Snarky

I have not run Shield (or any Defense set, they do not appeal to me) But I have run...a few...Brutes. Things that jump out at me. 1) Is your End okay? Because you are throwing Power Transfer Chance to Heal in everyplace I would normally cram a Performance Shifter Chance for +End 2) Focused Accuracy? Speaking of End, what a Hog. Don't get me wrong, I love the power. But I normally only cram it onto something like a Energy Melee/Willpower as a luxury item Your build has a Kismet +Accuracy and Global Accuracy bonuses already 3) Speaking of Focused Accuracy. You have Gaussians Buildup in it. That means the thing will PROC randomly. I would put it in Concentration so that the Builup PROCs right before the "Big Swing" not while I am in a corridor walking towards the next mobs. When i allow myself Focused Accuracy I throw in the Rectified Reticle +Perc Global. I like the name and love the buff. 4) Boxing ...unslotted. Nope. Kick...drop a Force Feedback +Recharge in it. On the rare occasions you have been recharge Nerfed you can kick somebody 1) for the extra attack now that your attack chain is shot 2) get your Recharge rate back up. 5) You are way chasing -KB...21 points? you have 11 points on top of Active Defense. 4 pts KB protection is what I run on my Main Dark/Dark. 4 is okay. Not great, okay. 5-11 is pretty much like 4 95% time. 12+ is Gold. 21? 21? Are you building to only fight Back Alley Brawler all the time solo? Trying to think of the need that creates this build goal... Maybe drop a Blessing of the Zephyr -Slow Resistance in Super Speed at least? I cannot speak to the details of Psionic Melee or Shield Defense. I have never run either. Shield was a go-to flavor of the year for a season, so I know it can be good. Psi has a very strange damage type, which is always nice. But as for particular slotting on those powers or power picks I got nuthin'. Enjoy the journey.

It is harder to form Redside Strike Forces. Always has been. If I do go to form one I put tongue firmly in cheek and start posting stuff like "You said you wanted Redside Content. WHERE ARE YOU? Operative Renault Strike Force FORMING X merits blank Badge. C'mon down and be the villain you know the world needs!"

Lord Recluse Strike Force. Miss Liberty Task Force. I struggle to play WoW for (I am guessing) the same reason your first forays into these Task Forces will be confusing. Everyone has done them a gazillion times and are busy accomplishing the mission goals and avoiding the time sinks. And I am wandering around going "Bueller? Bueller?" Since I have played WoW sporadically and never done a season of completing a ton of group content I am lost in most Dungeons. LFG never worked/worked well in City of Heroes/Villains. We form teams then do content.

...i think i must be doing something wrong...

Now you've got me obsessing over why we cannot change MMs pet costumes. Again. Why??????

I get what you are saying, but how would that be implemented? Would it ignore all costumes on that toon. Or just that costume slot, presumably until a alteration was made....?

really looking forward to learning thumbtack and using it effectively. seems sure to make badging easier especially. Honestly I am working a lot (and harder, sigh) so my gaming time has been reduced and ...unenthused lol. I think the travel power revamp was brilliant. The logic of the moves was precise. The revamp as a whole took into account the current CoH/V communities desire for speed speed speed on nearly everything. The change to rocket board/magic carpet/disc thingy so that it doesnt shut off toggles was a answer to melee characters desire to dump temp jetpacks! Even though I personally did not like the Rune of Protection Revamp. I run a Dark/Dark Brute as a main. THis is a VERY high recharge build. Making RoP ignore recharge and shortening the effectiveness period was not a win in my book. Still, I see the logic. To quote a line from Bad Santa "They can't all be winners kid."

Consume is nearly a must. I have a fire farmer. The end issues are real. You could take Cardiac Alpha, But to me that uses an incarnate pick to solve something one power would do. My main is a Dark/Dark Brute. Huge end issues. It has Dark Consumption (Darks version of Consume) and I did take Cardiac Alpha. Against very tough opponents uses end drain tactics I need it. Never except in that situation. It is very very very handy then. Again, I run Dark. Darks version of Rise of the Phoenix is very good and I take it. It is almost never used. (I play hard, tough stuff and a LOT of it) Maybe once a week. Here is the thing, The dam power is incredible, but if I am in something that is killing my main.....I just Rez to get smacked down within a minute. I have started to Rez and Run, which I HATE. But there are seriously few options if content is putting down my incarnate Dark/Dark Brute main. So...maybe?

