Sovera

Because slots are at a premium. More often than not someone min maxing a build will run out of slots long before having run out of powers. It's why you see min maxed builds with 2-3 powers that have no slots. Because nothing of interest could be slotted? No, because no more slots. Like everything there is some weighting being done. Whatever you'd slot in Entropic Aura is worth it more than being slotted somewhere else? This is a personal decision each player makes. In this particular case what more could be slotted into Entropic Aura? With generic IOs only endurance (useful), recharge (useless), and taunt (little use). Of sets only the Taunt sets can be slotted in. They universally give no endurance reduction and instead give accuracy (Entropic is auto hit so it doesn't need that), taunt (not needed either) and range (can't increase the radius of the aura so useless). Which leaves the bonuses. Some of the bonuses of the Taunt sets could be useful, but the raw sets of slotting Entropic Aura would be useless as mentioned above. I encourage you to try and find different slotting though. Making builds is good fun by trying to fit everything like good old Tetris. The only think to be mindful are the goals. These usually (but not always and they depend from player to player) are: - Reaching 40 or 45% defenses. - Enough endurance recovery to be sustainable. - Having all attacks borderline on the yellow (ED) on recharge, and damage (endurance reduction usually comes with but trying to have it slotted is good), with enough accuracy to be as close to 95% to hit +3 enemies (this is easy to see by modifying Mids so ToHit is set to 48%). - A workable rotation of attacks. Neither more than would be useful nor too few that there are seconds passed waiting for one to recharge. - Usually (but not always) as much recharge as possible so that Hasten is close to permanent. - Lastly trying to work in some Slow resistances but this is usually down the list.

Exactly how it works. I often gave the example of the last boss in the ITF as well. With the auto-hit bypassing defenses my defensive cycle was Ablative, get it chewed in two auto hits, DNA Siphon, get HP to half in two hits, eat green insps until Ablative was up. If there were no heals in the group this was not sustainable. But with this doom and gloom then a /Bio Scrapper must die all the time against the last boss of the ITF!?! No. Pretty much never. There are always heals or incarnates being used so death does not happen (often).

Bit squishy, but this is mostly a problem when not following a Tanker. The faster you kill (and that's what Scrappers and Bio are good for) the less in trouble you will be. Things like the robots in Tinpex (they can be found in other missions) will be a problem since they shave defense and hit with Energy which is where Bio is weakest against.

You don't need Elude. Your defenses are already softcapped to incarnate content and SR is immune to defense debuffs. You still have too many attacks, I would ditch Storm Kick since you already have Cobre Strike and Crippling Axe Kick even if you go as low as exemplaring to do Positron part one. I've made some minor changes. Your Focus Chi has better stats (you should probably keep the slotting regardless because on top of letting you do more damage which is what a Scrapper is about it also gives 2.5% to all positionals). Your Cobra Strike is only at 88% to hit +3 mobs (which is where mobs will be once you slot your T3 Alpha) but I would personally not waste a slot on a Kismet just to cover that last 7%. Dragon Tail will give you more Focus Chi/Ball Lightning uses as well. Upped your slow resistance some. Minor resistance increases. Bit of extra EPS. You can get the Musculature that adds damage and endurance to have your cake and eat it too and don't forget to grab the accolades that increase endurance. Carry Recovery Serums with you anyway since they are dirt cheap. Overall minor changes since your build was already pretty damn solid.

The devs tried that as well, but it's night impossible to please everyone. The appeal of Rage is how it stacks to something brutal like 160% damage. To the point SS without Rage is crummy because it -can't- be good or Rage will blow the set out of the water. So their effort was met by a wall of resistance from the players who don't mind the constant crashing because they could enjoy the 160% damage boost. At the time the devs were only trying to do a pass of Rage, and there was so much resistance they gave up and with good reason. In order for Rage to be tweaked into losing its - frankly abominable - downsides will require a complete set re-design like Titan Weapons got.

There was an attempt at making it so in the test server, but it never came out of it.

One thing to add is that for a so called villain I spend too much time fighting villains. Call it what you may. If a villain I'd rather be stealing the jewelry stores, the kitchen soup beating, up on cops (the good sort, not the crooks red side has), and a number of heroes shouting one liners as they try to stop me. Instead half the time I'm wondering if the contacs aren't good guys manipulating the system into turning bad guys versus bad guys in order to making life easier for red side civilians.

