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Sovera

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Posts posted by Sovera

  1. What AoE would you be having without Fire Sword Circle? Fire Breath is utter trash. if you're okay only having Shield Charge and Fire Breath then go for it.

  2. 5 hours ago, KMadeleine said:

    I see quite a few Level 50 builds but they are way out of my budget.  My husband and I just got a friend who has never played COH to make a scrapper.  I know I used to like controllers but it’s been a long while.  Assuming this character will generally be in (at least) a trio, so no need to solo, what would you recommend on a budget?

     

    I have an Ill/Rad but she’s on another server and already 50.  I made her strong for soloing, this could be the opposite.  Thanks for any ideas / thoughts /recommendations!

     

    High end builds ask for a lot of money, but money's easy to accumulate once you're 50 or try to follow story lines to their end using contacts (or doing taskforces) as you level. It's not uncommon to reach 50 with a 100+ millions in my name by having done Taskforces only.

     

    Most people who post builds will cobble a leveling build that is cheaper if you just ask. Controllers are not my thing for me to offer though.

     

    I know it is not the advice you requested but Controllers are a bit passed by time. If you do enjoy them then do continue playing, but the pace of the game is very fast these days, I have a current Scrapper that explodes a pack of mobs under 10 seconds and leaves little to crowd control for example, and the bigger the team (even just three) the quicker this goes.

     

    Do play Controllers if you enjoy them, but consider branching out to things like Defenders or Corruptors if you enjoy the help you can create by buffing and debuffing.

     

    I'll repeat a third for good measure to continue playing Controllers if you enjoy how they play, there is no real wrong answer since we have a thousand slots and levelling is quick thanks to double XP, and thanks to the sidekick system a level 10 can play with a level 30.

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  3. 2 minutes ago, KMadeleine said:

    I’m not trying to be obnoxious, but I honestly don’t see a signature on your post.  I checked your profile and didn’t see one there, either.  What am I missing?

     

    You're not being obnoxious in the slightest. What you must be doing is reading the forums over the phone. It is a common complaint that signatures do not show on phones:

     

    image.png.8a37f74383147ee3cb5288bd08a135c7.png

     

    Here is the thing:

     

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  4. 16 minutes ago, temnix said:

    Well, there are other ways to raise money, as the others here have said. And if you want to go to auctions, that's a possibility. *I* wouldn't want to go near them for the reason that any in-game economics are such a horrible boring waste of time that no person mindful of the real world will want to touch them. My advice is not for min-maxers or nerds of any sort. It is for people who want to play the game without being dragged down by the unavailability of the things necessary to play it with enjoyment. You get those points, you spend them on SO, you never think twice about money. And you will still little by little accumulate enough to buy little toys like a flying disc or an extra Prestige power, down the line. Everything else that matters is either in your Archetype or in your power of imagination.

     

    What are the available items in the game? Icons. Completely abstract abilities that don't usually even have a sound associated with them. Converters, whatever. You want to waste your life learning this great science? Read a book instead. However, I want to add a caveat to my post. SO are not available for Merit Reward points early on. I don't know when they become available, but not at level 10. Archetype Enhancements are there, but not SO. Perhaps they need to be unlocked somehow, but I don't think I have done anything special to make them available to me at (under) level 30.

     

     

    Don't double down, please, it looks worse when your first comment was an honest mistake but now it looks like mulish stubbornness. One Merit is worth around 200k. One early SO is worth around 5-10k, and it's as complicated as using one of the ATMs in the game and then typing /ah and tossing the Converters into the auction house.

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  5. 17 minutes ago, Hover said:

    Has the way procs work been changed on homecoming since the start of this thread? just curious if this info is up-to-date. 

     

    It's all up to date, despite people reminding us every couple of years how there is no point in building anything with procs because 'they will soon be nerfed'.

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  6. 20 hours ago, Lightslinger said:

    Wonky sounds fun, Sovera. I'm good with either but using Storm Kick's defense sounds great.

