Sovera

That majority of the attacks still have a S/L component. What changed 'recently' was that some of the attacks of some of the mobs of some factions had the S/L component removed from E/N attacks. This was done to curb the S/L defense meta, but it was not a sweeping change. The patch note when it happened went over which mobs had this changed in each faction. As for capped resistances and softcapped defense let me present you my Fire/Martial Arts 😄 Affectionately called the Turtle because of that.

I've tried taking it and using it but it was so bad I preferred to take Contaminated Strike and ST the mobs until my actual AoE opened up.

I haven't played 'seriously' in a while but for a good two years this was my go to game. Now, every server has their own community, but Everlasting was always good so take that in mind when someone says they've had a good or a bad time. The suggestion subforum is a cesspool of well meant white knights that want to defend the poor devs from extra work. Any suggestion these players disagree based on whatever whim dictates it is met with a firm no. Which is completely hilarious if we consider that: A) The suggestion was not addressed to them but rather to the devs, so why are they even chiming in? If they are devs then it's valid, sure. But an internet rando saying no because it's too much work? Lol? B) Their opinion isn't worth the pixels it is printed on. If the devs decide to implement it it will be implemented and that's it.

You don't need to take all your attack powers. As a rule your strongest powers are the ones taken later. Colloquially they are referred by tiers with the first attack called tier 1 (or T1) and the last being the tier 9 (or T9). Your strongest attacks are usually the last ones. This is not 100% true for all sets so don't shy away from asking regarding certain combos. For ranged characters their T9 is also known as their nuke. That's the thing they will initiate combat with and is frankly of the most important since it will burst a group of mobs. But for the most part what you want is Mids, the program we use for builds, and then look at the recharge of the attacks. I'm sure you've noticed that your huge bar of attack has constantly powers that are already recharged and not being used because you just can't press them all. Narrow these to: - Powers you like. They just look cool and that's valid. That power from Radiation Blast that does the Star Wars pew pew sound? Yes please. - Powers that are useful. Build-up for example (never skip, take early, slot early, it's your opener), but powers that give a breather by knocking enemies away. - Enough attacks that when you hit your last one the first has finished recharging. Any more than these are not needed. This will change as you level so it is fine to take one or two attacks more while leveling but as slots open and more recharge is slotting the need for extra attacks goes down. I would usually recommend always taking the T1 as it is what recharges the fastest and it's easy to slip it in between each of the stronger attacks. Later on it can be ignored or just turned into a mule. The last one in particular will fluctuate a lot depending on how you slot your powers. Having a metric load of cash will allow to slot fancy IOs early which in turn will allow to not take a lot of powers in order to not have big gaps waiting for powers to finish recharging. But if playing with basic vendor bought gear then that does not happen and the progression will be slower and the need for extra attacks will remain. There is no easy answer as this will depend on what AT and which power sets you've picked in that AT. As a quick example with all min maxed expensive builds pretty much all have only three single target attacks with very tight requirements to avoid picking a fourth attack. But then there will be AoE attacks which depend on the attack set. Some will have one AoE, some will have two. Then Build-up. So around 5-6 powers will be taken from the attack set. There are exceptions to this such as Axe that has such awkward recharge times that a fourth attack is required, and Ice Melee which has no good third single-target attack so I use Frost, it's cone AoE, in the single-target chain giving the set excellent cleave which ends saving one power pick. For the secondary sets it is harder to answer because it depends on the set. A buffer AT will want its buffs, but a Blaster will pick which of their melee attacks they feel comfortable going into melee to use. A meleer will take their armor toggles, always, but some passives are not worth picking or be avoided (Stone Armor's Granite form for example). There are way too many possible permutations to go through each one. As a rule it is much easier to cobble something together in Mids, post it on the forums, ask for opinions, and then, important, decide whether you want to take those opinions. Some opinions will be all min maxed and suck the joy out of playing the set that you were having. Eff that. But say it and someone is bound to give a helping hand. You can learn what was done and most of the times the builds themselves can be used as templates to try different combos and trying to replicate the slotting.

