Sovera

Not to derail, but if aiming for Praetoria consider a Brute for that sweet sweet low level Fury. I speak as someone who was enthused about doing all Praetoria content on a Tanker and OMFG IT NEVER ENDS! I was way past level 25-ish and still had not gotten past the level 14 arcs. When I say I hadn't gotten past what I mean was that I had to scroll down to see them all 😛 Basically what I mean is that we get stuck in the low low levels for a long long time, ergo a combo that has an early start is quasi essential to keep one's sanity level in check. Fire Armor on a Tanker will help a lot because even exotic damage is no damage if hugging the floor. I did my tour of Praetoria on a Fire/Ice Melee Tanker but it was a slog which is why I mentioned the Brute with the benefit of that past experience. The problem with Praetoria is that the long slog keeps us on the cusp of level 20 (long list of level 14 arcs) which keeps us away from often important picks. Like Ice Melee not getting Ice Patch on a Tanker or Fire Armor not getting Consume on a Brute. Some are more important than others though (thanks to Recovery Serums we can live without Consume, but 50% of the reason of going Ice Melee is Ice Patch). So for a Brute I would recommend either: Claws: Claws is the usual with a boost to damage and accuracy from FU plus a quite strong Spin. Savage Melee: Savage has faster recharges allowing for T3, T1, T2, T1 in the low levels plus DoTs coupled with Fury at said low levels will destroy mobs. Ice: Ice will be safer since mobs debuff like mad and at such extreme low levels we cannot depend on our armor toggles. Frost comes super early too and is great. Rad Melee: Rad does come with a heal but it's not very useful. It's all mostly about Irradiated Ground passively irradiating anything close, but not all damage procs will be slottable right away plus it is a killer on low level endurance. Then pair whatever with Rad. Radiation Therapy trebles as small heal, endurance recovery, and damage if going the proc bomb route though we can't slot all the damage procs until level 27 but slotting three damage procs, two slots for heal and one slot for endurance recovery can be done by level 17 and RT is level 16 anyway. Something like . For a Tanker definitely Fire Armor. Once having reached Burn things become simple. Without Fury to prop things up something with an early AoE will be good. Claws only has FU at 20 though just for Spin it might still be worth it. I would suggest Dark Melee. Unconditional small early heal, decent cone even if not as good as Frost, and Siphon Life Shadpw Punch, Smite, shadow Punch will not be complicated to keep up. Problem with heals is that they rarely are useful. When we are debuffed our HP plummets and no heals will save us. It's mitigation and or kitting. Now, with all of this said it is important to stress that I was playing at 0x8 with the Tanker, so my 'omg it takes so long' has context. Playing at 0x1 there is no need to min max as hard, worry about debuffs, or worry about AoE so much.

The ease of the game would be my guess. It's like browsing the Tanker forums and so many posts about 'omg, this X/Y is so sturdy! I can tank everything with it!' and I'm just, yeah, you're a Tanker, it would be actually hard to die on a Tanker, actually have to try or make an effort to. Not putting down the above tester's enjoyment but it's probably the same. A scrapper able to wipe enemies at a decent clip? It does not really matter the flavor since they all can.

Masochists. Masochists the lot of you.

AoE is overrated in a team. Most any character has an AoE weak or otherwise and mobs are simply not built to withstand a full team unleashing AoE (most of the time backed by Build-ups and stuff). Even without Blasters launching their nukes a regular pack of mobs is reduced to half in the first seconds of combat. After that it's a matter of killing what's left and once only 3-4 enemies are left it's about ST. Most of the time people struggle to find a body they can land a few hits before it is killed.

Fire Melee on Scrappers gets its AoE at level 18 instead of 26. This is big for anyone who wants to solo because otherwise they only get lolFireBreath. Stone Melee on Tankers gets its AoE at 26 instead of 32 which, same as above thanks to the attempt at making Fault do damage having been botched. Martial Arts on Tankers gets its AoE at 20 instead of 26. All of the sets without an early AoE (Stone Melee, Super-Strength, etc) or weak AoE (Psi Melee, Dark Melee's AoE power firmly on a cone and weak ass on ToF, etc) can use Fire Armor's Burn to compensate since its obtained at level 18. Rad Armor also kind of does this with procbombing Radiation Therapy and Ground Zero but requires either a ton of global recharge or a secondary with places to slot Force Feedback procs making it more of a late game thing.