SS does decent damage with one stack, great damage with double stacks, but not having AoE until 38 is a severe deal breaker. Rage is also almost a self-CC every two minutes (or one minute if we stack) where we yawn, twiddle our thumbs and go make a sammich waiting for the -damage to wear off. Assuming the -def doesn't screw you up (yes. -def debuffs hurt resistance based sets). Energy Melee does the best single target damage and has pretty decent AoE nowadays thanks to the combo of Power Crash, Whirling Hands, Power Crash. Downsides is that the big single target hitter comes very late as well as Power Crash. It also has a bit of a problem in making a rotation (IMO that eventually forces to use Barrage, but this is minor and still does the best ST damage a Tanker can get. More well rounded options would be Claws (great in ST and AoE, FF options) or Radiation Melee (great for AoE, decent ST spoiled by the slooooooooooooow animations). Or Martial arts (specifically with Fire Armor) as in my signature.

You could min max it a little bit further if you'd care for it, but it's a very well put together build. With the tanker ATO you don't need to hug the 90% resistances. You can instead aim for a bit less and account for two 6.7% to finish capping resistances. Mids accounts for one of those, so just mentally add 6.7%. Once that done you can slightly min max a bit more (just for the sake of it, the build is rock solid as is) and to things like switching the 5 slotting from Siphon Life for 5 Panaceia. Your Dark Regeneration would definitely like a Theft of Essence proc as well which will be a game changer once you try it. The panaceia proc in Health is the best per slot option for endurance, much much better than the 2.5% the second Miracle slot was giving. Another thing that helps is six slotting Gaussian in Soul Drain. Not only do you give it good stats but also 2.5% to all positionals is pretty substantial when chasing that. The +res proc in the aura is not a good place. Tested, gives bad results. Swapping the sets between Death Shroud and Midnight Grasp will serve you better. I would personally drop Cardiac. You have Dark Consumption, it's up every 1 minute and as a back up plan you can buy Recovery Serums. You're lacking accuracy to reliably hit +3 due to the lack of accuracy bonuses so Nerve Core might do you good, and as a bonus it adds a bit more defense so you can move things around. Regardless here is what I messed around a bit with. Your Energy resistance is a bit better and your Soul Drain has decent stats so it can be used. Try the new slotting of Dark Regeneration and you should notice a large difference with how it played before which may help you reconsider Cardiac (I personally found it lacking against something as simple as Recovery Serums). Also, at first glance S/L resistances are butchered, but your second ATO stack will add another 6.7%, so 83.11% + 6.7% = 89.81%.

? Devs fix things. We spitball things on the suggestion forums. It's a laudable goal but has no bearing with fixing or the Sentinel AT would be in tip top shape by now.

And that's why I use and recommend Frost over GiS. Frost does 9 damage less, animates in the same time, and hits in AoE.

SR will always suffer from endurance. Making it positive is night impossible. The solution is stocking up on Recovery Serums from the P2W vendor in Atlas which are ultra cheap, and eventually decide if it is worth it to burn an incarnate choice and drop the Serums or just continue chugging steroids. Perma Elude is also mathematically impossible, but it adds nothing at all to the build. Softcap will be 45% and you'll be blowing past that, and SR cannot be defense debuffed. At most you might want to hit 59% for incarnate content which would be overkill for anything else.

Hmm, it's a bit dubious. On one hand you're seeking extra resistances by six slotting your ATOs, on the other you don't slot Tough. Why are you bothering with Adrenal Booster if you don't have big cooldowns to worry about? Too little slots dedicated to endurance too. Okay, I'll give it a jab and you mess around with it and see if some ideas are worth picking. Some things to consider: - I didn't want to mess with your power picks but you have way too many attacks. I would ditch Eagle's Claws, maybe, since it comes so late anyway, or Crippling Axe kick. Toxic Dart is also pretty bad and doesn't add anything since you're not hurting for defense. - Consider switching to Super Speed and ditch the whole Experimentation pool. You can grab something else like Maneuvers from Leadership or Combat Jumping from Leaping. - You have two free slots to do what you'd like with.