Making a build IS an art form. Some will build tanky like I do and sacrifice damage despite the game not being that hard. Others will go full on damage and rely on short buffs. Saying HOW to build is harder than it sounds because it involves playing with IO bonuses and making a tetris that hits all the sweetspots. With hundreds of bonuses this is not something we can just say do X and Z. To be fair what you're saying of 'just learn, n00b' is how I learned. I started builds (very crappy ones) posted them on the forums (and I cringe looking at them now). I saw how others did it, got my tips from their slotting, improved how I slotted. But when you ask 'how do I reach my defense softcaps' it's like you expect some magic formula. There is no such thing. Different ATs have, by themselves, 236 combinations (I looked at the math for Brutes recently, and yes, we can have 236 variations of a Brute not including regular and epic pools which catapults it further). Of those 236 possible variations some will reach the caps in one way and others in another. In these permutations we then also add how some people will be fine with spending 700 million in a build and others want to spend 200 million tops. If you want to take this as an apathetic community that does not care then okay, sure, go for it. But if you were to tell me 'I have and X/X and I'd like to build tanky' I could say how to achieve this. You'd get bonus points for having tried it first and posted the build with the powers you like and want so we can work around it. If you then have questions I can try to answer them too. But since you're talking goals here's some: - Defence is, IMO, king, since a lot of attacks carry debuffs in them. If we avoid the attacks we avoid the debuffs. Defence comes in two flavours: typed (smash/lethal, fire/cold, etc) and positional (melee, ranged, AoE). These do not intersect or stack so pick one. Which one do you pick? The one your AT is aimed for. For example Stone Armor is typed defense so obviously aim for it. But Ninjutsu is positional, so it's positional you want. Goals: 45% of either. If going into incarnate territory this goes up to 59% (I don't personally bother building for incarnate but it's a me thing). Most ranged ATs have zero defenses or resistances natively with the exception of Sentinel who has armor toggles in their secondary. So trying to build a ranged character who reaches 45% to everything is just near impossible. In this case as a rule of thumb what will be aimed for is just Ranged defense since as a ranged character the enemies will be hitting back from range. This is also a reason why ranged characters will be advised to take Hover and Fly in order to be floating out of melee ranged making their Ranged defense shine. This is not the only way to do it though. A Blaster can ignore defense and just start a fight doing so much damage that they obliterate a spawn in the first seconds, but this is not as easy as it sounds if wishing to increase the difficulty. Resistance based sets will go up to 90%. They will usually have a heal to recoup those 10% being lost since EVERY attack lands. There is no fancy 'positional' here as resistances apply to a certain damage type. These types are always paired though, so IO bonuses will give, for example, smash/lethal resistance instead of just smash or just lethal. While certain ATs like Brutes or Tankers have natively a 90% cap to all it is very hard, if not impossible, to grab a defense set and pump up the resistances as well. If the armor picked is defence then focus on getting to the defence cap, and if the armor is resistance then try to get it to 90%. Tankers have it good since their special AT IO gives them at least 13% via its proc allowing to, at least, aim for 77% instead of 90% as the last 13% come from the ATO proc. Then, if there is slotting and depending on how much you're willing to sacrifice you can use the leftover slots to increase resistances. This is the moment where recharge is sacrificed. Recharge is important if having a lot of important cooldowns. Some sets live and die by their cooldowns (for example Bio Armor that relies on three cooldowns to stay alive) and others don't really care much (for example Super Reflexes or Stone Armor that have no defensive cooldowns). But when it comes to attacks having lots of recharge allows to only use the strong attacks as well as making Build-up come back sooner. Build-up is an important tool (more for solo tbh) as it gives a substantial 80% damage boost for 10 seconds. With a Gaussian proc in it that is increased to 160% for 5 seconds, then 80% for the remainder five. Especially during solo those initial 160% are key to bursting a spawn of mobs in the first seconds by dumping all AoEs empowered by Build-up + Gaussian. The usual rule of thumb is aiming for Hasten being permanent but it's not easy to achieve. Trying to build tanky is almost anathema to building a lot of recharge as there are choices to be made to go for one or go for the other. Some ATs, like Dominators, will live and die with recharge and barely need to be built tanky since their whole shtick is CCing mobs. No need to be tanky when mobs are frozen or stunned while being kil.. arrested.

Bog standard. I started with just one action bar in the middle. Of course soon had to increase to two to fit all the toggles and attacks. It grew to three bars because eventually ran out of room. And it's now four bars to fit all the incarnate buttons and etcwhich I've not had the need to increase further. I turn all macros into keybinds despite having four SG bases I regularly use. It's pretty much my WoW UI since it's what I evolved into: buttons down, target and my HP down so I can glance from buttons to HP without scouring the screen, and then one extra bar on the right to add whatever did not fit or is of least importance. The only annoyance is my inspiration window will pop out of place each time I enter an instance and I need to drag it back into place.