Overwhelming works fine though, or did when I tested. Probably because it works on a different mechanic. Burn's frontloaded damage is 60% if I recall. It's still a lot to miss out when the mobs run out but whatever makes the OP happy since they seem to be aiming for maximum crit they can get instead of gameplay use for the character.

Defs go Brute for Fire Armor. Nothing you will do will keep enemies on the burn patch which is, like, 70% of the reason to go Fire Armor.

In my experience the FF procs are enough to cover the Hasten gap. Especially in Shockwave since it hits multiple enemies. But the damage procs are a very valid approach because of the lack of clickies. Were you playing anything from Fire Armor to Dark or Rad I would insist in the FF procs to buff the uptime of your shields and heals. But SR has none of this. The AoEs have a small chance of the procs going off though. Easy to check by right clicking the power to lock it then hover the mouse over the damage (I apologize if this is too patronizingly explained but I never know the depth of experience people have with Mids so it's best to overexplain). Spin, for example, has a 33% chance of the fire damage going off (and the -res has, in my experience, no effect when having tested them in the Trapdoor challenge and only a minor difference in ST attacks against an AV/GM). The difference between Spin with damage procs as you had and no procs is 511 VS 456. Focus has 30% of the toxic proc going off (and toxic is one of the most resisted types of damage). Losing the damage proc for the FF one makes it go from 482 to 432. This is not about trying to change your mind and just more info to make a choice because sometimes we over value some things out of gut feels (don't get me started on the Trapdoor test, gut feels, and starting to time my runs to test them gut feels). In any case this is a big game of the min maxes because, honestly, if you fight enemies who can bypass your defense I'm not sure the extra resistance will prevents deaths anyway.

I luck out since I play EM/Fire Brute (AKA mobs don't run away from me :p). Burn fills up the gap in the rotation allowing for something like TF , ET, Burn, Energy Punch, Bone Smasher, Energy Punch, and repeat. Or was it TF, ET, Bone smasher, Burn, EP, BS? Been a while.

T To hit +3 enemies (because that is where we end once having the T3 alpha slotted) you are at 120-160% (cap is 95%). This is with one FU. Now disregard this if you actually fight +4 or even +5 enemies. You could slot ForceFeedback procs in Focus and Shockwave because everyone loves more speed, but on the other hand you do not have any sort of clickies (heals, endurance, build-up) other than Hasten so it might just be moot and just keep the damage procs in. You have some focus in reaching Fire/Cold resistances but that is not a commmon type of damage to find. S/L/E/N on the other hand are the bread and butter of CoH. So summarizing this is how I would go for it: - Ditched a bunch of recharge (Hasten was at 117 seconds and went up to 130) since you do not have clickies to worry. More recharge would mean less of a gap waiting for Follow-up but this is measure in split seconds (FU was at 3.11 and is now at 3.45. Still annoying lil gap since Slash + Focus take 2.8 seconds). In exchange pumped resists up. - Placed two FF procs to recoup the lost recharge. Strictly speaking? Not very needed because of not needing recharge. Exchange for damage procs if so desiring. - No longer need to have Weave toggled on for regular content (ITF, LGTF, etc). I did keep it and slotted for incarnate content (Tinpex, trials, etc) but honestly it is your build but decide if you would rather not just ditch Weave as well and distribute the slots around while taking any other power you care to (even Invisibility for a bit of extra stealth?). - Don't need Focused Accuracy on since one stack of FU already has everything at minimum 100% against +3 enemies. Because of endurance I would recommend not even toggling it unless in content where you'd want the extra accuracy (ITF and the roman +def shouts) or content where mobs debuff accuracy (CoT, Arachnos, Banished Pantheon, Tsoo, etc). Even without FA on Follow-up has a 91% to hit which goes to 120% with one stack. I am not a Claws/SR expert though so ring up @Bill Z Bubba.

Easily. Heck, it can be done with any of the resistance armors (Dark, Rad, Fire, etc).

You should post what your build will look like instead. For example you have four slots of LotG for the accuracy, but you also have Follow-up and Focused Accuracy that gives metric tons of accuracy so you've no need to chase those 9%. You have also (apparently) chased Fire/Cold bonuses which are not very important compared to Smash/Lethal or Energy/Negative. But since these may actually just be from the temporary slotting I do not want to go too in-depth. Keep in mind your purples won't be wasted if you do buy them, you can just toss them to your next alt. Or even sell them back.

