Psyonico

Optical drives have been on their way out for a while now, but I still like having one. As for the speed, you won't see a significant difference between an external Blu-Ray drive and an internal one (the connection for internal is a SATA 3 connection to your motherboard, which is 600 MB/s max while USB 3.1 can theoretically get 10 Gb/s).

I would agree that the activation time is a *bit* long (for example, Call to Justice is 3.66 seconds) but I also don't want to see the recharges of these increased at all. Perhaps Call of Justice should be 2.75 seconds, and the others should have similar small reductions?

If you were dying a lot on an ice tanker you're doing something wrong, like trying to fire farm. As for which combo is best, it really depends on how you want to play, because each combo is going to play very differently. As for ice control being bad, it's not, it's just weak on damage, so maybe a dominator would do better than a controller for some play styles

Base duration (and therefore enhanced duration) lasts longer for controllers outside Domination. For example, your ST hold for controller lasts 22.35 seconds, whereas, for a Dom, its 17.88. where this really start to become a pain point is on AoE controls, where durations are already low on controllers, so the lower modifiers on Doms make them feel like weak versions of controllers. Yes, when Domination is up, the controls feel fine, but since perma dom is not something that is available at level 1, they tend to feel weaker to me.

Yes, you can use both... Been that way as long as I can remember.

If we're posting builds, here's my Emp/Energy, soft capped to S/L/E/F/C. Not great for exemping down below about 30ish, for that I'd probably want a build that fits Heal Other into it.

This thread caused me to roll a FF/DP that will only run Chemical Rounds as an ultimate team player.

I may get some hate for this, but regardless of your definition of "Team Friendly", I would say Avoid Storm. The rest of the answer depends on your definition of Team Friendly. Emp/Pain/Sonic/FF/Thermal/Nature/Electric are great for buffing your team's survival Traps/TA/Poison/Dark are good for neutering your enemies and keeping your team alive that way. The rest of the sets do somewhere between there, buffing your team while debuffing your enemy. As for secondary, it depends on which primary you pick to *some* degree, but Dark, DP, Ice, and Sonic are probably the best for helping the team.

Empathy is and always was only "King" to those that don't know how City mechanics work. Debuffs/Buffs > Heals. That being said, it still amazes me how many times on a PuG I'll see "Nice Heals." Recently was on a pug with one of my TA toons and the only other support character was a stormie (who did have O2 boost). I was amazed at how many times the heals were complimented, even though the team wasn't taking that much damage to begin with. Anyway, I digress, back to Empathy. It's a fine set, offers some nice buffs, but people focus on it as a healing set (which, admittedly, it does do well). If you want to play as a crutch, then Empathy/Pain are great choices. But Empathy isn't a top tier set. With a top tier emp build you can turn a couple of your teammates into nigh-immortal beings, but you can't get Fortitude perma on a team of 8 and AB is only permable on 1 character.

Force Field is a decent set, though it does tend to be out-shined by other sets. There's nothing wrong with it Per-say but in the current end-game meta, other sets outperform it. My advice? Play what you want. Even if it isn't the best of the best, it still is decent.

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Defender https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Controller https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Corruptor https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Mastermind On the right side, click "Show" next to "Modifiers (At Level 50)"

I generally slot Generic IOs at 27, they cost a little more than SOs, but you don't need to upgrade them, so it evens out pretty quickly

I have a concept for a DB/Invul combo, but I can't decide between a brute and a tank... I think the concept fits brute better, but the added survivability to a tank just feels too good to pass up (I also generally prefer playing tanks over brutes). Does anyone have any experience with either of these? Here are sample builds I put together for the combo, so any thought on those would also be appreciated. Brute: Tank

I'm assuming you're referring to Venomous Gas shutting off? I have a Poison/Water that just hit 32 and I said to myself "Welp, guess I'm getting Clarion"

I've soloed Mind/FF, it's a bit of a slog. Here's the deets. Controllers have a ranged damage modifier of .55, Dominators have a ranged modifier of .95. Based purely on this, Dominators win. HOWEVER, containment means that the controller will be doing (slightly) more damage to held/slept/immob/stunned foes. Solo, since you can open every fight with Mass Hypnosis, that basically means whatever you're fighting will always have containment. So, long and short of it? It probably more or less breaks even.

I actually used to really like the old Posi TF, been meaning to run it again.

I was about to say the same thing.

No, Stealth IOs are unique, so you need a power that grants stealth plus the IO to reach invisibility.

Why are brutes better at Energy Aura than Scrappers? I legitimately want to know what the difference is.

Try running a Hess TF... Very robot heavy, meaning lots of Psi resist

I've actually decided on making a new Psi melee toon, thinking Psi/Energy Aura brute... now I just need a concept.

I think the difference between resisting S/L and resisting Psi is that when things resist Psi, they resist it A LOT while when things resist S/L it's by a much smaller portion. I have only played Psi Melee once, a WP/Psi tank that I got up to 50 then kinda shelved. I like the set, and I'd like to play it again, but I have trouble getting good concepts for it.

A High Recharge Cold build is pretty solid against AVs, Benumb is a powerful debuff, but it only lasts 30 seconds (120 second base recharge). Between Sleet and Heat Loss, you can put out a bunch of -res, but again, Heat Loss has a long recharge compared to its uptime, so high global recharge is recommended.

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/The_Major There's also The Major who is automatically unlocked at 30 for vigilantes.

My Radiation Emission toons have "Die Somewhere Useful!" bound to a key.