Scarlet Shocker

Good info, thanks people!

Some great info, thanks guys. How does one defeat the AV's resistance to holds etc? The PTOD - I wasn't really aware of them. I don't even recall seeing them often but I think I've noted purple shield icons rotating round Rommy in the past. Is there a way to reduce their resistance in some way? So... I play a lot of controllers, but usually they've been designed as "all-rounders" - designed to be able to survive, do well in teams, able to solo and cover most functions that trollers have abilities to do. What I'm thinking here is making a troller that has ace holds and immobs for teaming, to lock AVs down for TFs and the like, keeping mobs where I damned well put them. So to that end it's finding two sets that have great holds and immobs, and focusing tightly on them. This is much more of a concept character than a practical realisation but it could be interesting and I'm curious from my own point of view. I suspect I'll have to get two builds IO'd out which is something I don't usually do but hey... what's not to like playing CoH? 🙂 So suggestions for primary/secondary powers are welcome. I have Earth/TA in mind for this, but I'd be really interested in knowing what you chaps think.

I have suddenly come to realise that while I'm aware of Mag as a thing in game, I am not sure how it works. I know what I think I know: Holds and immobilizes (maybe some other powers too) have a specific magnitude, or power to do their thing, which is called Magnitude. This magnitude is effectively a determinant of how potent the power is, the higher the Mag, the more it will affect enemies. But beyond that I'm at a bit of a loss. Does it stack? How much does it stack? Is it only the same power that stacks? Do different powers of the same type stack? (Holds stack, Immobs stack etc.) Do single target powers stack with AoEs? Example: I take a Fire/TA troller and cast Ring of Fire (Mag 4) + Entangling Arrow (Mag 3) & Fire Cages (Mag3.) Is my enemy now affected by a Mag 10 Immob? How does Mag affect enemies? I am fairly confident that an AV is not really bothered by Mag 3 holds, but at what point does it stack enough to really affect them? Bosses & Lts also seem to be affected differently but War Wolves seem to get held easily regardless? So yes I've got a whole ton of questions that I don't even know how to ask properly here so any guidance is welcome, but ultimately it boils down to understanding how best to impede the progress and movement and ability of my opponents to hurt me.

so, working on the fact you say you want to "Buddy" up with someone, but you've not said a great deal about your buddy(s) I'm guessing you're thinking that your primary role is support. I'd therefore suggest Earth/Thermal - easy to play, the controls are very solid (no pun intended) and both Earth & Thermal have good debuffs while Thermal gives your colleagues some great shielding. You can also solo, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend that until you're used to running a controller, it can be slow. But at higher level Melt Armor is a great debuff and if you work on regen it can be active a great deal of the time (I think from memory about 50 seconds every minute depending how you slot) so you can keep AVs and EBs on the back foot through long fights.

Play them all and you will know your own!

to a large extent it depends on your playstyle of course. I love AoE sleeps on toons I solo a lot because it makes for a great "panic button" - if you've aggro'd a mob and are swamped, then hit the snooze button and they go byebyes, and you can then use ST attacks to pick them off one by one. Also any AoE benefits from slotting Might of Empire, which is very fun in many powers. I think that could have some hillarious results with an AoE sleep

there are a couple of things I really like about this thread: 1) I'm doing it for SCIENCE! 2) I really like to see "underplayed" power combos - things you just don't see because sometimes they are a) really a buttload of fun to play and b) have some incredibly interesting synergies that are surprisingly effective* - and in my not so humble opinion add a huge amount of flavour to the game. I mean, fire/rad trollers are potent as is Ill/Time but Mind/Storm really rocks and while slow to solo has huge survival potential. *except Mind Control/TA - that is super sucky. Don't do it. I ran one to 50 and deleted it so that you don't have to! But if you do, I know a dominatrix who'll be very pleased to meet you.

