Sovera

Not sure if serious.

As someone who always levels by playing and who had a major stint as a Tanker I can't say I felt the lack of Taunt. There were times, yes, where two spawns were close together and agro overflows, but I can count those on the fingers of one hand. More power for those who like and use Taunt though, but the number of times I see people jump into the middle of a group and then use it on the group is amazing though. Again, nothing really -wrong- about it. Just useless since they were already agroed. But again the game did not get worse because they did it. The -range of Taunt is where I find Taunt more useful. So many annoying ranged mobs who will plink from afar with the biggest culprits the protean clockworks we get in Tinpex. but again, in a team it all melts. It's solo I would like having it. Tbh I have the free power slot to take Taunt but was disgusted in realizing it did not work on Battle Maiden and that was that with my Taunt experiment.

Same, but, it's a package deal. To get the costumes they neglected other areas. We got the other areas here but not the costumes. It's easy to focus on the costumes or power sets the other servers have but not the... well... everything else.

Quick update. I've been climbing the vet levels and incarnating. The character behaves very very well. It's become a favorite for max level play though lower than Yin and I'll still take the Fire/Ice melee since nothing beats low level Burn + Frost at Synapse and lower. The squish of Fire Armor is not altogether too different than on a Tanker in that throwing Barrier when things are going badly works the same between both ATs with the bonus that the greater damage of the Brute plays well in the Brunker spirit of killing before being killed. I've been doing ITF for vet levels and it's silly how a build that makes big booms in ST also razes a spawn by BU + Burn + WH. Fire Armor covers EM's AoE weakness and balances it out. The squish remains but I'm holding point in whatever TF and yet to die (almost did the last one when the squid ocean showed up and I delayed Barrier trying to squeeze more damage). In AoE situations Total Focus + Energy Transfer + Burn + Whirlwind is -this- close of being a loop but sometimes I need to throw an Energy Punch as a filler. It's honestly pretty good since AoE's nice but bosses need murderizing so I can drop my super heavy hitters. Most of the time it's just a ghetto Rad Melee gameplay though. If I count 3-5 mobs around I just do the ST rotation and let Burn kill the extras.

Getting everything will be impossible so you will have to choose. Getting more S/L defenses is usually my priority but it needn't be yours. E/N defenses are good at 40%. Resistances (remember to toggle Offense Adaptation down where Stamina and Health is since it will 'steal' 7.5% global resistances) will have 6.7% per ATO stack that you have in Genetic Contamination. Having it in a toggle is not good though so try placing it in an attack that you will spam such as Smite. Two stacks are easy to get so that's 13.4% resistances you can account for. You will probably want Barrier for a panic button so that's another 5% making it 18.4%. That means if you push your resistances to around 77-78% with the ATO toggled on (Mids gives 6.7% but only one stack) you'll be at 85% with a second stack and 90% with Barrier. You can not take in account these gimmicks and just brute force to 90%, but everything else over 90% will go to waste if you do. I would personally not pick Dark Obliteration since you dearly needs those slots and powers (you didn't pick Smite for example, which is one of the best attacks DM has) since you can already do an infinite loop of Life Siphon, Touch of Fear, Shadow Maul, Touch of Fear. Repeat. Dito on proc bombing DNA Siphon. It's your endurance recovery tool and it should be slotted accordingly. Maybe if you didn't have a low level AoE rotation but this is not the case since you can do the above rotation by level 20. Afterwards you need to decide on your rotation. You can do a low level faster animating but lower damage Siphon, Shadow Punch, Smite, Shadow Punch. Or you can do the higher level (as n, need to be 38 or exemped to 33) Midnight Grasp, Smite, Siphon, Smite. I personally prefer the one without MG but I like exemplaring and I'm strapped for slots. If you want Gloom instead that's fine since it's pretty strong and thematic though you may suffer against -tohit debuffing enemies by not having Focused Accuracy. Like this your resistances are good for S/L at least, even with Offense Adaptation toggled on, your S/LE/N/F/C defenses are at a neat 40% waiting for Barrier to finish capping them (obviously not all content is difficult so if you're not in trouble then don't bother using Barrier on cooldown because the stupendous amount of healing the build has should make it survive just fine). Hasten is okay-ish at 137 seconds. Not too bad, not too great, but, sacrifices. You'll also be protected from -tohit from CoT/Banished Pantheon, Circle of Thorns, Tsoo/Cabal, etc. You now just need to decide on the rotation. If you want Smite then take out Midnight Grasp and go for the low level Siphon rotation. Downsides is less damage, upsides is having full ST and AoE skills by level 20. If you want the Midnight Grasp rotation then Shadow Punch will do in a pinch even if Smite is better. Gloom is a powerhouse so you can also ditch Midnight Grasp for it and try for Siphon, Shadow Punch, Gloom, Shadow Punch (again, Smite better, so if you can squeeze it in do so).

