Sovera

Correct. My bad. Now that you've mentioned it I've tried to find it but couldn't, but it's been almost two years. That build had a 1:53 best time. And the 1:23 had Hybrid toggled on too now that I've looked back at the posts under it. Even the Fire/Ninja had Assault toggled on.

People don't do pylon tests with red insps. Which is where the DPS numbers come from.

I also lied above. It was so long ago I didn't recall the details. It was not sub one minute but 1:23. At the time I reached out to Don Petro and he was kind enough to provide his build so you can peruse it if you'd like: There -is- a single instance of (barely) sub 1 minute I found and it was a Fire/Ninja:

Snarky, you are a fine internet undead dude, but you don't know enough to sprout certainties. If you want a better show of what an Ice Blaster can do you copy one of the proc heavy builds. Each attack can take at least three damage procs and still be slotted with three Thunderstrikes with no recharge in them (accuracy damage, damage endurance, accuracy damage endurance). I say this because you stated 'Ice Blaster'. But several answers you got from the Ice/Ice person and others in your thread in the Blaster forums already stated that purely ranged will cut on the damage potential by a large bit. Ice/Ice is not the most damaging combo so you would not do the 800-900 goal regardless. You would get closer with procs though. With procs purely ranged Ice is either on par with purely ranged Fire or slightly ahead. To reach these 800-900 numbers you must embrace melee on a squishy. You don't want to do that. Heck, -I- don't want to do that. If I wanted to be in melee range I'd play a darn Scrapper 😛 One of the sub one minute Blaster times I remember reading in the Pylon thread over the Scrapper forums was a Ice/Fire (or perhaps Ice/Energy? It's been a long while). They hugged the pylon, went nuts, and of course mixed the very high melee damaging attacks. These make the difference to reach such absurd numbers, but whomever achieves this in regular play deserves it. That said you can aim for S/L defense instead of Ranged defense and dip into melee range without it being such a dangerous thing to do without said 45% S/L defense. S/L would protect against Ranged, Melee, and AoE.

Nihili covered it well. The thing is that DPS has no great place in CoH outside of small niche things like beating up AVs. But wait, you might say, beating up AVs -is- a part of the CoH experience! And you would be correct, but thinking back on it how often and how long do we spend beating up AVs? We might spend 7-10 missions beating regular bad guys to finally reach an AV. So easily 200-300 enemies for one AV. And regular bad guys don't require DPS (damage per second) but rather burst. Sentinels are reviled for their mediocre DPS but are about kings for regular play (but since they suck at things like pylon tests they are shunned. The target cap is also a big bad nerf). For regular play a Sentinel will have their nuke + all their AoEs available at every single new group of enemies, and using it will decimate most of them in a brilliant flash of light and expanding pink clouds of what used to be people with dreams and aspirations and are now dispersing molecules of fle-... pixels. Ahem. So, anyway. Even regular bosses require no more than 10 or so seconds to defeat for most damaging ATs. So calculations on how much damage something will do over a period of hitting something for one minute are not very useful. A Blaster can bridge this with both burst and DPS. The smarter way I found of playing one was using nuke + AoEs on a pack of enemies, and the next pack of enemies use Build-up + Aim + AoEs. This because the nukes are so strong they hardly need the extra help in killing a group but are usually only up every two spawns, so alternating nuke and BU + Aim makes a Blaster a powerful force never resting. Pylon tests are useful, but also detrimental. It brings elitism when X powerset is poo pooed because it does poor shows in the test. But they are test with little usefulness. They are literally tests done for a segment of the gameplay we spend less than 1% on: the AV fight. Further they are skewed by the peculiarities of the pylon test which loves -res procs further favoring certain sets (Bio Armor for example, any attack set that allows to slot -res procs) and creating a gap with sets who do not have the chance to use those. Where, in testing against actual AVs, the effects are greatly diminished (in my own testing two -res procs can increase damage in 25% but on an AV the damage increase was lowered to 5-8%. Still good, but not overwhelmingly good as the pylon test would have led us to believe). A better test candidate might be the Trapdoor mission that the Scrapper forums have a thread about. That one is not about hitting an inconsequential target who does not move and soaks -res procs like ambrosia. It is a test of the actual gameplay we will find while playing CoH. Defeating low HP enemies, having to fear for our lives (there are many Blasters who tried the test and come out with defeats that killed their times. No 50 second times for them if they are hugging the ground, and that too is part of the 'real' gameplay experience), moving to the next target, then defeat a semi tough final boss. This is not the answering your question but I feel it was all already covered.

