor bothers to dodge bullets but also swims in the sun, or Wonder-woman tanks Superman blows and swims in lava but almost died from a regular gun, both of which could be said to be easily more deadly than bullets. Dark is so esoteric we can make our headcanon. Is it dampening the blows? Is it draining the power from the blows? Who knows! Willpower is pretty much a Spider-man thing. You're tougher than average (Spider-man tanks blows from Colossus or other super strong foes, but still gets shot through by regular bullets) but can withstand it part through grit and part from said tougher-than-average-skin-and-muscle-tissue to heal up again. Even though he doesn't have a 'real' healing factor like Wolverine he still heals broken bones in very few days. Very comic book like that works until the healing is overcome by more damage than it can recover from. Seems on point. Super-Reflexes ought to be a mix of mild Flash (don't go demi-god because it doesn't work even in the comics) with seeing things in slow motion. Or danger sense. Spidey is the poster child for super-reflexes and could/should dance around everyone. Good luck hitting someone who can dodge bullets point blank with a punch that does NOT travel at the speed of even a small calibre bullet. But since the writers don't want him to easily win his opponents constantly hit the streak breaker.

Snarky:

That's me on Claws. Claws is great 90% of the time. And then the times a burst is needed, be it damage or ToHit, and I'm longing for BU.

I don't see 'Snarky' in the poll so I could not check a box. Edit: Wait, I lie. I see 'im. Voted.

Players are not dependant on Build-up to hit enemies barring when seriously debuffed or the enemy is under a T9. The To-Hit portion of BU/Power Siphon is just fluff outside of those situations. BUT, they are important situations. I can say my resist based characters makes heavy use of BU to go through certain BS like Vampyr debuffs or CoT bubbles+debuffs. It's just that both are rather niche.

REcharge from procs does not affect proc chance. But I agree that sticking a recharge proc in Kick would be useless at the best of times. An attack chain should be complete and gapless. Sneaking in a a two second animation (?!) in a power not slotted for accuracy, not slotted for damage, with a terrible damage baseline, for a CHANCE at a proc? I say thee nay.

