Sovera

I just posted a more traditional Stone/MA build. Without incarnates it has 60% defense and 70/76% resists with one or two stacks of the ATO, and then nearly 400% regen (58 HPs). With incarnates add a permanent 5% to the defense and resists.

I believe the stacking can only be done with a Scrapper. The only Parry like power that can be stacked by Brute/Tankers is Defensive Spin from Staff. I could be wrong about this though as I've not touched Broadsword in a while and Mids is not 100% trustworthy.

Probably not what you want to hear (and people seem to get their hackles up when ever I suggest it) but you could consider doing it with a Brute instead. Simply because their Fire Armor has an agro aura that keeps enemies close where the Scrapper version will send mobs running to the africas when ever they use Burn. Fire Armor is also a resistance based armor and Brutes get 90% resists where Scrappers have 75% but mostly the agro aura.

Unrelated, but what the heck is this thumbnail? Where did it got generated from?

Internet cutesy way of saying small. It's not an acronym.

On live we played Fight Club RP-PvP but very often the meleer fights would end in a draw. Very actually on point when two invulnerable enemies hit each other 😄 In a game there is certainly no comic book rules where the invulnerablest is also the strongest. It was pretty boring and even spectators would sigh once we realized we were in for another 10 minute fight until one of them would finally give up. I remember speccing into some odd picks like the epic frost pool to get some slows and make recharge slower just to be able to kill someone. Of course on the same account everyone turned into a puddle of goo if a debuffer joined the fray and I remember our RP-PvP reigning champion was a Poison MM where bodyguard kept them alive while they applied all poison debuffs until the other person could do nothing. This is all pre PvP changes and IOs being introduced. My own (brief) foray into playing at RP PvP in HC with a villain was not very good. As long as it was a meleer we could brawl and quip and slowly whittle each other. But the moment a Blaster came in it was game over. Tanker or not. But all bets were off when a *PvP* Blaster joined. Instead of useless Fly they'd have Super Jump which allowed to bounce around and travel power cancellation didn't stop inertia so they'd still finish their jump. I tried a variety of things like going into Web Grenade, but in the age of IOs there is enough resistance to these things. I'm sure someone more into it like @America's Angel would know counters like, last I hear Energy Aura was godly because the T9 worked in PvP so instead of being an instant death if a Blaster came in they could at least chase them. But never take Fly into PvP that's for sure. Any hit cancels it and we move slower than Hover while inertia makes jousting with SS or SS the way to move.

Must fight the Shephards. I remember putting that challenge in the forums. Fun times.

What I usually say in these threads is that there's no reason to ever not go Bio. Lets face it, if you're in trouble you'll have to reach out for an inspiration, so reaching out for Ablative Shield is pretty much the same. But I'd say Stone Armor otherwise. You'll want endurance back in some way or form and a heal or regen as even 5% hits pile up.

Last I recall (but it's been a good while) Hibernate triggers the phase shift debuff who in turn has a CD of two minutes(?) not touched by recharged. It was something I learned even for PvE that Hibernate's recharge didn't matter much since phase shift did not allow it to be used. This means phase shift can't be used too. Take this with a grain of salt since it's been a long while.

I don't like Controllers either. I do feel they just slow things down, even the good ones who only mass immobilize when the mobs are grouped up. That said I don't feel a need to refuse them either and can and have ended up with 2-4 CC types in teams I was forming. To be honest the game has moved on past the need for CC, much like there was a time WoW dungeons were c a r e f u l pulls with one mob sheeped, another mob sapped, a third frozen trapped, and then v e r y carefully killing the rest with NO AOE WHATSOEVER to not break the CCs and always a sweaty eye on those mobs to reapply those CCs because one extra mob could easily (very easily) wipe the group. All of this is gone and dead by so much as four expansions back where everything is now AoE and rush rush pulling two groups at once until at least high mythics where a soupçon of CC can still be used. For good or worse that's what the game evolved to, and this applies to CoH as well. Controllers might have been a hot commodity during the era of SOs but now everything is so tanky and so damaging that it's just a steamroller steamrolling. This isn't a particular dig at CC ATs though, most ATs are not needed in this day and age. We can do teams with only Scrappers or Brutes or even HEATs (damn, the burn!) and do the same bulldozing. The only difference and why Controllers are singled out is that their skills tend to be disruptive.