     

    I was tinkering with this but the single target damage seems a bit rough for me to actually play it.

     

    Melee/Ranged/AoE at 40%, 45% permanent with Barrier. Resistances reach 90% with a another ATO stack (6.7%) and Barrier (5%). The empty slot is for a Force Feedback proc I don't have slotted to not give the wrong idea about recharge.

     

    The defense will be stripped by defence debuffs, but you're at 90% resistances anyway and defense debuffs hurt resistance tanks too so timing Barrier when in trouble pushes the defense back into the positives.

     

    For solo I feel the ST will be a bit slow but once having unloaded everything most stuff should be dead barring bosses and lieutenants that got the 10% to not take all the procs to the face even when solo, but it should be good for bursty damage. Burst is good since most teams aren't hanging around whittling enemies, so Focus Chi + Dragon Tail + Radiation Therapy + Ground Zero + Dragon Tail will help you quickly burst things down in a small window of time. Then your Force Feedbacks in Dragon's Tail and Crane Kick will keep firing and help everything be ready for the next group.

     

    If the team is too fast you can try to alternate Focus Chi for one  group and Ground Zero for the next instead of using everything at once but that's something you'll see how it works out best for you.

     

     

    Tanker (Radiation Armor - MA).mbd

  7. And on that note this is the first time I entered a draw with Moonfire's AV. She hit half life at a good clip and then simply stalled with, what I presume, to be healing. But even on Tankers I always whittled her down without a second thought and this time we really just brawled face to face until I ate some reds.

     

    The subject of ST doesn't seem to be, like, super hot. Katana has a decent rep but where do we see it? Pylon tests. Where two -res can be slotted.

  8. It's best to check how to turn off the graphics (which you now know) than to go around asking each person that's bothering you to stop using their powers.

     

    If now you know how to turn off the graphics and you insist they should be the ones to turn off their powers then the label Karen applies.

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  9. I wonder if a Brute would work 'better'. Crits don't work on secondaries but Fury would. I don't know if there is a point though. The AoE is handled and ST is what's needed and Scrappers have the edge there.

     

    Dunno. Brute version with 90 Fury would have 30 extra damage in RT and about 90 in GZ.

  10. I return.

     

    Posi 2 went easily. I kept Flashing Steel for ST and AoE and it was very helpful. The AV was slowly whittled as expected from doing it with the equivalent of two T1s and one T2, but perfectly safe as most of its attacks were melee and I was softcapped thanks to DA. Even Earthquakes and such were not too problematic thanks to Build-up (+Gaussian) to burst down the mages. Definite endurance problems thanks to the electrifical fields and ranged electrical attacks but nothing a (very) occasional Recovery Serum did not fix.

     

    Formed a group, we did Synapse. Easy, same strategy of alternating BU and RT since everything goes faster in a group. Having an early Gamma Boost removed all previous problems of endurance I had.

     

    Leveled the character to 38. Was testing it from level 28 to 34 soloing the first mission of Yin at +1x8 and seeing the minutes slowly diminish as slots were added. I was in the process of slotting Golden Dragonfly first and then Ground Zero which ended shaving about 5-6 minutes to clear up to the police station opening.

     

    The survival is there though. Other than extreme cases of pulling two +2 packs at the same time Yin's TF was smooth sailing once I got into the cadence of going in, Divine Avalanche, Soaring Dragon (just as a filler while waiting for mobs to come on over), Divine Avalanche again, and then pop Build-up, Divine Avalanche (for good measure and because GZ takes so long that DA's stacks fall off) and Golden Dragonfly (to fish for the 50% proc), Lotus, Ground Zero, Radiation Therapy. At that point Golden Dragonfly and Lotus would be about recharged and I'd repeat. After that it would be mop up the few lieutenants that lucked out and the bosses.

     

    Speaking of bosses I'm starting to get vietnam flashbacks from bosses healing, ressurecting, or transforming. The nausea inducing moments of seeing a crucial hit 'miss' thanks to the archaic 5% and then the boss transforms and now I need to kill it AGAIN was sapping my will to live as it repeated once or twice PER SPAWN.