I have Fire/Rad in my signature, somewhere. Rad Melee took a bit of a hit when Irradiated Ground was 'fixed' but if you enjoy it then it works. The new hotness is Fire Melee that had a 'recent' tweak which made it into the new AoE god and top tier ST as well. Tankers get the best AoE version of the set but not the best ST version. Remember that if you desire to switch that all gear is account bound so you lost nothing in gearing up a different alt. Taking a gander at the build and yeah, it needs some work. You got the basics down though so it's not as much as a mess as you might have thought. In no particular order: Consume is your endurance tool and should be slotted for endurance. I usually use Synapse Shock. You lack your ATOs. If you look in the AH you'll see in the Resist, Healing, Knockback, etc sections one that is 'Tanker Archetype' and in there you'll find two. Well, four, since one is the normal version and the other is the superior version. If you were leveling you'd pick the normal version and if already 50 then the superior version (you can also buy the normal version and then use catalysts to turn them into the superior version. Check prices between normal and superior since catalysts are only 1 mill). The proc from the Superior Might of the Tanker gives a stack of 6.7% to all resistances so it's an enormous at least near 14% to resistances in that. I say 14% because getting and keeping a third stack rolling is unreliable as all it takes is a miss or the proc not proc-ing for one of the stacks to fall off, but two stacks is reliable. For farming in specific your Fire defenses are still a bit too low, but that's easily fixed as you forgot one of the two defense uniques (Gladiator Armor in resistances). Since you're at 39% it will boost you to 42%. Two more slots in any of the places you've slotted three Aegis will finish putting you at 45% which is where you want to be. You can take out Stealth (unless you like Stealth) and instead take Combat Jumping from Leaping. Almost same defense but one costs 0.31 to run and the other 0.06, on top of Combat Jumping being good for doing small bunny hops to move while in combat which I notice you have lack of for combat mobility. I would usually take Hover and have it running all the time for the movement in combat and the defense it gives, but not everyone likes fighting in melee with Hover. You can still take it since you have Fly anyway as it make Fly behave better and it's another place to slot a Luck of the Gambler 7.5% even if the power is toggled off. Radiation Siphon is a heal which you might enjoy. Devastating Blow is super slow, but you can make a simple attack chain of Radiation Siphon, Contaminated Strike, Radioactive Smash, Contaminated Strike, repeat. You could/should dump the slots in Electrifying Fences as the damage is nothing special and it stops mobs from getting close to you and Burn, then instead work the slots for the two ST attacks I mentioned above as once its down to bosses they need to be taken out. You can further boost your resistances by taking the Shield Wall 5% and the Reactive Defenses: Scaling Resists which gives another 3% for a total of 8%. Remember you can't have more than 90% so any more is a waste, which in turn means you can change the slotting and remove some of the excess to put it somewhere else. For example your fire resistance is at 138%, WITHOUT the Superior Might of the Tanker ATO procs OR the two resist uniques 😄 You can swap a good chunk of those Aegis and take Titanium Coatings or Unbreakable Guard for more Energy/Negative resistances. Because of the Tanker ATOs your aim should be 84%. Mids only accounts for 1 stack of the ATO so that's 84% with one stack and then we need to remember to think it has another 6.7%. If you take in account Incarnates and Barrier (you will want Barrier at some point) then it adds another 5% so you can further split your slotting so it reaches around 77-78% with one stack. Then a second one makes the resistances reach 85%, then Barrier accounts for the last 5%. But if not wanting to think about incarnates just yet then aim for 84%. Because Barrier gives both resistances and defenses at least 5% (it gives a giant amount of resistances and defense but they slowly decay over time after the activation. It is perma as it lasts 2 minutes but also recharges in 2 minutes) you can also consider it and keep your Fire defenses at 40% and then use Barrier for the 5%. Again, this allows to put slots towards other goals than things like Fire defense. But you WILL want to mess with Incarnates. The sooner you get your Alpha to tier 3 the sooner you get a massive buff of making all mobs -1 (while at level 45+, not 44 and lower). That makes +4 mobs into +3 which is massive for offense and defense.

Those +5s aren't doing much because of ED, and if you exemplar further than 47 all the bonuses are lost.

This is how I would build it. You can change it to the Sorcery pool instead of Flying and scrounge slots from the Shield Walls into two Reactive Defences. The Phalanx Fighting in particular needs no slots and is just a mule for the bonuses. Tanker (Shield - Fire Melee) Final build.mbd

What makes Scrapper ahead is the Scrapper ATO, and the best version of that is the superior one. So, while leveling the Brutes are on par or ahead. And at 50 Scrappers easily pull ahead.

I will be your friend, Snarky. I'll make my new Stone/Fire Tanker there since I was going to level one again for funsies. But I will wear a necklace of garlic. My blood stays inside and no need to bat those eyelashes at me because it's a hard rule.

No, the joke is how DB can only mimic a fraction of Katana's power.

Good point. I thought it about the DDR only after having posted. Even if Stone's DDR is not the bestest it still nullifies part of the incoming debuffs.