You can't push E/N resistances very high because Bio has nothing to help that. I'm not sure if you mistook what I said above because what I meant was 'since Bio doesn't have E/N resistances you need to pump E/N defenses up', which was my reaction when you went back to 33% defense to E/N. Look back to the last build I posted and check the numbers: 40% to S/L defenses, 85% to S/L resistances with Offensive toggled on. 40% to E/N. This is your bread and butter. From there your goal is tweaking things according to need but you don't have an infinite amount of slots. Just keep in mind E/N resistances will always be Bio's weak point. Shore it where possible but don't turn your good defenses mediocre to push bad resistances into mediocre. Then you'll just have mediocre all around.

Your E/N defense is back to 33%. Look at your E/N resistances with Offensive Adaptation on (remember it's down here) Then look back your E/N defenses. If you don't have good resistances you want to at least not get hit. As for the rest you can now decide what suits you best.

Some very small tweaks since you had nailed most of it down on your own (good job again). Like this your E/N and S/L defense goes up to 40% waiting for Barrier to cap it, and even with Offense Adaptation on (if you toggle it you'll notice it 'steals' 7.5% global resistances) you'll be sitting at just about 85% for Barrier to also finish capping. Some sacrifices had to be mad and they we pedantic (we really won't notice the difference between 80% and 85% resistances) so if you feel like it move some slots around for better QoL tweaks that fit your playstyle better. Focused Accuracy is just to save you if you fight against things the debuff your accuracy. You can leave it toggled off otherwise. Gloom with only one slot was not going to greatly help you. Now for the rotation: Total Focus (6.38 seconds), Energy Transfer (1.2), Energy Punch (1), Bone Smasher (1.5), Energy Punch (1). That makes 4.7. Total Focus has a really awkward cooldown. So perhaps Total Focus, Bone Smasher (1.5), Energy Transfer (1.2), Energy Punch (1) Bone Smasher (1.5), Energy Punch (1) which makes 6.2. That's a bit better and can be repeated while Hasten is up. Speaking of Hasten it's not super high. 146 is definitely on the worse side of things. You can also sacrifice resistances and add more recharge instead if you are someone who plays in teams a lot. With all the buffs and debuffs you might never even notice a difference. Just something to consider since isn't THAT hard that we must min max it to the hilt. And that's me saying it 😄

Probably. You need to look at your attacks and if you have gaps waiting for them to come back up. If you look a bit further down I have a EM/Fire build posted where I go over my rotation so I don't have gaps when fighting and trying to maximize TF + fast ET. It was something like TF + ET + Burn + Energy Punch + Bone Smasher + Energy Punch. Repeat. No gaps where we wait for something to recharge. While leveling or when exemplaring you need to consider you need attacks. If you go lower than 28 for any reason your have TF + EP and that's it (or maybe use Power Crash as a single target attack). With Bone Smasher you can at least go TF + EP + BS + EP and maybe use Power Crash as a filler. You can make room for it by removing Ball Lighting and Electric Fences. Strictly speaking you don't need more AoE since you can run an endless loop of Total Focus + Power Crash + Whirlwind Hands + Power Crash. Repeat.