THE SMELL OF FRESH PAINT IS NEARLY OVERWHELMING! - Line from Citadel's TF and quoted for whatever mission that re-uses the same door.

To be honest I don't see Fire Armor having enough representation (OUTSIDE OF FARMS!) to warrant nerfs. Also, re-reading the last page(s) makes me ponder how many people are treating CoH as if it was WoW with a competitive race to world first raiding scene. Now having inspirations in mail is an exploit that needs to be squashed? What the heck, 0.1% of the population uses it to overcome a challenge or speedrun (also a challenge). Who does this for regular playing? I would rather have an hour or two spent increasing AH stacks to 100 so I don't repeat the same gesture 49 times, or 71 times like I did last night, in order to sell 710 Converters. That, at least, affects 100% of the population rather than the 0.1%.

I'll just quickly adapt from the other WP build I just posted. Same warning I'm not a WP expert, but also same deal, 'low' S/L resists will be upped by the proc in Radioactive Smash. I suggest Barrier with 120 seconds to give the last 5% to defense and 5% to resists. 81 HP regen with one mob in range. Because of this I did not frankenslot Siphon's heal and its 'just' going to heal 375 HP per use. Remember you can force these heals with Fusion.

It didn't do anything for me I confess. The bigger culprit is probably Soul Drain being a touch awkward with the long recharge. It can be made nearly perma but usually means I found myself deciding whether to whittle the rest of the mobs without using it again, or use it on the remaining 2-3 mobs instead of on the next fresh large spawn. Dark Consumption is not needed with Consume, Siphon Life is usually why DM is taken but its not needed and anemic anyway compared to Healing Flames. Shadow Maul should do twice the damage of Frost with the same animation time, but it does not feel it has the same oomph. Perhaps it is the 3y shorter range. The new Touch of Fear is a bit of a non entity. If it at least spread the -ToHit in the AoE... The ST is pretty decent though it suffers for exemplaring if using Midnight Grasp. MG, Smite, Siphon, Smite works just fine but makes slotting Shadow Punch a waste. But then if we exemplar just Smite and Siphon leaves gaps. Overall it's a good combo still and maybe I'm just too picky, just a pity it can't spread -ToHit in AoE other than with SM. It could be its 'ice patch' defense.

I'm not an expert on WP, buuut, sooomething like thiiiiis? I think? Don't mind the 'low' S/L resistance since you'll be getting +res stacks from the proc in Total Focus. I suggest you grab Barrier which will give the last 5% to your defenses as well as 5% to resistances. I've done what I could for E/N but it will gain another close to 20% with more ATO stacks and Barrier's 5% so a solid 73%-ish kinda sorta. Pretty impressive regeneration I must say. 78 HP with only one enemy in range is pretty solid coupled with the defenses and resistances. And when needing more regen because surrounded by enemies it goes up to 135 HP.