Brawl is just a filler for very early levels so no slots there. Pool powers: the only 'good ones' can be boiled down to: 1- Travel power of your choice. First thing to pick. I like Flying and I'm permanently using Hover but pick whatever. I suggest Super Jump if you don't don't like Fly and always have Combat Jumping turned on to do small jumps for mobility while only using Super Jump for long distances. Remember to turn off your travel power of choice while in combat since it consumes endurance, but Hover/Combat Jumping should be left always on as it costs near zero endurance and gives a small 2% defense boost that adds up (both defense uniques give 3% so it's 6%, then another 2% from Combat Jumping or Hover makes it go to 8%, then Maneuvers for another 2% and it's 10%. Bio Armor's Environmental Modification gives 11.2% native defense and with three slots it becomes 17.8%. With those 10% stacked up from above you're now at 27.8%. You want 45% so it's already half way there). 2 - Hasten from Super Speed. Big 70% recharge boost while it is on. Triple recharge in it. You can save a travel power by just picking Super Speed next. While Super Speed doesn't do vertical well you can also pick Combat Jumping to go with it (and have that 2% defense) or buy a 5k jetpack from the START vendor and activate it for those moments. 3 - Maneuvers from Leadership. It's a small 2-3% defense boost but it adds up. 4 - Fighting. Punch/Kick are just forced picks and not meant to be used. The real picks are Tough which increases smash and lethal resistances and then Weave that increases all defenses. There are a lot of other pools but quantity does not mean quality. Attacks from pools will always be worse than your primary attacks as a design choice so the four I suggested are pretty much the usual all builds go for unless aiming for something niche. It's worth noting that you could take Sorcery and use Mystic Flight as your travel power and then pick the Rune of Protection for a one minute defensive boost but due to its downtime its not something you can rely on other than a panic button.

The (near) immortal build is purpose handpicked for being cheap and start early, and it has starter leveling builds. I really recommend starting with this as by level 13 it lives to its namesake and you can play at 0x6. Now, there are no fast and easy answers regarding the Spines/Bio. To improve you will need money. Start selling those Merits as you earn them, keep the difficulty low, keep doing missions from contacts to the end for said merits that come at the last mission. To improve on your survivability you will want to always keep your inspirations stocked up and though the base teleporter costs 1 million it's pretty useful in that aspect since you can use it every 10 minutes and hit a base between missions to replenish on Lucks and healths. Every other inspiration is not as useful as having just purples and greens. Keep one purple up all the time, use a second one if you feel that you're in trouble. They cost 50 inf so there's no point in saving them. The rest costs some money. You will want both defense uniques for a nice boost (the same the (near) immortal build uses. They are a staple on nearly every build), three defense slots allocated to both Hardened Carapace and Environmental Modification. Don't bother with Inexhaustible just yet Once you get Adaptation you have three to choose from. Stick to Offensive for more damage since the faster you defeat mobs the less time they have to hurt you back. Get DNA Siphon and Ablative as soon as you can and slot three heal and three recharge right away. For attacks stick to one accuracy and three damage. Add one endurance reduction and one recharge when you have the free slots. Slotting with SOs (the vendor gear) or generic IOs is so simple it does not actually require builds. Don't place more than three of one kind (accuracy, damage, resistance, etc), put defense in defense slots, put resistance in resistance slots, one accuracy and three damage in attacks, etc. It's very straight forward. The trouble is when we enter actual IOs because of all the bonuses involved. One thing that will help you is simply to team. CoH thrives on teaming unlike other MMOs where you're supposed to be solo until max level. You can start teaming at level 1 and that will improve your XP, your survival, etc, because there will be buffs and people to share agro. Soloing is fine (I solo all the time) but without at least some gear and a solid base you will feel squishy and slow which might turn you off the game. Since all gear is account bound this slow start is a... well, pretty much a one time thing. You can pass the money and the expensive gear to another alt so it doesn't have to start with nothing. Speaking of part of your squishyness would be mitigated if you had Amplifiers but now it's too late as they grow more expensive with each level. Never forget to pick them up at level 1 since you will get 8 hours of strong buffs for a meager 23k.

You need the Mids program to load those builds. It is essential so grab it. Check the newbie guide in my signature that has and other things you might find of use.

Well, Staff isn't very good. If you're aiming for farming then there are better choices. Heck, unless you're really sold on Staff I'd say try a Claws/Fire for unethical brutality that works in and out of farms. It all depends on what you'd like to do. Farming is pretty specialized as it focuses solely on fire defense and fire resistance. There have also been change to farming so mobs are more dangerous and it means using specialized farm maps instead of picking random ones. If you're focused on that then I'd say to look over the Guides section of the forums and find the Farm Fresh thread and the most recent posts as the original ones are probably outdated by now. Also, take a look at the newbie guide in my signature for making money and other tips.

