Sovera

Fire Armor/Martial Arts character used. Some pylon tests, no incarnate clickies used, no -res procs: 5:27 with Burn used. 5:12 with Burn used. 5:36 without Burn used. 6:06 without Burn. 6:12 without Burn. Previous times on current live servers under the same conditions: 4 minutes with Burn 4:56 4:37 4:55 4:34 Trapdoor test, bosses enabled, no incarnate clickies used, no -res procs: 6:13 6:07 Previous times on current live servers under the same conditions: 6 minutes. I'm probably skewing things with Dragon Tail's FF proc speeding things. To be honest I'm conflicted. On one hand the AoE clear times remain the same despite the too-large-in-my-opinion extra recharge, but the nerf to single target is pretty darn brutal. I don't see what could be done about it that would not increase the AoE clear times though. Perhaps shaving some recharge off Fiery Embrace. Fire Armor remains a good alternative for attack sets with weak or very late AoE and Burn still adds a nice boost to use instead of the weakest ST skill of a build. All the rest works as advertised with Consume increasing HP from 2551 to 2832. Switching to full Panaceia made the HP go from 2579 to 3134. This is pretty decent and bordering the HP cap, but making Consume the carrier of the HP buff does not make much sense since it is a much needed endurance clickie and it is thus slotted for endurance recovery. Frankenslotting will be a thing for the future if the more logical change to attach the boost to Healing Flames is not made. Now being the time to tune the set I would add my voice to making the endurance part of Consume auto-hit. It is a LONG cooldown just to be hit by the 5% fairy.

Tried to respec in Brainstorm. Consume (level 😎 only became available at level 16 at the same time as Crane Kick (also a level 16 pick) forcing me to choose. This forced to either pick Plasma Shield (normally level 12) or Dragon Tail at level 20. This is a respec, not leveling.

I'll test before saying anything, but Burn carried Fire Armor and if it's not good enough the small bumps FA got won't make the set appetizing for anything other than theme. But, testing first before knee jerking. I'll report on my findings.

Holy guacamole! You magnificent bastards, you did it! You finally did it! Something that stumped devs for so many years but you did it!

The damage is not great but /Fire does help and FF procs in TK and Mass Levitate help Burn returning faster. Mass Levitate is serious CC and the FF proc helps it get back sooner as well. Kind of a pity it tosses mobs around. Not much, but it's not a vertical climb and drop so they start scattering. Seriously though, Mass Levitate is on the level of Shockwave in terms of mitigation and much easier to use than a cone. This plays very well with a both a Brute and Fire Armor's squishyness. The damage turns kinda disappointing though. Weird as it may sound I would not even use Greater Psi Sword to eat Insight since Insight is adding Fury boosted damage anyway and GPS is kinda not worth using outside of having Insight, making it an extra power pick and finding slots for it. Hmm... Now I ponder a Psi/Stone with Fury boosted Brimstone and Insight and the defensive power of Stone with the CC of Mass Levitate. That would definitely fix the squish. But soloing until Mass Levitate would be miserable since the only AoE would be the aura and the small cone.

I got to say that the lack of healing is one of the reasons I don't play Fortunatas. I played a Widow for a bit with Aid-Self and it was fine for regular play but trying to do Hami while it seemed to ignore my defenses was too much and I dropped out. Some small suggestions: - You have a Numina end/rech in Health. I think everyone will know what you meant to slot there but, just in case. Someone mathed that a Panaceia proc beats either procs in terms of endurance recovery. For regular play I'd trade the Preventive Medecine proc for it, but for super hard play I suppose it has a place for that extra bit of survival (the game is a lot about stacking small things). - Since you have zero AoE outside of your nuke I'd consider trading one of the damage procs in TK Blast for a FF proc to help shaving those 40 seconds down. The fast animation and recharge would not have it firing very often, but, either proc there is not terribly useful for the same reason and for their damage types anyway (Toxic is widely resisted as is Smash) - The -damage and terrorize proc might not be super helpful but the dmg/rch one in Psychic Wail is way way past ED anyway, might as well slot it in since you'll lose nothing. - There is a -very- fractional gain in swapping the slotting from Mask Presence to Weave. Very fractional though, just a bit of endurance reduction on the heavier toggle and a bit less of 1% gain in extra defense. - The BotZ in Fly could be changed for a Winter's Gift 20% slow resist (I initially thought you meant to slot a -KB in there but Fortunatas have CC protection toggles). - The slotting between Maneuvers and Foresight could be swapped. It is another miniscule gain in defense (about half percent) but more importantly Foresight is an auto that does not make use of the staggering endurance reduction stats the full set affords, while Maneuvers is a decently hefty toggle. - The same applies to Combat Training: Defense auto and any other defensive toggle such as Weave. - Could trade one Unbreakable Guard in Tough for the +HP proc. It's about 100 HP. - The Reactive Defenses resist proc is missing. I can see how those 3% were not considered crucial when you're defense based and starved for slots though. None of these are game breaking and are tiny tiny min maxes at best but since it's a min maxed built maybe you can incorporate them. There are things I would not do like six slotting the Red Fortunes. Cutting them in half and throwing a few BotZ two slots around would give more slots to play with. Hasten is already at 5 seconds from being perma without even a team using Ageless or that FF proc mentioned above so chasing recharge does not seem strictly necessary if wanting a few more slots to play around with. I would not have taken both Assaults either since despite being 30% on paper it's probably more like a bit less than 10% for both, which, fair, 10% for the whole team, but it's a bit of a drop of water (this is a case of hitting something with both Assaults on, then toggling them off, hit the same thing again, then calculate the percentage from the difference. On a Tanker the 15% Assault was a bit less than 5% but I did not do this on a Fortunata). For a character based on support this is probably sacrilege though, but mathematically speaking the gains just don't seem useful. In return for not taking both Assaults perhaps Evasive Maneuvers for more speed in combat or moving between packs or missions as well as being another recipient for two slot BotZ. The other could be Leadership for yet more team wide accuracy to help get over hard mode defenses.