     

    Especially as unlike Cremate neither Soaring Dragon nor Golden Dragonfly are reliable in their KD which means I have no way to stop them from transforming despite watching it slowly happen as a trainwreck in slow motion. Very annoying mechanic, very very.

     

    Council can still be tough as they are a faction that is skewed towards ranged damage and they deal Lethal that debuffs defense so I ended up dying once to them. But, a lot less than with the Fire Melee variant that was dying once or twice PER MISSION instead of once PER THE TF. But I'll see once I get to Moonfire/Citadel.

     

    The single target damage is not as nice as Fire Melee thanks to Divine Avalanche being in the mix but for regular gameplay this is not a big problem since the ST comes AFTER the deluge of AoEs and most of the time I would have either a boss healing or transforming while still doing all the AoEs. Despite saying this Clamour was devoured despite having died to her and the ambush. Her debuffs are brutal and it's just too many warm bodies. Second time I inspirationed myself up and for the big ambush after she retreats it was surprisingly easy by rotating the AoEs.

     

    Ended Yin's TF in 54 minutes. I'll have to try my godlike Claws/Fire Brute that did it in 40 minutes and see if it still has that time despite the new Council.

     

     

     

    Verdict:  does what it says on the label. Fixes Rad Armor's squishiness and lends massive AoE to Katana. It won't help against a pylon but even a baseline Scrapper can destroy a pylon (or AV)

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  11. First foray with the Katana/Rad.

     

    Working pretty well. I decided to push it and went into 0x6 at level 8 to test Divine Avalanche, and, well, it worked. I did have to eat a few greens since I did not have the damage to whittle big groups at once with just Flashing Steel.

     

    I wasn't aware that the 50% crit is per enemy. Later on using it in Flashing Steel had it pop up nearly per use depending on how many enemies were around. This was a game changer when Lotus opened.

     

    Ended up doing Posi 1 at level 10 still at 0x6. Luminous bosses were a nightmare which doubled down by getting my recharged debuffed deep into the negatives at times from the Vhaz lieutenants. It reminds me that Clamour will ignore DA since most of her attacks are ranged or AoE, but we'll see.

     

    Posi 1 went well enough regardless and I ended up not dying once, finished it in 54 minutes which was okay considering my only AoE had been Flashing Steel. Posi 2 will have both Lotus and Radiation Therapy. Lets see how it goes.

  12. 1 minute ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

     

    Lethal Damage.

     

    I've not heard Slash damaged commonly used in CoH. Maybe a carry over from another MMORPG?

     

    God damnit, I keep saying Slashing when I mean Lethal. You'd think it would have sunk in already...

     

    Thanks!

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  13. I think that I found the solution for Radiation Armor's squishiness, but the pacing of the build is not very welcoming to actually try it in game.

     

    Basically, Katana. 'Immunity' to melee with minimal investment is a fat layer of minus incoming damage for the resistances to take over the rest of the damage. But the pacing is dire. Fly only at 30, only one ST attack until level 22 (17 exemplared). I can level taking the other ST attacks and Flashing Steel until 22, but the exemplaring will be terrible if it goes too far.

     

    That said it's niggles because otherwise Rad Armor needs something and it's not heals, it's the means to not need heals. And Divine Avalanche is it. Sure, there will then be ranged damage, AoE, etc, but if we cut a third of the damage out it's what the set needs to make damage manageable. In the end the AoE combo wipes out whole packs of enemies fast but in that small interval we need to survive which is what Radiation Armor was not being very good at.

     

    And DA recharges so fast it can be DA, Golden Dragonfly, DA, okay, already softcapped to melee, now DA can be relegated to filler once Soaring Dragon and Golden Dragonfly are recharging. Katana is pretty decent at ST damage even if the AoE is a bit light but Rad Armor will help with that and Katana will help Radiation Armor.