After trying it a few times I feel like Dual Blades is a pylon baby. Works great if the enemy is not moving and we can hit it for a few minutes with a -res in both attacks. I put my vote on the Stone Armor. I had a thread somewhere about the 'new' Stone Armor Brutes where I tested several sets and, at the time, Rad Melee was the winner. But Irradiated Ground got 'fixed' and the rest of the set did not get a tune-up despite IG being a linchpin, so... Might need testing to see how well it still behaves. My Claws/Fire Armor Brute was one of my best characters for just playing the game if not hitting pylons. Spin and Burn together were pretty potent and it broke my Yin record at the time with 39 minutes. But the Rad/Stone Armor did it in 40 minutes having a much easier time since everything just slid off its back. Granted, been a while. Fire Melee is the new hotness and even if Tankers get the best version (IMO) with a second PbAoE we can't discount Cremate and it's OP 100% chance to knock-up that allows to control the flow of combat for things like PPs and Freak Tanks, and even the new transforming Council bosses. Seriously, it rocks. But, dat second PbaoE also rocks... Unfortunately Brutes get the 'worst' version of Fire Melee just because the devs decided Brutes who pick Fire Melee don't need AoE until level 22 (Scrappers get their first AoE at 18, Tankers at level 6), for reasons. I'm sure good reasons? Baffling. But if you will team for the initial stretch it's fine and then at Synapse onwards you get to join the grown-ups with AoE and everyfink. I did the Fire/Fire pairing on my Tanker and it was brutal with THREE PbAoEs which is insane, but not on the Brute (I mean, I had it before the Fire Melee tune-up but not since). The only thing holding me back is that lack of initial AoE since the devs expected us to level without AoE and then we get two in the span of a handful of levels. Terrible flow. But with the new Fire Melee being pretty good, with the Brutes not getting a second PbAoE so their AoE is halved, it seems like Fire/Fire would fix that. A second PbAoE in Burn, a strong ST power in Cremate that allows to skip the icky Incinerate. Sounds good.

