Sovera

Have you tried Stone Armor on a Brute/Tank post tweaks? I haven't done a Shield character but just looking at Mids numbers seem about the same. More DDR by stacking the anti-mez clicky.

You'd have to dig through the Pylon thread and try to find an EM/Bio brute. I get 2:30 on that. Now shave 30 seconds if I also took Gloom. Scrappers do it better but their ATOs are actually useful.

I still find my EM/Fire the best blend. Great ST from EM, AoE assist from Fire Armor, good ST burst from EM for problem targets, good AoE burst from triple procced Burn, sturdy enough to face tank most non psi content. But that's less of a tier list and more of a particular combo.

Which goes to ED levels when slotted for endurance. Consume is one who protects against endurance drain but not recovery debuff. Making Sappers a non consequential joke I see other people talk about immediately targeting while I'm sipping my tea with a pinky extended. But making Super Stunners a pain in the neck.

Sounds like it would be pretty subjective. Nothing is really really bad (KM is weak, but needs so few powers from the primary that we can squeeze in a bunch of other stuff. Psi is weak, but has a lot of CC and can be pretty safe to use. DM isn't super strong, but brings endurance recovery and a tiny heal). Some, of course, are stronger in their specific areas. But if I say 'Elec Melee/Staff is not actually that great AoE' I'll have people blinking owlishly and 'confused' reactions to my post. I'm not even sure a 'clear times tier list' would be accepted since people would still argue.

Playing Savage Melee with Stone Armor is like being surrounded by an upwards waterfall of orange numbers. The bleeds are a DoT, Brimstone makes another DoT, Mudstone another DoT. Now all I need is Degenerative's toxic DoT. So, anyway, duoed Manticore without much of a problem and than asked my friend to wait while I tried my hand against the AVs (the real reason I have been doing it solo these past days since the two AVs are so tanky they can be a roadblock). Savage Melee passed the test. I'm not sure if better or faster than the other contestants, but my worry it would not have the damage was unfounded. There was a... lot of whittling done though. It took around 25 minutes to kill the Countess and to kill Hopkins twice. Only insps used were a couple greens when I feared for my life and did not want a lucky shot when I was already in the yellow. Having no amplifiers Psi was at 36%, S/L at 38% and E/N at 37%. The endurance held pretty well despite having Focused Accuracy on. It was only at the end of those 25 minutes it finally faltered and I toggled out. I relented and detoggled Evasive Maneuvers to finish killing Hopkins for the second time. Funny enough I usually say 'endurance will be fine for normal gameplay but for long fights a Recovery Serum might be needed' but in this case it's the reverse. Fihting non stop and stacking both Blood Frenzy and Unrelenting Fury makes the build a Duracell bunny. There is still Tough and Weave to make the costs heavier but eventually there are the accolades to help counter it. Recovery Serums used so far: still only three in Yin. I've tried changing the slotting some to add three procs to Savage Leap but to be honest I don't notice much difference. The change from just one proc cost me 1.5% S/L and 2.5% E/N so it's not brutal, but, hmm, like I said I don't notice the difference either way. The AoE remains decently good and better the more recharge is slowly added in. A BU + Gaussian, Flurry, Savage Leap, Flurry usually kills all +1 minions. It's not Burn but it's enough to clear a group. All it needs is enough recharge to tighten the ST and use less 185 damage Savage Strike and more of the 487 damage Vicious Slash. I also tried adding Savage Leap to the ST rotation since its more damage than anything else, but the endurance complained right away. The slightly tweaked build. I'm tempted to run Energy Melee next and see how it behaves without Fire Armor backing it up.

On one hand 'dev's time is precious and should be husbanded like a rare resource' on the other 'getting insps from mail should be stopped because 0.1% of the population does that.... when they solo... How dare they...'

Definitely. I'm not against hip swaying since if I put my female character in a slinky lil dress you better gosh darn believe it that hips will be swayed. Just not when dressed to smack bad guys on the face.

You forgot to +5 the recharges in Hasten which puts it at 118 seconds. I would ditch Shadow Punch and take Touch of Fear for more AoE and it doubles as a weak single attack filler until Midnight Grasp is available. You have way too many attacks as it is. You can do a no gap Midnight Grasp, Smite, Siphon, Smite. Repeat. But since you have placed the +res proc in Shadow Punch you need to use shadow Punch, so you can do Siphon, Shadow Punch, Smite, Shadow Punch. It's going to be weaker than Midnight Grasp though. So I'd make some choices on which attacks to keep and then keep in mind that you want. You can, for example, just place the proc in Siphon since it's a power you -will- be spamming. Just remember not to place it in an AoE power since you don't usually spam those during single target fights. Gloom is strong damage though, and Dark Obliteration is another AoE, but it's sucking a lot of slots you could use for something else like grabbing Evasive Maneuvers to fly faster. Messed with slotting to give more resists to important stuff and a bit more damage, but until you decide on which attacks to keep and use the ball's on your court.

