ninja surprise

Good stuff!

Just posted one in another thread.

That's the weird thing about Bio, it looks like crap in Mids but then does quite well in the game, as long as you click the clickies in time. Bio's biggest weakness is the lack of Slow resist, and then the lack of any defense debuff resist. But if you can keep healing then the lack of any defense whatsoever doesn't matter. This is a Stone Melee / Bio Brute I'm building up right now. Lots of recharge without Hasten, and as much slow resist as possible from the Winter sets. Winds up with decent defense and some resistances. Expensive though. Bio technique is: Activate Ablative Carapace just about whenever it's up. It'll give you about half your hitpoints as an Absorb shield and a big regen boost. Hit DNA Siphon whenever you're low on HP or End. It's like some insane psycho combined Dark Regen + Dark Consumption into the best self-heal ever. Use Parasitic Aura whenever it's up and you're in the middle of a big spawn. Another giant Absorb, regen, and recovery buff that'll keep you alive when you shouldn't be. Between DNA Siphon and Parasitic Aura you won't need Efficient Adaptation, so you can flip between Offensive and Defensive depending on the enemies. Efficient can be saved for low-level task forces and such.

Sounds like fun, do it!

Back on Live my two mains were a Dark Melee/Super Reflexes Scrapper, and a Gravity/Kin Controller. I didn't wanted to keep the concept of my Scrapper but wanted to try New Things since we don't know how long this will last, and also wanted more AoE on my Scrapper. So I went with Titan/Ninjutsu, and that was a royal hoot most of the time. Altitis will do what Altitis does, so after rolling through a few dozen more power combos I've almost settled on a Bio/Dark Melee Tank. I didn't think I'd like Bio, but this combo is loads of fun, survivable if I pay attention, does enough damage/AoE, has cool soundFX, and can lead a PuG of random-level sidekicks to victory against +4 mobs. This is the first toon I've fully Incarnated out. It's fun! I did re-create the Grav/Kin, but for some reason I'm not enjoying it as much as the first time. Might be because I miss my old SG partners I'd most frequently team with on that toon.

I use all the default costume slots to give each toon a variety of heights. Slot 0 is minimum size -- travel size -- because it just feels like short bodies move quicker and it's easier to squeeze between pipes in the sewer and other map obstacles. Slot 1 is maximum height, so I can fight the EBs on the ITF eye-to-eye. Also for the battles where I really want to see where I am in the swarm. The other slots will be a mix of minimum height and Super Human slightly above average height for role-play or lounging around or costume contests.

I'd say add randomly occurring Events to KW. Each hour might spawn a Rikti invasion, or zombies, or city-wide SupaTroll raves, giant monsters from red or blueside, or whatever.

I'd prefer they buffed it by adding more AoE "splash" damage onto every attack that's a big swing without changing anything else about the attack (end/rech/base dam/etc) Take Battle Axe for instance. You're swinging a big axe, surrounded by enemies, and only manage to hit one critter every time? Add some splash damage to the 2 or 3 critters standing right next to the target. BAM, doing a little more damage and Battle Axe is cool again.

If they follow the same general toughness as Tanks, it'd be Bio then Ice, and then Elec beating Dark. Of course with enough IOs you can get them all up to about the same toughness. I guess it depends on which stats you want to have a head start with.

Aint that the truth

Try Bio/DM tank, it's a hoot with pretty good def/resist numbers in Offensive and the AoE and cones are huge. Shadow Maul hits critters standing almost behind you.

Hmm, I think I'll reroll my Shield/Stone Tank into a Brute.

I typically do take every attack, unless one is a real snoozer that I've used and didn't like. Example: the little cone attack in Electric Melee. Defense: no, I think 65% is such crazy overkill it would gimp the rest of the build. If I have a defense-based armor I'll get them to at least 45%, maybe 50% if it isn't too much trouble, then rely on buffs or inspirations if I need more. I try to cap what the armor's good at and I don't go crazy beyond that. I don't have infinite inf and I'd rather play than farm, so don't I don't try to get every purple, Winter, or AT IO. I just get it tough enough and that'd fine with me. Recharge: I almost never take Hasten. If I have defense powers I'll put some Luck of the Gambler +rech in there, if a set has both a +rech bonus and a def/resist bonus I need I'll use it. I typically wind up with 50 - 90% global recharge bonus and that works fine for me. Basically, to keep it easy: put your powersets into Mid's, turn on your armor toggles. Have some S/L resist? Boost it to the ceiling. Have low resist but high Defense? Buff that up and add some resist on the side. The game is easy enough that you'll do fine on SO's and don't need billion dollar builds to get by.

Nah, Group Fly came out before CoV and it was already universally disliked by the time MMs came along and tried to get use out of it. I think teams tried using it for Shadow Shard TFs to help non-flying teammates get around before jetpacks were invented.

A while ago I kept bumping into a tank named something like "Ironic" that was Invuln/Psi. Character description was something like "My weakness is psi, yet I fight with psi... how ironic"

Battle Axe has an attack called Beheader. Mace and Axe both wield a shovel; with Mace you hit with the flat side and with Axe you wield it flat to hit with the edge of the blade. Meanwhile Claws has two attacks where you don't even poke anyone, you just wave your claws and they fall over. It's a fun set though!

It's hard to tell from the Mid's stats - is Willpower decently strong enough to take incoming damage from a x8 spawn? I haven't gotten one high enough to IO it out, but it never seemed like the +regen from being surrounded by mobs was enough to outlast the incoming damage. I'm thinking about pairing it up with Claws though.

This is the way!

Yep, it's better to franken-slot Hand Clap. Give it a bunch of Acc/Rech, the Force Feedback and KD, and maybe some damage procs if you have slots to spare. or the purple Stun set + the KD proc.

You could create both of them on Test, enhance 'em both up, and play a few missions to see which you enjoy more.

In case you're unfamiliar with these sets - the Sudden Acceleration --KB/+KD changes the knockback to knockdown so all the mobs in the AoE just get knocked on their duff but stay where they are. It's a great way to knockdown and stun a spawn so you can use Bio's self-buffs. The FrcFdb-Rechg gives you a +100% recharge bonus when it procs, which it almost always does. Slotted up Hand Clap is a wonderful thing.

That's one of the reasons I take Elude from Super Reflexes - double backflip suckas! can't touch me!

It's the same, you just sub in "macro name" for "bind key" /bind SUBTRACT "target_custom_next enemy alive Sorc" becomes /macro sorc "target_custom_next enemy alive Sorc"

Am I wrong or does this illustrate the difference in damage doesn't seem so vast? With ~120 points between the Tank and Brute at 90% Fury the Brute might be able to one-shot some minions but on tougher targets, either way, you're going to punch it at least twice with the Brute wasting more damage beyond the target HP. Unless KO Blow is followed with a smaller attack, or AoE spill. However, if you're fighting an AV or other tough target then the extra Brute damage can really add up. Is that accurate?

Yin's pretty fun. I've started doing "defeat-all" runs where in the Council mission people go both directions, instead of just the one side, and in the last mission open all the doors. Also do them at +1 with the Council mission on +2, if the team can handle it. So much fun.