WumpusRat

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.

I just picked it up on my two plant users (one dom, one troller), and it's definitely worth taking, even if you don't bother slotting it. It's VERY tanky, and can snag aggro from up to 5 mobs for a few moments, letting you unload your bigger controls without immediate reprisal. I'm going to have to experiment with various taunt sets on it and see what kind of mileage I can get.

I'm a huge fan of it, personally. I hated the fact that sleep before was basically either skipable, or its only use was to turn it into a proc-bomb on the sets where the sleep did some minimal damage, like Symphony. Now sleep is an entirely viable form of CC. It's like a second aoe hold for a lot of sets. My symphony bard is a true CC monster now. Aoe sleep, aoe stun, aoe hold, aoe fear, aoe immob, and a confuse on top of it. "Stand still and allow me to play your requiem..."

I have several characters that have full suits of armor as their primary costume, and have whichever armor set I feel works for the concept. A few examples: The Fighter (from my 'reverse isekai'd D&D characters' group): Shield/Axe tanker. She has enormous amounts of defense, which thematically is from both her shield AND her plate armor that she wears. It's made of mithril, which makes it incredibly durable and light, so she can leap and run in it without hindrance. She also has capped smash/lethal resist, so that even if something DOES manage to get past her defenses, the "armor" still blocks most of the physical blow. The Power Armor Girl: Energy Blast/Invuln Sentinel. She's basically thematically similar to Iron Man, in that she's got a suit of armor that allows her to fly, shrug off attacks, and fire pewpew energy blasts at things. She's durable, and most damage just glances off the armor (due to high defense) or doesn't hit very hard if it does get a direct impact (resists). The Paladin (also from the reverse isekai group): Willpower/Katana tanker. Like the fighter, she wears full plate armor, but doesn't use a shield. So she doesn't have quite the defense that the fighter does. She does, however, have enormous melee defense due to her skill with a sword, able to parry and deflect attacks (set bonuses and frequent use of divine avalanche). The armor absorbs impacts (resists), and her abilities as a paladin can restore her health if she starts to falter (regen). I have a ton of other characters who wear armor (both medieval and high-tech) and simulate the protection through various armor powersets, or other abilities (toughness, epic/patron armor powers, etc). But it's pretty easy to come up with a "heavily armored" character and simulate that armor with one of the many armor sets.

See, I disagree when you say that running out of endurance "breaks immersion". Personally, being able to "fight for days" when you're just starting out seems less immersive. A brand new hero isn't going to be as well-versed in their abilities, won't be able to manage the strain of using them and pace themselves as easily. More experience (and mechanically, more slots, better slotting, etc) allows the character to fight more efficiently and effectively, using their powers with less strain. And in the late-game, when you're fully slotted and have as many holes in your powers plugged as possible, you can "fight for days" without worrying about most things. Managing your endurance for a character is part of the game. If you're struggling with the willpower set, you're definitely doing something wrong. How many slots do you have in stamina? How many slots do you have in quick recovery? Do you have SO's in them? How many end reducers do you have in your powers? Are all the SOs up to date? My shield/axe tank was struggling with end issues all the way to 50, and I would constantly tinker with the build to try and get a bit more duration of her capacity in combat. Now that she's got her "final build" done, she's got no end issues at all (unless I run up against stuff that drains end), and she can "fight for days", as long as I don't go too ham on stuff. No using my biggest end attack on something that has a sliver of health left, for instance. So no, making endurance "a non-issue" wouldn't add any more fun to the game. It would just be removing a layer of complexity from the game. "Dumbing it down" as it were. End is fine. As a new player instead of asking something to be removed to make it easier, ask for advice on how to deal with it.

One of my favorites was a gravity/trick arrow troller I made, who abused the hell out of Dimensional Shift. Drop DS on a pack of mobs, drop an oil slick, disruption arrow, acid arrow, step into the DS and light the oil slick, step back out. Watch the mobs flail and burn while heavily debuffed. Pick off any that manage to extricate themselves. Rinse, repeat.

Most of my characters don't have hasten. The few that do are generally characters with powers I want to bring down as close to perma as possible (Overgrowth, Phantom Army, Carrion Creepers, Serum, etc), or on my couple doms in order to get perma-dom. Most of the others don't bother, since it's easy to get 4-5 attacks with a smooth attack chain, especially if I mix in a cone or pbaoe even against 1-2 mobs. Taking hasten seems like "wasting" a power pick and pool a lot of times since in order to get the most out of it you kind of need to try and bring it down to perma or as close as possible, at least imo, which means being forced to build for as many recharge bonuses as possible, rather than other set bonuses that might push the character towards benchmarks I'd rather have (capped resists, zero endurance issues, etc). I don't tend to lean on incarnate powers to get around weaknesses, so I tend to build within the concept to account for as many of them as I can.