War Witch said during the mini-con in Birmingham (2008 IIRC) something along the lines of "You see those Skulls and their girlfriends? Well now the girls are going to be breaking up with them" - I think they'd realised that most of the low level groups were pretty well all male and any females were victims so that was putting things on a more even keel

Scarlet Shocker she has a Praetorian counterpart too: Vermillion Volts. I've always been vaguely surprised that nobody else thought of Spandex Ballet, but the name that got the most comments utilised a suit and a fish head. He's called Reservoir Frog.

Never mind the contents, feel the cover! 😉

Yeah bring back beige! Who cares what your prize gaming rig that cost you a couple of months salary (or more) looks like? 😄 😄 😄

Fair comment. Kahn is one of my favourite TFs in game so I will usually try it and hey, what's the worst that can happen? If you fail, then you lost some time playing a game you love anyhow so I try not to worry too much about that. Typically if I'm forming a TF I will consult with the team once we've mostly formed (7 or 8 ) and ask what levels they want. It will usually be higher than lower (I've never been asked to make it -1) but common courtesy (yes, it's still a thing) suggests that you could get your team on board because the clue is in TEAM.

That probably suits me well then. I tend to play somewhat defensively, I try and build my toons to not miss, to debuff, rather than do outright damage, so that may be a good option for me. Thanks for the info.

That's useful info thanks.

That makes sense. I've tried getting my head round the proc threads. Frankly they make my brain melt - but I appreciate the point you make. You've given me something to go at for sure 🙂 It's gonna be a fun experiment and one I guess will be long term. I'm actually enjoying a raft of Poison fenders, I've got a nice Poison/Sonic on the go at the moment too. I think that is one of my preferred primary sets.

Good info Dove, thanks again. So your build is very proc heavy - now I am not in any way an expert but my understanding is that Mids gives unrealistic expectations of how procs work. Makes them seem better than they actually are. Personally I tend to distrust procs anyhow - I feel like they are too much like gambling. I much prefer set bonuses. I also hate the fighting pool. It seems to take so many resources, though I do admit the benefits are good. It just grates having to use it to get the res and def I want.

Thankyou Dove, that's EXACTLY what I wanted to know! Question re Swap Ammo - I've heard that Chemical Ammo works really well when paired with Poison - which is what I want to pair it with. How do these different powers actually work?

I don't know why it's a difficult question to follow, but to ask it a different way, what attributes of a character make it more interesting and fun for you to play than others? Those could be anything from power sets, to back story to play style or anything else.

to a certain extent your playstyle will determine your preference, I imagine. If you solo and kite lots you'll need different tactics than if you're blapping in teams, so a lot of this will boil down to you and your own choices. Personally I tend not to solo blasters because I'm not that masochistic, but even if I blap I tend to take Manoeuvres, even with aim and build up because hitting is what is important and it's very difficult to cap Blaster defence in my experience, so a bit of +Def is welcome but not my goal, but not missing, so ensuring that every HP of damage counts is really important. I've taken both on the same character and that often makes me regret not taking other powers but again, personal preference. As I've often remarked, there are as many different ways to play this game as there are players multiplied by ATs times the square of powers taken. If you really want to test it for yourself, my advice would be to create two builds, slot them with SOs, and then run comparisons and see which you prefer. That's inexpensive and will give you a good baseline comparison.