Some small things: - Shockwave does a knockback. You want to mitigate it and not exacerbate it with another knockback proc in there. - Follow-up is an attack. It needs to land in order to give the accuracy and damage boost to your other attacks. - You had Vengeance toggled on which gave a skewed idea of the build's numbers. - DNA Siphon is your primary endurance recovery tool though it also heals. But for heals you have Ablative, and for endurance you only have DNA Siphon. - Focus is one of Claws better attacks. - Eviscerate is a pretty slow attack that is not strictly necessary as Follow-up, Slash, Focus, repeat, is all you should need for single-target damage. - Assault is pretty bad. If you really want it you can take it but we're talking a 5% damage boost in reality. - Toggling Offensive Adaptation lowers your defenses in 7% so it needs to be accounted for. So, here's what I'd use. I ignored raising S/L defenses since you're a Tanker who will have 90% S/L resistances anyway (raising S/L defenses would be more important on a Scrapper I feel). The build ends with 79%, but don't turn your nose up since a second ATO stack slotted in Follow-up (it stacks up to three times though three is unreliable and two is more of the norm) will increase that in 6.7% pushing those 79% into 85%. You will want Barrier as your Destiny (pick the 120 second version) and even when most of the decaying defense/resistances it gives has run its course it will still give a permanent 5% to defenses and resistances. E/N resistances are the weak spot of the build and even pushing for it it's still only at 49%. You will be relying on your E/N defenses which are softcapped and which will protect you. Until they don't when you face enemies who debuff defense AND do E/N attacks. Then you need to rely on Ablative and Shockwave. Speaking of Shockwave it is your trump card in challenging Bio's relative squishyness regarding debuffs. It can feed itself with the Force Feedback proc and it will keep on putting enemies on their back with the current slotting so you get a lot of breathing room for your regeneration to kick in. Just keep Follow-up, Slash, Shockwave, Spin, repeat for AoE situations. The Force Feedbacks procs in Focus and Shockwave will help your defensive clickies to return faster which is needed as Bio relies on those to survive. The slotting in Swipe, Boxing and Brawl are the last thing to worry about and are just there to consolidate the weaknesses some more. With them your recharge debuff resistance is at 90%. Speaking of debuff resistance I took Focused Accuracy. Partly for the easy 3% E/N resistances, partly because it makes you night immune to having your accuracy debuffed. You can keep it toggled off and only put it up if fighting against Circle of Thorns, Banished Pantheon, Tsoo, etc, any faction that can neuter your ability to hit. Other sets can rely on Build-up with Gaussian to explode their accuracy and bull through the accuracy debuffs but Claws relies on hitting first with Follow-up and it can't hit if debuffed. The empty slot in Follow-up is for the Gaussian proc. I did not slot it in because it would skew the numbers in the build. It will have a low chance to go off but it's a nice 5 second damage boost when it does. DNA Siphon is your heavy duty click. At some point you'll find you're not using Ablative Carapace because DNA SIphon is simply doing everything. Keep in mind it gives health and endurance against live enemies and gives regeneration and recovery against defeated enemies. The regen and the recovery is more helpful, but since it heals for each enemy in range it also doubles as a heal. So if you start the fight and find your HP dipping mid-ways then use it and it will get both health and endurance as well as regeneration and recovery from the mix of defeated and live enemies. What it sucks for is 1 VS 1 because with just one enemy in range it doesn't get enough to draw upon. It's still a tiny heal good for roughly 25% with one enemy but it's not going to help with your endurance as it will only pay for its usage. Those are the times you turn off Focused Accuracy, but eventually you'll get incarnates and the accolades and have a respectful 4.16 EPS not accounting the four endurance procs that Mids does not show. Cerastus - Tanker (Bio Armor - Claws).mbd

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Bio is a bit squishy at the start since it is an armor set that gives up protection for damage. Spines is a bit... weak these days. It's old and needs a tune up from the devs. So we can start by saying you seem to be low level as Hollow/King's Row would put you under level 20. But your problem seems to come from not knowing how to slot. I'm going to say to take a look at the newbie guide in my signature to get you started making currency (it's easy, it involves playing the game and throwing stuff at the Auction House), then grab the Mids program so that you can do and read the builds posted on the forums. I know you made a Scrapper and might prefer to just beat things without having expectations from you as you learn the game, but consider a Tanker. Unlike other games there are no demands on knowing routes, defensive cooldown juggling, team composition and being forced to lead. Over City of Heroes it's a lot more chill. You will do less damage than a Scrapper, of course, but also be more durable. The (near) immortal build in my signature is a good beginner friendly build and I can even spot you the money to buy the two initial uniques the build requires. But back to the Spines/Bio do grab Mids so you can read the builds we will post to help you. Gambare gambare, LongHalloween!

Welp, the Bio/Fire was going fine until Manticore. Then I started dying. Then I wised up to be careful about being confused. Then kept dying anyway. So I went more carefully, got ready to flee when needed. Then got hard countered by a spawn with four +2 bosses, two of which were debuffers and they hard walled me with four deaths in a row, return from hospital, get killed, etc. I could have gobbled inspirations to pass them, but, heh. I went to look at why the Stone/Fire Melee had breezed through Manticore and the only thing I saw was the softcapped defense to psi... Well, softcapped defense to everything I guess. I had 38% defense to energy and once debuffed Ablative was of no help. Bio lives up to the idea of being pretty strong offensive and against generic enemies but folding against debuffs. A bit like Willpower I guess. It did make me feel like a Scrapper. Or at least a Brute. Very strong trip up to 45 and Manticore at least.