Someone looked at Silver Surfer and went hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

I notice we're all skipping past Ninjutsu. It's a pretty sweet deal on a Sentinel. Heal, endurance, positional defense (hence ranged if wanting to focus on it). Downside would be no damage boost and having an anti-CC clickie instead of toggle.

I just posted a more traditional Stone/MA build. Without incarnates it has 60% defense and 70/76% resists with one or two stacks of the ATO, and then nearly 400% regen (58 HPs). With incarnates add a permanent 5% to the defense and resists.

I believe the stacking can only be done with a Scrapper. The only Parry like power that can be stacked by Brute/Tankers is Defensive Spin from Staff. I could be wrong about this though as I've not touched Broadsword in a while and Mids is not 100% trustworthy.

Probably not what you want to hear (and people seem to get their hackles up when ever I suggest it) but you could consider doing it with a Brute instead. Simply because their Fire Armor has an agro aura that keeps enemies close where the Scrapper version will send mobs running to the africas when ever they use Burn. Fire Armor is also a resistance based armor and Brutes get 90% resists where Scrappers have 75% but mostly the agro aura.

Unrelated, but what the heck is this thumbnail? Where did it got generated from?

Internet cutesy way of saying small. It's not an acronym.

On live we played Fight Club RP-PvP but very often the meleer fights would end in a draw. Very actually on point when two invulnerable enemies hit each other 😄 In a game there is certainly no comic book rules where the invulnerablest is also the strongest. It was pretty boring and even spectators would sigh once we realized we were in for another 10 minute fight until one of them would finally give up. I remember speccing into some odd picks like the epic frost pool to get some slows and make recharge slower just to be able to kill someone. Of course on the same account everyone turned into a puddle of goo if a debuffer joined the fray and I remember our RP-PvP reigning champion was a Poison MM where bodyguard kept them alive while they applied all poison debuffs until the other person could do nothing. This is all pre PvP changes and IOs being introduced. My own (brief) foray into playing at RP PvP in HC with a villain was not very good. As long as it was a meleer we could brawl and quip and slowly whittle each other. But the moment a Blaster came in it was game over. Tanker or not. But all bets were off when a *PvP* Blaster joined. Instead of useless Fly they'd have Super Jump which allowed to bounce around and travel power cancellation didn't stop inertia so they'd still finish their jump. I tried a variety of things like going into Web Grenade, but in the age of IOs there is enough resistance to these things. I'm sure someone more into it like @America's Angel would know counters like, last I hear Energy Aura was godly because the T9 worked in PvP so instead of being an instant death if a Blaster came in they could at least chase them. But never take Fly into PvP that's for sure. Any hit cancels it and we move slower than Hover while inertia makes jousting with SS or SS the way to move.

Must fight the Shephards. I remember putting that challenge in the forums. Fun times.

What I usually say in these threads is that there's no reason to ever not go Bio. Lets face it, if you're in trouble you'll have to reach out for an inspiration, so reaching out for Ablative Shield is pretty much the same. But I'd say Stone Armor otherwise. You'll want endurance back in some way or form and a heal or regen as even 5% hits pile up.

Last I recall (but it's been a good while) Hibernate triggers the phase shift debuff who in turn has a CD of two minutes(?) not touched by recharged. It was something I learned even for PvE that Hibernate's recharge didn't matter much since phase shift did not allow it to be used. This means phase shift can't be used too. Take this with a grain of salt since it's been a long while.

I don't like Controllers either. I do feel they just slow things down, even the good ones who only mass immobilize when the mobs are grouped up. That said I don't feel a need to refuse them either and can and have ended up with 2-4 CC types in teams I was forming. To be honest the game has moved on past the need for CC, much like there was a time WoW dungeons were c a r e f u l pulls with one mob sheeped, another mob sapped, a third frozen trapped, and then v e r y carefully killing the rest with NO AOE WHATSOEVER to not break the CCs and always a sweaty eye on those mobs to reapply those CCs because one extra mob could easily (very easily) wipe the group. All of this is gone and dead by so much as four expansions back where everything is now AoE and rush rush pulling two groups at once until at least high mythics where a soupçon of CC can still be used. For good or worse that's what the game evolved to, and this applies to CoH as well. Controllers might have been a hot commodity during the era of SOs but now everything is so tanky and so damaging that it's just a steamroller steamrolling. This isn't a particular dig at CC ATs though, most ATs are not needed in this day and age. We can do teams with only Scrappers or Brutes or even HEATs (damn, the burn!) and do the same bulldozing. The only difference and why Controllers are singled out is that their skills tend to be disruptive.