Like, grab an ice-cream, leave it out of the fridge for an hour, and then put it in the microwave!

Alright, I return from testing Savage having reached Yin... and 42 minutes? Wat? That's Rad Melee with -res 'cheating' times (it did it in 40 minutes). That's a Fire Armor/Rad Tanker with Burn (also 40 minutes). I remember a time 40 minutes was the norm for an 8 man team even if nowadays it's more like 30 minutes. The extra recharge from Minerals showed and overall the build really melted everything. Even groups. Of course it is -still- DoT pushing and someone else would just push a button and take a chunk off off an enemy, but, I liked it. I can see how the threshold to stop using two Savage Strike per rotation will tighten the damage what with Vicious slash being the set's 'heavy hitter' and 2.5 seconds recharge making only a 0.2 gap with one Savage Strike and one Maiming Slash as fillers. Also as a bonus only then did I finally use Recovery Serums with three to my name in Yin and that it. It's nothing special because it's just Freaks, but I again tested survival by not using defensive or offensive inspirations (except for Yin where purples were needed due to having the big ambush on top of her debuffing) and even when pulling two groups they couldn't kill my half slotted ass. This is not something Rad Armor and Fire Armor could boast of at the same levels. Blood Thirst is sad with the 2.2 second animation instead of 1.2 and a 33% damage boost instead of 80%, but it adds more damage than is visible to the naked eye. First it lasts for 15 seconds instead of 10, and then it forces all the bleeds to have a 100% chance of happening. This makes a visible difference when three Savage Flurry and two Savage Leaps can be squeezed in that window while hitting mobs.

Though in this particular case Stone Armor -also- provides +perception 😄

Kinda. I remember noticing my endurance problems were alleviated when playing Electric Melee. It may not be the end all of endurance management tools but it does do something.

That said both Elec Melee and Savage Melee are outliers due to their endurance helping inherent.

I agree with most of that, but so far all Stone Armor have been eating my blue bar in most iterations. It's just too many toggles. Back before they had been perked up we could decide not to run with Minerals if not needing psi defense, but now it gives recharge, and we could decide not to run with Brimstone if Fire/Cold was not needed, but now it gives a damage boost. But Rad is heavy and Irradiated Ground with the usual proc monstering is a big burden. I'd have to see if I could put Unrelenting Fury in Radiation Siphon to start making better use of the end discount. I honestly only take Energy Mastery because I can't be hassled to worry about ToHit debuffing. It's a catch all solution not optimized for specific content.