Been leveling it and it is being a beast. At level 6 I bumped the difficulty to 0x6 which was a bit ambitious but I play Tankers for that fast bump in difficulty. Posi 1 was touch and go. Stone Armor breezed through because it's thing is being nearly all passive, but having to rely on cooldowns at a level where we don't have slots, or IOs we can equip in them, plus the stat squish, was touch and go, but nothing a few sprinkled purples did not fix. One death to a Luminous (I swear these guys carry Vhaz on their backs). Posi 2 was already easier with DNA Siphon and breezed through. One death to the CoT EB spawn where stacked Earthquakes and immobilizes got through my Cc toggles (I mean, I even know I need one breakfree for that specific encounter but bulled through anyway). Teamed for Synapse, nothing to report, was easy. AoE is now brutal with both PbAoEs + damage aura + Adaptation + Evolving Armor's -res. Entered Yin's TF at level 28 and respeced out of Scorch to pick Incinerate, then started grinding the first mission to get Greater Fire Sword. Was timing how long it took to get the police station opened. First missions it took 12-13 minutes but once having GFS and six slotted it went down to 10 minutes which is the norm. Absolutely slot starved but aimed for attacks first, four slots in Ablative, and only the native slot in DNA Siphon. And, yet, it was DNA Siphon carrying me for the whole trip. Reach a group, start unloading on a boss as the rest of the mobs wake up and rush in. Once surrounded pop BU, then GFS, then both PbAoEs. By then part of my HP is down and if there is a Super Stunner it's had its first death and debuffed me. DNA Siphon. Continue moping. Was nice defeating Freak Tanks before they could heal but only when I could focus on them instead of using AoEs, but even when they healed it didn't feel bad. I had I think, only two wolves from the Council since I focused them down at 20% and barring a miss or misstiming they'd be on the ground before transforming. Clamour was one of the easiest I had even with half slotted defenses. One single small purple and burninating the poor thing while alternating DNA Siphon and Ablative. Was still touch and go on the final ambush and I did use inspirations as they dropped since my blue bar couldn't keep up with DNA Siphon still with only its native slot despite being the most important clickie as it both heals and recoups endurance. Ended at 49 minutes on the dot so a new record (old records were 40 minutes but lots of changes and haven't tested the old builds that had those times). Previous best was 54 minutes I believe with the Stone/Fire Melee. For those worried about the looks I can safely say that at around Yin level the passive defenses and DNA Siphon I barely had to touch Ablative. Perhaps 2-3 times in the whole TF and pretty sure if I had more slots in DNA Siphon I could have passed a bit more. But DNA Siphon is a clickie that relies on quantity, and, mostly, on defeated bodies. Alive mobs are great to heal but just one or two alive ones and DNA Siphon barely is worth clicking on since it will neither heal nor give enough endurance to pay for itself (unslotted as it still is). So Ablative had the initial slots I could spare as it has no gimmick to rely on. I pondered if it was worth proc bombing DNA Siphon and I can see the upsides. But it only does the damage of one of my PbAoEs and those already recharge in 5-6 seconds. I could see it in a build that lacked AoE though, but DNA Siphon being a linchpin I think I'll keep it properly slotted. On the other hand that power is a feast or famine poster child. If we are surrounded then extra slots are overkill, but if we are not surrounded then they are needed. That's why it was still with just its native one slot by the end of Clamour. The Synapse's Shock slotting may be a tad too simplistic though it has good bonuses. Looking at Mids even slotted for endurance it only gives 10 endurance back (with a chance of failure) with one enemy in range. That makes it useless as it only pays for itself in 1 VS 1 scenarios. Corpses are where it shines so basically it's great for regular gameplay but not for soloing AVs. Recovery must be well in hand for 1 VS 1 scenarios since DNA Siphon will not be of (much) help. Even a Theft of Essence would only add another 10 points. Hmm.. Perhaps frankenslotting for both heal and endurance and then also add a Theft of Essence for good measure. I'll ponder it. In the meanwhile this is the non-examplar friendly version I'm building towards: Tanker (Bio Armor - Fiery Melee - Non Exemplaring).mbd

Ok...?

And...?