I'm not sure if this fits what you are after, but with the help of the wiki to uncover the names of the contacts/levels/name of the storyline wouldn't Orobouros have it? This hinges on knowing the names though which is a catch-22 if those aren't known. Orouboros does not have the storylines separated, but clicking on each shows the contact. So while tedious you could be able to click on each and take the quests from the contact if the name matches the wiki.

I've got three but I think this one is the most balanced. The AoE of MA is weak so I took Psionic Tornado to help it since I had free powers to waste on the pre-requisites. There's a case to be said to go for Fireball instead (same waste of pre-requisites but Fire damage is better than Psi damage) but Harmonic Mind adds another extra to help with the blue bar that Stone Armor kinda needs: Tanker (Stone Armor - MA) Final build.mbd There's a version with Focused accuracy as I usually go for and one with Fireball. Fireball is the simplest since the slotting is the same but Psionic Mastery is replaced by Fire Mastery, and the Focused Accuracy simply dumps the slots around. Since having the extra powers and extra slots there's no special reason to go the Focussed Accuracy route considering the build is at minimum 94% to hit +3 enemies. There's always the danger of fighting accuracy debuffing enemies which makes me leery of leaving home without FA but it's a case of respeccing if it becomes a nuisance. Either way the build ends with 55% defense, 60% with Weave toggled on, 65% with Barrier, and 76%-ish resistances with two stacks of the ATO, 81%ish with Barrier. F/C is capped at 90% even without Barrier since it's the only one without defenses. Psi is 'only' at 45%, 51% with Weave, and 56% with Barrier, but psi does not debuff defense so 45% is all it requires.

That will not happen. PvP changes how things work and Tankers don't get their PvE resistances there. If you're just playing at club fight (two melee hitting each other) then I would suggest Radiation Armor/Dark Melee as you can draw out things with your three heals. But if you face any ranged character they will make mince meat out of you either way.

For that Stone/MA?

I could mimic your current build and throw it against a pylon and then do the same with the Soaring Dragon/Golden Dragonfly variant but I'm coming to terms that you would disregard the results under some reason or another. Damage is damage, whether it comes from procs or from anything else. If you want to see the proc chance of things just hover over the damage and the proc chance will be shown. I'm not quite sure why you're explaining to me, of all people, how you think that procs work or why they are 'bad', but to add the 'shield proc' is mostly useless and it is there to reap the fat 6% resistances to E/N. Both S/L and E/N are the major forms of damage in this game and what is usually built for. Fire and Cold, Toxic and Psi, are rarer and usually come in small doses where we can quickly defeat the mob that is doing it. I sacrificed another 3% E/N in Focused Accuracy to finish pushing S/L a little bit higher but mirroring Build-up's slotting would have pushed E/N resistances to 50%, which in turn having the about-ish 18% from two stacks of the ATO and Barrier would have pushed to 68%. Getting better defenses/resistances beats the loss of the 6 HPS of regen, IMO. Just ask any Regeneration player how well things work in being a bag of HP and regen when damage comes in hot. In closing I'm not sure why you'd be farming in AE or farming roleplayers in Pocket D or why asking for a critique and then explain why your choices are better when critiqued, but it's best to build for the times when there are no buffers in a team or buffers of the wrong sort. As you've noticed in a team it doesn't matter while doing normal content. A single person can already solo that normal content so when there are 8 present it's simply overkill and everything melts in five or six seconds and there is no need to overthink it. Your build WILL do all content just fine in a team and even in solo, so under that prism there is no need to change a single bit of even the first one. Carry on having fun, that's all we can ask for.