     

    Also appreciated, but not a deal maker, DA animates so fast and has such a short recharge that damage procs do not do much in there (17% chance for a regular Touch of Death) which means it is a good place to place the 5th and last LotG. This places Hasten at 125 seconds and the FF proc will eliminate that gap.

     

     

     

    For those not aware (because we have new players around) Divine Avalanche is a power that gives 15% defense to Melee and Lethal. This power stacks three times so DA by itself can softcap defense (45% is the sweetspot), but since I was already building towards a modicum of Melee/Smash/Lethal defense by slotting uniques, plus the ATO giving 5% S/L and 2.5% Melee, DA does not need to be used three times. Even with Combat Jumping and Weave turned off we still are at 50% Melee defense with two uses of DA which, as mentioned above, happens in the first 3 seconds of combat.

     

    Even while leveling a level 10 SO or IO in DA is enough to have Melee defense at 40% with both defense uniques, (and since there is no reason to level without amplifiers this also becomes 45%) with two applications of DA which is already enough in the low levels to be immune to melee. But, even without fancy uniques of level 10 defense IO/SO a third application will still still put Melee at 45% which with DA having a native recharge of 3 seconds will happen very fast.

     

     

    Now yes there will be AoE and Ranged damage, but even so some of the Ranged will be Lethal (arrows and bullets are commonly Lethal damage (someone correct me if I'm wrong)) so even some of that that ranged damage will be deflected, but, most importantly, Rad Armor is a resist armor so it can handle that. What it couldn't handle so far in my playthroughs is TOO much damage incoming.

     

    Even what I said above about deflect a third of the incoming damage isn't correct since as a general rule mobs do few AoEs and most will run into melee or use melee moves if we are close to them. I might say melee is ... 50% of all damage (don't quote me) with 30% being ranged and 20% AoE. Might even be more skewed towards Ranged than AoE.

     

     

    Anyways, this is a lot of theorycrafting bla bla bla. I'll boot up the build and report how it goes. For now this is the basic sketch of the build. I will play it and refine once I see how it behaves.

     

     

    Since Sting of the Wasp is a hundred points more damage than DA there is something to be said about removing the slots from Weave and apply them there to solve the lack of ST attacks if exemplared. I know the regular way of playing Katana is alternating DA and Sting of the Wasp if not needing the defense since Sting does more damage, but eeeh, that's so tryharding. But it's viable and an option. Also, it allows to split Blistering Cold around and get 100% recharge resistance which is very important for resistance based armors.

     

    I've talked myself into it. Took the slots from Weave since it's just a mule for another LotG (though we have enough endurance to keep it toggled on, sure, whatever) and spread them around. But Sting of the Wasp is barely worth using with just two slots being a mere 50-ish more points. Still, it's good enough for leveling/exemplaring.

     

    With the changes the build now has 100% resistance to recharge debuffs and a 124 Hasten and still hardcapped to all (with Barrier) except a little bit in Fire, and the usual Rad Armor holes in Cold and Psi. There might be something said to tetris the bonuses and just reach 75% without Barrier so we can take Vigor instead, but I feel Barrier PREVENTS the damage and is good for cascading defense failures (which still hurt resistance armors) instead of trying to heal through it and once building towards having Barrier might as well account for the perma 5%.

     

    Time will tell.

     

    Scrapper (Katana Rad).mbd

     

     

    I can cobble a leveling build if new players need it, but I will level taking Gambler's Cut instead of Sting (at the extreme low levels it's better to have fast recharging powers) and Flashing Steel at level 2 until Posi 2 is done where I will respec into the build. Until Posi 2 is done we can do with a third attack and Flashing Steel works for the job.

     

  14. 3 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

     

    I am truly wishing I had a dollar for all the times of late where people in the Brute forum are told, for purposes of dealing damage, go play a Tanker.

     

    About the ONLY reason to play a Brute, it seems, is you want to play Super Strength with Energy Aura as that combo is uniquely open to Brutes.

     

    Hmm, well, I play both extensively. Brutes do more damage, but the Tanker gets two pbAoEs.