Stone Armor should not have growing pains, but, it depends on how much money you have to throw at it. i found I had nearly 40% defense by level 22 which is a dummy thick amount. If you want to show us your build we can help, and if you need help with how to make money take a gander at my signature.

I ended up leveling this the old fashioned way. The leveling was not hard since I was teamed. The damage... well, it's not great. Like, about Sentinel damage in terms of single target, but it does clear in AoE with soft CC pretty decently and the heal from Dehydrate works very well in keeping the character up (for example the pylon tests required no inspirations to survive and it was not uncommon to be dropped to yellow and heal back to full). The sturdiness is good too. Doing normal ITF at +3 and soloing cysts is pretty good in my book. The pylon hurt more because all its attacks are AoE and the defenses are for Ranged, but the heals kept the character up. Oil Slick is a bit of a mixed bag. Tested on a pylon the initial hit is 605 followed by about 150 ticks (yep, 150, though they roll to hit) for 6.05 damage which makes 907 damage making about 1500 all Fire damage total over a period of about 15 seconds. To compare Geyser does 192 Fire plus 64 Smashing followed by 11 ticks of 17.46 damage making for a total of 448 over a period of 5 seconds. ... that's pretty weak. But it's without combo points. Using Geyser with 3 combo points changes the damage to 72 Smashing, 216 Fire, 72 Fire, followed by 11 ticks of 24.61 Fire for a total of 630. Still weak but worth pondering using Tidal Waves with Geyser instead of using Upshot for the 30% faster recharge for Geyser to come back sooner. Oil Slick is thus a pretty decent pseudo nuke despite its DoT nature not really working well with the current CoH rush rush meta, but it feels good being able to alternate nuke and pseudo nuke in a team and always have something instead of nuking every couple of spawns while always grumbling if someone gets their nuke/judgement off making that once-every-two-spawns moment wasted. This part of the build I liked and would do again. The ST damage is the ugly part though. Pylon tests at 4:20 and 4:48 are pretty much Sentinel level, but, it's the price to pay for Dehydrate. Seriously, even not slotted for heals Dehydrate heals for 4 ticks of 33 HP making 132 HP every 3-4 seconds. With three combos it goes to four ticks of 50 HP totalling 200 HP. I currently have 1671 HP so a regular Dehydrate heals for nearly 8% per use making Water a good choice to go around surviving bad odds, and this does not account for using the combo points when things are dire. In AoE mode when soloing it was not uncommon to slip Dehydrate between AoEs to keep my HP up. After leveling I've changed a few things around. Things I've noticed: - Almost 3 EPS is not enough when in full AoE mode (though lasts indefinitely in ST mode). Probably wants Musculature 33% for a bit more income though the few times I plumbed by blue bar I just used a Recovery Serum. In a team this was not necessary but it was when I parted ways to solo stuff that required vast uses of AoE. - Oil Slick can be annoying and the ultimate troll is seeing 'miss' when trying to light it on fire. I did not feel the mobs were as Fear-ed by it as when using Burn since they did not run off as much. The Slow can be noticed but they hardly ever were KD. - Steam Spray is the only way the build has to light Oil Slick so keep that in min when it's its turn. Glue Arrow would definitely feel better instead of a 'short' range Cone, but, Oil Slick. - Oil slick has a delay between being cast, showing up, and actually be targetable. This is noticeable if using Oil Slick and then queueing Steam Spray/Geyser with them being used but the slick not being lit. I've taken to always cast a skill after Oil Slick and before using Steam Spray/Geyser. During the pylon test I would Oil Slick, Upshot, Tidal Wave, Geyser, as casting all these skills gave Oil Slick time. - I made a few binds for the build to be as hands free for me to drive. They might not be the best for everyone though (obviously change the keybinds to your preference): /bind lshift+4 powexec_location target oil slick arrow /bind lshift+1 powexec_location target whirlpool In conclusion I felt the build was good to survive. I would not necessarily say it was good to -solo- though, for that I would recommend taking Ice Arrow to shut down problematic targets, just in case. The single target is definitely not amezeballs but it's an AoEcentric build and it can spend a lot of time just throwing AoE after AoE with barely any ST skills used, so if someone feels CoH is an AoE game then this will work fine, but if someone feels that CoH is a ST game then this will not be it. But even so other sets might do as good or better AoE (Fire, for example, does everything well, -and- it would light Oil Slick without much input on our side) so I feel that Dehydrate is pretty much the star of the show. Lastly I'm not a Blaster expert and others have chimed and added their own version of this so take those into consideration.