Darn proud of you, Wut. You've reached the goals! 85% to S/L resistance and 41% to S/L defense was masterfully done. But you need to remember than when you toggle on Offensive Adaptation the numbers will go down. It's actually 76% resistance to S/L. There is still room for improvement with the slotting but your goals were reached without weird slotting like six slotting Taunt sets into attacks. Thumbs up, bro. Things you can now consider is: - Your E/N defense should be at 40% and is only at 33%. You can help it by giving it a third defense slot. You can slot three Eradication in DNA Siphon instead of the not very useful slotting you have. Both should have it at 40%. - The sixth Blistering Cold in Energy Transfer is not giving you anything useful and can be turned into a damage proc. - The extra slot in Combat Jumping ditto. - You can move some slotting around to slot four Titanium Coating instead of four Unbreakable guard (more resistances and the loss of SL/ defense will still leave you at 40%). - Adding more slots to Build-up so it recharges faster (two Rectified Reticle will give S/L defense so you can mess around with your slotting). - Five Touch of Death instead of five Mako's Bite will give a more useful E/N resistance than less useful toxic/psi (it's not that Toxic/Psi resistance is bad to have, but there is not a ton of it in the game. But there is a lot of E/N) as well as the Touch of Death damage proc is better (negative damage) than Mako's Bite damage proc (slashing damage). - Energy Transfer is your big attack and it loves damage procs (usually has a a fifty fifty chance of going off) so if you move the slotting from Bone Smasher to Energy Transfer and find another slot you can have three damage procs further pushing ET's damage. - Total Focus loves damage procs even more than ET (sometimes as high as 90% chance that they will go off) so trying to fit damage procs in there while maximizing recharge and damage will only push damage further.

For most things even 'squishy' protection will be enough. That's because we have Barrier. When things go badly it's a panic button anyone has access to. And that's if completely wanting to avoid inspirations. Do you want to solo all the things? Do you want to only team? Do you want to solo but nothing that is particularly exotic such as killing the Ruularu arcs? In a team most anything will do as long as building for the basics. You might not be Tanker but you won't fold in the few seconds it takes for the tsunami of AoEs to wipe a pack of mobs. For most factions non exotic anything will do. For the exotics its different but building specifically for them is a thing if you actually intend to go against them.

Got it on my toggle which is probably not the best use, but meh.

I'll be honest with you that defense will probably make you feel better than a resistance set, but it's true that those 5% hits will accumulate and you'll need a heal. It's why I don't play shield or Super-Reflexes. That said you could pump your resistances more and minimize your problems, then aim for something like Rebirth as an emergency. You can easily survive on greens bought between missions by typing /ah. For example you forgot the 5% global res unique and have slots dedicated to things you have no need such as AoE defense. Try this for example. It's not perfect but you can tweak it to your tastes. You get more S/L and E/N resistances, a worse Hasten, better recovery, etc. I suggest you keep One With the Shield as your panic button + recovery button and alternate using Conserve Power for your endurance needs. Use Ageless for more recharge and more recovery, or, use Rebirth instead. Like that you get two panic buttons instead of just a boost to recovery, something you can replace for Recovery Serums if you find Conserve Power + One With the Shield somehow is not enough. You don't need Cross Punch. You can run a near infinite loop of Total Focus, Power Crash, Whirlwind Hands, Power Crash. Repeat.

You're getting consistent 30 seconds better than I was so I want to dissect it and look for improvements. Thanks for the build, bro o/ Yeah I see it now, that -res in Burn is probably what's skewing it even when not using Gloom. Did you consider the Superior Unrelenting Fury in Whirlwind Hands? You'll lose 5% recharge but get better raw stats and more S/L resistance/defense. As for the Evolving Armor it's what gives the -res effect and since it's a perma effect that doesn't rely on procs I'd like to compare the numbers since I'm a big believer in testing instead of mathing it out. I -could- build it and run it, but since you already got it all set up it would save some time.