No one is going to pat your back so be ready to pat it yourself when you notice teams killing faster when you're around. Solo it's definitely slower than other choices though. It's going to be up to you if you feel it's worth it to sacrifice yourself for the good of all.... because ultimately all you're doing is shaving a few seconds. Remember that the end game is uber geared characters demolishing packs of enemies under ten seconds. This is not something people like to talk about when they make these characters and play them. In my opinion if you're aiming for Sonic I'd go for the full monty: sonic/sonic Defender. Couple the Sonic/ -res toggle with the /Sonic attacks. The Sonic shields are a lot more rare and with everyone aiming for defense resistances are the usual hole.

Not gonna lie that while starting as +4 leaves me cold having a x9 (or 10, or 20) option interests me. Does it work like that?

They tried at one point. Turned it into a cone, but it did not pass muster and never got out of the test server. Focused Accuracy is a case of me absolutely hating getting my ToHit debuffed. Banished Pantheon, Circle of Thorns and etc more. Not all factions do it, but when they do the game can stop and yellow inspirations don't do a thing. In a full team this is less of a problem and if avoiding the problematic factions even less. For those who don't care for it sure, trade FA for Ball Lightning or Gloom. Mind your accuracy against +3 though. Physical Perfection just helps offsetting the cost of FA and yes, the recharge proc in Crane Kick is a matter of getting it when it happens. More recharge = more Burns.

Fire Armor/Something. Claws, maybe. MA is good too. But I play 90% of the game. I don't often go into DA and very rarely do Incarnate content other than Tinpex. People do love their 100% best most survivable tanks (which is understandable since they -did- pick a Tanker) but IMO 100% best most survivable is such overkill. A Fire Armor can do most content on par with the 100% best most survivable while doing it faster. The thing with this game is that it really pushes the tank gameplay into, as I believe Linea puts it, 'go into the middle of two groups then grab your ankles and wait 15 minutes without touching your skills'. And that's fine if it's a goal. But heck, my own goal has never been to go to AFK in the middle of a group of enemies for 15 minutes. If I need to kite I don't consider it dishonorable, having to click Barrier to get a breather is not something I consider shameful. Something middle ground might be Shield/Rad as Nihili waxed poetic about up above, and if the game was just a touch harder, if we had a touch less IOs or less Incarnates I might be more into it. But the current game as it is I'm fine with Fire.

I don't want to put a dampener on things, but while Shield is pretty great Elec is the opposite of great. Very weak single target and the AoE isn't great either. As mentioned above Spring Attack is also.... mediocre. Consider Radiation Melee or even Savage Melee if you're after AoEing and you can still keep Shield. Consider Fire/Claws for AoE carnage.

I come in late, but for what it is worth I'll drop my two cents: A) Don't worry too much about having a very AoE centric build. As long as you have -some- AoE for solo most of the time someone else is going to drop a ton of AoEs in the middle of a spawn and killing the boss and couple lieutenants that survived will be job for ST. B) As was just mentioned above Power Crash, Whirling Hands, Whirling Hands should be enough. C) Despite what I said in B I tried a EM Scrapper and couldn't keep my interest up. Give me a Fire Armor Tanker any time who burns spawns as low as level 13 (exemplared) and whose AoE is used in ST as well. Fire/Claws for AoE carnage, Fire/Ice for ultra low level AoE (by 13 (exemplared) having Burn and Frost) or Fire/Martial Arts for best all rounder. I find Tankers to have a very level performance. It means no particular highs, but it starts early. A Scrapper on the other hand seems to only bloom at 40+ and until then it is working in hiccups. But come 40+ and they boost past the Tankers.

Suicidal squishies never bothered me. They are having fun pushing the envelope and sometimes the envelope pushes back. Once they die 4-6 times they either hang back or keep having fun envelope pushing.

The -KB is stronger than ever thanks to Evasive Maneuvers. A single one is now enough to counter a Pylon's KB. The slow resist on the MA version isn't as good since the exotic slotting took away from using the usual culprits responsible for -slow, but on the other hand it is harder to land -recharge hits through 45% defense.