Yeah, the CoH rng has always been extremely finicky. The reason the streakbreaker got put in place originally is because we complained so much about streaks of misses with 95% to hit. Nothing like having 95% to hit and missing ten attacks in a row. These days I still see stuff like "Miss, streakbreaker forced a hit, miss, streakbreaker, miss, streakbreaker, miss, streakbreaker, miss, streakbreaker."

I put a writeup of an elementals set like that the other day in the suggestions forum. As far as other MM sets, generally the theme they follow is something somewhat "generic" rather than tied to any specific faction/group, so as to not limit the players' concepts. Stuff I'd like to see: Elementals Goons (guys in suits, or the old Batman style thugs with black shirts that say "Thug" on it) Spirits (with dark/psi powers) Dinosaurs Medieval knights/archers Animated Objects

Let's see... About 40 of them: Reverse-isekai'd D&D characters ported into Paragon. Two of them: Twin sisters who were part of the Tsoo, but broke off due to conflicting moralities and now fight each other to prove who's right. 10 or so: Small aliens who chased a Rikti ship to earth and now hunt them planet-side. Several: Pulp-era heroes who were frozen in time and have come out in the modern age. A creation made by a dying inventor who perished at the hands of the Clockwork, and now hunts them exclusively to avenge its creator. A girl who streams her crimes and taunts heroes during them, hoping to lure bigger and bigger names out so she can stream them getting their asses kicked. An immortal French mage who was part of the Circle of Thorns but now ends up arguing with the Midnight Squad more than anything. A healer defender whose mind completely shattered during the Rikti destruction of Galaxy City and used up all her power to bring the corpses of her dead team back to "life". A woman who has absolute post-cognitive hindsight, and spends every day trying to narrow down the number of horrible past day's crimes she sees every night at midnight. A narcissistic egomaniac who believes she is so far superior to everyone else that she only commits the most ludicrous of crimes just to annoy people. A tiny "shoulder devil" who has convinced a number of white-collar working guys to become an outlaw biker gang. Several more: Elemental spirits given form and now wander Paragon and the Rogue Isles enjoying themselves. And a ton more.

I've been noodling around with the idea for a while, but never got around to posting it. So, here we go. Since MM primaries are meant to be somewhat "generic", this would be another set that isn't strongly tied to any one faction, and provide a variety of attack and damage types (similar to Demons) as a primary. Tier-1: Summon Lesser Elementals Summons 1, 2, or 3 minor fire elementals (can use Fire Imps model). Base attack: Flares Upgrade 1: Fire Bolt Upgrade 2: Fireball Base resists: Smash, Lethal, Fire, Psionic, enhanced by the first upgrade power Base defense: 5% positional Tier-2: Flares (single target attack) Same as the Fire Blast set, just with Mastermind scaling Tier-3: Lightning Bolt (single target attack) Same as the Electrical Blast set, just with Mastermind scaling Tier-4: Empower Elementals Increases base resists of all elementals, adds new powers Tier-5: Upthrust (targeted aoe attack) Same as the Seismic Blast set, just with Mastermind scaling Tier-6: Summon Elementals Summons an Ice elemental (first summon, use Ice Elemental or Jack Frost model) and an Air elemental (second summon, use scaled down Tornado or Water Spout model) Base attacks (ice elemental): Ice Bolt, Ice Sword, Chilling Embrace Base attacks (air elemental): Gust, Jet Stream, Lightning Field Upgrade 1: Ice Sword Circle (ice elemental), Chain Lightning (air elemental) Upgrade 2: Greater Ice Sword, Bitter Ice Blast (ice elemental), Zapping Bolt, Lightning Strike (air elemental) Base resists: Smash, Lethal, Cold, Psionic (ice), Smash, Lethal, Energy, Psionic (air) Base defense: 10% positional Tier-7: Summon Water Elemental Summons a water elemental for a moderate duration, that augments the currently active pets while it is summoned, use Barrier Reef model Attacks: None Other powers: Shifting Tides (self-buff, affects other elementals), Watery Barrier (absorb buff for all minions while active), Ocean's Embrace (cold resist buff for all active pets) Base duration: 60 seconds Base recharge time: 255 seconds Tier-8: Summon Greater Elemental Summons an earth elemental (use Animate Stone model) Base attacks: Stone Fist, Stone Mallet, Hurl Boulder Upgrade 1: Fissure, Entomb, Mud Pots Upgrade 2: Seismic Smash, Stalagmite Base resists: Smash, Lethal, Toxic, Psionic Base defense: 10% positional Tier-9: Elemental Fury Increase base defense of all elementals, adds new powers Obviously all the attacks and things would be scaled to fit the pets. The tier-1 pets are purely ranged, while the tier-2 and tier-3 pets are a mix of range and melee. The water elemental was both to add the quintessential "four elements" representation. The recharge is long enough that it's hard to make perma without a dedicated build towards it, much like getting Serum or Soul Extraction permanent, and is there to essentially be a damage boost and bit of protection, along with a thematic cold resist buff. The elementals having resistance to psionic damage is due to the fact that they're essentially mindless manifestations of an elemental effect, and don't really have "minds" in the traditional sense, hence they're harder to damage with mind-affecting abilities.