Just remember if you pick Stone Armor, Ice Armor, or Invuln you don't need those since their heals will already cap your HP. You may still want the endurance ones though.

I vaguely recall Scrappers get twice the Energy Focus needed for a fast ET if they crit with ET, or was it TF? If so yeah, sure. I wouldn't use 2.9 second ET otherwise, but it's a personal opinion and not min maxed math.

Yep. For 20 seconds. The heavier the attack the more the fire damage boost. So, yeah... Energy Melee...? Ow.

The fire attack boosting tripped me up as well since I remembered it doing that -and- the tooltip makes reference to it. But this is no longer the case (except in PvP) and Fiery Embrace will only add a portion of the attack's power as a fire damage extra. Fire attacks or otherwise.

Energy Transfer gets even nuttier than that since it requires neither recharge nor endurance in a rotation where it always comes after Total Focus. Four damage procs and two Hamis do some serious boosting of what was already an incredibly strong attack when the lack of recharge boosts the chance of procs. That said I'm pretty in love with Stone Melee and Seismic Smash, but hampered by the lack of early AoE. It has to go to Brutes and Fire Armor to at least have Burn at 28. Unfortunately procced out Radiation Therapy does not cut it as an AoE though it is great as a boost to a primary's AoE.

Fun fun I would say the MA version. The first times we do Burn followed by Dragontail and everyrhing is burning, flopping, FF procs acrivates... It is glorious. Someone describbed it as turbo charged blowtorch and it fits. The cherry on top is the 45% defense. It takes doing content with a ton of debuffs to appreciate how they are not landing. But with your preference to level with SOs then Ice Melee (do try to stick minimum two damage procs in Burn).

The new ones now do -res (deadly on defense based sets but not much on resistance sets), -def, psi attacks and confuse. Taunting has always been a thing from the juggernauts. Manticore is level 30-35 so no Degenerative yet. Hopkins is -always- a slog though. So even coming out of it disheartened I accept the guy is my kryptonite lite (because I did get him even without envenomed daggers or insps 😛 ). Otherwise the TF went swimmingly with PPs locked down, juggernauts prevented from bubbling up and even the S/L resistant bosses being slapped down without undully slowing things. Locking the psi/-def/confusing bosses before they could get up my face felt amazing. This is also part of the 'smooth 'buttery' experience. Sure, we can plow through or wait for the bubbles or T9s to elapse. Or we can prevent them from happening.

Could I tempt you into a pylon test with the Ice/Fire, Sai?

Solo +1x8, no deaths. PPs were no problem. In fact I can count on the fingers of one hand any PP who managed to get their T9 off thanks to Seismic Smash keeping them perma CC until death. No, it was basically killing the two AVs at the end. The woman was okay, but dat Hopkins... Tanker damage, no -res, and pure smash was not a good combo against that AV in particular.

*crawls out of Manticore's TF* ....two.. hour... long... Over 30 minutes just to kill Hopkins twice... Fighting something that has like 65% Smash resistance tested my will to live.