I come from leveling a Water/Tactical Arrow in the old fashioned way. Wouldn't call it the best solo anything and the damage is not rightly impressive, but surviving (normal +3x8) ITF's when the team was having trouble just really shows how the Sentinel's sturdiness fails to shine. Soloing cysts, spawns, even tanking the last boss when the team wiped. Not gonna say I could do it indefinitely but 45% defense and the small heal of Dehydrate kept me about as safe as the Elec/Bio Sentinel. Not 100% sure I was doing more damage (I need to hit a pylon) but I'm also incarnate-less. That said soloing the ITF Council spawns made me remember why I kept a row of breakfrees since they were chain CCing.

Will the real fake nemesis please stand up? Will the real fake nemesis please stand up?

There is barely a benefit in using Granite Armor these days. In terms of numbers the other armor toggles will make you near impervious without using Granite.

You're missing my point. I respect Voltak's knowledge and understanding of builds and how to drive them. What I -am- saying is that a player at the level of asking which Blaster is best to solo with is not someone who ought to be dissuaded from a Sentinel. There are different levels just like simply blindly copying a meta build will not ensure the same result compared to an advanced player. Which is why I stated it was all good advice (even the part about the Sentinels), but my caveat stands IMO.

Without -res all my tanks got around 4 minutes for pylons (3 minutes with). My best Sentinel got around 4 minutes (but others got much better times with melee moves). I'm purposefully not taking in consideration the Elec/Bio Sentinel since the Shocked mechanic skews things on a pylon test (fight lasts long enough for the Shocked mechanic to come into use with the pylon floored half way into the fight, also pylon is +0 which makes sapping easier) despite it having 3 minutes without -res procs involved. Since 'raw damage output' only has the pylon as a metric this is what we have. Actual gameplay tests will be hard to be stable thanks to runners. Tankers will keep things close until dead, Sentinels will have mobs running around and needing to be picking one by one. I would still put Tankers ahead IMO but it's 'gut feels'. My best Trapdoor tests with Tankers were 6 minutes, but I've seen others achieve under 5 minutes with SS and/or Rad (both these skew things a bit but it's there so just make one).

Voltak's point of view is from someone who does four star hardmodes in 30 minutes with three deaths. Not sure it applies to someone who makes a post asking what ranged character to solo with. Sentinels remain a good choice for anyone who is not ready or able to build expensive or complicated, or be ready to drive said builds. That does not mean his advice is to be ignored, but adjust the advice to the person being advised.

I'd go with Sentinel for soloing. I'm currently leveling a blaster and it's fine, but the one time I tried to fight Knives of Artemis I got stunnedheldstunnedheld within the first seconds of combat. It can be fixed later on, but a Sentinel has it fixed since level 10. Tbh I wouldn't even use ranged for soloing because mobs will just run off once at 20% HP and it's a needless pain to go through.

Dang, gone are the days of three hours and triple digit deaths.

How dare you try hard at something?? You should just casually expect things to fall on your lap. Like doing good damage, or soloing hard stuff.

Alright, sold, making a new one. Now I just need a concept.

That's me on Redside. Blue side I only need to worry about CoT but on redside the damn magic dudes debuff defense like crazy. Still, I don't remember Croatoa being that bad though. Pumpkins dudes don't do anything special and the furries do some -defense but not to the extent of CoT. There are the witches but those are mainly sapping. Kinda makes me want to make a new Fire Armor and give it a try now.