Somesie, can I tempt you into a run with Evolving Armor turned off? Just to compare the numbers. And could I tempt you into sharing the EM/FA Br00t build? By the numbers I'm assuming Gloom is involved.

All good points. There is one last thing to consider which is the duration of the 50%. At 3.5 seconds and assuming it procs when the hit actually hits then an option that would make TF enjoy the proc will eat 2.8 seconds of those 3.5. Where in TF it lands, then ET (1.2), Energy Punch (1) leaves it at 2.1. Ample time to still land Bone Smasher and thus have all three within the 50% buff.

Yeah. You take a Stalker and the ST will improve. Same defense as a Scrapper, same damage as well. No agro auras though. Or you take a Brute or Tanker and pair it with Fire Armor and you can also pup the ST damage with Burn and Fiery Embrace. But outside of those two options Electric Melee is neither very good for AoE nor ST. It does look great though and in a team you should not notice with everyone helping pitching it.

Might as well take Burn tbh. It is still a chunky attack that double dips into procs and if you're following a Tank they are providing the agro aura so mobs don't run off. And with Scrappers and Fire Armor being squishy dropping Burn that makes mobs run away is a form of CC. Not being an -actual- CC but rather a coded thing even the romans with their uber CC resistance shouldl be fleeing. Great to get a breather and drop some trucks of pain via TF and ET. Then they return and Burn's up again 😄

My attempt at a full on damage character. The results are pretty nice though without -res involved it does not look so at first glance. 2:49 2:32 2:30 2:15 with Assault clicked. When we see times of 1 minute (pre nerf TW) and 1:30-ish and less for Scrappers a 2:30 does not stand out in particular, but without -res it achieves the time through brute force. The pylon test also does not reflect the ease with which this build can approach a spawn and terminate it with a Build-Up + Burn + Whirlwind Hands and then mop up with Total Focus and Energy Transfer. Even while leveling I was killing +1 bosses with Total Focus + Energy Transfer + Burn without red inspirations or using BU. While this is nothing particularly extraordinary I just mention it to say that the AoE keeps up with the single target damage which is something EM lacks. The build makes use of a Brute's higher cap and has 85% resistance to S/L and 40% to S/L as well. Barrier finishes capping both. Unlike the Tanker the E/N remains a weakness with a mere 58% (62% with Barrier) but there is nothing new there. Keep trucking and once it gets sour use Barrier to survive. Otherwise just kill them first which this build is very well equipped to do. The unsung hero is the ability to stack stuns. Even AVs stagger drunkenly and it was the very rare PP who managed to pop their T9 when TF + ET landed on their face and kept them stunned. While this is not on the level of an Ice Patch it does have value. The build has a slow start until ET. It picks up with Burn that gives it the AoE edge it needed while giving the single target an extra oomph but it's definitely ET that gels things together. Some small tips: Don't feel forced to waste Energy Transfer on something that would die to Bone Smasher or Energy Punch. Total Focus is pretty slow so pretty much find a target at full health for it. Anything not at full health will probably die to Energy Punch + Bone Smasher. Once getting a feel for this it can be played with and it greatly minimizes hitting corpses after that long wind-up. I found it a good approach to TF one mob, ET a different one, then Burn would kill both. If there is a boss do focus on it though. Jumping into a spawn and using TF + ET gives time for the mobs to wake up from their stupor and approach. Now's the time to hit BU + Burn + WH. What looked like the best use of BU would be BU , TF (2.8 seconds), ET (1.2 seconds). That makes 4 seconds. Using Burn straight away falls within Gaussian's proc 5 second buff time (even if the buff falls before the animation has ended it will still count). The ST rotation can be easily made into: TF, ET, Burn, Energy Punch, Bone Smasher, Energy Punch. The last energy punch will happen with TF already almost up but it lines Burn to come after ET. Alternate BU and Fiery Embrace on a fast team. BU for one spawn, FE for the next, BU is back for the third. Fourth spawn will have neither. Start over at the 5th. For solo just abuse FE when ever since it is common for BU to be back for the next group. Burn followed by Whirlwind Hands lines up both AoEs to come back up at the same time. It avoids playing the piano with the AoEs when we can rest assured both can always be used together. If there is need I can whip a leveling build for this.