I'm a big fan of Fly and have zero builds without it so I read you. The infiltration/GI suggestion swap for Combat Jumping remains (I use CJ just for the 2-3% and the LotG slot). I was offering alternatives for Infiltration since it's a travel power that does stealth and I thought this angle played into your character's theme. There is no reason not to to use Build-up though. You see a pack of enemies and prepare to dive in? Click on it. Hasten you control + left click and it sets that on auto to never be thought about again until the heat death of the universe. Regardless it's your build so surely do as you will. I had not seen in the first post you didn't want changes made to the build but I do have some experience with the game and can say you should at least try the swap to Hasten and Soaring Dragon + Golden Dragonfly. You CAN do the whole game on a T1 and a T2 and I have done such builds, but only when the higher tier skills were crap (looking atcha, Kinetic Melee and Savage Melee). But in Katana's case you got two good, strong skills at your disposal. Simply looking at the numbers DA (95 damage with 1.6 animation), SD (265 damage with 1.6 animation), and GD (329 damage with 2 second animation will do 689 in 5.2 seconds. You current build does Sting of the Wasp (125 damage in 1.32), Gambler's Cut (91 damage in 1 second) and Divine Avalanche (91 damage in 1.6) for 307 damage in 3.9 seconds. The rotation with SD and GD will do approximately 3975 damage over 30 seconds. Your rotation would do approximately 2361.6 damage over 30 seconds. Of course I'm assuming you're not using Flashing Steel since you have a full rotation without it but it could probably replace one of the weaker skills like Gambler's Cut albeit for minimal gains. At minimal the damage will be much higher, but it is also very aesthetically pleasing since the combo is one of the best looking ones COH has. Soaring Dragon tosses a mob in the air with a knock-up and Golden Dragonfly is us doing a little jump and swinging down doing a knock-down which sells the image of slamming the opponent to the ground. Just, please, do not trust the DPA of Mids, I can assure you the damage will skyrocket compared to what you have become used to even if it demands switching some slotting around. Respecs are cheap so if it's not to your tastes then respec back. There's also the public test server if you wish to try it without burning your free respecs or spending 2 million on a respec recipe. But this changes nothing that if you're enjoying the spec as it is and you're not dying then why change? Carry on, it's a game, we literally play these to have fun and if you're having fun isn't the goal achieved? Do try to squeeze in those three Eradications into Sweep and Lotus to finish softcapping your E/N. It will still melt under praetorian robots but better to start softcapped than 5-6% under. This is what I'd use in the end-game after amassing money: BingBongBang v3 - Tanker (Willpower - Katana).mbd At least it'll give some more slotting ideas and maybe you'll find something useful to adopt. Most of it can be adapted to be cheaper.