I've been asked about a ranking on the different Fire Armor builds so I'll put it here: - Fire/Martial Arts. The current Brunker. Amazing survival with Storm Kick. 45% to Melee/Range/AoE is so much better than just 45% to S/L. Dragon Tail provides good mitigation and is a great source of FF procs to speed everything up in AoE situations which is 99% of our game time. The only thing it lacks is an earlier Build-up. BU allows to overwhelm so much low level BS. It takes doing a Posi 1 and spend literally a minute seeing miss miss miss to appreciate how it allows to keep the train moving. - Fire/Claws. Slightly less defensive with only 45% to S/L, more offense oriented with Spin doing twice the damage of Dragon Tail. It can achieve the same acceleration of MA by taking and using Shockwave but much much later in the game. Taking and using Shockwave would make it go past MA for most of the game but since I do not in my current build MA gets ahead thanks to this. Downside is that Follow-Up is not Build-Up and does not play well with the Gaussian proc. This prevents burst to get past low level BS. - Fire/Ice. The recent changes have made this my personal favorite. But being unbiased about it Fire/MA still takes the Brunker spot. Regardless the recent patches shuffled things around. Ice Patch going from 4 seconds to activate to something like 1.7 makes a world of difference allowing it to be casually cast during a gap instead of being a strategic decision whether to use or not. And then the change to Afterburner means that Evasive Maneuvers is less of a necessity and more of a QoL. This allowed me to take Ice Patch at 20, move Consume to 24 (thus still usable for Synapse which is where the heavy sapping starts), and move EM to 30 where it becomes available by Yin. But with a low level BU allowing to power through low level BS, Frost being a worthy low level AoE, Ice Patch for defense (not super reliable in my experience, mobs can and do ignore standing on it partly because FT applies a -100% KB) and a medium level Freezing Touch available by Yin instead of waiting until 38 this combo can be pretty bursty. I'm currently trying a build without Frozen Aura (don't ask me why but I don't like it. I can't explain why since it does comparable damage with Frost and has the same animation time, but, it is what it is) as well as non procced out Freezing Touch. I'm still unsure about the new FT slotting. It is a -great- vehicule for procs and not frankenslotting it lowers the damage by around 130 damage. The upside is that instead of FT, Ice Sword, Frost, Ice Sword, I can FT, Ice Sword, Frost. It may be better on the long run, but I'm missing the heavier Dim Mak heart exploding caress. The downsides is not having any place to slot FF to speed things up. I have tried slotting Arcane Bolt but couldn't keep the defensive goals with it, and in any case would have to sacrifice a pool. Cross Punch is a possibility but I don't need a fourth attack and by the time I can pick and slot Cross Punch I am in my 30s which is too late for my exemplaring. Someone who doesn't care about exemplaring or who does not take Fly could probably remove Assault and fit Cross Punch by level 30 to then use the slots from Frozen Fists and rejigger things to find two more slots from somewhere. This is my current Fire/Ice. I don't particularly recommend it since not taking Frozen Aura is a peculiar choice. It's just a peculiar choice adapted to my own playstyle though. All the other combos have honorable mentions but have not passed muster. If it's not a solid start but a lame finish (Fire/Axe comes to mind where the very slow last attacks killed the flow (and pylon times)) then it's bad exemplaring (Fire/Katana, you could have been so good, but 35 and 38 to finish the ST attack chain is just plain bad in a game with exemplaring) or awkwardness (Fire/Super Strength with a super late AoE, and the set's linchpin only available at 28, who then proceeds to 'CC' us for 10 seconds on top of making us more vulnerable. Fire/StJ and Fire/Energy Melee both culprits in this where their linchpins have such awkward recharges that I couldn't stop from either using a T1 to fill the gaps or have to contort myself to follow a lengthy rotation, Fire/TW with attacks not usable because Momentum ran out and sometimes attacks becoming slow when expecting a fast attack), or they are just plain numerically bad (Fire/Psi. Fire/Fire. Fire/Kinetic Melee and Fire/Savage forced to use both T1 and T2 in their attack chain since Concentrated Strike/Hemorrhage was fixed to be bad on all ATs, Fire/Elec and Fire/Staff with bad single target and equally bad AoE despite boasting many of them, etc), and some are just... so close... (Fire/Stone (with bonus points for lava skins) with a nice ST but a single somewhat late and bad AoE). Most of this is just my opinion and with a serving of min-maxed dollop smeared on top. They all can be made to work and some are worth it for the theme alone (Fire/Lava Stone, I wuvs you).

Everything has been said already, but the question always boils down to: more damage or more survival? I haven't done SR Tanker because I'm too damage oriented and tbh I can do everything on a 'squishy' Fire Armor, but it seems like the best blend with easy access to resistance and better defensive numbers. But you'll be slow(er) to chop things down than a Scrapper. My own experience with SR Scrapperinos were that they got devoured in farm maps (for testing purposes, not because it's the AT/combo to farm with). 5% hits add up quickly when at agro saturation for minutes. BUUUUUT the real game is not about being at agro saturation for minutes and Bill has a different experience on this than mine. I would personally do Rad Melee with SR on a Tanker. The heal is completely nuts when franken slotted. 25% HP every time we are hitting something contaminated? That's nuts, and can be forced with Fusion.

