ninja surprise

The phrase you'd use here is "the players have a mind of their own and play how they want to play. They might not follow the tanker blindly if they can handle aggro on their own or if the tank ran off on his own without paying any attention to where the team was going." Nope. Someone wants to go blast or punch a critter on their own, more power to them. There aren't "healers" in CoH. Woah woah woah, you say you fake-tanked with *non-tank* classes? You're just as bad as those mind-of-their-own players!!! If you are the team lead you can state your rules of "everyone follow me, nobody solo" and kick anyone who fails to comply. Good luck with that though, I think you'll wind up on a lot of ignore lists. Everyone's a hero, most builds can solo x8 spawns. Pay attention to where your team goes and play along. This is the way.

I really should have taken this advice last year, but then I'd be missing out on doing it now! Are these builds still good? Any new tweaks?

Welp, it's no good, guys. Ran a Dark/Dark tank to ~40, took it through the "unlock Katie" arc in Croatoa, and realized I don't like the Dark Armor soft controls or half invisibility for my style of tanking. So I rolled a Fiery/Fiery, PL'd to 28 and started running missions. I like it, even though the armor can't dodge a debuff to save its life. Just have to be careful how many of each enemy type I pull. But then I started thinking about how great of an AoE Burn is, and with Blazing Aura, it'd go great with a boss-stompin' secondary like Energy Melee... I remembered reading @Camel's great guide... The mix-and-match Alt pull is too strong!! Can't resist!

Well right now it does no damage when Savage Leap can't attack something. But looks like it's a "bug working as intended" so not likely to change 🤷‍♂️

How about adding Hot Feet as an alternate animation for Blazing Aura? I'm trying a Fire/Fire tank and the pulsing is still really annoying.

Nah, sets shouldn't be balanced around one specific form of min-maxing, or force a player to slot that way for the power to be effective. I really enjoy Savage and it would be great to give it a consistent crit damage buff. I would also love if Savage Leap were changed to behave like a targeted teleport attack so that it could more consistently attack every target. There are targets that Shield Charge can hit that Savage Leap can't, like the computer in the ITF, at the end of LGTF there's those 4 generator/tower things, and other stuff like that. It's really annoying.

Yes, but if he didn't have Wet Ice turned on he wouldn't have KB or KU protection either, resulting in getting ragdolled, a lot. Never hurts to ask the obvious question.

To verify - did you have Wet Ice turned on?

Same, and I love Breath of Fire. I just don't like Blazing Aura, the "poofing" animation makes my eyes hurt.

Try out an Energy Melee / Shield Defense Scrapper. You can shield charge in, get soaked in Against All Odds damage buffs, then one-shot two different critters in the face and Whirling Hands the rest. It's a hoot.

I'm going to have to give that a try!

Even if they just re-skinned some of the bare hand fighting sets so that the shield is on the arm doing the punching, it would *look* like Shield Melee and be way cool.

Sure, or frankenslot some Def/End IOs to max both stats.

If you want an absolutely easy-mode fun toon, go Super Reflexes / Dark Melee. With SR you take all the toggles and 3-slot them with Defense Buff. Take the passives and 2-slot them with Defense. Combat Jumping gets 2 Def Buffs. Your defense is just a fraction under soft-cap and nearly every attack will miss you, easy as pie. 2-slot Practiced Brawler with Recharge and set it to Auto. At 28 you get Soul Drain and 6-slot it with Gaussian's Sync'd Fire Control and you're at 46.79% Defense to all positions and ready to take on the world. (or take Maneuvers and 3-slot it with Defense). Now you get to take every power in Dark Melee and slot them up for acc/dam/rech or with your favorite sets and spend all your time punching everything you see. It'll be great solo, easy and cheap to build, and will do just fine while leveling up. With all the other combos being suggested you have to take a bunch of pool powers and buy tons of expensive sets. Lots of Superior versions you can't even slot until 50. All the resist sets are super expensive to make durable, and the Hybrid sets with half defense / half resist are tricky to build. SR/DM is easy peasy lemon squeezy, fun and easy, and later you can rebuild it as expensive as you want in order to get more recharge, resists, etc. But with either just one set (Gaussians) or one pool power (Maneuvers) you're at max defense and ready to fight. This Hero build was built using Mids Reborn 3.0.5.6 https://github.com/Reborn-Team/MidsReborn Level 50 Magic Tanker Primary Power Set: Super Reflexes Secondary Power Set: Dark Melee Power Pool: Leaping Power Pool: Flight Ancillary Pool: Soul Mastery Hero Profile: ------------ Level 1: Focused Fighting DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(3), DefBuff-I(3) Level 1: Shadow Punch Empty(A), Empty(9), Empty(11), Empty(15), Empty(15), Empty(17) Level 2: Focused Senses DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(5), DefBuff-I(5) Level 4: Agile DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(7) Level 6: Practiced Brawler RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(7) Level 8: Dodge DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(9) Level 10: Combat Jumping DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(11) Level 12: Evasion DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(13), DefBuff-I(13) Level 14: Fly Empty(A) Level 16: Shadow Maul Empty(A), Empty(17), Empty(19), Empty(33), Empty(34), Empty(34) Level 18: Lucky DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(19) Level 20: Smite Empty(A), Empty(21), Empty(21), Empty(31), Empty(33), Empty(33) Level 22: Siphon Life Empty(A), Empty(23), Empty(23), Empty(29), Empty(31), Empty(31) Level 24: Touch of Fear Empty(A), Empty(25), Empty(25), Empty(27), Empty(27), Empty(29) Level 26: Quickness Empty(A) Level 28: Soul Drain GssSynFr--ToHit(A), GssSynFr--Build%(36), GssSynFr--ToHit/Rchg(36), GssSynFr--ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(36), GssSynFr--Rchg/EndRdx(37), GssSynFr--ToHit/EndRdx(37) Level 30: Taunt Empty(A) Level 32: Hover Empty(A) Level 35: Dark Consumption Empty(A), Empty(39), Empty(39), Empty(39), Empty(40), Empty(40) Level 38: Midnight Grasp Empty(A), Empty(40), Empty(43), Empty(45), Empty(45), Empty(45) Level 41: Gloom Empty(A), Empty(42), Empty(42), Empty(42), Empty(43), Empty(43) Level 44: Darkest Night Empty(A) Level 47: Dark Obliteration Empty(A), Empty(48), Empty(48), Empty(48), Empty(50), Empty(50) Level 49: Evasive Maneuvers Empty(A) Level 1: Brawl Empty(A) Level 1: Gauntlet Level 1: Sprint Empty(A) Level 2: Rest Empty(A) Level 1: Swift Empty(A), Empty(37) Level 1: Health Prv-Absorb%(A), Pnc-Heal/+End(46), NmnCnv-Regen/Rcvry+(46), Mrc-Rcvry+(46) Level 1: Hurdle Empty(A) Level 1: Stamina PrfShf-End%(A), PwrTrns-+Heal(34), EndMod-I(50) Level 14: Afterburner ------------