- The Gaussian proc should be in Build-up, which you did not take. Do take it as it as it is a nice boost at the start of the fight and when you can lay down a couple AoEs while under its influence to quickly put down the mass of minions that would debuff and/or hurt you. In Build-up the Gaussian is near assured to go off where in Focused Accuracy it will when it decides it will. By both having BU and the Gaussian you will start the fight with a 160% damage boost for the first 5 seconds, and 80% for the following 5 seconds. As the weakness of Willpower are debuffs it is good to think about bursting down enemies quickly. - Mids is currently not accounting for the +resistance proc from Might of the Tanker. Each stack gives 6.7% and two stacks are easy to keep up so in my opinion you should check your numbers and try to aim for roughly 13%. That means about 77% instead of 90% as you have right now. - Soaring Dragon and Golden Dragonfly are your big hitters. You should really not try to play without them. That would be like playing Energy Melee but not using Energy Transfer and Total Focus. It does create a problem for leveling/exemplaring as you are forced to take the weaker powers to level, but once having access to those two you should respec and take them. Exemplaring will remain a problem though you are forced to take either Sting of the Wast or Gambler's Cut since the game forces you to, and then you can pair it with Flashing Steel and Divine Avalanche as a means to get across the leveling/exemplaring. - Your single-target rotation should be Divine Avalanche, Soaring Dragon, Golden Dragonfly, repeat. DA is less damage than Gambler's Cut but as Willpower you want that defense. - I'd slot three Eradication in Lotus Drop and Flashing steel to finish placing your Energy/Negative defenses to 45%. - I am not sure if you are sold on Grant Invisibility and Infiltration (if you are then carry on) but Combat Jumping is a 'free' 2-3% more defense and can replace Grant Invisibility as a LotG slot while also giving more mobility while in combat. - If you do take Build-up you'll want Hasten to help it, which means choosing whether to keep the Concealment pool or taking Hasten. You can mimic Infiltration with a stealth IO in Sprint and then using one of the START movement runs, be it Athletic Run (normal running animation) or Ninja run (acrobatic Naruto somersaulting run). With both Sprint and one of those runs you get a pretty decent movement speed to reach your next mission so it's something to consider. Do keep Infiltration if it's something you like though. - The IOs themselves are just a quibble but the build as it is will do its job, though if you are slotting purples I don't know why you wouldn't slot the Tanker's ATOs as well instead of just the procs. The cost shouldn't be something to deter you as money can be accrued without too much difficult. Then, if you decide to play a different Tanker, you can just transfer all those IOs to the new character, or, if you decided you hated Tankers and don't want to play one again, you can sell the IOs back to the auction house. Check the guide in my signature about how to store IOs for alts or making money.

I had/leveled one and it blitzed through stuff. I found at higher level without dedicating incarnates (Ageless/Cardiac) to it that the endurance bar could not keep up. But I am not sure that I would take it over Bio (on numbers alone) as the damage boost of Brimstone comes from the proc which is almost assuredly not working with the pseudo-pets, where Offensive Adaption's raw 25% damage boost should (don't quote me though) even if not its damage proc itself. Now, Stone is hardier than Stone if we just look at the defensive numbers, but, one thing not mentioned in this thread is that Storm makes a character pretty tanky as it has many debuffs and soft CCs. This means I could and did build the Sentinel to just 33% defense (on the Bio) and it was enough to breeze through as the Storm debuffs kept me safe and if things got heated then a single small inspiration would put it up to 45%. The real pudding test was playing in a DA arc, Artemis Knives as enemies, as a fresh level 50 with no incarnates, and fighting them as true +4. And they were harmless even as true +4, even at 33% defense, without even having to use inspirations. So with that said and Stone being hardier I think it will do just fine

Come to think of it I recently built a Stone/Martial Arts that leaned on Storm Kick. I remember it's not something that I considered as being better than regular builds but it allowed to mess with less traditional slotting. Strictly speaking I still think the same as there are too many mules and the recharge suffered from it. It was more of a proof of concept thing, but maybe there will be slotting ideas of interest. It still has 45% defense minimum (with Weave toggled on it goes to 50%, and with Barrier it goes to 55%) and 90% resistances with the 18.4% Warshades mentioned. I happen to disagree on their assessment of not taking Crane Kick as it provides soft CC and is a place for Force Feedback procs, but for this build in particular it's true that the only two things recharge helps is Hasten and Focus Chi. Tanker (Stone Armor - MA).mbd A less proof-of-concept build ought to lean on Storm Kick as an extra buffer instead. Super Reflexes might be the king of defense debuff resistance, but having 65% defense to all would means a looooot of whittling to reach cascading defense failures.

Look at other people's builds and see how they did their build. If they happen to be the combo you were after then all the better. Posting your first draft of a build is also a good way to have the flaws pointed out so you'll know better for next time.

XP is literally endless. Staying for extra time in the mission only means delaying getting the mission reward. XP from mobs? There are mobs in the next mission that will give XP too.

