WumpusRat

The cooldowns are long, but proper slotting can bring the recharge down a LONG way. On my trappers, most of my powers are on 30-40s recharge (and that's without using hasten), simply because of how easy it is to stack recharge on Homecoming, particularly on a mastermind (you can split Superior Mark of Supremacy into three sets of two and get 30% global recharge right there). I mean, you're not going to claim the recharge on most big nuke tier-9's is "too long", right? Or the recharge on incarnate powers? Those both have a longer recharge than most traps abilities. As for detonator, I never take it. Even now, when your henchies can be resummoned quickly it's kind of a waste. Back on live it was HORRIBLE, since the recharge on the pet summoning powers was something like 30/60/90s, so losing even a tier-1 could mean a good bit before you could summon it again, and losing your tier-3 meant you had to run away for a while to regroup.

You can single-click to store/pull from storage, one at a time. I do this all the time to restock my salvage stockpiles in my bases, as I keep a fixed amount of each type (especially commons) and I can see how many I need at a glance. So just open that storage bin, open my salvage window, click a couple times, move to the next.

My big project I've been working on for the last year and a half or so was making CoH characters out of the various D&D and Pathfinder classes. Some were easy to translate (rogue, fighter, barbarian, etc), others proved really difficult. But it was a ton of fun.

I kind of wish people would stop using "but pylon tests show..." as the basis for their ideas on power balance. Pylons are kind of a dumb thing to test on, because it's static. You can easily set up a kit to SPECIFICALLY take down pylons and nothing else, and skew results that way. For instance, the "only three needed powers" referenced here? What about dealing with big groups of mobs? You have no aoe at all in your "these are the only good powers" argument. So I guess you just whittle every enemy down one at a time, then? That seems like a waste, when you have perfectly solid aoes right there in your kit. Or are you so reliant on your incarnate powers to deal with groups of mobs that you can't handle large packs more often than once every couple minutes? Personally, most of my characters tend to have 5-6 attacks. Both for set bonuses as well as the fact that I don't build hasten on most of my characters. So I have 3-4 attacks to make up a nice single-target flow, and then a couple of aoes to toss into large groups of enemies. I can jump into the middle of a pack, pop my aoes, finish off the ones that are at a sliver, then focus down the bosses that are left at half or so. Maybe I just don't have the proper "must minmax everything to death" mindset.

Yeah, as others have said you can't compare Phantom Army to any of the other pets that taunt. PA is invulnerable and with enough recharge, you can make it permanent. Permanent, invulnerable tanks on an AT that can dish out a lot of damage would definitely be a bit imbalanced. Personally I've never missed the taunt on my illusion dom. Would it be nice? Sure. Would it make a lot of stuff too easy for her? Definitely.

I don't really see 61% accuracy as "low". It's middle-range. Not everything has to have 95% accuracy, especially on powers that don't have any sort of innate to-hit penalty. But when it comes to sets, the problem is if you design the full set to be "perfect" (90-95% accuracy, 95-97% damage, 90-95% recharge, and 80-95% end), the set could end up being TOO good, depending on the set bonuses involved. Cupid's Crush for instance I always try to fit the entire thing into a power, since the set bonuses are amazing. Most of the time when I'm building I'm aiming for set bonuses to shore up my resists, defense, or other such things. It's why a lot of my melee characters will 6-slot Touch of Death in their melee attacks, despite it being a 40th level set. Fully slotted, the set bonuses are great, and while it's only got 43% or so accuracy in the set, I tend to have enough +acc and +to-hit in other places in the build to make up for it.

Something a bit more super-heroic this time. Or at least rogue-ish. Maxima, one of my first characters on HC. Superstrength/Invuln tanker, perpetually on the wrong side of the law. And frequent enjoyer of punching Manticore's teeth in.

Figured I'd post another one because it came out well, I think. Yuli the Bog-Witch, Elwi's sister and another member of the reverse-isekai'd D&D party.

I just found an AI generator I kind of like, so I've been having it doodle up some pictures of characters. They're not perfect, but they've been pretty neat so far. Here's one: Elwi, the goblin hedge-wizard, part of my "reverse-isekai'd D&D adventurers in Paragon" group, with her earth elemental Muffin.

Aura doesn't fit the character's concept. If I remember right, she clocks in at 75.5% lethal and psionic resist, so just capped to both. And buildup isn't always available, so I like having the +to hit always on.

I have a water/regen sentinel floating around that I haven't played in a while. It was one of the elementals I was making, and was the water (obviously) elemental. I picked regen since I liked the idea of it "healing" by just pulling more water out of the air to replenish itself as parts of it got splashed around from impacts. I'll have to go revisit her and see what her build is like when I get home tonight.

