Sovera

Heya, @Infinitum. I was looking at your invuln build for ideas and came across your Invuln/EM Tanker. I did a bit of tinkering when I noticed it did not have E/N defenses: Now it has E/N at 40% as well as S/L with the idea of using Barrier for the last 5%. Replaced Agility for Musculature. Bit more damage, bit more endurance recovery. In the original Tough already was just a mule with S/L grossly overcapped even with it toggled off, so took all those slots off and scattered them around while Tough continues being just a mule. Bit more damage everywhere with damage procs on the big powers. Cannot depend on more than one stack of the ATO because TF recharges so slowly, but the resists are at a sweet spot with just one stack and then with Barrier it bumps up to 89% for S/L and 88% for E/N, but with the scaling IO once at 90% HP it bumps up to 90% and 89% respectively. Lost a bit of recharge (Hasten from 136 to 140) but bit more endurance and less drain (from 1.9 with Tough toggled off, Hover and EvM on, with 3.24 recovery to 1.83 with Tough off, Hover and EvM on, with 3.55 recovery). Not sure this is enough to play without Ageless though (Recovery Serums when not playing with others who do use Ageless?). That last slot in Barrage leaves me cold since F/C damage is not that common to fuss about but I left it in place. Didn't want to mess with your power picks either so I didn't touch those but I do feel that playing/leveling/exemplaring without Bonesmasher must be painful. The framework probably works with most sets for those wanting E/N defenses in Invuln.

No AoE until 26 though. Can remove fire Sword Circle for fire Breath for AoE under level 20. Can also have both, but once you have Burn and Fire Sword Circle you don't need more AoE.

We will out level stuff if doing -all- the arcs so Burn will be available while doing the myriad level 14 arcs.

Ladies, ladies, no ad hominems. We're a small enough community to begin with and its easy to get mad and stay that way. We should appreciate the crafters since there is no way we'd dispose of thousands of converters that are created every day. As someone said it's a venting thread and as it was mentioned it is not terribly important (we type 10000 instead of 5000, not exactly a huge problem and none will go broke over it), but it's annoying. Heck, at some point I was buying yellows for 50k because I would type 10k and it would not be bought. I just had no patience to faff around typing 15k, then 20k, trying to discover when and where the bids currently were at. Just like I try to buy something for 4 million and if it does not buy I just jump for 5 million instead of trying 4.1 mill, then 4.2 mill, etc.

Might as well roll a Stalker then. Better crits, a major ST attack, initiating combat from stealth. Only with the sets butchered to have no AoE would a Scrapper be an alternative. That said no one should need an agro aura to play the game. In other games mobs stick around until they die. Agro auras are for tank characters so mobs direct their hate to them because otherwise the NPCs would hit anyone and everyone. But what we get are unhinged NPCs hightailing it to the africas. Which would be ok (I seldom bother to kill every single minion if they happen to be ranged and did not want to approach. I instead bounce to the next group), except this game has kill all missions. Still, bad as not having agro is it's still not as bad as attack power sets not having an AoE until 32. Not sure what the old devs were smoking but it must have been spoiled.

In the spirit of 'I'm playing with my friend who is already playing a Tanker' I thought I could make something to support instead of double melee. I started with Earth/Kin for the sweet sweet Speedboost and Earthquake, but now I'm thinking Earth/Sonic since what I'm reading from the combo is that I can debuff acc, defense, AND resists. Still not as nice as Speedboost, but on top of the Sonic shields it's probably good for the low levels. Higher level I would still go back to Kin.

There's a lot of information in this thread already, but take a gander at the guide in my signature since it is a good read for a new player.

My love affair with tanks is in direct proportion to my time on a Brute. Play a Brute? Eventually get huffy at being squishy and go back to a Tanker. Play a Tanker? Eventually get huffy at gently sandpappering a mob's HP bar and go back to a Brute.

Dunno. Ascribing malice seems too much. I'd rather believe someone pulled on a lose bit of code string and something unknotted somewhere deeper in the engine. Now if it was something the devs noticed, tried to fix and could not, or are happy with, or actually did it on purpose? No clue.

Flee code should just be ditched, but the old devs liked it and the new devs don't want to deviate too far so unless something tremendous happens it is bound to stay in some private server. Agro, like in other games, should be about which target the mobs hit, not the glue that makes them stick around instead of waltzing away from us like in Jibaro's episode.