I am trying to figure out why I am enjoying the Fire/Stone Melee and what makes it stand out from The Big Three (Ice, Martial Arts, Claws). I'm thinking it may be because it has a bit of everything from The Big Three hybridizing it into a single entity. Ice has a big hitter in Freezing Touch and has an early Build-up, but lacks a good single target rotation that feels good thanks to Greater Ice Sword being terribad (so bad it's about the same to use an AoE in a ST rotation with all the downsides it entails). Ice Patch makes it safe and good out of the box though. Claws has a good attack chain, a very good early AoE, but lacks a heavy hitter and Follow-up has its downsides. For example I wanted to test my Claws/Fire Brute in Moonfire after having done it on the Fire/Stone Melee Tanker and was surprised at having so much of a hard time getting through the first mission since I was not using inspirations to mimic the Fire/Stone run. The vampyres would debuff my accuracy so much I would have to slowly hope for a lucky shot since Follow-up could not even hit to buff my accuracy. On the other hand a set (like Stone Melee) with an early build-up had no problem with that (or with low level Circle of Thorns with the bosses doing the big forcefield, the little ghosts doing -acc and the big ghosts doing a -ToHit aura) because they can punch through with BU + Gaussian. Martial Arts has a late Build-Up preventing punch-through until 28 and lacks a heavy hitter. It makes up for this with the unique gimmick of allowing a resistance based armor to softcap melee/ranged/AoE. The Force Feedback proc in an AoE is a world of difference compared to just having it in a single target skill and it has a large impact on the damage output of a build that has two Build-Up mechanics and healing/endurance clickies. This is why the build is a beast that is as offensive as the others while being a veritable turtle. A Tanker is is the best position to overlook this with two choices in armor sets that can do AoE by themselves and soon: Fire Armor with Burn at 18 allowing to exemplar as low as level 13 and still melt a spawn by themselves while having it for every pack. And Radiation Armor who can use proc bombs in Radiation Therapy and Ground Zero to do all the AoE needed (preferably paired with one of the attack sets that has FF procs. Rad/Stone Melee is not quite to my standards since it would take reaching 26). Fire Armor also helps with ST with Burn being powerful enough to replace an ST attack and also providing cleave (if five or less mobs left there is no need to use AoEs, just keep hitting the boss and Burn will coincidentally handle the rest) and Fiery Embrace for further pushing. The combo of both can be alternated for long enough to make Tanker damage feel good. Build-Up lasts 10 seconds and has a 28 second CD (less with FF procs), so we use it, the 28 seconds start ticking, and when the 10 seconds are over we use Fiery Embrace. Fiery Embrace lasts 20 seconds. So when it is over the 18 seconds have elapsed and we can use Build Up again for another 10 seconds. I'm digressing. Back to the topic. Stone Melee is very nice. The animations are just a touch slow but not too much. War Mace/Axe prime for their 2.5 animations despite hitting hard. Rad Melee's heavy hitter is a glacial 2.9 and even Energy Melee has at least a 2.77 Total Focus in the rotation and that's for those who don't also do 2.9 slow Energy Transfer. Stone Melee on the other hand chills about with 1.8 animations. Heavy hitter? 1.7. To compare it does 613 where Knockout Blow is 631 (782 with one stack of Rage) and 2.4 animation, Devastating Blow is that glacial 2.9 and doing 577 damage, Crushing Uppercut is 740 with three combo points and 2.3 seconds. Freezing Touch is a blazing 1.2 animation but pays for it and being a T7 by doing 514 damage. Not seen in a vacuum they all have their perks though. EM is still the best ST damage and being mainly energy it gets past the annoying resistances, KO Blow comes with Rage that can be twice stack to push the damage even more, Devastating Blow has Irradiated Ground ticking in the background for much more damage than a mere damage aura could dream of (plus being a very good vehicle for two -res procs which push Devastating's damage). Now Fire/Stone Melee, well, it just combines the best traits to produce a good playing experience. It will not do the most ST, or do the most AoE (Tremor pays for the wide native radius by doing a nudge more damage than Stone Fists), or be the safest, but, it has a little bit of everything. The attack chain starts early. Even without having everything in place there are few gaps where waiting for something to cycle so we can press a button. Even super low level. Two FF procs in the ST chain make everything feel better in the low levels. We have Consume up faster, heal, Burn. It does not need to reach 38 to finish the attack chain. Rather level 38 is just a damage boost since the attack chain remains unperturbed. It is a -bit- safer by doing a mass KD with each Tremor, and each Tremor is a near guaranteed FF proc which boosts the offense and defense by making all clickies available sooner. Early AoE in Burn, later boosted by Tremor. Now with this Is Fire/Stone The Strongest Build? No. Fire/Rad cleared Yin in 40 minutes where Fire/Stone did in 48 minutes (and Fire Rad later on gets a second AoE), but so many people hate Devastating Blow for good reason, and until then we twiddle thumbs because we don't have a complete ST rotation. Energy Melee will do more damage, but what a slog to 38 to complete the ST and gaps until then. But playing it I'm thinking, this is smooth, this is buttery, I'm brawling mobs with the No Weapon animations and they keep on being thrown up in the air and interrupted, I'm throwing BU + Burn followed by Tremor and half a spawn is dead. At the risk of making Bill sad again Claws is in danger of being pushed from The Big Three.

Did someone say Fire Melee revamp? Fire Breath with the Frost treatment and overall set damage pumped up.

The mythical 'at damage cap' existing in spreadsheets and in mythical scenarios where two Kins are running and managing to Fulcrum before someone sneezes and kills all minions. Practical actual in game experience tells me the Kins manage to Fulcrum off the lieutenants and boss(es).