3-slotted with def, def/end and def/global, maneuvers can give around 4% def. It's not a ton on its own, but when you stack it with the two auras (5% each) and any innate def your pets might have, combined with powers that boost def within the pets themselves (like the enforcers maneuvers, or the protector bots' force fields), and any buffs your secondary has, it can add up quickly. I have a number of MMs where my pets have softcapped defense vs everything, and maneuvers is a part of that.

Okay, here's the datablock for the build. It's my kind of typical "fairly cheap" sort of build to throw together, not using any purples, not catalyzing a bunch of stuff to get +5's, and using attuned enhancements so I can do lower-level TFs and stuff without too much loss. |MBD;23130;1340;1788;BASE64;| |G1laACwKbBuZfSeOBuYtPTK/LkW69szcUHk0jgmTfJLS6wK5Pj2MnFmz6HT11elUvnp| |ZoO0AlL6St6n+V9WeUJ+uWV2NiD15QbHBArz795/u/RQtlXCB3ux20BV89W7pJb3NSy| |mNSsUO9ilNLOL7Lap3aM6l/ye0oN+SWAAsNsTZTTLTKukIMUb7MjjFolCp6PPUT9aik| |Nrz34QfpwlI/g6F4/ZNXwH0kCYoeCWeCHo7rcfQFmdbHfeNIQ5qSMdQ+CyAu4eo1xmZ| |LWQtBIE1pUkKOmWTBOpnCxNWI90H4QRh7xuBvsdjeoFAhATryW0Hj5z0hkrqM/yf4cQ| |AjiElJqRdslyRHUV6Bm0sMT3IwPb1cXwhy5txI9LCIqcpYNF+4cEAQ0W8HRw3fGk71L| |C62PpS0Rct1PSKaF2maLITC2LBseuG5NkzeuOQ45T20KQ9MA+WlCGrQSog7VThrXESR| |HuotkWh9DNUHN1uBKzewuDi/0Q/Po77pGwi6EwnVadgpOegWseWWPyKP5wf/lvaKSDk| |KnROeTxZtcBC0EI6KFxuIOg+9BXvobJHXBSqvAV70plLxpnlH8TQtdDHHQq20T/UqpO| |MChRA3ZPRgOJQ13YH2rZPC6pzkalBk+Kvdoeat6aWXIPLYu6Qmn8qbluiczDGmYlGES| |hfURUojgee6WQxmUFN3sJbMfoVlxCWLGLUs1NTzumpYJjOW0TfYdIcruGxb7rPWWFtI| |XXj3hv5CBZTAQOobDENMA6Fa5rcRjYp+XAFEibLcAseV/glzD34d/H/Pv92ZJ4DsX/w| |uXTzud9n5uqjD82JCnkwjINblER8KRnlKeMU7rmR6YSkcyPlAOiYRGbH9LlgqMgoPJl| |qvewMONx1DpehDekq5ZFepLWZ+GMTLEi/JIvrNs9eVFhFeNxVgpcyS5ilq8uOOuDzlG| |KzCPGWeAeYrAvAlBhnRkjKzaLidkb0erxDExXWJAeZMjD9em1vHVq5Cmx3ne023PqOT| |nrYeopZ4rd9De++g2uGLsYEBy54XPtUAHOx8b73Kp36nTk2TuA7d9pRgBxRQmKFcI7S| |dxjZMmKktHHjRbchytize2+NofZifnik64EHUk5xuysluFJCs8rGJBjTYf5VlITbwx8| |1VPNk3rF6fT1wOGkjxrOgIK3SLS0AY7CgIa1DhEjBbdI0MU//wJB1wIRHJOu2p7JUbU| |PnhmSetJvni85I9NnX3oBR2LcQHhDegOLIMQfYF62+8fh+3Q6YcCqtzulUB5zqwK+Di| |dAceCdbPr+08mbAhRteQo583Z1nRtxtH70hvAIGsE8Q3iC7wzglXvqXuXWBCjwQdvQa| |csCPbmEFplE168wBvMU5PZS1ayuScTM5u1NR4EWrC7+CtuxaixfyjvwV4VpRzHlcJ09| |0Do/arGtCepFF4zCc21G007kW+Ukwj1+8+DdteStgehXjkCaYGxOcwa5K9BOOzKDzXM| |R0hgAeESbtaPGdeTLTrMW6eXmE0mnh/HWiiZ3RCHp4vm08S0m1P+FCkkrTpyywIa2jX| |4DJYfAoyYvmGHgzryguj91oYvfQhIk15gEtWSqz6sALgTeSoEvv8ebFNOTDwg95jv9Z| |X11Ab7fWtW3lU8u20blS/BeKK9TqU3p4In0NTNhKJP+RzYWQH3qVna0Lf4oXj82I6zM| |mRv/YxKRBkkpfufZUk2S4vcuwsmA2wj9BakgbtKrWuXNrQdzRB3DhBdJACd+Y8Mo/p6| |ibrLyxQbKgAsmA/3p+maxEMm9vD0fKO14KRAOUgvrrgR0=|