Boop on the Nose Powah

i ignore nobody. i am relatively sure the entire community does not reciprocate. i tend to say...Snarky.....(tm....pat pend)...things

I am finding myself at the 30-40 range pretty regularly. This allows me to use the 4 cones well and lets me bop in for Blackstar. I need to get used to the combat teleport. Not part of my skill set yet. I had no idea the Dark Manipulations Touch of the Beyond was basically a Ranged version of Drain Psyche from Mental Manipulation. Woot!

THis is a monster in Incarnate Trials. It may not be the "Damage Guy" as one of the many Blasters on the League will be wilting crowds with their epic DPS. But the AoE debuffs are gold. The real power in the ice cold is the cold dominations Benumb, sleet, and heat loss. Sleet and Heat Loss are both AoE -Resistance powers. You could be on a 6 team League (as in RWZ Mothership raid) and every member of your league will benefit from you softening up the area. 2/3 team incarnate Trials also love AoE -resistance. While Blasters will out damage a Corruptor those debuffs crack open the armor on enemies and increase the entire Leagues overall kill speed. ITF? Fuggedaboutit. Those Romans run screaming to get into the AoE kill zones you create. Real polite too, they stand there in the cold while your teammates mop them up.

Taunt is an incredible power. In fact it is one of the most effective mob control powers in the game, even better than Hold in many/most instances. Brutes do not need it (unless doing specific "Tanking" tasks in Trials/TFs) Back in the mists of time we were given the boon of City of Villains. Brutes appeared in the Rogue Isles. They were powerful, they were mighty, they were....really freaking low on energy. You see, back then there was no inherent Fitness pool (that we all get for free now) Brutes had to get Health and Stamina by paying for it with picks. And wasnt there a third pick in that pool to unlock Stamina? Been a looooong time. To get a Travel Power you needed to pick up a prerequisite in the travel pool. I almost always took the punch attack from flying, then flight. That is 5 power picks gone. You see where Taunt became a real luxury on Redside. tanks might get away with having fewer attacks, but people rolled Brutes to be "the melee guy" So, combine the above build squeeze with the fact that Brutes gain a LOT of damage potential by getting hit "drawing agro" and Redside players quickly discovered that if a Brute cannonballed into a fresh spawn they would suddenly have a full Fury bar. On teams this evolved into a situation where a Brute would run to a fresh spawn and jump in. The team would then blast/drop crowd control/wipe up. If there were two Brutes (or experienced players on other ATs) then there inevitable would be a second "combat zone" that developed as that player(s) moved onto a completely different group of enemies. Everybody wants to jump in and kill baddies, no one loves cleanup duty. This evolved into the ROFLSTOMP Redside teams that operated with no Taunt needed. Portions of a team jumping out further into the mission starting a new combat as the other part of the team finished mopping up an area. Then the moppers would either jump to a new area of move in to clean up the mess of the lead teams agro. Then we got "Going Rogue" and everyone got Brutes! We also got inherent Stamina and no need for a 2 pick into travel pools. But Brute builders had long since realized Taunt was a luxury (that just reduced DPS...) and many never take it in their builds.

one more time?!?

crap i suck at interweb. i was trying to post the Supernatural TV show "Tale Tales" clip where the dude talks about being probed "again, and again, and again'...shot of whiskey....'and again and again and again', another shot of whiskey...'and one more time." this is what I get for being an ancient vampire trying to cope with the modern world. Reminds me, I need to ghoul a tech geek. Damned I hate ghouls though. So needy.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=supernatural+tall+tales+again+and+again+clip&docid=608003876973523150&mid=F1A1DA24483FCDC3C8D7F1A1DA24483FCDC3C8D7&view=detail&FORM=VIRE

SUPERFLY

Blaster Archetype that is designed as Ranged. Current Blaster AT is designed as Blapper, slapped a Ranged bumpersticker on the package and gavee AR and later Water Blast Ranged and no true ranged secondary sets

i use a Razer Tarterus left hand mini keypad (like a gamer version of a "10 key" but it is 20 buttons plus thumb side twitch and movement controls.) I would kill for a better mouse rightside. I have tried various Razer products for a mouse. They work. Yeah!....?