I'm not sure if this fits what you are after, but with the help of the wiki to uncover the names of the contacts/levels/name of the storyline wouldn't Orobouros have it? This hinges on knowing the names though which is a catch-22 if those aren't known. Orouboros does not have the storylines separated, but clicking on each shows the contact. So while tedious you could be able to click on each and take the quests from the contact if the name matches the wiki.

I've got three but I think this one is the most balanced. The AoE of MA is weak so I took Psionic Tornado to help it since I had free powers to waste on the pre-requisites. There's a case to be said to go for Fireball instead (same waste of pre-requisites but Fire damage is better than Psi damage) but Harmonic Mind adds another extra to help with the blue bar that Stone Armor kinda needs: Tanker (Stone Armor - MA) Final build.mbd There's a version with Focused accuracy as I usually go for and one with Fireball. Fireball is the simplest since the slotting is the same but Psionic Mastery is replaced by Fire Mastery, and the Focused Accuracy simply dumps the slots around. Since having the extra powers and extra slots there's no special reason to go the Focussed Accuracy route considering the build is at minimum 94% to hit +3 enemies. There's always the danger of fighting accuracy debuffing enemies which makes me leery of leaving home without FA but it's a case of respeccing if it becomes a nuisance. Either way the build ends with 55% defense, 60% with Weave toggled on, 65% with Barrier, and 76%-ish resistances with two stacks of the ATO, 81%ish with Barrier. F/C is capped at 90% even without Barrier since it's the only one without defenses. Psi is 'only' at 45%, 51% with Weave, and 56% with Barrier, but psi does not debuff defense so 45% is all it requires.

That will not happen. PvP changes how things work and Tankers don't get their PvE resistances there. If you're just playing at club fight (two melee hitting each other) then I would suggest Radiation Armor/Dark Melee as you can draw out things with your three heals. But if you face any ranged character they will make mince meat out of you either way.

For that Stone/MA?

I could mimic your current build and throw it against a pylon and then do the same with the Soaring Dragon/Golden Dragonfly variant but I'm coming to terms that you would disregard the results under some reason or another. Damage is damage, whether it comes from procs or from anything else. If you want to see the proc chance of things just hover over the damage and the proc chance will be shown. I'm not quite sure why you're explaining to me, of all people, how you think that procs work or why they are 'bad', but to add the 'shield proc' is mostly useless and it is there to reap the fat 6% resistances to E/N. Both S/L and E/N are the major forms of damage in this game and what is usually built for. Fire and Cold, Toxic and Psi, are rarer and usually come in small doses where we can quickly defeat the mob that is doing it. I sacrificed another 3% E/N in Focused Accuracy to finish pushing S/L a little bit higher but mirroring Build-up's slotting would have pushed E/N resistances to 50%, which in turn having the about-ish 18% from two stacks of the ATO and Barrier would have pushed to 68%. Getting better defenses/resistances beats the loss of the 6 HPS of regen, IMO. Just ask any Regeneration player how well things work in being a bag of HP and regen when damage comes in hot. In closing I'm not sure why you'd be farming in AE or farming roleplayers in Pocket D or why asking for a critique and then explain why your choices are better when critiqued, but it's best to build for the times when there are no buffers in a team or buffers of the wrong sort. As you've noticed in a team it doesn't matter while doing normal content. A single person can already solo that normal content so when there are 8 present it's simply overkill and everything melts in five or six seconds and there is no need to overthink it. Your build WILL do all content just fine in a team and even in solo, so under that prism there is no need to change a single bit of even the first one. Carry on having fun, that's all we can ask for.

