BurnTheWitch

So this is more of a thought exercise than anything else, but it sounds like a neat idea to try! My apologies if this has been brought up in the recent past, I couldn't think of how to word searches for the topic. I was speaking with some mates the other day and in our discussion the concept of the “ideal dungeon team” came up. This is not a concept related strictly to CoH, but I’ll explain the concept through the lens of CoH. Most content in the game is designed to accommodate 8 players (there are larger raids, and SBB takes four, but I digress). This means that if there are 8 like-minded people who would like to clear all content as a group (from DFB to four star hard mode content), it could be done with those same players. A static number is quite common in MMO design and we all hate it when there is not a consistent number of people allowed in “non-raid” content. Imagine if each TF had a different max number of players, not great. With the fact that there are 8 heroes/ villains possible in each of these, we can ask the question that some of you have already seen coming. If you were building a team of 8 heroes/villains to complete all 8 person content in the game, what would you pick? I’m not asking for a Razor’s edge min/maxed set of builds by any means, just some ideas as to what you consider a valid group for the assignment. In a perfect world, I’d like to avoid mirror builds, as that’s a little bland, but I can't see why anything else should be off the table. NOTE: Yes, I realize that anyone can do any content (or close to any content), but let’s accept the reality that a team of 6 masterminds, a sentinel, and a fire/rad Brute to tank might have some challenges trying to finish later content compared to a well balanced group. For the sake of argument, let's assume "official" content only. There is some incredibly interesting and challenging AE content, but I'll leave that alone for now. Thoughts?

Love this, although my French is pretty bad these days, and certainly not strong enough to do anything well . . I would think Ghost widow = Araignee Fantome (widow in this case is referring to a black widow spider, so I feel that just using spider is better here.)

Wow, that's one heck of a great question that has so many complex answer. Here comes my overly long and pointless answer. . .you were warned. The game is one of the few that can be both frantic or chill based on what you want to do. If I'm looking for a frantic run about experience, I can start of a speed run Yin taskforce and see if we can do it in under 12 minutes. it almost feels like an action race game when there are 8 people all trying to get to the next trigger (this partially echoes @tidge first point, we know what triggers do what on most/all of the common content). If I'm looking for a chill time while I watch Taskmaster on Youtube, I can fire farm or run missions on a mastermind that is specifically designed to be pretty hands off. Many have said this, but customizability is insane in this game. One of the biggest MMOs out there has 13 classes, another has 22. even with the different specs, that tops out around 50 or so different character playstyles. CoH has . . .2500 or so, haven't done the math with the new additional powersets. This is just the customization of the technical aspects of your character. I have characters who are Cowboys Aliens A nuclear powered robot who gain sentience and found a Laser sword. Cyberpunk cop from the future A Samurai from the past A modern scientist who researches dark matter A Victorian occultist who can control lighting That's a pretty wide range of concepts, and no matter how weird or clever i am, someone in my group is so much better! What a great price. I donate to the server when I can, but it still costs less than other games these days because it's not a cash mall designed to bleed you dry like a Las Vegas casino. Third space? I guess so. I'm a pretty gregarious person by nature, but this game often fulfills a need that many people don't realize they have. Have you ever gone to a movie theatre even though you weren't stoked about the movie you were going to see? You just wanted to be around people so you didn't feel isolated, but you also don't want to be required to engage in many social norms. People go to bars and casinos for this purpose. They sit down at the bar on the end or at a blackjack table and play minimum bets, all the while they listen and basically people watch. America (I am speaking from an American perspective on this) doesn't have much of a cafe culture, heck we don't even Fika, so that ability to be in a social place but not be social is hard to find and often quite expensive. This might be the Lake Wobegon effect, but people here are, on average, nicer than average. I've heard people call this game strategic versus tactical and I like that. While I'm likely contradicting my first reason a tad, this is a game that doesn't require much in the terms of twitch reflexes. That's a big bonus for the getting older person that I am. TLDR; lots of reasons. Their like piranhas, one isn't enough, but there are a lot more than one.