I build out on Mids. I usually take one respec to get what I want. I recently built a Blaster (this weekend) and as I was building him realized I left off one of the Blaster AT sets.... crap. redid MiDs, got more out of the build, respec'd....again. sigh. For my main...I respec him maybe once every two months, at most. Usually for something major. Recently I made an alt Tank build for him with Taunt. Then I Respec'd the main build and dropped Rune of Protection, picked up Touch of Fear. I have a Super Strength/Invulnerability build that uses a Hyperstrike build. It was my main when I started. I slapped Hyperstrikes build on it and never changed it. Ran it for months. Still parked with all the sets on it. It is perfect. Why Respec?

i play mostly Brutes. Lately mostly a Dark/Dark Brute that doesnt have softcap Defense on anything. Although his resists...I chased that lol. I just started experimenting with squishies again. I revived a parked (and stripped) Incarnate Dark/Dark. I managed softcap Ranged, and in the process accidentally softcapped energy/negative. He has good recharge and (to me) high damage. The best thing about CoH is "build your own" We are not stuck in the wheel of 6-7 faces with 8-9 haircuts, the same armor everyone else is wearing, and 3 choices on attack builds. Now, everyone may not come up with "best in show" with their brain in a tank on a naked zombie wielding SS/Dark on a Brute chasing Ranged Defense. But they are having fun!

Not sure the entire alternate reality plot line but Keaton is back. After his two Tim Burton Batman runs that paved the way for modern "serious" Superhero genre the studio ousted Burton and Keaton left the third film. And camp was back! Hey, i like camp, but Keaton nailed the character of Batman, although he could use some gym days with Helmsorth lol. It will be good to see what the old thespian has in store for us ever hungry content junkies!

i have seen this on PUGs lately. thought i was just unlucky, *straightens up and waves cane in the air "Back in my day it was considered embarrassing to quit a task force."

The LRSF and MLTF are very bad examples for your point. Your friend is ignorant. Nothing wrong with that, it just means they do not know something. They can learn. Unless they are stupid. That is a problem then. Pointing all of that our may seem a bit....Snarky. Seriously though. The LRSF and MLTF are not kill alls. They are VERY objective driven TFs. If you know the content you know exactly where to go, when, who to kill, get it done. It is not "speed," it is efficiency. Unfortunately this makes it difficult for people new to the TF to ever learn it. They have no idea where people are going, what they are doing, or why the "Mission Complete" sign popped up. I came in late to the game (Good vs Evil edition) and loved to solo. Those two TFs in particular left me confused due to my...ignorance....for quite some time. You could take a group of friends through the LRSF and slowly kill every mob on the way to each objective. These are pretty big maps. Plan a dinner break.

I play randomly with Blasters. I just reworked a parked Dark/Dark Incarnated Blaster. Soft-Capped Ranged, Energy/Negative Defense. I really enhanced core powers and then took a lot of non enhancved flight, hasten, teleport stuff, stealth. Since I normally run a Brute I got cocky on a +4 ITF. Dead. (a couple times....) Rez. Breakfree, sm Blue, ....and PHASE SHIFT. There is a panic button worth its weight in gold. need to get better at Combat TP and using Shift before I drop. But running a Blaster takes practice. Invisibility (which he also has) is without a word very useful. Why struggle to get into position? Just stealth to it with dignity. I think I may have found the unicorn. Of all the Squishies I have played this Dark/Dark checks off all the boxes. Very good at Task, has a lot of intricacy, and a lot of utility. I even slapped two hold powers on him (and put a Grav Anchor hold proc in Pen Grasp) so that I can be of some use on Hami hold teams after Ranged is done...