S/L defense ends working better than Melee. Attacks with Smash or Lethal can be anything from ranged to melee to AoE. S/L is so common it is mingled in just about anything. Even psi attacks may carry a Smash component. Bullets are ranged but also are Lethal, an ITF boss doing their little spin jump are doing an AoE but it is also a Slash attack. Punches, or swords, or hammer blows, will be slash or smash though they are already covered by Melee defense. Most energy or electric, or sonic, attacks usually have Smash as well. So S/L is a more comprehensive defense though lacking defense debuff resistance it will be stripped easily. It's still better to have it for the factions who do not do defense debuffs though, and Barrier makes it a large buffer that they need to shave through for the creamy center (that is you). You're correct about the Armaggedon. I just glanced at it and mistook it for Apocalypse. That one's on me. Remove one slot from Alpha Barrier and place it back on Ground Zero for a little big more psi resistance. Now it will be on par with the others and hardcapped with two ATO stacks and Barrier where before it was slightly under the cap.

I don't want to change your mind, but Fire Melee is in a position where it does nothing really great. The animations are not fast, it has no secondary effects, and it is not great damage. You seem to know your way around Mids so I am a bit unsure as to why you've aimed to over-cap resistances. Nothing over 90% gives anything and you still have two stacks of the Tanker's ATO who will give an extra 14% on top of your already completely over the top resistances. I'm going to suggest messing with your slotting and aim for around 85% at most. That way two ATO procs will (slightly over) cap you and this gives freedom to add things elsewhere. For example aim for another 8% in S/L defense. No point in having 6 slotted Ground Zero for 5% psi defense when you only have 20% defense but a nice chunky 70% resist to psi. You could aim for a bit more psi so it is capped with two ATO stacks. Speaking of ATO stacks if you are not going to use your AoE on a ST fight it makes more sense to put it somewhere else than an AoE. I would suggest Fire Sword. You can shave it down to only four ATOs (or five if you want the psi resistance) there too because you're not going to miss 6% S/L resistance when you're already at 102%. Those two slots in Fusion could do with a Gaussian proc to turn that 80% damage boost into 160% (for only five seconds though, but great to open a fight with AoEs). Radiation Therapy would love a Theft of Essence proc to fill your blue bar from very early on. With it like that and Particle Shielding you could probably just remove the extra slots in Stamina and Health. You've aimed for Fire/Cold resistances a few times but they aren't very important. I've tried to respect your choices (puzzling as they are with neither Fire Sword not Incinerate taken, but you do you) but this is what I'd shuffle it into: - Your defense is now at 40% to S/L, - You don't need Tactics since nearly all your attacks are at the cap to hit +3 (which is where the T3 Alpha leaves you). - You don't need Ageless as well since Theft of Essence and Particle Shielding should have you sweating endurance and thus I suggest Barrier for a panic button and to give the last 5% to S/L defenses, as well as capping your resistances with two ATO procs. Hasten is already at 134 seconds and Beta Decay and being surrounded by enemies will lower this further. - The 'low' resistance numbers take in account 14% from two ATO procs + Barrier's 5%. For easy gameplay you don't pop Barrier on CD because, well, you know, it's easy? But when needed you can use it and for the duration you'll be softcapped to S/L as well as not relying on a third ATO stack.

Unfortunately I gave it a go but it did not even get past level 15. So slow animating with huge gaps, so low damage, so much KB tax I'll have to dedicate slots in near every power. The Soldier of Arachnos gun&grenade focused version was much better despite the terribad ST damage. My interest deflated and I've parked it.

Sadly, I've been advocating an 'invisible' color to hide such things but the powers that be have never answered. For those curious this is already in the game. Prestige Slide Sprint has one such 'invisible' color we can click to completely hide the visuals. Radiation Siphon comes extremely close to this as well. Certain obnoxious effects could be wonderfully masked with this. Offensive Adaptation with the Minimal FX does an incredible veins of power effect that I'd love as an aura tbh, but then does a weird drippy cloud FX around the fists. We could delete that drippy cloud effect and keep the veins. This would open a lot of customizing including not glowing like a radioactive Chernobyl refugee 99% of the time on 99% of the characters or out of the stacking of three or more glowing auras just keep a single tasteful one. Unfortunately the god devs have not pronounced themselves on this.