I'm a big fan of Fly and have zero builds without it so I read you. The infiltration/GI suggestion swap for Combat Jumping remains (I use CJ just for the 2-3% and the LotG slot). I was offering alternatives for Infiltration since it's a travel power that does stealth and I thought this angle played into your character's theme. There is no reason not to to use Build-up though. You see a pack of enemies and prepare to dive in? Click on it. Hasten you control + left click and it sets that on auto to never be thought about again until the heat death of the universe. Regardless it's your build so surely do as you will. I had not seen in the first post you didn't want changes made to the build but I do have some experience with the game and can say you should at least try the swap to Hasten and Soaring Dragon + Golden Dragonfly. You CAN do the whole game on a T1 and a T2 and I have done such builds, but only when the higher tier skills were crap (looking atcha, Kinetic Melee and Savage Melee). But in Katana's case you got two good, strong skills at your disposal. Simply looking at the numbers DA (95 damage with 1.6 animation), SD (265 damage with 1.6 animation), and GD (329 damage with 2 second animation will do 689 in 5.2 seconds. You current build does Sting of the Wasp (125 damage in 1.32), Gambler's Cut (91 damage in 1 second) and Divine Avalanche (91 damage in 1.6) for 307 damage in 3.9 seconds. The rotation with SD and GD will do approximately 3975 damage over 30 seconds. Your rotation would do approximately 2361.6 damage over 30 seconds. Of course I'm assuming you're not using Flashing Steel since you have a full rotation without it but it could probably replace one of the weaker skills like Gambler's Cut albeit for minimal gains. At minimal the damage will be much higher, but it is also very aesthetically pleasing since the combo is one of the best looking ones COH has. Soaring Dragon tosses a mob in the air with a knock-up and Golden Dragonfly is us doing a little jump and swinging down doing a knock-down which sells the image of slamming the opponent to the ground. Just, please, do not trust the DPA of Mids, I can assure you the damage will skyrocket compared to what you have become used to even if it demands switching some slotting around. Respecs are cheap so if it's not to your tastes then respec back. There's also the public test server if you wish to try it without burning your free respecs or spending 2 million on a respec recipe. But this changes nothing that if you're enjoying the spec as it is and you're not dying then why change? Carry on, it's a game, we literally play these to have fun and if you're having fun isn't the goal achieved? Do try to squeeze in those three Eradications into Sweep and Lotus to finish softcapping your E/N. It will still melt under praetorian robots but better to start softcapped than 5-6% under. This is what I'd use in the end-game after amassing money: BingBongBang v3 - Tanker (Willpower - Katana).mbd At least it'll give some more slotting ideas and maybe you'll find something useful to adopt. Most of it can be adapted to be cheaper.

- The Gaussian proc should be in Build-up, which you did not take. Do take it as it as it is a nice boost at the start of the fight and when you can lay down a couple AoEs while under its influence to quickly put down the mass of minions that would debuff and/or hurt you. In Build-up the Gaussian is near assured to go off where in Focused Accuracy it will when it decides it will. By both having BU and the Gaussian you will start the fight with a 160% damage boost for the first 5 seconds, and 80% for the following 5 seconds. As the weakness of Willpower are debuffs it is good to think about bursting down enemies quickly. - Mids is currently not accounting for the +resistance proc from Might of the Tanker. Each stack gives 6.7% and two stacks are easy to keep up so in my opinion you should check your numbers and try to aim for roughly 13%. That means about 77% instead of 90% as you have right now. - Soaring Dragon and Golden Dragonfly are your big hitters. You should really not try to play without them. That would be like playing Energy Melee but not using Energy Transfer and Total Focus. It does create a problem for leveling/exemplaring as you are forced to take the weaker powers to level, but once having access to those two you should respec and take them. Exemplaring will remain a problem though you are forced to take either Sting of the Wast or Gambler's Cut since the game forces you to, and then you can pair it with Flashing Steel and Divine Avalanche as a means to get across the leveling/exemplaring. - Your single-target rotation should be Divine Avalanche, Soaring Dragon, Golden Dragonfly, repeat. DA is less damage than Gambler's Cut but as Willpower you want that defense. - I'd slot three Eradication in Lotus Drop and Flashing steel to finish placing your Energy/Negative defenses to 45%. - I am not sure if you are sold on Grant Invisibility and Infiltration (if you are then carry on) but Combat Jumping is a 'free' 2-3% more defense and can replace Grant Invisibility as a LotG slot while also giving more mobility while in combat. - If you do take Build-up you'll want Hasten to help it, which means choosing whether to keep the Concealment pool or taking Hasten. You can mimic Infiltration with a stealth IO in Sprint and then using one of the START movement runs, be it Athletic Run (normal running animation) or Ninja run (acrobatic Naruto somersaulting run). With both Sprint and one of those runs you get a pretty decent movement speed to reach your next mission so it's something to consider. Do keep Infiltration if it's something you like though. - The IOs themselves are just a quibble but the build as it is will do its job, though if you are slotting purples I don't know why you wouldn't slot the Tanker's ATOs as well instead of just the procs. The cost shouldn't be something to deter you as money can be accrued without too much difficult. Then, if you decide to play a different Tanker, you can just transfer all those IOs to the new character, or, if you decided you hated Tankers and don't want to play one again, you can sell the IOs back to the auction house. Check the guide in my signature about how to store IOs for alts or making money.