  15. Not sure what would fit. Rad Armor, sure, then maybe Spines with all the toxic DoTs. Rad Melee with the damage aura.

     

    Would it be too cheeky to suggest Fire Melee coloured green? 😄

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  16. Rad Armor does not heal half as much as Dark Armor. We can consider the absorb shield a heal and then, yes, it heals for roughly 50% of a bar, but on a 40-ish CD. Dark Regen does the same (60% heal with one mob in range) but every 11-12 seconds.

     

    But that said Dark Armor's heal is too strong (is that even possible?) and overheals gigantically. It does recharge pretty fast though and is available every 11-12 seconds or so unlike Particle Shielding but the less enemies around the more it becomes problematic since fewer enemies to hit, chance to miss and not get healed, and less returns from the Theft of Essence to pay for Dark Regen.

     

     

    Dark Armor is a bit of an odd duck without a real identity other than Dark Regen and the endurance costs are enormous as it is obviously meant to be paired with Dark Melee. Dark Regen has an accuracy check, and even if maxed out there is always the archaic 5% chance to miss which happens often enough to be a problem when fighting a single enemy. Then it has no KB protection which needs to be procured. Ugh.

     

     

    @DiscipleWay if you're really sold on the idea of Dark Armor then @Meknomancer's build is fairly on point (I would probably lower the defenses to close to 33% so a small purple will still softcap if the situation calls for a bit more oomph, and then spread the slots to split the Superior Blistering Colds and amp the slow resistance to 95% but it's subjective). Do stock up on Recovery Serums from the START vendor though. But if you're a bit new to the game I recommend an easier pairing like Fire/Stone.

     

    I know you said you particularly wanted to be a Brute but a Stone/Fire Melee Tanker is an AoE machine (it gets two PbAoEs unlike the Brute version that only has one) that cruises through the game barely touching inspirations starting at level 13 with minimal investment.

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  17. Do you want a traditional Rad/MA or a wonky one? Traditional is pump up the resistances. Wonky we put that +10% from Storm Kick to good use and pump our defenses to reach 45% to Melee/Ranged/AoE.... while also having 90% to all except Cold and Psi.

  18. Hmm. The Fire/Rad really is a lot of damage. But god damn, I'm not used to dying once or twice per mission against COUNCIL, of all things. So much as a +2 spawn and I'm already wincing in advance.

     

    So I respeced into an early Tough/Weave and it got a bit better, though still dying once in a while. They are not fully slotted but I'm not sure that 6-7% resistances will make that huge a difference.

     

    On a Tanker it is not as noticeable, but on a Scrapper the Particle Shield power is not a good alpha soaker. It recharges too slowly to be up at every spawn unlike Ablative Shield. The only heal the set has is Radiation Therapy and that one depends on the number of enemies around, which, fair, slotted for heals would give 290 HP + 58 per enemy and be up every 20 seconds.

     

    Procced as I have it's 183 HP + 37 and up every 23 seconds.

  19. Isn't this the aftercast? The Arcana time?

     

    Not all animations have perfect loops though where the animation ends precisely when the animation lock  ends. Sometimes the animation ends before the lock and we are still there waiting. Granted, not a long wait, but, still noticeably there.

  20. 20 minutes ago, biostem said:

    I know this has been brought up a few times in the past, but there seem to be times when you can use 1 power after the other, and the transition is smooth with no apparent breaks or interruptions, while other times your character  seemingly stops dead in their tracks, pauses for a moment, then resumes their attacks.  Is this an actual thing with how powers work, or is it more about network or input latency?  Maybe some sort of disconnect between back-end calculations and what the character models depict?  All of the above?  Some other factor(s) I'm not taking into account?  Thanks for reading!

     

    The, still, best example of this is Katana. Soaring Dragon knocks a mob in the air and then Golden Dragonfly does a knockdown. Used back to back it's really beautiful with the move visually going up, tossing the enemy in the air, and then GD being a little jump before slamming the katana down and the mob is slammed to the floor while still in the air from Soaring Dragon.