As always, @Spaghetti Betty showing how it is done. I wanted to ask about the choice of soul mastery in this build. Is there a particular reason you went with Gloom and Dark Obliteration, or would Mu Mastery suit the build just as well and you made a stylistic/ preferential choice?

Preach! If you want to play a defender to 50 solo. . I just feel (doesn't make it true) that corrupting ia the way to go. I digress. I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I’m any kind of expert on defenders, I have one and it’s dark/dark, so really a deftroller of sorts with the current build out. My wife is the defender fiend so I’ve consulted her for more balanced opinions. That being said. . . I never had any difficulty with endurance compared to other archetypes. Sure, I ran out of endurance, 1st, 2nd, and 4th mission if Yin come to mind, but that has everything to do with freakshow and nothing to do with being a defender. The build was not good. I have exemplared her down to do another Yin and it was completely different now that a proper build with some attuned stuff in some slots and a few IOs that are still working at that level. No endurance issues. More testing data- Just finished a Yin with my wife, she played her FF/Ice defender, no issues with endurance and we were racing through it as fast as we could to see what we could make happen(finished in about 15 minutes.) . I'll have her run on another one, but I'm confident of the results. Her defenders are rather expensive builds, this may be a factor I cannot account for. You might be wondering why I’m using Yin as the benchmark? You said level 20-25 and I don’t like Citadel as much. I'd love so see a screen shot of your build, because I'm just baffled as to why you might be having issues. Doesn't even have to be a mids download build. I can make it in mids from the screen shot.

This has proven a bit more challenging that I expected. I'm not in love with the build, but it should be a good template to work with. The numbers are also (understandably) not 100% correct as Mids has not updated based on the beta test info. I would be perfectly happy for other people with more expertise look this over and make revisions as I Feel there are improvements to be made, but I'm not seeing them in the time I have this weekend. TW.Dark Brute.mbd

I'm at work right now, but i'll try to edit this post with a build when I am home this weekend. What are you looking for in terms of a build? Do you intend to solo, group a ton or a mix of both? I hate asking this but how much do you want to spend? There isn't much point in me using every winter set and fancy goodies if you're looking to spend 200m. Are there any travel powers you prefer/ hate. Do you have a paragon power preference? All being said, I'm really interested in how the changes to cloak of fear affect the overall build, so let's give it a whirl.

What do I consider the natural pairing, great question with some great possibilities for introspect. Here are my thought although they are complete opinions and therefor mean nothing to anyone but myself. I agree with you for the most part, our logics might be different, but we ended up with similar answers. Bio Armor = Savage Melee Bio. Natural evolution or strange experiments, either way it feels like something that is a literal freak of nature. I can see 100% a case for the logic of spines, but Spines feels niche to me on so many levels and savage just feels more open ended. Invulnerability = Super Strength This evokes so many heroes in popular media that it's uncanny. Superman, Hulk, and Juggernaut come to mind almost instantly as characters in media who would be Invulnerability/ Super Strength. Shield Defense = Broadsword, Mace, or Axe Shield isn't actually that common in popular media, it's just that one guy with the rank of captain is a major Marvel Hero. There aren't a ton of other superheroes that aren't related to Cap that use a shield. Wonder woman has one sometimes, I think. Black Knight might have used a shield at some point. For me, shield means medieval (or older) warrior. Think Vikings, Romans and Jaguar Warriors. Those guys use shields, and your hero was blessed by one of their gods with immortality. Time to become a hero. Super Reflexes = Dual Blades Dual blades looks fast, super reflexes is fast. let's pair it with super speed and make it a speedster that literally wins by wearing their opponents out. I can see a strong rational for Martial Arts or even street Justice, but I'm using street justice next and Dual Blades just looks so fast. Will Power = Street Justice Street Justice is untrained brawling, willpower isn't a superpower, it's just the lack of quit. Those two just feel like the guy who decided to go out one day and fight crime. The titular One Punch Man started as WP/SJ and ended as SS/Inv, but he would have been a more interesting character from a traditional comic story at the beginning. Just my 2 inf