Went digging through my toons and found: Tank: Dark/Dark, level 30 Brute Dark/Dark, level 31 Rad/Rad, level 50 - This was when I swore off Rad Melee and Brutes. Tankers and Scrappers for me, baby! Scrapper Dark/Dark 31 Fire/Fire 9 Also have some matching Doms: Earth/Earth @ 37, Fire/Fire @ 25. Also Fire/Fire Blasters and Sentinel. I realized I just don't like Dark/Dark as much as I enjoy my Bio/Dark. I already have a ton of Ice Armor and Fiery Aura toons... is an Elec/Elec in my future? End my lifelong boycott of Stone Armor? Or maybe my next Scrapper will be Nrg/Nrg since that's possible now? THE POSSIBILITIES

And the occasional glowie-click in a room full of very angry mobs just whiffing away while that glowie's progress bar decays.

That's one I'm somewhat tempted to try, but worry about the lack of endurance recovery.

That Never Have I Ever thread got me thinking - I've never really played a toon with matching primary and secondary very high. I've gotten a Dark/Dark of some sort around level 30. Saw some good builds here recently, I'm going to give those a go if my toon's is a Tank. Abandoned a Fire/Fire Scrapper in the 20's. Never done the other combos. Is there an elemental combo you love playing? The two I'm most likely to go with are Fire/Fire and Electric/Electric. Dark Armor / Dark Melee Electric Armor / Electrical Melee Fiery Aura / Fiery Melee Ice Armor / Ice Melee Radiation Armor / Radiation Melee Stone Armor / Stone Melee

Gonna have to try this. With Willpower there's no armor clickies or pansy self-heals, so it's all Titan all the Time.

It's sad but Fiery Melee on Scrappers just sucks. It's one of the lower damage sets with low burst damage and lots of DoT. Rad armor is eventually good but it's expensive to make it tough. On a Scrapper you have to defeat everything before they defeat you. With Fiery Melee they get a lot of time to whale on you while your damage ticks away at their HP. A Tank is plenty tough enough to sit there getting walloped while the enemies burn. I tried out a bunch of different Scrapper combos, always giving up in disgust, before settling on my Tank version. Rad, Shield, and Bio go great with Fiery on Tanks. Edit: @Galaxy Brain's thing shows it 2nd to last.

I tried a few Rad/* pairings and stuck with Rad/Fire for theme and matching vfx. It's a fun combo and Rad is tough enough to survive while Fire brings the pain.

I don't think Sleeps would be very effective during an AV battle. Not enough time for them to fall asleep before they get attacked again. Do various AVs have resist to immob aside from the PToD? The AV I've had to chase the most is Mary MacComber, but it's hard to remember if/when there were toons with immobilizes, including Blasters. Rommie often runs for the stairs during the computer phase of ITF. Is there a web grenade type temp power? I'll buy that for my tanks and scrappers.

Never have I ever rolled a Stone Tank or Brute. Never have I ever played a Peacebringer. Never led a Incarnate trial or anything else that requires a League. (except the occasional GM defeat where more than 7 people showed up) Never have I ever passed up the opportunity to do Crimson and Indigo's arc and serve sweet justice to every Malta agent I met. Those anti-MHI guys gotta go down!

I like inventing my own builds to suit my goals. But also, I'll see someone in game and think "That looks like fun!" But I've never done an AR/Storm Corrupter before. Is it crap? What powers are good and which are useless? Is it worth six-slotting Hurricane for ToHit Debuff and KB? That's when I'll look for a build and if I don't find one I'll ask about the build and slotting suggestions. It's nice to get pro tips from someone who's been there before.

Some of them ignore the Tank's taunts completely and just run all over with everyone chasing them. If the purple triangles are up then controls are ineffective and the AV battle becomes a virtual re-enactment of A Fly Went By.