I have been trying to make Stone Armor work for me. It does a lot of things well but is lacking in others. Having DDR and defense to nearly everything (including Psi) makes it good for most content while the resistances are good without stepping into super good (unlike with the Tanker where I managed to reach 60%+ defense and 90% resists to most in non Granite thanks to exploiting every gimmick in the book). That said it has its problems like the endurance and the resistances to E/N being weak. The endurance problem in particular never abates while leveling and I'm still not sure if at end game it does not require Cardiac to not live off Recovery Serums (I had at least one character who ran out of a max stack of Recovery Serums by the time it had soloed its way up the levels until having reached the end boss of Manticore). One thing I did find is that the Brute's ATO finally gets its chance to shine in this particular aspect. Swapping the endurance discount proc from the toggle to the weakest attack (where applicable because sometimes the weakest attack has something useful that prevents six slotting it, I.E. Radioactive smash as the sole source of FF procs) has made things much more amenable and it is a slotting advice I heartily recommend. So far Rad Melee/Stone has been the best blend of offense and defense, but here are other builds that I have tried: Dual Blades/Stone: Did not like. It's the sole Brute character I did not 'feel' Fury in the low levels. A friend says it's because it's lots of small hits but Savage Melee says no. I made an effort to reach Yin to try clearing it with Sweeping Strike finally in, two -res procs in the build etc, but it just did not come out as anything fancy. It took nearly twice the time to clear the first mission compared to Rad Melee. Dark Melee/Stone: The first character I tried slotting Unrelenting Fury into the weaker attack. While it performed well in the low levels with Touch of Fear and Shadow Maul putting a lot of hurt, and Touch of Fear serving as a ghetto third attack to cover the gap until Midnight Grasp, it just ran out of juice by Yin. It's another one who took twice the time to clear the first mission than Rad Melee, though a bit unfair to compare since MG had not been obtained yet. Martial Arts/Stone: i did not actually level this one since no AoE until 26 (*angry noises* yes devs of old, what a set needs is FOUR single target attacks before 20, not an AoE). No reason why it should not behave well though and the early 7.5% defense from Storm Kick will pretty much make soft cap possible even at Posi 1 levels for anyone who does 2-3 slots in their toggles early on. Energy Melee/Stone: this one is on the list. There is no reason not to try it only I already main EM so I'm not in a rush. It should be one of the most easy on endurance builds thanks to one of the attacks being endurance free. I took Barrage instead of Energy Punch despite Barrage being weaker (DPA) because it 'fixes' the one second gap in the rotation: TF, ET, Barrage, Bone Smasher, Barrage. Repeat. Kinetic Melee/Stone: I did not level this one either. I'm leery of it since I've done KM in the past and the damage is just weak. It works better on Fire Armor in my opinion just because all the FF procs push out more Burns, but without something like that...? Dunno, but it takes so few powers from the primary that it just gives a lot of build and slotting freedom. Spines/Stone: Just a proof of concept I did not level. The idea is to stack all the slows between Mud Pots and Spines and then see what happens. Savage Melee/Stone: the build I'm currently leveling. Savage is one of those sets that needs a tune up, but between the inherent and Unrelenting Fury it is also the only build so far that has done Posi 1 and 2 (at x8 no less) without use of a single Recovery Serum -including- killing Vhaz. I'm not sure if Vhaz has a weakness to Slash or whatever but when ever I play Savage I am always surprised at the speed which that AV melts. But that's Savage even in its current iteration: despite seemingly hitting as a wet noddle suddenly things are dead once the DoTs stack up. Unfortunately this is great for solo and big HP bags but other sets will just hit something and kill it. That being said it does boast of a blistering 4.1 second loop rotation (even Claw's attack chain is something like 4 seconds).

Because you never play with a Brute or Tanker in a team, amirite?

Default hip sway on females doesn't work for all females, but, it fits with the same dev thinking that shows the ridiculous of it when model swapped:

We wouldn't all need taunt auras if only there was not that anchor dragging everyone down because 'that's how it's always been'. Across reference with 5% chance to miss. The flee code is horrible and adds nothing other than wanting to have a character with a taunt aura in the team. That's it. How it -should- be is that squishies fear for drawing agro since the enemies would turn on them and not much someone else in the team can do other than the regular healing, buffing, or trying to draw agro by going for damage first. If a character has a taunt aura then the mobs will ignore the rest of the team and wail on them. What we -have- is that any mob, all mobs, from elementals to undead to robots to humans, takes a few hits and decides to go visit their cousin in the africas, and then a minute or two later returns at a lazy pace. Horrible gameplay. Might make sense in WoW like games where quests are about killing one enemy at a time and a spawn might be three enemies, where at 20% HP they start fleeing. But this is CoH where enemies come in packs of ten or twelve. Oh hello, either burst them once at 30% or be prepared to see a gnu herd scattering in the savannah once the 20% threshold is crossed. And that's when they don't start fleeing if most of their buddies were downed. Bonus points if it's a kill all mission. But Sov, someone will point out, is it not realistic that the enemies will run if they are taking damage? And a taunt aura magically makes the enemies -not- flee if they are taking damage... why? It does not fuss me because I only play Fire Armor with Brutes or Tankers, but why is this 'realistic' view not applied when mobs will stand on my napalm patch because... what? I'm not even calling their mom names since I'm not using Taunt. I'm just existing, and they decide it is fine to stay on the napalm patch wailing on the panzer. Get rid of the flee code and not having a taunt aura will not nearly matter as much except for the literal tanking characters who want all the enemies focused on them.