I think that I speak for a large number of people when I say, "you can't go wrong, pick what interests you. . . Yadda yadda yadda." That being said, if you want to pick up where you left off, that is certainly an option. I'm personally a hugh fan of my Dark/Dark troller, so my vote will go there. I will warn that the damage was lacking until she was geared, but she is lockdown and a great addition to any team. Her soloability exists now, but I remember almost abandoning soloing in the mid 20's (she was not gifted piles of enhancements, that should be noted.) Until she was geared up. Now I will say that Dark/ Fire sounds like a combo win, although I've never played the combo.

To quote @Spaghetti Betty from a different thread. Generally, you want to take everything in TW. Defensive Sweep is skippable. A case can be made to drop Titan Sweep as well if something else is desired, but it's still a solid attack for levelling. Crushing Blow will always be your quickest attack outside of Momentum, so if you ever drop Momentum and Build Momentum isn't up, you should use Crushing Blow. As far as what to do after Crushing Blow, just do whatever! Inside momentum, you have 2 ST attacks and 3 AoEs, so this should be pretty self explanatory. Arc of Destruction has the best DPA out of the AoEs, so if you need something else to do for ST, just use that. Definitely consider picking up some epic powers to fill in the gaps! Since you have a lot of recharge boosting at your disposal (nearly every power can take an FF proc), Gloom fits nicely here, and you can even double dip for Dark Obliteration! I've followed this advice on my TW/Elec tanker and I gotta say, that's good advice. I didn't do anything too outrageous with my slotting, I focused on survivability vis set bonuses. My tanking philosophy is that survival comes first, so while the damage is actually pretty solid on AOE, the single target is only fine. Depending on your budget, toy can squeeze some pretty outstanding defense and resists out of set bonuses, which is how i would likely build it. YMMV

My gut tells me that you are correct in that Yin is the way to go. The final fight with Clamor might get hairy if someone decides to hit all four computers too early, but I can't imagine any other issues really.

This. I find farming quite relaxing. If I have 20 minutes I'll hop on my farmer and make a quite 5m or so while I watch a few youtube vids. I seldom do it in long stretches (excepting that I have definitly farmed to help a friends alt to 50 in a pinch), because if I have a lot of time, I'll do more traditional things.

So i'll also toss in my 2 inf although my experience is with my wife's ff/ice defender. I don't play it, but I play with it all the time. It becomes more and more powerful as more people join the party. People notice how little damage they are taking. Sometimes this makes people ask agressive and other times it makes people foolishly agressive, but the fields mixed with her added dps are very strong. Solo, yeah, no. Deflection and insulation don't help you, so two of your core powers don't help you there. In a pair, it affects half of the group. In a group of 8, it affects 87% of the party. Your not getting great utility out of your signature powers. This is a great summation of your problem as I see it. TL;DR If you are interested in leveling and running TFs like it's a hobby, the FF is great. Some tanks become next to impenatrable (I'm guessing SR tankers care less about it than resist tanks). If you want to level solo or as a pair, there are likely better options.

Figured I'd raise this necro thread as it's more useful for people in the future to find one thread on the topic that has tons of information as opposed to a bunch of threads saying, "help me with this build that is virtually identical to that build in the other thread!" If I've learned anything about the way I build, it's that I spend too much effort on defense at the cost of offence. I also tend to ignore the reality that I tend to play with other people who will have buffs. Such is the nature of Mids, it cannot tell you who you are going to be playing with. This means that I end up with a nut that is really tough to crack, but doesn't always hit too hard. Any suggestions on what I should change from this build? It's quite tough with an expected Toxic and Neg hole, but I'm already over capped on many resists, meaning any more from buffs is wasted. What would the wise folk here change? Thunder Titan.mbd

Says the witch! 😄