Fire Ar-... <_< >_>

Valid. All powers have at least 99% to hit +3 enemies though so no kismet needed unless hitting +4 enemies. I know what you mean about the Ice/Flash arrow but I don't see it the same way. Flash needs to hit the enemies, is affected by purple patch (not just effect but duration of the debuff), and anyone not in range will not be debuffed. Tbh I would rather have the defense numbers. Ice Arrow could indeed warrant being used as an extra to help ST with the help of procs, but I just feel that a Blaster ought to blast, not CC, and as you've pointed out in the last line, any non water skill is not building stacks. I already have a self-contained ST rotation (though weak looking numbers with 312, 400 and 409 which look almost more like Sentinel numbers than Blasters). Edit: took and procced Ice Arrow (four damage procs of which one being the purple Hold damage proc, +3 acc/dmg Hami, +5 damage Apocalypse, so no recharge to maximize procs, ED-ed damage and 95% acc to hit +3 enemies) and ended with 286 damage, same cast time as Hydro Blast. Hydro Blast does KD and has a FF proc in it, but Ice Arrow does a Hold which is useful. In terms of raw power it's not the best ST damage I was sold though 😛 (unless Mids lies which is not uncommon either). Glue Arrow does seem to do pretty decent damage for an AoE, and the -speed would stack up nicely with the -speed from Whirlpool. Not sure what I would sacrifice for it though. I could trade Steam Spray for it, but not sure what I'd light Oil Slick with when I am alternating with Geyser instead of using both at the same time. Steam Spray also does a fair bit more damage than Glue Arrow. Hmm...

I'm not a Blaster expert, but being a bit sick of playing melee I've been puttering around with other ATs. That said I'm no expert so critiques are welcomed. One of my dislikes of Blasters is the long recharge on the nuke (yeah, it's petty, I know) with it only available every two spawns. Hence I took Water for: - More recharge with FF procs in Hydro Blast and Water Burst. - Self-heal to help keep HP up. Tactical Arrow is taken for: - Good passives to stay fully ranged. - More recharge with Upthrust and Gymnastics. - Oil Slick doubling as a second nuke allowing to stagger the use and bypass my peeve of only have a nuke every two spawns. According to Mids Oil Slick actually does more damage than Geyser while also recharging faster (it is a DoT instead of a nuke though so not conducive to solo play). The idea is to have 45% ranged and then hover blast fully ranged. Since none of the shields gives Ranged defense and slotting for S/L felt superfluous I chose a S/L resist shield instead. Regardless it is meant to blast from afar and in a team. From what I see I can do an attack chain of Water Jet, Dehydrate, Hydro Blast, start over. This will naturally lead Water Jet to have the repeat mechanic though misses will have it eaten by Dehydrate. For regular play it seems logical to boost the weak link (Tidal Forces) with a Gaussian and then alternate. Upthrust (it does +recharge and Geyser is the slowest nuke so it helps getting it back a little bit sooner), Geyser, dump all the AoE, mop up with ST. Next spawn Tidal Forces, Oil Slick, dump all the AoE (Steam Spray will ignite Oil Slick), mop up with ST. Water Blast is notorious for the rubbery ST damage though but perhaps Oil Slick will be the boost it needs. Otherwise Energy/ is a consideration since it too has places to slot FF procs and the damage looks better on the surface (but in practice may suffer from the KB>KD slot).

You have the reverse idea here (but pay attention that trite as it sounds having fun with the character will be more important than min max picks that don't click), Water is good AoE but mushy single target damage despite the mechanic you've mentioned, Ice is good single target damage (some of the best ST if using a build with tailored procs in the attacks) but its the AoE that is mushy (anecdotal, but I remember being turned off at throwing Blizzard + Ice Storm and seeing minions surviving. Which is -not- what I expected when dropping a nuke). Rad is hurt by the long animations despite having good procs (unlike Ice which is mostly fast animations) but does not have any special benefits that I find important (I mean, it does lower defense on the target, but this is not something I find of use). Things to consider: Water comes with a built-in heal so it lends itself to soloing and even taking down hard targets. This is more important when the secondary has no heal (such as /cold) but recouping HP simply by attacking has worth when doing more extreme soloing such as tackling AVs.

Is this a font made for ants!?

I'm not a Controller player since ultimately not being able to kill enemies gets to me even when I'm teamed, but I like both builds that were posted. The low damage of Ice Control should be helped by the double layer of Confuse though both rely on going into melee range which is not something I can condone 😄 That said the emphasis on chasing Fire&Cold resistances seem a bit gratuitous unless something has changed. Those two were always considered low priority since S/L and E/N are much more common, and, in particular, a Controller ought to have groups CCed. If there are free mobs hitting back then the Controller is slipping. I've tried my hand at the last posted build. Take it with a grain of salt since: A) I don't play Controllers to begin with. B) Both builds look already pretty tight and thumbs-up-y. I took out the mass immobilize for Hasten stemming from my dislike of it, but obviously replace Hasten for it if desiring it. I would have changed SJ for Fly and just hover out of reach while both PbAoE fields did their thing and Frost wailed on the enemies, but that's just me.