Okay, I have a Fire/Claws in my signature (it's the Dragon one) if you want to take a look at some different slotting. Taking a look at your build you have lots of room for improvement, but first you need to think if the build is doing well for what you're using it. If yes then just continue using it as is. Things to consider though: - Follow-up is an attack. You want accuracy, damage and recharge. As it is right now it has an 85% chance to hit +3 enemies (not the worse, but it should be to 95%). The Gaussian proc in Focused Accuracy is misleading since it won't be up all the time. - Consume is for endurance and should be slotted with endurance IOs. The proc in the Might of the Tanker lasts 10 seconds but Consume recharges in one minute so it is better placed in an attack instead. - Focus is an attack as well and you want accuracy, damage, recharge, and if possible one Force Feedback proc in it for some extra recharge. - Shockwave will knock the enemies away which is pretty disruptive. Slot either an Overwhelming Force proc in it or a Sudden Acceleration. - You have aimed for a lot of Smash and Lethal (and some AoE) defenses, but there is no point in doing this. Either try to reach 33% S/L defenses so that a small purple makes it 45% (the softcap) or aim for 40% so that Barrier will put it at 45%. But there is zero point in chasing AoE defenses. - Your S/L resistances are grossly overcapped. 90% is the maximum. If you want to be super minmaxey you can account for two stacks of Might of the Tanker procs, then 5% from Barrier, which combined gives 18%. That means you can chase to reach 72% resistances instead of 96% as you have them now (that's 96% which would then have the 18% on top, but which would do nothing since 90% is the maximum anyway). Funny enough it means your Energy/Negative resistances are almost there. By toggling Tough off you're already down to 74% which is almost at that magic sweet spot but you can still shave off IO slots from the build and place them somewhere else that is lacking, like adding more slots to Focus for example. - Spring Attack can be a fun attack, but numerically it has some really bad numbers (check the recharge and damage compared to Burn and Spin).

Oh, hello again, Dian. It's helpful if you lean into defense. For all purposes it gives X defense though only in the aura's radius, so for all effects melee defense. SOs will increase that number for a little bit. You can test this by purchasing a Power Analyser from the START vendor and using it on a mob to check its attributes. As always debuffs work exceptionally better the lower level the enemies are and lose effectiveness as they become high level than the character.

As I mentioned a few posts back this is an undertaking and a half since there are 236 permutations possible. Brute is not just Brute, but 236 possible versions of Brute, on top of people building with SOs, building with IOs, building with IOs but also proc bombing. This adds even more permutations. And THEN it has to stay on its lane! Not too tanky, not too damagy. The community would have a nuclear meltdown over it but Brutes are and will always be such a pain to balance that the devs would help their future selves by removing the AT (and I say this as someone with more Brutes than Tankers). Anyone who wants to be tanky and AoEy plays a Tanker, anyone who wants to be a melee DPS plays a Scrapper. Anyone who wants a stealthy crits-on-demand-instead-of-random-crits plays a Stalker. Stalkers and Scrappers would still need to be balanced against each other but at least there would be but one knob to tinker with. Fortunately I can just have my popcorn and watch from the sidelines one way or the other. Edit: I do like the Fury mechanic more than the crits. Perhaps what Brutes need is to have their resistances/HP lowered to Scrapper/Stalker levels and then they are all three melee DPS. Again, only one knob to tweak with none of the 'but if we buff Brutes too much why would anyone play other melee ATs that do the same damage but are not as tanky?'. Then if the three are in the same damage range it becomes flavour. Random crits, crits on demand and stealth, no crits but ramping up damage.

I keep seeing suggestions to improve Brute damage when it comes to the ATO and this misses the target by a mile. The devs actually lowered the max damage of the Brutes, they don't want the AT to be doing more so suggestions to 'fix' the AT with more damage is not going to fly. Which unfortunately includes scaling crit chance (for the record I like it). As the half everything the AT is I'd like having an half strength IO duplicating the Tanker since they are a half tank AT. As it is they have too much work pushing their defensive numbers up. Tying it to Fury would be fun too in a does-not-feel-pain-of-so-furious-they-are. Scaling resists like the IO. Fury has been infantilized too much though to a point we reach max rage in seconds and it stays at maximum unless taking a break so it's no longer something to work at.