I had a similar idea for a new MM primary, but mine was more of just "elementals" rather than one specific type. I'll go ahead and toss it into the suggestion forum as well. As far as earthquake, yeah, that shouldn't be there to be honest. The 18th level powers aren't really meant to be crowd control/attacks/etc. They're meant to be pet-buffing or augmenting things, or in Thugs, Necro, Robotics and Demons' case, an extra (temp) summon. Replacing it with something like "Earth Ward" that gives all your pets an absorb shield, or "Strength of the Earth" that gives them a strong heal over time for 30s or something would be more in line with the typical MM tier-7's.

Oh lord, where to start. I'll just post the MM stuff that I'm still grumpy about: 1) Finally rework Thugs, Demons and Beast Mastery to bring them in line with the other updated MM primaries (the upgrade powers doing SOMETHING, not just being a 1-slot end reducer power), fix Beast Mastery so it's not the absolute bottom-tier primary with so many bugs. When the first pass for the other sets went live, the others were said to be worked on "soon". That was almost 3 years and 4 major updates ago, and there's been no word since. 2) Fix MM Mercenaries so they're not stuck with double-time animations on all their summons and upgrade powers. They're supposed to be 2 seconds each. They've been stuck at 4s for years. I bug-reported it years ago and was talking to one of the devs about it, but it's never been fixed. 3) For the love of all things spandex, a new MM primary. Please. Pretty please? It's the only AT in the game that hasn't gotten a new primary in 14 years. 4) Come up with some way to not penalize the MM primaries that don't have a "spare" pet power. Right now Mercenaries, Beast Mastery, Robotics, and Ninjas all struggle to slot the aura IOs while still maintaining full acc/dmg/end on the pets. 6 slots out of 18 max is a heavy price to pay to make the minions slightly more durable. Ideally I'd love to see the upgrade powers just able to slot the pet sets, even if they do nothing, purely for being able to just throw the aura powers in there, as well as make the 18th level powers on Thugs, Necro and Demons more than just a mule for the aura powers. 5) Pet customization. If nothing else, allow us to recolor things. This has been something I and every other MM player has wanted for aaaaaaages. Pretty please?

I think I'm really curious as for the people arguing balance back and forth if they're comparing the ATs and builds and such the way balance is supposed to be achieved? As in, SO's only. No IO sets, no incarnate powers, no temp powers, etc. Cause just from personal experience, I think it would shake out a lot differently if people were using purely SO'd builds instead of fully tricked out ones.

Arsenal is interesting, but I definitely want water and wind control. There are enough wind-based powers in the game that you could probably put together a decent setup for a wind assault set, too. You could make the wind pet function a lot like singy, with throwing people around and tossing wind blasts at people. <edit> Are you sure it didn't exist? I'm fairly sure Arsenal control/assault came out in april of last year, so like 9 months before your post. 🙂

While water and wind controls would both be fun, I don't think dominators can claim to be "the forgotten archetype" in CoH. That title belongs to masterminds. Who have not gotten a single new set since 2011.

While it's not quite the sense of euphoria I had the very first time I picked flight and lifted off the ground into the air, I still get a little giddy when I grab flight as a travel power. Floating up into the sky and looking around, swooping through the skyscrapers in Steel Canyon, landing on top of buildings and looking around at the view in the various zones. Reminiscing about playing "punt the minion" off the top of buildings in Kings Row... I'm still having a ton of fun, 20 years later.

I hoard temp powers like they were going out of style. I'll go out of my way to collect them just to have them. Use them? Why would I use them? I might need them someday! And it's not just temp powers. Inspirations, too. I hoard everything.

I have a gravity/trick arrow troller, and dimension shift is great fun on her. What I do is drop the shift down on a group of enemies, set down all my debuffs, then step into it and light the oil slick on fire, then step back out. The enemies all tend to burn to death and can't shoot at me except for the brief moment I step inside to light the oil. Once I got used to it, it became my go-to tactic since it works really well, though it takes a bit of time to set up (like most TA stuff).