I'm trying a Psi/Fire having only done it with a Tanker. And it's actually behaving quite alright, though to be fair I've not reached end game and robots. Even so all the fire will surely mitigate Psi's problems while all the FF proc-ing will keep the Burns churning out. The progression felt nice too. Did Posi 1 0x6 at level 8 and the low level Fury made mince meat out of things. Then after a trouble-less Posi 2 with Insight noticeably helping with the damage I went into Synapse and Clockwork being weak to psi kept the ball rolling. Psi Blade Sweep is garbagey and tbh once having Burn I stopped using it, but for Synapse and under it's the sole AoE -and- doubles as third ST skill. It hits decently hard but 69% (why -exactly- 69%, devs of old?) makes it hard to hit enemies. Frost it ain't. I can understand narrow but long cones, or short but wide cones, but short and narrow surpasses me. Regardless it's just three TFs and since the build lacks a third ST skill and AoE for such low levels I picked it up. At Yin I had both Greater Psi Sword and Burn and it was soloed in 46 minutes which is a bit slow for a Fire Armor Brute but forgivable due to only using Burn for an AoE. It actually did not go too badly since I could either finesse the Freak Tanks with a timely KU from TK Blow or Burst with Greater Psi Sword and prevented a good number of them from healing before being killed. I could probably better that time since I was trying to force a 'no inspiration' run but due to have all toggles with one slot only it wasn't working too well (two deaths which accounted for part of the extra minutes). I was eager to try Mass Levitate so went straight to Moonfire and soloed it in a respectable hour and six minutes. Mass Levitate is a really good breather since it has such a long animation for enemies. Between being tossed up really high, then landing, then having to do the animation to get up. It's not Scrapper Shockwave but it's close and with Burn ticking under the bodies as they were tossed and the FF proc the damage was pretty good. The -recharge was extremely obnoxious but once complete the build has a decent 80% resistance to it. So far I am using GPS but still unsure whether to keep it or not. A long time ago someone ran tests (but on a Scrapper) where not using GPS ended being the same damage due to Insight's damage boosting. In a perfect world/game we would have a good UI to track Insight and only use it at the last second but this is not the case. I am not -super- impressed by GPS yet, but it's a disservice to compare it while leveling to the final product where it boasts of two purple damage procs that have a hefty 83% chance of going off. To keep Insight rolling for longer I'm not overthinking too much and try to replace GPS with Burn if possible. In AoE this works nicely as Burn, Mass Levitate, Psi Blade, TK Blow, Psi Blade can sort of be looped allowing to keep Insight from being used. After two rotations I use GPS on a boss so it does not go to waste. Overall it's pretty pleasant to play and the damage feels good. Triple procced Burn melts a whole spawn and what survives gets tossed in the air which seems to reliably triggers Insight. Mids says Mass levitate has a 20% chance to trigger Insight and a 40% chance to trigger Insight. I have no idea why it has two such things (any idea, @Bopper?). The 20% might be per enemy which would explain the reliable triggering. Regardless it makes mobs whine to have survived triple procced Burn and be tossed in the air, only to land and be assailed by Insight powered hits before they can even get to their feet. It wasn't unheard of to kill a red boss before it got up. If there is a wish for it I can whip a leveling build.

Yes?

But think of the 0.1 second that they saved!!

One last try with trying to keep one red up at all times..... 49 minutes. Ah CoH, never change. The extra slots now in recovery help but the drain is not stopped. Recovery Serums are needed and I predict that they will always be considering there is Tough, Weave, Minerals and Focused Accuracy (optional) still to come. This will definitely keep on requiring aid and Cardiac might be needed.

Started leveling this. As anyone who knows me I'm too much of a damage hound to settle for max survival. But I wanted to give it a try. So triple slotting my shields might not have been needed straight away. With Storm Kick I was at 50% defense across the board (amplifier running). This time I went with a team but Posi 1, 2 and Synapse could not hurt me as is obvious when running defense so high in the lowbie TFs. Having accepted that and accepted my tray was sitting unused I turned it into this. Not in a farmer sort of way of spamming them because in a team we don't have enough drops, but I had plenty to just always have one red up and it helped. In fact, having no need for inspirations this seems like the normal way of playing with this combo. I then reached Yin and used it as the usual test it has become. First try 55 minutes, but I felt it was unfair with three attacks, one had four slots while the other two had three slots, so I re-did it once they were all slotted up and in the end it was 46 minutes. Clamor still needs one small purple at least since DDR scales with level. Same time as the Ice/Fire Armor Brute, Rad/Stone Brute, and Rad/Rad Brute. But less than the Fire/Rad Melee Tank and Rad/Fire Armor Brute. The usual 5-6 minutes that Burn shaves off but still surprisingly it kept up with Rad Melee and Irradiated Ground. I might yet run it one third and last time with the one-red-up-all-the-time. Recovery Serums had to be run back to back though I have not slotted all the extra recovery yet. I thought it might be better without Irradiated Ground being a hog but not much difference was felt.

You're missing the point because it's subtle since my character has tastefuly set chest sliders. But pay a bit more attention and you'll notice CoH has boob physics now 😆 Just for that one emote though.