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  21. On 3/25/2024 at 7:19 PM, Psiphon said:

    Hi all, 

    I've been playing for a long time but don't really look at builds which may be why I haven't known about 50+ Enhancements. 

    When did this happen and what are the details behind them? 

     

     

    Mind that they run afoul of ED like every other IO. While people will swear on +5 every single IO the benefits are very shallow since ED makes sure of that. Some IOs can't be +5 like ATOs and event IOs.

     

    +5 is useful for a few things though. Two +5 level 50 recharges in Hasten will save one slot there. Frankenslotting bits and bobs and wanting to reach certain goals (accuracy or damage for example) then +5 helps. For example I slot three ATOs in some builds and then my accuracy isn't quite enough to reach the 95% chance to hit +3 so I slot a random accuracy/damage/endurance or recharge to reach my goals and then +5 it to squeeze a few % more.

     

    Remember also that most of the time it's better to ensure that IOs are attuned instead of boosted because when attuned the IO bonuses travel with you up and down the level range to the limit of the set. A crafted (or boosted) level 50 is fine for 50, but if we exemplar to anything lower than 47 the bonuses will disappear. But an attuned level 50 can go down to whatever level it can first be exemplared.

     

    For example a Luck of the Gambler can be slotted at 22. So an attuned LotG can be slotted at 22 and will grow with us to 50 (something that gives 32% at level 22 will give 42% at level 50), and if we exemplar down to 22 it will still work, but not if 21 (not the bonuses, but the raw stats will still be there). A crafted/boosted LotG can be slotted at 22 but the raw stats it gives at that level will never change.

     

    You can check the boosted effects in Mids. When you are picking your IO and before you click on it you press + five times to increase its boosted level, then you click on the specific IO.

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  22. On 3/25/2024 at 5:30 PM, Doomguide2005 said:

    And I'll add a Kismet +6% as early on as can (~lvl 10 or so) frequently starting with 3 damage SO in my early attacks then add endred and acc as those start to suffer.  May run a single DFB and grab acc or recovery depending on current needs.  Particularly combined with Kismet i can wait a bit for actual Acc SOs.

     

    Early acc doesn't seem necessary thanks to 'luck of the beginner'. But the early Kismet may actually quite smart as for one slot we avoid slotting all other attacks. I would need to check on Mids where the cut off is.

     


    I return from checking Mids. Mids does not account for 'luck of the beginner' that slowly wanes until it disappears at level 20 but just a Kismet gives standard attacks 71% chance to hit. Which means at least by level 21 it's not enough.

     

    Mids doesn't allow level 23 generic IOs, but a level 25 generic IO leaves accuracy at 85% by level 22 so 32% is almost enough against +1.

     

    I usually guide myself by Mids for the accuracy needed to hit +1 when compiling leveling builds, but now that I think about it considering the ATOs numbers we get are for level 50 the accuracy is most likely under the limit. Kismet is probably a good choice. (Man, I do my own chain of thought and my reasoning is better for it).

     

     

    I do always keep track of Last Hit chance and it reports 95% most of the time until fighting AVs and such but I think the Kismet could indeed be a smart thing. I already loathe miss the archaic 5% always present miss chance without adding even more to it.

  23. Well, I talked myself into making the Claws/Rad build at least. A blasphemous one without Shockwave (but it's easy to just ditch GZ for Shockwave).

     

    All capped (with Barrier) except F/C/P and enough defense that a smell purple softcaps as a little something extra for survival.

     

    Scrapper (Claws Rad).mbd

     

     

    Claws/Stone is what I'd really like to try though, but fie to runners. Heck, even with Rad Armor I get runners. Maybe I should slot a taunt in Beta Decay instead of an endurance reduction.

     

     

    Another one I hadn't considered would be Rad/Rad, but Devastating(gly slow) Blow holds me back and the 'fix' to IG without giving a tune up for the rest of the set hasn't it in a great spot. But a little extra heal makes sense for a resist set (heck, almost as if they were meant to be paired!?).

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