The way I tend to earn money is something like this: Starting out on a brand new character, grab all the stuff I want off the START vendor (usually Reveal, Secondary Mutation, and 2x exp just to get past the first few levels more quickly so I've got a couple powers), and start running through story arcs, TFs, etc. By around 20th or so I usually have 30-40 merits, at least. I'll turn them into boosters and sell them, and the character will then have around 6-7 million inf. At 22nd level I'll replace the SOs with 25th level IOs, as they don't need to be replaced, they're not very expensive, and they're around the same potency as an even-level SO. Once I hit 35 or so I'll start swapping out to IO sets, building slowly towards my final build. By the time I hit 50, I usually have another 400-500 merits, and I can turn those into more boosters and thus into more merits. Usually around 100 million or so. If the ones I need are too expensive (LotG, Panacea, etc), I'll spend some merits on converters and flip stuff to get what I want. It usually doesn't take more than 1-2 million inf worth of converters to flip something into a piece I want (less if it's already the same type, and even less if it's already part of the same set). My builds typically end up costing me a total of around 400 million or so all told (I don't tend to slot purples, and not a lot of PvP recipes), and I pay for by selling boosters.

I generally don't try to build for recharge resist all that much. I have a fairly "standard" build I'll go with for testing, just covering all the bases and getting resists to a certain level, etc. Then just seeing how the build holds up against various types of enemy mobs. I always run without incarnate stuff (though I do kit them out with IOs, including ATOs, but almost never with purple or full pvp sets, since I want to go with something that's more "easily available" rather than "this is my final be-all, end-all build). But it should be interesting. And yeah, for someone with status protections, Malta generally isn't a big deal outside of the sappers. Longbow and Arachnos can be a bit problematic with the sheer number of -recharge, -resist, -def, and -regen debuffs they slap you with. I remember jumping into an Arachnos mission at one point on one of my characters and being hit with so much -rech that my powers that normally recharged in 4-5 seconds were showing they had over a minute to recharge. I think I had something like -800% rech on me at one point.

So far I've tested (though not super in-depth) with psi-armor: Tanker: Fire melee, psi melee Brute: Fire melee, ice melee, psi melee Scrapper: Katana, fire melee, psi melee I've been running them through the first mission of Alexander's arc against the Warriors, since they're tough, do lots of lethal damage (one of the "weaknesses" of the set), and it's quick to jump into. I've been running at +2/8 with all of them so far. Dealing with the lethal weakness hasn't been an issue, as it's easy enough to plug with set bonuses. The sustain with psychokinetic aura and devour psyche has been incredibly strong. I want to test it out against enemy groups that normally just curbstomp some of my other characters, like high-end Carnies, Malta, or Arachnos. We'll see how that goes tonight. But overall, the set seems quite sturdy, and while a bit clicky, isn't so much that it becomes cumbersome.

Sorcery, Force of Will and Experimentation are MEANT to be origin-based powers. That's why you can only take one of them (though they're not locked to your origin, but I believe they were initially intended to be). Sorcery is the magic-origin set. Experimentation is the science-origin set. Force of Will is the mutant-origin set. Utility Belt (which hasn't been implemented yet) is the natural-origin set. And Gadgetry (also doesn't exist yet) is the tech-origin set.

Medicine is a really nice pool and has some very handy powers, especially for Masterminds that don't have a secondary with a heal in it, or to take with other ATs that might want to be able to self-heal, heal allies, or have a rez. However, the tricorder device animation doesn't always fit the concept for the character. Why does a mage have to pull out a tech device to heal, or someone who has gifted themselves a bunch of powers through scientific alteration, or a mutant who has a grab-bag of assorted powers? Can we pretty please get an alternate animation for the Medicine pool that's just pointing your hand and using a power to cause the effect, rather than the tricorder? That way it could fit into a lot more character concepts.

Kinetics is by no means a "trap" for masterminds. It may not be an ideal set for a lot of builds, but it can absolutely work, and can plow through whatever content you want with it. I have a beast mastery/kinetics MM that has casually solo'd GMs, and even took down Eochai and Jack in Irons at the same time (caveat: this was prior to the GM update some time back). In order to maximize MM Kinetics, you should ideally use it with melee-oriented pets, since that allows the pets to clump up on the target, making the best use of transfusion. While speed boost's +rech doesn't work on the pets, the +movement speed definitely does. It allows the melee pets to close with enemies much more rapidly, and change targets more rapidly as well. Not to mention chasing down runners and attacking them before they get too far away. Transference and fulcrum shift both work extremely well on pets, and allow you to get away with less end reduction slotting on the pets, making it easier to fit in more acc/dmg, procs, or the auras on the sets that don't have a spare "pet" power. Kinetics is a set that requires some finesse to build for, and is less defensive than some of the other sets, but it is by no means a "trap". No more than a corruptor taking Kinetics and then opting to solo. At least the MM has a built-in team to benefit from the buffs. If any MM secondaries need to be addressed it's Poison and Radiation. Switch the Noxious Gas poison power to a toggle like everyone else has rather than a garbage 20-second long-recharge click power, and allow radiation's Fallout power to work on your pets.