interesting points thanks

Some amazing and very interesting answers guys, thanks for all your responses. I guess it's only fair I should reply myself. The question was prompted when I was asking myself whether I wanted to recreate Scarlet Shocker here, and if so, should she continue to be an all Electric Blaster? Scarlet was technically my 3rd character (I think, certainly not my 4th or later) and the name came first, then the powers, then the costume, then the grind through those early levels - plus the creation of the Shock Tactics SG, and making some good friends and getting all the way to level 49 then a long pause while I dabbled with lower level alts. Remember this was back in 2006/7 when there were very few electric powers there, far fewer costume options and a lot less content. This was Issue 6 and then I7. She became my favourite for many reasons but one of the most important is she does her best with the limited powers available to her. Let's remember that electric powers were pretty underwhelming back then (arguably most still are - though I've yet to really get to grips with electrical affinity) and -End is pretty pointless in PVE and next to useless in PVP. So she became something of an underdog hero, which is how I like my heroes. To me heroism isn't Batman or Superman who can beat anyone or anything with brains or brawn respectively. To me a true hero is somebody who goes up against the odds, and comes out smiling. Daredevil is a classic case in comic lore I guess. He's really only a normal blind guy with super senses and a massive amount of willpower but he can still beat Dr Doom, Kingpin, and just about anyone the Marvel writers throw at him - even though his life is shitty and made shittier by his own blind obstinacy (pun intended.) So Scarlet spoke to me from very early on and remains my favourite CoH character even though seriously sub-par in terms of capability and power. But she's not even my favourite blaster. That accolade goes to Snowfreak, an Ice/Energy blaster who has a great back story (lost an arm in a Rikti raid, then discovered her dad had been a villain back in Statesman's youth and had a few favours to pull in, got her a cyborg arm with a cryogenic function and a couple of high powered recoil adjusters for close quarters.... to get revenge on the Rikti and maybe redeem him along the way...) She rocked because she could hold her own in most fights. Then came Huntsman Strauss. He is interesting for two reasons. Some of you may remember Ghost Raptor, the EU CC from the forums. He and I shared a mutual love of cricket but from different perspectives - him being Aussie and me being from the same land as his Monarch. Hence the name, which will also give the discerning reader an approximate date of creation. But he became even more interesting when I declined to fork - I didn't like (still don't) the look of Crabs and I didn't have any feel for mace so I stayed with the concept of a Huntsman with a gun. And boy does he do that most excellently delivering a sea of orange numbers, backed up by some formidable pets. He was the first toon I soloed a Rikti pylon with and soloed the ITF (never could manage Lady Grey though, due to lack of holds, but the rest seemed like a breeze.) Oddly I can't say any of my many many controllers have ever stuck in my mind as "favourites" but the honourable mention must go to Barbed Quarrel - who began life as a humble plant/TA troller in Nova Praetoria, and became the head of Praetorian Imperial Secret Service - continuing Emperor Cole's mission of keeping Praetoria safe, while recognising Cole's misguidedness and his obvious flaws. And she's super tough too - but not in a ROFLSTOMP way, but very very competent at surviving.

Confusing Vazhilok bombers so they'd blow their own teams up Knockback having to earn capes and auras, I used to feel special when I'd done that shooting back to Atlas inside a red bubble after a respec mission running through zones trying to dodge mobs to get to your team or mentor (but not the Hollows, that was just too tough) spending several days over a single TF

many many many of us here have many many toons. Why not? This game spectacularly encourages altitis, and it is arguably one of the strengths of the game and has been historically. I don't believe even the Devs on live appreciated the power of it - but that's another story. But when it comes to all of our toons, what I've noticed is that many of us seem to have our favourites - even if we don't play them that often, even if they're not the best at what they do, even if they haven't had a respec since hitting lvl 50 at Issue 7 and don't have IOs or Incarnates or any of that cool stuff. But then there can be favourite favourites, and unfavourite favourites, favourites we know why, and those we are less sure of why they're favourite, but they just are. We can categorise them, we might have a favourite blaster, or favourite tank, but overall controllers are our favourite AT etc I'm appealing to the basic philosophy of the game here - but I think it's an important question - because even if you don't believe in "souls" per se, there's always a bit more of us as human beings, invested in our favourite characters, yet others, perfectly competent, capable, even perhaps better performing, just remain a suit, an name and a set of statistical algorithms, that just don't get our juices flowing. So the question is "why is X, Y or Z your favourite, not what or who?"

I'm working on a new Def - on live I rarely played them - but I'm thinking Poison/DP might be good. I've never really gotten my head around DP on any possible AT, but I do like poison and Frosticus' guide has reinvigorated my liking for them. So what are the best and worst things about DP? What are the strengths and relative weaknesses of the individual powers? Which are entirely skippable, which are essential? Etc etc I did search for a guide but my search fu is weak! Thanks