Several months ago there was a fix for this.

I'm just reporting what I've tested. This is not math or spreadsheet talk. Reactive OR Degenerative had little to no measurable effect on regular enemies. Tested by clearing farm maps and checking the times. Differences in clearing times happen once switching to the 75% DoT chance instead of 75% debuff time. There was no difference between runs done with no Interface slotted and runs with Reactive 75% debuff. With 75% DoT it lowered the times in one minute (from seven minutes to six minutes, no Assault clicked, no inspirations in order to make it repeatable). Degenerative with 75% debuff showed no difference from runs with no Interface slotted. With 75% chance for DoT it lowered the times in about 30 seconds. So, not much, but it's a measurable effect at least. Tested on multiple different +4 (+3 with Alpha) AVs Reactive 75% DoT or debuff had zero effect on killing time, same times as doing a test with no Interface slotted. Degenerative had a large impact on AVs be it 75% DoT or 75% debuff (1+ minute difference). The uptime of the debuff stacks obviously was enough to make do with only 25% chance for them to happen. So from what I've tested Degenerative 75% DoT helps killing more quickly regular mobs and helps killing more quickly AVs. I only tested on Tankers. It is not difficult to test on different ATs though, as long as we use the PTS. Just do a run without Interface slotted. Then a run with the Reactive of your choice, then one with Degenerative 75% DoT. My only point is that Degenerative works on both scenarios while Reactive only for maps, and only with the 75% DoT implying the fact it is a Medium DoT (instead of Degenerative's Minor DoT) that actually makes an effect rather than the -res debuffing. Which makes sense since the -res effect is small to begin with, then needs to stacks (and mobs probably died by then) and the -res is then nerfed by the purple patch. But it's like I've said in the past: testing instead of gut feelings or spreadsheets is the best. If you do decide to test let us know since more data is always welcome.

You both get away from Burn, I'll cut ya! *brandishes butter knife!* Seriously though, if Burn is 'fixed' I hope it gets a tweak because I've played Burn on SOs only and it's a mild hot breeze gently tickling mobs. We don't need more Hemorrhage 'fixes' that simply made the general recommendation being not to take it on ANY of the ATs. Fixes like those I could do without.

Visually one click gives half a level of rested XP. Two give a full level. Rested XP is an extra 50% XP (not double XP (100%)), so I should at least have obtained half a level more from two uses of the Experienced power, but there was no effect during the DFB run where I barely barely got enough to reach level 7 where level 7 is where one DFB run usually puts me at regardless. I can see what you're saying though. As long as the rested XP scales with the required XP (AKA 'half a level') then if I need 500 XP to level I'd get 250. But if I need 500k then I'd get 250k. If it works like that then yes, using it in the low levels is of nearly no use.

After some testing Reactive seems to have no impact on regular play (more testing from different ATs required) and zero influence on an AV. The 75% chance for dot version does for maps however. Degenerative with 75% for DoT is a middle ground that shaves some time off maps while having a substantial impact on AVs. This is of less import on pylons who gobble up every scrap of -res thrown at them which is why -res effects are disproportionately important for those tests. Even so Degenerative will probably be a bit better (and still work on AV/GMs).

I just noticed something odd. I will usually do two runs of a farm map to PL a new alt. This invariably ends with the new character at 23. I ate two double XP from the anniversary and ended level 23 exactly the same. I will usually run one DFB and end level 7 (terrible btw, forces me to AE the last level so I can do Posi 1). Ate two double XP from the anniversary and just barely squeaked past to reach level 7. Where did that whole level of rested XP even go??

Strictly speaking Fire and Cold is not a big worry due to the lack of enemies doing that sort of damage in the higher levels, where Smash and Lethal are universal, and Energy and Negative the second most common.

😄 I would split it between Shield Charge and Radioactive Siphon in order to increase E/N resistances. Shield doesn't need the Melee defense. Something like this. Live off Recovery Serums until 32 and then alternate them with One with the Shield. At 50 you don't need Barrier just for 5% resistance so take Ageless and use that for endurance with One with the Shield as your panic button.