If you'll zoom in a bit you'll see that Maneuvers and Focused Accuracy (others too I guess) will have floating icons around you. FA shows reticules, Maneuvers has the little purple shields same as if we had eaten an inspiration.

Nothing has changed. I'm actually running this as a Brute as we speak. Level 49. As usual the same trade-off. More damage and also more squishy. But still decent with 45% and 90% to S/L (with Barrier) but down to something like 64%-ish (with Barrier) to E/N. It's the hole I could not patch for a Brute. The Tanker has it at 90%.

Same reason as for the rest: takes time and effort and they might even decide it should stay visible anyway. I found it a bit annoying that Afterburner got recently changed, specifically had the Minimal FX added because it didn't exist... and it has exactly the same FX as before despite being reported as it doing nothing. Unlike for example Minimal FX for Hover or Fly which removes the smoky trail.

I wasn't even aware of the difficulty level and everything else. Yes, that does put Wavicle's words more in perspective and I have to back down. Put that way we are more powerful nowadays.

Dian, buddy, you're once again trying to make things fit your decision on how things work. If you were to play something like GW2 back in the heyday there were 5 DPS in a group. Someone might take it up themselves to take all defensive stats and try to 'tank', but it would be sighed at once noticed because the game did not require it. You're trying to insert WoW gameplay in CoH. Next thing you'll be asking for a healer or only want to play when specifically a healer is in the team. Understand we say this not to demean you or put you down. We are trying to explain the game is a lot easier nowadays, a lot faster. And being easy and fast there is little room to go in with sword and board and using 'taunt' (ew) to be all classical tank. Just by existing a Tanker generates threat. All power sets have a taunt aura so just by brushing a mob they will hate you. So you can tank, you can jump in first, you can take the brunt of the damage and it -will- make the game easier for your squishy team mates. But you don't need to make it perfect because they are not fragile porcelain critters who will shatter at a mob's touch. This is further pushed by the fact enemies are invariably squishy too. We don't play a WoW where all instance mobs are tough elites with a ton of HP and who hit like trucks. Enemies are weak, have weak HP, and this too directs how the game is played. When one or two team mates can wipe a full spawn while you're valiantly trying to capture all the agro does this tell you that they are playing wrong, or that your views are outdated? Like many things in this game we need to see what is -really- happening around us and decide how we want to play it. Back in live I briefly played a Radiation defender and I would diligently drop my debuff toggles on enemies and have a macro saying not kill my toggle or at least kill it last. People did not pay attention. I would get upset. Then I realized there was no difference whether I did it or not. Even back then the game was too easy to try doing this perfect Cataclysm era dungeons CCing mobs and etc because whether I did it or not the enemies would melt and the group would be rushing to the next. This is what you should be looking at. This is why Tankers were an AT so little played except by hardcore tanking fanatics. The game does not ask for an impervious wall. it asks for a 'tough enough to survive' and to no one's surprise between buffs and debuffs even a Scrapper can do the tanking. Dude, again, it's not an attempt to be mean to you. This is text so I am insisting to be clear.

Fine until it isn't sums it up. But on a team it shouldn't be a problem. But it's not -that- bad. Keep in mind that my 'best' builds break a pylon in 4 minutes (with no -res shenanigans) and Ice Melee with Frost replacing GiS does it in 4:20-ish. So the difference is not that huge and even less in actual gameplay since we'd be spamming Frost anyway. It's something I'd suggest you try and see how it feels.