Same when I brought my level 48 Claws/Fire to Moonfire. I wanted to test its time versus the Fire/Stone Melee Tanker and found that I spent... so... much... time trying to hit the vampyr. Oh yeah, if I'd jump in, manage to land Follow-up and Spin followed by Burn then half the pack would be reduced to floating cinders. Something with BU near ignores this with the major boost to ToHit that comes from it and Gaussian. Granted that just munching on a couple of purples at need would reduce being hit and thus the whiffing. But CoT in the end game is why I always take Focused Accuracy even with the loss of power that comes from not taking Gloom.

Both are tbh. Even Savage scraps by on its AoE. On one hand we're going to get new sets which is always good, but on the other fixing what we already have would not go amiss either, but greater dopamine on something completely new.

Savage feels nice. Very fast recharges (using only the first three attacks) allows for T3, T1, T2, T1 rotation. But it's a DoT based set and it's not in a good coexistance with CoH's fast paced combat and low HP mobs like all DoT sets in all games. I remember playing WoW and accepting 1.5 GCD to cast a 16 second DoT would mean the mob had died before half of those 16 seconds had passed. With me this is how it felt in the later game flailing my arms and seemingly not doing damage to a mob until all the DoTs started ticking and their HP bar would plummet. But everything has its downsides and its upsides. Claws, for example, requires hitting with Follow-up for the boost and it is not uncommon to be debuffed to a point we cannot hit with it, but Savage has a traditional Build-Up power that allows to punch through and burst a pack of mobs down. This makes things like early Circle of Thorns and Council Vampyr easy for Savage and troublesome for Claws. The good news is that Savage plays well with Brutes especially in the low levels. Not so good news is that we usually ignore DoTs and keep on hitting the thing until it dies anyway. Its 'flailing' gets solved by Burn who hits hard and doubles as single target and AoE skill. Best news is that it is one of the only two sets in the melee arsenal that has two PbAoEs so we can do some lovely burst AoE on top of Burn. After those three have been used it is usually enough to have killed most things and be down to 3-4 mobs at which point just hitting the boss is enough while letting Burn take care of the others. You should not overthink too much in my opinion. Just make what seems fun.

Hits one guy? Explain. It only has an 8y radius but that's usually enough if all enemies are surrounding the character.

This is me on my Stone Armor. Handles great, levels great. Then for something that relies on defense it gets it shaved off in a few hits.

Not perfect, but leveling build. Once you start making money (I suggest sticking to the Ouroboros method in the guide in the signature to avoid outleveling a contact in the middle of an arc) start transitioning to the more expensive build.

This is the 'normal' build, but expensive for a new player (do check the guide in my signature and maybe pass italong to your family). Bit late to get started on it now but I'll post a cheaper build tomorrow morning.

Claws/Fire if you want to try something other what you mentioned though you might steal the thunder with tanking -and- damage soon as you reach 28, but thanks to Claws soon as you hit level 6. DM is fine if you like it, nothing is truly wrong (even bad sets like Kinetic Melee). EM is a beast but you need to reach 32 to get the last heavy hitter. My main is an EM/Fire with EM providing the ST and Fire Armor providing the AoE but Claws/Fire is my alt main since it examplars all the way down to the teens thanks to Claws. You can also look into Ice Melee since it has a forgiving early rotation and you can stretch your early squishyness a lot by planting an Ice Patch at every spawn. Rad Melee just needs Irradiated Ground filled with damage procs, but it's a much more slow pace and though Irradiated Ground is a beast it procs at random which is less nice than just opening with BU + an AoE to quickly neuter half a group. If you want to feel completely impervious (unlike Fire Armor that asks for the occasional inspiration) you can try Stone Armor. It's pretty sturdy though I found it squishy in the late game. Can't do Claws with it, but Rad Melee paired really well with it. For a new player I think Radiation Armor would have a lot of goodies like Radiation Therapy and a shield making it pretty durable (but still wanting the occasional inspiration).

Calm down, Snarks. It's a tiny drop of water and whomever is doing it must have come from WoW or something where this is a lot more common. Once they realize they are listing stacks of 10 at a time to make 100k profit but could be playing the game and earning 15 mill it tapers off. It's not the first time it has happened, and in any case anyone just playing the game comes out of a map with 5 million raw inf for five minutes. Paying 10k for salvage, eh.

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.