Resists are capped, defense is softcapped, all attacks are softcapped to hit +3 and close to or in the yellow ED range for damage, Hasten is at 15 ish seconds from being perma. I'm not sure what else I could chase other than further shaving those 15 seconds down or adding more defense for cascading failure. I've even made a version with Fold Space but had to drop Fly so I didn't use it. Perhaps in a world where we did not have the holy trinity of HastenFightingLeadership, but since we are somewhat stuck with those choices the only free choice is what travel power to pick.

I wasn't even aware of that dumb PvP rule bleeding all over my PvE.

Definitely skip. The real power of Taunt is not actually taunting but rather the -100% range debuff. This acts like a sort of mini Fold Space in that ranged mobs will come running to melee. But even this is of dubious utility IMO since just breaking line of sight achieves the same or people will just kill all mobs regardless. In a different CoH version where we got all mobs in a spawn replaced by bosses then yes, I might advocate towards Taunt more since these would be a lot more dangerous and more control would be good. But. In the current CoH? One or two bosses, two or three lieutenants, the rest minions? Are these dangerous? Not really, not in my opinion. Just hitting things or standing close to them will automatically agro them as a Tanker. Taunt does not even out-agro other Tankers or Brutes simple hitting an AV. I had Taunt to peel Battle Maiden off people so I could force her out of the blue zones and A) she ignored the -100% range debuff (either by simply being immune or having such crazy range that -100% wasn't enough), and B) she kept plinking other Tankers or Brutes who didn't even have Taunt. I would use Taunt and she would ignore me and keep on hitting others. Which finishes nullifying the point of Taunt. This IMO, of course. Now after all of this said if you are a new player you should definitely take it and try it. Then you decide if you feel it is compatible with your playstyle or not. Just remember you don't need to fall into the class trope/trap of the happy Tanker who jumps into a group and then immediately uses Taunt. Taunt is a kill used where/when needed. If mobs are far away, if they are spread out, if they are ranged -and- spread out, if one of the squishies is losing HP and we see someone hitting them. Then use Taunt. But if they are either clustered or mobs that run into melee (Council, for example, are all ostentatiously ranged waving those machine guns, but with one rare exception in the Snipers they will fire one or two rounds and then run into melee) then no need. Most builds have a more pressing need for slots than they do for powers, this means at some point you will have used all your slots and still have 'free' powers to take. I take one slot wonders things like Assault to buff mine and my team's damage, or take Vengeance to have a mule for a LotG, but someone who likes Taunt will definitely have room to take it if they want to.

I'll answer this in good faith as one who tends to SPEED: because there is not much content in the game and most of us have done TFs for the 500th time on our 500th alt. That means if I have a mission which is 'find a computer' I don't feel a compelling need to fight everything trying to find the computer. The next mission will be a kill all anyway and we will engage in acts of mayhem regardless. Most of the time I just encourage someone to go look for said computer while I engage in mayhem to collect XP with the rest of the team. I completely understand your point of view though. Doing WoW dungeons is an exercise in frustration with players min maxing the routes where they can skip as much as possible (often resulting in barbaric team wipes as less experienced players fail as they are dragged through these narrow agro avoiding paths). Playing GW2 dungeons/fractals was an exercise in players figuring out the geometry and how to bounce over walls to avoid patrols. Currently on a break from CoH and playing SWTOR and again Flashpoints are all about careful skips jumping over walls and etc. It does kind of get annoying in those games (particularly WoW with the advent of timers where players botching the skips can mean wasting a key/run) trying to bounce tricky jumps off the game's geometry, but in CoH a 'dungeon' is a series of missions. There will always be 'kill all' mingled in, or objectives we need to kill most anyway (find six hostages mixed in all of the rest), so efficiently finding a computer to finish that mission is no great sin. For me, that is. I speak only of my opinion. I don't make great efforts at super speeding everything, but I do carry my TT, my ATT, my Ouro, and have the portal base keybound. As always those who dislike such practices should try to form their own teams (no sarcasm). Very much say the content will not be run ahead or skipped. I have seen people advertise for it and they got their team filled and did the TF. I even joined them and the team leader was upset that I was not killing the last minions with the team and had moved to the next room so we weren't a good fit, but as adults we talked it out and they didn't kick me and I didn't ragequit. The ones who truly are 'for the merits' are speed runs at minimum difficulty and running past everything when possible. They are always advertised as such (I loathe those).