Scarlet Shocker

I didn't know of Jonas but knew of McLaughlin

That sold me. I do like Leviathan, I think it's under used but this is something I'd never considered and thematically as you say it goes with the theme. I had considered her back story (Science) as having been infected with Coralax genes by Crey or some similar outfit - that would work wonderfully and I think I even get a pet too.

I don't mind what shard we run on, I'm open to any so if your guy is lvl 1 it may work. Glad you like the groove, Worth reading their Wikipedia entry, and I've heard of both outfits but can't tell you much about them. I would strongly favour red side having done this on gold - I love the red content once you get out of Mercy. It's good to enjoy that stuff with a team. Doesn't happen often.

I have to respec my Poison/Water Defender, which is now at 50 and has now started working on my Alpha, having run a couple of BAFs. It does really badly need respeccing and I'm thinking this is an opportunity to make it really good. I've enjoyed it a lot on the journey so far and I feel like it could be truly excellent. There's no APP/PPP that really leaps off the page for me personally, so I thought I'd throw it out there and see what you guys think. The diversity of opinion here is sure to give me some interesting ideas. Other things to consider: I intend to skip Alkaloid, Elixir and Antidote - this was a toon that solos a lot and I don't want to waste powers I took Stealth and intend to slot a Stealth IO in one of my sprints Combat and Superjump - because she needs to be on the ground for many powers Manoeuvres and Tactics because You can tell from that she's not terribly geared to team play (but has proven invaluable on a team) so that may influence feedback

Thanks. We started Gold side last time. Was a lot of fun!

I don't expect many of you remember that on live I organized a trio inspired by the excellent musical combo of the same name that featured Jaco Pastorius, Tony Williams & John McLaughlin. The idea was simple enough - three players create three toons and run the entire content from 1-50 and beyond - as a trio, only teaming with others when necessary (such as ITrials etc) We had a lot of fun but the couple of goes I had never quite finished and then sunset... 😞 Given that I'm playing a lot more now, I thought it would be fun to revive that idea, hence; this post! My thoughts are that we are based around the classic trio of tank, support & dps - but in this game "tank" can mean a lot of things so I'm very open to suggestions from would be participants. (If there's enough interest I wouldn't object to running as a league of Trios) Time zones are important in this context. Being in the UK I'm usually done by about midnight UK/4pm Pacific/7pm Eastern) with a little more leeway on non-weekdays. (Again if there's enough interest outside of those times, feel free to run it up yourselves) So that's my idea - comment below if you're interested please and let's take it from there and I leave you with this as inspiration:

Thanks. I think I get that.

How does "irresistible" work in this context? I'm not understanding the mechanics here I think

some of you may have seen my thread on Mag, here: I've decided to run an Earth/TA troller as a result and I've got a halfway ok build on Mids but I'd really like to see what youguys can come up with. I'm quite excited to see what some of you build wizards can magically create. Science origin but I'll probably swap the temp sleep for temp hold, just because. I think I'll have two builds, one a general "survival" build for general missions with teams and solo, but also a "lock the world down" - the point is to make holds and immobs really strong. Everything else is a nice to have. Thanks in advance

Earth/TA does sound like a good option

When I've looked at build guides and Controller forums both on live, here and elsewhere, there's an anecdotal consensus that the holds in the Secondary powers are very skippable. Of course, that's largely because most are looking at optimizing Min/Max builds, rather than what I'm doing here so the question is "how good are they?" I've had a love/hate affair with Poison since live but my Dark/Poison troller (which had the hold) was brutal, and it's (her) PVE build wrecked a few "Pro" PVPers in RV on live without being built for PVP, because of lack of resists and I guess at that time a lack of build knowledge to counter her. Sadly that didn't mean I could kill the turrets easily but I digress... At that time, Thugs/Poison was also known as "THE AV Killer" on live but I personally found it underwhelming* This is a long post to say I'd considered the efficacy of 2nd holds - there are no temp holds of value (as Huntsman Strauss found to his cost soloing LGTF) but I have yet to see the value. As to Doms, I was rather looking at Earth/Rad on Mids/Pine but... on paper (incomplete as it may be) it doesn't look good. *We can be underwhemled, we can be overwhelmed, but at what point are we simply "whelmed"?

Well I suggested Earth because I've good experience of it, but this thread is interesting me in Doms, an AT I've never really played before.

That I did not know. A related question - Lockdown has a Proc; chance for +2 Mag Hold. How does this work? Is it for that power only? how reliable is it? Is it worth slotting?

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.