Hm, let's see... The Kitchen Sink Summoner T1: Summon Genin T2: Summon Wolves T3: Toroidal Bubble T4: Upgrade Pets T5: Faraday Cage T6: Summon Death Knights T7: Maintenence Drone T8: Summon Bruiser T9: Fulcrum Shift

Not using any purple sets other than superior ATOs. I tend not to use them in most of my builds. I'm at work at the moment, so I can't look over the sets and such, but I can load them up in mids tonight when I get home and post them.

Yeah, getting hit by confusion and suddenly you a) no longer have bodyguard mode and b) now all your pets are pissed at you can be a quick trip to the hospital.

In-game. Copied them straight from her build on the beta server last night when I was testing out a couple changes. <edit> Although thinking about it, I might have jotted down the fully stealthed defensive numbers. So they'd be about 8% less. So around 27% aoe, 32% ranged and 47% melee (62% with one DA stack).

My current scrapper using it is katana/psi armor, based on the "soulblade" Pathfinder class. She's another in my "reverse isekai'd into Paragon" group. I'm still fine-tuning the build, but right now her final layout (before adding any incarnate stuff) is: Smash, lethal, psi resist at 75% 58% negative 50% energy 46% cold 41% toxic 38% fire 35% aoe def, 40% ranged def, 55% melee def (resting, one stack of divine avalanche takes her melee def up to 70%, so she's comfortably softcapped for incarnate-level content). Add in some incarnate powers, and she'll be even stronger.

I have a couple that I need to get back to leveling again. Harlequin Romance (a former Carnie ring mistress who is determined to make people fall in love, or else) The Abdominator ("I am here to pump *clap* you up!") Doom Perignon (a massively egotistical narcissist whose favorite crimes are sneaking into Manticore's house and rearranging the paintings, or hacking Luminary's OS to make her internal clock off by 27 seconds)

You can also set up tabs to monitor only certain parts of combat. On several characters I keep track of personal damage, pet damage, hit rolls, and healing all in different tabs.

I slotted mine with the full Cupid's Crush set. The set bonuses are all awesome, gives a ton of recharge, and occasionally a giant spiked tentacle will confuse a target so that they start shooting their allies, providing even more CC.

Eh, I don't see it that way. It's a preference in the way to play. Chasing def DOES mean you have to build in certain ways, take specific powers/enh sets/etc just to achieve that goal. Whereas going by concept means you can pick different things, though if you're adhering strictly to a concept it has the same limitations on what you can pick. Its no more condescending than saying "Which do you prefer, strawberry or chocolate ice cream?" and having people weigh in on the pros and cons of each. Then you'll have someone go "but what about neopolitan?!" Nothing says you can't like both, or mix them. 🙂

I like the "calendar photoshoot" going on on the little island just east of the tram station. It seems to be random whether or not it's there, and if the person posing is a male or female. It's a couple of photographers and one of the Blackwing people lying on a bench in a sexy pose, clad in the helmet, gloves and boots, and a bikini/speedo. Laughed my butt off when I first found it. 🙂

...and that would be part of the concept, would it not? Nothing says a blaster's concept CAN'T be something like that, if that's your idea for the character. It's not "condescension", it's simply a preference. I don't think minmaxing is "bad", it's just not my preferred way to play. I don't chase the meta, I just build what I want to build for the concept I have.

Generally my characters are built with a concept in mind, and I set their slots and such up to reflect the concept. Though I will certainly try to make them as durable as I can within that concept. While I do like getting reasonable amounts of defense and resists, I don't really try to 'softcap' unless the concept for the character is someone who is meant to stand there in melee and not go down. A few of my characters have hasten (my two dominators and several of my trollers, as well as one mastermind), but most skip it. I'll take a resist power from one of the epic/patron pools if I think it'll fit the character concept, but if not I'll figure out something else to take instead. Generally if I take hasten at all I'm going to try and push to make it perma, simply because if I AM taking it, it's to crank down the recharge on one or more powers in the primary or secondary that have enormous recharge times, and I want to get them down as low as possible. My ninja/empathy mastermind has perma-hasten, in an effort to bring the regen/recovery auras down to as close to perma as I could get them. One of my doms is an illusionist, so I wanted to get phantom army perma, and the trollers that have hasten are /nature and /marine, so I wanted their big buffs up as much as possible. But basically it's concept first, then mechanics. If it comes down to it, I will abandon mechanics for concept, but I will not abandon concept for mechanics.