Sovera

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.

P H Y S I C S! @ArchVileTerror

You will get there. I will prepare a tiny throne tou can rest on between running to fetch coffee.

Another variant. I could not stomach leveling (and exemplaring) with only two attacks, so this one replaces CaK for Cobra Strike. Because of Thunder Kick being a forced pick (and too weak to be of actual use) powers needed to be shuffled which makes a mess out of things. In exchange the build is now pretty examplar friendly with all that's needed available from Posi 1 onwards. I've decided that Earth's Embrace is what I could push back. The softcapped-defenses-while-leveling will have to be enough without the HP buffer and munching the occasional green. It's back up in time for Yin which is where things usually pick up. But someone can swap Evasive Maneuvers instead.

But I'd lose the bonus when exemplared... Or.. uhm... Actually, it's a PvP set so the bonus is available at all levels, right?

Small update. I'd rather have the +res proc in Storm Kick to spam it and this also lets me have a damage proc in all attacks. Nothing changes since three-stacks-and-Barrier remain needed for hardcapping resists. Darn annoying being forced to take Thunder Kick which in turn forces to take Crippling Axe Kick. I would rather take Cobra Strike and eat the small damage loss but in exchange have my early rotation instead of waiting until 35.

I forgot to mention that the lack of clickies extends to Earth's Embrace. It doesn't actually heal for any appreciative numbers so it's best to just use on CD to keep the regen going and the massive HP buffer on. The regen alone isn't enough though, at some point heals are going to be needed. But since the armor does everything else so well I suppose inspirations are always going to be a fall back. And in this particular case the constant KDs from Dragon's Tail will also help with a breather. That said and despite the noises made about Tankers being 'overbuffed' I feel their damage is pretty mushy outside of Fire Armor. Brimstone helps some in this case, but since it lacks an interaction (more damage with a Brute, can crit with a Scrapper/Stalker) the damage increase is small.

Changes to the secondaries allow to skip Thunder Kick so this is the updated build: But sadly I couldn't do it -_- There is no 90% to all resistances with overcapped defenses here, only the stench of abject failure. Ugh, but it was so close... Well, it's still there but it's going to depend on Barrier's 5% and fishing for the third ATO proc which is not a reliable thing to achieve. 70% to E/N with one stack, 76.7% with two, 83.4% with three stacks, 88.4% with Barrier, 89.4% with Reactive Defenses unique once at 90% HP. Only Toxic will be capped with two stacks of the ATO and Barrier, but everything else except Psi will require the three stacks. On the upside other than Fire and Cold everything is (over)softcapped even to incarnate content (add 5% to the defense numbers from Barrier). Hasten is at a pretty decent 129 seconds and I almost did not slot the FF procs because, welp, other than Hasten there are no clickies. But sure, why not? There's nearly 2 EPS per second but it does not account account for two Performance Shifters and the Panaceia which is.. roughly... ish.. another one EPS. I'd still keep Recovery Serums on hand, just in case. Popping Granite avoids all those gimmicks though but it's really a case of pondering whether it is worth it. It only increases DDR by 9% if Mids can be trusted. Frankly this looks better than Rad Armor considering it comes with DDR, it's avoiding most attacks by dodging them instead of taking them and their ill debuffs, and has a passive damage boost.